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No First Use of Nuclear Weapons Viewpoint No First Use of Nuclear Weapons HAROLD A. FEIVESON AND ERNST JAN HOGENDOORN Harold A. Feiveson is a senior research scientist, and co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Ernst Jan Hogendoorn is a Ph.D. student at the Woodrow Wilson School. n December 10, 2002, the Bush administration which it has a security commitment, carried out or sus- published a statement that the United States tained by such a non-nuclear-weapon State, in associa- tion or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State.2 O“will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including However, Boucher also remarked at the press conference through resort to all our options—to the use of [weapons that of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces …U.S. policy says that we will do whatever is necessary abroad and friends and allies.”1 This statement, part of to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the administration’s strategy for combating the prolifera- the United States, its allies and its interests. If a weapon tion of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is the clearest of mass destruction is used against the United States or its allies, we will not rule out any specific type of mili- and most recent enunciation of the hedged U.S. position tary response.3 on no first use of nuclear weapons. But while more explicit than earlier statements by previous administrations, it did Thus, characteristically, the United States was not really come as a surprise. diplomatically disavowing the use of nuclear weapons U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher except in certain extreme circumstances, and yet at the same time, hedging the disavowal to allow the greatest had already reiterated the United States’ long-standing possible latitude for the use of nuclear weapons. And such official position on no first use of nuclear weapons in a contradictory policy is by no means restricted to the February 2002: current U.S. administration. For example, in April 1996, The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear during the Clinton administration, Secretary of Defense weapons against non-nuclear-weapons States parties to William Perry said that if the United States was attacked the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weap- ons except in the case of an invasion or any other by chemical weapons, “We could have a devastating attack on the United States, its territories, its armed response without the use of nuclear weapons, but we would forces or any other troops, its allies or States towards not forswear that possibility.” The Nonproliferation Review/Summer 2003 1 HAROLD A. FEIVESON & ERNST JAN HOGENDOORN The U.S. formulation of no-first-use policy, with only ing the military they could plan for using nuclear weap- a slight variation, was first stated by the United States at ons but should not count on using them—an interesting a UN Special Session on Disarmament in 1978. And most formulation. But soon after the first Soviet nuclear test, importantly, it was repeated just prior to the 1995 Review official national defense policy explicitly included the and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on possible first use of nuclear weapons. In NSC-68 in 1950, the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—as National Security Advisor Paul Nitze wrote, “No first use one element of U.S. policy aimed at persuading non- would be interpreted by the USSR as an admission of great nuclear weapons states to agree to indefinite extension of weakness and by our allies as a clear indication that we the NPT. At that time, three of the other four declared intended to abandon them.” nuclear weapon states (the United Kingdom, France, and Later, President Eisenhower made a first-use doctrine Russia) issued no-first-use declarations essentially the explicit. The administration’s national security policy, same as that of the United States. The fourth declared outlined in NSC 162/2 in 1953, stated, “In the event of state, China, issued a more categorical, less hedged, state- hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weap- ment consistent with the stance that China had long ons to be as available for use as other munitions.”4 This taken not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any policy was quickly accepted by the United States’ main time under any circumstances. allies, and a year later, in December 1954, NATO agreed The increasing hedging of the U.S. no-first-use com- to integrate tactical nuclear weapons into the forces struc- mitment, vividly illustrated in the December 2002 WMD tured to counter conventional attack by the Soviet Union proliferation strategy noted above, is unwise. Now is not and its allies. the time—as terrorist use of nuclear weapons has emerged And so matters stood until the late 1960s when the as a potential nightmare, India and Pakistan trade plau- nuclear weapon states modified their nuclear weapons sible nuclear threats, and North Korea threatens to develop policies to prevent nuclear proliferation. In the negotia- and even sell nuclear weapons—for the United States to tions that eventually produced the NPT, the non-nuclear- undermine the fifty-plus year nuclear taboo. Certainly, weapon states, particularly states from the Non-Aligned nothing would make the use of nuclear weapons by ter- Movement, sought means to protect themselves against rorists or states more likely than the prior use of nuclear the possible use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons. In weapons by the United States (or any other country). In exchange, these states would offer their commitment not addition, the use of nuclear weapons by the United States to develop nuclear weapons. While the non-nuclear- or another nuclear weapon state could shatter the NPT weapon states wanted guarantees against the use or threat regime and lead to the rapid spread of nuclear weapons to of use of nuclear weapons, the United Kingdom, the several more countries. United States, and the Soviet Union took the position This viewpoint argues not only that the United States that the matter should be pursued “in the context of stop the persistent hedging, but adopt a stark, unambigu- action relating to the UN, outside the Treaty [NPT] ous no-first-use policy. The principal focus of this view- itself but in close conjunction with it.”5 point is the position of the United States. First of all, the United States has long exerted a leadership role that The UN Security Council, then, acting on an initia- shapes how other countries think about nuclear weap- tive of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the ons. Second and more important, as we have already Soviet Union, adopted Resolution 255 (1968) accepting indicated, even the hedged U.S. version of no first use is that the Council “would have to act immediately to pro- coming under assault from many in the Bush administra- vide assistance, in accordance with their obligations tion. And as this viewpoint concludes, it would be a seri- under the United Nations Charter,” to a state victim of ous misstep for the United States to move even further an act of nuclear weapons aggression or object of a threat away from a no-first-use policy. of such aggression. This “positive” security assurance was welcomed by the non-nuclear-weapon states, but many indicated that such commitment fell short of their expec- THE HISTORY OF NO FIRST USE tations and continued to express the need for a “nega- In the years immediately following WWII, President tive” assurance—a legally binding commitment by the Harry Truman had conflicted views on the usability of nuclear-weapons states not to use nuclear weapons against nuclear weapons. Evidently as late as 1948, he was tell- non-nuclear-weapon states.6 2 The Nonproliferation Review/Summer 2003 NO FIRST USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS To this end, the United States and its nuclear allies, already indicated, essentially the same as that of the France and the United Kingdom, also accepted limited NATO nuclear weapon states. China, by contrast, remains constraints on the use of nuclear weapons by joining a the only declared nuclear weapons state that has main- protocol not to use nuclear weapons against parties to the tained a largely unhedged no-first-use policy, and in 1995 Latin American NWFZ (in a protocol to the Treaty of reiterated its commitment that “China undertakes not to Tlatelolco). Later, they accepted similar constraints with be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under respect to nuclear-weapon-free zones in the South Pacific any circumstances.” and Africa (in protocols to the Treaties of Raratonga and The adoption of hedged no-first-use policies by some Pelindaba, respectively). In the case of the last two agree- of the nuclear weapon states, however, has had ill- ments, it should be noted that although the U.S. govern- considered consequences. In justifying its nuclear weap- ment has signed them, neither has been ratified by the ons program, the Indian government noted in 1998 that U.S. Senate. because “there is no evidence yet on the part of the nuclear In June 1982, the Soviet Union undertook a unilat- weapon states to take decisive and irreversible steps in eral pledge not to resort to the first use of nuclear weap- moving towards a nuclear-weapon-free-world,” and because ons. How seriously the Soviet Union regarded this some of the nuclear weapons states “have doctrines that commitment is open to debate.
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