The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance of 28 countries from North America (Canada and the US) and Europe (26 states, including the UK).
The alliance was formed in 1949, with member states Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, United States. In the 1950s Greece, Turkey and West Germany joined. Spain joined in 1982. Two waves of NATO expansion happened after the Cold War with Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joining in 1999, and Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia joining in 2004. Albania and Croatia joined in 2009. Read our briefing on NATO expansion and the destabilisation it is causing.
Although ostensibly set up as a defensive organisation, in 1999, its mission statement was rewritten to allow for offensive action across the Eurasian landmass. Part of the NATO military strategy is a dependence on nuclear weapons.
Hundreds of US NATO nuclear weapons sited in Europe
As part of NATO’s armaments, between 150 and 240 US nuclear weapons are sited in five European countries - Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. The weapons are B61 gravity bombs, which will be carried to their destination by aircraft. B61s are described as tactical nuclear weapons - they are widely defined as being more usable in the battlefield and have a variable explosive power between 0.3 and 170 kilotons (the Hiroshima atomic bomb had an explosive power of around 15 kilotons). The use of just one would cause enormous and indiscriminate loss of life, massive destruction and poisonous radioactive fallout.
Breaching the NPT
NATO’s nuclear policies conflict with the legal obligations of the NPT signatories. Although Articles 1 and 2 of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbid the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapon states, NATO's nuclear weapons in Europe are located in non-nuclear weapons states. Most of the US nuclear weapons in Europe would also be flown to their targets by the host countries’ own air forces. The US argues that the treaty will no longer apply in wartime, but maintaining nuclear weapons means that all NATO states (except France) are involved in preparation for their use in peacetime.
First use
NATO has rejected a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons. This means that the alliance would be prepared to use nuclear weapons in a first strike. The UK’s own rejection of a no first use policy is also linked to NATO’s policy – as former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon stated in 2005, "A policy of no first use of nuclear weapons would be incompatible with our and NATO’s doctrine of deterrence, nor would it further disarmament objectives."
UK nuclear weapons assigned to NATO
The UK is required, under the terms of the NPT, to take steps to achieve nuclear disarmament. Instead, the UK’s nuclear weapons system has been assigned to NATO since the 1960s; a replacement for Trident is also likely to be NATO assigned. Ultimately, this means that the UK’s nuclear weapons could be used against a country attacking (or threatening to attack) one of the NATO member states since an attack on one NATO member state is seen as being an attack on all member states. Potentially, since the 1999 rewrite of NATO’s mission, they could also be used outside the NATO area in a first strike capacity.
Withdrawal of nuclear weapons
In June 2008, a nuclear weapons expert reported that around 100 US nuclear weapons previously stored at the United States Air Force base at Lakenheath in Suffolk had been secretly removed. In accordance with NATO policy the UK government neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such weapons or their removal. But it is widely accepted that US nuclear weapons had been stationed in the UK since 1954. At Lakenheath they were ready and available for rapid deployment on US F-15 ‘Strike Eagle’ aircraft. The UK had no control over their use.
This welcome reduction in the numbers of US nuclear weapons in Europe comes after the previous withdrawal of weapons from the Ramstein Air Base in Germany in 2005 and from Greece in 2001.
CND believes that a vital step towards global nuclear disarmament would be achieved with the removal of all US nuclear weapons from European bases. Britain should also withdraw from NATO, and all foreign military bases on British soil should be closed. NATO should not be expanded but should be disbanded and the influence, resources and funding of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) extended towards a nuclear free, less militarised and therefore more secure Europe.
