{"id":14521,"date":"2014-06-26T12:15:24","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T02:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=14521"},"modified":"2014-06-27T09:28:41","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T23:28:41","slug":"nuclear-risk-sole-purpose-may-not-be-the-solution-but-we-still-have-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/nuclear-risk-sole-purpose-may-not-be-the-solution-but-we-still-have-a-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear risk: sole purpose may not be the solution, but we still have a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"President<\/a><\/p>\n

Rod Lyon presents<\/a> a refreshingly sophisticated case against a no-first-use or sole purpose declaration being made by the United States. In particular, he highlights the need for America to reassure East Asian allies in order to prevent nuclear proliferation\u2014an important issue often overlooked by disarmament proponents.<\/p>\n

Rod appears to overstate the case though, and to explain why it\u2019s worth unpacking some of the detail.<\/p>\n

First, the debate about sole purpose occurs in the context of current declaratory policy. America\u2019s Negative Security Assurance (NSA), announced in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review<\/a>, presently reads as follows:<\/p>\n

The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So we must begin by identifying the difference between America\u2019s NSA and a sole purpose declaration. Simply put, the NSA excludes a range of states from being possible targets for US nuclear weapons, a sole purpose declaration would say something about when the US believes it may use nuclear weapons against the remainder. Currently the United States leaves open the option of nuclear first use against those states.<\/p>\n

Rod identifies the only credible scenario\u2014the United States facing conventional military defeat in a major conflict close to the home territory of a regional power.<\/p>\n

Given the overwhelming strength and skill of the US armed forces there are only two feasible contingencies in the foreseeable future: 1) a Russian invasion of the (NATO-allied) Baltic states; and 2) a US\u00ad\u2013China war, perhaps over Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Next, we must assess the likelihood of the United States escalating to the nuclear level in both of those contingencies.<\/p>\n

The first scenario is a non-starter. There\u2019s no chance that the United States will seriously contemplate a nuclear war with Russia over the Baltic states. Moreover, there\u2019s no prospect of convincing the Russians otherwise. The United States lived with Soviet occupation of the Baltic states for fifty years during the Cold War and can do so again. Given that Russia enjoys greater parity with the United States in its nuclear arsenal than in conventional arms it\u2019s also decidedly unclear what advantage the United States could hope to gain through a nuclear escalation.<\/p>\n

In a US\u2013China conflict, by contrast, the United States has a much greater incentive to launch a nuclear first strike due to its advantage over China in tactical nuclear options in this predominantly maritime theatre. After incurring a tactical nuclear strike China\u2019s only options are either: a) accept a military defeat, b) retaliate against the United States at the strategic level, or c) as I game out in this two-part video<\/a>, conduct a strategic nuclear strike against a non-nuclear US ally, such as Japan.<\/p>\n

While a sole purpose declaration by the United States may indeed make East Asian allies nervous, we must also weigh that against the risks of not doing so.<\/p>\n

The prospect of a new nuclear arms race is accelerated and intensified by the proliferation of ballistic missile defences. If the United States were to launch a major nuclear strike against China then China\u2019s nuclear arsenal would be reduced to a small fraction of its already modest size. That would make China\u2019s retaliatory strike highly vulnerable to interdiction by ballistic missile defences.<\/p>\n

China is therefore highly likely to respond to America\u2019s first strike posture and BMD deployment by developing a vast nuclear arsenal of its own. At that point it\u2019ll be impossible for the United States to adequately reassure its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. In other words, we\u2019ll all be contending with a resurging and militarily assertive China and <\/i>nuclear proliferation across the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that a sole purpose declaration is a panacea or even especially advantageous. Far more urgent and useful is having a multilateral treaty in place that prohibits low-yield nuclear weapons<\/a>. This will further entrench the firebreak that exists between conventional and nuclear war, and strengthen the \u2018ceiling\u2019 that Rod refers to on conventional conflict between nuclear powers.<\/p>\n

Crispin Rovere is a former PhD student at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU and co-author of <\/i>Non-strategic nuclear weapons: the next step in multilateral arms control. Image courtesy of The White House<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rod Lyon presents a refreshingly sophisticated case against a no-first-use or sole purpose declaration being made by the United States. In particular, he highlights the need for America to reassure East Asian allies in order …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":14523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,844,116,356,746,31],"class_list":["post-14521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-history","tag-no-first-use","tag-nuclear-deterrence","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-soviet-union","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNuclear risk: sole purpose may not be the solution, but we still have a problem | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/nuclear-risk-sole-purpose-may-not-be-the-solution-but-we-still-have-a-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nuclear risk: sole purpose may not be the solution, but we still have a problem | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rod Lyon presents a refreshingly sophisticated case against a no-first-use or sole purpose declaration being made by the United States. 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