The Next Step for U.S. Nuclear Policy - Project MUSE

No First Use 23
restraint. 50 These authors fail to appreciate, however, that among the many
reasons why states might want nuclear weapons, one of the most important
motivations vis-à-vis the United States is to deter U.S. conventional strength.
The fact that the threat of U.S. conventional capabilities is powerful enough to
motivate some states to expend the ªnancial and political capital to seek nuclear
weapons suggests that states have a healthy respect for U.S. conventional
power, and therefore the threat of an overwhelming conventional response to
nonnuclear aggression is likely to be a potent deterrent.
NFU opponents also contend that the nuclear option might be necessary to
respond to a catastrophic BW or, less likely, CW attack that inºicted signiªcant
casualties. There are four reasons why a state might use nuclear weapons in response
to a CW or BW attack: to inºict high costs (either because the initial
CW or BW attack caused high casualties requiring an equally high cost exacted
in response, or because the state wishes to purposefully inºict disproportionate
costs); to prevent defeat; to avoid the potentially high ªscal and human
costs of continuing to ªght a conventional war against an adversary employing
unconventional weapons; or to destroy the opponent’s remaining CW or
BW weapons, stockpiles, and production facilities. 51
Compared to conventional alternatives, nuclear weapons do not provide additional
military utility toward achieving these objectives, and in all cases the
use of nuclear weapons would have political and military drawbacks. The
United States should not want to respond to the breaking of the taboo against
the use of CW and BW by shattering an even bigger and longer-running taboo.
A vigorous conventional bombing campaign provides the necessary means to
impose severe costs without resorting to nuclear weapons, and sustained efforts
to maintain conventional dominance should ensure that the United States
would not be forced to accept defeat. 52 Although an adversary’s use of CW or
BW might compel U.S. leaders to seek a quick end to the war, the motivation
for war termination would be because cost-beneªt calculations had been
tipped in an unfavorable direction, rather than because all military options
had been exhausted and the United States was on the verge of defeat. Nuclear
50. See, for example, Gompert, Watman, and Wilkening, “Nuclear First Use Revisited,” p. 35; and
Richard J. Harknett, “The Logic of Conventional Deterrence and the End of the Cold War,” Security
Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1994), pp. 86–114.
51. The ªrst three reasons are from Victor A. Utgoff, “Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence of Biological
and Chemical Warfare,” Occasional Paper, No. 36 (Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center,
October 1997), p. 8.
52. To be sure, a conventional response cannot cause as much damage as quickly as nuclear weapons,
but the speed with which costs are inºicted is not a compelling factor. In fact, a conventional
campaign would likely start sooner than a nuclear response because there would be fewer political
and moral qualms about the use of conventional force, and, as a result, the initial punishment
would be felt more quickly than if nuclear weapons were used.