Is it possible for governments to refuse to use nuclear weapons?

During WWII there were chemical weapons that could have devastated civilian populations, like Anthrax and Nerve Gas, yet they weren’t used in Europe to wipe huge chunks of the population, even amidst atrocities on an unprecedented scale they didn’t come out.

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?

I honestly almost think it’s weird to think that a war between the modern US and Russia would have to come down to nuclear weapons is kind of nuts, like losing that war wouldn’t really be that bad for either side.
 
You can’t openly state you won’t use nuclear weapons because, ultimately, you can never be certain that the other side won’t read “we will never use nuclear weapons” as “nuke us and face no consequences.”

The principle of MAD is de facto everyone agreeing not to use nukes because we all know once that genie is out of the bottle we are all doomed. And if a nuclear exchange did break out I don’t think it’s impossible one side would refuse to retaliate due to not wanting to doom all of mankind. Unlikely of course but it’s possible.
 
You can’t openly state you won’t use nuclear weapons because, ultimately, you can never be certain that the other side won’t read “we will never use nuclear weapons” as “nuke us and face no consequences.”

The principle of MAD is de facto everyone agreeing not to use nukes because we all know once that genie is out of the bottle we are all doomed. And if a nuclear exchange did break out I don’t think it’s impossible one side would refuse to retaliate due to not wanting to doom all of mankind. Unlikely of course but it’s possible.
If nuclear weapons were discovered under different circumstances, like no WWI and all the Great Powers developing them, is it possible to just have a different mindset, where using them would simply be unthinkable because of how obvious it is that MAD is worse than being conquered, or because it is not gentlemanly?
 
During WWII there were chemical weapons that could have devastated civilian populations, like Anthrax and Nerve Gas, yet they weren’t used in Europe to wipe huge chunks of the population, even amidst atrocities on an unprecedented scale they didn’t come out.

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?

I honestly almost think it’s weird to think that a war between the modern US and Russia would have to come down to nuclear weapons is kind of nuts, like losing that war wouldn’t really be that bad for either side.
As a citizen of one NATO nation and a citizen of western non NATO ally..

I wasn't really thrilled about the possibility of loosing a war against the Warsaw Pact during the later stages of the Cold War. At the time I expect I would have been somewhat unhappy if my leaders had just given up after loosing a conventional war.... I suspect the leaders had a lot more at stake personally than I did (ie I doubt they wanted to spend time in a Gulag or live in the basement of the KGB headquarters following loosing WW3...)

I don't see a Cold War era WW3 having ended without at least some use of nuclear weapons but I could possibly (hopefully) see leaders deciding to ask for terms before engaging in an all out counter value MAD exchange.
 
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You can’t openly state you won’t use nuclear weapons because, ultimately, you can never be certain that the other side won’t read “we will never use nuclear weapons” as “nuke us and face no consequences.”

The principle of MAD is de facto everyone agreeing not to use nukes because we all know once that genie is out of the bottle we are all doomed. And if a nuclear exchange did break out I don’t think it’s impossible one side would refuse to retaliate due to not wanting to doom all of mankind. Unlikely of course but it’s possible.
Yeah... I could maybe see one side using tactical Nuclear weapons and or trying some limited strategic counterforce usage then deciding to ask for terms while they still had something to bargin with..

If the nuclear response of the other side was reasonably proportional and they offered reasonable terms WW3 might have ended without the world as we knew it ending..
 
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You might actually see this happen just for the UK if Corbyn is elected. He is a strongly opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, but the right of his party and trade unions want to keep the nuclear submarine programme going, so there is a strange situation where Labour is committed to maintaining a nuclear deterrent which its leader has explicitly said he won't use under any circumstances.

I can see that sort of situation arising with countless other alternative UK PMs who are personally opposed to nuclear weapons but there party isn't. But given that unilateralism doesn't really exist in the US, Russia, China, or most other nuclear weapons countries, I don't think that you could see widespread takeup of this policy elsewhere.
 
Leaders have been refusing to use nukes since 1950, however there hasn't been a situation where the choice has been nukes or annihilation. I'm sure the most dovish leader would use nukes if the enemy was about to overrun the capital.
 
During WWII there were chemical weapons that could have devastated civilian populations, like Anthrax and Nerve Gas, yet they weren’t used in Europe to wipe huge chunks of the population, even amidst atrocities on an unprecedented scale they didn’t come out.
Oh, no. That's more of a myth than anything else, chemical weapons are a bitch to deploy effectively, even on cities. The Allies had a shitload of bombers and it was much more effective to drop incendiaries to murder tons of people with said bombers, plus it'd wreck the industries. As for Germany, they had the first decent nerve gas, but even then, without decent means to deploy it, it wouldn't do much damage.
 
I honestly almost think it’s weird to think that a war between the modern US and Russia would have to come down to nuclear weapons is kind of nuts, like losing that war wouldn’t really be that bad for either side.

During the cold war, the only way to stop the tide of Warsaw Pact forces was to turn to tactical nukes to buy time for REFORGER to be carried out. There simply wasn't enough NATO forces in Europe to actually beat back the Soviets. Tactical nukes will of course lead to similar use by the other side and a very dangerous escalation to strategic weapons. Don't forget that during this time, launch-on-warning (LOW) was in use - the US had bombers in the air all the time ready to strike upon detection. So an escalation into strategic warfare was almost certainly guaranteed.
 
Oh, no. That's more of a myth than anything else, chemical weapons are a bitch to deploy effectively, even on cities. The Allies had a shitload of bombers and it was much more effective to drop incendiaries to murder tons of people with said bombers, plus it'd wreck the industries. As for Germany, they had the first decent nerve gas, but even then, without decent means to deploy it, it wouldn't do much damage.
That’s actually pretty disheartening.

Because I’ve read during WWII that both sides rather decided, let’s let a sleeping dog lie, and let’s not use them unless they do.

But what you point out is more in keeping with human nature. Maybe it was only a minority of letting sleeping dog lie.
 
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.
 
Actually it is pretty easy for countries nowadays to declare that they themselves neither have nor plan to obtain nor plan to use any nuclear bombs. Under the Mutually Assured Destruction policy it is enough that you have a friend who has nukes and will use them to avenge you once you get nuked. Like this Germany, Japan, South Korea and half of the NATO members can grinningly declare that they will never use any nukes themselves. They got enough other countries to do it for them. Even a country that is pretty universally despised like 1990's Iraq strictly didn't need any nukes because if one country were to nuke them, some other country might just get nervous....
 
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