A Re-Nuclearization of Europe? : Floods of Tactical Nukes May Follow the INF Treaty

America and its allies are celebrating, and rightly so, the agreement to eliminate 2,611 Soviet and U.S. missiles under the intermediate-range nuclear-forces treaty that was signed by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Together, these missiles carry 3,107 warheads that would be capable of destroying the face of Europe.

Yet, despite the rhetoric about using the INF treaty as a first step to destroy other nuclear weapons through the strategic-arms-reduction talks and other arms-control negotiations, defense ministries on both sides of the Atlantic are quietly planning to rely even more on shorter-range as well as longer-range nuclear weapons for the defense of Europe.

By the best estimates, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization now deploys more than 4,000--and the Soviet Union has deployed at least as many--of these “battle-field” or “tactical” nuclear weapons on Europe.

To its credit, the Reagan Administration has been reducing the overall number of these so-called “tacnukes” in the form of artillery shells and land mines. But it also has been deploying more modern and advanced warheads in their stead. The inescapable message is that Washington is installing more usable nuclear weapons. No matter what the official strictures may be, a beleaguered American or Soviet commander will feel pressed to use these weapons if he is on the verge of being overwhelmed by the other side--especially in a crisis environment that has interrupted communications from military headquarters.

Fearing a public outcry, especially from the West Germans whose homeland would be devastated if it ever became a nuclear battlefield, European and U.S. military leaders are not anxious to discuss what amounts to a qualitative re-nuclearization of Europe. Moreover, the deployment of modernized battlefield weapons, far more likely to be used than their strategic counterparts, seems to fly in the face of repeated Reagan-Gorbachev summit pronouncements that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Tacnuke proponents argue that nuclear weapons are needed to deter superior Warsaw Pact conventional forces from attacking and overcoming NATO non-nuclear defenses, or that more battlefield nuclear weapons are needed to compensate for the loss of the INF weapons once the treaty has been ratified. They conveniently overlook the fact that NATO had credibly and effectively deterred Warsaw Pact forces for three often dangerous decades--remember the face-downs over Berlin--before the INF weapons were even deployed by the Soviets and then the United States.

But, even more important, they ignore a much greater imperative to ensure a conventional military balance that will remove the need to rely on the threat of nuclear suicide. In his New Year’s message to the American people, Gorbachev expressed readiness to negotiate conventional reductions to lower, equivalent levels. NATO leaders should show at least as much interest in testing this concept at the negotiating table as in upping the nuclear ante in Europe.

In time, if the Soviets do not negotiate in good faith, Europeans as well as Americans should demonstrate the necessary resolve to build the necessary conventional forces to deter the Soviets and serve as decisive military firebreaks against the use of nuclear weapons.

Fundamentally, battlefield nuclear weapons have no place in a rational military balance for Europe or for any other region. They are evidence of a failure to take the necessary diplomatic as well as military steps in the arena of conventional weapons.

If conservative European governments find the immediate removal of all battlefield nuclear weapons to be too radical for their taste, they should at least take a first step and establish a nuclear-free corridor, from 100 to 300 miles wide, along the East and West German border, combined with stringent verification and effective non-nuclear defenses as advocated by the Palme Commission and a number of other independent security studies. Then a progressive removal of battlefield weapons from Europe could become part of a rational arms-control and defense policy for Europe, with enduring public support on both sides of the Atlantic.