This paper discusses making No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons enshrined in the Indian Nuclear Doctrine as a first step towards nuclear disarmament. The proposal derives its credence from the efforts of the US President Barrack Obama to place nuclear disarmament as an important policy of his administration. Incidentally, the concept of NFU originated in the US, but it is China that put it into practice first, in October 1964 after its first nuclear test. Of the many advantages of the policy of NFU, it is more democratic in contrast to the First Use (FU) policy practiced by the US. Under the policy of FU, per force, nuclear weapons have to be placed with the armed forces for instant use. But in NFU, since nuclear weapons are used only for a second strike, the weapons could be held by a different agency other than the armed forces. India is the only country that has made, "Global, verifiable and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament" as a national security objective by including it in the nuclear doctrine. Hence, the step has to be taken for an international treaty amongst the known nuclear powers and threshold states on NFU of nuclear weapons. Noble Peace Laureate, Sir Joseph Rotblat had called for a treaty among Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) that commits them never to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Rotblat rightly thought NFU "would open the way to the gradual, mutual reductions of nuclear arsenals, down to zero." If each NWS commits not to use nuclear weapon as a weapon of first strike, there shall be no occasion to use them at all. India had introduced such a proposal for consideration in the UN Conference on Disarmament in February 2008. A multilateral agreement under UN should bind the nations to a greater extent to follow the spirit of the treaty.

Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington, DC in November 2009 was billed as the first state visit of Obama presidency. One of the issues mentioned in the joint statement issued on November 24 after their deliberations, speaks about nuclear disarmament. For the ruling Democratic Party in the US today, as it was during the Clinton presidency (1993-2001), nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament are dear issues. Hence, the two leaders of the US and India spoke of their "shared vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and pledged to work together as leaders of responsible states....". There are other high sounding commitments like `testing moratorium', commitment to ratify Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), negotiate "a multilateral, non-discriminatory and internationally verifiable fissile material cut-off treaty."

That helps Obama in creating a noble-soul-image of himself post-facto winning the Nobel prize for peace! But how is it that, with such high-sounding goals in nuclear arena, the peacenik President did not think of carrying forward the baton of advocacy of No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons from the 1995 Noble Peace Laureate—Joseph Rotblat? It is equally a wonder, how with such a deep commitment to nuclear disarmament, Indian PM missed an opportunity to convince his American counterpart to accept Indian commitment to NFU as a first step towards nuclear disarmament as a part of Rajiv Gandhi's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons?

What is the meaning of NFU? How did it originate? What is its significance? How did it acquire a global appeal? How did it come into Indian thought process? Can it really become a first step in nuclear disarmament? These are the issues which I propose to discuss in the following pages. The US has the dubious distinction of inventing the atom bomb and also of experimenting with its only use so far and consequent realization of catastrophic destruction it could bring about. Hence, Americans were also the first ones in proposing an NFU principle. Republican Senator Ralph Flanders from Vermont, made the earliest suggestion of NFU of nuclear weapons. He introduced on June 27, 1949 a resolution in the US Senate stating that "the atom bomb like biological warfare, wholesale poisoning, is not properly a military device directed against the armed forces of the enemy, but rather is a means for the mass murder of civilians." Hence, he called upon the Truman administration to adopt NFU policy.

International Relations Journal, Nuclear Weapons, Global Nuclear Disarmament, Nuclear Weapon States, Biological Warfare, Truman Administration, American Intellectual Property, Government Policy, Atomic Energy Commission, Mass Destruction, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Chinese Nuclear Weapons, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, European Union.