No First Use of Nuclear Weapons: Can it Be the First Step to Nuclear Disarmament?

P. M. Kamath

The IUP Journal of Governance and Public Policy, 2007, vol. II, issue 3, 7-18

Abstract: It is the US that gave birth to nuclear weapons and continues to be the most heavily armed nuclear power in the world. The US is not only the first country to go nuclear but also the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons. It dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, as it claimed, to end the World War II. Naturally, it is also in the US that we see the origin of the doctrine of No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons and its conceptual evolution. However, a negative approach gathered strength in the US, while the other nations were favourably inclined to adopt and subscribe to the doctrine of NFU. This paper makes an attempt to trace the origin, rationale and the contemporary status of NFU in the world. It also discusses the US nuclear posture now and whether the US could be made to move away from the present stance of First Use of nuclear weapons to NFU, as the first step towards the global nuclear disarmament.

Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:icf:icfjgp:v:02:y:2007:i:3:p:7-18

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