In , it is estimated that there are U. The weapons are not armed or deployed on aircraft; they are instead kept in WS3 underground vaults in national airbases, and the Permissive Action Link PAL codes used to arm them remain in American hands.
To be used, the bombs would be loaded onto dual-capable NATO-designated fighters. Each country is in the process of modernizing its nuclear-capable fighters to either the FA, the F Super Hornet, or the Eurofighter Typhoon. The total number of nuclear weapons based in Europe reached an all-time peak of 7, during the height of Cold War tensions in The NPT provides for conferences of member states to review treaty implementation at five-year intervals. Initially of a year duration, the NPT was extended indefinitely in For additional information, see the NPT.
Nuclear Posture Review Under a mandate from the U. Congress, the Department of Defense regularly conducts a comprehensive Nuclear Posture Review to set forth the direction of U. While the treaty does not ban tests underground, it does prohibit nuclear explosions in this environment if they cause "radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control" the explosions were conducted. The treaty is of unlimited duration.
For additional information, see the PTBT. Ratification The implementation of the formal process established by a country to legally bind its government to a treaty, such as approval by a parliament. In the United States, treaty ratification requires approval by the president after he or she has received the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. Procedures to ratify a treaty follow its signature.
See entries for Entry into force and Signature. The treaty establishes the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization CTBTO to ensure the implementation of its provisions and verify compliance through a global monitoring system upon entry into force. For additional information, see the CTBT.
Negative security assurances A pledge by a nuclear weapon state that it will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state. Some states have policies that allow for the use of nuclear weapons if attacked with other WMD by a non-nuclear weapon state.
See entry for Positive security assurances. Some NATO countries host US nuclear bases and tactical weapons on their soil; some of their aircraft are equipped to carry nuclear weapons and their pilots are trained to fly nuclear missions.
Since Britain's Trident nuclear weapon system is assigned to NATO, it participates in nuclear policy but not in nuclear sharing per se. Both interpretations are open to challenge. In effect, NATO maintains a privileged practice that it would not want others to emulate. Though not made explicit, this language was intended to constrain NATO nuclear sharing arrangements. NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements would amount to de facto proliferation in times of war.
As other nuclear weapon possessors pursued similar doctrines, the non-nuclear-weapon states may become vulnerable targets for weapons that they have themselves renounced. In , rhetorical criticisms were translated for the first time into diplomatic action aimed at NATO when Egypt proposed "that the PrepCom recommend that the Review Conference state in clear and unambiguous terms that Articles I and II of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons allow for no exceptions and that the NPT is binding on State parties in times of peace and in times of war alike.
NATO countries claim to support the full implementation of the NPT, but have often been put under pressure by the Bush administration to oppose disarmament proposals endorsed by the majority of non-nuclear nations in multilateral fora such as the NPT and UN First Committee. The Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament adopted as part of the decisions to extend the NPT in contained a number of commitments relevant to the Alliance, including the establishment of additional nuclear-weapon-free zones and further steps to assure non-nuclear-weapon States party to the Treaty against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.
NATO's nuclear policies have constituted an obstacle to improving negative security assurances and to any initiative to establish a nuclear weapon free zone in Central Europe. Similarly, NATO policies run counter to much of the Programme of Action adopted by NPT states at the Review Conference and endorsed by NATO itself in December , notably the commitments to transparency, further reductions in non-strategic weapons, reductions in the operational status of these weapons, and a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies.
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