Victor Alert

摘要

For decades in the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization depended on fighters with tactical nuclear weapons. Navy carrier-based attack aircraft provided the first tactical nuclear forces. Then the US Air Force put nuclear-capable F-84s on alert in England in 1952. Over the decades, Quick Reaction Alert forces supported shifting concepts of NATO strategy from the forward strategy of the early 1950s to flexible response of the 1980s. "Theater nuclear forces fill what would otherwise be a critical gap between strategic deterrent and conventional forces," noted USAF Col.