a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought

Origins and Context

The principle was codified by agreement between the USSR and the United States in the 'Security' section of the joint statement issued at the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva, Switzerland, on 21 November 1985. The agreed Russian original reads «Обсудив ключевые вопросы безопасности, стороны, сознавая особую ответственность СССР и США в деле сохранения мира, заявляют, что ядерная война никогда не должна быть развязана, в ней не может быть победителей» and uses the plural 'победителей' (no victors). The following sentences record that the sides recognized any USSR-U.S. conflict could have catastrophic consequences, emphasized preventing any war between them whether nuclear or conventional, and stated that "They will not seek to achieve military superiority."

The 1985 statement is therefore not the first articulation of the principle but its jointly agreed embodiment. The same sentence already appears in Reagan's national radio address of 17 April 1982: "Those who've governed America throughout the nuclear age and we who govern it today have had to recognize that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." Reagan refined and frequently repeated the line, and the language later became the most notable achievement of the 1985 Geneva summit.

The principle's roots trace back to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, after which a shared recognition of the risks of nuclear use formed between Washington and Moscow. That philosophy was reflected in U.S.-Soviet agreements and treaties of 1969-1979: the 1971 Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Outbreak of Nuclear War and the 1973 Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War are the clearest cases, and nearly identical language appears in the 1972 Basic Principles, the 1972 ABM Treaty and the 1979 SALT II Treaty. There were also earlier statements before the 1985 summit. In October 1981 Leonid Brezhnev declared it 'dangerous madness' to try to outdo each other in the arms race and to count on victory in nuclear war, adding that 'only he who has decided to commit suicide can start a nuclear war in the hope of emerging a victor.' Reagan replied that he had been misquoted, then used the line in April 1982 and repeated it often thereafter.

In his June 2005 account at the UN office in Geneva, Gorbachev said that at the 1985 meeting the two sides agreed on a document stating «ядерная война никогда не должна быть развязана, в ней не может быть победителя». That is a later recollection in the singular 'победителя' and is not the wording of the 1985 document itself. In the same remarks he treated serious negotiations on nuclear-arms reduction as the logical consequence of that recognition, leading through Reykjavík and later summits to the elimination of certain classes of nuclear weapons and agreements sharply reducing strategic arms.

Lineage and Later Reaffirmations

The Reykjavík summit of 11-12 October 1986 ended without agreement, but the progress made there led to the 1987 INF Treaty; Gorbachev proposed eliminating all nuclear weapons within ten years, and the United States countered with the elimination of all ballistic missiles within ten years. The phrase was repeated in bilateral settings such as the December 1987 Washington summit and the May-June 1988 Moscow summit, and variants appeared in both START treaty texts, but neither the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty nor the 2010 New START refers to it directly or indirectly. The report of Main Committee I of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference reaffirmed "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought"; no other NPT review conference specifically cited the principle.

Interest in the principle revived in 2018-2019. In 2018 UN High Representative for Disarmament Izumi Nakamitsu stressed its continuing relevance; in April 2019 George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn called for a Trump-Putin joint reaffirmation; and before the May 2019 NPT Preparatory Committee China proposed affirmation at P5 level, which did not materialize. Among the five NPT nuclear-weapon states China was the strongest and most consistent supporter and the United States the most reluctant; Russia was open to the Chinese effort and said it had unsuccessfully sought U.S. affirmation in autumn 2018; the UK publicly kept step with the U.S. but was privately more amenable; and France suggested the principle erodes the logic of its own nuclear deterrence.

At the Biden-Putin Geneva summit of 16 June 2021, held at Villa La Grange in Geneva, the two presidents reaffirmed the principle, and Putin and Xi Jinping reaffirmed it in a public statement later the same month. By then Macron and Johnson had declined to join, with the UK and France privately making both the argument that nothing would change and the contrary argument that it would create unwanted pressure for a change in nuclear policy. According to SIPRI, the principle had not been affirmed simultaneously by all five nuclear-weapon states before 2022.

At 16:00 on 3 January 2022 the P5 joint statement 'on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races' was issued by China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA. The five states affirmed that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, stated that nuclear weapons should serve defensive purposes, deterrence and war prevention for as long as they continue to exist, reaffirmed their NPT Article VI obligations, committed to maintaining and strengthening national measures against unauthorized or unintended use, and reiterated the validity of previous de-targeting statements that none of their nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or any other state. The statement was timed for what would have been the eve of the four-times-postponed 10th NPT Review Conference, and one identified motive was to placate critics of the P5's failure to take practical disarmament steps. The conference was then postponed again because of Covid-19.

The Russia-PRC Joint Statement on Global Strategic Stability of 8 May 2025 reaffirms commitment to the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States of 3 January 2022 and to the principle enshrined therein that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, calling on all participating states to fully adhere to its provisions in practice. The two countries also expressed regret that not all participating states actually follow those provisions.

The lineage can be distinguished in four stages: (a) codification in the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev joint statement, (b) reaffirmation at the Biden-Putin and Putin-Xi level in 2021, (c) multilateralization through the P5 joint statement of 3 January 2022, and (d) further confirmation in the Russia-PRC joint statement of 8 May 2025.

Distinctions and Limits

SIPRI contrasts the 1985 and 2022 statements. The 1985 statement came when nuclear negotiations had just been launched, and the discussion of complete nuclear elimination at the Reykjavík talks that followed led to the 1987 INF Treaty and steep reductions in nuclear weapons. The 2022 statement, by contrast, was noticeably free of concrete commitments or practical proposals, where the 1985 statement was full of them. The 2022 statement should therefore not be expected to have an impact comparable to that of 1985.

A textual variant also matters for how the principle is described. The agreed Russian original of 1985 uses the plural «в ней не может быть победителей» (no victors), whereas the form Gorbachev quoted in his 2005 recollection uses the singular «в ней не может быть победителя». The latter is a later retrospective quotation, not the wording of the 1985 document itself.

The European Leadership Network (ELN) notes that the 1985 statement was part of a larger statement announcing a continuing process of dialogue on reducing nuclear risk and on non-proliferation and disarmament, and functioned as a confidence-building measure with concrete results that paved the way for the START and INF treaties. Some states hesitated to reaffirm the principle because of a lack of trust and the criticism that a statement alone is no panacea for all nuclear and strategic risks.

Examples

The 'Security' section of the 1985 joint statement recorded further concrete commitments immediately after the nuclear-war sentence: recognition that any USSR-U.S. conflict could have catastrophic consequences, emphasis on preventing any war between them whether nuclear or conventional, and the pledge not to seek military superiority. The same statement carried many other agreed items: Nuclear and Space Talks, Risk Reduction Centers including modernization of the hotline, Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Chemical Weapons, MBFR, CDE, the Process of Dialogue, Northern Pacific Air Safety, Civil Aviation/Consulates including the simultaneous opening of consulates general in New York and Kiev, Environmental Protection, Exchange Initiatives including the signing of exchange agreements and resumption of cooperation on cancer research, and Fusion Research.

The 2022 P5 statement gave the principle practical content: the limitation of nuclear weapons to defensive purposes, the Article VI commitment, national measures against unauthorized or unintended use, and reiteration that none of their nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or any other state.

A case showing the gap between the principle and practice: the 2022 P5 statement said nuclear weapons should serve defensive purposes, yet among the P5 only China has a no-first-use policy, China has been expanding its arsenal, and the other four are modernizing their nuclear forces. SIPRI points to the logical tension between no-first-use declarations and the principle that nuclear war cannot be won.

Continuity of venue is also documented. The Biden-Putin summit of 16 June 2021 was held at Villa La Grange in Geneva, where the two sides agreed to launch dialogue on arms control and cybersecurity and strategic stability was a major agenda item. Geneva had also hosted the 1955 Four-Power talks and the Reagan-Gorbachev summit of November 1985. On the third day of the 1985 summit, 21 November, Reagan and Gorbachev held a joint press conference at the International Conference Centre (CICG) to announce several agreements, and a subsequent signing ceremony produced the agreement opening consulates general in Kiev and New York, the resumption of the dialogue on regular summitry, and 41 cultural exchange agreements.