Obstacles
to No-First-Use*
Sverre
Lodgaard
* While
the author favours adoption of policies of no-first-use, and believe
that the Western nuclear powers should have done so ten years ago,
the remit of this paper is to present obstacles that must be
overcome for such policies to be accepted. No attempt is made to refute
the arguments of governments that reserve the right to use nuclear
weapons first.
Obstacles
to no-first-use: weaknesses and vulnerabilities
Through their enormous investments in nuclear arms, the five permament
members of the UN Security Council have underlined the military and
political significance that they attach to these weapons. Obviously,
they believe that nuclear weapons enhance their national security
and political status. During the tensest periods of the Cold War,
East-West relations boiled down to little more than nuclear accountancy.
Influenced by the same logic, other states were also tempted to acquire
nuclear arms. Except for some years of uncertainty following the demise
of the Cold War, when nuclear arsenals were much reduced, it soon
became clear that this perception of the military and political functions
of nuclear weapons would survive the old world order.
However, the usual background
for seeking this source of strength has been unambiguous signs of
weakness: most nuclear weapon programmes grew out of pervasive feelings
of inferiority and insecurity. A quick look at nuclear history therefore
suggests that an indispensable approach to the elimination of nuclear
arms is to address and overcome the weaknesses and vulnerabilities
that motivated their acquisition in the first place. This is also
one of the most attractive and effective approaches to credible and
consistent policies of no-first-use (NFU). Such policies are important
intermediate goals on the way towards a nuclear weapon-free world.
For, as the argument goes, if the role of nuclear weapons is confined
to deterring others from using theirs, nobody would need them if nobody
had them.
The United States
The United States is strong on many dimensions - culturally, technologically,
economically and in terms of conventional as well as nuclear capabilities.
When the Cold War was over; big power relations turned cooperative;
and windows of opportunity opened up, it could afford to have a serious
public discussion of nuclear disarmament to zero. The thrust of technological
development had shifted from weapon platforms to sensors, information
processing technologies and precision-guided munitions. The old focus
on weapon platforms - which left the impression that capability gaps
were diminishing, since state of the art platforms were ever more
widely distributed - was misleading. Turning instead to the information
revolution and the pioneering ways in which the US military was exploiting
it, the impression was rather that the gap was widening. It was asserted
- probably quite correctly so - that had all nuclear weapons been
eliminated, the United States would have been more superior and secure
than before. Add to this that further R&D on nuclear weapons seemed
subject to the law of diminishing returns, and nuclear disarmament
talks at the time were understandably dubbed "the end game".
This assumption was proven incorrect, however. By 1993/94, the momentum
of US-Russian nuclear disarmament had dissipated.
The United Kingdom
and France
For the United Kingdom and France, nuclear weapons serve to underwrite
their big power status. Their position as permanent members/veto powers
of the UN Security Council rests on shaky ground. Had they not been
nuclear weapon states (NWSs), their UN roles would have been glaring
examples of historical inertia and UN inability to accommodate to
new circumstances1.
For the UK and France, political status considerations are therefore
of some particular importance. They do not have much else to invoke
in order to maintain their current status, so they are vulnerable
to quests for abolition. Especially in France, it has always been
difficult to entertain the idea of nuclear disarmament to zero. France's
withdrawal from NATOs military organization in the mid 1960s, and
the independent foreign policy that it chartered at that time, rested
to some extent on the nuclear weapon programme.
The Soviet Union / Russia
The Soviet Union built a huge nuclear arsenal to overcome its inferiority
and vulnerability in relation to the United States. Russia - its economy
being dramatically diminished and its conventional forces in dismal
condition - has once again assigned a wider role to nuclear weapons
to compensate for the weakness of its conventional forces.
China
When China conducted its first nuclear test in 1964, it issued a declaration
of no-first-use. The declaration was unconditional. This has remained
Chinese policy ever since. After the Korean war, China has had confidence
in its conventional forces. Its nuclear forces, on the other hand,
remain modest, especially when compared to those of the United States.
To retain a first use option would therefore make little sense.
While Russia withdrew
the (Soviet) NFU declaration of 1982, its conventional inferiority
vis-à-vis NATO being painfully obvious, President Yeltsin endorsed
the principle of NFU in a bilateral communication with his Chinese
counterpart. That happened at a time when Russia, for long assumed
to be the stronger of the two, was on its way down and China on its
way up. Today, the state of Russia's conventional forces suggests
that if there is a confrontation with China, the hard decision to
use or not to use nuclear weapons in defence of the borders would
primarily be for Russia to make.
India, Israel, and
Pakistan
As for the remaining three NWSs, India's nuclear programme has been
justified in reference to China; Pakistan's in reference to India;
and Israel feels vulnerable for lack of defensive, territorial depth.
After the Gulf war in
1991, Israel's conventional superiority in the Middle East seems more
convincing than at any time before. Logically, it should therefore
be willing to discuss a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)s
in the region. However, for the Israeli's, conventional superiority
is not reassuring enough to drop the existential deterrent. The vulnerabilities
of tiny geographical size amidst much larger enemies make it premature
to drop the nuclear insurance premium. Should things go wrong, Israel
may simply be too small to absorb the failure: instead, its territory
might be overrun and the state erased. In the view of Israeli governments,
abolition therefore presupposes stable peace with the Arab states.
The apartheid regime in South Africa - feeling very exposed; its back
against the wall - built nuclear weapons in the end of the 1970s.
In the 1980s, another wave of Cold War gave it a lease on life before
the regime crumbled, together with its nuclear weapons, when the Cold
War faded. The regime in North Korea, also vulnerable, came close
to nuclear weapon status and may even have crossed the threshold.
Like South Africa, it seems willing to drop the nuclear option and
allow internal reforms in favour of normalization with the outside
world and associated security assurances.2
The pattern that emerges
is clear. States tend to define their security concerns in reference
to the strongest among the challengers. The threats that determine
military planning are perceived to come from them. Thus, the Soviet
Union feared the United States; China was concerned both about the
Soviet Union and the United States; India has its eyes on China; and
Pakistan fears India. The acquisition of nuclear weapons has followed
the same sequential logic. States that are conventionally inferior
or concerned about their national or regime survival - currently Russia,
Pakistan and Israel: North Korea possibly being in the same category
- can not be expected to adopt policies of no-first-use.3
Obstacles
to no-first-use: US hyperpower
The United States, the
United Kingdom and France maintain the option of using nuclear weapons
first. Non-Nuclear-Weapon States (NNWSs) have been exempted, unless
they take part in armed attack together with a NWS. This remains French
and British policy. When Soviet/Russian conventional forces fell in
disarray Russia, too, adopted the same policy. These assurances of
non-use against NNWSs have been inscribed into a Security Council
resolution.4 Similar
security assurances have been extended to members of nuclear weapon-free
zones.
At the UN, the United
States has not gone back on these commitments. Unilaterally, however,
the Bush administration has made it clear that the exemptions no longer
apply. During the Clinton administration, the use or threat of use
of nuclear weapons to fight or deter chemical and biological weapons
were neither confirmed nor denied. All options were on the table,
but no contingency plans were made for such situations. Today, US
policy explicitly allows for first use of nuclear weapons not only
to cope with chemical and biological weapons: the US might also be
the first to use nuclear weapons in conventional war scenarios.5
Neither are such uses
confined to situations in which the United States has been or is about
to be attacked.6
The focus today is on preventive action to change or eliminate
unacceptable regimes.7
It is primarily for such purposes that the use of nuclear weapons
is envisaged also in non-nuclear contexts, for instance to destroy
hardened, underground targets. Thus, a main argument for resumption
of nuclear testing is the need for more effective "bunker busters".
This unilateralist policy
is based on the view that the weapons are not the problem.
It all depends on in whose hands they are. Thus, US, British,
French, Russian and also Indian nuclear weapons are fine, acceptable
or tolerable; Pakistani nuclear weapons are worrisome because of internal
political instabilities; the Chinese weapons are problematical; against
Israeli nuclear weapons there are no objections for the time being;
while any proliferation to other countries in the Middle East is unacceptable.
It follows that the non-proliferation regime is pushed aside as being
of lesser significance. This regime is an arms control regime, i.e.
a regime that focuses on the weapons and tries to do away with them.
Obviously, one cannot build a universal regime on estimations of responsible
or irresponsible, favourable or unfavourable, good or bad regimes.
Clearly, the United States
is further away from a policy of NFU than at any time before. The
strength that made it possible to discuss abolition in the wake of
the Cold War has become so overwhelming that constraints out of regard
for other countries, or to sustain the viability of an international
regime, is deemed unnecessary or even unwise. While others object
to NFU because they feel weak and vulnerable, the US government has
become a major obstacle for reasons of superior strength.
No-first-use
and fluctuations in international affairs
Beyond the weaknesses
and vulnerabilities of Russia, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea and
the superior strength of the United States, there are a number of
other, more specific obstacles to NFU as well. Some of them come and
go with periods of opportunity and stalemate in international affairs.
Post-war periods are periods
of opportunity. So, too, after the end of the Cold War. The big powers
cooperated well enough for the UN Security Council to pass a series
of important decisions on issues of war and peace. The nuclear arms
race turned into nuclear disarmament. The 1995 NPT conference decided
to extend this Treaty indefinitely. However, that decision was reached
at the end of a period of good news. From the mid 1990s, big power
relations began to deteriorate. The period of opportunity was over.
The 1990s offered objective
conditions for the western nuclear powers to adopt policies of NFU.
During the Cold War, NATOs policy of first use was justified in reference
to perceived conventional inferiority. When the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact fell apart, and Russia's economic misfortune brought its
military forces to the knees, conventional inferiority became a Russian
problem. That made Russia drop its declaratory policy of NFU in favour
of a first use policy similar to that of the Western powers. The Western
powers, on the other hand, abandoned the logic they had propagated
since the 1950s and retained the nuclear first use option on top of
their newly won conventional superiority. By this logic, they would
have been expected to drop the nuclear first use policy, since the
rationale had gone. When they did not, this became the most arrogant
part of their military postures.
Starting under President
Clinton and gaining speed under President Bush, US unilateralism presents
new obstacles to NFU. In short, this policy implies that the US is
leaving international agreements and multilateral cooperation that
may constrain its freedom of action. To many Americans, international
agreements are nothing more and nothing else than the constellations
of interests that created them. When interests change, the commitments
may be abandoned. Multilateral cooperation likewise. Obviously, the
US Government refrains from new international commitments that may
get in the way of what it wishes to do. The world must be ruled, but
preferably on the basis of decisions made in Washington. Where others
talk about global governance, the US increasingly practices
unilateral governance.
The phenomenon is structural.
It derives from the superior position of the US in world affairs.
This position is unrivalled, so US unilateralism may last for long.
In particular, US military might is unrivalled by a wide margin. President
Bush asserts that the US military may strike any point on the
globe and that it will not let its uniquely powerful position be jeopardized.
Far from entertaining a new NFU commitment, the US has brought strategic
arms control with Russia to a halt; distanced itself from the CTBT;
made significant reservations in relation to the CWC; and chosen not
to ratify the verification protocol to the BWT. More than anything
else, US unilateralism has closed the window of opportunity of the
early 1990s.
No-first-use
and the fight against terrorism
Terrorists are difficult
to locate. They can mix with others in urban environments. They may
operate in mobile, loosely knit networks. So they can not be deterred
or fought by nuclear weapons. Neither can they be rendered harmless
by ABM systems, for they do not deliver their weapons by ballistic
missiles.
States that conduct
or support terrorism are another matter. They can be targeted, deterred
or attacked. Whether they actually engage in terrorism may be hard
to prove. By their very nature, terrorist activities are concealed.
Fearing the consequences, states that are engaged in terrorism often
try to erase all evidence. Proof is usually for the intelligence services
to produce.
Intelligence lends itself
to manipulation. Even if an act of terrorism can not be traced back
to its source, allegations may be produced and used as pretexts
for military attack on regimes that are considered hostile. Rogue
states can most probably be deterred and defeated by conventional
means, so use of nuclear weapons appears far-fetched. Nevertheless,
the US keeps the option explicitly open. In the pursuit of regime
change, the rogue regime should know that the full weight of the US
military machine may be brought to bear on it.
The fight against terrorism
has therefore made the US more alien to NFU. 11. September struck
a raw nerve. In response, no weapons are proscribed and no escalation
ruled out. The events that day also helped the missile defence programme
along. Never mind that missile defence systems are irrelevant to such
contingencies, since terrorists like Al Queda most certainly do not
possess ballistic missiles. The sentiments that 11 September aroused,
and the enormous focus on homeland security that followed, gave a
boost to virtually all kinds of measures and technologies that may
protect the United States from external attacks.
When presenting the rationale
for the ABM Treaty of 1972, President Nixon said that if you have
a shield, it is easier to use the sword. Deployment of ballistic missile
defences of some significant effectiveness would put the United States
in precisely that position. Such defences would expand the range of
US military options without having to fear ballistic missile retaliation
and humiliation. Against many opponents - in casu, but not
only, rogue states - such a shield would arguably make it easier to
activate the nuclear sword.
No-first-use
and tactical nuclear weapons
Tactical nuclear weapons
are intended for use in battlefield - and theatre - level operations.
They are sometimes referred to as sub-strategic weapons. Typical delivery
vehicles are artillery, short-range missiles and aircraft. Systems
of longer range can also be made to impact directly on the battlefield.
8
Two factors make tactical
weapons likely candidates for early use. First, their intended use
on the battlefield in conjunction with conventional forces encourages
their forward basing, especially in times of crisis. Second, concerns
about the survivability of forward-based systems translates into an
argument for predelegation of launch authority to lower level commanders,
especially once hostilities commence. Therefore, during the Cold War
it was duly noted that to make NFU declarations credible, nuclear
weapons would have to be withdrawn from the borderlines in central
Europe.
In recent years, there
has been a renewed interest in tactical nuclear weapons in Russia,
and a growing interest also in South Asia following the nuclear testing
in India and Pakistan in 1998. These weapons are not regulated by
arms control agreements. They are only subject to unilateral declarations
made by the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia in 1991/1992.9
At the Helsinki summit of 2000, it was agreed that tactical nuclear
weapons would be considered in START III. However, the commitment
was vague, reflecting Russian reluctance, and the Strategic Offensive
Reductions Treaty of 2002 says nothing about tactical weapons. In
effect, this Treaty represents the end of nuclear arms control between
the two leading nuclear powers. It is unilateralism in bilateral form.10
Unofficial estimates of
Russian tactical nuclear weapons vary widely from 3000 to 20 000 warheads.
For US forces, the number has been placed at anywhere from 730 to
7000.11 High numbers,
forward basing, a propensity to predelegate launch authority and lack
of arms control regulations make them major impediments to credible
NFU postures.
No-first-use and war scenarios
Escalation from conventional
to nuclear war
Forward basing of nuclear weapons in conjunction with conventional
forces carry considerable risks of escalation from conventional to
nuclear war. When facing conventional defeat, escalatory pressures
to try to stop the attacker by nuclear means may become irresistible,
especially if the weapons are in danger of being destroyed or captured
by the other side; if the field commanders already have the authority
to launch them; and if there is a communications blackout. At some
stage things may get out of hand, the force postures driving the political
decision-makers. It ought to be the other way around.
During the Cold War, early
escalation across the nuclear threshold - deliberately or inadvertant
- was a much debated and much feared war scenario in Europe. While
this concern has disappeared from Europe, it has popped up in South
Asia. Little is known about the readiness and deployment patterns
of Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons, so escalatory propensities
and risks are hard to assess. India is conventionally superior, so
the decision to cross the nuclear threshold would probably be on Pakistani
shoulders. If Pakistan bases its deterrent on strategic weapons, the
nuclear threshold might be relatively high and the C3 system relatively
good, but at the price of loosing territory. If it is based on forward
deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as well, territory will not
easily be ceded, but the nuclear threshold will become lower and the
likelihood of escalation - deliberately or inadvertent - higher. This
is a high-risk posture well known from Europe - a gamble on the assumption
that deterrence will work. In Europe it did, but the European experience
provides no guarantee for others. If it fails, it may lead to early
first use and total destruction of that which were to be defended.
If Pakistan moves on to
deploy tactical nuclear weapons in forward positions, this would be
a substantial material investment in the first use option. The further
it goes down that road, the more it takes to revert to NFU.
Preemption
Between the five nuclear weapon states members of the UN Security
Council, preemption is of hypothetical interest only. They have all
developed significant second strike capabilities, so unacceptable
destruction has been mutually assured.
In relation to China,
the US missile defence programme has the potential of changing this
calculation. The US has no clarified strategic relationship with the
Asian giant. It does not seem content to stake it on mutually assured
destruction. As long as China has a few tens of intercontintinental
ballistic missiles only, it is not inconceivable that a missile defence
system may absorb the retaliatory capabilities surviving a US preemptive
attack. If it comes to war, e.g. over Taiwan, such a first use scenario
is not unthinkable. More realistic, however, a missile defence system
may give the US a degree of escalation dominance that makes other
(non-nuclear) options less daring. It comes back to Nixon's reminder:
If you have a shield, it is easier to use the sword.
Preventive action
As noted above, US strategy in relation to rogue states is not based
on preemption. Preemption is something to be considered if an opponent
is about to attack. Rogue states do not do that. They are not in a
position to wage war against the United States, except that they may
engage in terrorism. Clearly, if a state supports a terrorist attack
on the United States in a way similar to that of the Taliban Government
in Afghanistan, this may be read as an act of war invoking the right
to self-defence in accordance with art. 51 of the UN Charter. However,
the war on the Taliban was waged in reaction to the terror
assault. It was not a matter of preemption.
In the case of Iraq, there
is no convincing evidence that Saddam Hussein has supported terrorist
activities against the Western world, and he is not about to attack
the United States. A war to remove the Iraqi regime would be a matter
of prevention. Preventive action has become a major tenet of
US strategy. However important, Iraq is just the prime example - for
the time being - of a much broader policy of regime change. If unacceptable
regimes can not be ousted by other means, it may be done by military
force.
It has been argued that
nuclear weapons are not needed in such contingencies. This slightly
misses the point, however. The Bush Administration, presiding over
US hyperpower, sees no reason to proscribe any military option. This
is not deemed desirable; Congress does not call for it; and no other
power can press it do so. Self-imposed restraint is something states
adopt when the distribution of power makes accommodation desirable,
in the mutual interest. The global hegemon does not see much of a
need to accommodate. It is too superior to see it that way.
No-first-use and the nuclear industry
NFU is not a static proposition.
It is more than a doctrine: it is also a strategy to curb and constrain
the nuclear sector and pave the way for nuclear disarmament. For if
the role of nuclear weapons were confined to that of deterring others
from using theirs, the prognosis for nuclear weapons research, development,
maintenance and production - currently thriving on extended deterrence
- would be bleaker. This is what the proponents would like to achieve,
and this is what the material interests in nuclear weaponry oppose.
NFU confronts the nuclear industry in the widest sense of the term.
Therefore, the opposition to it is not limited to considerations of
national security and political weight in international affairs, but
comprises powerful economic interests as well.
Footnotes
| 1. |
Which is a widespread impression anyhow. If European
integration proceeds, as is commonly assumed, a permanent seat
for the EU may substitute for French and British membership. However,
for the time being, SC reform discussions are stuck. |
| 2. |
By collecting dust from the remote control vehicles
at the radiochemical laboratory in Yongbyon and analyzing the
isotopic decay, the IAEA established that North Korea had reporcessed
spent fuel not only in 1990, as stated by the North Koreans themselves,
but also in 1989 and 1991. It is widely assumed that North Korea
may have reprocessed enough plutonium for 1-2 bombs.
North Korea's recent admission of a nuclear weapon programme based
on uranium enrichment is difficult to asses, since there is very
little public information about it. |
| 3. |
Israel does not admit to having nuclear weapons.
It keeps repeating that it will not be the first to introduce
nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Much is known about its nuclear
weapon programme, though. One of the main sources is Avner Cohen,
Israel and the bomb, Columbia University Press, New York,
1998. |
| 4. |
SC Res. 984 (1995) on security assurances against
the use of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon states that are
Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. |
| 5. |
See the Bush Administration's Nuclear Posture Review,
leaked to the press in early 2002. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm |
| 6. |
Art. 51 of the UN Charter spells out the right to
self-defence which, in the view of many international lawyers,
should be understood to comprise the right to preempt, i.e. to
take action when seeing that an attack is in the making. |
| 7. |
The term 'regime change' is used mostly in reference
to the list of rogue states, also described as despicable dictatorships
or simply as bad guys. A more accurate reading would focus on
regimes whose policies are incompatible with US national interests
to such an extent that they become unacceptable. |
| 8. |
The definition of 'tactical' vs. 'strategic' therefore
centers on the way in which the weapons are used rather than their
physical/technical characteristics. However, tactical use is highly
correlated with short range. There remains an unresolved definitional
debate at the interface between mode of use and range of delivery. |
| 9. |
For a presentation and discussion of the genesis
and contents of these declarations, see Joshua Handler, "The
September 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives and the Elimination,
Storing and Security Aspects of TNWs", Time to Control
Tactical Nuclear Weapons, UNIDIR, United Nations Headquarters,
New York, September 2001.
These declarations do not provide for data exchange or any transparency
and verification measures. It is therefore impossible to have
confidence in their implementation and to ascertain the status
of the remaining tactical nuclear weapons. |
| 10. |
For a thorough analysis of this Treaty, see "Beyond
the Moscow Treaty", testimony of John P. Holdren for the
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 12 September
2002. |
| 11. |
William C. Potter, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons:
the Nature of the Problem", paper prepared for the UNIDIR
conference on "Tactical Nuclear Weapons", Geneva, March
21-22, 2000. |
