Opinion | Threat of Russian nuclear attack shows why China’s no-first-use policy should be global standard
- While nuclear weapons use is often labelled unthinkable, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that option now seems to be on the table
- China has long had a clear no-first-use policy, but the US does not commit to this, stressing nuclear deterrence instead
The topic of nuclear war is no joking matter, but I was rather tempted to cry out “Get me rewrite!” while dipping into my old book on the nuclear arms race. So much is changing now. My published tome had been premised on the nuclear-age dynamics between the US and the Soviet Union. But that was five decades ago; China is now included in the top tier.
As times change, sometimes profoundly, so must our thinking and analysis, sometimes radically. Once, it was axiomatic that the use of nuclear weapons of any sort – any crossing of the clear red line between conventional and nuclear warfare in conflict – would escalate into apocalypse.
The only sliver of a silver lining was the birth and surge in the United States of a substantial anti-nuclear intellectual class that has brought moral force to US thinking.
Those in China or elsewhere who believe Americans are imperialist warmongers might take special note of organisations such as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, committed to reducing the possibility of nuclear warfare and, over time, national nuclear arsenals.
