Comment: Much background on missiles in Europe and Atomic Age Thinking:
Forging the Shield The U.S. Army in Europe, 1951–1962
by Donald A. Carter
Quote from: Chapter 7 Achieving Atomic Mindedness
As early as 1953, USAREUR and Seventh Army training exercises had aimed to instruct commanders and their staffs in the employment of atomic weapons and to instill in the troops an atomic mindedness that accepted the munitions as part of the modern battlefield. Under President Eisenhower, the Army had tried to make a virtue out of necessity, emphasizing the use of rockets and missiles with atomic warheads as a way to achieve more battlefield killing power for less money, quite literally a bigger bang for the buck. Then, in 1956 and 1957, the service took the next logical step, designing its entire force structure around its atomic arsenal. Although the Army conducted a series of tests of the new pentomic division in the United States, the logical proving ground for the new organization was Europe, where the troops of the Seventh Army had already begun preparing to use atomic weapons in a defense against Soviet invasion.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/world/europe/russia-nuclear-missiles-nato.html?unlocked_article_code=1.300.-SgI.lHPX6gUo2m66&smid=url-share
Quote:
By David E. Sanger and Anton Troianovski
June 28, 2024
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President Vladimir V. Putin declared on Friday that Russia would produce new intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles and then decide whether to deploy them within range of NATO nations in Europe and American allies in Asia.
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The United States pulled out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, during the Trump administration, after years of American accusations that Russia was cheating on the accord. The treaty had banned U.S. and Russian forces from having land-based cruise or ballistic missiles with ranges between about 300 and 3,400 miles.
It was one in a series of treaty withdrawals that marked the end of more than a half-century of traditional nuclear arms control, in which the key agreements were negotiated in Washington and Moscow. Only one such treaty is left: New START, which limits the intercontinental weapons each nation can hold. It expires in February 2026.
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During the Cold War, such missiles were a key part of the Soviet force. But in the early 1990s, the United States removed from Europe all of its intermediate range ground-based nuclear cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, and the Soviets eliminated their SS-20 missiles. These moves were considered major steps in reducing tensions.
