Is 'No First Strike' on the cards?

According to several reports, Joe Biden has assembled a new ‘national security team’ that looks set to ‘review decades of military doctrine.’

From END Info 22 | February 2021. Download here

Amongst the issues on the table is that of ‘No First Strike’. Current nuclear doctrine repudiates the idea that the US should never initiate nuclear war: the US ‘reserves the right’ to launch a nuclear onslaught whenever it chooses to do so. Evidence that ‘No First Strike’ is being seriously considered comes from the fact that numerous figures from the Trump administration and other critics of arms control have come out in opposition to it.

According to a report in Politico, Biden’s new team includes a number of individuals with connections to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, an arm of the ‘Council for a Viable World’ which aims to “reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.” If true and if this team can seriously push for wide-ranging changes to US nuclear policy, then the peace movements should encourage them all the way.

Likewise, the peace movements in Europe should use this opportunity to raise questions about ‘No First Strike’. In the UK, for example, there is some reticence in the Ministry of Defence and government to openly talk about nuclear posture. Like the US, the UK ‘reserves the right’ to launch nuclear weapons whenever it sees fit. This fact is ‘news’ to some politicians who have never considered the realities of Britain’s nuclear weapons. If Biden’s team is able to push through a thorough discussion of ‘No First Strike’ or even write it into US nuclear doctrine, then some significant pressure should be raised in the UK for its government to follow suit. Regardless of the progress or otherwise of US deliberations, there should be a thorough exposure of the UK’s nuclear posture, its dangers, limits and contradictions. Commander Robert Forsyth RN (Ret’d) has made an invaluable contribution to such efforts in his book, Why Trident? (Spokesman, 2020).

It is overwhelmingly likely that those ‘reformers’ in the new security administration will meet massive challenges and obstacles to progress, despite whatever support they enjoy from the President himself. The political interests of those at the heart of the military establishment are deeply entrenched and unlikely to be defeated without a protracted struggle. Meanwhile, even raising the question of ‘No First Strike’ is a positive step.