ABSTRACT
More than 90 per cent of Britain’s annual military budget is devoted to British commitments in NATO; there are now very few extra-NATO or extra-European activities for British armed forces. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949 and took effect on 24 August of that year, the date of the formation of NATO. The USA’s authority in NATO was reinforced by its monopoly within the alliance of nuclear weapons and its extension of nuclear deterrence to cover Western Europe – the American ‘nuclear umbrella’. NATO has always seen itself as a defensive alliance, fending off a hostile and potentially aggressive adversary in the Warsaw Pact. Nuclear deterrence is always a risky and dangerous strategy, full of uncertainties. Soviet nuclear strategy has been part of the competitive response to American power since 1945.
