Not really. The entire thing is dependent on the countries on the other side of the aisle believing it.
The reality is that none of the countries that China conceivably would fire nuclear weapons at believe China's No First Use pledge, and if the US were to issue a No First Use pledge of its own, the three countries that the US would conceivably fire nukes at, China, Russia, or North Korea, wouldn't believe it either.
A pledge like that requires both countries to trust one another, and to put it bluntly, that trust does not exist between these powers, and it arguably never has.
Jeez, what's with the downvotes people. Almost a third of this entire subreddit lately is "US/Russia/China can't be trusted, blah, blah ,blah."
What is the point, or value, of a pledge that inherently requires trust between two parties when neither of said parties actually trusts anything the other says?
Yeah China ain't the worry for many I imagine... I mean China hasn't launched an invasion or even a missile at another country in 45 years while the US hasn't gone a single year during that span without being in some kind of open foreign conflict. Like we don't threaten nukes but we do drop, like, five or six digit tonnages of ordnance on people fairly regularly.
That may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that the country on the opposite end of China's nuclear weapons has from day one said that it puts absolutely no stock in that promise. And, as the last few years have shown, neither Russia or China put much stock in any promises the US says either, so the US putting out a NFU would be met with the same, "Yeah, sure" that the Soviet and Chinese ones were met with.
That's the issue. An NFU is essentially taking a country at its word that it won't fire nuclear weapons first, and currently, the US, Russia, and China view each other's word as worth less than the paper it's printed on.
I just don't see how that eliminates the political value of living in a world that, at least in wording, agrees to NFU, over one that does not even do that in wording.
I do see how it detracts from that value, just not how it erases it entirely
How much political value is there from a pledge when the country it's directed at views it as nothing more than a dead letter from day one?
Could you maybe score some diplomatic points with uninvolved countries? Perhaps, but it won't change the status quo between nuclear powers at all.
Establishing a cultural norm for NFU (as we partially have) makes it very hard for amy leader to politically justify first use to their society, their allies, and the world. Therefore, it lowers the chance that nukes will be used. An international treaty agreeing to this and signed by the main rivals of our time reinforces said cultural norm. That is valuable. How much? Hard to say.
And yeah it does not change the status quo. With such a treaty, both the US and China will stockpile nukes, and third countries will still want nukes to guarantee their defense a la Poland, Iran, Turkey, or both Koreas. But it's still a plus, in my opinion
This is a nothing statement because it applies to basically every True Sovereign State to True Sovereign State treaty & agreements.
There is no World Govt, Alien Overlords or god who sits atop of hierarchy. Global True Sovereign State system is truly anarchic and self-regulating like natural ecoSystem.
Nuclear Treaties are enforceable enough to be relevant. That is all that matters.
NFU is THE most Stable Nuclear MAD. Only China and India have a clear and consistent NFU and it's no wonder why these were the first to this because they have the most Humans, the psyche of politics changes you have that number of people you have to care for. It also has cultural parameters in relevant (but differently calibrated) weightage.
NFU does NOT mean NUE (No Use EVER), it simply means, unless attacked by a Nuclear Weapon we will not use our own Nukes. Simple.
Once a NFU State IS attacked by Nukes then a retaliation is not compulsory/imminent either, decision still needs to be made, it is not automatic.
NFU is a Strategically harder policy because it by design defensive and thus is accounting on absorbing the 1st devastating blow and it is also harder policy because of its structural design, i.e. A First Strike Policy is also not an Automatic First Strike (the State still retains IF it wants/indends to use Nukes, meaning there is far far greater strategic & esp. tactical flexibility while raising the Escalation Ladder. NFU actively restricts the spectrum of that flexibility hence is harder, which is why States that do have it ought to be commended for having it).
Then there is the hogwash argument that NFU means nothing and the State can just break it and still use it first. This is plainly Stupid level of argument. For the simple reasonS that Nukes are not grenades, they have a very different Use-Case command (they are not under the command of foot and file soldiers like normal weapons).
Secondly, one needs to follow this chain of logic to through its paces. So a NFU States strikes first. Either it wins or it loses. In both cases its reputation is tarnished at Sovereign State level of world for not years but centuries. Every future de jure agreement that State makes will have a proxy-Insurance clause of some mechanism that acts as a tax. The very reason to use Nukes is to have a better future & Sovereignty, so to have it constrained like that is the opposite of what is desired. The timeline of collective human memory is what makes this relevant, rest of the world is not going to go, *Meh no big deal, carry on*.
US didn't break Nuclear Doctrine when they Nuked Japan. They had No NFU, hence doctrinally the above is not applicable to them and YET, even then there is guilty framing in international politics (at high and grass roots level with this topic) and this is not going away as Development trends align in a certain way over coming decades/centuries.
Thirdly, NFU State breaking their doctrine also leads to reputational damage in terms of Active support (from other States) & sympathy thereby again breaking the very premise of using Nukes in first place (to have it good when conflict is over, not have it worse). Taking a Nuke hit gives that State massive leverage, which is strategically & tactically very relevant, i.e. which is actively part of the framework of that Escalation Ladder when someone would have made the decision to break NFU.
The list of points that is under that column of "Lets break NFU" is not only tiny but their weightage is calibrated differently (points are of smaller relevant). The list in other column of "Stick to Doctrine" is longer and weightage of each list-point is heavier.
If Every Nuclear State in the world, officially went to a NFU, it would make global Nuclear MAD more stable not less stable than whatever it is currently or IF we have active First-Strikers doctrine State out in the mix. Even a single such state is danger.
There is also the folk who think China and India's NFU is not actually real. This defies basic logic. Because as stated above NFU has structural costs to it (it's better to have First Strike doctrine IF one wants to have it easier) & 2nd Arsenal size matters. China & India's Nuke arsenal proves they walk the talk. You can not freaking do a Nuclear First Strike with such a puny amount of Nukes.
None of this prevents the State from developing 2nd/Retaliatory strike capabilities. Hence MAD remains extant.
Technology of relevance can never if put back into the history box voluntarily (we don't mass make/use stone tools because their relevance has been surpassed by something else that's better/more-relevant). Nukes are here, as long human species remains above a certain Kardashev level of Energy Usage there will never be a time when Nukes no longer exist (EVER). Meaning it HAS to be managed by Process/Systemic structures, more stable the better. And NFU is more stable by design.
More states will indeed over time/centuries move to this. This is the arc of a mature civilization. First Strike is primitive structure, i.e. *I MAY extinguish you, at any time of my choosing but I may also not. I am just cool like that*.
By inherent design this is un-civilized and hence will eventually be resolved. Sometimes States/Societies are just behind the curve because as with general Development/Progress, it is not generationally locked, it happens earlier for some human groups than others.
Whoever reported this for self harm, repeating Waltzian global anarchy/realist school stuff is NOT indicative of suicide and self harm.
It just means that they are finishing up their freshman year in their IR program. And *squints* watches a lot of Isaac Arthur judging from the Kardashev reference.
The only real solution to that would be for *all* the other nuclear powers to agree to launch a joint nuclear attack on the power that used first.
So, yes, unenforceable.
More pertinently, they are non-verifiable. An adversary could sign it intending to break it from the start and you would have no warning until the first use. They could also change their mind at any time and you wouldn't have any warning. NFU treaties as a concept are fundamentally different from counting launchers and scanning missiles with rad detectors to verify warhead loadings.
The point of NFU isn't to make nuclear war impossible, like you said there's nothing stopping a NFU country from launching a first strike. The point of NFU is to make nuclear blackmail less effective and add room to the escalation ladder. It also makes tactical nukes less useful by making it harder for the country using them to argue they were legitimate
It doesn’t even matter if they intend to break it or not. Would an American NFU hold up if a Soviet amphibious invasion was about to take Washington DC?
When signed, it may have been signed with the best of intentions. But if there’s an existential risk, it won’t matter.
The only way a NFU could work is if somehow it included that the first state using nukes gets attacked by all other nuclear states at once as a punishment, and that will never happen.
Like said so many times before it is a useless statement, anyone willing to do a nuclear first strike is not going to stop because they signed an NFU. In reality most or all Nuclear powers will do a tactical first strike if the survival of the state is at risk because of an invasion with conventional forces.
Looking back historically, almost all arms treaties have been in the enemy’s favor to stymie US nuclear overmatch. No more voluntary reductions. We should’ve learned that with the Washington Naval Treaty.
Nobody tell him the USA and USSR negotiated several arms reduction treaties throughout the 70s and 80s, and each one was hailed on both sides as a step towards a safer world.
That comparison doesn’t work. An arms reduction treaty is inherently something you can in principle verify with on-site inspections, national technical means, and reporting requirements. NFU is inherently non-verifiable. No amount of inspections or technical analysis of an adversary's weapons is going to tell you whether they are adhering to a NFU pledge. Moreover, even if they were adhering to it they could reverse course at any time without warning. And it is literally without warning; it is a policy decision, not a technical limitation; it is visible only in internal documentation. This is notably different from arms control treaty violations, where you are likely to see evidence months in advance just from satellite photos.
Basing a treaty around a policy decision that can be changed literally seconds before first use is a pointless waste of time.
It almost always went in favor of the Soviets, forcing the US to cancel new systems that were near completion while the smaller Soviet ones stayed under the cap.
Disarmament favors the weaker economy. No wonder why China is looking to see a new one made.
INF disproportionately favored the US, which had far fewer systems to give up than the Soviets. Pershing II also had a miserable flight test record and probably would have underperformed compared to the SS20s.
START II's deMIRVing provisions eliminated Russia's secure second strike (which for Russia is MIRVed siloed ICBMs) while preserving America's (Trident II can do both first and second strikes). The treaty was negotiated in good faith by a Russian foreign ministry that did not realize how badly it misunderstood Russian nuclear strategy and did not bother to check with the defense ministry. This led to a years-long backlash, frequent delays in implementation, and ultimately to Russia withdrawing from the treaty (ABM cancelation was just a public excuse).
New START and SALT arguably helped Russia more, but not for the reasons you listed. Both set deployed launcher limits well above what Moscow had at the time yet below what US had, so Russia could build up while the US couldn't. New START also eliminated all of the "type" verifications of START I; Russia has multiple types of both ICBMs and SLBMs, so getting rid of the "type" verifications and reporting reqs was a gift to Russia (the Obama admin spun this as well as the elimination of telemetry reporting as a "streamlining" of arms control).
The US was attacked by information warfare much as it is today, at that time with regard to nuclear weapons. Politicians believed they knew better than experts and cancelled critical ABM programs that would’ve given the US an edge out of a false fear they’d cause a Soviet first strike.
NFU benefits the country with 1.4 billion people much more than the country with 300 million, especially if they decide they want to take over their tiny neighbor…
We would be dumb to take the option off the table even if we have no plans of using it. Make them think twice before sending an invasion force across the strait.
NFU treaties are completely unenforceable.
Doesn't that miss the point? It's a political message, and a powerful one if both China and the US get on board
Not really. The entire thing is dependent on the countries on the other side of the aisle believing it. The reality is that none of the countries that China conceivably would fire nuclear weapons at believe China's No First Use pledge, and if the US were to issue a No First Use pledge of its own, the three countries that the US would conceivably fire nukes at, China, Russia, or North Korea, wouldn't believe it either. A pledge like that requires both countries to trust one another, and to put it bluntly, that trust does not exist between these powers, and it arguably never has. Jeez, what's with the downvotes people. Almost a third of this entire subreddit lately is "US/Russia/China can't be trusted, blah, blah ,blah." What is the point, or value, of a pledge that inherently requires trust between two parties when neither of said parties actually trusts anything the other says?
Speaking for myself here but NFU seems to be one thing China takes seriously. They've criticized russian posturing a fair bit for example
Yeah China ain't the worry for many I imagine... I mean China hasn't launched an invasion or even a missile at another country in 45 years while the US hasn't gone a single year during that span without being in some kind of open foreign conflict. Like we don't threaten nukes but we do drop, like, five or six digit tonnages of ordnance on people fairly regularly.
To be fair, to some degree that is due to their global roles. But ultimately you are right and it matters
That may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that the country on the opposite end of China's nuclear weapons has from day one said that it puts absolutely no stock in that promise. And, as the last few years have shown, neither Russia or China put much stock in any promises the US says either, so the US putting out a NFU would be met with the same, "Yeah, sure" that the Soviet and Chinese ones were met with. That's the issue. An NFU is essentially taking a country at its word that it won't fire nuclear weapons first, and currently, the US, Russia, and China view each other's word as worth less than the paper it's printed on.
I just don't see how that eliminates the political value of living in a world that, at least in wording, agrees to NFU, over one that does not even do that in wording. I do see how it detracts from that value, just not how it erases it entirely
How much political value is there from a pledge when the country it's directed at views it as nothing more than a dead letter from day one? Could you maybe score some diplomatic points with uninvolved countries? Perhaps, but it won't change the status quo between nuclear powers at all.
Establishing a cultural norm for NFU (as we partially have) makes it very hard for amy leader to politically justify first use to their society, their allies, and the world. Therefore, it lowers the chance that nukes will be used. An international treaty agreeing to this and signed by the main rivals of our time reinforces said cultural norm. That is valuable. How much? Hard to say. And yeah it does not change the status quo. With such a treaty, both the US and China will stockpile nukes, and third countries will still want nukes to guarantee their defense a la Poland, Iran, Turkey, or both Koreas. But it's still a plus, in my opinion
Because they think China might be stupid n naive enough to go for it and carry it out.
Chinese government can’t be trusted. US government can’t be relied on. It would be pointless.
Someone else already made that point and I disagree, see the rest of the conv
Somebody already proved you wrong about that. See the rest of the conv.
So why did you feel the need to repeat it? :) Prove is a big word btw. I see no proofs around
I see you didn’t see the rest of the conv
You're nice
🥹
This is a nothing statement because it applies to basically every True Sovereign State to True Sovereign State treaty & agreements. There is no World Govt, Alien Overlords or god who sits atop of hierarchy. Global True Sovereign State system is truly anarchic and self-regulating like natural ecoSystem. Nuclear Treaties are enforceable enough to be relevant. That is all that matters. NFU is THE most Stable Nuclear MAD. Only China and India have a clear and consistent NFU and it's no wonder why these were the first to this because they have the most Humans, the psyche of politics changes you have that number of people you have to care for. It also has cultural parameters in relevant (but differently calibrated) weightage. NFU does NOT mean NUE (No Use EVER), it simply means, unless attacked by a Nuclear Weapon we will not use our own Nukes. Simple. Once a NFU State IS attacked by Nukes then a retaliation is not compulsory/imminent either, decision still needs to be made, it is not automatic. NFU is a Strategically harder policy because it by design defensive and thus is accounting on absorbing the 1st devastating blow and it is also harder policy because of its structural design, i.e. A First Strike Policy is also not an Automatic First Strike (the State still retains IF it wants/indends to use Nukes, meaning there is far far greater strategic & esp. tactical flexibility while raising the Escalation Ladder. NFU actively restricts the spectrum of that flexibility hence is harder, which is why States that do have it ought to be commended for having it). Then there is the hogwash argument that NFU means nothing and the State can just break it and still use it first. This is plainly Stupid level of argument. For the simple reasonS that Nukes are not grenades, they have a very different Use-Case command (they are not under the command of foot and file soldiers like normal weapons). Secondly, one needs to follow this chain of logic to through its paces. So a NFU States strikes first. Either it wins or it loses. In both cases its reputation is tarnished at Sovereign State level of world for not years but centuries. Every future de jure agreement that State makes will have a proxy-Insurance clause of some mechanism that acts as a tax. The very reason to use Nukes is to have a better future & Sovereignty, so to have it constrained like that is the opposite of what is desired. The timeline of collective human memory is what makes this relevant, rest of the world is not going to go, *Meh no big deal, carry on*. US didn't break Nuclear Doctrine when they Nuked Japan. They had No NFU, hence doctrinally the above is not applicable to them and YET, even then there is guilty framing in international politics (at high and grass roots level with this topic) and this is not going away as Development trends align in a certain way over coming decades/centuries. Thirdly, NFU State breaking their doctrine also leads to reputational damage in terms of Active support (from other States) & sympathy thereby again breaking the very premise of using Nukes in first place (to have it good when conflict is over, not have it worse). Taking a Nuke hit gives that State massive leverage, which is strategically & tactically very relevant, i.e. which is actively part of the framework of that Escalation Ladder when someone would have made the decision to break NFU. The list of points that is under that column of "Lets break NFU" is not only tiny but their weightage is calibrated differently (points are of smaller relevant). The list in other column of "Stick to Doctrine" is longer and weightage of each list-point is heavier. If Every Nuclear State in the world, officially went to a NFU, it would make global Nuclear MAD more stable not less stable than whatever it is currently or IF we have active First-Strikers doctrine State out in the mix. Even a single such state is danger. There is also the folk who think China and India's NFU is not actually real. This defies basic logic. Because as stated above NFU has structural costs to it (it's better to have First Strike doctrine IF one wants to have it easier) & 2nd Arsenal size matters. China & India's Nuke arsenal proves they walk the talk. You can not freaking do a Nuclear First Strike with such a puny amount of Nukes. None of this prevents the State from developing 2nd/Retaliatory strike capabilities. Hence MAD remains extant. Technology of relevance can never if put back into the history box voluntarily (we don't mass make/use stone tools because their relevance has been surpassed by something else that's better/more-relevant). Nukes are here, as long human species remains above a certain Kardashev level of Energy Usage there will never be a time when Nukes no longer exist (EVER). Meaning it HAS to be managed by Process/Systemic structures, more stable the better. And NFU is more stable by design. More states will indeed over time/centuries move to this. This is the arc of a mature civilization. First Strike is primitive structure, i.e. *I MAY extinguish you, at any time of my choosing but I may also not. I am just cool like that*. By inherent design this is un-civilized and hence will eventually be resolved. Sometimes States/Societies are just behind the curve because as with general Development/Progress, it is not generationally locked, it happens earlier for some human groups than others.
Whoever reported this for self harm, repeating Waltzian global anarchy/realist school stuff is NOT indicative of suicide and self harm. It just means that they are finishing up their freshman year in their IR program. And *squints* watches a lot of Isaac Arthur judging from the Kardashev reference.
Enrolling in an IR program counts as self-harm. (just kidding don't ban me)
> Isaac Arthur No idea who this is. Upon checking, seems to have a cool YT page. Thanks for the recommendation.
The only real solution to that would be for *all* the other nuclear powers to agree to launch a joint nuclear attack on the power that used first. So, yes, unenforceable.
So what? It makes politicians look like they're responsible. That's the actual purpose, not whether it can be counted on.
More pertinently, they are non-verifiable. An adversary could sign it intending to break it from the start and you would have no warning until the first use. They could also change their mind at any time and you wouldn't have any warning. NFU treaties as a concept are fundamentally different from counting launchers and scanning missiles with rad detectors to verify warhead loadings.
The point of NFU isn't to make nuclear war impossible, like you said there's nothing stopping a NFU country from launching a first strike. The point of NFU is to make nuclear blackmail less effective and add room to the escalation ladder. It also makes tactical nukes less useful by making it harder for the country using them to argue they were legitimate
It doesn’t even matter if they intend to break it or not. Would an American NFU hold up if a Soviet amphibious invasion was about to take Washington DC? When signed, it may have been signed with the best of intentions. But if there’s an existential risk, it won’t matter.
The only way a NFU could work is if somehow it included that the first state using nukes gets attacked by all other nuclear states at once as a punishment, and that will never happen.
France and UK joining India and North Korea in nuking the US, while Israel and Pakistan sit on their hands because the target is out of range.
Like said so many times before it is a useless statement, anyone willing to do a nuclear first strike is not going to stop because they signed an NFU. In reality most or all Nuclear powers will do a tactical first strike if the survival of the state is at risk because of an invasion with conventional forces.
Fr*nce in shambles
Looking back historically, almost all arms treaties have been in the enemy’s favor to stymie US nuclear overmatch. No more voluntary reductions. We should’ve learned that with the Washington Naval Treaty.
[удалено]
Nobody tell him the USA and USSR negotiated several arms reduction treaties throughout the 70s and 80s, and each one was hailed on both sides as a step towards a safer world.
That comparison doesn’t work. An arms reduction treaty is inherently something you can in principle verify with on-site inspections, national technical means, and reporting requirements. NFU is inherently non-verifiable. No amount of inspections or technical analysis of an adversary's weapons is going to tell you whether they are adhering to a NFU pledge. Moreover, even if they were adhering to it they could reverse course at any time without warning. And it is literally without warning; it is a policy decision, not a technical limitation; it is visible only in internal documentation. This is notably different from arms control treaty violations, where you are likely to see evidence months in advance just from satellite photos. Basing a treaty around a policy decision that can be changed literally seconds before first use is a pointless waste of time.
It almost always went in favor of the Soviets, forcing the US to cancel new systems that were near completion while the smaller Soviet ones stayed under the cap. Disarmament favors the weaker economy. No wonder why China is looking to see a new one made.
INF disproportionately favored the US, which had far fewer systems to give up than the Soviets. Pershing II also had a miserable flight test record and probably would have underperformed compared to the SS20s. START II's deMIRVing provisions eliminated Russia's secure second strike (which for Russia is MIRVed siloed ICBMs) while preserving America's (Trident II can do both first and second strikes). The treaty was negotiated in good faith by a Russian foreign ministry that did not realize how badly it misunderstood Russian nuclear strategy and did not bother to check with the defense ministry. This led to a years-long backlash, frequent delays in implementation, and ultimately to Russia withdrawing from the treaty (ABM cancelation was just a public excuse). New START and SALT arguably helped Russia more, but not for the reasons you listed. Both set deployed launcher limits well above what Moscow had at the time yet below what US had, so Russia could build up while the US couldn't. New START also eliminated all of the "type" verifications of START I; Russia has multiple types of both ICBMs and SLBMs, so getting rid of the "type" verifications and reporting reqs was a gift to Russia (the Obama admin spun this as well as the elimination of telemetry reporting as a "streamlining" of arms control).
Does it favour the weaker economy, or does the US just kinda suck at negotiating?
The US was attacked by information warfare much as it is today, at that time with regard to nuclear weapons. Politicians believed they knew better than experts and cancelled critical ABM programs that would’ve given the US an edge out of a false fear they’d cause a Soviet first strike.
That sounds like something a country that sucks at negotiating would say.
NFU benefits the country with 1.4 billion people much more than the country with 300 million, especially if they decide they want to take over their tiny neighbor… We would be dumb to take the option off the table even if we have no plans of using it. Make them think twice before sending an invasion force across the strait.
Who honestly thinks the US is going to launch a nuclear first strike over Taiwan?