Libya - Option 2: Deterrence

Proponents Say: Reaffirm and Clarify U.S. Policy of Deterrence Against WMD Attack.

• Strengthen U.S. military ties to Israel, Egypt, and U.S. allies in Southern Europe, and reiterate that the United States would respond with devastating force to any use of WMD against these countries.
• Building on statements made when the United States signed the non-use protocol to the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, reiterate that by signing this protocol, the United States does not rule out the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for a biological weapons (BW) attack or a large-scale chemical weapons (CW) attack, under the doctrine of belligerent reprisal.

Opponents Say: Promotion of the Deterrence Policy Could Weaken the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime.

• The United States has declared to the United Nations that it will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state unless that state attacks the United States in alliance with or in concert with a nuclear weapon state. Because Libya is a non-nuclear weapon state party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the United States has effectively pledged not to employ nuclear weapons against Libya.
• Many other non-nuclear weapon state countries that are parties to the NPT see this pledge, known as a negative security assurance, as an important factor in their own decisions not to develop nuclear weapons.
• If the United States backed away from this position, some of these countries might reconsider their decision to stay in the NPT.
• Although some international legal scholars contend that negative security assurances are non-binding, the United States has signed binding treaty protocols prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons against members of the Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Opening the possibility of using nuclear weapons in retaliation for a CW or BW attack would call this commitment into question.
• Suggesting that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to a CW or BW attack makes it more likely that the United States would be trapped into waging a nuclear war. After making a deterrent threat, a U.S. president might believe that unless the United States actually employed nuclear weapons to retaliate for a WMD attack, it would appear weak. U.S. nuclear retaliation would erode the global taboo against the use of nuclear weapons.

Further Reading:

	Brookings Institution, Janne E. Nolan, "An Elusive Consensus: Nuclear Weapons and American Society after the Cold War" (see pages 80-81)
	CDI, Kathryn R. Schultz, "U.S. Nuclear Posture and Doctrine Since the End of the Cold War"
	George Bunn, "Expanding Nuclear Options: Is the U.S. Negating its Non-Use Pledges?" Arms Control Today, May/June 1996, page 7.
	WMD 411, Deterrence
	U.S. Department of State, A Declaration by the President on Security Assurances for Non-Nuclear Weapon States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
	Scott D. Sagan, "The Commitment Trap: Why the United States Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and Chemical Weapon Attacks," International Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Spring 2000)

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