The Guardian 8 June, 2005
New US doctrine
of nuclear pre-emption
The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces is preparing new guidelines for the use of
nuclear weapons. On March 15 this year, it made public the draft titled "Doctrine for Joint
Nuclear Operations". The plan, which is expected to be finalised in August, will give shape
to the US nuclear pre-emptive attack strategy announced by the Bush administration in the
2002 "Nuclear Posture Review".
In the Nuclear Non-proliferation Review Conference at the UN, many non-nuclear states are calling
for the abolition as well as no first use of nuclear weapons. The new US doctrine directly rejects
their calls.
The US President has the authority to approve the use of nuclear weapons. The new doctrine
proposes eight specific cases in which regional commanders in the Pacific and other theatres may
request presidential approval to carry out a nuclear strike. They include: an adversary using or
intending to use weapons of mass destruction against US, multinational, or alliance forces or
civilian populations; to counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces; for rapid
and favourable war termination on US terms; to insure success of US and multinational
operations.
It is significant that the doctrine calls for the use of nuclear weapons against those who are
perceived to have an intention to attack the US. If war is prosecuted based on such an assumption,
the world will face disastrous consequences. Article 51 of the UN Charter prohibits member states
from using force based on a possibility of attack.
The Bush administration launched the Iraq war based on the allegation that the Hussein regime
had weapons of mass destruction. Making a pre-emptive strike against a country because of a
perceived dangerous "intention", although the United States is not under attack, amounts to a war
of aggression. That's why many countries, including US allies, expressed their opposition to the
Iraq War.
The Bush administration, however, maintains a national policy of pre-emptive war. Completion of
the new doctrine will further increase the risk of the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in conflicts
like the Iraq war.
The new doctrine, calling for the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons in order to ensure success in
operations of multinational forces, may involve Japan as a US "accomplice" because the Koizumi
government sent the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to participate in the multinational forces led by US
forces in the Iraq war and would join the US pre-emptive wars anywhere in the world.
If US forces, with support from Japan, use nuclear weapons unilaterally, it will cause elsewhere the
indescribable tragedy caused by the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Regardless of
whether the SDF actually use force or not, Japan-US joint operations abroad will always have to be
premised on the use of nuclear weapons.
Opposition to the Bush administration's pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons policy is very
important for world peace and security.
The Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations reveals the fact that the Bush administration
systematically pursues a policy of the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. The United States is
attempting to scrap the 2000 "unequivocal undertaking" and instead is engaging in research and
development of smaller nuclear weapons. This is because the United States, centring its pre-
emptive attack strategy on the use of nuclear weapons, seeks to make these weapons usable in
actual wars.
Abolition of nuclear weapons guarantees a ban on the pre-emptive use of such weapons. Let us
increase the public movement calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons around the
world.
Japan Press Weekly