Looping back to the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review,  one of the decisions that document deferred was about the future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. The NPR figured that NATO’s forthcoming report on its new Strategic Concept was the right venue for determining if Europe (specifically, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and Germany) should still host the so-called ‘tacs.’

So as it turns out, the Strategic Concept recommendations task force delivered its work to NATO civilian headquarters in Brussels earlier this week. And here’s what the task force said on the subject:

As long as nuclear weapons remain a reality in international relations, the alliance should retain a nuclear component to its deterrent strategy — at the minimum level required by the prevailing security environment.

Under current security conditions, the retention of some U.S. forward-deployed systems on European soil reinforces the principle of extended nuclear deterrence and collective defence.