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No Alternative in Sight

Since June 2016, there has been a spirited debate in Washington regarding the U.S. adoption of a No-First-Use (NFU) policy. A NFU policy would be a U.S. declaration that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons; their use would be limited to a possible U.S. response to an opponent’s first-use of nuclear weapons. U.S. adoption of NFU would be a departure from the long-established policy of ambiguity regarding nuclear use. 

Every Democratic and Republican administration for seven decades, including the Obama Administration to date, has rejected a NFU policy. This rejection has most recently been re-emphasized by the U.S. Secretaries of Defense, State, and Energy. There are serious and substantive reasons for rejecting NFU.

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