U.S. AMB. TO NATO: DETERRENCE AND DEFENSE POSTURE REVIEW IS ‘MAJOR PROGRESS’

Arms control advocates have panned NATO’s recently released Deterrence and Defense Posture Review as a disappointment, suggesting that it does little to alter the alliance’s declaratory posture and doesn’t go far enough in pushing for reductions to the approximately 200 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. But Ivo Daalder, the United States’ ambassador to NATO, defended the consensus document in a teleconference with reporters yesterday, saying the DDPR represented “major progress.” Among the document’s critics, former Sen. Sam Nunn, now the co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said the DDPR deserved a grade of “incomplete” for making “little progress in defining a clear strategy for changing the nuclear status quo.” Daalder, though, noted that the document reaffirmed the alliance’s intent to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons and revealed that the alliance was “prepared to consider” reducing its nuclear arsenal if Russia were to make reductions of its own. “So we now have an alliance formally on record as wanting to reduce the reliance on nuclear weapons, wanting to find ways to shift the focus to other means of deterrence and defense, and to do so on a consultative and reciprocal basis” with Russia, Daalder said. “I would say that’s progress. In fact, I would say that’s major progress for the alliance.” 

He also noted that the DDPR for the first time recognizes the “independent and unilateral negative security assurances offered by the United States, the United Kingdom and France” to their weapons deployed to NATO. This means that U.S. and UK policy to not use nuclear weapons against countries that are current in their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would apply to U.S. and UK tactical nuclear weapons deployed in NATO countries, but the impact of the statement is less clear for nuclear weapons owned by France, which has not offered the same negative security assurances. Nonetheless, Daalder suggested the language was important. “That is a very significant step that frankly if you had been part of the discussions inside NATO few had thought possible,” Daalder said.

 Daalder also suggested that that finding consensus among 28 signatory countries was difficult. “Look at the document as a whole and also understand this is a document that 28 countries signed up to; this is a consensus document and every word of this is agreed by each of the allies. As you know there are differences between the allies with regard to views on the roles of nuclear weapons, there are differences among the nuclear powers, those that possess nuclear weapons, and there are differences among those that do not possess nuclear weapons, and if you look at it from that perspective, I think it is a quite remarkable document,” Daalder said.