Ideas
The Dangers of Nuclear Virtue Signaling
A no-first-use policy would reduce deterrence.
By Matthew R. Costlow
Defense Analyst, National Institute for Public Policy
February 8, 2021
The Biden administration is reportedly weighing an unprecedented policy of nuclear “no first use,†a self-imposed restriction that the United States would never be the first to use a nuclear weapon in a conflict, no matter how great the national interest at stake. All previous administrations, Republican and Democratic, have rejected NFU polices because they recognized that the current policy of “calculated ambiguity†– as to when and in what circumstances the United States would employ nuclear weapons – is a useful uncertainty for adversaries to ponder, increasing the chance of deterrence.
President Obama reportedly considered these issues twice: once at the beginning and once at the end of his time in office. The decision was the same each time – retain a high threshold for nuclear use, but do not make adversary planning easier, or encourage large scale attacks by ruling out nuclear use in a number of plausible extreme scenarios. This rejection of NFU stung the nuclear arms reduction community, so then-Vice President Biden gave a speech assuring them that both he and President Obama thought the United States should adopt a NFU policy, even though they did not do so officially.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/02/dangers-nuclear-virtue-signaling/171914/
