Workshop
Report
Tom Milne
Participants
| Papers
| Pugwash Symposium
The Pugwash workshop, No First Use of Nuclear Weapons, was
held in London from 15-17 November 2002 and included 29 participants
from 15 countries. The British Pugwash Group also organized a public
session at the Royal Society on 14 November that included panel presentations
on No First Use issues from Hugh Beach, Steven Miller and Alexander
Nikitin. The Pugwash Conferences are grateful to the British Pugwash
Trust for their support of the workshop.
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It has long been argued in Pugwash circles among others that until
such time as nuclear weapons can be eliminated the purpose of national
nuclear forces should be confined to deterring nuclear attack. The
formidable political and prudential barriers to any use of
nuclear weapons are obvious. Yet it remains the case that the governments
and national security establishments of some of the nuclear weapon
states, not least the USA, maintain and act on the belief that nuclear
weapons serve purposes extending beyond deterrence of nuclear attack
and that policies of no first use have been explicitly rejected.
Over the years the nuclear weapon states have discussed, hinted at,
and planned for the first use of nuclear weapons for all manner of
purposes. Some of these purposes have been bound up with the existence
of other nuclear weapons: planning for a pre-emptive nuclear strike
in the event that nuclear war seemed inevitable, for example,
or preventive nuclear war in order to destroy an adversary's incipient
or developing nuclear weapons capability. Others have not: in particular
nuclear weapons have been used to offset the conventional forces of
an adversary at an affordable social and economic cost, and to serve
as a weapon of last resort in the face of catastrophic defeat. Use
of nuclear weapons has also been threatened as a means of coercion
and to deter chemical and biological weapons attack, and notions have
been entertained of "demonstration" nuclear strikes as indication
of a nation's seriousness of intent in a developing conflict. A somewhat
different proposition has been the consideration given to the use
of nuclear weapons for ballistic missile defence.
Some of these perceived roles for nuclear weapons may today have
less immediacy than in previous times or have perhaps disappeared
altogether. The need for the US to provide extended deterrence to
Europe is an obvious case in point. Others, however, are more prominent
than ever. In particular, the past decade has seen increasing concerns
voiced in the US about chemical and biological weapons, with US negative
security assurances - promises that the US has made not to use nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear weapon states - undermined by veiled threats
of nuclear response to chemical or biological attack. Secretary of
State James Baker implicitly threatened tactical nuclear retaliation
to Iraqi use of chemical or biological weapons in the Persian Gulf
War; Clinton administration officials added to the ambiguity of US
policy through a series of statements; and the Bush administration
has gone further still, repeatedly stating that the US may be prepared
to take preventive military action to disarm adversaries of their
weapons of mass destruction capabilities, and in this context openly
considering the first use of nuclear weapons to attack, among others,
deeply buried targets.
We might, of course, discuss whether such nuclear policies are not
promoted as much by an establishment with a vested interest in the
maintenance of nuclear weapons as on the basis of objective judgements
on defence strategy. But what cannot be doubted is that, for whatever
reason, policies of "first use of nuclear weapons if necessary"
are embedded in military and strategic thought. Before "no first
use" could be embraced by the current possessors of nuclear weapons
in a meaningful way, that is to say as a national security strategy,
at least the more powerful among them would have to be persuaded that
whatever the benefits they consider to derive from retaining the option
of first use of nuclear weapons should, on balance of risk, be foregone.
Were the nuclear weapon states to fully embrace no first use of nuclear
weapons then this would constitute a highly significant step towards
nuclear disarmament. Whereas the declaration of no first use by the
Soviet Union in 1982 saw no alteration to Soviet nuclear weapons deployments,
and was given little if any credence by the US and NATO, a multilateral
agreement on no first use, if it were to be credible, would entail
sweeping and substantial changes to US and Russian nuclear deployments,
with each nation needing only to retain a survivable strike-second
deterrent. Lesser changes might need to be made to the nuclear forces
of the other nuclear weapon states. Moreover, the whole approach taken
by the nuclear weapon states to the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free
world would be transformed: the logic becomes that "if no-one
has them no-one needs them" and attention can turn from debating
the utility of nuclear weapons to the more tractable political, administrative
and technical issues facing deep cuts in nuclear arsenals and the
eventual creation of a nuclear-weapon-free world regime and control
system.
For and Against No First Use
To reiterate, for the current nuclear weapon states to adopt strategies
of no first use of nuclear weapons they need, logically speaking,
only to take the view that the risks of retaining policies of "nuclear
first use if necessary" outweigh the risks of explicitly foregoing
this option. It may still be allowed, for example, that nuclear weapons
could have some deterrent effect against chemical and biological threats,
as many would intuitively believe to be the case, while concluding
that such deterrence is bought at too high a cost.
This was the basis of the case made for no first use in the 1997
report from the Committee on International Security and Arms Control
of the US National Academy of Sciences The Future of U.S. Nuclear
Weapons Policy. Although written from a US perspective, the report
makes a case of more general relevance and formed the basis of the
workshop's opening presentation. Credible policies of no first use
on the part of the nuclear weapon states, the Committee argued, would
significantly reduce a number of the foremost dangers stemming from
the possession of nuclear weapons. In particular, it would make other
nations less likely to seek to develop countervailing nuclear, chemical
or biological weapons capabilities. The risk of accidental or unauthorized
use of nuclear weapons, or of hasty and foolish authorized resort
to nuclear weapons in a crisis, would also be reduced as a consequence
of associated changes to force posture.
Turning the argument around, to weigh the accompanying risks, the
Committee further suggested that the United States, not itself facing
any conventional threat, possesses conventional forces adequate to
meet all of its existing security commitments as well as to deter
or respond to chemical and biological attack. As a matter of practical
politics, it is more credible that the US plans to confront non-nuclear
threats with conventional force rather than with nuclear weapons,
as well as more proportionate to the threat, and by far the preferable
option in terms of minimizing the level of violence. Moreover, the
existential threat inherent in the possession of nuclear weapons would
remain a powerful deterrent to unrestricted war, even in scenarios
in which first use of nuclear weapons had been renounced.
The Committee also ventured the belief that the other nuclear weapon
states could be persuaded to reach comparable conclusions. This may
be plausible given a US lead. Not just on the issue of no first use,
but in the case of nuclear disarmament more generally, the other nuclear
weapons states would probably follow a US lead. If, however, in addition
to the five "official" nuclear weapon states, India, Pakistan
and Israel are to be considered, then while a general agreement on
no first use would bring a great weight of international pressure
to follow suit, it should still be obvious that for Israel and Pakistan,
feeling more directly and closely threatened by potential aggression,
committing to a strategy of no first use of nuclear weapons might
be a difficult decision to take. Pakistan, for example, which incidentally
had not openly "gone nuclear" at the time that the Academy
study was published, might see itself as confronted with an uncomfortable
trade-off between first use deterrence of more powerful Indian forces
and the need to strengthen its conventional forces at a cost the nation
could ill-afford. Israel is unwilling to make any explicit statement
about its presumed nuclear weapons capability for fear of making an
already fraught regional situation worse.
Nuclear deterrence of non-nuclear threats was for a long time a controversial
issue within NATO, especially in the early years when the need for
social and economic reconstruction in Europe was most acute and Western
strategy was based on early and massive resort to nuclear weapons.
A conventional wisdom has emerged which finds that the balance eventually
struck by NATO between conventional and nuclear deterrence has been
proven justified ("conventional wisdom" is perhaps not the
most apt of phrases!) and indeed the NATO model is often invoked to
support policies of nuclear first use applied in other contexts. Yet
as is often pointed out, and was reiterated at the workshop, not only
does this assume both that the Soviet Union had the desire and capability
to invade Western Europe (if not, there were no grounds for deterrence),
and that it would not in any case have been deterred by NATO conventional
forces and the existential nuclear threat, but it takes no account
of the incalculable consequences should the policy have failed, nor
of the stimulus that NATO nuclear policy might have provided to the
nuclear ambitions of other nations.
A further, subtle argument against no first use allows that the
nuclear weapon states should use whatever language and confidence-building
measures they can to portray a complete lack of interest in using
nuclear weapons in any circumstances (that is, there should be no
discussion whatever of first use), but still resists any explicit
undertaking of no first use. The reasoning is that such undertakings
fail to solve the problem of avoiding nuclear war, in the sense that
they can never be dependable, while at the same time risking weakening
the one useful role that nuclear weapons may play, which is that of
inducing caution in a crisis. Since it is not in dispute that the
purpose of no first use is less to seek to constrain the use of weapons
in war than to constrain the deployment of weapons in peacetime and
to contribute to a disarmament process, at issue here is whether and
when an unwillingness to openly and legally commit to no first use
would impede wider efforts to devalue and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Implementing a No First Use Strategy
The possibility of first use is, of course, inherent in the possession
of any weapon and thus it may not be possible to identify a
particular point on the de-alerting spectrum at which a nation can
be said no longer to possess a first use capability, nor the ability
secretly to configure one, while still retaining a credible strike-second
option. Nonetheless, a combination of declaratory policy, legal undertakings,
changes to weapon deployments, and a general denuclearisation of war
planning, military exercises and training programmes could serve to
reduce, to a large extent, the capacity and preparedness of a nation
to use nuclear weapons first. Indeed, once a nation accepts the case
for a no first use strategy these changes become both possible and
desirable in order to promote disarmament, discourage proliferation,
and minimize danger of accidents.
Since going nuclear in 1964, China has consistently maintained an
unconditional declaratory policy of no first use of nuclear weapons.
Despite the lack of transparency surrounding China's nuclear and military
programmes, the apparent restraint that China has exercised in its
nuclear programme, together with the public positions taken by the
government, has over time helped to afford credibility to its proclaimed
position. India has announced a similar strategy of no first use,
which was considered by many workshop participants as likely to endure
even though Indian nuclear doctrine is still evolving. Comparable
undertakings of no first use from the US, NATO and others, or at least
statements to the effect that they cannot envisage using nuclear weapons
first in any foreseeable circumstance, where now they pointedly refuse
to offer such a judgement, would no doubt help to devalue the role
of nuclear weapons in international affairs and improve prospects
for disarmament.
At a certain stage in a disarmament process, however, it was felt
that the nuclear weapon states would be likely to want to move beyond
declaratory statements to conclude a legally-binding treaty of no
first use. Opinions differ on the likely preconditions for agreement
on such a step, but as already suggested a serious commitment to no
first use amounts to a commitment to a process of nuclear disarmament
and thus is not foreseeable at the current time. As a first step,
therefore, it might prove easier to secure agreement from the nuclear
weapon states on legally-binding and unconditional negative security
assurances. These would replace the existing forms of assurances,
which as discussed have been weakened and undermined in recent years,
not just by the United States, and might provide an important boost
to the ailing non-proliferation regime. A multilateral agreement on
"no first use of weapons of mass destruction" was also discussed
as a possible approach. Such an agreement could be seen as an advance
on the current situation in that it would explicitly exclude the use
of nuclear weapons to counter conventional threats, but at the same
time it would legitimise the use of nuclear weapons in response to
chemical and biological attack, arguably already the most likely route
to the use of nuclear weapons today, in view of which most workshop
participants judged that the idea should be strongly opposed.
A strategy of no first use, pursued cooperatively among all the
nuclear weapon states, should allow significantly smaller nuclear
forces, at least on the part of the USA and Russia. There would be
no requirement for counterforce capabilities. Weapons designed for
tactical or battlefield operations ought also largely to be eliminated,
in the wider context of no first use as part of a disarmament process.
Certainly there could be no place in the arsenals for weapons such
as those currently being developed for attacking underground targets.
The technical launch readiness of nuclear systems could also be relaxed
and delays might be introduced into the decision-making process that
would authorize nuclear use. Technical means of de-alerting, which
it was felt should be implemented regardless of whether a nation has
a strategy of no first use, include disabling missiles or launch systems
to add significant time delays to the launch process. These measures
make sense whether or not the other side reciprocates, so verification
of the de-alerted condition, which may prove difficult in some cases,
is not crucial.
A more far-reaching measure of de-alerting would involve separating
warheads from delivery systems and possibly placing warheads under
civilian control. Nations would thereby revert to practices followed
in the early years of the Cold War when warheads were not routinely
mated, nor necessarily co-located, with delivery systems. It was the
subsequent development of many of the safety features designed into
modern warheads and the advent of sophisticated administrative controls
on nuclear weapons that made higher alert levels possible. At the
extreme, each side would invite the other side or sides to place observers
or technical means of verification at sites at which warheads were
stored, allowing them to monitor what went in and what went out. Survivability
of de-alerted nuclear forces would be a significant concern at all
stages, but given the relatively benign international relations needed
for disarmament to make progress should not present any insurmountable
problem.
No First Use and the Pugwash Agenda
Taking place at a time when the United States is leading preparations
for preventive war against Iraq, in order to disarm Iraq of whatever
WMD capabilities it might possess and to depose the current regime,
one session of the workshop was given over to a general discussion
of the world political situation, including its relevance to the subject
at hand.
It seems that with each passing day the greater is the disdain shown
by the US administration towards the current system of multilateral
arms control. Multilateral regimes are dismissed as serving mainly
an administrative and accounting function, ineffective in the important
cases of recalcitrant states. Indeed the US administration appears
to assign little value to any of the major international treaties
regulating weapons of mass destruction. It seems instead more concerned
to ensure that as few constraints as possible are placed on the unprecedented
military and diplomatic power at its disposal.
While unquestionably the current system of international arms control
has substantial weaknesses, not least the lack of any effective means
of enforcement, it was suggested that Pugwash must seek to reassert,
in positive and objective terms, the fundamental importance of multilateral
approaches to world security and verified treaty-based disarmament.
This is, after all, the point of view held by the vast majority of
the world's nations. From this standpoint, and because it is closely
linked to the objective of multilateral nuclear disarmament, working
towards a multilateral agreement on no first use of nuclear weapons
is an important topic for continuing Pugwash attention, made all the
more timely by the emphasis on tactical nuclear first use in current
US doctrine.
Until such time as the United States might be ready to take the lead
in pursuing a multilateral agreement on no first use, which seems
certain not to be until the current administration and any successors
in kind have passed from power, attention may have to be focussed
on no first use agreements in regional and bilateral contexts. Several
papers were presented at the workshop, not reflected in this report
but available to the interested reader on the Pugwash website, setting
out current thinking on policies of no first use of nuclear weapons
in China, Russia, NATO, India, Pakistan, the Middle East and Korea.
The papers discuss, among other things, the extent to which current
undertakings of no first use by China and India should be expected
to be resilient to political change, and possible circumstances in
which NATO, Russia, Pakistan and Israel might reconsider their present
policies in which the first use of nuclear weapons is not explicitly
excluded. Suggestions were made for potential bilateral and regional
no first use arrangements and could be pursued at future Pugwash meetings.
It was also noted that in 1994 China had formally proposed a draft
Treaty on the No First Use of Nuclear Weapons. The draft treaty contained
no guidance on implementation and it was suggested that Pugwash might
usefully meet to elaborate some technical guidelines.
