Senator Warren Carelessly Drops a (No First Use) Bomb
From August 5, 2019
Very early in the Republican debates four years ago, Candidate Trump clearly signaled his ignorance regarding nuclear weapons and US policy by bumbling a question about his stance on the nuclear “Triad.” In his defense, he was asked the question and it isn’t surprising in the least that a New York property developer and reality TV star wouldn’t be familiar with the concept. On the other hand, no one made him run for president…
Now, the Democrats are going though the same silly ritual, and Senator Elizabeth Warren has made it equally clear that she does not deserve to be trusted with paramount issues of national defense. Of course, I refer to her promise to change US nuclear policy to one of “No First Use.” The only distinction I will draw between her statements and Candidate Trump’s is that she volunteered her statements, as opposed to Trump speaking off the cuff.
Simply put, a nation pledged to a “No First Use” (NFU) policy promises not to use nuclear weapons against another nation unless that other nation has already used them in that conflict. NFU is the stated policy of only two current nuclear powers — China and India. It was also the stated policy, at least for a time, of the Soviet Union. The release of the Soviet archives shows that this was, in fact, a lie — the Kremlin planned to use nuclear weapons in the event of a general war in Europe. Given my distrust of totalitarian, putativly communist regimes, I suspect that China’s statements are equally disingenuous.
The alternative policy, and that currently maintained by all other declared nuclear powers (including the Unites States) is that these weapons would be employed only as a defensive measure, but not necessarily in response only to another nuclear attack. In other words, if the chips are down and the balloon goes up, all bets are off.
This has been American policy, more or less, since the Kennedy Administration. (Eisenhower employed the “New Look” policy which basically promised to bomb the hell out of an enemy in response to any attack. As excessive as that seems to readers today, it made more sense in an era where the expense of a conventional arms race was prohibitive and nuclear arsenals were both smaller and limited to delivery by bomber.) It survived the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam Era, detente, Reagan and the end of the USSR. It has been applied to all potential aggressors, implicitly and explicitly, including the Soviets, the PRC, Iraq, North Korea and everyone else.
Given that this has been the policy of the United States (and most everyone else) for over half-a-century, there would seem to be sufficient evidence to determine its efficacy. This reservation of the option to answer any attack with a nuclear response, which I’ll call Flexible Response (an imprecise term that was first set forth in 1960’s but still, technically, the US position), has coincided with a era of peace, most notably between the Great Powers. Its proponents argue that it creates sufficient uncertainty (a low bar, when the risk is a nuclear exchange) in mind of potential aggressors to effectively deter any significant aggression.
Those who support adopting a NFU policy could argue that this is a specious argument. They would say that the simple existence of nuclear weapons is a deterrent, regardless of the stated policy of the nation in question. That, perhaps, is true. It is certainly logical.
However, there are several inherent flaws with adopting a NFU policy. Each alone should be sufficient to dissuade any administration from changing policies.
NFU Encourages Aggression. If a potential aggressor believes that the United States will not respond to any attack with nuclear weapons, the deterrent uncertainty of action is simplified. A nation that possesses local conventional superiority, Russia or China or North Korea for example, can envision scenarios where the incentives to use force are dramatically increased. If, on the other hand, aggressors do not believe US NFU promises, then we are still operating under the rules of Flexible Response.
Our Allies Rely on the Threat of US First Use. NATO, historically, is a stronger supporter of flexible response than the US. Within the Alliance, it is unquestioned that the threat of US nuclear strikes to blunt the massive Soviet conventional advantage maintained the Cold War peace. This is also attitude of our Asian allies, where the need for nuclear deterrence is still very real. Major wars over Taiwan or the Korean peninsula have been avoided only due to the uncertainty of the American response.
There is No Realistic Deterrent Option. Protecting our allies, as we are obligated to do under numerous treaties, in a NFU world is an unrealistic pipe dream. Such protection would, obviously, have to be guaranteed by conventional forces. We do not at present have sufficient forces to perform those duties, nor are we likely to spend the money that would be required to do so. Like it or not, the V Corps is not going to reconstituted, nor would it be sufficient if it were.
We Need to Deter Other WMD Threats. There are more nations that posses chemical and biological weapons programs than nuclear ones. These threats are, in their own ways, more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Chemical weapons have been used with unfortunate regularity. A credible biological program is frighteningly easy to achieve, with horrific potential. The US does not need to have an CBW stockpile because we have made it clear in the past that we do not distinguish between which type of WMD is employed; we reserve the option to respond with nuclear weapons. Will that be the case under a policy of NFU?
NFU is Simply Not Credible. Does anyone, especially anyone is Moscow, Beijing or Tehran, seriously believe that the United States would not resort to nuclear weapons if the stakes were high enough? Even if you don’t believe that we’d “trade Boston for Berlin,” would we allow our national survival to be put at risk and NOT use all the means at our disposal to defend ourselves? Would we want to elect a President who wouldn’t?
There could be a final bullet point there, but I’ll make it here instead. Placating the wingnuts of your party by promising not to use nuclear weapons (because that’s what they heard) is bad politics. If Warren actually believes what she said about NFU in the Detroit debate, she is unqualified to be President. If she doesn’t actually mean it and was simply fishing for votes, it probably disqualifies her on other grounds. It is no different than Trump’s comments 2016 that called into question his commitment to our NATO Article V commitments and those similar guarantees to our Asian allies. Those were equally dangerous and, in my mind, contributed to his unfitness for office.
And why did Warren even raise this as an issue? Are there elements of the Democratic electorate clamoring to revisit our strategic postures? It seems to be an issue, like the nuclear freeze or school busing, that has been dragged out of the closet where it has sat since 1984, or earlier. Was Warren a unilateralism back in the day? Where did she stand on the MX Peacekeeper and Pershing II? I mean, if we’re going back to that era….
Our current nuclear policy has helped keep the peace and prevent catastrophic exchanges since the 1946. Even if that assertion is wrong, or overstates the case, at the very least it must be acknowledged that our policy did not precipitate the use of nuclear weapons by any nation, let alone Armageddon. Adopting a No First Policy puts all of that at risk for no real benefit. And when the existence of humanity is at stake, that risk is simply too great.