Regime-making and the Limits of Consensus

Abstract

Nuclear export policy does not spring untainted from theoretical analyses of the nature of the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation. Such evaluations are certainly a part of the multiplicity of factors lying behind the formulation of policy, but, in this field perhaps more than in others, analyses can also be self-serving and the criteria of political acceptability of technical arguments may shift according to circumstance, interest, opportunity and the real or anticipated actions of others. Yet on the other hand, this is also a policy area in which states have periodically been tempted to launch crusading endeavours in the name of peace and to accept, indeed, substantial costs in terms of lost commercial deals and the erosion of diplomatic capital in order to do so. Given competition between national nuclear industries, the prospects of growing overseas sales laced occasionally with multi-billion dollar contracts, uncertainties and declines in the domestic nuclear power programmes of western countries generally, the high political character of many of the issues involved and the consequent minimal authority of international agencies, the identification of national programmes with national prestige and of certain parts of the nuclear fuel cycle with national survival — given these and other factors, supplier consensus becomes not so much an elusive ideal as an analytical conundrum: puzzling when it happens and, for some on the receiving end of nuclear supply decisions, perturbing.

Few words so innocently incorporate into their basic meaning as much simplifying illusion as does the word policy. It means a settled, definite course of action, and yet by its very nature, policy needs to be formulated when there are complex, uncertain alternatives so difficult to analyse and resolve that it is almost impossible to settle on a single, definite course. The illusory qualities of the word have merit, however, for once the compromising, hedging judgements have been made, choosing, chances are, not one but several conflicting courses, it is comforting to be able to describe them by a word implying such wisdom, certainty, and singleness of purpose.

J. Cordell Moore, Under-Secretary of the Interior, “Observations on US Energy Policy”, Nov. 1966