AviationBanter - View Single Post - "PENTAGON WORKING TO GIVE F-35 JSF NUCLEAR-STRIKE CAPABILITY"

**Dan[_12_]**

wrote:
And, yet, in the past the list of NATO allies that sat alert with
tactical nuclear weapons on small jets was pretty long:

Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Turkey, Greece, Italy, W. Germany,
France, UK...

Not to mention the Luftwaffe lot of Pershing MRBMs...

Somehow decisions on strategic defense were not made in the court of
public opinion, which is a good thing.

It was granted, no need for a debate back then. Yet as the notion of
proliferation creeps in, I bet a few European governments from the
list are getting nervous about the perspective of having to open a
public case, some day.

Why? In the Cold War several NATO allies who didn't have their own
nuclear weapons were loaned them so they could sit alert. The weapons
were always under positive control and have long since been returned to
the lending nations as far as I know. Proliferation from that point of
view is a non starter.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired