The NPT and the Origins of NATO's Nuclear Sharing Arrangements

摘要

In this report, William Alberque examines Russia's April 2015 accusation that the United States and NATO are violating the nuclear NonproliferationTreaty (NPT). Specifically, Moscow alleged that training NATO personnel to "apply nuclear weapons and participate in the nuclear planning process" as part of nuclear sharing arrangements violates NPT Articles I and II. Article I states that nuclear-weapon states cannot transfer nuclear weapons or control of them, and Article II prevents non-nuclear-weapon states from receiving or controlling nuclear weapons. Alberque, who serves as the head of the Arms Control and Coordination Section in the Political Affairs and Security Policy Division of NATO, argues that Russia's allegation "represents a break in policy" that accepted the NPT and nuclear sharing as compatible, and his analysis chronicles how the United States and the Soviet Union worked to negotiate agreement on that principle. During negotiations, the United States already had nuclear weapons based in Europe as part of NATO. Alberque discusses how the Soviets agreed in 1967, as the text was being finalized, that the NPT allows "current NATO arrangements" and "forward basing of nuclear weapons, and the ownership, handling of, and training on delivery vehicles, so long as they did not have real warheads." This was vital to the United States reaching one of its key goals of strengthening NATO in the NPT negotiations.