First strike
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- For the Star Wars-based mod for Battlefield 2, see First Strike (game mod).
In nuclear strategy, first strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's launch facilities and storage depots first, in an overwhelming surprise attack -- hence the name.
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Theory
One reason that critics oppose missile defense systems, such as Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, is that they view them as undermining one of the fundamental premises of mutual assured destruction: the proposed defense systems, intended to lessen the risk of devastating nuclear war, would lead to it, according to critics.
The non-missile defense side, seeing that a nation was building a defense against a first strike and believing that the other could launch a first strike if it dared, would then launch a pre-emptive first strike while they still had a chance. The reasoning behind this is the claim that mutual destruction is better than defeat.
Soviet Union
First-strike attack, that is, the use of a nuclear first strike capability, was greatly feared during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War the Soviet Union feared the United States would use its nuclear superiority to devastate the motherland. At various points of the Cold War, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides. Misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side were usually fuel on the fire of speculation regarding the enemy's intentions.
In 1982, at a special session of General Assembly of United Nations, the USSR pledged not to use nuclear weapons first, regardless of whether its opponents possessed nuclear weapons or not. This pledge has not been matched by any other country or bloc, and was later abandoned by post-Soviet Russia.
In the 1940s the US enjoyed a monopoly of nuclear forces, while in the late 1950s and early 1960s Nikita Khrushchev boasted of a Soviet superiority in missile forces. The arrival of Soviet missiles in Cuba was meant to expose the US to the possibility of attack without warning. The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in him backing down rather than risking war. During the crisis, Fidel Castro wrote Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the US might follow an invasion of Cuba with a first strike against the USSR. The following quotation from the letter suggests to some writers that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against the US.
- "... the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it." [1]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the decision of NATO to deploy new intermediate nuclear forces through Cruise and Pershing missiles (along with Ronald Reagan's talk of 'limited' nuclear war) increased Soviet fears that NATO was planning an attack.
In fact Soviet military theory was dominated by the theory of the "deep operation" - a large scale armoured offensive into enemy-held territory - rather than a nuclear offensive. Soviet "conventional" superiority and the fact that the Soviet Union certainly considered the deep operation as a potential first strike weapon in a time of increased tension, increased NATO reliance on nuclear weapons.
Although neither side was actively pursuing a first-strike policy (since the time of Khrushchev, the leaders of orthodox communism believed that "peaceful coexistence" with the "imperialist" powers was possible) both sides relied on military strategies that could have still caused a general nuclear war.
Iran
In the April 17 2006 issue of The New Yorker[2], Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported on the Bush Administration's purported plans for an air strike within Iran. Of particular note in his article is that an American nuclear first strike (possibly using the B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon) is under consideration to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. In response, President Bush cited Hersh's reportage as "wild speculation"[3] but did not deny its veracity.