Nipp

"William A. Chambers, Caroline R. Milne, Rhiannon T. Hutton, and Heather W. Williams, No-First Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Policy Assessment (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, January 2021), 84 pp. As the debate over U.S. nuclear weapons policy heats up and the Biden Administration begins its eagerly awaited review of U.S. nuclear posture, the issue of whether to adopt a “no first use” (NFU) nuclear policy is again emerging as a key point of contention. In this expert study by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), the authors address the implications of changing U.S. declaratory policy from the longstanding and bipartisan support for “calculated ambiguity” to an NFU policy, and the pitfalls of declaring that the United States will not— under any circumstances—be the first to employ nuclear weapons. This study—which was done in response to a congressional mandate in the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act—assesses the impact of NFU on U.S. force posture, allied perceptions of U.S. credibility, adversary reactions, and nuclear nonproliferation goals and objectives. It concludes that “U.S. adoption of an NFU policy will not bring about a setting that is more conducive to positive behavior by adversaries or to strengthened relations with allies. In light of already-constrained U.S. policy and procedure governing nuclear use, the weight of the evidence indicates significant potential for NFU to impart more harm than good” (emphasis in original)."