Updating NATO’s Strategic Concept: The Nuclear Imperatives

The war in Ukraine once again confirms this inescapable nuclear reality – in war and in peace, nuclear weapons impose on humanity the daily, relentless imperative of figuring out how not to use them. Obviously, for no other weapon system is absolute prevention of its use the over-riding requirement. But the international community has declared nuclear weapons unique – the collective objective is to eliminate them, and most states, and certainly populations around the world, conclude that any use of a nuclear weapon would be “abhorrent to the principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience.”[i] And yet the nuclear powers continue to threaten their use, with Russia the most immediate and alarming example, and to extol the utility of these doomsday weapons. NATO’s current Strategic Concept confirms continued reliance on nuclear weapons in the collective defence of allies. But that strategic guidance document is now under review, offering Alliance members the opportunity to construct policy off-ramps from the path of nuclear peril they now travel.

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[i] From the preamble to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N17/209/73/PDF/N1720973.pdf?OpenElement