Quote:
Originally Posted by RN7
I could see the US quickly removing the GLCM's which were under US control, but the other nuclear weapons were under joint control and could have led to some problems if the Italian government nationalised them and the US tried to forcibly remove them from Italy. Also a US attack on nuclear weapons storage bases in Italy would have led to Italy declaring war against the US very quickly. This would have caused a severe problem for NATO who was fighting Soviet and WP in Central Europe at this time, and also would have exposed US forces in the Mediterranean and the Middle East to Italian attack (or allowed the Soviets to use Italian bases).
|
US planning and treaties makes it very clear that under "joint control" or not, the US never looses ownership of the nuke. The US will never allow even the closest ally to gain sole control over a US nuclear weapon....simply will not happen This, in no small part, led to France leaving the NATO military command structure, as the French wanted its own control over the ultimate use of nuclear weapons rather than an American President. It is also the reason why the UK arms its Trident IIs with UK owned and designed weapons. Make no mistake, the US will go to war with an ally when it comes to trying to usurp US protocols and seize the weapons for their own use. Also, the permissive action links and protocols make it impossible for an ally to use the weapon without the necessary codes. While I have no actual knowledge of this, given classified protocols I did know about, I always doubted the PAL codes were available at an overseas base and the codes would only be communicated to the base after war broke out. Remember, we maintain weapons (admitted or not) in countries with varying degrees of stability, and we historically had weapons in countries that have had coups (South Korea, Libya, Turkey, etc), so security of the weapons in the context of attempted military seizure have been planned for.