No First Use Policy Of Nuclear Weapons May Change

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WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Amid India’s increasing bilateral tensions with Pakistan, defence minister Rajnath Singh hinted that India may abandon its No First Use policy on nuclear weapons.
“Till today, our nuclear policy is ‘No First Use’. What happens in future depends on the circumstances,” the defence minister said.

Singh’s major statement was made in Pokhran on the death anniversary of former PM Atal Bihar Vajpayee, where India had in 1998 secretly conducted five nuclear tests.
A No First Use (NFU) policy refers to a pledge by a nuclear power not to use nuclear weapons as a means of warfare unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons.

India had first adopted a ‘No first use’ policy after the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998. The government’s stated policy till now has been that nuclear weapons are solely for deterrence and India will pursue a policy of “retaliation only”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, had ruled out the first use of nuclear weapons and said the nuclear weapons are for India’s defence and protection, “not to suppress anyone”.

No first use (NFU) refers to a pledge or a policy by a nuclear power not to use nuclear weapons as a means of warfare unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons. Earlier, the concept had also been applied to chemical and biological warfare.
China declared its NFU policy in 1964, and has since maintained this policy.

Russia describes its entire military doctrine as defensive (see Military doctrine of 2010). With regard to nuclear weapons specifically, Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons:
In response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened. The new military doctrine of 2014 does not depart from this stance.

In April 2017 Defence Secretary Michael Fallon confirmed that the UK would use nuclear weapons in a “pre-emptive initial strike” in “the most extreme circumstances”.
Fallon stated in a parliamentary answer that the UK has neither a ‘first use’ or ‘no first use’ in its nuclear weapon policy so that its adversaries would not know when the UK would launch nuclear strikes.

In August 2016, President Obama reportedly considered adopting a ‘No First Use’ policy.
The President was persuaded by several Cabinet officials that ‘No First Use’ would rattle U.S. allies, and decided not to take up the policy.
In 2017, there were efforts to either require congressional approval for a preemptive nuclear strike or to ban it altogether and impose an NFU policy.

In a review of nuclear policy published in February 2018, Donald Trump seemed to expand the circumstances in which America might use nuclear weapons first, to include cyber-attacks on the networks that transmit presidential orders to silos, submarines and bombers.
He also ordered the manufacture of new low-yield warheads (these are equivalent to about half a Hiroshima), which critics fear are more likely to be used.

Pakistan refuses to adopt a “no-firstuse” doctrine, indicating that it would launch nuclear weapons even if the other side did not use such weapons first.