IEER
SDA V6N4, V7N1 / E&S #6

A Chronology of Nuclear Threats

Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nuclear weapons states have, on numerous occasions, threatened to use nuclear weapons. Some of these threats were implicit - made either by putting nuclear forces on a higher level of alert or by redeploying them to a crisis area.

In addition, the very possession of nuclear weapons by any country presents a considerable implicit threat to those that the nuclear state might consider an adversary. It is also the case that a nuclear capability stood behind the deployments of non-nuclear military forces by the US and USSR during the Cold War.

We do not discuss this implicit violence inherent in nuclear weapons here, nor the threat of retaliation by a nuclear weapons state in response to nuclear weapons use against it. The chronology below lists first-use threats made by various nuclear weapons states over the last fifty years.

Most of the threats listed below were made by the United States. There are at least two reasons for this. First, we have extensive documentation about US nuclear threats, but do not have comparable documentation for the threats made by other states, notably the Soviet Union. It is plausible that when the diplomatic and military history is better known, more Soviet threats will be documented. We should note in this context that China has an explicit no-first-use policy. We are not aware of China making any first-use threats such as those catalogued below.

Second, US policy since World War II was to integrate nuclear weapons into its armed forces structure. One reason was that the US saw its nuclear arsenal as a substitute for the use of troops. An outcome of this policy was that the US would put nuclear forces on alert or re-deploy them to areas of crisis. In this way, the US has implicitly made nuclear threats to non-nuclear states on many occasions.

Nuclear threats have generally been made in complex political and military situations and not always in wartime. We do not attempt to explain the details of these crises. Their interpretation is complex and often controversial. Our aim is simply to document the variety of conditions under which nuclear threats have been made.

A CHRONOLOGY OF NUCLEAR THREATS
1946:1 President Truman is believed to have threatened to drop the "superbomb" on Moscow unless it withdrew from northern Iran, which it occupied during the war.

November: The US "ostentatiously" deploys nuclear capable bombers along the border of Yugoslavia after the downing of a US military aircraft.

1947: February: The US sends B-29 strategic bombers to a presidential inauguration in Uruguay.
1948: Berlin crisis: The US deploys and "display[s]" B-29s in Germany on three occasions.
1950: Nov. 30: President Truman announces that he is considering using nuclear weapons the day after US Marines are surrounded by Chinese Communist troops at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea.
1953: President Eisenhower secretly threatens to use nuclear weapons against China during the Korean War.
1954: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles secretly offers France three Mark 21 tactical nuclear weapons for use against Vietnamese troops which were surrounding French forces at Dienbienphu.

May: Strategic Air Command planes are sent to Nicaragua just before a CIA-supported coup against the elected government is carried out.

1956: October: President Eisenhower threatens the Soviet Union during the Suez Crisis.
1958: President Eisenhower sends troops to Lebanon and secretly authorizes the Joint Chiefs to use nuclear weapons following the onset of a crisis in Lebanon, a coup in Iraq, and fears that Egyptian President Nasser's influence would grow throughout the Middle East.

President Eisenhower secretly authorizes the use of nuclear weapons against China if they should invade the island of Quemoy, controlled by Chiang Kai-shek's troops.

1961: Berlin crisis: planned withdrawal of B-47 bombers is delayed.
1962: Cuban missile crisis. Both the US and USSR make threats - nuclear forces on both sides are on heightened alert; Soviet submarines are deployed to the Atlantic.
1968: The US considers using nuclear weapons in support of Marines surrounded at Khe Sanh, Vietnam.

North Korea seizes the Pueblo. The US deploys strategic (nuclear) aircraft in the western Pacific.

1969: The Soviet Union hints at the threat of a nuclear attack on China in connection with heightening border conflicts. Over the next few years, troop build-up along the border is accompanied by the stationing of nuclear missiles and tactical warheads.2
Part of 1960s and early 1970s: Areas in Indochina are reportedly targeted with nuclear weapons as a part of a contingency "last resort" tactic to "save" US troops that might be trapped.3
1969-72: President Nixon threatens escalation of the Viet Nam war, including possible nuclear attack in the North.
1971: The Soviet Union sends a naval task force to South Asia (nuclear status unclear).4

The US sends a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier into South Asian waters during the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh war - an implicit threat to India.5

1973: Middle East war: Superpower involvement in this conflict on opposite sides leads to a US decision to put its forces on alert.6
1980: January: The "Carter Doctrine," announced in the middle of the hostage crisis, declares a commitment to use "any means necessary, including military force" to keep the Soviets from advancing in the Persian Gulf (reaffirmed by President Reagan in 1981). These means included the use of nuclear weapons.
1991:7 The US threatens to use nuclear weapons under certain contingencies during the Gulf War.
1996: April: A US Assistant Secretary of Defense announces that if the US decided to destroy an (alleged) underground chemical weapons facility, it would use nuclear weapons. The existence of a specific plan for this was later denied.
1997: November: Presidential Decision Directive 60 allows the targeting of "rogue states" with "prospective access" to nuclear weapons. In the context of the conflict in Iraq, the administration refuses to rule out any option.8
1998: February 4: Russian President Boris Yeltsin, apparently troubled by news reports of PDD 60 simultaneously with the crisis in Iraq, warns that the US could start a world war through its actions in Iraq. "One must be careful in a world that is saturated with all kinds of weapons," he noted.

May: After India tests nuclear weapons, but before Pakistan conducts its own tests, the Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani warns Pakistan to change its attitude towards the disputed territory of Kashmir in view of the changed strategic situation. This warning is issued despite the fact that India had already announced a no-first-use policy.9

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October, 1998


ENDNOTES
  1. Unless otherwise noted, entries through 1980 are from Daniel Ellsberg, "Call to Mutiny," in Protest and Survive, E.P. Thompson and Dan Smith, eds., (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981); and Barry B. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan, Force Without War (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1978).

  2. Stephen S. Kaplan, Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1981), pp. 270-288.

  3. Jack Anderson, "U.S. Viet Plans Include A-Bombs," The Washington Post, 17 April 1972, page B17. Anderson's column was based on information provided by a former Air Force sergeant.

  4. William Bundy, A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), pp. 279-292. Bundy notes that this deployment was part of a general US-Soviet-Chinese-South Asian crisis that could have resulted in an overt superpower confrontation.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982), pp 575-599.

  7. Unless otherwise noted, entries 1990-1998 are from Stephen I. Schwartz "Miscalculated Ambiguity: US Policy on the Use and Threat of Use of Nuclear Weapons," Disarmament Diplomacy, No. 23, February 1998.

  8. Jeffery Smith, "Clinton Directive Changes Strategy on Nuclear Arms Centering on Deterrence, Officials Drop Terms for Long Atomic War," The Washington Post, 7 December 1997, p. A1. The PDD-60 remains a classified document. Quotes are from Robert G. Bell, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and "a separate official."

  9. Mr. Advani is reported as having said: "Islamabad should realize the change in the geo-strategic situation in the region and the world [and] roll back its anti-India policy, especially with regard to Kashmir." Mr. Advani recognized that India had a no-first-use pledge in the same press conference: India's nuclear capacity "has brought about a qualitatively new stage in Indo-Pakistani relations," he said. It "signifies - even while adhering to the principle of no first strike - [that] India is resolved to deal firmly with Pakistan's hostile activities in Kashmir." Kenneth J. Cooper, "Key Indian Official Warns Pakistan," The Washington Post, 19 May 1998, p. A15.