ABSTRACT
In the face of Soviet conventional superiority and the steady growth of Soviet nuclear-strike capabilities against the United States as well as the allies, the United States has resorted to a long succession of measures to enhance the credibility and acceptability of extended deterrence; but the underlying sources of these problems remain. Therefore, no aspect of the nuclear dilemma has been more fruitful of plans and programs, of issues and controversies, in military strategy and arms control policy, than extended deterrence. The earliest effort to mitigate the nuclear dilemma at the core of extended deterrence came in the aftermath of the Korean War with the pledge to keep six US divisions on Western Europe's central front and to create an allied military organization commanded by an American general. Nevertheless, the role of tactical nuclear weapons in extended deterrence remained one of the most persistent and insoluble issues in US strategic thought.
