A "No-First-Use" Doctrine Would Undermine American Nuclear Deterrence

Given the widespread relief accompanying Joe Biden’s transition to the White House, it seems churlish to start picking apart his policy agenda. Yet, there are grounds for concern about how the incoming administration will reshape U.S. nuclear weapons policy over the next four years.

No-First-Use is a declaratory pledge not to initiate the employment of nuclear weapons in a conflict, and limits the role of nuclear weapons to countering the adversary’s use of nuclear weapons. The Obama administration came close to endorsing it on two separate occasions – during the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, and in 2016 as part of a subsequent review of U.S. nuclear policy. Despite that Barack Obama ultimately rejecting this shift in U.S. nuclear policy, then Vice President Biden remained sympathetic to a No-First-Use commitment.

No Australian government should be comfortable with a generic U.S. No-First-Use commitment.

Why should this be a concern for U.S. allies? Surely anything that lessens the salience of nuclear weapons is positive for international security? Proponents of No-First-Use make two principal claims: that it would lower the threat of nuclear war by encouraging other nuclear-armed states to follow suit; and that it would enhance the prospects for non-proliferation and ultimately disarmament by devaluing the currency of nuclear weapons.

Neither of these claims stands up to scrutiny. There is no historical evidence that U.S. restraint has been reciprocated by other nuclear powers. The handful of low-yield warheads now on U.S. submarines exist because Russia is already using its large arsenal of theatre nuclear weapons to pressure the NATO alliance, not the other way around.  China and North Korea would dismiss any U.S. initiative as insincere, mindful of their own dubious No-First-Use declarations. And France and Britain specifically reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first even if their respective homelands or forces are not subjected to nuclear attack.

On the proliferation issue, with the exception of India, every new nuclear power since the 1970s has been motivated by the desire to acquire a nuclear “equaliser” against adversaries with superior conventional capabilities. Indeed, this logic is central to grasping the motives of North Korea, the single most vexing proliferation case the world currently confronts. The bottom line is that U.S. nuclear policy will continue to have zero impact on the actions of nuclear wannabees.

Restoration works for hydroacoustic station HA03 at Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile, part of the network for monitoring nuclear explosions around the globe managed by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO/Flickr)

But the most disconcerting aspect of a U.S. No-First-Use commitment is that it would raise serious questions about the credibility of U.S. alliances. America’s allies want to lower the risks of nuclear war, but they do not want this to occur at the expense of their own security. If the Biden Administration adopts No-First-Use, it is effectively stating that U.S. security guarantees will not include the U.S.’s most powerful weapons, unless allies are first attacked with nuclear weapons. This is cold comfort for countries like Japan, Taiwan, and Australia all of which would have to contend with superior PLA conventional forces in the event of hostilities with China. While this does not mean that U.S. alliances would become redundant, with the adoption of No-First-Use they would cease to provide the existential guarantee that allies have come to expect.  When doubts have arisen about U.S. commitments in the past, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and even Australia have toyed with their own nuclear weapons programs. There is no reason to assume they will not do so again.

It is clearly in the interests of the U.S. and its close allies to keep Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang guessing about the precise threshold at which the U.S. would consider using nuclear weapons. Calculated ambiguity is smart policy, because the more certainty adversaries have about the threshold at which certain levels of force are used, the more confident they will feel about retaining the initiative below that threshold. Does anyone seriously believe that Beijing will be any more restrained during a crisis if it is assured the U.S. won't resort to nuclear weapons unless China carries out a nuclear strike first?

Australia has an obvious stake in all of this. Although Australian governments since the early 1990s have affirmed that we would only look to the U.S. employing nuclear weapons in our defence if we were threatened by nuclear weapons, no Australian government should be comfortable with a generic U.S. No-First-Use commitment. Indeed, Australia’s hopes for the new administration rest, in large part, on an end to unilateral decisions in Washington that affect allies’ security.

The good news is that past U.S. nuclear policy debates have shown that America’s allies have meaningful influence on U.S. policy. Resistance from Asian and European allies was crucial in stymying the last major push for No-First-Use in 2016. It’s time that Australia started to discreetly build a coalition among like-minded U.S. allies and opponents of No-First-Use in Washington, to ensure that this next push doesn’t gain further traction and threaten another crisis of confidence in U.S. alliances.

Andrew O'Neil is Professor of Political Science and Dean (Research) in the Business School at Griffith University. Andrew’s research expertise focuses on the intersection of strategic, political, and economic change with particular emphasis on security and international relations. He is co-author (with Stephan Fruhling) of Partners in Deterrence: U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Alliances in Europe and Asia, forthcoming in 2021 with Manchester University Press. Before taking up his first academic post in 2000, Andrew worked as an intelligence analyst in the Australian government.

Stephan Frühling was the Fulbright Professional Fellow in Australia-U.S. Alliance Studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC in 2017. He worked as a “Partner across the globe” research fellow in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College in Rome in 2015, and was a member of the Australian Government’s External Panel of Experts on the development of the 2016 Defence White Paper.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.