No First Use
A small step toward nuclear weapons sanity
Some weapons are so terrible that no civilized nation would use them, and good people everywhere, regardless of their moral philosophy or religion, condemn them. Chemical weapons, for example. When used by Saddam Hussein against Iran, or by Bashir al Assad against the Syrian people, the world responded with outrage [1]. In fact, all nine of the current nuclear weapons states are among the 193 signatories to the UN Chemical Weapons Convention. The same is almost true of biological weapons: of the 189 signatories to the UN Biological Weapons convention, Israel and North Korea are among the handful of non-signatories.
As terrible as chemical and biological weapons are, it is difficult to imagine circumstances under which their use would lead to the destruction of all life on the planet, as would an all out nuclear war involving the United States, Russian Federation and/or the People’s Republic of China. The two main drivers of risk are: Launch on Warning (LoW) doctrine, leading to an unacceptably high risk of launching a massive attack in response to a false alarm; and a First Use policy. One would think that there would be a concerted effort, especially among the three, to at very least minimize the probability of a nuclear war. But that is demonstrably not the case, and, for the record, the US appears to be the worst in that regard. [2]
To understand why there is even such a thing as a nuclear weapons First Use policy, we need to recall a bit of history. At the end of World War 2, the Soviet Army was at peak strength, and occupied the eastern part of Europe, while the Axis armies were in ruins and the Allied European armies, like their nations, were exhausted. In the aftermath it became clear that the Soviets had no intention of ending their occupation, and there arose great fear in the west that they might be poised to attack and occupy the rest of Europe. The only thing thought to be standing in their way was the US, with its nuclear weapons. Thus as western Europe rebuilt and rearmed, the US provided a deterrence to the perceived threat with its nuclear arsenal. First Use was by definition the nuclear weapons employment doctrine when there was but one nuclear-armed nation. With time, the NATO alliance built a credible conventional force, the Soviet Union and others acquired nuclear weapons, and the concept of strategic nuclear warfare emerged along with the buildup of ever greater nuclear arsenals, with more powerful weapons and increasingly diverse, long ranged and capable delivery systems. Yet despite all the changes, the doctrine of First Use remains essentially unchanged.
Despite claims to the contrary, the original rationale for First Use, preventing the Russians from overrunning western Europe, is invalid. Even discounting the fact that NATO achieved conventional weapons parity with the Soviet Union and has maintained it against the Russian Federation, the ongoing war in Ukraine should be sufficient to demonstrate that nuclear weapons will not be needed to crush the Russians were they to attack NATO. Moreover the US military budget has exceeded those of all its enemies and major allies combined every year for decades. How could it be that we are nonetheless unable to defeat them without resorting to nuclear weapons?
It is tempting to brush over the possibility of using First Use to start an all-out nuclear war by claiming that it is only intended to deal with the employment of limited numbers of “tactical” nuclear weapons on the battlefield, but “The Trump Administration, in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Report, also rejected the idea that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack, and, therefore, also did not adopt a “no first use” policy.” [3] For example, in 2018 Trump did not rule out First Use in response to a cyberattack [4]. Though not explicitly stated in these words, the US position is that it reserves the option to employ nuclear weapons in whatever number it sees fit and for any reason. Restraint is merely an option.
Even if the policy was restricted to allowing First Use of only very low yield (no more that a few kilotons) weapons solely against enemy combatants in a battlefield situation, it would be exceedingly dangerous, because the consequences are unknown and beyond the control of the first user. The adversary may well respond in kind, escalating the conflict and potentially leading to an all-out nuclear war.
It has been proposed that a No First Use treaty, signed by the major nuclear powers, would be a useful first step in fulfilling their unaddressed obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to undertake a process of nuclear arms reductions leading to eventual nuclear disarmament. [5]. Unfortunately the just completed 11th NPT Review Conference failed again to make any progress on this issue.
In an effort to be brief, I have not discussed the full range of arguments for First Use along with their refutations. Rather, I include a list of the remaining items from Holdren [6] as follows:
With respect to the benefits of not seeking to make US first use credible;
Against the argument that allies will oppose no first use;
Against the argument that US conventional superiority is not guaranteed;
Against the argument that “first use if necessary” is needed to deter, defeat, or retaliate against chemical or biological weapons use;
Against the argument that NATO shouldn’t change a “winning game”; and
Against the argument that, outside the peace movement and countries that don’t matter, no one would give the United States any credit for a no first-use declaration
The attentive reader may notice that no argument has been made here that No First Use is a policy that should be adopted based on moral and ethical principles, and that nuclear warfare in general and First Use in particular should be punished as war crimes, crimes against humanity and nature. While it is clear that in the present context nuclear weapons use is immoral, unethical and illegal, arguments based on such principles have been shown to fall on deaf ears. It may be more effective to base calls for No First Use on practicality or enlightened self interest.
I promised to constantly remind my readership of the need for everyone who believes in freedom and democracy to behave in accordance with those beliefs, every day. To remind ourselves of what that means, see
Notes
[1] Sadly, the allies of the perpetrators look the other way, as did the Russians in Syria, and as the US did when our then ally Iraq attacked Iran.
[2] Of the three principal nuclear states, only China has pledged No First Use, and (at the moment) only the US employs the LoW doctrine. Russia’s policy on First Use is unclear, but they do not routinely place their nuclear forces on alert for immediate launch. For more on LoW, see https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/reducing-the-chances-of-an-accidental
[3] Amy F. Woolf (2021) U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Considering “No First Use”, Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, https://congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/PDF?IN10553/IN10553.4.pdf
[4] Ankit Panda (2026) Backgrounder: ‘No First Use’ and Nuclear Weapons, Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/no-first-use-and-nuclear-weapons
[5] Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treat on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2024) No-first-use Nuclear Weapons Initiative, 12 July, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4055177
[6] John P. Holdren (2020) The overwhelming case for no first use, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 76:1, 3-7, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1701277
The US LoW policy is terrifying especially given the erratic and impulsive nature of our current president. It also seems to express the arrogance of the US that we can, and have the right to, do what we want on our terms. Ugh!