ABSTRACT
This chapter deals primarily with nuclear weapons, many of them "strategic" by common usage. For forty years North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been based on a strategic paradox— depending, ultimately, on American power an ocean away from Europe. That paradox, plus European dependence once NATO opted for deterrence on the cheap in the form of nuclear weapons, made the central strategic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union the cornerstone of deterrence for the Alliance. In a review of forty years of NATO strategy, it is worth pausing over basics. From the start, the NATO Alliance has confronted a fundamental paradox imposed by geography: America, the Alliance's premier member, is, as noted, an ocean away from Europe, the point of concern over Soviet attack or pressure. The kind of European dependence on the United States enshrined in existing nuclear arrangements was no part of the security discussion in the early postwar period.
