No Alternative in Sight

Posted: October 6th, 2016

By Keith B. Payne

Keith B. Payne is president and co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, and professor and department head at the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University (Washington campus), and chair of the US Strategic Command Senior Advisory Group, Strategy and Policy Panel. He has served as deputy assistant secretary of defense, a commissioner on the Perry-Schlesinger Commission, and as a member of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board.

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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No Alternative in Sight

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