The US debate on NATO nuclear deterrence

NATO's nuclear deterrence posture has since the late 1950s involved risk‐and responsibility‐sharing arrangements based on the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe. Since 1991 gravity bombs, deliverable by US and allied dual‐capable aircraft, have been the only type of US nuclear weapons left in Europe. Although many other factors are involved in the alliance's deterrence posture and in US extended deterrence—including intercontinental forces, missile defences, non‐nuclear capabilities and declaratory policy—recent discussions in the United States about NATO nuclear deterrence have focused on the future of the remaining US nuclear weapons in Europe. The traditional view has supported long‐standing US and NATO policy in holding that the risk‐ and responsibility‐sharing arrangements based on US nuclear weapons in Europe contribute to deterrence and war prevention; provide assurance to the allies of the genuineness of US commitments; and make the extended deterrence responsibility more acceptable to the United States. From this perspective, no further cuts in the US nuclear weapons presence in Europe should be made without an agreement with Russia providing for reductions that address the US—Russian numerical disparity in non‐strategic nuclear forces, with reciprocal transparency and verification measures. In contrast, four schools of thought call for withdrawing the remaining US nuclear weapons in Europe without any negotiated Russian reciprocity: some military officers who consider the weapons and associated arrangements unnecessary for deterrence; proponents of ambitious arms control measures who accept extended deterrence policies but view the US weapons in Europe as an obstacle to progress in disarmament; nuclear disarmament champions who reject extended nuclear deterrence policies and who wish to eliminate all nuclear arms promptly; and selective engagement campaigners who want the United States to abandon extended nuclear deterrence commitments to allies on the grounds that they could lead to US involvement in a nuclear war.     

The last outpost of Empire: Rockall and the Cold War

This paper is about what can be seen at sea. It considers the historical geography of a site at the geopolitical axis of the British Empire and the Cold War. It focuses on a hitherto unacknowledged historical reference point: the last territorial expansion of the UK, which laid claim to the tiny islet of Rockall, lying some 300 miles west of the Scottish mainland. Rockall was annexed in September 1955 because it was situated within radio-electrical range of a test site for Britain's first nuclear missile, the American-made ‘Corporal’. As a ‘tactical’ nuclear missile designed for potential deployment in Eastern Europe, the Corporal was a central part of NATO defence policy in the 1950s. Crucial to its development was a testing station in the Outer Hebrides, from which the guided missile could be fired and its ballistic trajectory tracked over the North Atlantic. Occupying an area only 83 feet across and 100 feet wide, Rockall represented a strategic vantage point for the rival gaze of Soviet intelligence. Following Paul Virilio's argument that the logic of war is less about scoring territorial or material victories than about securing ‘the “immateriality” of perceptual fields’, this paper details the ceremonial annexation of Rockall and the subsequent transformation of the Hebridean seascape into a vast topography for military surveillance. This final expansive moment of British imperialism was legitimated by symbolic and rhetorical strategies tying Rockall to both earlier geographical exploration and the science of natural history.     

Aligning the Non-Aligned: a re-interpretation of why and how Sweden was granted access to US military materiel in the early Cold War, 1948–1952

The article argues that previous research into how Sweden came to be eligible to purchase armaments in the United States in the early Cold War has misread the historical evidence. Instead of there being a change in US policy in early 1950, as has been argued by several Cold War scholars, this article states that it was the incremental changes of Sweden’s security policy that eventually made the US government view the Swedes as possible non-aligned allies in the Cold War. The difference is crucial. The Swedish adherence to the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) embargo is a critical factor when trying to understand the perceived change in the US policy, because this was a confirmation of the Swedish consent to US hegemony in Western Europe. Furthermore, this article argues that, contrary to what prior research has assumed, it was never part of US policy to get Sweden to join the North Atlantic Treaty (NAT or NATO later). The evidence for assuming that this was ever a US policy objective is simply lacking. The article thus presents a much needed re-evaluation of US–Swedish security relations during the late 1940s and early 1950s.     

The future of NATO enlargement after the Ukraine crisis

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that his country's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was partly in response to NATO enlargement. NATO leaders counter that eastern enlargement is not a cause of the Ukraine crisis, and they argue that enlargement does not threaten Russia, but rather it creates stability for all of Europe. This article examines the history of NATO–Russian tensions over enlargement, considers how NATO's enlargement policy factored into the Ukraine crisis, and reviews options for the future of enlargement. Drawing on diplomatic history and geopolitical theory, the article explains Russia's persistent hostility towards NATO's policy of eastward expansion and highlights NATO's failure to convert Russia to its liberal world‐view. The alliance's norm‐driven enlargement policy has hindered the creation of an enduring NATO–Russia cooperative relationship and helped fuel the outbreak of conflict in Georgia and Ukraine. In light of this, NATO should alter its current enlargement policy by infusing it with geopolitical rationales. This means downgrading the transformative and democratization elements of enlargement and, instead, focusing on how candidate countries add to NATO capabilities and impact overall alliance security. A geopolitically‐driven enlargement policy would prioritize countries in the Balkan and Scandinavian regions for membership and openly exclude Georgia and Ukraine from membership. Ultimately, this policy would have the effect of strengthening NATO while giving it more flexibility in dealing with Russia.     

The politics of US missile defence cooperation with Europe and Russia

Pushed by the realities of domestic politics to proceed with plans to deploy a US missile defense (MD) capability in Europe, the Obama administration has made cooperation on MD a key element in its strategy for engaging both NATO and Russia. While addressing many of the shortcomings of the Bush administration's approach, the current US vision underestimates both the technical and political obstacles ahead. European states and NATO see MD as a lower priority, particularly in the aftermath of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya, and are unlikely to commit the resources necessary to making a shared NATO MD architecture a reality. Russia's cautious support for MD cooperation is based on a desire to create a more inclusive model of European security, an idea that has limited support in Washington and the European capitals. By trying to do too much with MD cooperation, the Obama administration risks the whole effort collapsing. Given domestic constraints, the administration cannot pull back from its European MD plans, but should nudge them off centre stage in its conversations on security with both NATO allies and the Russians.     

‘A great list of potential mistakes’: NATO,Africa, and British efforts to limit the Global Cold War

The scholarly consensus on why NATO adopted a ‘non-policy’ towards the non-North Atlantic world rests on the logic of the Cold War. But British diplomats and officials did not see NATO’s policy towards Africa through a Cold War lens. NATO’s ‘non-policy’ towards the world beyond the North Atlantic was not the product of an allied Cold War consensus among the allies. Instead, it was the result of a determined British effort to channel growing pressure for NATO action into a bureaucratic dead-end in an effort to keep the Cold War out of Africa.     

Last charge of the knights? Iraq,Afghanistan and the special relationship

At the heart of the ‘special relationship’ ideology, there is supposed to be a grand bargain. In exchange for paying the ‘blood price’ as America's ally, Britain will be rewarded with exceptional influence over American foreign policy and its strategic behaviour. Soldiers and statesman continue to articulate this idea. Since 9/11, the notion of Britain playing ‘Greece’ to America's ‘Rome’ gained new life thanks to Anglophiles on both sides of the Atlantic. One potent version of this ideology was that the more seasoned British would teach Americans how to fight ‘small wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby bolstering their role as tutor to the superpower. Britain does derive benefits from the Anglo‐American alliance and has made momentous contributions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet British solidarity and sacrifices have not purchased special influence in Washington. This is partly due to Atlanticist ideology, which sets Britain unrealistic standards by which it is judged, and partly because the notion of ‘special influence’ is misleading as it loses sight of the complexities of American policy‐making. The overall result of expeditionary wars has been to strain British credibility in American eyes and to display its lack of consistent influence both over high policy and the design and execution of US military campaigns. While there may be good arguments in favour of the UK continuing its efforts in Afghanistan, the notion that the war fortifies Britain's vicarious world status is a dangerous illusion that leads to repeated overstretch and disappointment. Now that Britain is in the foothills of a strategic defence review, it is important that the British abandon this false consciousness.     

STABILIZING THE EUROPEAN THEATRE

This article points out the shortcomings in the current NATO defense strategy. While the United States is striving to push for a more credible conventional defense, West Europeans still believe that an (American) nuclear response is the answer to any serious aggression. It is argued that the American doctrinal understanding of conventional warfare has become dated. Its mindset and approach remains that of 1917 on the ground, while its broader strategy is akin to that of Douhet. On the other hand, the Warsaw Pact strategy is much like Guderian's strategy of maneuver using fluid armored forces and the blitzkrieg. The paper argues that there are at least three distinct solutions for obtaining a true conventional defense in NATO and that these can be obtained at no additional cost. Finally the article notes that the present NATO Long-Term Defense Program is expensive and largely irrelevant, and fails to address the real problem.     

The Price for Austria's Security: Part I — Joseph II,the Russian Alliance,and the Ottoman War, 1787–1789

This article examines Lyndon Johnson's handling of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nuclear-sharing issue and specifically plans for a NATO Multilateral Force during the first three years of his presidency. The article argues that although Johnson did not confront the nuclear sharing/Multilateral Force issue directly for the first year of his presidency, he subsequently made sensible policy decisions in the face of a number of challenges. These included pressure for a speedy resolution of the nuclear-sharing issue from within his own State Department and from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany on the one side, and opposition to the Multilateral Force from the British and French governments on the other. The nuclear-sharing issue is discussed in the context of challenges to NATO, most notably French President Charles de Gaulle's rejection of US leadership and his withdrawal of French forces from NATO's integrated military structure in 1966 and broader debates about nuclear consultation within the alliance. The article concludes that by using the advisory process well and through some deft diplomacy, particularly refusing to demand a quick resolution to the nuclear-sharing problem, the Johnson administration had effectively resolved the nuclear-sharing issue by late 1966.     

‘Not on Your Life’: Cabinet and Liberalisation of the White Australia Policy, 1964–67

The liberalisation of the White Australia policy in the mid-1960s was a seminal event in Australian history. It marked the beginning of the end for the racial conception of society which had defined the federation since the late-nineteenth century. Cabinet’s discussions of the proposed changes during these years demonstrate that most Australian political leaders were not only fundamentally opposed to reform but also unconvinced by arguments emphasising the policy’s administrative inconsistencies, lack of humanitarianism and racially discriminatory features. Nor were they entirely swayed by arguments of diplomatic expediency, which had been advanced by senior Immigration and External Affairs officials since the 1950s. The decline of British race patriotism in the early 1960s weakened the ideological foundations of White Australia and allowed policy-makers to reconsider its foreign policy implications, especially in terms of Australia’s relations with Asia. Although cautious, the reforms of the mid-1960s represented an important break with the policy’s fundamental principles and provided the groundwork for further liberalisation and the formal abolition of White Australia in the 1970s.     

Complexity,strategy and the national interest

British strategy‐making has been subject to a sustained critique in recent years, from parliamentarians, retired members of the armed forces and scholars of strategic studies. This article examines the nature of this critique and the evolving character of strategic practice in Britain. It argues that the criticisms of British strategymaking are often misplaced, for two main reasons. First, many base their critique on a reductionist notion of unitary ‘national interest’ that fails to capture systemic patterns of complexity and contestation in the wider security environment and in Britain. Second, they underestimate or ignore the extent to which the UK strategic community is itself innovating in response to these themes, particularly since the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. This is not to argue that considerable challenges do not remain for strategy‐making in Britain. Most notably, these include: how to translate strategic innovation in departments and elsewhere into a coherent national strategic agenda; how to do this while maintaining institutional coordination and a shared sense of strategic purpose across government (and beyond); how to sustain and consolidate institutional expertise and experience in a rapidly changing civil service and at a time of continuing public austerity; and how to articulate and legitimate security policy decisions among a general public that is both disengaged from elite strategic discourse and sceptical of the efficacy of military force. Even so, the article concludes by arguing that it is possible to see the outline of an emergent and distinctive theory of action in contemporary British strategic practice, characterized by principles of adaptivity, anticipation, self‐organisation and nascent cross‐governmentalism.     

Institutions,informality, and influence: explaining nuclear cooperation in the Australia-US alliance

ABSTRACT

Nuclear cooperation has been a consistent feature of the Australia-US alliance. In the 1950s and 1960s, Canberra explored transferring US nuclear weapons to Australian forces operating in Southeast Asia. Since the 1960s, Australian governments have supported hosting joint facilities that contribute to America’s ability to execute global nuclear operations. And Australia has regularly invoked the nuclear umbrella as part of the alliance. We explain the key sources of nuclear cooperation in the alliance by leveraging realist and institutionalist theories of alliance cooperation. While realism explains limits to US nuclear commitments in the 1950s, institutional explanations are more relevant in pinpointing the sources of nuclear cooperation and in explaining why Australia has often achieved its policy preferences as the junior partner.     

Dr Fox and the Philosopher's Stone: the alchemy of national defence in the age of austerity

The history of British defence reviews has been one of repeated disappointment: a cycle in which policy failure is followed by a period of inertia, giving way to an attempt at a new policy framework which is then misimplemented by the defence leadership. Each failed defence review therefore sows the seeds of its successor. With this in mind, in 2010 the new coalition government embarked upon an altogether more ambitious exercise: a strategy review comprising a National Security Strategy and a Strategic Defence and Security Review. This article suggests, nevertheless, not only that the 2010 strategy review looks likely to follow past performance, but also that it is coming unstuck at an unprecedented rate. This is a pity since the 2010 review had much to commend it, not least the adoption of a risk‐based approach to security and defence policy‐making. What is the explanation for this outcome? Is it that the British have, as some have suggested, lost the ability to ‘do strategy’, if ever they had it? The authors offer a more nuanced understanding of the policy process and argue that the coalition government in fact has a very clear and deliberate strategy—that of national economic recovery. Yet the coalition government cannot allow national defence and security to fail. The authors conclude with an assessment of the options open to the defence leadership as they seek to address the failing 2010 strategy review and suggest a variety of indicators which will demonstrate the intent and seriousness of the political, official and military leadership of the Ministry of Defence.     

To Be or Not to Be a Refugee: The International Politics of the Hong Kong Refugee Crisis, 1949–55

While a great deal is known about the international politics of refugee policy in Europe since the appointment of the first international commissioner for refugees by the League of Nations in 1921, relatively little attention has so far been paid to similar questions involving the plight of refugees in Asia. This article examines one of the first attempts by the newly established UNHCR to extend its mandate beyond the European context for which it was originally conceived. During the early 1950s the British colony of Hong Kong briefly became the focus of intense UN and international attention over the issue of how to treat the hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees who fled China's communist revolution for the colony. The influx of refugees, many of whom were destitute, threatened to overwhelm Hong Kong's infrastructure and prompted urgent calls for their resettlement abroad. The ensuing UNHCR investigation into the legal status of the Hong Kong ‘refugees’ offers an instructive example of the politicisation of the UNHCR in the context of the unfolding Cold War in Asia and reveals the deep divisions that emerged within the Anglo-American alliance over how to deal with Hong Kong's refugee population. The paper argues that the UNHCR Survey Mission in Hong Kong was doomed to fail given the mutual suspicions and incompatible agendas of the various players involved.     

Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran

Since the mid-1980s, Israel, thGawdat Bahgate United States, and other Western powers have accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons capability. Iranian officials have categorically denied these accusations and claimed that their nuclear program is designed for civilian purposes. This essay examines the history of Iran's nuclear program since the late 1950s and analyzes the forces that shape the country's nuclear policy. These forces include perception of security threats from Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, and the United States; domestic economic and political dynamics; and national pride. The following section will discuss the European and Russian stance on Iran's nuclear ambition as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency's efforts to reach a compromise that would satisfy the international community's concerns and Tehran's demands. The essay concludes with some predictions on how Iran's nuclear program is likely to evolve in the next few decades.     

The geography of the Atlantic peace: NATO 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall

This article examines NATO's transformation from the Cold War to the present and offers a framework of interpretation. Transformation has entailed a downgrading of territorial defence and an upgrading of out‐of‐area crisis management, as well as diplomatic engagement and partnership. NATO has thus become a more diversified and globalized alliance. The article traces the evolution post‐1989 of the principled policy areas for the alliance—defence, crisis management and partnership—and explains difficulties of development within each area. It also enters into the controversy of interpreting NATO. It explains NATO as an outcome of America's enduring need to engage in the management of Eurasia's rim and Europe's equally enduring need for outside assistance in organizing a concert of power inside Europe. NATO has historically been strong when Europe's and North America's power capabilities and concepts of order are in equilibrium and thus when NATO governments have defined the geography of the Atlantic peace in such a way that both pillars can contribute to it in substantial ways. The article puts this perspective in opposition to two mainstream frameworks of thinking—liberal idealism and retrenchment realism—and applies it in a critique of the diversified and globalized profile that the alliance has developed. The article finally offers a moderately positive assessment of NATO's September 2014 Wales summit as a contribution to renewed geopolitical equilibrium, and it suggests how this contribution could be further strengthened.     

Race,Masculinity and Imperialism: The British Officer and the Egyptian Army (1882–1899)

In recent years, there has been increased historical interest in the way in which Western militaries have understood, interacted with and represented Oriental native peoples. However, the influence which the Western perception of the Orient had on the British officers seconded to reform and lead the Egyptian Army between 1882 and 1899 has been overlooked. This oversight is particularly surprising since the reformation the Egyptian Army and its use in the re-conquest of the Sudan between 1896 and 1899 constituted one of the main British military commitments to the Middle East at the height of Empire. Consequently, an examination of the reformation of this force offers the opportunity to examine not only the construction of British racial ideas and their influence on imperialism, but also how they directly affected British actions in Egypt and Sudan. In order to fill this gap in the historiography, this article examines how Western ideas on race, masculinity and imperialism affected the British reformation and leadership of the Egyptian Army as well as how the Europeans attached to the force represented the region in their writing. It argues that the notion of Oriental inferiority quickly became institutionalised amongst the British officers seconded to the force and this not only had a major influence on how the Egyptian Army was both reconstituted and led, but also on how those Europeans attached to the force wrote about their experiences.     

MILITARY ASSISTANCE,FOREIGN POLICY,AND NATIONAL SECURITY

From the inauguration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in 1950, until its termination in the early 1960s, Norway was among the main European beneficiaries of military assistance from the United States. Previous research on this subject has mainly seen the MDAP from the perspective of the recipient, analysing what effect the influx of large amounts of equipment had for the shape and development of the Norwegian Armed Forces. This article discusses the motives for US military assistance to Norway, and analyses this activity as an expression of US Cold War objectives concerning Norway and NATO’s northern flank. The article also explores how these objectives influenced policy making relevant to military assistance, and gives particular attention to the role of US representatives in Oslo. These actors played an important role in highlighting the political and strategic benefits of extensive aid to Norway.     

Strategizing Britain's role in the world

In recent commentaries on British foreign policy, the New Labour and coalition governments have been criticized for lacking strategic thinking. Academics describe a ‘strategy gap’ and note that old ideas about Britain's role in the world, such as Churchill's 1948 reference to ‘three circles’, continue to be recycled. Parliamentarians bemoan the ‘uncritical acceptance of these assumptions’ that has led to ‘a waning of our interests in, and ability to make, National Strategy’. This article argues that a primary problem has been the lack of consideration of how identity, strategy and action interrelate in foreign policy. Using the insights of role theory, the article seeks to address this by outlining six ideal‐type role orientations that the UK might fulfil in world politics, namely: isolate, influential (rule of law state), regional partner, thought leader, opportunist–interventionist power and Great Power. By considering how variations in a state's disposition towards the external environment translate into different policy directions, the article aims both to highlight the range of roles available to policy‐makers and to emphasize that policy often involves making a choice between them. Failure to recognize this has resulted in role conflicts and policy confusion. In setting out a variety of different role orientations, the author offers a route to introducing a genuine strategic sensibility to policy‐making, one that links identity with policy goals and outcomes.     

Assurance and US extended deterrence in NATO

Historically the NATO allies have focused considerable attention on US 'extended deterrence'— that is, the extension by Washington of an umbrella of protection, sometimes called a 'nuclear guarantee'. A persisting requirement has been to provide the allies with assurance about the reliability and credibility of this protection. This article examines the definition of 'assurance' used by the US Department of Defense for most of the past decade and argues that it has drawn attention to long-standing policy challenges associated with US extended deterrence in NATO. The article considers the assurance roles of US nuclear forces in Europe, as well as elements of assurance in Washington's relations with its allies regarding extended nuclear deterrence. Whether the allies will retain the current requirements of extended deterrence and assurance in their new Strategic Concept or devise a new approach will be an issue of capital importance in the policy review launched at the Strasbourg/Kehl Summit. Contrasting approaches to these questions are visible in the United States and Germany, among other allies. The main issues to be resolved include reconciling extended deterrence with arms control priorities; managing the divisions in public and expert opinion; and avoiding certain potential consequences of a rupture with established arrangements.