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The US and Russia should pledge to scale back the deployment of their tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, moving them from combat bases across the continent to deep storage facilities where they would be more secure, the leading international movement for nuclear arms control argued on Friday.

In an attempt to give fresh impetus to nuclear arms reduction talks between the US and Russia, Global Zero – a movement backed by 300 political, military and business leaders from the US, Russia, China and Europe – called on Washington and Moscow to move these tactical nuclear weapons to sites where they could be deployed more slowly and stored more safely.

Unveiling a document setting out its proposal, Global Zero argued that tactical weapons deployed by the US and Russia “have virtually no military utility and play no role in exerting any political pressure on either side as they once did in the cold war”.

The Global Zero document states that US tactical nuclear assets in Europe amount to approximately 200 gravity bombs delivered by B61 aircraft located at six air bases. They have “no pre-assigned targets and their delivery without refuelling in the air is not possible in most cases”, the report states.

The authors of the document argue that the 200 US bombs should be removed altogether from the European mainland and taken back to the US.

The Global Zero study states that Russia has between 2,000 and 4,000 tactical nuclear warheads, of which about two-thirds are located in European Russia. The report concedes that Russia has a strong reliance on tactical nuclear weapons as a deterrent because of the relative weakness of the Kremlin’s conventional forces.

However, the report argues that this concern “is diminishing in the context of a politically remote and decreasing Nato threat to Russia and of growing military and technical co-operation between Nato and Russia”.

Global Zero argues that Russia should withdraw these weapons from the 15 or 20 combat bases located in European Russia to deep storage sites that are further away from the border with Nato states.

In recent years, on the Nato side, eastern European states have shown great resistance to any reduction in US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. These countries see the deployment of such weapons as a significant statement of Washington’s determination to defend Europe from Russia.

However, Global Zero argues that Nato now regards the threat of an attack by Russia as “extremely remote”. The report also argues that, despite their lack of military utility, the presence of tactical nuclear arms at military combat bases on both sides creates uncertainty and concern about possible intentional use. “Removing them to national storage facilities would provide a many-fold increase in early warning,” the report says.

The report’s main goal is to persuade the US and Russia to reduce total nuclear warhead numbers on each side to 1,000. Global Zero says the US currently has 5,100 nuclear warheads, while Russia has between 8,000 and 9,000.

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