If there is one really delicate subject in the Kingdom of Belgium, it is nuclear weapons. It is not that the deterrence concept is new to the geostrategic thinking of politicians. Nor is it that nuclear weapons themselves are off-camera, since the country has hosted American weapons under the ‘dual-key’ regime for decades. The explanation lies rather in the effect that this presence exerts on fringe public opinion influenced by pacifist NGOs and anti-nuclear politicians.

The weighting of political parties and of coalition governments (an unavoidable position) adds to the confusion, since a good many parliamentarians, senators even, and not just members of the opposition, make (non-binding) recommendations on this subject, while the governments of the day stick to the ‘wait-and-see’ posture.

In Belgium, the less the nuclear question is raised, the better it is for the politico-military authorities. But roughly every five years, at the same time as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conferences, the debate resurfaces in the media over the presence of an estimated score of American B-61 free-fall nuclear bombs,⁽¹⁾ stored in a secure perimeter within the Kleine Brogel Belgian Air Force base, a debate fuelled by the various peace movements, the Greens and the Flemish-speaking Socialist Party. The argument developed on every one of these occasions rests on the question of the legality of this presence on Belgian soil, given that the Kingdom signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in August 1968 and ratified it in May 1975.