Abstract
The 1970s saw the effort to check the spread of nuclear weapons thrown into disarray. The oil crisis of 1973 contributed to an increase in interest in nuclear power as an alternative energy source. More and more states, some of them of questionable internal stability and others in areas of political instability, began to acquire or plan for the acquisition of nuclear power facilities. The spread of these facilities and growing interest in plutonium breeding promised to complicate safeguarding problems by increasing substantially the volume of material to be controlled. The Indian test of 1974, it was feared, could stimulate other powers to develop nuclear weapons potentials, either through emulation or as a result of regional rivalries. Attempts to respond to these perceived challenges were hindered by different interests and preferences regarding means. Thus, despite attempts to co-ordinate action and to strengthen the obstacles to the spread of nuclear weapons, it cannot be said that we have recovered from the shocks of the last decade.
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Notes
See, e.g., J. G. Ruggie and E. B. Haas (eds) International Organization 29 (Summer 1975), special issue: International Responses to Technology;
E. B. Skolnikoff, The International Imperatives of Technology, ( Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1972 ).
E.g., the following: H. R. Alker, Jr, “A Methodology for Research Designs on Interdependence Alternatives”, International Organization 31 (Winter 1977 ) pp. 29–63;
R. N. Cooper, “Prolegomena to the Choice of an International Monetary System”, in C. F. Bergsten and L. B. Krause, (eds) World Politics and International Economics ( Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1975 ) pp. 63–97;
E. B. Haas, “On Systems and International Regimes”, World Politics 27 (Jan. 1975) pp. 147–74.
R. F. Hopkins and D. J. Puchala, “Perspectives on the Inter- national Relations of Food”, International Organization, 32 (Summer 1978 ) pp. 581–616;
R. O. Keohane and J. S. Nye, Jr, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977 );
D. J. Puchala and R. F. Hopkins, “Regimes and Political Theory: Lessons from Inductive Analysis”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, 1980;
J. G. Ruggie, “International Responses to Technology: Concepts and Trends”, International Organization, 29 (Summer 1975 ) pp. 557–83;
A. A. Stein, “Global Anarchy, State Interest, and International Regimes”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, 1980;
O. R. Young, “Anarchy and Social Choice: Reflections on the Global Polity”, World Politics, 30 (Jan. 1978) pp. 241–63.
The concept of a regime is thus intimately connected to the concept of “meta-power” — the ability to structure social relations, to affect not merely how a game is played but also the rules of the game and, indeed, the very choice of the game. See T. Baumgartner, W. Buckley, T. R. Burns and P. Schuster, “Meta-Power and the Structuring of Social Hierarchies”, in T. R. Burns and W. Buckley (eds), Power and Control: Social Structures and their Transformation, (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979) pp. 224–5.
Keohane and Nye, pp. 54–8; Robert W. Cox and Harold K. Jacobson, “The Framework for Inquiry”, in Robert W. Cox and Harold K. Jacobson, et al., The Anatomy of Influence: Decision Making in International Organization ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973 ) pp. 12–14;
John G. Ruggie, “Collective Goods and Future International Collaboration”, American Political Science Review, 66 (Sept. 1972) pp. 874–93.
See, e.g., Stephen D. Krasner, “State Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade”, World Politics, 28 (Apr. 1976) pp. 317–43; Keohane, “Hegemonic Stability”, p. 8. The Keohane paper goes on to examine the limits of structural explanations of regime changes. See also Keohane and Nye, pp. 42–54.
For a recent treatment of nuclear proliferation in which the ambiguities of the definition of the problem are central, see Ashok Kapur, International Nuclear Proliferation: Multilateral Diplomacy and Regional Aspects ( New York: Praeger, 1979 ).
See Victor Gilinsky, “Diversion by National Governments”, in Mason Willrich (ed.), International Safeguards and Nuclear Industry, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) pp. 159–75.
Arnold Kramish, The Peaceful Atom in Foreign Policy ( New York: Harper and Row, for the Council on Foreign Relations, 1963 ) p. 25.
This assumption was known to be overstated, if not false, by 1952, but it seems that only the prospects of plutonium breeding and recycling led to concern about reactor-grade plutonium. For an exhaustive study of the issue of denaturing plutonium, see Alexander De Volpi, Proliferation, Plutonium and Policy: Institutional and Technological Impediments to Nuclear Weapons Propagation ( New York: Pergamon Press, 1979 ).
Harold L. Nieburg, Nuclear Secrecy and Foreign Policy ( Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1964 ) p. 75.
This section draws heavily on the following: Bernhard G. Bechhoefer, “Negotiating the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency”, International Organization, 13 (Winter 1959 ) pp. 38–59;
Robert Pendley and Lawrence Scheinman, with the collaboration of Richard W. Butler, “International Safeguards as Institutionalized Collective Behavior”, International Organization, 29 (Summer 1975) pp. 585–616.
General accounts of the negotiation of the Non-proliferation Treaty and analysis of its provisions may be found in: William Epstein, The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control ( New York: The Free Press, 1976 );
Georges Fischer (translated by David Willey) The Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (London: Europa Publications, 1971);
George Quester, The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation ( Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973 ).
See Bertrand Goldschmidt and Myron B. Kratzer, Peaceful Nuclear Relations: A Study of the Creation and the Erosion of Confidence (New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, for the International Consultative Group on Nuclear Energy, 1978) pp. 16–18,36,43–4.
For a brief examination of these two proposals, from the perspective of international regimes, see Gene I. Rochlin, Plutonium, Power, and Politics: International Arrangement for the Disposition of Spent Nuclear Fuel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979 ) pp. 200–12, 220–35.
For the NSG guidelines, see IAEA, INFCIRC/254, Communications Received from Certain Member States Regarding Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment or Technology, Feb. 1978.
See, e.g., Munir Ahmad Khan, Nuclear Energy and International Cooperation: A Third World Perception of the Erosion of Confidence, (New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, for the International Consultative Group on Nuclear Energy, 1979) pp. 13–18 for the Third World view of the NSG.
A particularly instructive illustration of the differences in perspective is found in Ryukichi Imai and Henry S. Rowen, Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Proliferation: Japanese and American Views (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980 ). The two authors essentially talk past each other on a number of issues.
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© 1983 Robert Boardman and James F. Keeley
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Keeley, J.F. (1983). Containing the Blast: Some Problems of the Non-proliferation Regime. In: Boardman, R., Keeley, J.F. (eds) Nuclear Exports and World Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05984-3_9
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