The United States would adopt an official policy not to start a war using nuclear weapons, under legislation announced Wednesday by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a Democrat member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is mulling a presidential run.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the chamber’s Armed Services chair after Democrats retook control of the House in November, filed the bill Wednesday and posted a draft version of the measure on his website. The textually diminutive proposal contained barely two lines’ worth of legislative direction: “It is the policy of the United States not to use nuclear weapons first.”
“Our current nuclear strategy is not just outdated — it is dangerous,” Smith and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a joint statement posted online. “By making clear that deterrence is the sole purpose of our arsenal, this bill would reduce the chances of a nuclear miscalculation and help us maintain our moral and diplomatic leadership in the world.”
Smith could insert the bill’s language into the House’s version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act: the annual must-pass measure that sets funding limits and policy for defense programs, including those managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
In the Senate, which is still controlled by Republicans, Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) threw cold water on no-first-use.
Presidents from both parties, including the Obama administration, have rejected a no-first-use policy because it erodes deterrence, undermines allied confidence in U.S. security guarantees and risks emboldening potential adversaries. https://t.co/85V9n67wQY
— Senator Deb Fischer (@SenatorFischer) January 30, 2019
Smith and Warren announced their legislation the same month Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) introduced a separate no-first-use bill. That measure, which has been filed in every Congress dating to the 114th in 2016, is longer on policy prescriptions than Smith and Warren’s bill.
The Lieu-Markey legislation — which has never gotten out of committee — would codify that no president may launch nuclear weapons “unless such strike is conducted pursuant to a declaration of war by Congress,” and unless the president determined “that the enemy has first launched a nuclear strike against the United States or an ally of the United States.”
Lieu and Markey discussed their bill Tuesday in a joint press conference on Capitol Hill.
“In about the same time as it takes President Trump to launch a tweet, he could also order America’s armed forces to launch a nuclear first strike, and that cannot be allowed to happen,” Markey said. “No human being should have the sole authority to initiate an unprovoked nuclear war. Not any American president, and certainly not President Donald Trump.”
Markey last week filed the upper chamber’s version of the 2019 no-first-use bill, officially known as S.200: A bill to prohibit the conduct of a first-use nuclear strike absent a declaration of war by Congress.
In Tuesday’s presser, Lieu said the no-first-use bill “corrects the longstanding constitutional defect” nuclear weapons create. The lawmaker said allowing the president sole authority to use nuclear weapons at a time of his choosing, currently including a first strike, circumvents Congress’ constitutional power to authorize war.
Markey’s version of the bill has 12 co-sponsors, none of them Republicans. Lieu’s version of the bill, filed Jan. 17, has 46 co-sponsors, including one Republican: Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.). Jones is in failing health and entered hospice care recently, his office announced Jan. 26.
Markey’s bill and Lieu’s bill are now in the Foreign Affairs committees of their respective chambers, where committee leaders had not scheduled hearings on them at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
No first use has gained traction among high-profile congressional Democrats on the Hill. Warren espoused the idea as part of a three-point nuclear policy in December, a month before announcing she had formed a committee to explore a run for the White House in 2020.
“I don’t think even the sponsors of NFU think it will pass this Congress and be signed by this President. It is about a marker and a trend that is growing,” Jon Wolfstahl, senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, said amid a lively Twitter debate on the bills.
