With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have come to a turning point, perhaps the most important turning point, in the short but complex history of nuclear strategy. The Cold War is now history, albeit the sort of history that we will be living with for a long time yet. It is therefore time to review the policies and strategies of the Cold War in a historical perspective. In this essay, it is NATO's nuclear strategy during the Cold War that will be the subject of such a review.2