Nuclear taboo

Last updated January 11, 2025

The "nuclear taboo" refers to the claimed international norm against the use of nuclear weapons. The existence of such a taboo has wide support, but not consensus, among experts.

The taboo entails that a shared understanding exists of the illegitimacy and immorality of using nuclear weapons.^[1] It purports to explain nuclear nonuse since the end of World War II. As an explanation for nuclear nonuse, it stands in contrast to rationalist deterrence theory logics for why states do not use nuclear weapons (such as mutually assured destruction) and social theories about the unwillingness to use nuclear weapons because use violates international law.^[1]

Definitions

The concept of a "nuclear taboo" was popularised by the academic Nina Tannenwald, who wrote an influential journal article on the concept in 1999.^[2] She defined the nuclear taboo in 2005 as "a de facto prohibition against the first use of nuclear weapons".^[3] Tannenwald remains among the most prominent advocates for the existence of this taboo.^[4]

Tannenwald has also written that:

the nuclear taboo exhibits many, although not all, of the characteristics associated with taboos: it is a prohibition, it refers to danger, and it involves expectations of awful or uncertain consequences or sanctions if violated. Further, it is also a “bright line” norm: once the threshold between use and nonuse is crossed, one is immediately in a new world with all the unimaginable consequences that could follow. Finally, the nuclear taboo counteracts the deep attraction that nuclear weapons present to national leaders as the “ultimate weapon” and reminds them of the danger that lurks behind such weapons.^[3]

In the textbook Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies the concept is defined as a view that the use of nuclear weapons "is considered so disreputable and immoral that states are reluctant to use such weapons; the use of such weapons would make the state in question an outcast, despised by its peers, including those which might otherwise be sympathetic to it".^[5]

The academic Joshua A. Schwartz has defined the taboo as being that "nuclear use is perceived as so morally abhorrent that it is not even considered by policymakers or members of the public".^[6]

Debate over the concept

Tannenwald has stated that the norm against the use of nuclear weapons developed during the first decades of the Cold War. It was driven by the anti-nuclear movement and advocacy from governments of some countries which did not possess nuclear weapons, and aimed to stigmatise the use of nuclear weapons. The governments of the United States and Soviet Union also developed a norm of nuclear restraint following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.^[7]

The authors of Strategy in the Contemporary World note that "many observers" contend that the nuclear taboo exists. However, they argue that the existence of such a taboo is unproven given that there have been "no truly hard cases in which a nuclear state chose to not use its arsenal; for instance no nuclear-armed country has chosen to allow itself to be destroyed rather than use its arsenal against an invader".^[5]

In 2024 Schwartz argued that the nuclear taboo does not exist. This is because his research has found that policy makers have seriously considered using nuclear weapons on multiple occasions. Schwartz also cites opinion polls that have found majority or near-majority public support in China, France, Israel the United Kingdom and United States for their governments to use nuclear weapons in certain circumstances.^[6]

Related Research Articles

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Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons.

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A strategic nuclear weapon (SNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on targets often in settled territory far from the battlefield as part of a strategic plan, such as military bases, military command centers, arms industries, transportation, economic, and energy infrastructure, and countervalue targets such areas such as cities and towns. It is in contrast to a tactical nuclear weapon, which is designed for use in battle as part of an attack with and often near friendly conventional forces, possibly on contested friendly territory. As of 2024, strategic nuclear weapons have been used twice in the 1945 United States bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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The military history of the United States during the Korean War began after the defeat of Japan by the Allied Powers in World War II. This brought an end to 35 years of Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula and led to the peninsula being divided into two zones; a northern zone occupied by the Soviet Union and a southern zone occupied by the United States. After negotiations on reunification, the latter became the Republic of Korea or South Korea in August 1948 while the former became the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North Korea in September 1948. In June 1949, after the establishment of the Republic of Korea, the U.S. military completely withdrew from the Korean Peninsula.

Nina Tannenwald is an American political scientist. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Brown University, and a former director of Brown's International Relations Program.

References

Citations

1 2 Goddard, Stacie E.; Larkin, Colleen (2025). "Nuclear Shibboleths: The Logics and Future of Nuclear Nonuse". International Organization. doi:10.1017/S0020818324000341. ISSN 0020-8183.
↑ "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has eroded the nuclear taboo". The Economist. 14 June 2022. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
1 2 Tannenwald 2005, p. 8.
↑ Malik, Shahin (30 September 2022). "The Disappearing Nuclear Taboo". London Metropolitan University. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
1 2 Baylis, Wirtz & Gray 2013, p. 208.
1 2 Schwartz, Joshua A. "The Nuclear Taboo Is a Myth". Lawfare. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
↑ Tannenwald, Nina (1 July 2022). "Is Using Nuclear Weapons Still Taboo?". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 11 August 2024.

Works consulted

Baylis, John; Wirtz, James J.; Gray, Colin S. (2013). Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-969478-5.
Tannenwald, Nina (Spring 2005). "Stigmatizing the Bomb: Origins of the Nuclear Taboo" (PDF). International Security. 29 (4): 5–49.