 policy. Jack Mendelsohn is a former Foreign Service Officer, also spent 15 years or so as the 17 years, I guess, as the Deputy Director for the Arms Control Association, as I said, has been intimately involved with the debates over these kind of matters for many decades during that time. It is a great pleasure. I introduce them and turn it over to Sarah Minot who will be moderating this and making a few introductory comments about the structure of the event. Great. Well, thank you everyone for coming. I also want to mention that we are live webcasting this, so I want to thank people who are joining us there. And in particular, we have a special group, the 20th Air Force Task Force 214 who is joining us. So thank you very much for that. So the structure of the debate, we'll start with opening statements from each of our debaters. Then we'll move to cross-examinations. Then we'll have audience questions, so please come up with some good questions throughout the debate and we'll keep it interesting. And also for those who are joining us on the livestream, if you email me questions at sminot at csis.org, we'll be able to take some of those questions as well. Then we'll do five minutes of closing statements after that. So I think we can get started. Mr. Mendelsen, if you would like to start. A sort of a basic statement which I think is a key element of or should be a key element of U.S. policy. A key goal and perhaps the most important goal of U.S. policy is to preserve the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy the U.S. And policies that imply, permit or encourage the use of nuclear weapons in other than a deterrent or retaliatory role increase the danger to the United States. That's sort of the basic premise behind what I'm going to try to argue today. If we foreclose the option to use nuclear weapons first, we would do three very important things which I want to talk about, Siri Adam. First of all, we would put more emphasis on conventional deterrence, which is where we would be the strongest. But I'll come back and talk a little bit more about that in a minute. It would enhance stability in a moment of crisis. And it would thirdly provide the U.S. with political legitimacy. First of all, no nuclear first use emphasizes conventional forces. Given the U.S. advantage in conventional forces are robust strategic nuclear retaliatory capabilities and the catastrophic outcomes, the unknown outcomes that would arise from nuclear use. Conventional warfare is exactly where the United States should place and wants to place emphasis. Once nuclear weapons would be introduced into a conflict, nobody could tell what could happen next. In a conventional scenario, we can better control, not perfectly, but can better control the outcomes. Secondly, crisis stability. If states believe the U.S. might use nuclear weapons other than for deterrence and retaliation, as they are intended to believe under a policy of calculated ambiguity, which is the policy now. A crisis situation involving nuclear armed adversaries would be especially dangerous and unstable. If the nuclear retaliatory force of the United States, not if, but if the forces are secure and survival, and they are in the U.S. case, then going on a high alert with a policy of possible first use would be very destabilizing in a crisis. In other words, it could actually impel an adversary to launch nuclear weapons because it knows that the U.S. reserves the right to strike first. My point is that in a crisis, having this implied first use possibility is a very destabilizing position. Another destabling aspect of keeping this calculated ambiguity and potential nuclear first use is largely a political one. As long as the U.S. has an ambiguous policy of possible first use, the president will be faced with pressure from some group or another to, quote, bomb them back to the stone age. That was just said a week ago by a U.S. Senator referring not necessarily to nuclear weapons, but you certainly could imagine nuclear weapons being in the back of someone's mind when they say something like that. In this case, I'm referring to ISIL. Let me scoot back to the side. The president will be under pressure from some group or another to bomb them back to the stone age to create red lines beyond which a nuclear weapons use might be expected, or just pressure to use weapons in any case to solve what would be a crisis situation in a neat and quick way. In other words, by holding out that option, we've made crises even more dangerous. And thirdly, no first use would provide the U.S. with renewed political legitimacy and leverage as the leader of the global non-proliferation regime. For the U.S. to threaten to use nuclear weapons first, that is, in other than a deterrent or retaliatory manner means that the most powerful nation in the world believes that nuclear weapons are necessary for its defense and are legitimate war-fighting weapons. This totally undercuts most obviously U.S. non-proliferation efforts. If we are to have, the United States is to have any hope of encouraging North Korea or Iran, for example, to forgo the nuclear option. The U.S. has to downplay the role of nuclear weapons in its own security. And as I think I started out, or I started out to try to say, we can downplay nuclear weapons because we are in such an advantageous and strong conventional position. If the U.S. were actually to use these nuclear weapons again, and other than a deterrent or retaliatory role, this would break the nearly 70-year-old taboo on nuclear use and legitimize, if not encourage, nuclear use by other nations in their own adversarial relationships with totally unpredictable but certainly disastrous results. Our goal, circling back to where I started out, U.S. goals should be to discourage and hope that all and any use of nuclear weapons, for any purpose whatsoever, accept nuclear deterrence or retaliation, in other words, when deterrence breaks down. Because once the habit of using nuclear weapons gets ingrained, if you will, U.S. security will be endangered, we will be much worse off than we are today. Thank you. Thanks. And now we'll have Mr. Slocum. First of all, it is a pleasure and an honor to be at CSIS, and thank you all for coming. There's some old, in both senses of the word, friends here, and I'm glad to see them. There are also some younger people, and I'm glad to see younger people are interested in this subject. We are not debating whether a nuclear war would be a good idea. We are debating whether a United States no first use policy would be a good idea. And it's important to be clear what such a declaration would have to be. You would have to be unconditional applying no matter what. Simply a statement that we will only use nuclear weapons for the most important reasons, which are perfectly true and very important, is not a no first use pledge. It would have to be permanent. It would have to apply, indeed, for all practical purposes. It only applies in the state of gravest crisis. Nobody is going to use nuclear weapons except in such a situation, and that's when the pledge would have to be observed. It would have to be universal in, if you will, its targets or its non-targets, that is, in that sense it would be very different from the so-called negative nuclear security assurances. It would have to be, it is proposed, as I understand it, to be unilateral, although for reasons I will explain. It doesn't seem to me it would make much difference whether it was or not. It would have to take effect immediately. That is, a nuclear no first use pledge, which comes into effect only at the event of very ambitious conditions. I have in mind, for example, a virtually complete process of leading toward abolition. That's not what we're talking about. If we define a no first use pledge in those terms, it has fundamental flaws, and worse, it has affirmative dangers, including a danger of leading to the very increased risk of nuclear war that Jack Mendelssohn rightly warrants against. First, it necessarily involves a decision now about a situation that, by definition, is both very unlikely, wholly unknown, and very dangerous. And the, because the premise of the advocacy of a policy is that we can safely decide today that we will always in all circumstances reach, be able to deal with our security by conventional means. I certainly hope that's true, and I fully agree that if we heap our conventional capability up, that may well be the case. But who can be certain that it is impossible that we might subject, someday be subject to some action that has effects comparable to a nuclear attack, a massive chemical or more likely a biological attack, a cyber produced general collapse of civil infrastructure, or some new technological breakthrough as fundamental as the invention of nuclear weapons. Proporting to decide today on deeply unknown problems far in the future is never a good idea. Second, Mr. Mendelssohn's argument assumes that we would stand by the pledge. I don't believe anyone would believe that. It would become irrelevant to both the United States and more important to our adversaries in the only situations in which it would actually apply. If, in the case I've just described, the fact that the United States had possibly many years before made a pledge never to use nuclear weapons, that would be a factor, but in the awesome decision to use nuclear weapons, it would be one of the least important. And no foreign state could count on, in its own interest, could count on the pledge not being repudiated in such a condition. We actually have some evidence. The Soviet Union repeatedly declared it had a no first use policy. It's clear from the Soviet archives that that was a lie, but it is more important that following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and what they perceived correctly as the end of their conventional superiority, they promptly changed the policy. India has gone through a couple of cycles on this. China vigorously proclaims that it has a no first use policy. It also sends people around to say, you would not trade Los Angeles for Taipei. Pakistan claims to have a no first use policy. If you were in India contemplating a conventional attack on Pakistan, are you real sure that that promise would mean that if Pakistan for the third time was faced with overwhelming conventional defeat, it would stand by the pledge? Now, to the degree the pledge is claimed to be a good idea, and I acknowledge Jack Mendelson does not emphasize this, that others would do the same thing, I think that's very unlikely. His analysis of the advantages to the United States of our conventional superiority is precisely the reason. That is, nuclear weapons are the great leveler. That because they, for the first time in history, allow the weaker state overwhelmingly facing an overwhelming military disaster to impose horrible costs on the putative winner that would deprive victory of any meaning. The advantage to the United States of a world in which there actually were no nuclear weapons might be real, but you have occasionally to consider the existence of other people in the world, and this would be a great idea for the United States because it has conventional superiority. It's not going to appeal to other people. Fourth, a pledge would undermine both our alliances and our nonproliferation efforts. The role of the nuclear guarantee in the dynamics of our alliance relationships is very complicated, but it is one in which perceptions and judgments count for at least as much as strictly rational military calculations. I think they probably count for more. A real danger of a no first use pledge is that our enemies would pay no attention, but our allies would pay too much, losing confidence in the alliance. One response to such an accommodation, to such a loss of confidence, would be accommodation, bad enough. Still worse would be the alternative, that is, acquiring nuclear weapons so that they would have their own capacity to respond to an attack. Historically, most allies have wisely chosen the alliance option. If the value of the alliance is undermined, the risk is in the future that they will choose the proliferation object. All this leads to what I think is the most crucial objection at all, of all. A no first use pledge by the United States would increase the risk of large-stale conventional war, and thereby paradoxically actually increase the chances of a nuclear war. In all discussions of how to avoid nuclear war, it is crucial to recognize that the goal of avoiding any use of nuclear weapons and the goal of avoiding the only somewhat less horrible costs of a modern, large-scale conventional war are not different problems, they are aspects of the same problem. And that is because overwhelmingly, the most likely way the world would again see nuclear weapons used is as a consequence of the outbreak of a major conventional war. And I believe that removing whatever deterrent effect there is in the uncertainty in what Mr. Mendelson rightly describes as calculated ambiguity, you can argue about the scale of that effect among the various other things that deter. It is hard to argue about the sign of that effect, that it induces caution in the mind of the aggressor. Now I want to be clear about some things that I am not against, or rather more to the point that I am not for. I am not for a policy of first strike. The argument about the incentives for a first strike and the way to prevent that are as Mr. Mendelson concedes, largely on the basis of having forces which are not subject to the possibility of a first strike on our side and recognizing the reality that against a major opponent, we do not have the option. It is not a policy, mutually assured destruction with respect to Russia is not a policy, it's a fact of life like physics. Second, I am not in favor of rejection of the goal of eventual abolition of all nuclear weapons. I just have grave doubts that a no first use pledge, at least in contemporary circumstances, would have any favorable impact on that. I am not in favor of attempting to find new, valid, strictly military missions for nuclear weapons, whether it's hard and deeply buried targets or armored divisions or whatever. And I am certainly not in favor of an affirmative policy of no first use. It is, I think there are many, there are many, many reasons that even in the situation I describe an American president would decide it was not wise to use nuclear weapons. I see no reason to try to convince an aggressor of that proposition. I can't do better to sum up my case than to quote Sir Michael Quinlan, a man who probably thought more carefully and more deeply and more seriously and with better understanding than anybody else about the military, political, strategic, ethical, or moral issues involving nuclear weapons and in no first use in particular. He said, I do not foresee first use. I do not expect it. I would do everything in our power by our posture to sustain that expectation. But we cannot guarantee that a situation will never arise that would force us to consider the first use of nuclear weapons. And I would add only that we should therefore not pretend to give such a promise. Thank you. And now we'll move on to cross-examination. Mr. Mendelson, if you want to start your cross-examination about five minutes to cross-examination. I'm not sure exactly how you want to handle it, but let me take two or three points that you mentioned. First of all, the question of believing in a no first use commitment. And I think you rightly pointed out that there are, it's very obvious that that could be a called into question. But I have to ask, or maybe you can try to make me understand, why is a first use commitment or a calculated ambiguity statement, why is that believable? For seven, we've had the argument that we will use nuclear weapons if since the we've possessed nuclear weapons and we've never used them. So why is it that somebody should believe that the United States would actually use nuclear weapons? I guess my point is, isn't any statement we make about nuclear weapons, we're going to use them or we're not going to use them, isn't it unbelievable? That's precisely why the ambiguity exists. I agree. I think it, there are very real doubts whether an American president or in the heads of many other countries would indeed use nuclear weapons, but the, first of all, the option exists. You cannot build a nuclear weapon that will only go off if there's been a nuclear attack. That means that you would by definition be in a situation in which something very, very bad is going on from the point of view of the United States. To try to convince people that because the current president, or for that matter his predecessor, some administrations before, would really weigh very heavily a promise like this is very different from saying they would take you into account the fact that the president has the capacity to do it. It is a difference between relying on promises and observing real capabilities and the deterrent effect that would have. You made the point that to take this permanent pledge, we don't know what's going to happen in the future, but these pledges, we've had pledges on all sides of issues. In no sense would this be permanent. You could argue, and I would agree, that you could conceive of a situation where we would have to suddenly say, oh, I'm afraid our no first use commitment is off. You can imagine that just like you can imagine saying, well, despite the fact we have ambiguity and said if there's a Ken bioweapon attack, we might use it, but we're not going to use it. It could happen either way, whether you have a commitment to use them or not to use them. My argument is precisely that that gives the game away. If you say, trying to think of an appropriate example, let's just stick to the nuclear case. I will not use nuclear weapons first unless I decide I really need to use nuclear weapons first. But that is the problem. No, that's not what we're saying. What we're saying is we are committing not to use nuclear weapons, but you can imagine, stepping aside from a theoretical basis, you can imagine a situation where it happens. It's not ruled out, aren't you better off in the interim from now to then, instead of saying I hold the right to use nuclear weapons in my hand, to saying basically I'm saying I'm not going to use nuclear weapons and I'd like to see if we can do something politically, in terms of nonproliferation and so forth based on that. Take a look, for example, at the Israeli position. They've said nothing. Have they lost deterrent capability? No, precisely because they haven't made a promise that no one would believe. You can't have it both ways. You can't say nuclear weapons should never, ever be used except in response to a nuclear attack, which is a perfectly reasonable proposition. I promise I will never do it unless things get really bad. And my point is that whether you say the qualification or not, the qualification exists. It's the difference between this and abolition. There are plenty of problems with nuclear abolition, but at least the advocates of nuclear abolition say we are going to make the use of nuclear weapons physically impossible. That would be real. It might not be permanent because you can always break out, but it would be real. A no first use pledge is like a promise never to raise taxes. It's like a promise never to put boots on the ground somewhere. I mean the president will go on the air tonight and will say we're not going to put boots on the ground. Well, I don't think we will. I don't think we should. I don't think we'll have to. We can attain what we need. But that promise, if he really decided it was essential, that promise would be a factor. It's like George H. W. Bush supporting a tax increase. It was a factor. It was a cost to breaking his promise, but it doesn't change the decision. The problem in my mind, and I'm not, I'm not relying entirely on the argument that it wouldn't be believed. I believe that's a pretty bad problem. But the other problem is if it were believed, it would have somewhat worse consequences because it would undermine deterrence. And it would undermine deterrence of the only thing that it is really likely to produce a nuclear war, which is a big conventional war. That's the real substantive objection. Well, another one of your points was connected to this. You said that this would undermine the alliance. And I have a sense that the alliance is not at all totally committed to the idea that we should be using nuclear weapons early in a conflict first. And the obvious problem is if this is all very suppositional, if we Russia were to conventionally attack Estonia, is it really likely that the United States is going to use nuclear weapons on the Soviet, on Russia, excuse me, on Russia because there's a... Old habits dying. Yeah, right. Whoa. On Russia because there's a conventional incursion into Estonia. We're much better off if we are able, and I didn't say this, but actually it's implicit, if we are able to respond to a conventional incursion with conventional forces. I think the allies have some question as to whether we really would invoke a strategic exchange by attacking Russia if there were a conventional war. And if that's the case, we haven't lost anything by saying we're not going to use nuclear weapons. But we have lost something critical. The United States has never said, since maybe the 50s when we had all those tactical nuclear weapons, we have never said, let's say since the Cuban Missile Crisis. You can argue about what the rule was before, but the United States had never said, oh, don't worry, when the first Soviet soldier crosses the inner German frontier, we will start using nuclear weapons. We never said that because that's also implausible and unbelievable. The problem is, even in the case you put, of course, it would be better to defend Estonia or any other ally with conventional means. That's been US policy since at least the early 60s, and it certainly should be the policy today. There are two problems. One is, if you were advising Vladimir Putin and he's been persuaded that he's going to go and invade Estonia, and he says, but the Americans have all those nuclear weapons, isn't there some chance they'd be used? And I want Estonia, I don't want a nuclear war. Could you with a straight face, saying Vladimir or Mirvich, there's no chance. The President has said, the Americans will ever use nuclear weapons first. Now, maybe the chance is small, but I assert that the possibility is non-trivial, and it is so important to maintain deterrence that there's no reason to give away that affirmative advantage. The second is, and it's more complicated, being realistic. It is probably not possible to defend Estonia conventionally in the sense that they shall not move one foot into Estonian territory. So what the Estonians are faced with, this is a prospect of being liberated. They've been through that once, actually being in that unfortunate part of the country. They've been through it several times, and they take, not unreasonably, maybe unrealistically, but not unreasonably, our allies tend to say, one of the big advantages we get out of the alliance with the United States is not only an army hopefully to defend and keep us from being seriously invaded, but, and at least the capacity to be liberated, but also we get the possibility that the Russians or the Chinese or whoever, the Ruritanians, whoever it is we're worried about, will worry about an American nuclear, an American nuclear response, even to a conventional invasion. That, you can argue whether that view is realistic, like Murdoch knows that, I have said many times, that extended deterrence is not extended nuclear deterrence, it's extended mostly by, under current circumstances, by the US conventional capability. But it is not zero, and it is absolutely not zero to the allies. Who, I mean, it is almost, you can make very much the same argument, is the United States really going to go to a big land war in Asia if some American ally in Asia is attacked by China? That's not an easy decision either. We, we make these promises, they are important to our security, and we should not deprive ourselves of the advantages that we get by creating a legitimate uncertainty, which is a real uncertainty about what we would do in the event of this kind of a crisis. That uncertainty would not be changed by a no first use commitment. Well, that's the problem with it. You can't have it both ways. No, no, I'm sorry, Jack. You cannot. If you're, if you're a Moscow, you know, analyst, and ask the question that you said Putin should fairly ask. If we do this, are the Americans going to use nuclear weapons? They have a no first use pledge. You couldn't honestly tell Putin, well, they have a no first use pledge, but who knows? You haven't changed that at all. You have, I would argue, you have gained something politically by having had that no first use commitment in the beginning. Let me mention one other thing about coming back to Estonia. It's certainly for Estonia, it's much more interesting to consider the fact that if indeed we're invaded conventionally, there is a nuclear response ready. That's for Estonia, and that will keep the Russians off of us. That for Estonia, that's a great option for the United States. It's a lousy option because if we use nuclear weapons against Russia for a land war in Europe, we're opening ourselves to a homeland strategic exchange. Why is that in our interest? It's our interest is to fight on the ground conventionally in Europe, not opening a nuclear exchange. Well, I agree about that. But nothing in the case against no, again, nothing in the case against no first use says we should rely on first use. It says we should not forego the option. And when I say you can't have it both ways, you ran through a list of propositions which are arguably true if the promise is believed, if the promise is believed. But you cannot say that it would affect crisis stability, just if the United States has made a promise that it is not seriously expected to stand by. You cannot say that it would improve our prestige in the world and make nonproliferation a lot easier. You cannot say even that it would reduce the incentives to attack if you acknowledge that in a crisis, and I repeat, the crisis is the only situation in which this is a real question. We don't need no first use pledges. We don't need promises to use nuclear weapons tomorrow under current circumstances. The issue arises only in the horrible situation where an American president has to make a decision about whether to use nuclear weapons in the kind of very difficult circumstances I described. I agree with you. There would be powerful arguments not to do it. No question about that. I'm not saying they would win, but there would be powerful arguments not to do it. But first of all, why even try to convince an adversary that you will not use a means which is terrible for us, but also terrible for him? And second, I think it is absolutely, can you imagine the, I guess this is, I don't know, do I ever get to ask questions? I'm a lawyer. This is not a cross examination. This is a shouting match. We're probably going to have to move to the audience question. You can see why cross examination in a real court is so structured. Yes. But if it's okay, we will have a chance for a closing statements, but I think if it's okay, we can move on to audience questions so we can get some more participation. So if anyone has questions, please raise your hand, wait for the microphone and do a brief introduction, your name and where you're from. That would be great. Let's go right up here. Hi, Alex Liebowitz, formerly with the State Department. I did a lot of work in the sort of multilateral arena where I think it's sort of interesting that in a sense both of you guys are coming from the same perspective and arguing many of the same sort of points of view, whereas what we usually hear, I mean, what we, the arguments in favor of no first use are usually made by, you know, not, so-called non-aligned countries in the, you know, in multilateral forums. And I wonder whether, you know, I've made sort of the same arguments back to them, but whether we don't kind of lose a lot in that kind of forum by standing so much on principle, I mean, the Chinese don't stand on principle and everybody, you know, people sort of take them, I don't know, quite at their word, but, you know, they don't run into the same kind of problems that we do by, you know, espousing that, you know, we're going to tell you the truth. We really might use nuclear weapons sometime. As I think Jack said, you know, well, as both of you said, I mean, whether we gave a pledge or not, there's always, there is always the chance that we might, that we might use them. And the people in the non-aligned world, well, I don't, it's a reasonable question. I do not dispute that as with many promises that you do not intend to keep, you might be able to fool somebody and there might be some benefit to doing that. I think there are two problems in the argument. One is we don't, given my view that you would have serious consequences if it were kept, you would have serious consequences on deterrence if it were said. You don't, you can't have two positions, one that you tell people in peace groups and non-aligned and another one that you tell the Republican House caucus in the House or the NATO, or the NATO allies. You have to tell the same story. I also think there is, in fact, given that you have to tell just one story, there is, in fact, an advantage to telling a story which happens to be true and plausible, which is not, which is not that we would use nuclear weapons first, not that we would ever need to face that decision, but that if we did face the decision, we are not telling you now that the answer is no. Okay. Next question. Back. Carl Lundgren, Jonah Speaks. I was wondering, because of this credibility issue, how one would go about making a promise or pledge of no first use credible to everyone concerned? We know India and China have no first use declared policies, but not everyone believes them. And if the U.S. were to do this, what could the U.S. or even other countries do to make their pledges more credible? An example would be to take most or all of one's own weapons off of a high alert status and to do so in some verifiable way so that you can say, well, we're not going to do a first strike. That's for sure. We're going to, we have to wait before we respond to somebody else's whatever it is they might be up to. Could you perhaps elaborate on anything that might make such a pledge more credible? You're, the point about taking weapons off alert is the is one obvious way of showing that you don't intend to either have a preemptive preventative or first strike. There may be others, but I just wanted to come back to the earlier statement you made about how do you make people believe this that you're no first use pledge? I would just, I'd like to sort of state as an almost axiomatic that it's almost impossible to make any credible statements about nuclear weapons use. If you say you aren't going to use them in such and such a situation, it's still subject to question. If you say you are going to use them, which in effect we do say under calculated ambiguity, that's subject to question too. We haven't used them in 70 years. So it's very difficult to make any statement about nuclear weapons, their use or non use. That will be totally credible. It's just not in the cards because of the nature of the weapons that you're dealing with. There's something going on. Now are there other, I think in order to have a no first use pledge, and I don't think I said this and probably it's implied, we need to have a very strong conventional force. I'm no mean saying that that is something that has to be disregarded. And we need also to ensure that our allies, to whom we extend deterrence, are on the same playing field with us on this. And this has always been the tension in NATO. NATO's, some of the countries in NATO would prefer to rely on early nuclear weapons used in conflict or in a crisis, if you will, rather than building up conventional forces which would hopefully forestall or even eliminate the need to consider nuclear weapons. And finally, besides strong conventional forces, we need also to ensure and you made this point that our deterrent and retaliatory forces are survivable. In most cases, throughout most of the force, they are survivable. But we can probably do more to make them so. I don't happen to have any particular programs that I you know, that I can suggest. But that's something we have to be very, very clear about. Can I just add very briefly, because although I think that makes a strong case, if it can't be made credible, I think that is not a good argument for the proposition. I do want to reply just briefly on the alert point. My definition, a first use is one that you have prepared in advance and chosen the time in which to do it. You would alert the weapons before you did it. There happened to think de-alerting is also dangerous. And the only other time I was at one of these, I argued that proposition. But it's a different issue. Whatever else can be said about de-alerting, it does absolutely nothing about your capacity to launch a strike that you pick the time, you pick the targets, you pick the circumstances, because you would by definition have to bring the force. You would have plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to bring the force to whatever state of readiness you need. Okay, next question. Greg Tillman, Arms Control Association. I wondered if you could address the forced posture implications of no first use, because it seems like it's a very different order for the strategic forces to say you don't have to worry about trying to catch the enemy's missiles and the silos or their bombers at the bases. It seems like it would drive down numbers, but also that it would move from counter force to counter value in terms of targeting. And it seems like the country that is the greatest example is China. I mean, with that no first use, China has a very different kind of forced posture, which it seems to regard as adequate than does either the United States or Russia. You're making an argument against a first strike with which I largely agree, that is with that you we should not configure our force with the objective of damage limitation. I agree with that. Not so much because I think that's a happy fact, but it is a fact. It's when you have to live with like the uranium fissions, which is a fact but an unhappy fact. The I think one of the things I think that is important in the no first use issue is we are not necessarily I'm not saying that we would do this. We are not necessarily talking about a massive use of nuclear weapons. We are certainly not talking about a disarming strike that that's not the issue. I'm not I mean, I happen to think that for political reasons, it's this to put it mildly, this is not the moment to raise the possibility of taking the residual US nuclear weapons out of Europe. I think they have very limited military utility, but they don't have to do with first use or first strike, for that matter. I think the danger is not of a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia or the United States and China. What I'm basically arguing is that what the danger is that in a what starts out to be a conventional conflict that we introduce nuclear weapons use either against a non nuclear country. For example, if there's a chem bio attack, or if there if we, one of the arguments is that we should we should be prepared to use nuclear weapons as a response to a chem bio attack. Now, we've actually moderated a little bit to where we're talking about a bio attack. My concern is that if the United States uses a nuclear weapon, which is a qualitative and quantitative change in destructive capability and weaponry against any other weapon any other aspect or weaponry, we are beginning to make nuclear weapons usable in conflict. And this is something I argue or my first point was that is manifestly not in the US interest to make these weapons appear to be usable for whatever reasons. When we started out, that that example was in a conventional in a conventional conflict against a conventionally armed adversary. But what about a conventional conflict with a nuclear adversary? Again, it's hard to see what the advantage would be for the United States to use a nuclear weapon in against a nuclear adversary, unless we want to bring down a grain of destruction of destruction, because of a strategic exchange, we're much better off keeping that conflict conventional as costly as it may be. And there's no question that being prepared at the conventional level to respond to the kinds of contingencies that might spring up God knows where around the world. This will be a very expensive proposition, and it will be a long term proposition. It isn't going to go away. And nuclear weapons are not going to go away while I doubt we're not going to see abolition anytime soon. And we're not going to see the renunciation of nuclear weapons unless regional hotspots cool off. And I don't see that happening anytime soon. And I think we don't disagree on that. So this is a long term operation. But again, my essential argument was, it's not in the US interest to see nuclear weapons be used even in a limited situation. And certainly, you asked yourself the question, what is the deterrent value of a suicidal weapon? Well, it's a mutually suicidal weapon. That's it. Yes, I agree. I think we can go to next question right up front over here. I'm Martin Fleck. I'm with Physicians for Social Responsibility. Predictably, I'm in favor of a no first use policy. And Mr. Slocum, I'll guess I'll address this to you. I heard you say the issue arises only in the horrible situation that the American president has to decide whether or not to use nuclear weapons. And I don't agree with that. I think that the issue can arise in situations outside of conflict. So what I mean by that is there are there are other occasions where the issue arises. We've got nine nuclear weapons states in the world. But there are other nations thinking about getting nuclear weapons right now. And in a time like this, an explicit policy of no first use could help strengthen the narrative that says that nuclear weapons are basically unusable. And that's why they haven't been used for 69 years. I mean, there's plenty, frankly, there's been plenty of conflicts. And therefore there's plenty of evidence that these nuclear weapons are unusable. Why not strengthen that narrative and help dissuade the 10th or 11th nations from acquiring nuclear weapons? Because the 10th or 11th nations that acquire nuclear weapons will do it for one of two reasons. Most likely, I mean, a regional concern. Indian Pakistan do not give a damn about whether the United States or Russia have nuclear weapons. They have nuclear weapons get the problem with each other. And nothing, we may be able to put pressure on them, but there's nothing we do about it. They're they're not doing it out of out of peak or because the Americans have and the Russians and the other Chinese or special case have a lot of nuclear weapons. The second problem is exactly the I think from the United States point of view. All proliferation is a bad idea. But there are huge differences of degree of how bad an idea. And one of the main reasons for countries to consider requiring nuclear weapons is that they're afraid of American nuclear weapons. And more important that they were afraid of American conventional forces. If you were advising the leaders of Iran, who's who I believe quite serious, sincerely believe and we should try to find ways to change this belief that the United States is out to get them. It is very hard to think of the straight faced argument you would say, wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to threaten to trade New York for terror? Not that the Iranians would necessarily do it, but it would make us more cautious. And promised by us not to use nuclear weapons first is irrelevant to that dynamic. What they're worried about is an attack to give them all the benefit of the doubt, to give them no benefit of the doubt. They have hegemonic ambitions in their region. They are afraid with good reason that we would interfere with that and that we they would be able to discourage us from interfering with it by threatening to use nuclear weapons. I honestly do not understand Jack Mendelson to be arguing as a central part of his argument that the force of the example will have much impact on proliferation. I'm not promising any great outcomes. I'm just saying that our legitimate representation as a supporter of nonproliferation is reinforced by that position. It doesn't it doesn't guarantee that anything's going to happen because we force where the use of nuclear weapons. I don't expect the world to be as powerful as it is. I agree Iran has reasons not to continue to be an aspirational power, aspirational nuclear power. It's not going to change the world overnight. On the other hand, the argument that the fact that we have nuclear weapons is going to both both what's the word sort of inspire other nations to have nuclear weapons and sure are getting rid of them has nothing are getting rid of the first use has nothing to do with the security situation, of course there are going to be reasons driving nations to want to arm, to be to be able to protect themselves. I've lost my train. I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's OK. we have time for one more question and then we'll do closing statements. We'll go up front right here. Hi, I'm Steve Wierg from NSA Defense Programs. I would love to work myself out of a job. I mean, I'll be a bartender if we could get rid of nuclear weapons and hopefully I'd still be able to put my last child through college, right? Earlier today I went to the panel discussion or the discussion on Syria and the chemical weapons issue. That's a great story. I mean, that they were able to avert that crisis and get rid of the chemical weapons. But even one of the panelists admitted that the relationship between the U.S. and Russia while it worked out well there, it was not that cordial necessarily. It seems like it was kind of on that line of maybe they agreed, maybe they didn't. What if they didn't agree? What if Russia did back Syria and they went forward with it and if the U.S. had a no first strike policy, would that give them confidence to go forward with their chemical weapons if they were back by Russia and say, we're going forward with this because we don't have to worry about that? I don't think the United States, it's very difficult for me to imagine a situation in which the use of nuclear weapons would arise in the context of trying to stop a country from acquiring chemical or biological or for that matter even nuclear weapons, possibly the use of conventional forces to try to destroy a facility's might. We are talking about situations that are very unlikely and very complicated and very unknown. So it's very hard to say what they would be like with any precision. I suppose you can imagine a situation in which somebody would make an argument. Some people claim that people in cautiously talked about using nuclear weapons to destroy some levy and chemical plant. You don't have to use nuclear weapons to destroy a chemical plant. I don't think no first use one way or the other has much to do with that problem. I agree. I think anything we want to do, we can do with conventional weaponry. Anything we want to do. Actually, this minute it's acknowledged in our own defense acquisition programs. We're now attempting to field a prompt strike force of conventional weapons. I forget what it was. Conventional, a prompt global strike has a great acronym. It's an acknowledgement that really it's very, very limited opportunities to use nuclear weapons. It's not a terribly good idea. If we do have certain tasks that we think have to be done promptly and with large explosive or accurate capabilities, then we better develop these long range conventional strike systems. It makes a lot of sense. Come back to a central argument. Why is it we want to, in any way, destroy a chemical plant? We encourage the idea that nuclear weapons are useful to manage a conflict or an adversarial relationship. Why should we want to do that? I'm not suggesting, and no first use doesn't suggest, and Mr. Slocum didn't say that, that we abandon deterrent policy, that we abandon strategic forces. What I'm suggesting and what the no first use pledge does is take that option. Let's just nuke them a little bit. Let's just nuke that facility, et cetera. Takes that option out of the playbook. It seems to me it's in our interest to argue that should not be in a playbook. It doesn't say that other nations are going to, oh, okay, no first use. We'll abandon our nuclear forces. I doubt that's going to happen. But you're in this sort of blind alley. If you say the fact that we have nuclear weapons, people are, and we're so powerful conventionally that they're going to want to get nuclear weapons. Yes, that's right. I don't think we can easily stop that unless we can stop the regional tensions that fuel those kinds of relationships. But what we can try to do is to say it's not good manners to consider nuclear weapons as a way to deal with a conflict. Okay, thanks. I think we're going to move into closing statements. That was my closing statement. That was your closing. Well, we can go to Mr. Sloka if you want to do your closing statement and then I'll be very brief on the closing statement because I think the discussion as well as the opening statements really brought out most of the issues. Jack Mendelsohn quite properly asked why is it useful? The answer is I think why is it useful to have nuclear weapons and why is it useful not to say that you will never use them, never ever under any circumstances, use them except in response to a nuclear attack. First, I can imagine circumstances in which the United States or its allies is subject to an attack by some other means so extensive and so effective as to amount to virtually the same thing as a nuclear attack. I've seen no reason to say that we pledge on the one hand to respond to a nuclear attack but if you can figure out a way to do as much damage to us without using nuclear weapons you're safe. That's point one. Point two for the reasons that I explained I think it would have at a variety of levels it would weaken deterrence of a major conventional war which is the most likely reason that nuclear weapons is most likely circumstance in which nuclear weapons would ever be used. Finally, let me ask a question that I think all Americans think about in the context of China and that is we are talking about in some respects we are talking about the possibility of initiating a conventional war with China if for example China were to attack one of our allies. The fact that China has nuclear weapons and might respond to our attack by using them or threatening to use them ought at least to be a factor in our decision whether to launch a conventional war with China. I do not want to take that doubt, that residual but I would argue by no means trivial deterrent effect away from the minds of people who are thinking about launching conventional or chemical or biological or super cyber attacks against the United States or its allies or partners. I don't think I said that we would take the pledge and that we would never ever strike first. That is if you will a kind I didn't say that I said what we are interested is in a no first use pledge. Now you could argue that that's maybe what it's intended but that's never going to be said. What you've got with a no first use pledge ladies and gentlemen is calculated ambiguity except that you're on the side of the angels with calculating when you say what's ambiguous is whether you're going to stick by that pledge rather than which is not to use weapons rather than have calculated ambiguity and what's ambiguous is whether you're going to use nuclear weapons. I think you're better off with calculated ambiguity being on the side of the angels. Thank you everyone please join me in thanking our debaters tonight.