ABSTRACT
The cornerstone of US strategic policy during the Cold War was indubitably Western Europe, which had, in the twentieth century, come to prominence as an area of vital American interests as a result of the two world wars and their aftermath. The projection of Soviet power and influence into Central Europe after 1945, and the conflict this had helped spawn between the superpowers, had led the United States to bind itself institutionally, through the NATO alliance, to the defense of Western Europe from Soviet designs. From the early 1950s, this commitment had necessitated a large-scale US military deployment in the region, which became the consistent primary focus of American military strategy. For American strategic planners, this required a nuclear commitment
to Europe’s defense. Although sizable US conventional forces were stationed in several European NATO states and the European conventional forces were also considerable, the imbalance with the USSR and its Warsaw Pact satellites (both real and perceived) in this area necessitated the deployment of US nuclear weapons to Europe to provide a link between conventional defense and the US strategic arsenal. If, as widely believed, a Soviet offensive overran NATO conventional forces, theatre and tactical nuclear weapons would be used, opening the way for the use of US strategic forces if the Soviets did not halt their aggression forthwith. This link between NATO conventional and European-based nuclear forces and the US strategic deterrent, known as ‘‘coupling,’’ would remain the centrepiece of NATO strategy throughout the Cold War. Theatre nuclear forces were especially important. JCS Chairman General Jones noted this in the introduction to his 1980 posture statement:
NATO has long viewed theater nuclear weapons as both an essential leg of the ‘‘NATO Triad’’ (conventional, theater nuclear, and strategic nuclear forces) and a key element in assuring the credibility of the escalation option within NATO’s flexible response strategy.1
