Is it possible after nuclear weapons are made, for governments to simply refuse to use them, or atleast refuse to use them against civilian targets while engaged in massive wars against other nuclear powers?
Famously Labour's 1983 election manifesto - "the longest suicide note in history" in the words of Gerald Kaufman - committed the party to a non-nuclear defence policy, but strongly implied that there would be a transition period during which Britain would retain at least some nuclear capability:
http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1983/1983-labour-manifesto.shtml
Labour leader Michael Foot was one of CND's founders, so there was a general assumption that if Labour had won the 1983 election the party would not have authorised the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Labour's plan was to cancel Trident but retain Polaris until the world was free of nuclear weapons. I imagine therefore if WW3 had broken out in 1983 the BAOR would have tried to hold back the Soviets by conventional means but Foot would have had Britain's Polaris submarines sailing around in circles, which makes me wonder if Britain's armed forces would have considered removing him from power and installing a military government instead.
Presumably Foot's idea was that the Soviets would not launch nuclear weapons against Britain if we didn't launch first - perhaps even that the Soviets wouldn't blockade and invade Britain - but I'm skeptical. We would have had to turf out the US from all of our airbases and sever any military ties with the US, and even then the Soviets would never have trusted us. I envisage Foot telling the House of Commons with utmost confidence that the Soviets would never strike Britain just as a barrage of SS-20s wipes London from the face of the Earth.
As with all political manifestos there are a lot of vague promises that Labour will take steps to look into establishing a timescale etc. Parts of imply that Labour would defend Britain against nuclear attack by recruiting more soldiers, which might have helped with the clean-up after the attack but wouldn't have been much use against incoming ICBMs. "
We wish to see NATO itself develop a non-nuclear strategy. We will work towards the establishment of a new security system in Europe based on mutual trust and confidence, and knowledge of the objectives and capabilities of all sides. The ultimate objective of a satisfactory relationship in Europe is the mutual and concurrent phasing out of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact", which would be a neat trick. I can't imagine Michael Foot successfully phasing out NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
The manifesto also implied that Labour would ask the United Nations to come up with a plan to hand the Falklands to Argentina, which must have gone down like a lead balloon at the time (the Falklands War had been fought twelve months earlier). It also ruled out arms sales to Turkey, amongst other countries.