Expectations for the Warsaw Summit: Conventional and nuclear responses to Russian belligerence

Abstract

This paper describes two aspects of the changed security environment. First, it discusses NATO’s response to the new threats on its eastern and southern borders. The Alliance took a number of modest steps at the Wales Summit in september 2014 to deal with those, but were they enough? Will it announce a more robust response at the Warsaw Summit this summer? Second, what is the role for NATO nuclear policy in strategic deterrence? Why is this topic back in discussion after years of benign neglect within the Alliance? Given its sensitivity, this subject is unlikely to be discussed at the next summit—but perhaps it should be. This paper addresses some of the key elements of deterrence strategy in an alliance that has not had to think about the subject for more than two decades.