No-first-use nuclear policy should be global standard

By Tom Plate

The topic of nuclear war is no joking matter of course but I was rather tempted to cry "Get Me Re-Write!" while dipping into my old book on the nuclear arms race. So much is changing. My published tome had been premised on the nuclear-age dynamics between the U.S. and the USSR. But this was five decades ago: You now include China in the top tier.

The re-write problem is that as times change, sometimes profoundly, so must our thinking and analysis, sometimes radically. Once, it was axiomatic ― that the use of nukes of any sort ― that any crossing of the clear red line between conventional warfare and nuclear in the fury of conflict ― would escalate into apocalyptic doomsday. Now the world has to take into account a leader of a major power who openly brags that the redline will be crossed if he feels the need.

To be sure, for all Russia President Putin's atomic arrogance (or bluff), America remains in history as the first user and, so far at least, the only one. This occurred as the end of the war against Japan, and an unforgettable tragic ending it was. The only sliver of a silver lining in the cloud was the birth and surge in America of a substantial anti-nuclear intellectual class that has brought moral and intellectual force to U.S. thinking.

Those in China or anywhere else that believe Americans are nothing but imperialist warmongers might take note of crusading organizations such as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, whose editorial heart and soul is all about reducing the possibility of atomic or nuclear warfare and, over time, the arrogantly existing national arsenals themselves.

Founded by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the weaponry (in the atomic Manhattan Project), its contributing physicists, engineers and other fellow unravellers of the hard sciences, in their writings, speeches and interviews, have campaigned against risking nuclear combat in any way whatsoever.

They make the compelling case that global doomsday could arise from misconceived strategic miscalculation, or a trigger-blundering command-and-control accident, or in a hot-flash order from some maniacal leader. As Winston Churchill famously warned, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence "does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out."

Among America's most notable nuclear intellectuals is Dr. Siegfried Hecker, one of those inspiring scientists who rise above the forbidding Himalayan peaks of their dense disciplines to ponder towering moral and humanitarian implications.

Dr. Hecker, a leading savant regarding the North Korean nuclear program who worked for nuclear stability with Russian scientists prior to Vladimir Putin, has held star positions, clocking quality time at Stanford and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he remains director emeritus after years as chief.

In a groundbreaking interview with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Dr. Hecker says of this new phase in the nuclear age: "The major question right now … is whether Russia, meaning Putin, is going to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine … I don't really know, although the chances are certainly non-zero …. But what I do know is that he's blown up the global nuclear order that has been developed over the last 70 years … That order has helped to allow the world to take advantage of the benefits of nuclear energy ― such as nuclear electricity and nuclear medicine ― while avoiding the worst potential consequences … I see that order being destroyed by what Putin has done in Ukraine, every facet …"

The risks are on high boil, is Hecker's message in his clarion-call conversation with Bulletin editor in chief John Mecklin: "The nuclear nonproliferation regime was built around the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as its central element. However, it is embedded in a fabric of other agreements, practices, and norms that require international cooperation and leadership from the big nuclear powers … It's going to be difficult to see how we're going to live with an international system, where we have a formerly responsible nuclear state that's now become a pariah state …"

By contrast, consider the present doctrine of the People's Republic of China: It is to never use nuclear weapons unless someone first fires on China, and the Xi Jinping government hasn't changed it, yet. This admirable policy deserves to remain the standard.

It is quite true that policies of promise, in the cauldron of actual war, can be broken. Even so, by comparison, the U.S. policy, which is to maintain and build its arsenal for deterrence, does not occupy the same high ground as China's. Beijing has the better benchmark.

While nuclear weapons use is often labeled unthinkable, alas, that very option has been receiving a frightful amount of thought since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Famed American physicist and team-developer of the atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer used to caricature "mutually assured destruction" thusly: two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at great risk to his own life." But what if three scorpions are in the bottle, and one is a deathstalker-type obviously just itching to be the first lash out. What should the other two do?

According to Hecker, we are a turning point in world nuclear affairs as momentous as the dissolution of the Soviet Union. One might add that not just citizens of the PRC but all citizens of the world have an existential interest in Xi Jinping's scorpion strategy. This is one issue on which potential Chinese leadership would be widely noticed and deeply appreciated.

Tom Plate (platecolumn@gmail.com), a distinguished scholar of Asian and Pacific affairs at Loyola Marymount University, is vice president of the nonprofit Pacific Century Institute, which in 2020 honored Dr. Hecker at its annual awards dinner. The views expressed in the above article are those of the author's and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.

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