¹ United Kingdom, Ministry of Defence, Statement on the Defence Estimates 1992, Cm1981 (London, HMSO, July 1992), p. 10Google Scholar. My italics.

² Sir Quinlan, Michael, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Abolition of War’, International Affairs, 67, no. 2 (April 1991), p. 297CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Cf. e.g. the advice given to the British Chiefs of Staff by Dr Robert Cockburn, Principal Director of Scientific Research, see Public Records Office, Kew (henceforth PRO), DEFE 8/48, A.D.(W.P.2)(54)16 of l4 July 1954.

⁴ Duval, Marcel et Baut, Yves Le, L'arme nucleairefrmifaise: Pourquoi el comment? (Paris, Kronos, 1992), p. 48Google Scholar citing the views of Pierre Messmer, de Gaulle's Minister for the Armed forces.

⁵ For the reasoning, see PRO, FO 371/161096, WF I05I/6/G of 27 January 1961, ‘Briefs for Prime Minister's Talks with Charles de Gaulle’, for British views and British perception of French views; FO 371/161231, Meeting between the UK Minister of Defence and the French Minister of the Armed Forces, 13 April 1961, § 4 on French views.

⁶ For US policies, see International Security, 13 (Winter 1988/1989)Google Scholar, articles by Foot, Rosemary and Dingman, Roger; Calingaert, Daniel: ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 11, no. 2 (September 1988), pp. 177–202Google Scholar; Chang, Gordon H.; ‘To the Nuclear Brink: Eisenhower, Dulles and the Quemoy-Matsu Crisis’, International Security, 12, no. 4 (Spring 1988), pp. 96–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For British official views, see PRO, DEFE 4/132, JP(60)61(Final) of 21 June 1960; ‘Military Strategy for Circumstances Short of Global War, 1960–1970’, Appendix ‘B’: ‘A study of nuclear weapons’.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Conservative MP, and ex-Prime Minister, alleged that HM Government in the 1965 Defence White Paper (Cmnd. 2592) felt it ‘necessary to keep bombers in a strategic strikeforcc in the Far East, those bombers to have a conventional but also a nuclear capacity’, and, without dissenting, questioned the technical ability of Polaris submarines and nuclear missiles to fulfil this task in the future, see H. of C. Deb., 4 March 1965, col. 1541–1542; other MPs on both sides of the House spoke against it, see 3 March 1965, passim. For India's interest in a nuclear guarantee, see Vanaik, Achin and Bidwai, Praful, ‘India and Pakistan’, in Karp, Regina Cowen (ed.), Security with Nuclear Weapons (Oxford, 1991), p. 266Google Scholar, and Moshaver, Ziba, Nuclear Proliferation on the Indian Sub-Continent (London, 1991), p. 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Freedman, Lawrence, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (London, 1980), pp. 28–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Security Council Resolution 255 of 19 June 1968.

¹¹ Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1965, Cmnd. 2592 (London, HMSO, February 1965), §12.Google Scholar

¹² This commitment is based on article V of the WEU Treaty of 1955, in which members pledge themselves to afford their allies, if attacked, ‘all the military and other aid and assistance in their power’, which is interpreted as including the nuclear weapons owned by the NWS members of the WEU.

¹³ For, as French ministers have remarked from time to time, it is difficult to see how France would not be directly threatened by an attack on NATO's Central Front from the East, cf. for example Minister of Defence André Giraud's interview in Le Figaro, (16 October 1987), quoted in Mongin, Dominique: ‘A Reappraisal of French Security Policy’, London Defence Studies, no. 11 (Centre for Defence Studies, 1992)Google Scholar. Hence the deployment of France's short-range nuclear forces in Eastern France, clearly aiming at the Central European theatre of war.

¹⁴ In the Nassau Declaration, in which Britain's forces were assigned to NATO, ‘except where Her Majesty's Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake’—Text of joint communiqué by President Kennedy and the Prime Minister following discussions held in the Bahamas. 18–21 December 1962, §9.

¹⁵ Debouzy, Olivier, ‘Anglo-French Nuclear Cooperation: Perspectives and Problems’, Whitehall Papers, no. 7 (London, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1991), pp. 17–18Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Buchan, Alastair, ‘The Multilateral Force: A Study in Alliance Polities’, International Affairs, 40 (October 1964)Google Scholar; Schwartz, David: NATO's Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC 1983), pp. 82–135Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Soutou, Georges-Henri, ‘La politique nucléaire de Pierre Mèndes France’, Relations internationales, 59 (Autumn 1989), esp. pp. 320–1Google Scholar.

¹⁸ This was said at the 10th meeting of the Cabinet's GEN 75 Committee on 29 October 1945, cited in Clark, Ian and Wheeler, Nicholas, The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1955 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 88–9Google Scholar. The implication that first use would not be in the interest of the UK is remarkable.

¹⁸ Legge, Michael, ‘Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of Felxible Response’, RAND Paper R-2964-FF (Santa Monica, California, 1983), p. 14Google Scholar; for a discussion of the ‘Athens Guidelines’, see Buteux, Paul, The Polities of Nuclear Consultation in NATO. 1965–1980 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 74–76Google Scholar.

²⁰ The protection of civilians in war, an old issue of ius in bello, is of course least feasible in conditions of large-scale bombardment of populated areas, whether the bombs are conventional, nuclear, chemical or biological.

²¹ PRO, DEFE 4/132, Appendix B to JP(60)l6(Final) of 21 June 1960.

²² UN Disarmament Yearbook, 14 (1989), pp. 232–233Google Scholar. Note that the formulation used by the USSR differed from that used by the UK and the United States. I am grateful to David Yost and A.B. for having brought this to my attention.

²³ For Britain and the UK, see above; France also contemplated such a use, albeit by proxy. It will be recalled that France asked the United States to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear power to relieve the French forces besieged in Dien Bien Phu in 1954—a request which was turned down by the Eisenhower administration, admittedly after consultation with allied governments.

²⁴ See Brown, Anthony Cave (ed.), Operation World War III: The Secret American Plan ‘Dropshot’ for War with the Soviet Union, 1957 (London, 1979), pp. 21–9Google Scholar.

²⁵ Developed eight months before the first Soviet explosion of a nuclear device and three months before the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, the US Defence plan DROPSHOT listed ‘Soviet key government and control facilities, stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction [sic], aircraft industry, submarine bases, industrial areas’ as targets for the West's ‘strategic offensive in Western Eurasia’. Quoted in Brown, (ed.), Operation World War III, pp. 22–9Google Scholar.

²⁶ In the words of Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg, 1961:

In the event of war, there will be concurrent requirements for the destruction of Soviet atomic delivery capability, direct atomic attack on Soviet ground and tactical air forces, and destruction of the critical components of the enemy's war sustaining resources.

Quoted in Rosenberg, David Alan, ‘U.S. Nuclear War Planning, 1945–60’, in Ball, Desmond and Richelson, Jeffrey (eds.), Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, 1986), p.42Google Scholar.

²⁷ See again the quotation of Vandenberg's views, above.

²⁸ Chronologically, this was the earliest task which British strategists assigned to nuclear weapons. British planner s were above all concerned with a future enemy nuclear threat to Britain already from 1945. Sec Clark, and Wheeler, , The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy, pp.74–6Google Scholar.

²⁹ While this is usually not spelled out but only hinted at obliquely in British or NATO statements, it was developed very explicitly in arguments underlying the adopting of this strategy. See e.g. Schelling, Thomas, ‘Controlled Response and Strategic Warfare’, Adelphi Paper, no. 19 (London, 1965)Google Scholar.

³⁰ PRO, DEFE 5/113, C.O.S. (61)138 of 27 April 1961: Mr Acheson's concept or conventional operations.

³¹ See Legge, ‘Theater Nuclear Weapons’; Stromseth, Jane, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO's Debute over Strategy in the 1960s (Basingstoke, 1988), pp. 96–193CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daalder, Ivo, The Nature and Practice of Flexible Response: NATO Strategy and Theater Nuclear Forces since 1967 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar

³² He spoke of the nuclear weapons of the shield forces, i.e. short-range nuclear missiles, nuclear artillery and nuclear bombs on tactical aircraft.

³³ ‘in order…that they may be a deterrent to aggression by showing that they can be used in such a way as to resist aggression by whatever degree of force is necessary…’.

³⁴ PRO. CAB 131/25, Annex A to D (61)2 of 13 January 1961.

³⁵ Named after the chairman, Frank William Mottershead, Deputy Secretary of State for Defence in the Ministry of Defence.

³⁶ PRO, CAB 131/25, Cabinet Defence Committee Meeting D(61)23 of 1 May 1961, ‘U.K. View on NATO Strategy and Nuclear Weapons’, memorandum by the Minister of Defence, with the principal findings of the Mottershead Working Party attached as annex.

³⁷ PRO, DEFE 4/135, Note by Director of Plans, JP(61) Note II, 28 April 1961.

³⁸ Watkinson essentially proposed this as an alternative to the NATO Medium-Range Ballistic Missile Force proposed at the December 1960 NAC Meeting in Paris by US Secretary of Defence Christian Hcrtcr, see PRO, CA B 131/25, D(6l)lst Meeting of 18 January 1961 and D(6I)2 or 13 January 1961, ‘NATO strategy and Nuclear Weapons’, including the ‘Draft Memorandum by the United Kingdom Minister of Defence’; D(6I)23 of I May 1961.

³⁹ Schwartz, David N., NATO's Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC, 1983), pp. 150–77Google Scholar. But the main alternative proposals are here credited to West Germany, not to the UK, and the UK's ‘important contributions to the debate over NATO's nuclear posture’ is only recognized for its activities in the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, set up in 1967, see p. 173.

⁴⁰ Rühl, Lothar, ‘The Nuclear Balance in the Central Region and Strategic Stability in Europe’, NATO's 16 Nations, 32, no. 5 (August 1987), p. 19Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Later referred to as Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces or INF.

⁴² A summary is given by Mey, Holger in NATO-Strategies vor der Wende (Baden; 1992), pp. 70–72Google Scholar, and see Heuser, Beatrice: ‘European Defence before and after the ‘Turn of the Tide’’ in Review of International Studies, (forthcoming, 1993)Google Scholar.

⁴³ The limit being 200 miles from the battlefield. But most other criteria, such as the selection of targets, the prevalence of political functions over purely military criteria, but the rejection of any ‘nuclear shot across the bows’ avoiding casualty of damage (as the political aim would be to enforce a military pause which could initiate a resumption of negotiations) were already clearly spelled out. See PRO, CAB 131/25, Annex ‘A’ to D(61)23 of 1 May 1961, STAGE A: Question 17(d) and 17(g).

⁴⁴ Clark, Cf. and Wheeler, , The British Origins, pp. 75–80Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ ‘Britain's Contribution to Peace and Security’, Report on Defence of February, 1958, Cmnd. 363, § 12.

⁴⁶ By which is meant a dissolution of existing integrated military structures and joint planning staffs, and a restoration of military ‘autonomy’.

⁴⁷ Pre-Maastricht ratification.

⁴⁸ The British Government has explicitly defined its stance: ‘Britain would regard her own vital interests as at stake in any attack upon an Alliance member.’ Malcolm Rifkind, Secretary of State for Defence, speech at a Symposium in Paris, 30 September 1992, text made available by the Ministry of Defence.

⁴⁹ PRO, DEFE 4/132, Appendix 8 to JP(60)l6(Final) of 21 June 1960. Britain had at the time assigned strategic bombers carrying nuclear weapons to CENTO (the Central Treaty Organisation, including Turkey, the UK, Pakistan, Iran, and the United States, created in 1959).

⁵⁰ One exception seems to be the relationship between India and Pakistan, both having teetered on the brink of nuclear weapons production for many years now, see Moshaver, , Nuclear Weapons Proliferation in the Indian Subcontinent, pp. 134—78Google Scholar.

⁵¹ In France the fear of Arab terrorist reprisals was very pronounced during the Gulf War and contributed to President Mitterand's decision to announce publicly that France would not use weapons of mass destruction.

⁵² For France, See Duval, Marcel and Baut, Yves Le, L'arme nuclèaire française: Pourquoiet Comment? (Paris, 1992), pp.67–94Google Scholar.

⁵³ Debouzy, Pace Olivier, ‘La dissuasion reduite aux acquis’, Liberation, 28 May 1992Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ This amply justifies the scrapping of still existing short-range nuclear forces (SNF) as announced by President Bush in September 1991, of the French SNF and of the British sea-based non-strategic nuclear systems during 1992.

⁵⁵ Gergorin, Jean-Louis, ‘Quelles nouvelles menaces, quelles ripostes, quelle dissuasion?’, Defense Nalionale, June 1992Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Alphand, Hervé, L’Etomtement d'etre: Journal, 1939–1973 (Paris, 1977), p.351Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Smith, R. Jeffrey, ‘U.S. rules out Gulf Use of Nuclear, Chemical Arms’, Washington Post, 7 January 1991Google Scholar; Sharrock, David, ‘Nuclear Arms Not Planned, says Major’, Guardian, 9 January 1991Google Scholar; L'entretien tèlévisé clu prèsident de la République: L'épreuve cruelle de vérité aura lieu. II faut que les Français y préparent leur esprit’, Le Monde, 9 fevrier 1991.

⁵⁸ Yost, David S., ‘The Dclcgitimization of Nuclear Deterrence?’, Armed Forces and Society, 16 (Summer 1990), pp. 487–508CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ Not to mention ‘world opinion’, which will be of great importance in the context of the renegotiation of the NI’T, sec below.

⁶⁰ Ministry of Defence, Defence: Outline of Future Policy (London, HMSO, April 1957), Cmnd 124, § 12Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Howlett, Darryl and Simpson, John, ‘The NPT and the CTBT: An Inextricable Relationship?’, PPNN Issue Review, no. I (March 1992)Google Scholar.

⁶² Prime Minister Bérégovoy on 9 April 1992 to the French National Assembly, Agence France Press report of that day.

⁶³ Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 1993, US House of Representatives, and Senate, Report for H.R.5373 (PL102–377) Sec. 507 of 102 Congress, 17 and 24 September 1992.

⁶⁴ This, too, has obvious consequences for Britain's future arsenal.

⁶⁵ Security Council Resolution 255 of June 1968. I am grateful to A.B. for having drawn my attention to this and the following point.

⁶⁶ ‘Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’, UN, Office of Public Information (New York, 1969), p. 62Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Ministry of Defence, Report on Defence Cmnd 363 § 8.

⁶⁸ As we have argued above, such an extension of deterrence to cover one's allies is perhaps less difficult now for the West Europeans in view of their shared values and closely related vital interests than it was in the 1950s and 60s.

⁶⁹ See notes 12 and 48.

⁷⁰ For understandable, historical reasons the leaders of the French Vth Republic have not extended this logic to tolerating the development of a nuclear capability by their eastern neighbour. But it should be noted that the later IVth Republic was much readier to contemplate close nuclear co-operation with both Germany and Italy, see the articles by Barbir, Collette, Conze, Eckart and Nuti, Leopoldo in Revue d'histoire diplomatique, 104, nos. 1–2 (1990)Google Scholar.

⁷¹ In accepting the new NATO strategy MC 400 in Rome last November, France has at long last recognized the NATO and French strategics are largely identical. Thus there no longer is any doctrinal impediment for the rcintegralion of French forces (nuclear and conventional) in to NATO's military structure. If the French forces were finally assigned to NATO, France could be granted an opt-out clause on the lines of the Nassau declaration.

⁷² Of course, this would presuppose that all countries in question were actually members of the WEU, or even NATO.

⁷³ NATO Press Release (92)33 of 21 April 1992, ‘NATO statement on NPT accession’.

⁷⁴ Note that the North Atlantic Council meeting in Oslo on 4 June 1992 has already stated NATO's readiness—France dissenting—’to support … peacekeeping activities under the responsibility of the CSCE, including by making available Alliance resources and expertise’. Press Communique M-NAC-1(92)51; Press Communique M-NACC-2(92)108 of 17 December 1993, § 13.

⁷⁵ UN Charter, Article 53. This declaration was made at the Helsinki summit of the CSCE in July 1992.

⁷⁶ E.g. Mearsheimer, John, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War’, International Security, 15 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, resuming the old theme of Pierre Gallois et al.

⁷⁷ See an early discussion of this problem by Rose, Francois de, ‘La dissuasion du fort au faible’, Le Monde, 9 November 1990Google Scholar;

The weapon that has maintained reciprocal deterrence between East and West throughout almost half a century may not have the same power in case of clashes between developed countries and certain others which are less so. At the moment where the end of the Cold War seemed destined to open an era without danger, one notes that certain troublemakers find the way clear for their enterprises, as they count on the impossibility of a recourse to nuclear weapons.

As deterrence, i.e. the prevention of a conflict, remains the sole objective which is military, politically and morally justifiable, the question arises how one can assure (deterrence] in relations between the strong and the weak …

⁷⁸ Sir Quinlan, Michael, ‘Defence Planning in a Changing World’, The World Today, July 1992Google Scholar.