[QUEUED] Nuclear Aggression Act

[Grey County]

I support this proposal and wish you luck

[Jedinsto]

Change of plans, since the queue is completely empty at the moment, this will be submitted tomorrow at minor.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Two issues.

1. Calculated ambiguity helps deterrence by preventing adversaries from toeing right to the line of what was previously declared and engaging in salami tactics.

2. It's unclear to me whether this would allow member nations to extend nuclear umbrellas. Precluding a nuclear umbrella has pro-proliferation effects, increasing the number of possible miscalculations. Retaliation generally stands for a response, but by focusing on nations rather than alliances thereof, a harmonious reading seems to preclude the kind of deterrence that stopped the Soviet Union from overrunning West Germany.

[Jedinsto]

You definitely bring up a good point there, and I incorporated nuclear umbrellas into clause 2.

[Jedinsto]

Submitted.

[Jedinsto]

Officially halfway to quorum

[Jedinsto]

Quorum reached

[Imperium Anglorum]

2. Bans the use of nuclear weapons on other nations, except for retaliating to a massive, or repeated, attack from an armed force, or in response to a biological, chemical, or nuclear weapon strike, to one's own nation, or a nation allied by treaty for the purposes of mutual defense.

This wording solves neither of the problems that I noted.

[Jedinsto]

It allows for nuclear umbrellas

[Imperium Anglorum]

2. Bans the use of nuclear weapons on other nations, except for retaliating to a massive, or repeated, attack from an armed force, or in response to a biological, chemical, or nuclear weapon strike, to one's own nation, or a nation allied by treaty for the purposes of mutual defense.

This wording solves neither of the problems that I noted.

Because you have commas all over the place (even when not necessary, required, or prudent), I get this diagram:

Bans the use of nuclear weapons on other nations [ except for 1. retaliating to a massive (, or repeated,) attack from an armed force, or 2. in response to a biological, chemical, or nuclear weapon strike (, to one's own nation,) or a nation allied by treaty for the purposes of mutual defense].

Attaching the dangling modifier from your current text to the end of what is marked as '1.' would produce an ungrammatical construct, 'attack from an armed force... to one's own nation', when the correct preposition would be 'on'. Even if it said 'on' and we ignore the commas in accordance with traditional English practice, see eg Larry Eig, 'Statutory Interpretation: General Principles and Recent Trend' (2014) Cong Rsch Serv report 97-589, 13 (available at https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-589.pdf), the dangling modifier would only attach to what is marked as '2.' under the rule of the last antecedent. Ibid.

There is a possible interpretation of the section under '2.' as allowing the use of nuclear weapons 'in response to... a nation allied by treaty...' but this would go massively against the intent of the law, which is to restrict nuclear aggression. Allowing the use of nuclear weapons merely because some other nation requests it would do almost nothing to restrain aggressive tendencies.

This yields only one possible interpretation, that a nation may retaliate with nuclear weapons to a massive attack from an armed force. As one cannot retaliating to attacks on other nations, since that would not be a 'retaliation', it does not admit the use of nuclear weapons on (very lightly disguised) Mega-Allemagne by Albion in response to a massive invasion of Greater Brabant on their way to Gaul.

I think what you wanted to write would be something like:

Bans a member from using nuclear weapons on another nation except in retaliation to (1) a massive or repeated attack from an armed force on or (2) a biological, chemical, or nuclear weapon strike on that member or a nation allied thereto by treaty for the purposes of mutual defence.

Regardless, if I were the author, I would not put any restrictions on use and therefore abandon the draft.

[The Python]

Support - The use of WMD's is almost all of the time, if not always unethical and bad - in fact one could argue that this does not go far enough as it still allows nations to have supplies of nuclear bombs. Repealing this could help too, but still, support.

[Wayneactia]

This already failed once, and is very likely to fail yet again.

[Grey County]

This already failed once, and is very likely to fail yet again.

He withdrew it last time