When US President Barack Obama’s second term ends in two months, how will he be remembered?
As the first African-American president, certainly. His legacy will also include the consequential achievement of overseeing an economic recovery, but his effort to expand access to healthcare — so-called “Obamacare” — is highly controversial. He will also be remembered for his efforts to slow climate change and, in foreign policy, his “pivot” toward Asia — which lacks the requisite determination and resources.
Nuclear disarmament has been a top priority of Obama’s presidency. In April 2009 — when Obama had been in office less than three months — he delivered an inspiring speech in Prague in which he pledged to launch a new era of nuclear disarmament and declared “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
Six months later he won the Nobel Peace Prize, partly on account of his utopian vision for, and commitment to, a nuclear-free world.
To be sure, his efforts toward disarmament have been considerable. In 2010, the US Department of Defense’s Nuclear Posture Review reduced the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy; ruled out the development of new nuclear warheads and narrowed the contingencies under which Washington would ever use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.
Does Obama feel morally obligated to pursue nuclear disarmament because the US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in wartime?
Perhaps.
In May he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima since the city was destroyed by an atom bomb in 1945. Critics can question former US president Harry Truman’s decision to drop the bomb. What cannot be questioned is that Truman acted out of an imperative to save American lives and win the war.
In any event, although the US has not used nuclear weapons since 1945, it has still relied on them to deter aggression, defend allies, and preserve strategic interests.
Former US president Dwight Eisenhower, in his memoir Mandate for Change 1953–1956, wrote that China’s accession to the armistice of the Korean War was due in part to hints by Washington that it might use nuclear weapons against military targets in China. Likewise, during the Taiwan Strait crises in the 1950s, Eisenhower and then-US secretary of state John Foster Dulles publicly warned Beijing that the US might use tactical nuclear weapons to forestall a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Former US president George W. Bush, in his memoir Decision Points, recalled his futile efforts to gain then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s (江澤民) cooperation in efforts to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
In February 2003, Bush warned Jiang that “if we could not solve the problem diplomatically, I would have to consider a military strike against North Korea.”
Jiang and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il took Bush’s threat of force seriously. Six months later, the first round of six-party talks over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program got under way in Beijing.
These are examples of the US showing determination to use its overwhelming military power, perhaps including nuclear arms, to defend its interests and allies. However, a US nuclear “no-first-use” pledge would squander an important piece of Washington’s power. It would limit strategic options, undermine the credibility of Washington’s promises to defend allies — South Korea in particular would be worried — and reduce US ability to deter aggression. All in all, it would be a gross strategic mistake.
Therefore US allies such as Japan, South Korea, the UK and France have informed Obama’s administration that they would consider a no-first-use policy detrimental to their security. Leading politicians in Seoul are alarmed by no-first-use, and some have broached the idea that South Korea should develop its own nuclear deterrent. Meanwhile, during a US National Security Council meeting in July, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly warned that a no-first-use declaration would alarm US allies, undercut Washington’s credibility, and send a message of weakness abroad.
True, China has declared a no-first-use policy, and has demanded that other nuclear powers make the same commitment.
However, Beijing’s own no-first-use policy might be under reconsideration. In 2005, General Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎) of China’s National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army made worldwide headlines when he warned that if the US intervened in a military conflict over Taiwan, China would launch nuclear attacks on US cities.
“We are ready to sacrifice all cities east of Xian,” Zhu said. “Of course, the Americans must be prepared for hundreds of their cities to be destroyed.”
When a reporter raised the issue of China’s no-first-use policy, Zhu said: “The policy may change” — adding that it applies only to conflicts between China and non-nuclear states.
US officials were incensed over the general’s brazen threat to use nuclear weapons first against US cities.
China is by no means a “status quo” power. Rather, it seeks to change the international order. It is contesting US political and military supremacy in the Asia-Pacific and challenging the post-World War II Pax Americana. For years China has been substantially modernizing and expanding its conventional and nuclear military forces, and has used its overwhelming capabilities to compel smaller neighbors to settle disputes on Beijing’s terms.
In addition, China has built up its anti-access and area-denial capabilities — hoping to deter, delay, and defeat US intervention on its military actions against Taiwan.
In Washington, some experts have called for a policy of accommodation with China — “meeting China halfway,” or even abandoning Taiwan. These experts’ rationale is that, due to China’s immense growth in economic and military power, the price of defending Taiwan would be too high for the US to pay.
Against this backdrop, US adoption of a no-first-use policy would likely undermine confidence in Taipei that Washington would come to its aid in time of need. No-first-use would send a misleading signal that the US no longer had the will to stand up to China. The hawkish Chinese leadership could be emboldened by perceived US weakness to engage in military adventures in Taiwan.
The following infamous piece of history is relevant and instructive: When North Korean forces invaded South Korea in June 1950, neither then-Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin nor then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung expected US intervention — because less than six months before, then-US secretary of state Dean Acheson had described a US defensive perimeter in the western Pacific that conspicuously excluded Korea.
In March, Obama repeated his Prague observation that “achieving the security and peace of a world without nuclear weapons will not happen quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime,” adding that “no one nation can realize [the] vision [of disarmament] alone. It must be the work of the world.”
Obama is fully aware that a policy as important and far-reaching as nuclear no-first-use requires broad bipartisan support at home, but he was unable to forge consensus even within his own party or administration, nor receive support from key allies abroad.
In such a context, no prudent US leader can afford the luxury of initiating a nuclear no-first-use policy.
Parris Chang is professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University and president of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
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