Nuclear ambiguity, no-first-use, and crisis s­tability in asymmetric crises

ABSTRACT

The United States has long embraced calculated ambiguity over the conditions under which it might use nuclear weapons against adversaries, a trend that President Donald J. Trump has continued. This ambiguity could unsettle some observers, especially those who believe that the United States should declare a no-first-use (NFU) policy such that it would not be the first state to introduce nuclear weapons in either a crisis or an armed conflict. NFU advocates identify three potential pathways whereby a more ambiguous posture can lead to increased danger: downward spiral, accidental war, and use-it-or-lose-it. For evidence, they invoke Saddam Hussein’s risk-accepting decision to pre-delegate chemical-weapons use following US nuclear threats in the 1991 Gulf War. In analyzing the reasoning and evidence of these arguments, we argue that the alleged benefits of NFU may be overstated, at least for crisis stability in asymmetric crises, defined by one side’s overwhelming conventional military superiority. Each of the three foregoing pathways is logically inconsistent and the empirical case is misinterpreted. Nuclear ambiguity may not be so dangerous as NFU advocates claim.

KEYWORDS:

• deterrence
• no-first-use
• crisis stability
• nuclear use
• nuclear posture

Acknowledgments

We thank Michael Hunzeker, Farah Jan, Rhianna Tyson Kreger, Joshua H. Pollack, Kristopher Ramsay, Heather Williams, and the anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts. All errors are our own.

Notes

1 “Donald Trump: US Must Greatly Expand Nuclear Capabilities,” BBC News, December 22, 2016, <www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38410027>.

2 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2010), p. viii. To clarify, the 2010 NPR did not explicitly discuss NFU.

3 Ibid., p. ix.

4 Ibid., p. viii.

5 See Japan Times, “Column Says Obama Weighing Declaration of ‘No First Use’ Nuclear Policy,” July 12, 2016, <www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/07/12/world/politics-diplomacy-world/column-says-obama-weighing-declaration-no-first-use-nuclear-policy/#.WltQD5P1VE4>. Vice President Joe Biden’s comments in January 2017 came close to articulating a NFU policy when he said that “the President and I strongly believe we have made enough progress that deterring—and if necessary, retaliating against—a nuclear attack should be the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.” “Remarks by the Vice President on Nuclear Security,” American Presidency Project, January 11, 2017, <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=121419h>.

6 “To establish the policy of the United States regarding the no-first-use of nuclear weapons,” H.R.4415, 115th Congress (November 15, 2017).

7 “To Prohibit the Conduct of a First-Use Nuclear Strike Absent a Declaration of War by Congress,” ARM16N80, 114th Cong., January 24, 2017.

8 Norms do matter, but we lack the space to consider them properly. For the classic text, see Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

9 Michael S. Gerson, “No First Use: The Next Step for U.S. Nuclear Policy,” International Security, Vol. 35, No. 2 (2010), pp. 7–47.

10 Scott D. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap: Why the United States Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and Chemical Weapons Attacks,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2000), p. 108.

11 Kier A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “The End of MAD? The Nuclear Dimension of US Primacy,” International Security, Vol. 30, No. 4 (2006), pp. 14–25. To be sure, Russia has been modernizing its nuclear (and conventional) forces since this article was published.

12 Scott D. Sagan, “The Case for No First Use,” Survival, Vol. 51, No. 3 (2009), p. 177.

13 For contrasting views on whether this statement is true, see Matthew Kroenig, “Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve: Explaining Nuclear Crisis Outcomes,” International Organization, Vol. 67, No. 1 (2013), pp. 141–71; Matthew Fuhrmann and Todd Sechser, “Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail,” International Organization, Vol. 67, No. 1 (2013), pp. 173–95.

14 For early academic discussion of NFU, see Robert C. Tucker, Klaus Knorr, Richard A. Falk, and Hedley Bull, Proposal for No First Use of Nuclear Weapons: Pros and Cons (Princeton, NJ: Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs, 1968); Richard H. Ullman, “No First Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 50, No. 4 (1972), pp. 669–83; Fred Iklé, “NATO’s First Nuclear Use: A Deepening Trap?” Strategic Review, Vol. 8, No. 8 (1980), pp. 18–38.

15 Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), pp. 428–29.

16 Ibid., pp. 445–50; David C. Eliot, “Project Vista and Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” International Security, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1986), p. 172.

17 McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, Robert S. McNamara, and Gerard Smith, “Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 60, No. 4 (1982), pp. 753–68.

18 Seth Cropsey, “The Only Credible Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 2 (1994), pp. 13–20; William J. Perry, “Desert Storm and Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 4 (1991), pp. 66–82.

19 Stephen A. Cambone and Patrick J. Garrity, “The Future of US Nuclear Policy,” Survival, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1994), pp. 74, 90.

20 Richard Sokolsky, “Demystifying the US Nuclear Posture Review,” Survival, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2002), p. 133.

21 George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2011.

22 Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal, “The Logic of Zero: Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 6 (2008), pp. 80–95.

23 Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 13.

24 For a critical summary of these arguments, see ibid., pp. 11–13. On the effects of NFU on extended deterrence, see John J. Mearsheimer, “Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence in Europe,” International Security, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1984), pp. 19–46.

25 William M. Arkin, “Calculated Ambiguity: Nuclear Weapons and the Gulf War,” Washington Quarterly, No. 4 (1996), pp. 3–18.

26 See Herman Kahn, The Nature and Feasibility of War and Deterrence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1960), pp. 38–39. For a similar argument, see Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better,” Adelphi Papers, Vol. 21, No. 171 (1981). pp. 21, 24.

27 Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 45. See also Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, pp. 207–54.

28 Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 9.

29 The names of these three pathways are our own, but the original discussion of them is found in Gerson, “No First Use,” pp. 37–39.

30 Ibid., p. 37.

31 Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (1978), pp. 167–214; Charles L. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1995), pp. 50–90.

32 Gerson writes, “consequently, the threat of nuclear first use is unnecessary to deter conventional aggression and, if deterrence fails, unnecessary to help win the conflict because there is no country that can defeat the United States in a major conventional war.” See Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 18.

33 Ibid., p. 33.

34 Ibid., pp. 37–38.

35 Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

36 Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 220; Charles L. Glaser and Steve Fetter, “Counterforce Revisited: Assessing the Nuclear Posture Review’s Nuclear Missions” International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2005), pp. 121–22.

37 See e.g., Brendan R. Green and Austin Long, “The MAD Who Wasn’t There: Soviet Reactions to the Late Cold War Nuclear Balance,” Security Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2017), pp. 606–41.

38 Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 38. NFU pledges may reflect a signal of intent rather than strategic calculations concerning the use of nuclear weapons. Of course, a strong state planning a conventional first strike could issue such a pledge, especially if it knows that the weak state would respond by lowering its defenses. In light of the risk of appearing dishonest, costlier forms of signaling intentions exist. See Morton H. Halperin, Bruno Tertrais, Keith B. Payne, K. Subrahmanyam, and Scott D. Sagan, “The Case for No First Use: An Exchange,” Survival, Vol. 51, No. 5 (2009), pp. 17–32.

39 Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 18, 33.

40 Rong Yu and Peng Guangqian, “Nuclear No-First-Use Revisited,” China Security, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2009), p. 88.

41 Dan Reiter, “Exploding the Powder Keg: Why Preemptive Wars Never Happen,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1995), p. 6.

42 Ibid., p. 23.

43 Ibid., pp. 23–24.

44 Avery Goldstein, “Understanding Nuclear Proliferation: Theoretical Explanation and China’s National Experience,” Security Studies, Vol. 32, Nos 3–4 (1993), p. 239.

45 Gerson, “No First Use,” pp. 18–32.

46 See Forest E. Morgan, Karl P. Mueller, Evan S. Medeiros, Kevin L. Pollpeter, and Roger Cliff, Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008), p. 43; Byman and Waxman, Dynamics of Coercion, p. 220; Glaser and Fetter, “Counterforce Revisited,” pp. 121–22; Lyle J. Goldstein, Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Historical Analysis (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 152. This concern has been raised with respect to India and Pakistan, where short travel times and more symmetric capabilities increase the benefit of using it and the risk of losing it. Christopher Chyba and Karthika Sasikumar, “A World of Risk: The Current Environment for U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy,” in George Bunn and Christopher Chyba, eds., U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Confronting Today’s Threats (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2006), p. 4.

47 Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 20.

48 “Confrontation in the Gulf: Text of Letter from Bush to Hussein,” New York Times, January 13, 1991: <www.nytimes.com/1991/01/13/world/confrontation-in-the-gulf-text-of-letter-from-bush-to-hussein.html>.

49 James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1995).

50 Gerson acknowledges that some analysts claim that these threats deterred Saddam Hussein from using chemical weapons. He disputes this claim in favor of the interpretation discussed here. See Gerson, “No First Use,” pp. 20–22, 37.

51 Gerson, “No First Use,” p. 20.

52 Sagan draws on evidence discussed in an analysis offered by McCarthy and Tucker. He acknowledges that he is making his own interpretative judgment of the data. See Timothy V. McCarthy and Jonathan B. Tucker, “Saddam’s Toxic Arsenal: Chemical and Biological Weapons and Missiles in the Gulf War,” in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).

53 Sagan, “The Commitment Trap,” p. 108.

54 Jack S. Levy, “Counterfactuals and Case Studies,” in Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier, Henry E. Brady, and David Collier, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

55 McCarthy and Tucker, “Saddam’s Toxic Arsenal,” p. 63.

56 Central Intelligence Agency, “CW Use in Iran–Iraq War,” <www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/cia/19960702/070296_cia_72566_72566_01.html>. The unpublished memoirs of Lieutenant General Raad Hamdani claim Iraq lost over 51,000 men on the Faw Peninsula. See Kevin M. Woods, Michael R. Pease, Marke E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacy, The Iraqi Perspectives Report: Saddam’s Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Official US Joint Forces Command (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006). If true, these losses are comparable to Britain’s losses during the first day of the Battle of the Somme in World War I.

57 Our interpretation of Saddam’s behavior fits the analysis of Iraqi civilian–military relations offered in Caitlin Talmadge, The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015).

58 Pre-delegation took the form of Saddam permitting the use chemical weapons by commanders of the air force, the missile defense force, and the Third and Seventh Army Corps. Field commanders resisted this policy, compelling Saddam to travel personally to the front in January 1987 to confirm the new orders. Thereafter, Iraqi commanders integrated the use of chemical weapons into their offensive battlefield operations. Saddam allegedly pre-delegated authority in April 1990 so as to be capable of launching a retaliatory unconventional attack. One possible explanation is that he wished to deter another Osirak-style attack by Israel. See McCarthy and Tucker, “Saddam’s Toxic Arsenal,” pp. 161–62.

59 Robert G. Joseph and John F. Reichart, Deterrence and Defense in a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Environment (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1999); Keith Payne, The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-first Century (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2008).

60 Joyce Battle, ed., Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI (Washington, DC: National Security Archive, George Washington University, 2009).

61 McCarthy and Tucker, “Saddam’s Toxic Arsenal,” p. 69. For a similar argument that Iraqi leaders saw chemical weapons as vital to their national security even before 1991, see Charles Duelfer, “The Inevitable Failure of Inspections in Iraq,” Arms Control Today, Vol. 32, No. 7 (2002), p. 9; Charles Duelfer, “The Iraqi WMD Arsenal Today,” in The Future of Iraq: Conference Proceedings, December 2002 (Newport, RI: Center for Naval Warfare Studies, 2002), p. 76.

62 We thank Joshua Pollack for this excellent observation.

63 For a superb analysis of the causes and effects of different nuclear postures, see Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).