PRESIDENT OBAMA’S new policy on the use of atomic weapons, called the Nuclear Posture Review, has brought to the public eye a longstanding debate over what’s known as “declaratory doctrine”: what the United States government is willing to say publicly and in advance about the conditions under which it will use its nuclear arsenal. A calm reading of the document shows that the changes in terms of doctrine aren’t nearly as epochal as the White House would have us believe or its critics would have us fear.
The administration claims this new declaration will create strong incentives for states to eschew nuclear weapons. Critics, many of them my fellow Republicans, claim it substantially weakens America’s deterrence against attacks with non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction. My view is that the new policy buys a trivial new incentive at the cost of a modest loss in deterrence. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether the bargain is worth it, but it is a bargain on the margins.
This is the key sentence from the posture review: “The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.”
This apparently walks back from a Bush-era declaration that underscored the possibility that the United States might use nuclear weapons if it suffered a chemical or biological attack. Instead, the Obama administration is saying it will respond to chemical or biological assaults only with “a devastating conventional military response.”
The administration’s defenders have promoted this as a bold step in fulfilling the president’s commitment to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategy. Critics see it as a reckless act of self-constraint. But there is less here than meets the eye.
First, under the declaration, America still threatens to use nuclear weapons against nuclear states that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — read: Russia and China — if they hit us with a nuclear weapon or with a chemical, biological or cyber-attack.
Second, the United States leaves open the possibility that it will use nuclear weapons against “non-state actors” (think Al Qaeda) who seek weapons of mass destruction. Since non-state actors reside within actual nations, this means that our strike might hit the territory of those states offering a safe haven, regardless of their status under the nonproliferation treaty.
Third, the new doctrine clearly implies that the United States reserves the right to threaten to use nuclear weapons against states that are not party to the nonproliferation treaty. And, of course, it explicitly states that the no-nukes assurance does not apply to states that are in violation of the treaty, a list that includes Iran, North Korea and Syria.
Crucially, since the new policy does not delineate what it means for states to be “in compliance” with the nonproliferation treaty, the United States has a major loophole. Presumably, the Obama administration will not take a potential target’s word on whether it is meeting the obligations — after all, Iran claims to be in compliance with the treaty, while the Nuclear Posture Review explicitly notes that it is not.
Some worry that for the purposes of this doctrine the Obama administration would be limited by the provisions of the nonproliferation treaty designating the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency as the arbiters of who is in compliance. If so, that would seem to tie Washington’s hands. But the new doctrine, in fact, is coy on this point. I suspect the White House intends to do what every previous administration has done: reserve the right to determine for itself what constitutes compliance when making security decisions.
Thus the most controversial part of the new policy boils down to this: we will not threaten to use nuclear weapons against a state that launches a non-nuclear attack against us unless we deem it to be in violation of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations.
Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke, was on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
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