Initially NATO continued to rely on a tactical nuclear strategy through
other weapons, either airborne short-range missiles and bombs or artillery
shells. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact by the end of 1990, however, led to a
decision to remove all short-range weapons from Germany. The British armed
forces scrapped virtually all of their pre-strategic forces, relying almost exclu-
sively on their submarine-carried missiles fordeterrence. Meanwhile the
USA abandoned plans for a new tactical air-to-surface missile
There has always been serious concern about problems of command and
control in the theory of tactical use of nuclear weaponry; much of the fear,
even at the height of thecold war, came from doubts about the actual political
situations under which they would be used, and the degree of central control
by Washington, London and Paris that could be maintained. The end of the
cold war and the concentration of Western defence planning on very different
security scenarios has removed any remaining justification for such weapons.
Tactical Voting
Although most people cast their vote for the candidate they would prefer to
win the election, there are situations when it may be rational not to do so. This
is often the case where voters not only have a preference for one party, but a
strong distaste for another. Where this happens it becomes a matter of tactics
whether to vote for the preferred party, or in the way which might most harm
the disliked party. In a hypothetical British constituency where the distribution
of votes at the previous election was Conservative 45%, Liberal Democrat 42%
and Labour 13%, a committed Labour supporter who desperately wants to see
the Conservative candidate defeated might choose to transfer their vote to the
Liberal Democrats, reasoning that they have a chance of defeating the Con-
servatives whereas Labour does not. The same Labour supporter might
rationally decide to do the same thing even though they disliked the Liberal
Democrats even more than the Conservatives, concluding that the Liberal
Democrats had no chance of gaining an overall majority in parliament, whereas
Labour did, and that each Conservative candidate defeated was a step towards
the ultimate goal of a national Labour victory. It is, however, uncertain
whether, before 1997, tactical voting had more than a minimal effect at British
general elections, although the results of by-elections often suggest that many
voters have changed their traditional support to make a protest, with the
candidate of the party in government the usual victim. Many other motivating
factors are probably more important in arriving at thevotingdecision. A firm
supporter of a party may refuse to vote for a candidate of any other party for
ideological reasons, or may favour other forms of tactics, such as maximizing
the national vote for their party. The parties themselves tend not to overtly
encourage tactical voting, as the practice could easily do them more harm than
Tactical Voting