Assurance and US extended deterrence in NATO

摘要

The NATO allies agreed at the Strasbourg/Kehl summit in April 2009 to preparea new Strategic Concept for approval at their next summit. One of the issuesin the Strategic Concept review will be the alliance’s nuclear deterrence postureand policy. While three members of the alliance (Britain, France and the UnitedStates) are nuclear powers, historically the greatest amount of attention has beenfocused on US ‘extended deterrence’—that is, the extension by Washington of anumbrella of protection, sometimes called a ‘nuclear guarantee’, to its allies. Thehistory of NATO during the Cold War can be told as essentially a series of debatesamong the allies about the requirements of extended deterrence.