‘U.S. Department of war’ is a more honest title—and that is proved by the extraordinary story of a forgotten 1964 letter from China
TLDR SUMMARY: The world knows the importance of the nuclear “no first use” pledge but forgets that only two countries signed it, neither of which are in the west
IN 1964, A GROUP OF Chinese officials gave the nations of the world a simple challenge: You say your nuclear bombs are for defense, not for attack, so we’ll sign here to show we are serious, and you do the same.
China signed. The rest of the world turned away.
As the United States relaunches its “Department of War”, it is vital to remember this forgotten story—and the outcome, which still haunts humanity today.
WAR OFFICES
By the 1960s, most countries had changed the names of their military headquarters from “War Office” or “Department of War” to less honest but much nicer-sounding terms such as “Ministry of Defence”. (The United States is now reversing that action, of course.)
When China developed a nuclear bomb in 1964, western nations called for the development of an anti-proliferation principle to stop unsuitable people (in practice, non-Caucasians) getting such weapons.
The Chinese declared that their country, unlike the US, saw nuclear bombs as defensive items to possess but never use.
EXTRAORDINARY LETTER
An argument about defensiveness raged in diplomatic circles – until the Chinese had a stroke of genius, or perhaps just plain honesty. China’s leaders realized that if this was the key point, someone had to take the lead. So they wrote an extraordinary letter to the global community.
Titled “Statement of the Government of the People’s Republic of China” and dated October 16, 1964, it was not the usual lawyer-written, bullet-pointed statement that people have come to expect with international declarations. It was a rather rambling missive that made the point that every nation had the right to defend itself with arms, but nuclear weapons were different.
Despite their lethality, they were a “paper tiger”, which existed for deterrence, NOT for actual use in attacks, the letter said.
And they would surely be phased out as humanity learned to live in peace. Waxing philosophical, the letter argued that nuclear weapons were “created by man” and “certainly will be eliminated by man”.
‘WE’LL GO FIRST’
But the letter also delivered an epoch-making statement. Since every nation with such weapons claimed that they were for defense only, they could all simply declare that they would never be the first to use them. This would be necessary to make the people of the planet safe.
We’ll go first, the Chinese said. The key sentence they wrote was this: “The Chinese Government hereby solemnly declares that China will never at any time and under any circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons.”
What happened? Everyone acknowledged the crucial logic of the No First Use principle – but looked the other way rather than following suit with matching pledges of their own.
The grim silence that followed from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France would have been embarrassing—if the military leaders of those countries had the capacity for shame. The silence continued indefinitely.
Since then, the world’s second most populous country has regularly reaffirmed its No First Use position over the past four decades to emphasize the “defense-means-defense” principle. But almost all other countries pointedly kept their fingers in their ears. China’s reaffirmations of the principle (such as in 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2011) have gone largely unreported in the international media, as too embarrassing for the west.
PUBLIC VERSUS GOVERNMENTS
In the decades following China’s proposal, Russia and the United States of America engaged in an arms race, developing stables of thousands of nuclear warheads, and avoiding the making of those all-important pledges not to use them offensively.
These nations nevertheless present their military nuclear capability using the word “defense” – or at least did, until the United States made a change this week.
An interesting point is that we can see that, in general, China’s No First Use principle has been widely supported by public groups around the world, but has been resisted by governments. There has been just one single exception.
BABY STEPS
India followed suit in 1998, declaring a No First Use policy as it began to grow its own nuclear capabilities. In the late 1990s, there was a period of hope that the western nuclear powers would follow the lead of the two Asian giants, but these fizzled out. Western nations talk a good game about moral leadership, but do not follow through.
Some countries (Russia, Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom and France) have stated that they will only use their nuclear weapons as a response to an attack or invasion. However, these statements are not added to the Chinese and Indian declarations, and do not specify nuclear attacks, which is a concern.
Worse still, they give themselves the right to define what might constitute an attack. In other words, they could simply declare that some sort of incursion has occurred—an evidence-free allegation of a cyberattack on a NATO member, for example—and then feel free to “nuke” the people to whom they have assigned blame.
PARTIAL EXCEPTION
There is one more partial exception worth noting. Like the United States, Russia has refused to sign a No First Use principle. However, Moscow did sign a bilateral No First Use contract with China. This ensures that a large portion of the eastern part of the Eurasian super-continent is more likely to remain free of nuclear-level war.
In China, some military strategists have worried that their country, by making a principled stand that has been largely ignored by the rest of the world, has put itself at a disadvantage. Others have argued that it is still worthwhile to maintain it. The No First Use policy shows that China’s defense industry is primarily for defense, and reinforces China’s overall strategy of “peaceful rise”.
MORAL VICTORY
There are no guarantees in life; yet with China, India and Russia all having signed up to a No First Use nuclear policy in this region, the average citizen of East Asia may have good reason to feel slightly safer than her or his counterpart elsewhere on the planet, and particularly in Europe.
As for the moral victory, the Chinese writers of the 1964 letter won that battle 61 years ago, but their assumption that the Western powers and Russia would follow suit was too idealistic.
Yet the principle of No First Use, even if most nations of the world did not sign it, has been followed in practice, so far. No nukes have been used.
The nuclear tiger, so far, has indeed turned out to be made of paper, as the Chinese leadership said in 1964. Yet we need to remember: it is a paper which only two countries have signed.
Illustration at the top by fridayeveryday.