Dutch Cut 6 Nuclear War Roles to Just 2

The Netherlands said today that, in exchange for accepting U.S. cruise missiles on its territory, it will henceforth train and equip its armed forces for only two wartime nuclear roles instead of the present six despite strong criticism of the cut by its NATO allies.

Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said after a Cabinet meeting to discuss the reduction that the decision on nuclear roles could not be detached from his government’s agreement earlier this month to accept deployment of U.S. cruise missiles in 1988.

“Because we see the two as a single entity, it was the line of the Cabinet that we should stick to our position on both questions,” he said.

Lubbers said NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington had written to the Dutch government expressing the allies’ opposition to a cut in nuclear tasks.

No Change of Heart

But he said there will be no change of heart: “We have our own responsibilities in such matters, just as we had over cruise.”

The Dutch decision means dropping the nuclear roles currently assigned to two squadrons of F-16 fighters and 13 Orion sea patrol planes at the same time that two other nuclear tasks are phased out by mutual agreement within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The F-16s are equipped to deliver nuclear gravity bombs and the Orions to drop anti-submarine atomic depth charges.

The move was first proposed on the same day this month that the Cabinet decided, in the face of strong opposition by the public and among some members of Lubbers’s own Christian Democratic Party, to end two years of hesitation and authorize cruise deployment.

To Soften the Blow

The dropping of the nuclear tasks was widely seen as an attempt to ease the passage of the cruise decision through Parliament and to soften the blow to doubting voters. The center-right government faces a general election in May and the opposition Labor Party has gained strength in the polls.

A senior NATO official said today that NATO told the Dutch government in its letter this week that the reduction in nuclear roles planned in conjunction with the deployment of the cruise missiles “has no military rationale.”

“It would have serious negative effects on NATO’s nuclear deterrent posture and its credibility,” the official said.

Even Greece and Denmark, which normally dissent from the NATO majority on the issue of medium-range nuclear weapons, had supported the message to the Dutch, he said.