Text Fwd: NATO's Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe

* Text fwd from Stop NATO*
March 31, 2009
NATO's Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe
Rick Rozoff

Since its birth the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has envisioned the use of
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations.

One of the fundamental purposes for the creation of NATO in 1949 was to
introduce the permanent stationing of nuclear weapons in Europe.

In a Europe that, in 1949, had no nuclear nation and no atomic bombs of its own.

Whether the United States after the devastating display of its new weapon over
the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 deployed atomic
bombs in Europe prior to 1949 will perhaps never be revealed, though reports
claim that in 1948 Washington endorsed the deployment in Great Britain of B-29
strategic bombers capable of carrying bombs with nuclear warheads.

What is certain is that after the founding of NATO on April 4, 1949 US nuclear
weapons were stationed in several member countries and that several hundred
remain on the continent to this day.

The launching of the alliance in no way signalled the beginning of a post-World
War II reality in Europe but a continuation of the war, with the former Axis
powers Germany and Italy incorporated into NATO and the Soviet Union the new
adversary.

On his way to the American White House in January of 1953 General Dwight D.
Eisenhower, formerly Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, became
NATO's first Supreme Commander in 1951. Even the title didn't change.

What had changed was that a military alliance had been formed in Europe by the
only nuclear power at the time, the United States.

The official NATO handbook, reflecting on the nuclear doctrine of the bloc since
its inception, says:

"During the Cold War, NATO’s nuclear forces played a central role in the
Alliance’s strategy of flexible response....[N]uclear weapons were integrated
into the whole of NATO’s force structure, and the Alliance maintained a
variety of targeting plans which could be executed at short notice. This role
entailed high readiness levels and quick-reaction alert postures for significant
parts of NATO’s nuclear forces."

http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb0206.htm+nato+nuclear+warheads&cd=1&hl=\
en&ct=clnk&gl=us

NATO was inaugurated on April 4, 1949. The Soviet Union tested its first atomic
bomb on August 29, 1949.

In that almost five month hiatus NATO had a nuclear monopoly in Europe. With
current US and NATO plans for integrated missile defense and with ongoing air
patrols over the Baltic Sea, the Alliance is attempting to reassert its
strategic, nuclear dominance over the continent, a topic to be addressed in more
detail later.

From 1949 onward NATO's nuclear doctrine has been one described as "flexible
response"; that is, the first use of nuclear weapons against a conventional,
non-nuclear opponent or for what had been a conflict with conventional weapons.

Its Article 5 mutual military assistance obligation was enforced, as noted
earlier, several months before the Soviet Union had even tested an atomic
weapon.

The rationale employed for this policy was that the Soviets at the time
possessed conventional military superiority on the European continent and in the
event of an armed conflict with the USSR the United States and its new NATO
allies would resort to atomic attacks.

The Alliance's Defense Doctrine of November 1949 called for insuring “the
ability to carry out strategic bombing including the prompt delivery of the
atomic bomb. This is primarily a US responsibility assisted as practicable by
other nations.”

The deployment of US nuclear weapons in Europe was effected through what is
known as "nuclear sharing," the basing of nuclear weapons on the territories of
NATO non-nuclear weapon states.

By the mid-1950s the US had confirmed the deployment of nuclear arms in Britain
and the Federal Republic of Germany.

The stationing of such weapons increased steadily so that by the early 1970s
there were an estimated 7,300 US nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.

As to what use these weapons might be put to, US National Security Archive
documents released five years ago provide a horrifying indication.

In a meeting of the National Security Council in 1973 chaired by the National
Security Adviser (and Secretary of State) of the time Henry Kissinger, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Adm. John P. Weinel, seemingly
without reservation or regret, announced this plan:

"Now our objective is (to destroy) 70 percent of the floor space of
war-supporting industry. A better criterion would be the post-recovery rate plus
hitting the Soviet Army to prevent it from overrunning Europe.
"Another choice is to go for people - a goal of 70 million Russians for
example."
(Associated Press, November 24, 2004)

Although the bombs stored in Europe were American and under the control of the
Pentagon, war plans called for their loading onto fellow NATO nation's bombers
for use against the Soviet Union and its (non-nuclear) Eastern European allies.

The Alliance states hosting the weapons were Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy,
Greece, the Netherlands and Turkey.

All except for Greece still house US nuclear arms on their territory.

With the dissolution of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact in 1989 and of the Soviet
Union itself two years later, NATO scaled back on nuclear weapons stationed in
its member states but has retained several hundred to the present moment.

Several hundred tactical nuclear bombs and the advanced aircraft capable of
delivering them are still in NATO's arsenal in a post-Cold War Europe in which
Russia is the only potential target.

The Strategic Concept adopted by the Alliance in April of 1999 - when NATO
proved to be what its opponents had always suspected it was intended to be, an
alliance for waging war as it was at the time against Yugoslavia - reaffirmed
its commitment to its nuclear posture:

"The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the
strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United
States; the independent nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France, which
have a deterrent role of their own, contribute to the overall deterrence and
security of the Allies.

"A credible Alliance nuclear posture and the demonstration of Alliance
solidarity and common commitment to war prevention continue to require
widespread participation by European Allies involved in collective defence
planning in nuclear roles, in peacetime basing of nuclear forces on their
territory and in command, control and consultation arrangements. Nuclear forces
based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and
military link between the European and the North American members of the
Alliance. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in
Europe."

Although the Pentagon has never and still doesn't acknowledge the true figures,
the Federation of American Scientists estimates there are between 200 and 350
warheads at bases in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and
Turkey.

A Time Magazine report of June of last year revealed that "The U.S. keeps an
estimated 350 thermonuclear bombs in six NATO countries. In four of those —
Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands — the weapons are stored at the
host nation's air bases, where they are guarded by specially trained U.S.
military personnel.

"A 'burden-sharing' agreement that has been at the heart of NATO military
policy since its inception.

"Although technically owned by the U.S., nuclear bombs stored at NATO bases are
designed to be delivered by planes from the host country."

The bombs include B61-3, B61-4, and B61-10 nuclear weapons at eight different
bases.

The B-61 in its latest variant, the 1997 Mod 11, is a thermonuclear gravity bomb
and 180 are estimated to be stationed on European airbases under the NATO
nuclear sharing arrangement. It is the standard contemporary American nuclear
bomb.

The basing of nuclear arms in non-nuclear-weapon states with the further intent
of their being used by warplanes of the latter under NATO "burden sharing" and
"nuclear sharing" agreements runs afoul of the 1968 Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT).

Article I of the Treaty states:

"Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any
recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or
control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not
in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to
manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices."

Article II continues:

"Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the
transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly,
or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other
nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the
manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

Five of the six NATO nations still hosting US nuclear weapons and obligated to
deploy their own aircraft to use them if ordered to are non-nuclear-weapon
states: Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Turkey.

Last June a spokesman for the Global Peace and Justice Coalition in the Turkish
city of Adana, only a few kilometers from the Incirlik air base used for decades
by the US and NATO, asserted that Incirlik contained the largest amount of US
nuclear weapons outside the United States itself and "We have organized many
protests for this base of war to be shut down and for the disarmament of the
nuclear warheads. We do not wish to see Adana and Turkey becoming Hiroshima. We
will not give up."
(Turkish Daily News, June 30, 2008)

In the same month a German federal official, Ulrich Wilhelm, stated that his
nation was duty-bound to the use of nuclear arms as an alleged military
deterrent and added, "For the foreseeable future....we remain of the view that a
deterring military capacity includes not only conventional capacity but also
nuclear components."
(Agence France-Presse, June 23, 2008)

Up to 20 US nuclear warheads are reportedly deployed at the German airbase in
Buechel, where they can be mounted on German Tornado fighter planes for missions
to the east. An additional 130 American warheads are suspected to be stored at
the US airbase in Ramstein for similar purposes.

German peace groups and the Left Party have for years demanded the removal of
the weapons and a nuclear-free Germany.

In December of 2007 the mayors of the Italian cities of Aviano and Ghedi, which
both host dozens of US nuclear warheads, signed a petition demanding the
abolition of all nuclear weapons.

"Stefano Del Cont, mayor of Aviano since June, said he and Anna Giulia Guarneri,
the mayor of Ghedi, joined hundreds of other city leaders around the globe in
seeking the ban. They’re all members of Mayors for Peace, an organization
started in the 1980s by the mayor of Hiroshima — one of two Japanese cities
hit by atomic bombs at the end of World War II."
(Stars and Stripes, December 18, 2007)

The references to Hiroshima by both the Turkish and Italian opponents of nuclear
warheads in their nations under NATO obligations are not alarmist.

In January of 2008 an 150-page manifesto was prepared for the then upcoming NATO
summit in Bucharest, Romania by General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman
of the US joint chiefs of staff and NATO Supreme Commander, General Klaus
Naumann, Germany's former top military commander and ex-chairman of NATO's
Military Committee, former Dutch chief of staff General Henk van den Breemen,
former French chief of staff Admiral Jacques Lanxade and British field marshal
and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff Lord Inge.

It stated inter alia that "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the
[NATO] quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of
weapons of mass destruction" as well as demanding the "end of European
obstruction of and rivalry with Nato," and "the use of force without Security
Council authorisation...."

As recently as this January NATO Supreme Commander General John Craddock
reinforced the point, stating:

"[T]he fact is there is strategic need and advantage for nuclear weapons....The
alliance has made the decision to have them. There has been no debate to
retrograde them out."
(GovExec.com, January 9, 2009)

Pentagon chief Robert Gates commissioned a report that was released on January 8
of this year which urged that the "United States should keep tactical nuclear
bombs in Europe and even consider modernizing older warheads on cruise
missiles...."

The report included the contention that "The presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in
Europe remains a pillar of NATO unity."
(Washington Post, January 9, 2009)

NATO has come full circle. Or rather it has never abandoned its plans for
nuclear superiority, only now not only in Europe and the so-called Euro-Atlantic
sphere, but globally. And it no longer hides its intention to use nuclear
weapons first and against non-nuclear nations.

Since the accession of the three Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
into NATO in April of 2004, Alliance warplanes have flown air patrols over the
Baltic Sea region in six month rotations by member states.

Most all the NATO partners have used the jet fighter of choice for most Alliance
members, the US Raytheon-produced F-16. (France has used Mirages and Poland and
Romania MIGs.)

Though a jet fighter, the F-16 is a modern multirole combat aircraft which among
other capabilities has that of dropping 1,000-pound bombs as it has in Iraq and
Afghanistan and of firing cruise missiles. Cruise missiles can be equipped with
nuclear warheads.

Raytheon has recently successfully tested its Network Centric Airborne Defense
Element missile defense system on the F-16 with the intercept of a test
ballistic missile.

The US Baltic rotations have employed the F-15 Eagle, the latest version of
which, the F-15E Strike Eagle, is equipped with laser-guided Bunker Buster bombs
and anti-satellite missiles.

NATO warplanes flying over the Baltic Sea states are within a four minute flight
from Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg.

See:

Baltic Sea: Flash Point For NATO-Russia Conflict
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37592

The most advanced current US stealth bomber, the B-2 Spirit, is described by its
manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, as "a low-observable, strategic, long-range,
heavy bomber capable of penetrating sophisticated and dense air-defense shields.
It is capable of all-altitude attack missions up to 50,000ft, with a range of
more than 6,000nm unrefuelled and over 10,000nm with one refuelling, giving it
the ability to fly to any point in the world within hours."

Its prospective replacement, the New or Next Generation (2018) Bomber, will be
yet more difficult if not impossible to detect with radar and repulse by air
defenses and would be the warplane of choice to deliver nuclear payloads deep
inside the interior of an intended target nation as it is able to "survive in
hostile airspace for extended time" and can carry nuclear weapons.

The deployment of either of the above to Europe would raise an alarm in Russia
for just that reason, but could be done under NATO "mutual defense" auspices,
either to Poland and the Baltic states or to newly-acquired US strategic
airbases in Bulgaria and Romania, directly across the Black Sea from Russia.

See:
Black Sea: Pentagon's Gateway To Three Continents And The Middle East
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37498

Cloaked in secrecy as they have been for more than half a century, if US
warheads are transported from bases in Germany to Poland, Estonia or Bulgaria,
it won't be reported on the evening news.

The air component is an integral part of a broader strategy that also includes
nuclear cruise missiles and the third position American missile shield plan for
Eastern Europe that would serve as the foundation for a NATO continent-wide
missile system.

A commentary in the Russian Information Agency Novosti of almost two years ago
provided this unnerving scenario:

"[L]ong-range cruise missiles should be launched from [several] areas to hit
Russian ICBM silos. Their flying time to targets is between 2.5 and
three hours. The American ABM in Europe is supposed to destroy the surviving
Russian missiles. This is the whole point....[T]here are numerous indications of
a war in the making."

On the issue of so-called missile defense plans for NATO nations in general and
new member states in Eastern Europe in particular, see:

21st Century Star Wars And NATO's 60th Anniversary Summit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/36725

Last month the same above-cited Russian source warned that, "The missile defense
problem has nothing to do with Iran, but it cannot be separated from Russia's
relations with NATO countries. It is impossible to pluck the issue of missile
defense out of the whole range of security issues in Europe....At the end of the
day the possible deployment of American bases with strike weapons in the new
NATO member countries is no less of a threat than the deployment of a missile
defense system or the possible accession of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO."

No less a Western establishment authority as the Council on Foreign Relations
recently quoted an expert acknowledging that "[Russia believes] that nuclear
missiles will be deployed in Poland near Russia and these nuclear missiles will
have also a first-strike capability and could hit Moscow before [Russia's
response] could get airborne, so this is going to actually be seen not so much
as missile defense as a deployment of first-strike capability."
(Council on Foreign Relations, March 18, 2009)

Although the deployments of US warplanes, missiles and nuclear warheads in
Europe are often presented as bilateral arrangements between Washington and the
respective host countries, in fact they are an inevitable and ineradicable
component of NATO relations and demands.

Self-styled global, 21st Century NATO will meet for its sixtieth anniversary
summit in France and Germany in three days and is expected to craft a new
Strategic Concept, one that will leave few spots on Earth unaffected.

And it will reaffirm its policy of basing and when it deems fit using nuclear
weapons.