ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the strength and weakness of the current NATO attitude to the possible use of such tactical nuclear weapons and to consider also a number of possible variants and alternatives. At the outset, however, it is necessary to state that for the purposes of the analysis three assumptions, made by NATO Governments, are taken for granted: first, that the contingency of a massive Soviet invasion of Federal Germany has to be taken seriously; secondly, that NATO conventional defence would be or might be inadequate to resist such an onslaught; and thirdly, that the other NATO countries, including the United States, could not tolerate the possibility of allowing Federal Germany to be permanently conquered. One superficially attractive way of improving on the present arguably inadequate strategy for deterrence is for NATO to bury Atomic Demolition Mines along the whole of the Central European border.
