A Matter of Credibility. Conventional and Nuclear Security Commitments of the United States in Europe

The reasons are the expansion of the Alliance territory through its eastern enlargement, the modernisation of the Russian military, and the end of the US’s undisputed military supremacy. [...] The first is the political will in Although a great deal of academic literature has the relevant centres of power within the American dealt with the question of the credibility of US secu- system of government. [...] The greater the imbalance to the detriment comprehensible in as the sense that they are based on of the US and NATO, the greater the risk and likeli- an analysis of US interests and a cost-benefit calculus hood that, in the event of a conflict, the security of these commitments for Washington. [...] The larger these contri- “competition in risk-taking”.7 The nuclear powers butions are, and the more specifically tailored they take institutional or military steps that increase the are to the security situation in Europe, the more risk of escalation, even to the point of nuclear war, credible the security pledges appear. [...] that the Soviet Union was conventionally superior.59 This was evident in the debates and decisions that Even after the end of the Cold War, the military led to the eastward expansion of the Alliance.