No
First Use
Lawrence
Freedman
The question of a no-first
use (NFU) declaration originally arose as a means of challenging NATO's
reliance on the threat of nuclear first use for purposes of deterrence.
The proposal would require an authoritative shift away from such an
apparently reckless default setting. My own view in cold war days,
and for that matter now, is that the objective made sense but that
the method was flawed. NATO countries. and indeed any other nuclear
powers, should avoid situations whereby their only pre-planned choice
in war would be to move to nuclear use. It is best to be able to contain
any conflict at the lowest possible level of escalation. However wars
have dynamics all of their own and it would be naïve to assume
that, whatever peacetime promises had been made, that at some point
countries, anxious to secure a victory or stave off defeat or just
simply in a confused and desperate condition, would not resort to
nuclear use. If nuclear powers are on the verge of war I would prefer
there to be an element of uncertainty about where a conflict might
lead, rather than expressions of confidence, based on no-first use
declarations, that the conflict has reliable restraints in place.
To take a contemporary example, I would not expect those advocating
a military campaign to eliminate Iraq's mass destruction capability
to argue for action on the grounds that Iraqi promises never to use
this capability first had removed one major risk.
The objective behind the
original pressure for NFU was realised at the end of the cold war,
although only briefly were nuclear weapons moved firmly to the last
resort. When NATO leaders met in London in July 1990 the new goal
was to seek 'the lowest and most stable level of nuclear forces needed
to secure the prevention of war.' The new role for nuclear weapons
was also clarified:
These will continue
to fulfill an essential role in the overall strategy of the Alliance
to prevent war by ensuring that there are no circumstances in which
nuclear retaliation in response to military action might be discounted.
However, in the transformed Europe, they will be able to adopt a
new NATO strategy making nuclear forces truly weapons of last resort.
The communiqué
declared that the allies would 'modify the size and adapt the tasks
of their nuclear deterrent forces.' The French government judged that
NATO had gone too far, and it explicitly disassociated itself from
the military parts of the London Declaration. A year later, when drafting
NATO's Strategic Concept of November 1991, Britain and France asked
for the words 'weapons of last resort' to he deleted. The document
stated that:
Nuclear weapons make
a unique contribution in rendering the risks of any aggression incalculable
and unacceptable. Thus, they remain essential to preserve
peace. 'The fundamental purpose of the nuclear forces of the Allies
is political: to preserve peace and prevent coercion and any kind
of war. They will continue to fulfill an essential role by
ensuring uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature
of the Allies' response to military aggression. They demonstrate
that aggression of any kind is not a rational option.
At any rate the 'last
resort' is not an objective test, as it depends not on a moment of
utter desperation but the last point at which it supposed that action
can be taken before that moment arrives. The advantage of the new
situation was that this had become an even more hypothetical problem
than before. It was nonetheless easier to build an alliance consensus
by acknowledging some role for nuclear deterrence, while accepting
an orderly reduction in force levels. A residual nuclear arsenal had
some value 'just in case'. The continued existence of nuclear weapons
provided a reminder of the dangers of total war. Even without an authoritative
specification of the chain of events which might end in catastrophe
the thought that 'it just might', could introduce an immediate element
of caution into any developing conflict. NATO's position could be
taken as emphasising a fact of strategic life rather than setting
guidance for force planning.
The case for NATO asserting
the right to initiate nuclear war could no longer be based on the
presumption of conventional inferiority vis-à-vis the Warsaw
Pact. With the abrupt shift in the conventional balance in favour
of NATO, one of the past drivers of nuclear strategy - the need to
develop credible systems, doctrines and tactics with which to escalate
- ceased to be a problem. Another argument also fell away. Nuclear
munitions had once been judged essential if a range of critical military
tasks were to be accomplished. Now not only was there no longer any
need to worry about the quantitative advantage of the Warsaw Pact,
but also extraordinarily precise and lethal conventional weapons could
devastate large force concentrations, and shatter hardened targets.
Nuclear weapons were required neither to compensate for weaknesses
in conventional forces, nor to intimidate non-nuclear powers armed
with only conventional forces.
That left threatened nuclear
use by another as a proper subject for deterrence. That was the view
taken with regard to western capabilities but of course with so many
states non-nuclear the opportunities for their intimidation by a nuclear
state would always be there. This always, for example, seems to me
to be the best answer to the 'what if' question of how would the allies
have acted during the Gulf War if Iraq was already known to have a
nuclear capability. Certainly they would have been more circumspect
if it came to liberating Kuwait, but the point is that Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait would already have been in appeasing mode, or else have
required explicit security guarantees from the US, so the crisis would
have arisen in a quite different form. There is good reason to suppose
that the moderation of Arab governments aspirations to eliminate the
state of Israel during the 1970s was in part a reflection of not only
failure in conventional war but a recognition that Israel had a 'last
resort' capability - and would probably be prepared to use it. The
'nuclear weapons can only deter other nuclear weapons' proposition
thus puts an enormous premium on alliance (in testing conditions)
or else is an argument for proliferation. Thus as radical Arab states
lost confidence in Soviet security guarantees they attempted to acquire
their own nuclear - or at least chemical - arsenals
The proposition also did
not help with regard to force structures. Some readily accessible
nuclear capacity would be needed. If, in a euphoric response to happier
political circumstances, established force structures were dismantled
then, should the security situation deteriorate, a sudden demand for
nuclear deterrence might re-emerge. There would then be a need for
a 'reconstitution' policy to reinforce nuclear guarantees in an emergency.
Yet once the weapons had been removed would it be possible to give
them a revived role without aggravating the crisis that has occasioned
the re-appraisal? Bringing weapons out of store, putting others back
on alert, coyness about deployment and targeting plans would appear
provocative. Again the alliance problem would be a severe complication
because of the need to reassert guarantees through a physical presence.
Of course the main purpose
behind the proposition that the only plausible purpose for one nuclear
arsenal was to deter the use of another was to support the case for
a move to a nuclear-free world. It was argued in reports, such as
that of the Canberra Commission, that somehow, it would be possible
to move to a nuclear-free world through a general agreement to eliminate
all arsenals simultaneously, as the rationale for the existence of
each was wholly bound up with the existence of others. This implied
a rather unlikely degree of orchestration.
As strong a line of thought
among arms controllers was that a more appropriate route than that
of abolition would be marginalisation. With little to deter, the weapons
could be assigned an even lower profile, kept off alert status and
made as difficult as possible to use. They still accepted that they
could come back into play and could never quite be eliminated. The
focus of this approach was on usability, both in operational and diplomatic
terms. If politicians were able to resist brandishing them at times
of crisis then they would gradually lose their legitimacy and move
further to the margins of international affairs.
Marginalisation was a
deceptively easy option for the West. Now that they had conventional
superiority over all-comers, NATO countries had every reason to drain
nuclear weapons of any residual legitimacy. At the same time, their
potential opponents, realising that they could not win a conventional
battle, had incentives to keep the nuclear option. In this sense the
West's conventional superiority provided a potential boost to the
spread of nuclear weapons, or at least of other weapons of mass destruction.
The more proliferation of this sort, the harder it was going to be
to really push western nuclear arsenals to the margins.
For example, just as NATO
decided that it did not need first use threats the Russians began
to regret their embrace of the 'no-first-use' principle in 1982. The
difficulties of sustaining this position were noted when the new military
doctrine was first drafted in 1992 and by November 1993 it had been
discarded. As NATO never embraced the principle it was in no position
to complain - nor did it do so. In October 1999 the draft military
doctrine addressed nuclear weapons in rather traditional terms, reserving
the right to use them 'in situations critical to the national security
of the Russian Federation and its allies.' Those Russians questioning
the renuclearisation of security policy could only note that it had
been of little help in arguments with NATO countries over Iraq and
Balkans, and that Russia's geographical position meant that it had
an even greater stake than the United States in preventing the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction.
While the case for marginalization
gained through comparison with abolition, in practice moves in this
direction were half-hearted. Instead the drive was compromised by
the reluctance to leave anything to chance. In October 1993 under
Clinton's first Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, a Nuclear Posture
Review was initiated. Its conclusions, after a year of study, was
that Russia remained the main concern, that the number of launch platforms
could be reduced but the triad of ICBMs, SLBMs and bombers should
be retained, and that there was a case for extending deterrence to
chemical and biological weapons. This latter issue was one reason
why there was reluctance to support proposals for a no-first use declaration.
The conclusion was that there really was no alternative but to keep
the enemy guessing: any attempt to define with precision the circumstances
under which a nuclear counter-strike would be launched would generate
great controversy and send confusing signals.
When NATO later considered
whether it should make an explicit link between chemical or biological
attacks and nuclear first use it came to the same conclusion. Until
the scale and intensity of any attack was understood it was difficult
to he sure of the appropriate response. In most cases sufficient retribution
could be exacted by conventional means, but it probably did no harm
if those contemplating such attacks took account of the possibility
that they just might lead to nuclear retaliation. PDD-60 in November
1997 did allow for the possible use of nuclear weapons in case of
a chemical or biological weapons attack, and Secretary of Defense
William Cohen repeated the same message on the 17 March 1998:
We have made very clear
to Iraq and to the world that if America or US forces are attacked
by nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, we have the ability
and will to deliver a response that is overwhelming and devastating.
The same themes were picked
up by the Bush Administration, which conducted its own Nuclear Policy
Review. The shifts were in the integration of non-nuclear and nuclear
systems, an enhanced role for active defences, reflecting the administration's
determination to end sole reliance on offensive options, and the development
of a system that could respond quickly to changes in the strategic
environment. It described an essentially residual role for nuclear
forces, but one which it was nonetheless prepared to expend substantial
resources. While 'nuclear forces, alone' were 'unsuited to most of
the contingencies for which the United States prepares' they might
be needed for targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, (for example,
deep underground bunkers or bio-weapon facilities)'. It was for this
reason that new nuclear earth-penetrating weapons were being considered.
In the Foreword Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised that the US would 'no longer plan,
size or sustain its forces as though Russia presented merely a smaller
version of the threat posed by the former Soviet Union'. Instead he
thought it more likely that 'Terrorists or rogue states armed with
weapons of mass destruction will likely test America's security commitments
to its allies and friends.' The body of the report explored the contingencies
that might prompt consideration of nuclear use. It began with 'well-recognized
current dangers' including 'an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors,
a North Korean attack on South Korea, or a military confrontation
over the status of Taiwan' before moving on to potential, plausible
contingencies such as 'the emergence of a new, hostile military coalition
against the United States or its allies in which one or more members
possesses WMD and the means of delivery', and then on to 'sudden and
unpredicted security challenges, perhaps resulting from 'a sudden
regime change by which an existing nuclear arsenal comes into the
hands of a new, hostile leadership group, or an opponent's surprise
unveiling of WMD capabilities.' North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and
Libya were listed as being among the countries that could be involved
in these contingencies. They all shared 'longstanding hostility toward
the United States and its security partners' and they all 'sponsor
or harbor terrorists, and all have active WMD and missile programs.'
China, which had loomed
large in the initial Administration descriptions of immediate threats,
and fitted the classical concerns about a rising strong power, (compared
with the main list which consisted of regimes that had all fallen
on the wrong side of history), and its 'developing strategic objectives
and its ongoing modernization of its nuclear and non nuclear forces'
was duly noted. While the review acknowledged that U.S. relations
with Russia might significantly worsen in the future, and observed
that it still possessed 'the most formidable nuclear forces, aside
from the United States, and substantial, if less impressive, conventional
capabilities' it struck a conciliatory note to the old adversary
There now are, however,
no ideological sources of conflict with Moscow, as there were during
the Cold War. The United States seeks a more cooperative relationship
with Russia and a move away from the balance-of-terror policy framework,
which by definition is an expression of mutual distrust and hostility.
As a. result, a [nuclear strike] contingency involving Russia, while
plausible, is not expected.
This focus was reflected
in the development of policies on missile defence. At the start of
the nuclear age it had been almost a moral imperative to develop some
system that would make it possible to defend against an incoming bomber
or missile attack. By the 1960s this imperative had been undermined
by the thought that the main result of such an endeavour would be
to persuade the opponent to improve his offensive capabilities, thereby
ensuring an even worse outcome than if the condition of mutual assured
destruction had just been accepted as a fact of life. This conclusion,
elevated to a doctrine, inflamed more conservative strategists and
producing a continuing campaign for a missile defence plan. One could
imagine circumstances in which leftist strategists would have been
equally inflamed. When the conservatives came closest to success,
with President Reagan's strategic defence initiative, the main effect
was to undermine confidence in deterrence - with disarmament rather
than defensive hardware left as the most practical alternative.
During the 1990s proposals
came forward for missile defences geared to otherwise weak but potentially-nuclear
powers, in particular Iran, Iraq and North Korea. The proposals betrayed
a lack of confidence in Western deterrence of these states, who might
expect complete devastation should they dare to mount some attack
on the United States. This assumed that these states had regimes that
were both desperate and reckless - hence the description as 'rogues'.
These states were also in practice most likely to be responding to
regional concerns rather than some heroic desire to take on the United
States directly. The attack on 11 September certainly rekindled interest
in homeland defence, but it also demonstrated how useless a missile
defence would have been against terrorists capable of using the lowest
(but oldest) military technology of a knife to turn a civilian airliner
into a guided missile.
In 1990, the Gulf crisis
came to be bound up with not only liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation
but also frustrating Iraq's drive to acquire nuclear, along with chemical
and biological, weapons. The cumulative evidence of this drive, and
embarrassing disclosures about the culpability of Western countries
in abetting it, that led to the rapid deterioration in relations with
Iraq during the first months of 1990 and encouraged Western leaders
in their efforts to deal decisively with Saddam Hussein. As Saddam
had shown himself ready to use chemical weapons, against both the
Iranians and Kurds, and had also mounted missile attacks against Iranian
cities, it was always likely that threat would be part of Iraqi strategy.
In terms of deterrence
theory the Gulf offered a significant case study. It had nothing to
say about deterrence in conditions of parity but did offer indications
about how to deter unusually reckless states with access to serious
means of destruction. The question posed prior to hostilities was
how to stop Iraq using chemical weapons either on the battlefield
or against Israel and Saudi Arabia. One possible answer was that nuclear
threats might be sufficient for this purpose. The British took the
view that past negative security guarantees, that is promises made
during the 1978 UN Special Session on Disarmament not to use nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear states, ruled this out. They assumed that
a combination of defensive measures, including protective suits for
troops, and overall conventional superiority, meant that the allies
could respond as they wished to further outrages without having to
perpetrate outrages of their own. Just before the start of hostilities
this was made explicit. The French took a similar view.
In private the Americans
had no intention of resorting to nuclear use, and this has been confirmed
in a number of memoirs. Regardless Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney
remained ambiguous in public, on the grounds that it was best to keep
Saddam guessing. Saddam needed to be aware, Cheney said,
that the President will
have available the full spectrum of capabilities. And were Saddam
Hussein foolish enough to use weapons of mass destruction, the U.S.
response would be absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating.
He has to take that into consideration, it seems to me, before he
embarks upon a course of using those kinds of capabilities.
In addition it was made
clear to Iraqi commanders in the field that they would be considered
personally responsible for the consequences of chemical use, the most
specific deterrent threat, made by Secretary of State James Baker
to Tariq Aziz on 9 January 1991, was that if chemical weapons were
used then the United States would ensure that Saddam's regime was
toppled.
There were a number of
indications that the Iraqis understood the threats of retaliation
to include nuclear weapons. This was of course not only a question
of an American, but also an Israeli response. There may have been
an element of ex-post facto rationalisation here. After all it suited
Iraq to present its failure to use its chemical arsenal as a result
of high strategy, exalting its position as a country that had to be
deterred by the most powerful forces of the most powerful state, rather
than because its local commanders were disoriented and frightened
or because its means of delivery were unsuitable and in disarray.
Certainly Israeli studies of the mechanics of using nuclear weapons
to deter chemical attacks indicated a number of problems. In addition
to the specifically Israeli one of acknowledging a hitherto covert
nuclear status, there was also the issue of what to do about poorly
executed chemical attacks that failed to make any impact.
Iraq was not completely
deterred during Desert Storm. Scud missiles, albeit with conventional
warheads, were launched against Saudi Arabia and Israel, oil wells
were set on fire and oil pipelines were opened into the sea. The use
of oil as an environmental weapon was unpleasant but, in the end,
manageable. The Scud attacks were in themselves limited in their physical
impact but psychologically they did considerable damage and required
a variety of extraordinary exertions from the coalition. One response
was to deploy Patriots for the purposes of missile defence. As with
the Scuds they were supposed to stop, these also had a psychological
effect, in this case calming, disproportionate to their physical achievements.
The net result of this episode was to draw attention to the potential
influence of small, and not necessarily very destructive, attacks
against civilian populations and to pose the issues of active defence
and/or deterrence through punishment in a new light.
Prior to the war the stress
on Iraqi nuclear capabilities had been seen in a rather cynical light,
a convenient rationale for a prospective military operation that was
notably failing to generate popular enthusiasm. As already noted,
post-war evidence of just how far the Iraqis had progressed raised
some disturbing 'what if' questions. Would Iraq would have been in
a position to move to regional pre-eminence through a combination
of crude threats reinforced by occasional take-overs while the West
would have become inclined to stay clear through fear of becoming
involved in nuclear engagements? The fear of Iraqi chemical weapons
reinforced opponents of military action in the run up to the Gulf
War: imagine the clamour if American and British troops had been presented
as prospective targets for nuclear weapons or if Riyadh and Tel Aviv
had been promised incineration. Kuwait would have been left to its
fate. As with all counter-factuals one difficulty was to judge whether
this feature of the situation would have made itself felt before the
question of American attitudes became an issue - for example with
Israeli pre-emption or Saudi appeasement.
Even more worrisome than
the possibility of a 'rogue' state was a terrorist group that was
bent on inflicting mass casualties in support of an extreme political
agenda, religious conviction of just some eccentric vendetta against
the civilised world. Hints of what might be possible emerged out of
some of the more notorious terrorist incidents of the 1990s: the first
attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, the sarin gas attack on
the Tokyo subway in 1995 and the bombing of US embassies in East Africa
in 1998. Yet up to 11 September 2001 the worst that terrorists seemed
able to accomplish with conventional explosives alone had been casualties
in the low hundreds. Attacks of a more severe sort could be found
in popular fiction and policy analysis. This 'superterrorism', relying
on chemical and biological, or even nuclear, weapons, would cause
casualties in the low thousands and upwards. Such events were not
assigned a high probability. These did not appear to be the weapons
of choice for terrorists and that they would have problems handling
them.
The al-Qaeda group, led
by Osama bin Laden, was not quite a non-state actor, because of the
position it had gained as effectively part of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan. It had political demands, but of a nature that put them
beyond accommodation. Moreover, by turning commercial airliners into
guided missiles, it found a way of causing thousands of casualties
through careful planning and training rather than technical prowess
and access to noxious materials. It therefore challenged the categories
within which security risks had been identified and understood, and
pointed to the dangers arising out of weak states and fractured societies,
as much as radical regimes which attempted to gain some artificial
standing through attempts to gain construct nuclear devices. Yet it
was this latter possibility that the second Bush Administration chose
to focus upon in the aftermath of 11 September, so that the second
stage of the 'war on terrorism', which had led at first into Afghanistan
to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, was widely expected to have
as its second stage an attempt to change the Iraqi regime, and the
two other members of the triumvirate (Iran and North Korea) named
by Bush the 'axis of evil.' Iraq in particular was seen as a likely
source of unconventional weapons to terrorist groups and that experience
now demonstrated the wisdom of dealing with threats before they materialised
rather than after. This push was greeted with a notable lack of enthusiasm
among the US allies, not so much because of objections in principle
as to doubts as to whether the US would be able to follow through
on its objective and the likely reaction in the Islamic world.
It is by no means clear
that Iraq is on the edge of a nuclear capability although absolutely
clear that it would like to be. The same can be said with North Korea
and Iran. Should controls over the Russian nuclear stockpile prove
to be unreliable a surprising state - or even non-state - may come
to wield nuclear weapons. Fortunately these contingencies are few
but they each pose sharply a question that is also posed by many other
lesser contingencies: the risks the major powers are prepared to accept
in providing guarantees and support to the strategically disadvantaged.
Where there is alliance (as with South Korea) the issue is in check.
Where there is not, as in much of western and central Asia, further
proliferation could be profoundly destabilising. In this context the
no-first use issue seems to me to be largely irrelevant. The people
who are most likely to use nuclear weapons first are the least likely
to be interested in making the declarations, and the victims are most
likely to be those without the capacity to use weapons second.
