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 "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 concept of a "nuclear taboo" was popularised by the academic Nina Tannenwald, who wrote an influential journal article on the concept in 1999. [1] She defined the nuclear taboo in 2005 as "a de facto prohibition against the first use of nuclear weapons". [2] Tannenwald remains among the most prominent advocates for the existence of this taboo. [3]
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. [2]
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". [4]
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". [5]
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. [6]
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". [4]
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. [5]
Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term denuclearization is also used to describe the process leading to complete nuclear disarmament.
Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons.
In nuclear ethics and deterrence theory, no first use (NFU) refers to a type of pledge or policy wherein a nuclear power formally refrains from the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in warfare, except for as a second strike in retaliation to an attack by an enemy power using WMD. Such a pledge would allow for a unique state of affairs in which a given nuclear power can be engaged in a conflict of conventional weaponry while it formally forswears any of the strategic advantages of nuclear weapons, provided the enemy power does not possess or utilize any such weapons of their own. The concept is primarily invoked in reference to nuclear mutually assured destruction but has also been applied to chemical and biological warfare, as is the case of the official WMD policy of India.
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great damage to artificial structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of warfare-related technologies, such as biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear warfare.
A peremptory norm is a fundamental principle of international law that is accepted by the international community of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted.
The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though no other country engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.
The People's Republic of China has developed and possesses weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear weapons. The first of China's nuclear weapons tests took place in 1964, and its first hydrogen bomb test occurred in 1966 at Lop Nur. Tests continued until 1996, when the country signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but did not ratify it. China acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984 and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997. Since 2020, China has been wielding a nuclear triad, alongside four other countries.
Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer. Deterrence in an international relations context is the application of deterrence theory to avoid conflict.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, South Africa pursued research into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons under the apartheid government. South Africa’s nuclear weapons doctrine was designed for political leverage rather than actual battlefield use, specifically to induce the United States of America to intervene in any regional conflicts between South Africa and the Soviet Union or its proxies. To achieve a minimum credible deterrence, a total of six nuclear weapons were covertly assembled by the late 1980s.
The United States was the first country to manufacture nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used them in combat, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II against Japan. Before and during the Cold War, it conducted 1,054 nuclear tests, and tested many long-range nuclear weapons delivery systems.
Duck Hook was the White House code-name of an operation President Richard Nixon had threatened to unleash against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, if North Vietnam did not yield to Washington's terms at the Paris peace negotiations. Duck Hook called for the possible-nuclear bombing of military and economic targets in and around Hanoi, the mining of Haiphong harbor and other ports, saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, the bombing of dikes to destroy the food supply of much of the population of North Vietnam, air strikes against North Vietnam's northeast line of communications as well as passes and bridges at the Chinese border, and air and ground attacks on other targets throughout Vietnam.
A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be targeted at the enemy interior far away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. As of 2024, no tactical nuclear weapons have ever been used in combat.
In international relations (IR), constructivism is a social theory that asserts that significant aspects of international relations are shaped by ideational factors. The most important ideational factors are those that are collectively held; these collectively held beliefs construct the interests and identities of actors.
The military doctrine of Russia is a strategic planning document of the Russian Federation, representing a system of official state-adopted views on preparation and usage of the Russian Armed Forces. The most recent revision of the military doctrine was approved in 2014.
A tectonic weapon is a hypothetical device or system which could trigger earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or other seismic events in specified locations by interfering with the Earth's natural geological processes. It was defined in 1992 by Aleksey Vsevolodovich Nikolayev, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences: "A tectonic or seismic weapon would be the use of the accumulated tectonic energy of the Earth's deeper layers to induce a destructive earthquake". He added "to set oneself the objective of inducing an earthquake is extremely doubtful." Though no such device is known to have been built, tectonic weapons have occasionally appeared as plot devices in works of fiction.
A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a weapon "or its precursor that can cause death, injury, temporary incapacitation or sensory irritation through its chemical action. Munitions or other delivery devices designed to deliver chemical weapons, whether filled or unfilled, are also considered weapons themselves."
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.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination. It was adopted on 7 July 2017, opened for signature on 20 September 2017, and entered into force on 22 January 2021.
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.
The British government did not seriously consider using its nuclear weapons against Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War. The United Kingdom had ratified the Treaty of Tlatelolco which established a nuclear-weapon-free zone across Latin America in 1969 and made a commitment in the United Nations during 1978 not to use these weapons against non–nuclear powers. The strong international norms against the use of nuclear weapons also influenced British decision making. The British War Cabinet never contemplated the use of nuclear weapons but the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, may have done so separately when considering how she would respond to a serious defeat.