This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
pp. 17-46. The published version is available for subscribers or pay-per-view by clicking here or visiting
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Forum

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The Case for No First Use:
An Exchange

Editor’s note
In the June–July 2009 issue of Survival, Scott D. Sagan argued the current case for theUnited States to adopt a declaratory policy of no nuclear first use. Survival invited four
experts from Europe, Asia and North America to comment on Sagan’s argument. The
author concludes the debate with his own final thoughts.

Promises and Priorities
Morton H. Halperin
Scott Sagan makes a persuasive case for no first use, arguing that such a declaration would contribute to the American objectives of preventing the useof nuclear weapons by states or terrorist groups and preventing further proliferation. He also makes the case that such a declaration would not reducethe credibility of the American deterrent but rather might increase the credibility of a non-nuclear response.
As Sagan notes, these arguments are not new. In fact I presented asimilar proposal and many, if not all, of the same arguments in a paper
I published almost 50 years ago.1 It is useful to ask why no previous
president acted on this sensible recommendation and whether President
Obama should now make this commitment. Sagan discusses some of theMorton H. Halperin worked on nuclear issues in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Clinton administrationsin the Department of Defense, the National Security Council and the State Department. He is a member of
the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States and Senior Advisor to the OpenSociety Institute. He has written numerous books and articles on nuclear policy.
Survival | vol. 51 no. 5 | October–November 2009 | pp. 17–46

DOI 10.1080/00396330903309840

This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
pp. 17-46. The published version is available for subscribers or pay-per-view by clicking here or visiting
http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0039-6338&volume=51&issue=5&spage=17
18 | Forumobjections to an explicit commitment not to use nuclear weapons first, but
he fails to convey the depth of the opposition and the fundamental natureof the objection.
Opponents of no first use make the basic argument that we should not
make any ‘promise’ to a potential adversary that might make it easier for
an opponent to plan an effective military action. During the Cold War it
was precisely the policy of the United States and its NATO allies to threaten

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first use in the belief that the Soviet Union had conventional superiority inEurope and would attack if it could be sure that the West would not respondwith nuclear weapons. Even now, despite the vast global American conventional superiority, there are places – the Russian border with Georgia,
the Taiwan Strait, deep inside Iran where its nuclear facilities are located– where the United States might find it hard to prevail with conventional
forces and where the threat to use nuclear weapons first might, it is argued,
still be credible and necessary.
Sagan and I agree that there is a clear response to this argument: thethreat to use nuclear weapons in these situations is not credible and theimplication that nuclear weapons are necessary reduces the credibility of
the conventional deterrent. This response, however, does not deal withthe very serious domestic political storm a president would confront, eventoday, were he to make such a promise.
Such a storm would result from a very different view of nuclear weapons
held by many who are deeply sceptical that stigmatising nuclear weapons
will prevent their further proliferation. Opponents of no first use, including
many associated with Democratic presidents, believe that such a no-firstuse promise will increase the political cost of using nuclear weapons only
for the United States, undermining the credibility of the US deterrent,and especially the extended deterrent. There is no doubt that some allies
would be nervous if the United States made a no-first-use pledge even after
extended consultations. Such discussions, as Sagan notes, would be necessary especially with NATO allies and Japan. Critics are not likely to feelthat influencing Indian nuclear doctrine, as Sagan discusses, is sufficiently
important to overcome their objections, particularly given the importancethat they attach to extended deterrence.

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 19

Obama has stated that he believes it is in the American interest to reducereliance on nuclear weapons. Indeed, his commitment to seek a world freeof nuclear weapons carries the clear implication that we can meet all of our
security challenges, short of nuclear threats, without reliance on nuclear
weapons. However, there are other proposals to pursue this objective which
would be as effective as a declaratory no-first-use policy and which might
produce less controversy.

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In his Prague speech, in addition to announcing support for the long-term
objective of a world free of nuclear weapons, Obama committed himself in the
short run to four other measures which have long been debated and which
advance the same objectives as the no-first-use proposal. These are: reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy, negotiatinga new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia, immediately
and aggressively pursuing US ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban
Treaty (CTBT), and starting negotiations on a verifiable end
to the production of fissionable material for weapons pur-No first use
and political capital the president can reasonably devote
can andto this issue. Under the circumstances, no first use can andshould be put off for another day.
should be
Seeking three treaties on nuclear arms control in his firstput off forterm will not be easy. The Senate looks ready to ratify the
new START and the proposal for a ban on fissile-material another day
poses. This ambitious agenda will require all the attention

production for weapons purposes has not engendered muchopposition as of yet. The CTBT, however, is another story. Republicanorthodoxy on nuclear weapons emphasises unequivocal support for ballistic-missile defence and virulent opposition to no first use and the test
ban. The opposition to both stems from the same source. Opponents ofthe treaty seek new nuclear weapons with new capabilities for a variety
of pre-emptive and preventive purposes. They worry about the Russian
development of new nuclear weapons and argue that the Kremlin has
a different view of what is prohibited under the treaty and will, in any
case, cheat. They doubt that US ratification of the CTBT will help prevent
proliferation.

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20 | Forum

Winning the CTBT debate and ultimately gaining the 67 votes in the Senate
necessary to permit US ratification of the treaty is far from assured, but it ispossible. The president is committed to the CTBT and not yet to no first use.
In any case, I would argue that ratification of the CTBT and a vigorous effort
to secure the other ratifications necessary to bring the treaty into force is themore important, and promising, effort to stigmatise nuclear weapons.
This does not mean that the question of why the United States maintains

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and might use nuclear weapons can or should be ignored in the on-going
Nuclear Posture Review. Rather, much of the good that would come froma no-first-use pledge can be achieved with a less controversial approach.
The actions and statements of previous administrations, as summarised by
Sagan, leave a disturbing legacy that needs to be corrected. One option is forthe president to make a public statement about why the United States maintains nuclear weapons and to streamline US commitments to those statesthat are members in good standing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.2 The
president should state that the United States maintains nuclear weapons
for the purposes of deterring nuclear attacks: ‘The United States maintains
nuclear weapons to deter and, if necessary, respond to nuclear attacks
against ourselves, our forces, or our friends and allies’. The president andhis advisers should decline to elaborate on the statement’s meaning beyond
characterising it as a statement of fact about why the United States maintains nuclear weapons. They should refuse to engage in discussions about
hypothetical scenarios involving possible use of nuclear weapons.
Such an approach would have three broad advantages:•

Such a declaration is a logical and indeed necessary corollary of
the commitment made by the president to seek a world without
nuclear weapons. Implicit in the statement that the United States
seeks such a world is that the United States is prepared to deal
with any plausible non-nuclear threats without resorting to
nuclear weapons.

•

The declaration would underscore that any plans for modernising US nuclear weapons, infrastructure and delivery systems aresolely for reasons of safety, security and reliability, and thus would

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 21

make clear that the United States was not seeking to develop new
weapons for new military purposes such as destroying deep underground facilities. It would help to deal with concerns from the leftthat the commitment that the president is likely to make to ‘modernise’ the nuclear arsenal, as both a sensible security measure anda necessary step in gaining support for the CTBT, does not violate
the commitment to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons.

UNCORRECTED PROOF•

By not explicitly foreswearing the use of nuclear weapons
against unexpected threats, such a declaration preserves ‘existential deterrence’ that is the inescapable consequence of having
any nuclear weapons and avoids much, if not all, of the politicalfallout that would result from a no-first-use pledge.

At the same time the United States should update and simplify the socalled negative security assurance (NSA) that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance
issued in 1978 (and was slightly modified in 1995). The NSA still contains the‘Warsaw Pact exclusion clause’ almost two decades after the collapse of the
Warsaw Pact. The clause could be replaced with a simplified version of the
1995 statement that makes clear that a state must be in compliance with the
Non-Proliferation Treaty to enjoy the benefit of the assurance. As a result,
the revised NSA would read: ‘The United States reaffirms that it will not use
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon state-parties to the Treaty on
the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons that are in compliance with their
nuclear nonproliferation obligations’. This would preserve the president’s
right to threaten or use nuclear weapons first against any state with nuclear
weapons or seeking to acquire them. Since this group includes all of the statesthat concern opponents of a no-first-use pledge, it ought to avoid the worst
political fallout of a categorical no-first-use pledge. It also would highlightthe importance the United States attaches to the Non-Proliferation Treaty
and could enhance US diplomatic leverage in advance of the 2010 review
conference. Finally, it arguably strengthens the incentive, albeit modestly,
for states to remain or become treaty members in good standing.
We should recognise that those states which view the United States
as a potential enemy may seek nuclear weapons not merely to ward off

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22 | Forum

American nuclear threats but also to offset US conventional superiority. The
Bush administration decision to attack Iraq but not North Korea sent a clear
message to Iran and other countries: only nuclear weapons deter the UnitedStates. China and Russia increasingly fear that advanced US conventional
capabilities threaten even their nuclear deterrents. Any long-term effort toprevent nuclear proliferation and persuade other states to reduce, if noteliminate, their reliance on nuclear weapons will require addressing these

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security concerns. This will not be easy, but will be critical to achieving thegoal that motivates proponents of no first use.
In seeking to prevent an Iranian nuclear-weapons programme and to rollback the North Korean capability, the United States will need to deal directlywith the concerns of both nations about a possible American conventional
military capability. Regional security arrangements and political measures
will be required. In dealing with China, the United States needs to state
unequivocally that it does not seek to negate China’s deterrent. Mutual vulnerability, as a recent Council on Foreign Relations Task Force argued, is nota choice, but rather a fact that needs to be managed with a focus on strategic
stability. Negotiations with Russia must start with a cooperative approach toballistic-missile defence that persuades the Kremlin the United States seeks
defences only against North Korean and Iranian threats. As lower limits on
nuclear weapons and delivery systems are negotiated Washington needs totake account of the Russian concern about advanced US conventional capabilities, such as conventionally armed ballistic missiles.
Somewhere in this process it will be possible and even necessary to go all
the way to a universal no-first-use pledge, but I reluctantly have come to theconclusion that this is a good idea whose time has not yet come.

Notes
1

2

See Morton H. Halperin, ‘A Proposal for a Ban on the Use of Nuclear
Weapons’, 6 October 1961, at http://
www.armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/190/Halperin.pdf.
I draw for this section on an unpublished paper written jointly with

Arnold Kanter and Jeffrey Lewis.
I am grateful to both of them formany insights and for comments
on an earlier draft, but neither is
responsible for the formulations inthis paper.

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 23

The Trouble with No First Use
Bruno Tertrais
At first glance, it sounds like a great and simple idea. Any nuclear-weapon
use would be a catastrophe: it would break the ‘nuclear taboo’ and have,in many scenarios, terrible material, human and even environmental consequences. But if all nuclear-capable countries committed themselves to a

UNCORRECTED PROOF‘no-first-use’ posture, then the risk of such an event would be drasticallyreduced. Scott Sagan’s plea in favour of no first use is very well argued, andhis article reopens an important and timely debate. However, I believe thatthe potential costs of no first use exceed its potential benefits. My conclusions are thus exactly the opposite of those reached by Sagan.
My first argument is that the benefits of no-first-use postures are overrated. Can one believe that Tehran or Pyongyang would feel reassured byWestern no-first-use statements? During the Cold War, we did not take
Soviet no-first-use statements seriously. I doubt that governments that
see the United States and its allies as adversaries would believe our own.
And does the nuclear-proliferation risk today stem mostly from Western
nuclear policies? There are good reasons to think that conventional superiority matters more.
More importantly for the purpose of non-proliferation, why would NonAligned Movement countries consider that nuclear-weapon states would
feel bound by no-first-use commitments if and when push came to shove?
Some would, but others would not, and given the amount of misperception and sometimes paranoia regarding Western military policies in general,they would be many. The non-proliferation value of a no-first-use commitment would be limited.
Sagan argues that first-use options encourage other countries to follow
suit, citing the example of India. But nuclear doctrines are hardly a matterof fashion. They are driven by security interests and technical capabilities,
political imperative and moral choices. More often than not, the same causes

Bruno Tertrais is a Senior Research Fellow at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research and aContributing Editor to Survival. He is the author of War Without End (New York: The New Press, 2005).

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24 | Forum

produce the same effects. Other countries’ doctrines are used essentially as
legitimising factors. New Delhi abandoned its no-first-use policy in 2003
for fear that Pakistan or China could use chemical or biological weapons in
the course of a conflict against India despite their ratification of the relevant
conventions.
Sagan claims that the first-use option opens a ‘commitment trap’: theUnited States might have to use nuclear weapons to maintain its reputa-

UNCORRECTED PROOF

tion as a guarantor. But why would there be such a trap as long as there is
no promise of a guaranteed nuclear response? That is precisely the point of‘calculated ambiguity’ (a declaratory policy choice also made by the United
Kingdom and France, albeit in different forms). I cannot
believe, moreover, that an American president would see ‘rep-

The costs utation’ as a reason to take the most dramatic military decision
leader has had to take since 1945.
of no first a Western
My second argument is that the costs of no first use are
significant. Given Western conventional superiority, it isuse areto say that the United States and perhaps even its
significant tempting
nuclear allies, the United Kingdom and France, could afford
to reserve nuclear deterrence for the prevention of nuclear
attacks, thereby making no first use a theoretical possibility. But this would
signal those adversaries who would take such a commitment seriously thatthey could do anything to the United States or its allies without ever facing
the risk of a nuclear response, using chemical weapons against our forces ona battlefield, raining down conventional ballistic missiles on our homelands,
or launching biological munitions against our populations.
The counterargument is that the United States does not need nuclear
weapons to deter non-nuclear mass destruction. But nuclear weapons are
special: they can obliterate a country’s vital installations in a few minutes.
Because of this ability and of some of their effects (radiation), they scareleaders and populations in a way that classical weapons do not. As Margaret
Thatcher once said, there is a monument to the failure of conventional deterrence in every French village.
It is sometimes said that an adversary would not believe that a Western
leader could use nuclear weapons for less than absolutely vital contingen-This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 25

cies. But the US reaction to 11 September should give pause to anyone
thinking that democracies are weak and do not get angry. More importantly, the argument can be reversed: an adversary could believe that public
opinion would not have the stomach for a sustained, costly conventionalbombing campaign aimed at eradicating a state’s ability to function. The
first-use option induces a fundamental uncertainty in the adversary’s mind:
you cannot calculate in advance the maximum cost of an armed aggression

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against the core interests of a nuclear-capable country.
There is, in particular, evidence of the value of nuclear weapons to deter
the use of chemical or biological weapons. No country has ever used suchmeans against a nuclear-armed adversary. Egypt used chemical weapons
against Yemeni opponents in the early 1960s, but refrained from using themagainst Israel in 1967 and 1973. Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran(and against its own Kurdish population) in the 1980s, but did not do soagainst coalition forces or Israeli territory in 1991.
Perhaps the United States does not need nuclear weapons to effectively‘punish’ a chemical- or biological-weapons aggressor, although a nuclear
response may be the best way to restore deterrence if such use has caused
massive casualties. But my argument here is mostly about deterring the next
use of weapons of mass destruction, not about deterring those that may
come after that.
A no-first-use policy might also have security costs beyond deterrence.
As an action policy (as opposed to merely a declaratory one1), it would
prevent a government which has adopted such a principle from striking
pre-emptively at an adversary who has unmistakably demonstrated its
intention to imminently launch a nuclear attack. Granted, such an extreme‘damage limitation’ strike could only be executed in absolutely extraordinary circumstances. But it is only a slight exaggeration to say that a leader
ready to forfeit it through a no-first-use policy is giving up the possibility ofsaving hundreds of thousands of his citizens.
Sagan understates the non-proliferation costs of a no-first-use posture. If
allies covered by the US nuclear umbrella saw such a policy shift as a reduction in the value of American protection, they could conclude that theyshould embark in their own nuclear programmes. Sagan is right to mention

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26 | Forumthe fact that there is, for instance, a German constituency in favour of no firstuse. But ask the Japanese how they would interpret an American move tosuch a posture. It remains to be demonstrated that ‘appropriate consultation
with allies’ would be enough to reassure them.
Finally, a no-first-use commitment would be a severe impingement on
what leaders cherish most in time of war: freedom of action to defend theircountry. I personally have little doubt, for instance, that the Chinese leader-

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ship would not feel constrained by its no-first-use doctrine if it believed thatthe first use of nuclear weapons could save them from defeat or destruction.
Sagan claims that when a US president says ‘all options are on the table’,countries like Iran are encouraged to develop nuclear weapons to protect
themselves. There is no evidence that George W. Bush ever envisioned thepossibility of a preventive nuclear strike on Iran or, for that matter, on any
other country.2 (In fact, nothing in official US nuclear-policy statements ofthe past 20 years suggests that this could ever have been the case.3) Again,
if Bush had added something along the lines of ‘however, we have no plan,no intention and no reason to use nuclear weapons preventively’, would
Iranian hardliners have believed him? I am not convinced. But Sagan nevertheless raises a valuable point here. He is absolutely right to say that
nuclear-weapons states need to be careful of how such statements can beinterpreted, not only by potential adversaries, but also by the international
community at large. So there would be some benefits in altering US declaratory policy to make it clearer that nuclear weapons are for deterrence andcould not be used except in extreme circumstances of self-defence, whenvital interests are at stake. Such an alteration would have few costs, if any,because it would not change the doctrine itself.

Notes
1

The nuance is important. Declaratory policies (what states claim theywould do) and action policies (whatstates actually plan to do) may notalways be identical. However, planning for first use would be legally2

forbidden if a US president declareda no-first-use policy.
Again, vocabulary matters. Preemptive use (in case of incontrovertible evidence of an imminent nuclear
attack) would be an act of self-This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 27

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3

defence. Preventive use (a bolt-outof-the-blue nuclear strike) would bea different matter legally, strategically and politically. To the best of myknowledge, no Western country has
included it in its nuclear doctrine;
contrary to what sources quoted by
Sagan claim, there is no evidence
that the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review included this option.
I do not count as ‘evidence’ badly
sourced rumours to the effect thatsome in the Pentagon may have presented nuclear options to deal with
the Iranian problem (see the Seymour
Hersh article quoted by Sagan). This
is not impossible (it is the job of themilitary to present all possible op-

tions) but nothing indicates that there
was ever any political approval ofsuch options. The US Draft Doctrine
for Joint Nuclear Operations (2005)
included ambiguous language regarding the circumstances that could
warrant the use of nuclear weapons,
but that text was never approvedby any military or political authority. Likewise, careless statements by
low-level officials such as the one
made in 1996 by Assistant Secretaryof Defense Harold Smith regarding the possible need for a nuclear
option to destroy a suspected Libyan
chemical-weapons plant cannot countas evidence of a US intention or plan
to use nuclear weapons preventively.

Strategic Hubris
Keith B. Payne
During the Cold War, the arguments for and against a no-first-use declaratory policy were aired periodically and became familiar stuff. In ‘The Case
for No First Use’, Scott Sagan provides a post-Cold War re-examination of
the subject and demonstrates how the traditional arguments have shiftedsomewhat. Ultimately, he provides as strong a case as can be made for
adopting a no-first-use declaratory policy.
A few observations on Sagan’s scene-setting introduction are in order.
Firstly, he states that ‘to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national secu-

Keith B. Payne is President and co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, head of the Graduate
Department of Defense and Strategic Studies of Missouri State University, Washington DC campus, a memberof the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Review of the United States, Policy Panel Chairman of the
US Strategic Command’s Senior Advisory Group, and a member of the Department of State’s International
Security Advisory Board.

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28 | Forumrity strategy’ the 2009 Nuclear Posture Review ‘must abandon’ the threatof nuclear first use. This claim warrants review because it sets up Sagan’s
position in favour of a no-first-use policy as being essential to the goal of
reducing the role of nuclear weapons. It is not.
There are numerous potential avenues for reducing the role of nuclear
weapons. That goal may be advanced by moving where possible to nonnuclear offensive capabilities and active defences for roles traditionally

UNCORRECTED PROOF

assigned to nuclear forces. For example, in the 1980s the United States
moved away from nuclear-armed interceptors for ballistic-missile defence.
In addition, strengthening US and allied non-nuclear capabilities for more
effective forward defence in key regions could help to reduce the salience of
nuclear weapons in US national security strategy. Adjusting US declaratory
policy as recommended by Sagan might help to reduce the role of nuclear
weapons, but it certainly is not necessary for that purpose.
This overstatement could be a trifle, but it is the basis for Sagan’s subsequent critique of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review. He claims that the2001 review contradicted its own reported ambition of reducing reliance on
nuclear weapons because it retained the deterrence threat of nuclear firstuse. If moving away from the first-use threat actually were necessary to
reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, this critique could make sense. But it
is not necessary, and thus this critique does not hold. In fact, the new directions initiated by the 2001 review to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons
were substantial.1
In his opening discussion, Sagan rightly poses the question that must beat the centre of any assessment of nuclear first-use threats: are they necessary to deter non-nuclear attack, including chemical- and biological-weapon
attack? Addressing this query is necessary for an assessment of this declaratory policy because its intended value is in its deterrent effect. Sagan iscorrect in pointing out that deterrence is not the sole issue of importance.
However, if nuclear first-use threats are critical for the deterrence of chemical or biological attack, then the ‘plus’ side of the ledger in their favour issubstantial indeed; if they are unnecessary, then a primary argument in theirfavour is missing and the largely speculative ‘minuses’ Sagan describes at
length may dominate a net assessment.

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 29

Sagan subsequently reaches conclusions as if he has answered this key
question in a manner demonstrating the net benefit of a no-first-use policy.
In fact, after posing the question, Sagan offers no answer beyond his hunchthat ‘US conventional military superiority’ and the residual possibility of US
nuclear escalation even following a no-first-use pledge would be adequate
to deter non-nuclear (for example chemical or biological) attacks. The heartof Sagan’s argument is this claim that US and allied deterrence goals can be

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met with a nuclear no-first-use declaratory policy and that there are various
non-proliferation benefits to be gained by adopting such a policy.
Yet he offers no evidence to demonstrate the veracity of his all-important
proposition about deterrence – no basis for elevating it beyond an apparent
hunch. This is a problem because promises about what willor will not deter, in fact, cannot be more than hunches unlessSaganvalidity of the claim and why it should hold for the future. To
offers norisk understatement, Sagan provides no such demonstration.
Neither Sagan nor anyone else can predict credibly fromanswer‘strategic logic’ whether a presumed US ‘conventional superibeyond hisority’ and the residual fear of nuclear escalation will provide
the deterrent effect necessary to prevent future conventional,
hunchstrengthened by serious analytic effort to demonstrate the pastchemical or biological attacks. Sagan is trapped, as are we all,by the inconvenient truth that on some plausible occasions, US non-nuclear
capabilities may well deter non-nuclear attacks; on other equally plausible
occasions, however, nuclear deterrence may be key. Available historical evidence provides no more certain an answer.
Instead of attempting to demonstrate his key proposition about what
will deter, he presents his hunch and on that basis derives via ‘strategic
logic’ his policy recommendation in favour of no-first-use. Using this sameassertion-based approach, it is relatively easy to offer an alternative hunch
about deterrence that is at least as credible as Sagan’s, but facilitates acompletely different conclusion about nuclear first-use threats. To wit, US
declared nuclear threats will be necessary to deter non-nuclear attacks on
occasion, including chemical or biological attack. Because the consequencesof deterrence failure on those occasions could be extraordinarily grave, theThis is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0039-6338&volume=51&issue=5&spage=1730 | Forumrisks of adopting a nuclear no-first-use declaratory policy may be judged toovershadow the speculative benefits.
We now have two different generic assertions about how deterrence willfunction that can lead via ‘strategic logic’ to very different conclusions abouta no-first-use declaratory policy. Which assertion about the functioning ofdeterrence will actually be correct on any given occasion will be determinedby the many different factors that can shape an opponent’s response to

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deterrence threats, some obvious, others unknown, some that may be influenced, others not.
Sagan’s line of argument fits a decades-long Western tradition: speculation that deterrence will function in a particular fashion is presented as aself-evident truth and on that basis follow policy recommendations. The
problem with this approach is that conclusions drawn from hunches are as
dubious as the hunches from which they are drawn. In this case, the uncertainties inherent in Sagan’s underlying claim about what will deter mustalso beset his derived conclusion about no first use; it is no more credible
than his underlying hunch about deterrence.
A key challenge in an assessment of alternative declaratory policies is tounderstand the potential risks and trade-offs likely involved when the functioning of deterrence is not predictable in detail. Sagan’s assessment sidesteps
this challenge by presuming that the United States can deter non-nuclear
attacks adequately within a no-first-use declaratory policy. In doing so, he
discounts by assertion the potential downside that a no-first-use policy would
undermine deterrence and sets up a near-inevitable conclusion in favour ofsuch a policy. His conclusion follows from presumption, not from analysis.
In contrast to Sagan’s expressed hunch about deterrence, many others
retain confidence in the importance of nuclear deterrence threats to prevent
non-nuclear attacks, particularly including chemical and biological attacks.
France, for example, holds strongly to the view that abandoning the deterrence threat of nuclear escalation would ‘give a green light’ to chemical,
biological and conventional provocations.2 In 2003, India too decided thatfor deterrence purposes it must reserve the option of nuclear first use in
response to chemical or biological attack.3 And, the rigorously bipartisan
US Congressional Strategic Posture Commission (the Perry–Schlesinger

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 31

Commission) rejected a no-first-use policy because it would ‘undermine thepotential contributions of nuclear weapons to the deterrence of attack by biological weapons’ and ‘be unsettling to some U.S. allies’.4 Indeed, during the1996 US Senate hearing on the Chemical Weapons Convention, Secretary of
Defense William Perry stated explicitly that the United States would retain
the option of nuclear response in the event of a chemical attack. So, too, senior
Defense Department officials now in the Obama administration reportedly

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agree that ‘the nation should continue to view nuclear deterrence as broadly
capable of preventing both conventional and unconventional conflict’.5
The fact that many in and outside the United States continue to see considerable merit in nuclear deterrence for the prevention of non-nuclear attacks
suggests the problem with Sagan’s easy assertion that US adoption of a no-firstuse policy would not encourage allies ‘to develop their own nuclear weapons’.
He may be correct, but he offers nothing to demonstrate the point. Instead hecompounds his initial hunch about deterrence with this additional assertion
that US allies would find adequate assurance in a US no-first-use policy. Again,
he side-steps the need to address a possibly significant problem of adopting a
no-first-use declaratory policy by simply asserting that allies would retain necessary confidence in US extended deterrence. Perhaps so, but this is a serious
issue that cannot be dismissed via his preferred ‘strategic logic’.
Sagan has provided the case favouring a no-first-use declaratory policy.
That case, however, is built on a key hunch about deterrence and a related
assertion about allied views, neither of which is self-evidently valid. He doesnothing to demonstrate the veracity of his presumptions and yet claims that‘strategic logic and evidence’ yield his conclusions. In fact, the choice ofdifferent starting points which are at least as credible as those preferred by
Sagan lead near-inexorably to conclusions favourable to existing declaratory policy.

Notes
1

See Keith B. Payne, ‘The Nuclear
Posture Review: Setting the Record
Straight’, Washington Quarterly, vol.
28, no. 3, Summer 2005, pp. 135–51.

2

As stated in the excellent presentation by General Paul Fouilland, commander of French Strategic Air Forcesat United States Strategic Command,

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32 | Forum

3

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4

Deterrence Symposium, Omaha,
Nebraska, 30 July 2009.
Ashok K. Mehta, ‘Nuclear India:
Clear & Credible’, The Pioneer, 15January 2008, available at http://
meaindia.nic.in/.
William J. Perry, James R. Schlesinger
et al., America’s Strategic Posture: The

5

Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of theUnited States (Washington DC: UnitedStates Institute of Peace, 2009), p. 36.
Elaine Grossman, ‘U.S. Defense Official Skeptical of Revising Nuclear
Deterrence Strategy’, Global Security
Newswire, 28 July 2009.

No First Use: An Indian View
K. Subrahmanyam
The policy of ‘no first use’ embodies the doctrine of deterrence in fullmeasure. It is meant to deter a nuclear adversary from initiating a nuclear
strike through the maintenance of a credible and survivable nuclear retaliatory force which can inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor. If theworld ever is to become free of nuclear weapons the first essential step
nuclear-armed nations must take is to adopt the no-first-use policy. No
weapon considered legitimate is ever likely to be eliminated. The goal of a
nuclear-weapons-free world calls for delegitimisation of nuclear weapons
before they can be eliminated, a process that must start with diminishing
their military role. The perception that nuclear weapons are needed to deteran enemy with superior conventional forces or to prevent rogue states considering war as an option is no longer tenable for the United States at a time
Washington claims unrivalled superiority in conventional forces. The more
the role of nuclear weapons is emphasised in the policy documents of theUnited States the greater the incentive for proliferation aspirants to develop
their own nuclear arsenals. The United States led the world in evolving
the current nuclear strategic received wisdom and in the development of
the most powerful and sophisticated nuclear arsenal. Most of the strategic
K. Subrahmanyam is an Indian strategic analyst and journalist. He served as the Director of the Institute for
Defence Studies and Analyses and has held a number of other government positions, including chairman of
the Joint Intelligence Committee.

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 33

thinking in other nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-aspirant states tends tofollow US thought and adapt it to their own situation. So long as the UnitedStates emphasises the role of nuclear weapons in its operational strategies
there is unlikely to be any meaningful advance towards nuclear-weaponfree world.
The non-proliferation approach may help stabilise a non-proliferation
regime but cannot lead to a world without nuclear weapons. The term

UNCORRECTED PROOF‘non-proliferation’ implies acceptance of existing nuclear weapons. The
unconditional and indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty has made the weapon legitimate and assured its indefinite continuance. It is therefore no surprise that President Barack Obama cannot
envisage a world without nuclear weapons in his lifetime and the ‘four wisemen’, George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam Nunn, pursuing disarmament through the arms-control and non-proliferation route,cannot see the top of the mountain – the nuclear-weapon-free world.
Nuclear weapons have never been used against an adversary who
also possessed such weapons. In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan andSoviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev declared in a joint statementthat a nuclear war could not be won. Former US Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara wrote in 2005 that launching a nuclear weapon against a nuclear
adversary would be suicidal.1 He added he had never come across any US
or NATO war plan that concluded that initiating use of nuclear weapons
would yield the United States or NATO any benefit. He further asserted
that his statements to this effect had never been refuted by NATO defence
ministers or senior military leaders, yet it was impossible for any of them,including US presidents, to make such statements publicly because they
were totally contradictory to established NATO policy.
The world has seen any number of commissions on arms control andnon-proliferation. But we are yet to see a commission of former strategicforces commanders discussing whether nuclear weapons could produce
meaningful military results in wars where both sides have such weapons.
Compare the use by both sides of chemical weapons in the First World War.
While they produced 100,000 fatalities and a larger number of injured they
had no decisive military influence on the war. The same result was obtainedThis is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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34 | Forumwhen the Iraqis used chemical weapons during the Iraq–Iran War in the
1980s and the Iranians responded in kind. Because of this experience in theFirst World War, in 1925 five states possessing chemical weapons signed
the Geneva Protocol banning their first use. This norm was breached only
in cases where the aggressor had such weapons and the victim did not, andthe international community chose to look away from such use during the
Italian aggression in Ethiopia in the 1930s or the initial period of Saddam

UNCORRECTED PROOF

Hussein’s invasion of Iran in the 1980s. The norm’s value was proved during
the Second World War. Though more sophisticated and deadlier chemical
weapons had been developed and were available to both combatant sides inenormous quantities they refrained from using them, because of a sense of
mutual deterrence and also the experience in the First World War that thesewere not war-winning weapons. After 68 years of growing accustomed tothis no-first-use convention, the international community finally signed atreaty outlawing the use of chemical weapons in 1993.
Today’s world is globalised. No major power considers any other major
power as an enemy. As then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote
in 2005, ‘for the first time since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 the prospectof violent conflict between great powers is becoming ever more unthinkable. Major states are increasingly competing in peace, not preparing forwar.’2 The present international threats are the failing globalised economy,
terrorism, religious extremism, pandemics, narcotics and organised crime.
The world recently saw a collective international response to the failing
economy and to a pandemic-like swine flu. There is significant international
solidarity in dealing with the threat of transnational terrorism. There areglobalised efforts to meet the challenge of climate change. In the present
and foreseeable international situation it is difficult to formulate a justifiable rationale for the first use of nuclear weapons. Continued insistence onsustaining the policy of first use appears to be a case of an orthodox belief
system triumphing over strategic logic and reason.
There are arguments that the present globalised international systemwith a global balance of power is not very different from Europe at the endof the nineteenth century, and yet the First World War broke out in 1914. It
is now recognised that those who initiated the First and Second World Wars

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 35

did not foresee the nature and duration of those wars or the toll of casualties they would exact. Today there is no justification for ignorance on theconsequences of initiating a war, its human costs and its environmental consequences. As Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate, defeat of armies does notmean peaceful and gainful occupation of territories as was most often thecase up to the Second World War. While there are civil wars in failing states,
insurgencies, terrorist attacks and an occasional war of choice between a

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major power and a medium or small power the probability of a war involving two nuclear-weapon powers is exceedingly small. Those committed
to promoting a nuclear-weapon-free world should therefore devote more
effort to pressing for the adoption of no-first-use policies
by nuclear-weapon states as well as steps to reinforce theIndia adopted
first step in any effort in nuclear threat reduction
no first use as
India adopted its no-first-use policy as a compromise
between its long-time advocacy of nuclear disarma- a compromise
non-proliferation regime. No first use is also the logicalment and the security imperative dictated by having two
nuclear neighbours with which it has long-running disputes and has fought
relatively recent wars, and which between them have an ongoing nuclearproliferation relationship. Initially, in 1999, India’s National Security
Advisory Board recommended an uncaveated no-first-use policy. However,as Sagan points out, the Indian government appears to have been influenced
by US policies and in its statement of 4 January 2003 diluted the policy withthe caveat that in the event of a major attack against India or Indian forces
anywhere by biological or chemical weapons India retains the option ofretaliating with nuclear weapons. The Indian government does, however,remain committed to the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.
India has suggested in the Conference on Disarmament a seven-stepplan to reach a nuclear-weapon-free world following the no-first-use pathon the model of elimination of chemical weapons. The first step would be
the reaffirmation by all nuclear-weapon states of their unequivocal commitment to the goal of complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. The
second step would be to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in the security doctrines of the nuclear-weapon powers, particularly through efforts

This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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36 | Forumto incorporate no first use into their national policies. This would be followed by nuclear-weapon powers taking steps to reduce nuclear risks.
Simultaneously, there should be negotiations among the nuclear-armed
states for a global agreement on no first use. Parallel negotiations should belaunched among nuclear-weapon states for a global agreement on non-use
of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

UNCORRECTED PROOF

Notes
1

2

Robert McNamara, ‘Apocalypse
Soon’, Foreign Policy, no. 148, May–
June 2005, pp. 28–35.
Condoleezza Rice, ‘The Promise of

Democratic Peace: Why Promoting
Freedom Is the Only Realistic Path toSecurity’, Washington Post, 11 December 2005.

Reply: Evidence, Logic and Nuclear Doctrine
Scott D. Sagan
The central purpose of my article in Survival was to spark a serious international debate about how best to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US
national-security strategy and that of other nations. Adoption of a nuclear
no-first-use doctrine by the Obama administration would, I argued, be moreconsistent with the long-term goal of global nuclear disarmament than was
the Bush administration’s nuclear doctrine, would better contribute to US
nuclear non-proliferation objectives, and would promote a more tailoredand credible form of extended nuclear deterrence to key US friends andallies. I am pleased that Survival has initiated this exchange with a groupof four eminent strategic experts from the United States, India and France.
I hope that this exchange inspires additional debate among experts fromother nuclear-weapons states and alliance partners.

Scott D. Sagan is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Co-Director of Stanford’s Center forInternational Security and Cooperation.

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 37

Halperin’s hopes
Morton Halperin is one of the intellectual godfathers of nuclear strategy
and arms control and, as he reminds us, wrote an important paper in 1961
– ‘A Proposal for a Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons’ – arguing that theUnited States should adopt a no-first-use policy.1 Halperin’s Cold War-era
paper argued for ‘a formal treaty’ on no first use with the Soviet Unionand contained (for perfectly understandable reasons, given when it was

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written) no discussion of nuclear terrorism, the influence of US doctrine on
the doctrines of new nuclear powers, or the contribution of a no-first-use
policy to the goal of nuclear disarmament. (The early arms-control writers,
we should recall, explicitly conceived of arms control as a different, andmore practical, enterprise than disarmament.) Halperin’s early article on
no first use did contain two key insights that remain deeply relevant totoday’s debate. Firstly, the piece contributed to deterrence theory by notingthat threats that are more likely to be implemented can be more effective
deterrents than more potent, but less credible, threats that might appear
as bluffs: ‘It seems likely’, Halperin wrote, ‘that the threat to use nuclear
weapons may decrease the deterrent threat, and a threat to intervene conventionally (since, as was argued, it can be made more credible) is more
likely to deter overt Communist aggression.’2 Secondly, Halperin argued
that ‘the real worth of an agreement to ban the use of nuclear weapons
would depend to a very great extent on the nature of arms control measuresand unilateral steps taken concurrently with it’. He presented a pioneering argument, anticipating Article I of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for a
Soviet–American ‘agreement not to share fissionable material or nuclear
know-how with other countries’, and, anticipating NATO’s flexibleresponse doctrine, advocated the ‘strengthening of American and allied
conventional forces’.
Halperin personally witnessed the depth of opposition to the idea of nofirst use during his stints in the Pentagon, the State Department, the National
Security Council staff, and recently as a commissioner on the Congressional
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. I am pleased hebelieves that I have made a ‘persuasive case for no first use’ and note that
our only major disagreements are about the timing of efforts to change US

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38 | Forum

nuclear doctrine. Although I agree that getting a follow-on START agreement and ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty should be the
Obama administration’s top arms-control priorities, I believe that the time
to consult with our allies and propose movement toward a US no-first-use
doctrine should come sooner than he thinks, and need not wait until thosepriority arms-control achievements are reached.
Halperin’s preferred doctrinal statement (‘The United States maintains

UNCORRECTED PROOF

nuclear weapons to deter and, if necessary, respond to nuclear attacks
against ourselves, our forces, or our friends and allies’) is virtually identical to the nuclear-posture declaration I proposed in my article: ‘the roleof US nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear-weapons use by other nuclearweapons states against the United States, our allies, and our armed forces,
and to be able respond, with an appropriate range of second-strike nuclearretaliation options, if necessary, in the event that deterrence fails’. I fully
agree with Halperin’s admonition that, when making such a declaratory
policy statement, administration officials should refrain from discussing
detailed military scenarios and avoid identifying individual countries ofconcern. Yet I also believe that the president could usefully supplement
any new declaration about the reduced role for US nuclear weapons withthe following simple and direct statement enhancing conventional deterrence of chemical or biological attacks: ‘The United States does not need touse its nuclear arsenal to punish any enemy who uses chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies. Our conventional weapons response
would be certain, swift, and effective.’

The problems with Payne
Keith Payne vigorously disagrees with this policy recommendation. Payne
was a key author of the Bush administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review
and it is not surprising that he presents a strong defence of the Bush nuclear
doctrine, which I criticised for leading to an expansion of the roles andmissions of US nuclear weapons. His critique of my argument, however,contains more vigour than rigour. He repeatedly claims that my arguments
are mere ‘hunches’ and states that it is relatively easy to offer equally credible alternatives. However, both the logic and historical evidence Payne hasThis is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 39

used to support his advocacy of using US nuclear threats to deter chemicaland biological attacks are deeply flawed.
Firstly, Payne has repeatedly defended his position by maintaining that
Saddam Hussein was deterred from using chemical and biological weapons
during the Gulf War in 1991. The war ‘appears to offer evidence that nuclear
deterrence, on occasion, can be uniquely effective’, he writes. ‘These threats
appear to be a plausible explanation for Iraqi restraint with regard to chemi-

UNCORRECTED PROOF

cal and biological weapons … According to accounts by Tariq Aziz, General
Hussein Kamal, and General Wafic Al Samari, the Iraqi leadership believedthat the United States would have retaliated with nuclear weapons – andthe expectations appear to have deterred.’3
The currently available evidence, however, suggests that Payne’s crucial
Gulf War test-case for the success of the US ‘calculated ambiguity’ nuclear
doctrine is more myth than reality. Consider the actual deterrent threat thatPresident George H.W. Bush issued in his 25 January 1991 letter to Saddam
Hussein:
Should war come it will be a far greater tragedy for you and your country.
Let me state, too, that the United States will not tolerate the use of chemical
or biological weapons or the destruction of Kuwait’s oil fields andinstallations. Further, you will be held directly responsible for terrorist
actions against any member of the coalition. The American people would
demand the strongest possible response. You and your country will pay aterrible price if you order unconscionable acts of this sort.4

In the January 1991 meeting at which Secretary of State James Baker gaveBush’s letter to Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz, Baker, according to his memoirs,‘purposely left the impression that the use of chemical or biological agentsby Iraq could invite tactical nuclear retaliation’, but he also warned Aziz thatthat if Iraq used weapons of mass destruction, ‘our objective won’t just be theliberation of Kuwait, but the elimination of the current Iraqi regime’.5 Twoof the three actions (supporting terrorist attacks and burning the Kuwaiti oilfields) Bush said the United States would ‘not tolerate’ were taken by Iraq
during the last days of the Gulf War. So by what logic does the Iraqi non-use

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40 | Forumof chemical weapons in 1991 prove that the G.H.W. Bush administration’s
ambiguous nuclear threats deterred Saddam Hussein?
Payne cites claims of one senior Iraqi diplomat and two generals about
the importance of US nuclear threats. But we now have Saddam Hussein’s
own crucial testimony from his 2004 interrogations by US forces, whichstrongly suggests that he decided not to use his chemical arsenal in 1991
not because of any vague nuclear threats issued by President G.H.W. BushUNCORRECTED PROOF

or Secretary of State James Baker, but rather because the United States did
not march to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam’s regime. According to the
11 March 2004 interrogation records, Saddam stated, when asked directly
about Baker’s ambiguous 1991 threats: ‘The use of chemical weapons did
not “cross our mind.”’ He asked how Iraq would have been described if it
had used chemical weapons: ‘We would have been called
stupid’.6 In a 13 May 2004 interrogation, Saddam added

We now have that ‘WMD was for the defense of Iraq’s sovereignty. Iraq
demonstrated this with the use of WMD during the Iraq
Saddamand Iran War, as Iran had threatened the sovereignty of
Iraq. Yet, Iraq did not use WMD during the 1991 Gulf
Hussein’s
War as its sovereignty was not threatened.’ Additionalown crucial evidence
suggests that Saddam may have also reserved
his small arsenal of chemical weapons in 1991 for retalitestimony
7

ation and retribution in the event that the United Statesor Israel used nuclear weapons first.8 In short, it appears highly unlikelythat US leaders’ hints about possible nuclear retaliation were what stopped
Saddam Hussein from using his chemical and biological weapons in 1991.
Why did some Iraqi government officials later claim otherwise? The most
likely explanation was given by an Arab diplomat in 1995: ‘The regime had
to explain to its military commanders why it was pulling back from thebrink, so it looked a lot better to say that it was sparing the Iraqi people
from nuclear holocaust than to admit that the leaders were worried about
their own skins’.9
Payne’s advocacy of continued US nuclear threats to deter chemical andbiological attacks also fails to take into account the fact that Brent Scowcroft,
G.H.W. Bush’s national security adviser, has acknowledged that the presi-

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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 41

dent had already decided not to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for
an Iraqi chemical or biological attack in 1991. Reflecting on the crucial 31
January meeting at the White House, Scowcroft later wrote:
What if Iraq used chemical weapons? ... If Iraq resorted to them, we would
say our reaction would depend on circumstances and that we would
hold Iraqi divisional commanders responsible and bring them to justice

UNCORRECTED PROOF

for war crimes. No one advanced the notion of using nuclear weapons,
and the President rejected it even in retaliation for chemical or biologicalattacks. We deliberately avoided spoken or unspoken threats to use themon the grounds that it is bad practice to threaten something you have nointention of carrying out. Publicly, we left the matter ambiguous. There
was no point in undermining the deterrence it might be offering.10

This admission is of more than historical interest, for it could further
reduce the credibility and potential deterrent effectiveness of future ‘calculated ambiguity’ nuclear threats.
The only other evidence Payne cites to support his claims about the‘occasional necessity’ of US nuclear threats to deter chemical and biological attacks is that the French government, the Indian government andthe 2009 US Congressional Strategic Posture Commission (on which heserved) all remain confident that nuclear threats remain important to deter
non-nuclear attacks. Here he is arguing through borrowed authority, notthe strength of logic or evidence. Moreover, as I mentioned in my article(and K. Subrahmanyam confirms in his contribution to this exchange) the
Hindu nationalist BJP government in India in 2003 was influenced by US
nuclear policy to change India’s nuclear doctrine and weaken its traditional strict no-first-use doctrine. For Payne to cite New Delhi’s 2003 policy
shift as evidence of the need to continue US nuclear-first-use threats is aform of circular logic and copycat behaviour: Indian hawks in 2003 citedthe George W. Bush administration’s nuclear doctrine as justification for
their preferred nuclear doctrine; now a leading American hawk is citing
the BJP’s nuclear doctrine as evidence of the need to maintain US nuclearfirst-use options.

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42 | ForumThe trouble with Tertrais
Bruno Tertrais agrees that nuclear-weapons states need to be careful about
how statements of nuclear doctrine are interpreted, and says that there
would be benefit in a US declaration that nuclear weapons are for deterrence
and would only be used in extreme circumstances, when vital interests wereat stake. But I am perplexed by four of Tertrais’s arguments.
Firstly, he maintains that the costs of adopting his preferred declaratory
policy are minimal because the United States already has a nuclear doctrinethat reflects such a limited deterrence mission for potential use only ‘whenvital interests are at stake’. Here I think Tertrais is simply wrong. Thereis considerable evidence, from declassified US Strategic Command documents, that the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and subsequent White House
guidance – National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD)-14 signed byPresident G.W. Bush on 28 June 2002 – led to the creation of new nuclear
strike options against states such as North Korea, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Syria
which had chemical-weapons programmes and were suspected of harbouring nuclear-weapons ambitions.11 I certainly hope that top-level US civilian
leaders had no ‘intention’ (to use Tertrais’s term) to use nuclear weapons todestroy suspected chemical-weapons plants in Libya in the 1990s, or against
suspected Iranian nuclear-weapons facilities when G.W. Bush administration officials repeatedly proclaimed that ‘all options are on the table’. But
Tertrais is overstating the case when he suggests that the United States
already has a limited ‘deterrence only’ doctrine and questions whether it
has plans to use nuclear weapons preventively.
Secondly, Tertrais believes I underestimate the non-proliferation costs ofa no-first-use posture among US allies. Although he acknowledges that there
is a German constituency in favour of the posture, he questions rhetorically
how the Japanese would react. Actually, there is a considerable Japaneseconstituency in favour of the US adopting a no-first-use policy and limiting the role of US nuclear forces to deterrence of nuclear threats to Japan.
Indeed, after Tertrais wrote his critique, the Japanese elections brought topower the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had declared
during the election campaign that it was open to discussing with Washington
a move toward a no-first-use doctrine as ‘a means of aiming for a world freeThis is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 43of the threat or use of nuclear weapons’.12 DPJ Secretary-General Katsuya
Okada, a senior foreign-policy leader in the party, declared that ‘even if the
US makes a “no first use” declaration, it does not mean that Japan will beplaced outside the scope of the nuclear umbrella’.13
Thirdly, Tertrais echoes, and then compounds, Payne’s faulty historicalanalysis of the value of nuclear weapons to deter chemical- or biologicalweapons use. He too cites Saddam Hussein’s failure to use them against

UNCORRECTED PROOF

the US-led coalition in 1991, and adds that Egypt usedchemical weapons against Yemen in the 1960s but not

1967 hardly
1967 had no knowledge that Israel had enough nuclear
counts as amaterial and know-how to construct a primitive atomic
bomb; indeed, instead of being deterred by Israel, Egypt case of nucleartargeted the Dimona reactor in an effort to prevent Israel
deterrence
from eventually getting nuclear weapons. So 1967
hardly counts as a case of nuclear-deterrence success. In
success
against Israel in 1967 or 1973. But Egyptian leaders in

14

1973, Anwar Sadat did assume that Israel had nuclear
weapons, but the fact that Egypt attacked anyway, albeit without using its
small chemical arsenal, should temper Tertrais’s confidence in and enthusiasm for nuclear deterrence in the Middle East.
Finally, Tertrais claims – in a thoroughly realist manner – that I exaggerate the extent to which US nuclear doctrine influences the doctrines ofother nuclear-weapons states, arguing that nuclear doctrines are driven by
security interests and capabilities. But this is an assertion, not a fact. My
reading of the evolution of many countries’ nuclear doctrines suggests,
on the contrary, that their civilian leaders and military organisations often
mimic the doctrines of other states they believe to be more modern andeffective, regardless of whether the specific weaponry or doctrine in question is actually necessary in their nation’s strategic situation.15

Support from Subrahmanyam
K. Subrahmanyam’s essay is an excellent counter to Tertrais’s position on
the sources of nuclear doctrine. Subrahmanyam is the dean of Indian nuclear
strategy and was appointed chairman of the National Security Advisory

This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
pp. 17-46. The published version is available for subscribers or pay-per-view by clicking here or visiting
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44 | Forum

Board soon after the Indian nuclear tests in 1974. American officials should
therefore pay special attention when he writes that new nuclear-weapons
or nuclear-aspirant states tend to follow and adapt US thought in their own
strategic thinking.
I do not agree with all Subrahmanyam’s arguments about nuclear strategy, arms control and disarmament. His criticism that the Non-Proliferation
Treaty has made nuclear weapons legitimate and ensures their indefinite

UNCORRECTED PROOF

continuance, for example, does not adequately take into account the positive side of the ledger, including the Article VI commitments to work ingood faith for eventual nuclear disarmament. And I fail to see why it is necessary to start negotiations among all nuclear-weapons states on a formal
agreement on the non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapons
states. The United States, Russia, France, the UK and China have already, atpast NPT Review Conferences, pledged not to use nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear weapons states (though, as Halperin notes, Washington could
strengthen that pledge by eliminating the so-called Warsaw Pact exception which it insisted on having during the Cold War). Rather than starting
multilateral negotiations, India could simply join others in issuing new
and clear negative security assurances to all non-nuclear states around theworld.
***

I ended my earlier essay by arguing that ‘a more thorough and broader
analysis within the US government of no-first-use policy is well overdue’. I
would amend that now to include other governments, in nuclear-weapons
states and in non-nuclear-weapons states. I thank the IISS for jump-starting
the debate with these four international commentaries on no first use, andhope this is the start of a more serious and widespread global discussion
about how best to reduce the role of nuclear weapons as a major step forward
on the pathway towards the long-term goal of nuclear disarmament.

This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
pp. 17-46. The published version is available for subscribers or pay-per-view by clicking here or visiting
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The Case for No First Use: An Exchange | 45

Notes
1

2

UNCORRECTED PROOF

3

4

5

6

7

Morton H. Halperin, ‘A Proposal for a
Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons’,
6 October 1961, http://www.
armscontrolwonk.com/file_download/190/Halperin.pdf.
Ibid., p. 10.
Keith B. Payne, The Great American
Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practicefrom the Cold War to the TwentyFirst Century (Fairfax, VA: National
Institute Press, 2008), pp. 414–16(emphasis original). See also Keith B.
Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear
Age (Lexington, KY: University of
Kentucky Press, 1996), pp. 81–7. For
additional analyses of the 1991 casesee William M. Arkin, ‘Calculated
Ambiguity: Nuclear Weapons in the
Gulf War’, Washington Quarterly, vol.
19, no. 4, Autumn 1996, pp. 3–18, andScott D. Sagan, ‘The Commitment
Trap’, International Security, vol. 24,
no. 4, Spring 2000, pp. 85–115.
George H.W. Bush, All the Best,
George Bush: My Life in Letters andOther Writings (New York: Simon andSchuster, 2000), p. 500.
James A. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy(New York: Putnam, 1995), p. 359.
‘Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI:
Twenty Interviews and Five
Conversations with “High Value
Detainee # 1” in 2004’, Interview Session
13, 11 March 2004, National Security
Archive, George Washington University,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/index.htm.
‘Saddam Hussein Talks to the
FBI: Twenty Interviews and Five
Conversations with “High Value
Detainee # 1” in 2004’, Casual

8

9

10

11

12

Conversation, 13 May 2004, National
Security Archives, George Washington
University, http://www.gwu.
edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/
index.htm.
See the discussion of Iraqi threats
to use their chemical and biologicalweapons in response to a US or Israeli
nuclear strike in Timothy V. McCarthy
and Jonathan B. Tucker, ‘Saddam’s
Toxic Arsenal’, in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott
D. Sagan and James J. Wirtz (eds),
Planning the Unthinkable: How New
Powers will Use Nuclear, Biological, andChemical Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2000), pp. 47–78.
Unnamed Arab diplomat quoted in
Joseph Fitchett, ‘Threat of Annihilation
Deterred Iraq, They Say’, New YorkTimes, 12 September 1995.
George W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft,
A World Transformed (New York:
Knopf, 1998), p. 463.
See Hans M. Kristensen, ‘WhiteHouse Guidance Led to New Nuclear
Strike Plans Against Proliferators,
Document Shows’, Strategic Security
Blog, Federation of American
Scientists, 5 November 2007, http://
www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/11/
white_house_guidance_led_to_ne.php.
See Shingo Fukuyama and Hiromichi
Umebayashi, ‘Japan Ready for “No
Nukes”’, Japan Times, 25 August 2009,http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgibin/eo20090825a1.html; and ‘Policy
Questionnaire Concerning the Nuclear
Umbrella’ at http://icnndngojapan.
files.wordpress.com/2009/09/
nukeumbrella questionnaire4aug09e.
pdf.

This is a non-printing proof of an article published in Survival, vol. 51, no. 5 (October-November 2009),
pp. 17-46. The published version is available for subscribers or pay-per-view by clicking here or visiting
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46 | Forum

13

UNCORRECTED PROOF

14

Interview with Katsuya Okada, ‘Japan
Must Formulate Security Policy inContext of Relations with Asia’, Sekai,
July 2009.
Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (NewYork: Columbia University Press,
1998), pp. 259–76.

15

For more discussion and evidence
see Scott D. Sagan, ‘The Evolutionof Pakistani and Indian Nuclear
Doctrine’, in Scott D. Sagan (ed.),Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2009),
pp. 219–63.