July 6, 2016
Once Again: Why a "No-First-Use" Policy is a Bad, Very Bad Idea
By Keith B. Payne
The Obama Administration reportedly is seriously considering adopting a “No-First-Use” (NFU) nuclear policy.[1] A prospective NFU policy would be a US commitment never to be the first to use nuclear weapons—as opposed to existing policy that retains some ambiguity regarding when and if the US would use nuclear weapons. An NFU policy would eliminate that ambiguity for US adversaries. It sounds warm and progressive, and has long been a policy proposal of disarmament activists. NFU has, however, been rejected by all previous Democratic and Republican administrations for very sound reasons, most recently by the Obama Administration in 2010. The most important of these reasons is that retaining a degree of US nuclear ambiguity helps to deter war while adopting an NFU policy would undercut the deterrence of war.
How so? Under the existing policy of ambiguity, potential aggressors such as Russia, China, North Korea or Iran must contemplate the reality that if they attack us or our allies, they risk possible US nuclear retaliation. There is no doubt whatsoever that this risk of possible US nuclear retaliation has deterred war and the escalation of conflicts. In fact, the percentage of the world population lost to war has fallen dramatically since US nuclear deterrence was established after World War II.[2] That is an historic accomplishment.
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