The title says it clearly enough. A “no first use” pledge might work much better than threats if we want to advert a nuclear war with, for example, North Korea. Given the size of the country’s army, even a conventional weapons conflict would have devastating consequences on the Korean peninsula. But a “no first use” pledge would probably prevent that as well, since it could include something like “no state will use nuclear weapons as long as its territorial integrity is preserved”. Here’s an article that describes all this in more detail:
