NATO’s European Nuclear Deterrent: The B61 Bomb |
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Washington, D.C., March 28, 2022 – Russia’s increasingly grueling invasion of Ukraine has given rise to chilling talk over whether the conflict might go nuclear, reminding the world that atomic weapons and their political and military importance remain a critically relevant public issue. A recent Washington Post article explored the weapon the West would be likely to turn to first – either for its political or military value – if and when the NATO alliance begins deliberating over a nuclear response. That weapon is the B61 bomb, which the U.S. has deployed in NATO Europe for decades and which has been a subject of ongoing debates over the alliance’s military posture. The B61 bomb has a long history, going back to the middle years of the Cold War, with development work beginning in 1962. The Post article by Dan Zak reviews the bomb’s history and its characteristics along with the controversy over whether NATO needs such weapons for deterrence. As far as can be told, the declassified record does not include extensive detail on the development of the B61, but some of the documents that Zak cites, a 1969 symposium on tactical nuclear weapons held at Los Alamos and a 1975 memorandum to Henry Kissinger, provide some tidbits. Both are from the Digital National Security Archive, where other items provide such details as the B61’s relatively small size, light weight, and its selective yield feature. The National Security Archive is posting them here today in order to make them more widely available to the public. |
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