ABSTRACT
Apart from all the well-founded moral arguments against the first use of nuclear weapons, there are powerful political arguments as well. The danger of a Soviet first strike would become even greater if North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) sought to improve its conventional defense according to the plan currently put forward by General Rogers. This plan calls for the use of conventional weapons for deep interdiction against both fixed and mobile targets in the territory of The Warsaw Treaty Organization countries. Inappropriate improvements of conventional defense, therefore, may even lead to a drastic lowering of the nuclear threshold. To avoid this trap, NATO might try to deter the Soviet Union from using their nuclear weapons. But if NATO presents the Soviet Union with important military targets for nuclear weapons, it is extremely attractive from the military point of view for the Soviet Union to attack these targets.
