NATO and Nuclear Weapons
Archive
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Contents
Acronym coverage of NATO, Disarmament Diplomacy
For more recent coverage return to the NATO page.
- Good News for Non-Proliferation? The
Changing Relationship Between Russia, NATO and the NPT, by Sverre
Lodgaard, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No.69, February - March
2003
- Moderation in Excess: NATO's Arms
Control Review and the NPT Action Plan, by Sean Howard, Disarmament
Diplomacy, Issue No. 54, February 2001
- "Obligations For Us All": NATO & Negative
Security Assurances, by Thomas Graham and Leonor Tomero, Disarmament
Diplomacy, Issue No.49, August 2000
- An Uneasy Alliance: NATO Nuclear Doctrine
& The NPT, by Karel Koster, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue
No.49, August 2000
- NATO Ministers Fudge The Essentials,
by Nicola Butler, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No. 42, December
1999
- NATO at 50: Papering Over the Cracks,
by Nicola Butler, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue No.38, June 1999
- NATO in 1999: A Concept in Search
of a Strategy, by Nicola Butler, Disarmament Diplomacy, Issue
No.35, March 1999
NATO Summit, Bucharest, 2 - 4 April 2008
NATO Heads of State and Government met in Bucharest against a backdrop
of strained relations between the US and Russia, particularly concerning
missile defence and the siting of US missile defence bases in Poland and
the Czech Republic. NATO also faces increasingly difficult conditions
in Afghanistan.
- Bucharest Summit: US Missile Defence
Bases Continue to Divide NATO, by Nicola Butler and Martin Butcher,
Disarmament Diplomacy, No.87, Spring 2008
- NATO Communiqué analysis, by Martin Butcher,
3 April 2008
- North Atlantic Council (NAC) Statement
on The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, March 28, 2008
- Bucharest Summit Declaration,
April 3, 2008
- NATO Prepares for the Bucharest Summit,
by Martin Butcher, 2 April 2008
- NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting, by Martin Butcher,
6 March 2008
- House of Commons Defence Committee Report on the
Future of NATO, 4 March 2008
- NATO Informal Defence Ministers' Meeting Update
and Documents, by Martin Butcher, 11 February 2008
Background Information
NATO Official Pages
NATO Review Special Issue on Bucharest Summit
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2008/03/EN/index.htm
Audio File of NATO Spokesman James Appathurai on Bucharest Summit
http://www.nato.int/multi/2008/audio.html
NATO Bucharest Summit Web Page
http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/2008/0804-bucharest/index.html
NATO Member States
United States
Press Briefing by US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080326-3.html
NATO on the Way to Bucharest 2008, Richard G. Olson, Deputy U.S. Permanent
Representative to NATO
http://nato.usmission.gov/News/Olson_Bucharest_March11.htm
US Mission to NATO Web Page, Various Bucharest Articles
http://nato.usmission.gov/
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on NATO
http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2008/hrg080311p.html
Italy
Interview with Ambassador Stefanini
http://www.nato.int/italy/documenti/interview_ambassador_stefanini.pdf
Non-Governmental Reports
The Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/wm1863.cfm
Center for Strategic and International Studies
http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_events/task,view/id,1586/
http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/
task,view/id,3789/type,1/
France and NATO from Centre for European Reform
http://www.cer.org.uk/pdf/policybrief_eu_nato_26march08.pdf
Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World (Report by five senior
retired NATO commanders)
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/080110_grand_strategy.pdf
The CATO Institute
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8875
Congressional Research Service
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34415_20080312.pdf
Royal United Services Institute
http://www.rusi.org/research/studies/european/news/
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/index.cfm?
fa=eventDetail&id=1113&&prog=zgp&proj=zsa
Foreign Policy in Focus
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5086
The Brookings Institution
http://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2008/0311_nato_gordon.aspx
NATO Foreign Ministers' Meeting, December 2007
-
NATO North Atlantic Council Foreign Ministers' Communiqué, December
7, 2007,
www.nato.int/docu/pr/2007/p07-130e.html
-
NATO North Atlantic Council Meeting Page, December 7, 2007,
www.nato.int/docu/comm/2007/0712-hq/0712-hq.htm
-
Statement by Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Regarding Suspension
by Russian Federation of Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
(CFE Treaty), December 12, 2007,
www.acronym.org.uk/docs/0712/doc10.htm
-
NATO Statement on Russia's CFE suspension, December 12, 2007,
www.nato.int/docu/pr/2007/p07-131e.html
Earlier NATO Documents
- House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing
on NATO, June 22, 2007
- NATO Defence Minister's Meeting,
North Atlantic Council Communique, June 14, 2007
- President Bush and NATO Secretary
General de Hoop Scheffer Press Conference, May 21, 2007
- NATO's nuclear sharing: A cold war anachronism
that undermines the NPT, briefing for the NPT PrepCom, April 30,
2007
- NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer on missile defence, April 19, 2007
- NATO, Riga and Beyond, by
Martin Butcher, Disarmament Diplomacy, No.84, Spring 2007
Analyses the challenges facing NATO at the Riga Summit and argues that
the Alliance needs to develop a more appropriate - and non-nuclear -
Strategic Concept if it is to have relevance in the transformed security
environment.
- Alliance With US Rocks the Italian Government,
by Martin Butcher, February 23, 2007.
Riga Summit, November 28 - 29 2006
NATO's Riga summit was held from November 28 - 29, 2006, and attempted
to focus on the rather loose concept of NATO transformation. Martin Butcher
attended the summit on behalf of the Acronym Institute. Read his reports
below.
- NATO, Riga and Beyond, by
Martin Butcher, Disarmament Diplomacy, No.84, Spring 2007
Analyses the challenges facing NATO at the Riga Summit and argues that
the Alliance needs to develop a more appropriate - and non-nuclear -
Strategic Concept if it is to have relevance in the transformed security
environment.
- Alliance With US Rocks the Italian Government,
by Martin Butcher, February 23, 2007.
Updates from the Summit
- Few results as the shortest Summit ends,
from Martin Butcher, November 29, 2006, along with related documents:
- Day One in Riga: the Cracks begin to show,
from Martin Butcher, November 28, 2006
- Riga Summit Update: Can NATO Transform for the
21st Century?, from Martin Butcher in Riga, November 27, 2006
Background Documents and Analysis
This Riga summit was orginally intended to conclude the business of transformation,
but will now be supplemented by a summit in 2008 at venue yet to be made
public. The transformation agenda is controversial, and this debate is
likely to continue for some time.
NATO held its last summit in Istanbul in June
2004. The summit was dominated by divisions over Iraq, with the US and
Britain pushing for a greater NATO commitment to Iraq, whilst France refused
to back plans to train Iraqi forces inside Iraq. These debates have largely
subsided, but there is a feeling in many countries that the invasion of
Iraq, and subsequent occupation, has meant that the mission led by NATO
in Afghanistan has not received either the resources or political priority
necessary for it to succeed. 2006 has seen the unprecedented spectacle
of a Secretary-General of NATO being forced to beg publicly for troop
contributions to strengthen the NATO presence in Afghanistan.
Despite the end of the Cold War the US continues to deploy nuclear weapons
in six European countries under the auspices of NATO, including in the
UK at RAF Lakenheath. The UK's Trident nuclear system is also assigned
to NATO, as is a portion of the US Trident force.
NATO's current Strategic Concept dates from the Washington DC summit
of 1999. It maintains territorial defence of the NATO member states in
Europe as the core purpose of the Alliance, and continues to describe
nuclear weapons as providing the "supreme guarantee" of Alliance security.
While some academics, and even national governments, have given some thought
to the need for a rewrite of the Strategic Concept to reflect the transformation
agenda, there is absolutely no consensus amongst the allies as to the
nature of a possible new Strategic Concept – and very strong differences
about the continuing role of nuclear weapons in NATO. The last exercise
in which the potential use of nuclear weapons was mooted, CMX 2002, collapsed
in failure as many nations refused to contemplate the possibility of such
use, even in an exercise in which the scenario posited the imminent use
of chemical and biological weapons against a NATO nation.
NATO Nuclear Policy
Official Documents
- NATO
Riga Summit Website
- Allied Command
Transformation website.
- Global
NATO: Overdue or Overstretch? Speech on NATO Transformation by NATO
Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, at the SDA Conference, Brussels,
November 6, 2006
- NATO Positions
on Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament, June 20, 2005
- NATO Nuclear Fact Sheets, June
4, 2005
- NATO briefing
on Countering WMD Threats, March 2005
- The Alliance's
Strategic Concept, Approved by the Heads of State and Government
participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington
D.C. on April 23 - 24, 1999.
Istanbul Summit, 28 - 29 June 2004
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