There has been no lack of debate over whether the United States should change its policy allowing for first use of nuclear weapons during a conflict in the wake of fresh reports that President Barack Obama is considering doing just that in the waning months of his administration. The question now is whether the chatter will turn into something concrete.
The White House is skirting the question for the time being, emphasizing instead its nonproliferation successes and pledging to ensure a credible nuclear deterrent for the United States and its allies. “As we have said, we will continue to review our planned modernization program, assess whether there are additional steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our security strategy, and pursue ways to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime further,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said by email Thursday.
Reports began appearing in July that Obama was considering new measures to shore up nuclear nonproliferation advances that had fallen short of the ambitious program laid out in his 2009 speech in Prague. (For instance: While the United States has secured a new nuclear arms control deal with Russia and helped to curb Iran’s nuclear program under Obama, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty remains unratified and the hoped-for fissile material cutoff treaty did not materialize.)
At the top of the administration’s apparent to-do list: declaring a “no first use” policy for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and seeking a nonbinding U.N. Security Council resolution advocating an end to explosive testing of nuclear weapons.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that top members of Obama’s Cabinet, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, have counseled against changing the existing first-use policy. Japan, the United Kingdom, and other U.S. allies have done the same, worried that abandoning that option would weaken the U.S. deterrent against regional threats such as North Korea, the Washington Post reported on Aug. 14.
This pushback suggests undoing the first-use policy might be off the menu, assuming it was there in the first place, issue experts said this week.
“If he’s listening to anybody, no. If he’s not, he will” reverse the current policy, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
“I think it’s pretty unlikely. I would be surprised but not amazed if there was a declaration of no first use,” added James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
How vocal other governments have been on first use remains somewhat in dispute, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week denying the Post report that he told the head of U.S. Pacific Command in July that the United States should not adopt a no-first-use policy.
Stakeholders have piled on from all sides of the debate. Former U.S. Strategic Command chief James Cartwright, in a New York Times commentary co-written with Princeton academic and fellow Global Zero advocate Bruce Blair, argued that first use of nuclear weapons against China or Russia could promote “full-scale retaliation,” while eliminating the threat would cut into the danger of an unintentional or unauthorized nuclear attack. On the other side, the Chicago Tribune editorial board countered that a new policy could leave U.S. allies in the lurch security-wise long after Obama has retired from the presidency. That’s just a couple examples: the list of opinions was long and wide ranging.
The debate over the U.N. Security Council resolution on the test ban was similarly divisive, if quieter. In a letter to Obama, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said the measure would constitute an end-run around the Senate’s ratification authority for treaties. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), meanwhile, lauded Obama for leading the international community to reinforce the global moratorium against testing.”
NSC spokesman Myles Caggins dismissed news reports that Obama would seek a binding Security Council resolution on nuclear testing, but left space for a nonbinding resolution. “We will continue to keep Congress informed of our efforts and we remain committed to securing the U.S. Senate’s advice and consent to the ratification of the CTBT,” he stated by email. “We look forward to continuing our discussions with the Senate regarding the value of the Treaty.”
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Sokolski characterized both reported measures as more symbolic than useful. While the United States is not likely eager to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike, no nuclear-armed nation can discount the possibility for first use in order to ensure its defense and that of its partner nations, he said.
Acton said that rather than eliminating the first-use policy, Obama should specify that it would be used only in the face of “existential threats” to the United States and its allies, including an imminent nuclear strike against one of those nations.
While generally supporting the test ban resolution, Acton said in an interview he does not believe it would have a major impact on the situation – the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will not enter into force absent ratification by the United States and seven other holdout countries. The U.S. Senate rejected ratification in 1999, and Obama did not follow through on his pledge to send it back to the upper chamber for another try.
However, a U.N. Security Council resolution “does emphasize the value of the treaty and bolsters the status of the treaty,” Acton said.
The Obama administration should and may take other actions to promote its nonproliferation agenda, the experts said.
One more worthwhile opportunity would be to press for deferring plans in China, Japan, and South Korea for commercial plutonium production, which could lead to manufacturing of sufficient material for tens of thousands of weapons, Sokolski said. This measure could also serve to further isolate North Korea’s own, seemingly recently resumed, plutonium production operations, he added.
Sokolski also suggested a formal U.S. policy that any nuclear strike against a foe nation would only be aimed at military installations, taking cities and other civilian populations off the target list.
Another option would be a five-year extension of the New START nuclear arms control accord with Russia, according to Acton. The treaty, which would expire in February 2021 absent the half-decade extension authorized in the text, sets limits on the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles, and includes verification measures such as on-site inspections and data exchanges. These have been key for monitoring Russia’s nuclear arms modernization programs, and are thus worth sustaining, Acton said. He acknowledged the open question of whether Russia would support an extension, which would appear less likely after Vladimir Putin reassumed the Russian presidency from Dmitry Medvedev, who signed New START with Obama in 2010.
