Abstract
Many scholars and policymakers have focused their attention on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Extension and Review Conference which was held in New York City in April and May, 1995.1 Most of the debate about the NPT review conference centred on two questions. First, will the NPT be extended in perpetuity, as the United States and the other nuclear weapon states (NWS) want, or will it be renewed for a fixed period, or periods, of time, as many non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) desire.2 Second, what is the price that the US will have to pay for the renewal, either in perpetuity or for a fixed time, of the Treaty. There was concern that the price would include consenting to a complete ban on nuclear testing, which might be codified in a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT);3 agreeing to a complete cut-off of the production of fissile materials; or making further reductions in the strategic nuclear arsenal of the United States. In addition, there was apprehension that the United States would face demands from many of the NNWS to pressure Israel to surrender its nuclear capability, at a maximum, or at least to require Israel to cap its production of fissile material.4 The result of the Extension and Review Conference was what the US wanted: the NPT was extended in perpetuity.5
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Notes
For analysis of the issues surrounding a comprehensive test ban and the utility of a CTBT see Frans Berkhout, Oleg Bukharin, Harold Feiveson, and Marvin Miller, ‘A Cutoff in the Production of Fissile Material’, International Security, 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 167–202;
Jozef Goldblat and David Cox, eds, Nuclear Weapon Tests: Prohibition or Limitation? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); and
Steve Fetter, Toward a Comprehensive Test Ban (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1988).
On the Israeli nuclear programme see Shlomo Aronson with the assistance of Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory and Reality, 1960–1991 — An Israeli Perspective (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 1992);
Frank Barnaby, The Invisible Bomb (London: I.B. Tauris, 1989);
Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982);
Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991);
Peter Pry, Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984).
See Aabha Dixit, ‘West Grabs Victory in NPT’, Defense News, 15–21 May, 1995, p. 24;
Barbara Crossette, ‘Treaty Aimed at Halting Spread of Nuclear Weapons Extended’, New York Times, 12 May, 1995, p. A1; and
Michael Littlejohns and Bernard Gray, ‘N-Weapons Treaty Made Permanent’, Financial Times, 12 May, 1995, p. 4.
Also see Bernard Gray, ‘A Treaty Acclaimed’, Financial Times, 11 May, 1995, p. 13; and ‘A Nuclear Milestone’, New York Times, 12 May, 1995, p. A18.
Stephen Krasner defines a regime as a set ‘…of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations.’ Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables’, in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 2.
The danger that nuclear proliferation may cause to the US itself, its interests and allies, is demonstrated by Robert J. Art, ‘A Defensible Defense: America’s Grand Strategy After the Cold War’, International Security, 15, no. 4 (Spring 1991): 5–53; and
Steven R. David, ‘Why the Third World Still Matters’, International Security, 17, no. 3 (Winter 1992/93): 127–59.
The recent agreement between the United States and North Korea has been widely praised in the United States, however, there are several negative aspects of the agreement that must be emphasized. First, North Korea’s agreement to end its gas-graphite reactor programme and to close its reprocessing facility may be irrelevant because North Korea may have produced all the plutonium it needs to meet its political goals, such as deterrence of an attack. Second, providing light-water reactors may not stop the North Korean weapons programme because light-water reactors can produce weapon-grade plutonium if the reactors are optimized to do so. Third, the agreement does not obligate North Korea to dismantle its reactors and reprocessing facility, and to send its spent fuel abroad until the light-water reactors are almost complete. As a result, North Korea has the ability to add 4 to 5 nuclear weapons to its nuclear arsenal in a short time. This seriously complicates any effort by the US to punish North Korea for violating the agreement. Additionally, North Korea could construct, without being detected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or the US, a small reprocessing plant that could reprocess the spent fuel in its possession presently, or that from the light-water reactors. See David Albright and Kevin O’Neill, ‘The Price of Non-proliferation’, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January/February 1995): 27–9.
Also see Michael J. Mazarr, ’Going Just a Little Nuclear: Non-proliferation Lessons from North Korea’, International Security, 20, no. 2 (Fall 1995): 92–122.
Reports concerning Japanese considerations to develop nuclear weapons include Jim Mann and Leslie Helm, ‘Japan Shifts Its Stand on Ruling Out A-Bomb’, Los Angeles Times, 9 July, 1993, p. A9;
T.R. Reid, ‘Japan’s Shift on A-Pact Raises Concerns Abroad’, Washington Post, 15 July, 1993, p. A22;
Naoaki Usui, ‘Japanese Move on NPT Spurs Nuclear Worries’, Defense News, 19–25 July, 1993, p. 36; and
Clayton Jones, ‘Korea Prompts Japan to Review No-Nukes Policy’, Christian Science Monitor, 10 August, 1993, p. 1.
The risk of nuclear inadvertence is a relatively new issue in the nuclear literature, and many excellent works are beginning to debate this issue. See Bruce G. Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1993);
Peter Douglas Feaver, Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992);
Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993);
Sagan, ‘The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,’ International Security, 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 66–107. I term this new debate in the nuclear literature, the debate over the vulnerability of states to nuclear inadvertence, the third great nuclear debate. The first great debate was over the vulnerability of state’s nuclear forces; the second great debate was over the vulnerability of a state’s command and control to destruction. See Bradley A. Thayer, ‘The Risk of Nuclear Inadvertence: A Review Essay,’ Security Studies, 3, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 428–93.
The cost of the obligation of the US and other nuclear states to disarm is likely to increase because the US and the others will be criticized by the non-nuclear states at the Review Conference for not having disarmed completely. Although the nuclear states are obligated by the Treaty to disarm, nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future will only promote instability for a host of reasons, including the elimination of an important obstacle to conventional war between great powers. See Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 166–203.
The term ‘opaque proliferation’ was coined by Benjamin Frankel in his ‘Notes on the Nuclear Underworld’, The National Interest, no. 9 (Fall 1987): 122–6. The concept was further defined and elaborated in Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, ‘Opaque Nuclear Proliferation’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 13, no. 3 (September 1990): 14–44, esp. 21–2. Also see the other essays in this special issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies for discussion of different aspects of the opaque proliferation phenomenon.
For an argument that political incentives, like prestige, are a cause of nuclear proliferation see Ted Greenwood, Harold A. Feiveson, Theodore B. Taylor, Nuclear Proliferation: Motivations, Capabilities, and Strategies for Control (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), p. 50; and Stephen M. Meyer, The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 50–5.
On de Gaulle’s conception of France as a great power see Philip H. Gordon, A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). For histories of the French nuclear programme see Colette Barbier, ‘The French Decision to Develop a Military Nuclear Programme in the 1950s’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 4, no. 1 (March 1993): 103–13; and Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France Under the Fourth Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).
The first quote is cited in Alexander Werth, De Gaulle (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 343. The second quote is cited in Charles de Gaulle, Discours et messages, 5 vols., (Paris: Plon, 1970), vol. 3, p. 369. Both quotes are cited in Gordon, A Certain Idea of France, p. 42.
On de Gaulle’s desire to be a nuclear third force see Michael M. Harrison, The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 101–14.
Michel Debré is quoted in McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 499.
Alfred Goldberg, ‘The Atomic Origins of the British Nuclear Deterrent,’ International Affairs, 40, no. 2 (July 1964): 427. Cited in Lawrence and Larus, ‘A Historical Review of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and the Development of the NPT’, in Robert M. Lawrence and Joel Larus, eds, Nuclear Proliferation Phase II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974), pp. 2–3.
Cited in Lawrence and Larus, ‘A Historical Review of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and the Development of the NPT’, in Robert M. Lawrence and Joel Larus, eds, Nuclear Proliferation Phase II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974), pp. 2–3.
On the history of British nuclear programme see Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939–1945 (London: Macmillan, 1964);
Gowing, assisted by Lorna Arnold, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1974); Gowing, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the “Special Relationship”’, in William Roger Louis and Hedley Bull, eds, The ‘Special Relationship’: Anglo-American Relations Since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 117–28;
Norris, et al., Nuclear Weapons Databook vol. V; Andrew J. Pierre, Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force 1939–1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972); Richard Rosecrance, ‘British Incentives to Become a Nuclear Power’, in Rosecrance, The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 48–65.
On the Indian development of nuclear weapons see Shyam Bhatia, India’s Nuclear Bomb (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979);
Brahma Chellaney, ‘The Challenge of Nuclear Arms Control in South Asia’, Survival, 35, no. 3 (Autumn 1993): 121–36;
Chellaney, ‘South Asia’s Passage to Nuclear Power’, International Security, 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 43–72;
Ashok Kapur, India’s Nuclear Option: Atomic Diplomacy and Decision Making (New York: Praeger, 1976);
Onkar Marwah, ‘India’s Nuclear and Space Programs: Intent and Policy’, International Security, 2, no. 2 (Fall 1977): 96–121;
Ziba Moshaver, Nuclear Weapons Proliferation in the Indian Subcontinent (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991);
Raju G.C. Thomas, ‘The Strategic Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation in South-west Asia: India’s Perspective’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 8, no. 4 (December 1985): 67–79;
Thomas, ‘India’s Nuclear and Space Programs: Defense or Development?’ World Politics, 38, no. 2 (January 1986): 315–42.
Histories of the Chinese nuclear programme include Morton Halperin, China and the Bomb (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965);
John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988); and Norris, et al., Nuclear Weapons Databook vol. V, pp. 324–56.
Anonymous editorial, Organizer, 28 December, 1964. Cited in Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Nuclear Myths and the Causes of Nuclear Proliferation’, Security Studies, 2, nos 3/4 (Spring/Summer 1993): 192–212. Ouote is from p. 198.
R.W. Apple, ‘Ukraine Gives in on Surrendering Its Nuclear Arms’, The New York Times, 11 January, 1994, p. A1; and
Jane Perlez, ‘Economic Collapse Leaves Ukraine With Little to Trade but Its Weapons’, The New York Times, 13 January, 1994, p. A5. On the Ukrainian fear of decreasing relevance for the US were it to become a non-nuclear state see Theresa Hitchens and George Leopold, ‘US Initiates Thaw in Ukrainian Relations’, Defense News, 17–23 May, 1993, p. 6.
Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), p. 131; and
Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security, 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 50–61. Jack Levy provides a similar definition, great powers are distinguished from other states in the international system by three criteria: first, great powers have a high level of military capability that makes them relatively selfsufficient strategically and capable of projecting power beyond their borders; second, they possess a broad concept of security that embraces a concern with regional and/or global power balances; and third, they have a greater assertiveness than lesser powers in defining and defending their interests. Jack Levy, War and the Modern Great Power System, 1495–1975 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983). pp. 10–19.
On Nazi Germany’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons see Alan Beyerchen, Scientists Under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977);
David Irving, The German Atomic Bomb: The History of Nuclear Research in Nazi Germany, 2nd ed., (New York: Da Capo, 1983);
Thomas Powers, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb (New York: Knopf, 1993); and
Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power1939–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
For histories of the US nuclear programme see Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, and Milton M. Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook Volume I: US Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), pp. 2–20;
Stephane Groueff, Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967);
Leslie M. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project (New York: Harper, 1962);
Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission Vol. 1. 1939–1946 (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press. 1962)
Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission Vol. 1, 1939–1946 (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1962);
Lansing Lamont, The Day of Trinity (New York: Atheneum, 1965); and
Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986).
On the history of the Soviet decision to acquire nuclear weapons see Ulrich Albrecht, ‘The Development of the First Atomic Bomb in the USSR’, in Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith, and Peter Weingart, eds, Science, Technology, and the Military, vol. 2, (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer, 1988), pp. 349–78;
Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and Jeffrey I. Sands, Nuclear Weapons Databook vol. IV: Soviet Nuclear Weapons (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), pp. 2–19;
David Holloway, ‘Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The Soviet Decision to Build the Atomic Bomb, 1939–45’, Social Studies of Science, 11, no. 2 (May 1981): 159–97;
Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983);
Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1936–1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994);
Arnold Kramish, Atomic Energy in the Soviet Union (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959); and George Modelski, Atomic Energy in the Communist Bloc (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1959).
Among the best sources on the Pakistani programme are Akhtar Ali, Pakistan’s Nuclear Dilemma (Karachi: Pakistan Economist Research Unit, 1984);
Chellaney, ‘The Challenge of Nuclear Arms Control in South Asia’, pp. 122–4, 127–9; Neil Joeck, ‘Pakistani Security and Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 8, no. 4 (December 1985): 80–98;
Rodney W. Jones, Nuclear Proliferation: Islam, the Bomb, and South Asia, The Washington Papers, No. 82 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1981);
Ashok Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development (London: Croom Helm, 1987);
Zalmay M. Khalilzad, ‘Pakistan’, in Jozef Goldblat, ed., Non-Proliferation: The Why and the Wherefore (London: Taylor and Francis, 1985), pp. 131–49;
Moshaver, Nuclear Weapons Proliferation in the Indian Subcontinent; George H. Quester, ‘Some Pakistani Problems and a Nuclear Non-Solution’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 8, no. 4 (December 1985): 99–109.
There are few detailed histories of the South African programme. See Richard K. Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa’, International Security, 4, no. 2 (Fall 1979): 91–115;
Robert S. Jaster, ‘Politics and the “Afrikaner Bomb”’, Orbis, 27, no. 4 (Winter 1984): 825–51;
A.R. Newby-Fraser, Chain Reaction: Twenty Years of Nuclear Research and Development in South Asia (Pretoria: Atomic Energy Board, 1979);
Mitchell Reiss, Without the Bomb: The Politics of Nuclear Non-proliferation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), ch. 6, pp. 173–203;
Leonard S. Spector, Going Nuclear: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1986–1987 (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1987), pp. 220–39;
Also see David Albright, ‘South Africa and the Affordable Bomb’, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (July/August 1994): 37–47; and
J.W. de Villiers, Roger Jardine, Mitchell Reiss, ‘Why South Africa Gave Up the Bomb’, Foreign Affairs, 72, no. 5 (November/December 1993): 98–109.
Indeed, there is a considerable literature on India’s attempt to obtain a security guarantee from a nuclear state such as Britain or the United States after the Chinese nuclear detonation of 1964. This behaviour is not indicative of a state seeking to acquire nuclear weapons for prestige. See Benjamin Frankel, ‘The Brooding Shadow: Systemic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’, Security Studies, 2, nos. 3/4 (Spring/Summer 1993): 53–4;
Raj Krishna, ‘India and the Bomb’, India Quarterly, 21, no. 2 (April-June 1965): 119–37;
M.R. Masani, ‘The Challenge of the Chinese Bomb-II’, India Quarterly, 21, no. 1 (January-March 1965): 26–7;
A. G. Noorani, ’India’s Quest for a Nuclear Guarantee’, Asian Survey, 7, no. 7 (July 1967): 490–502.
Richard K. Betts, ‘Incentives for Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan, Iran’, Asian Survey. 19, no. 11 (November 1979): 1053–72. Emphasis original.
The locus classicus of the bureaucratic politics explanation of state decision-making is Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), pp. 144–84.
Allison, The Essence of Decision; and Morton Halperin with the assistance of Priscilla Clapp and Arnold Kanter, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1974).
Ralph E. Lapp, Arms Beyond Doubt: The Tyranny of Weapons Technology (New York: Cowles, 1970), pp. 177–8.
On the political impact of television see Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). The power of television to compel US intervention has been called the ‘CNN factor’. ‘CNN pushed the boundaries of world news: no longer did the network merely report news, but through its immediate reportage, CNN actually shaped the events and became part of them.’ Lewis Friedland, Covering the World: International Television News Services (New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1992), p. 2. Quoted in Frank J. Stech, ‘Winning CNN Wars’, Parameters, 24, no. 3 (Autumn 1994): 37–56.
For an excellent summary of technology as a cause of proliferation see Peter Lavoy ‘Nuclear Myths and the Causes of Nuclear Proliferation’, 194–5. For advocates of technological pull in the nuclear weapons context see Hans Bethe, ‘The Technological Imperative’, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (August 1985): 34–56.
Insightful critiques of technological determinism are found in the work of Donald MacKenzie, see MacKenzie, ‘Stellar-Inertial Guidance: A Study in the Sociology of Military Technology’, in Mendelsohn, et al., eds, Science, Technology and the Military, 187–241;
MacKenzie, ‘The Soviet Union and Strategic Missile Guidance’, International Security, 13, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 5–54;
MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), ch. 8, pp. 382–423. MacKenzie argues that technological determinism is not deterministic but is dependent upon social phenomenon. Also see Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977).
Steven Flank presents an intriguing argument concerning the processes of nuclear proliferation. By utilizing the social construction of technology, Flank argues that a heterogenous alliance occurs among a society of scientists, politicians, technologies, and interests, which unite to support large technical systems. He thus offers important insights into the evolution of the nuclear programmes of states. See Steven Flank, ‘Exploding the Black Box: The Historical Sociology of Nuclear Proliferation’, Security Studies, 3, no. 2 (Winter 1993/94): 259–94.
Advocates of technological pull must address the arguments of Donald MacKenzie, who argues that technological invention, in MacKenzie’s particular case, the invention of missile accuracy, is a social process and a process that permits technologies to be ‘uninvented’. The logic of MacKenzie’s arguments applies to nuclear proliferation as well as to missile accuracy. See MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy; and MacKenzie, ‘Towards an Historical Sociology of Nuclear Weapons Technologies’, in Nils Petter Gleditsch and Olav Njølstad, eds, Arms Races: Technological and Political Dynamics (London: Sage, 1990), ch. 8, pp. 121–39.
Also see Graham Spinardi, ‘Why the US Navy Went for Hard-Target Counterforce in Trident II (And Why It Didn’t Get There Sooner)’, International Security, 15, no. 2 (Fall 1990): 147–90. For another argument critically discussing the relationship between science and society see Yaron Ezrahi, The Descent of Icarus: Science and the Transformation of Contemporary Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990).
Mitchell Reiss notes that by the end of the 1970s nuclear research or power programmes existed in over 45 non-nuclear weapons states. Without the Bomb: The Politics of Nuclear Non-proliferation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 23. Joseph Nye estimates there are ‘forty odd states that possess nuclear technology.’ Joseph S. Nye, Jr, ‘NPT: The Logic of Inequality’, Foreign Policy, no. 59 (Summer 1985): 126. Also see Frankel, ‘The Brooding Shadow’, 45n41.
The principal works of realism are many. They include Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, trans. by Richard Howard and Annette Baker Fox (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966);
Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1946);
Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed. rev.(New York: Knopf, 1978);
Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). Some neorealist works are Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and Waltz, Theory of International Politics.
The central ideas of realism are drawn from John J. Mearsheimer, ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’, International Security, 19, no. 3 (Winter 1994/95): 9–12.
The work of Paul Kennedy provides some of the most thoughtful historical analysis of the importance of relative power. See Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Allen Lane, 1976), chs. 7 and 10;
Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987);
Kennedy, ‘The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865–1939’, British Journal of International Studies, 2, no. 3 (October 1976): 195–215;
Kennedy, ‘Strategy versus Finance in Twentieth-century Britain’, in Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London: Fontana Press. 1983), pp. 89–106.
The problems that buckpassing and chain ganging pose in alliances are discussed in Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, ‘Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity’, International Organization, 44, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 137–68.
Not all realists agree that this is a central idea of realism. As John J. Mearsheimer notes, some realists, ‘defensive realists’, argue that states are interested primarily on maintaining the balance of power and not maximizing relative power as ‘offensive realists’ argue. See Mearsheimer, ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’. For examples of defensive realism see Joseph M. Grieco, ‘Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation’, International Organization, 42, no. 3 (Summer 1988): 498–500;
Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 10–13, Snyder calls offensive realism, ‘aggressive realism’; and Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 126–27. Also see Fareed Zakaria, ‘Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay’, International Security, 17, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 190–6.
A. Lavrent’yeva in ‘Stroiteli novogo mira’, V mire knig, no. 9 (1970): 4. Quoted in Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, p. 20.
On Truman’s comment to Stalin see Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953), pp. 640, 669–70;
Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955), p. 416.
Also see John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), pp. 244–5.
In Robert M. Lawrence and Joel Larus, ‘A Historical Review of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and the Development of the NPT’, in Robert M. Lawrence and Joel Larus, eds, Nuclear Proliferation: Phase II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974), p. 3.
Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, pp. 16–34. Also see Shu Guang Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American Confrontations, 1949–1958 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
On the October 1962 Sino-Indian War from the Indian perspective see Brigadier John S. Dalvi, Himalayan Blunder: The Curtain Raiser to the Sino-Indian War of 1962 (Bombay: Thacker, 1969);
Lorne J. Kavic, India’s Quest for Security: Defense Policies, 1947–1965 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1967), ch. 10, pp. 169–91;
Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972). From the Chinese perspective see Steve Chan, ‘Chinese Conflicts Calculus and Behavior: Assessment from a Perspective of Conflict Management’, World Politics, 30, no. 3 (April 1978): 391–410; and Allen S. Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence: India and Indochina (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1975).
Reiss, Without the Bomb, p. 207. Devin Hagerty also notes that the threat from the Chinese was an important consideration in Indian thinking before 1962, ‘During the 1950s, a confidential consensus emerged among a small core of India leaders that New Delhi should reserve its right to develop nuclear weapons if threatened by a future Chinese nuclear weapon capability’. Devin T. Hagerty, ‘The Power of Suggestion: Opaque Proliferation, Existential Deterrence, and the South Asian Nuclear Arms Competition,’ Security Studies, 2, nos. 3/4 (Spring/Summer 1993): 256–83, quote is from p. 261. Even before the 1950s, the possibility of the development of nuclear weapons was considered by Nehru. In 1946, in response to a question about the potential development of Indian nuclear weapons, Nehru, ‘stated his hope that India would develop atomic power for peaceful uses but warned that, so long as the world was constituted as it was, every country would have to develop and use the latest scientific devices for its protection.’ Kavic, India’s Quest for Security, pp. 27–28, n. 19.
On the 1971 war see Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1990).
Ashok Kapur has suggested a third potential motivation for Pakistani nuclear capability. Nuclear capability would allow Pakistan to reopen the Kashmir question and negotiate with India from a position of military equality. However, while a robust nuclear capability might allow Pakistan to do this, such a policy would be injudicious because it would incur the risks of any game of Chicken, such as the great difficulties of crisis management and the palpable risks of inadvertent escalation. See Ashok Kapur, ‘Pakistan’, in Goldblat, Non-Proliferation, p. 142. On crisis management see Richard Ned Lebow, Nuclear Crisis Management: A Dangerous Illusion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987);
Scott D. Sagan, ‘Nuclear Alerts and Crisis Management’, International Security, 9, no. 4 (Spring 1985), 99–139; and
Sagan, Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), ch. 4, pp. 135–75. On the danger of inadvertent escalation see, inter alia, Barry R. Posen, Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, The Myth of Independence (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1969). Quoted in Khalilzad, ‘Pakistan’. p. 133.
Raju G.C. Thomas, South Asian Security in the 1990s, Adelphi Paper no. 278 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies. 1993), p. 58.
It is an unfortunate condition of international politics, one that realism acknowledges, that the intentions of other states cannot be known with certainty. Thus, Pakistani fears may be misplaced if India is a status-quo state and the Pakistani attempts to match Indian capabilities, such as by acquiring nuclear weapons, only exacerbate Indian fears. Robert Jervis’ spiral model obtains in this situation. See Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception inInternational Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), ch. 3, pp. 58–113.
Thomas quotes the concerns of Air Commodore Aliuddin, Pakistani Air Force: ‘Several South Asian nations and Pakistan in particular are, therefore, wary of the fact that India is not only developing fast as the eminent regional power in South Asia but also views itself as a power destined to influence global affairs…It is this growing Indian militarism and ambition which is a serious concern for Pakistan. The three India-Pakistan wars, the India annexation of Sikkim and Goa, invasion of the Maldives, economic blockage of Nepal, and refusal to withdraw troops from Sri Lanka in 1989 are all viewed as clear manifestations of India’s hegemonistic designs’. Air Commodore Aliuddin, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Dilemma’, Seaford House Papers (London: Royal College of Defence Studies, 1990), p. 7. Quoted in Thomas, South Asian Security in the 1990s, 84, n.19.
For an excellent exposition on the possibility and utility of nuclear blackmail, or coercion, see Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1987), pp. 212–33.
Mark Hibbs, ‘South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Program: The Dismantling’, Nuclear Fuel, May 24, 1993, 9.
Mark Hibbs, ‘South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Program: From a PNE to a Deterrent’, Nuclear Fuel, May 10, 1993, p. 4.
The causes of the North Korea nuclear programme and possible US responses to it are analysed in Kathleen C. Bailey, ‘North Korea: Enough Carrots, Time for the Stick’, Comparative Strategy, 13, no. 3 (July-September 1994): 277–82;
Paul Bracken, ‘Nuclear Weapons and State Survival in North Korea’, Survival, 35, no. 3 (Autumn 1993): 137–53;
Peter Hayes, ‘International Missile Trade and the Two Koreas’, The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, 5, no. 1 (Summer 1993): 207–39;
Young Jeh Kim, ‘North Korea’s Nuclear Program and Its Impact on Neighboring Countries’, Korea and World Affairs, 17, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 478–96;
Andrew Mack, ‘The Nuclear Crisis on the Korean Peninsula’, Asian Survey, 33, no. 4 (April 1993): 339–59;
Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, ‘North Korea’s Nuclear Program’, in Young Whan Kihl, ed., Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994), pp. 233–50.
The Argentine army has approximately 35,000 active and 250,000 reserve troops. The Brazilian army has approximately 196,000 active and 1,115,000 first-line reserve troops. Following the 3:1 rule (three attacking units are necessary overcome one defensive unit) for conventional deterrence, it is likely that both states can conventionally deter the other because while Brazil has superiority in manpower, Argentina has superiority in mobile forces (Main Battle Tanks, Armoured Personnel Carriers, Self-Propelled Artillery, Close Air Support Aircraft) that greatly would strengthen the defence in a war. In addition, the geography of the border between Argentina and Brazil permits few avenues of attack, making attack harder and further ameliorating the defender’s burden because any attack will be canalized at the points of attack permitted by geography. On Argentine and Brazilian forces see The Military Balance 1992–1993 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1992), pp. 167–8, 170–2. On the 3:1 rule see John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 51–2, 167–82.
The Falkland/Malvinas Islands War was precisely a war over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands and posed no existential threat to either Great Britain or Argentina. On the Falkland/Malvinas Island War see Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War Volume III: The Afghan and Falklands Conflicts (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990); and
Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands (New York: Norton, 1983).
Aaron Karp, ‘Controlling Weapons Proliferation: The Role of Export Controls’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 16, no. 1 (March 1993): 18–45.
The reduction in information costs is one of the principal benefits of regimes. See Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 244–47; and
Kenneth A. Oye, ‘Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Explanations’, World Politics, 38, no. 1 (October 1985): 1–24.
On US assistance to Britain and France see Norris, et al., Nuclear Weapons Databook vol. V, pp. 43–54, 188–93. On US assistance to France see Richard Ullman, ‘The Covert French Connection’, Foreign Policy, no. 75 (Summer 1989): 3–33. For Soviet assistance to China see Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, pp. 39–45 and passim. On French assistance to Israel see Aronson with Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, pp. 86–7, 91, 94–5, 102, 104 and 116–17. Also see Sylvia K. Crosbie, The Tacit Alliance: France and Israel from Suez to the Six Day War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); and Ann Williams, Britain and France in the Middle East and North Africa, 1914–1967 (London: Macmillan, 1968). On Israeli assistance to South Africa see David Albright, ‘South Africa: The ANC and the Atomic Bomb’, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (April 1993): 32–7; ‘Israel Supplied Tritium for South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons’, Israeli Foreign Affairs, April 13, 1993, p. 3; ‘Tracking S. Africa’s Elusive A-Program’, The Washington Post, March 18, 1993, p. A1; ‘S. Africa Had 6 A-Bombs’, The Washington Post, March 25, 1993, p. A1. On China’s assistance to Pakistan see David Albright and Mark Hibbs, ‘Pakistan’s Bomb: Out of the Closet’, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (July/August 1992): 38–43; and Chellaney, ‘The Challenge of Nuclear Arms Control in South Asia’, 123–4. Chellaney reports that a secret nuclear test in Xinjiang in May 1983, attended by the then-Foreign Minister of Pakistan Yaqub Khan, resulted in speculation that China may have detonated a Pakistani nuclear device. On Pakistani assistance to Iran see Warren H. Donnelly and Zachary Davis, ‘CRS Issue Brief’, May 20, 1992, 1–11.
Peter D. Zimmerman, ‘Technical Barriers to Nuclear Proliferation’, Security Studies, 2, nos. 3/4 (Spring/Summer 1993): 354; and
Zimmerman, ‘Proliferation: Bronze Medal Technology is Enough’, Orbis, 38, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 67–82.
David A. Kay, ‘Iraqi Inspections: Lessons Learned’, Eye on Supply, no. 8 (Winter 1993): 91–92.
Robert Jervis, ‘Security Regimes’, International Organization, 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982): 189.
On the second-tier or emerging suppliers see William C. Potter, International Nuclear Trade and Non-proliferation: The Challenge of the Emerging Suppliers (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990); and
Potter, ‘The New Suppliers’, Orbis, 36, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 199–210. More generally, on the restructuring of arms production on a transnational scale see Richard A. Bitzinger, ‘The Globalization of the Arms Industry: The Next Proliferation Challenge’, International Security, 19, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 170–98; and David Mussington, Arms Unbound: The Globalization of Defense Production, CSIA Studies in International Security No. 4 (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1994).
However, without sophisticated technologies, such as high-speed computers, and mastery of advanced chemical, engineering, metallurgical and physical skills, states have a much more complicated task developing thermonuclear weapons. These barriers are also impediments to the development of reliable delivery systems, like intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, the Indian, Iraqi, Israeli, North Korean and Pakistani missile programmes demonstrate that missiles of less sophistication are well within the grasp of most nuclear nations. On ballistic missile proliferation see W. Seth Carus, Ballistic Missiles in the Third World: Threat and Response (New York: Praeger, 1991);
Steve Fetter, ‘Ballistic Missiles and Weapons of Mass Destruction: What Is the Threat? What Should Be Done?’ International Security, 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 5–42;
Aaron Karp, ‘Ballistic Missiles in the Third World’, International Security, 9, no. 3 (Winter 1984–85): 166–95;
Thomas L. McNaugher, ‘Ballistic Missiles and Chemical Weapons: The Legacy of the Iran-Iraq War’, International Security, 15, no. 2 (Fall 1990): 5–34;
Mark D. Mandeles, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Implications for the US of Third World Nuclear Weapon and Ballistic Missile Proliferation’, Security Studies, 1, no. 2 (Winter 1991): 235–68; and
Janne E. Nolan, Trappings of Power: Ballistic Missiles in the Third World (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1991).
On the role that US pressure played in restraining the Brazilian and Egyptian programmes see Michael Joe Siler, ‘Explaining Variations in Nuclear Outcomes among Southern States: Bargaining Analysis of US Non-Proliferation Policies Towards Brazil, Egypt, India and South Korea’ (Los Angeles: unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, May 1992).
On the South Korean programme see Young-sun Ha, Nuclear Proliferation, World Order, and Korea (Seoul: Seoul National University, 1983); Reiss, Without the Bomb, pp. 86–103; Siler, ‘Explaining Variations in Nuclear Outcomes among Southern States’; and Joseph A. Yager, ‘The Republic of Korea,’ in Yager, ed., Non-proliferation and US Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1980).
Kenneth Waltz noted this fact in, ‘The Stability of a Bipolar World’, Daedalus, 93, no. 3 (Summer 1964): 882–3. Also see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, ch. 8.
Glenn H. Snyder, ‘The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics’, World Politics, 36, no. 4 (July 1984): 461–95.
Also see Glenn H. Snyder, ‘Alliance Theory: A Neorealist First Cut’, Journal of International Affairs, 44, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1990): 112–17; and Christensen and Snyder, ‘Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks’, 137–68.
Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict Among Nations: Bargaining, Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 419–29.
For an elaboration this argument see Art, ‘A Defensible Defense’, 28–30; and George H. Quester and Victor A. Utgoff, ‘US Arms Reductions and Nuclear Non-proliferation: The Counterproductive Possibilities’, The Washington Quarterly, 16, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 129–40; and
Quester and Utgoff, ‘No-First-Use and Non-proliferation: Redefining Extended Deterrence’. The Washington Quarterly, 17. no. 2 (Spring 1994): 103–14.
Kay, ‘Iraqi Inspections’, 88. Also see David A. Kay, ‘Denial and Deception Practices of WMD Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond’, The Washington Quarterly, 18, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 87–8.
On the counterproliferation initiative see Les Aspin, ‘From Deterrence to Denuking: A New Nuclear Policy for the 1990s’, in Shaping Nuclear Policy for the 1990s: A Compendium of Views (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1993), pp. 1–26;
Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1993), pp. 73–4;
Aspin, Annual Report to the President and the Congress (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1994), pp. 34–41; and Report on Non-proliferation and Counterproliferation Activities and Programs (Washington, DC: Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense. 1994).
Christopher Layne argues that there is a danger that the United States will be perceived as a threat after the Cold War if the United States attempts to pursue a grand strategy of preponderance, suppressing the emergence of new powers. Although he does not address nuclear proliferation, the logic of Layne’s argument applies to counterproliferation. See Christopher Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security, 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 5–51.
Peter Feaver demonstrates the effects of opaque proliferation on the management of the state’s nuclear operations in his ‘Proliferation Optimism and Theories of Nuclear Operations,’ Security Studies, 2, nos. 3/4 (Spring/Summer 1993): 159–91.
The value of mobile launchers for ensuring the survivability of an opaque state’s retaliatory force was demonstrated during the Gulf War. Despite its intensive effort, there is no evidence that the US destroyed any of the Iraqi mobile Scud launchers. See US Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, (Washington, DC: US Department of Defense, 1992), p. 226.
George H. Quester, ‘Knowing and Believing About Nuclear Proliferation’, Security Studies, 1, no. 2 (Winter 1991): 278.
Neil Joeck, ‘Tacit Bargaining and Stable Proliferation in South Asia’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 13, no. 3 (September 1990): 78.
This question is addressed most prominently by Alain Enthoven and Wayne Smith. See Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much Is Enough?: Shaping the Defense Program, 1961–1969 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). Robert McNamara’s answer to the question for US deterrence of a premeditated Soviet attack was that at a minimum, US retaliatory forces must be able to destroy 20 to 25 per cent of the Soviet population and 50 per cent of Soviet industry. Enthoven and Smith, How Much Is Enough? pp. 175, 207.
Estimates as to the size of the arsenals of opaque nuclear states may be drawn from David Albright, Frans Berkhout and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
McGeorge Bundy, ‘To Cap the Volcano’, Foreign Affairs, 48, no. 1 (October 1969): 9–10, 12.
Also see Bundy, ‘The Bishops and the Bomb’, The New York Review of Books, June 16, 1983, 3–8; and
Bundy, ‘Existential Deterrence and Its Consequences’, in Douglas MacLean, ed., The Security Gamble: Deterrence Dilemmas in the Nuclear Age (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984), pp. 3–13.
Marc Trachtenberg, ‘The Influence of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis’, International Security, 10, no. 1 (Summer 1985): 148.
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Thayer, B.A. (1998). The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Utility of the Non-proliferation Regime. In: Thomas, R.G.C. (eds) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26053-9_5
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