Difficult Europeans: NATO and Tactical/Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War

This analysis examines NATO’s tactical/non-strategic nuclear weapons in the Cold War both for their perceived deterrent value against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact and as potential war fighting weapons. Within this debate lay questions related to extended deterrence, security guarantees, regional or theatre conflict, and escalatory potential. A central tenet that emerged in Europe was that nuclear weapons needed emplacement on the territory of non-nuclear NATO members to make deterrence more tangible. It raised huge questions of consultation. Once the Soviet Union had intercontinental missiles, the credibility of American readiness to use nuclear weapons in defence of its allies came into question. European alternatives and different consultation mechanisms to facilitate nuclear use became central to intra-NATO relations. Actively debated across NATO, they directly concerned above all the United States, Britain, and France—the nuclear weapons states in the NATO area—and West Germany, the potential main battleground in a Warsaw Pact invasion. Although dormant in NATO since the end of the Cold War, these issues will likely see revisiting in both Europe and other regional trouble spots.     

中美不对称核稳定与美国战略机会主义论析

中美两国安全关系在两国总体关系中扮演着重要的角色,研究中美之间的战略稳定关系,对于维护两国安全关系的稳定具有重要意义。中国的核威慑实力弱于美国,中美之间呈现出不同于传统战略稳定关系的不对称核稳定态势。中国对美国存在一定的核威慑能力,但有效性仍有差距和不足。这一差距容易使美国产生压制和削弱中国核报复能力的机会主义思想。实施限制损伤战略、发展导弹防御能力、进行战略反潜是美国对中国实施战略机会主义的主要行动。美国谋求削弱中国核报复能力、打破中美不对称核稳定的企图,与中国努力维持核威慑能力、维持中美不对称核稳定的行为形成了两股力量相持的态势。中国应重点提升核武器的质量,提高威慑信号的传递效能,以可信可靠的核威慑和核反击能力打消美国战略机会主义心态,维持两国间的战略稳定,特别是危机稳定性,筑牢遏制战争爆发的基础。     

Alliance Proximity and Effectiveness of Extended Deterrence

This article examines whether geographical proximity between defensive allies and a protégé increases the likelihood of successful extended general deterrence. I argue that proximate allies are better at making a credible deterrent threat because proximate allies are more willing and able to help alliance partners in times of crisis than distant ones. This claim is theorized by examining how geographical distance influences the international and domestic costs of alliance commitments. The empirical tests reveal that a potential aggressor is less likely to initiate a militarized dispute against a target with proximate defensive allies. Furthermore, I find that the power of proximate defensive allies is a more significant determinant of successful extended general deterrence than that of distance allies. Interestingly, I also find that the constraining effects of geographical distance on the effectiveness of extended general deterrence have been alleviated by advancements in military technologies throughout history.     

Why did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003?

Why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003? Most scholars cite the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a neoconservative desire to spread democracy, or the placating of domestic interest groups as the Bush administration’s objectives, but I suggest these arguments are flawed. Instead, I proffer the “performative war” thesis resting on the concepts of status, reputation, and hierarchy to explain the Iraq war. Hegemons desire generalized deterrence, such that others do not challenge their territory, preferences, or rule. However, the challenging of a hegemon’s authority—as occurred on 9/11—generates a need to assert hegemony and demonstrate strength to a global audience. Only fighting a war can demonstrate such strength; no peaceful bargain, even a lopsided one, can achieve the same effect. Consistent with this framework, the United States fought Iraq mainly for its demonstration effect—defeating the recalcitrant Saddam would lead other states to fear the United States and submit to its authority and global order.     

Quantum Sensing's Potential Impacts on Strategic Deterrence and Modern Warfare

This article examines the impact of quantum sensing on strategic deterrence and modern warfare. It has two related objectives. The first is to highlight quantum sensing as an important area of research for the policy communities considering the role of emerging technologies on strategic deterrence and countering weapons of mass destruction. The second aim is to present the potential warfighting implications of quantum sensing if employed by either the United States or its adversaries. While quantum sensing technologies offer opportunities to transform modern warfare, they also present challenges and risks. The article contends that the quantum sensing investment, research, and development should be prioritized within the Department of Defense's quantum science modernization agenda to ensure that the U.S. military does not cede technological advantage to competitors, such as the People's Republic of China, who are actively investing in quantum sensing applications that could upend the United States’ existing deterrence and warfighting capabilities.     

A Fragile Relationship: The United States and the Republic Of Korea

As South Korea became economically and militarily stronger and developed democratic institutions, the country was in a position to assume more responsibilities in its partnership with the United States. The necessary changes could be achieved only with difficulties. The efforts of the US administration to stop the nuclear proliferation by North Korea and South Korea's attempts to develop a policy of engagement towards the DPRK resulted in friction between the allies. The dissonance was amplified by efforts of the Rho Moo Hyun government to pursue a foreign policy that was less dependent upon the United States. The change of atmosphere was underlined by anti-American outbursts in South Korea. A new effort to strengthen the partnership is, however, reasonable. For South Korea the United States is still the indispensable ally as long as an attack by North Korea that probably has nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out. For the United States this alliance contributes to maintain America's paramount influence in East Asia. If both countries agree with this rationale they should take steps to accept basic assumptions and policies of the other side. To find a common position towards the nuclear efforts of North Korea is crucial. Even if both sides try to harmonize their policies, success is not guaranteed. Korean nationalism and American dynamics combined with occasional high-handedness are difficult obstacles.     

Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation: Theory and a Case Study of Tito's Yugoslavia

Programs of international civil nuclear cooperation—of “Atoms for Peace”—have come under growing criticism for unintentionally fostering nuclear weapons proliferation in developing countries. However, drawing on the literature on international technology transfer and on Albert Hirschman's theory of exit, voice, and loyalty, this article argues that Atoms for Peace efforts may often seriously hamper developing countries’ nuclear weapons ambitions by empowering their scientific workers and by facilitating the brain drain to the developed world. The article then presents a case study of the historical nuclear program of Yugoslavia, which received very generous help from the Atoms for Peace programs of the United States, Soviet Union, and European states at a time when nonproliferation controls were minimal. The international ties of the Yugoslav nuclear program made its scientific workers much less likely to choose simple loyalty to the Tito regime, and much more likely to choose voice or exit, accelerating the program's ultimate collapse.     

Mismatched Deterrents: Preventing the Use of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons

The basic logic of graduated deterrence worked fairly well against the Soviet Union, as each level of aggression was to be deterred by a matching response. But this logic has now been undermined vis-à-vis future rogue state chemical and biological attacks by the spread of dual-use technologies that can be diverted to weapons, and by decisions of the United States and other democracies to forego possession of chemical or biological weapons. This article identifies some of the serious difficulties of alternative approaches to deterring chemical or biological attacks, ranging from nuclear escalation to a reliance on supposed American advantages in conventional weapons. Lumping chemical and biological weapons together with nuclear weapons into a new category of "weapons of mass destruction" is a very imperfect solution.     

Transatlantic cooperation,alliance politics and extended deterrence: European perceptions of nuclear weapons

This article discusses the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) debate regarding American nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) in Europe, given the broad spectrum of views on nuclear issues when comparing individual member states. What is striking is the gap between public attitudes – which are broadly hostile to keeping NSNW in Europe – and elite opinion, which privileges the maintenance of NATO commitments to preserve alliance cohesion. To better understand this tension, this article dissects the elements of extended nuclear deterrence in Europe, addressing the difficulties associated with current nuclear-sharing arrangements. For some NATO states, the alliance's nuclear weapons are a political liability, since nuclear sharing clashes with international disarmament and nonproliferation commitments. For other NATO members, maintaining the status quo is preferable, as long as there is no alliance-wide consensus on the question of NSNW. These debates have been put to rest, for now, with NATO's Deterrence and Defense Posture Review, which reaffirmed the purpose of the alliance's nuclear weapons. However, these divisive debates point to more fundamental issues in alliance management, namely the credibility of American commitments, the sustainability of extended nuclear deterrence in Europe and the inevitable political tensions these questions provoke at the domestic level for NATO allies.     

A Fragile Relationship: The United States and the Republic Of Korea

As South Korea became economically and militarily stronger and developed democratic institutions, the country was in a position to assume more responsibilities in its partnership with the United States. The necessary changes could be achieved only with difficulties. The efforts of the US administration to stop the nuclear proliferation by North Korea and South Korea's attempts to develop a policy of engagement towards the DPRK resulted in friction between the allies. The dissonance was amplified by efforts of the Rho Moo Hyun government to pursue a foreign policy that was less dependent upon the United States. The change of atmosphere was underlined by anti-American outbursts in South Korea. A new effort to strengthen the partnership is, however, reasonable. For South Korea the United States is still the indispensable ally as long as an attack by North Korea that probably has nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out. For the United States this alliance contributes to maintain America's paramount influence in East Asia. If both countries agree with this rationale they should take steps to accept basic assumptions and policies of the other side. To find a common position towards the nuclear efforts of North Korea is crucial. Even if both sides try to harmonize their policies, success is not guaranteed. Korean nationalism and American dynamics combined with occasional high-handedness are difficult obstacles.     

Nuclear Weapons and Intergenerational Exploitation

Nuclear weapons' defenders claim that they lower the risk of war, at the price of devastation if war breaks out. Sooner or later, however, on a realist analysis, catastrophic nuclear war is sure to come. Nuclear deterrence thus buys us a better chance of dying in bed, while each post-holocaust generation will have to pick up the pieces. If the nuclear optimists are wrong, hoping to spread or perpetuate nuclear deterrence is foolish; but if they are right, it is exploitative. Like big cars and cheap flights, nuclear deterrence benefits us at the expense of future generations. States that do not already have the bomb should not get it. Britain and France should consider disarmament, while Russia and the United States should slash their arsenals. Minimum deterrence should be equally stable, but most nuclear optimists, being neorealists who hold that war will continue, should want deep cuts even if it is not.     

太空武器化及中国太空安全构建

太空技术的出现来自冷战时代的美苏军备竞赛。在世界第一颗卫星上天后,太空随之被赋予了军事化意味,太空武器化接踵而至。冷战后,为了确保太空霸权,同时维护一超独霸的地位,美国不惜重拾冷战时代的太空武器化政策,由此,引起其他国家的相应回应。太空武器化程度逐渐抬升,给国际战略稳定与平衡造成严重威胁与挑战,引起反导系统和太空军备竞赛,增加核战风险,阻碍世界核裁军进程,也给太空商业开发、"太空2030议程"等带来诸多挑战。太空武器化给中国太空安全造成巨大的挑战与威胁,使中国太空资产的安全陷于危险境地,中国利用太空资产的自由有可能被限制或被剥夺,战略目标(包括战略核力量)受到太空系统的侦察与打击的威胁。为应对太空武器化的威胁与挑战,从安全上加强太空威慑力量建设,构建中国的太空安全体系显得紧迫与必要。     

Engaging China in Nuclear Disarmament Debates： Is There a Role for Australia？

China has demonstrated some interest in the resurgence of nuclear disarmament debates over the past few years,but because its own nuclear arsenal is relatively small,because this capability is predicated on a very specific Chinese posture and security concerns,and because it believes firmly that the responsibility for moving towards a world without nuclear weapons belongs in the first instance to the United States and Russia-who between them possess 95% of the world’s existing nuclear weapons-it has displayed a somewhat limited contribution to this debate so far.     

Do nuclear weapons affect the guns-butter trade-off? Evidence on nuclear substitution from Pakistan and beyond

Scholars have argued that acquiring nuclear weapons should allow states the luxury of exiting conventional arms races. In turn, a decreased budgetary focus on conventional arms should make possible greater spending on social welfare. I contest this logic of nuclear substitution by examining its most likely exponent, Pakistan. As a poor, under-developed state, a nuclear Pakistan should have welcomed the opportunity to cease its arms race with India, and spend greater sums on its population's welfare. Instead, I show Pakistan has doubled down on its pre-nuclear conventional posture, mainly because of its revisionism over Kashmir. More generally, I show nuclear substitution should happen only rarely: when a state is satisfied with the territorial status-quo, and its security challenges are amenable to pure nuclear deterrence. An empirical overview of conventional postures in Britain, China, France, India, Israel, the Soviet Union and the United States shows these conditions are met rarely, and never sustained. The argument has implications concerning the marginal welfare effects of nuclear weapons, the stability-instability paradox in South Asia and the standoff between Iran and the West.     

Nuclear Abolition: A Dangerous Illusion

A rising and influential tide of opinion is pressing for the United States to take major steps towards actually realizing “a world without nuclear weapons,” including by taking steps towards dismantling its nuclear arsenal. This article argues that a world without nuclear weapons, and particularly American nuclear weapons, is not desirable nor is real and effective nuclear disarmament possible. Therefore, while non-proliferation is an important objective, the United States should not abandon or move substantially towards the abandonment of its arsenal in pursuit of nuclear abolition. Instead, the United States should seek the worthy goal of preventing and retarding the spread of nuclear weapons while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent, a policy that can be followed by de-linking non-proliferation from disarmament.     

The ‘Demand-Side’: Avoiding a Nuclear-Armed Iran

This article examines the historical record of “nuclear rollback” and the motivations for Iran's apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability in order to identify the broad principles that should guide U.S. and international efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran.¹ The author argues that Iran, like all states, seeks security and respect. For many Iranians, the past three decades provide proof that such security and respect can only be attained with a strategic nuclear deterrent. In 2009, if the United States can show Tehran a genuine path to security and prestige that does not require nuclear weapons, Tehran might give it serious consideration. However, if the United States and the international community fail to address Iran's legitimate need for security or its desire for international respect, Bowman believes it may only be a matter of time until Iran obtains a nuclear weapons capability.     

Pre-emption,Deterrence, and Self-Defence: A Legal and Historical Assessment

The policy of the United States, outlined in the 2002 National Security Strategy, whereby the US claims a right under international law to engage in pre-emptive use of force to prevent a rogue state's development of nuclear weapons, or any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), is unnecessary and therefore unlawful under customary international law of self-defence. This conclusion is reached through a comprehensive and intensive assessment of the normative reactions of politically effective actors to China's development of nuclear weapons during a two-year period between the Cuban Missile Crisis and China's first test in October 1964. While pre-emptive use of force against China, a rogue state, was considered by both the United States and most likely by the Soviet Union, neither used force to prevent it developing nuclear weapons. Since a policy of pre-emptive use of force was unnecessary for either state's self-defence, it would have been unlawful under customary international law. Given that the current strategic scenario of states vis-à-vis rogue states is the same under most circumstances, notwithstanding the existence of international terrorist networks, the article concludes that the proposed claim of the United States is, prima facie, unnecessary to its self-defence, and therefore unlawful under customary international law of self-defence. It shifts the burden of proof to policymakers claiming that all rogue states can be lawfully prevented through pre-emptive use of force from acquiring nuclear weapons, to establish that a particular state cannot be deterred from the use of nuclear weapons. Though the preventive war claim of the US National Security Strategy 2002 may turn out to be an effective strategic bluff in limiting WMD proliferation, the wisdom of the threat should not be confused with the illogic of preventive war.     

Russian Hypersonic Glide Vehicles: What to Know and What to Fear

Recent news of hypersonic tests in both Russia and China stoke fears of a technological gap for the United States. However, a sober analysis of the state of hypersonic technology raises doubts of its capabilities, or usefulness in military operations. Instead, overassessment of hypersonics gives them their strategic value: political leverage. A nuclear-tipped hypersonic might not actually tilt the balance of deterrence at all but would nonetheless require a complex arms control negotiation between the United States, Russia, and China. A conventional hypersonic would have to overcome serious technical barriers to even match current precision weapon systems, but not fulling knowing the system’s capabilities means the United States must treat it as a credible threat. Without a careful measure of the technology, policymakers risk diplomatic missteps, budgetary waste, and an escalatory miscalculation.     

《中导条约》与全球战略稳定论析

《中导条约》是冷战期间美苏达成的一项重要军控条约,是全球战略稳定的支柱之一。2019年8月,美俄相继退约,引发国际社会极大关注。人们担心,条约退场将冲击全球战略稳定,刺激军备竞赛,影响欧亚安全形势,削弱国际军控体系。中国是美国退约重要借口之一,条约作废势必深刻影响中国外部安全环境。《中导条约》从诞生、发展到消亡,有着深刻的国际、国内和个人三个层面的演变动因,归根结底起决定性作用的是国际格局变迁。20世纪80年代,苏美攻守异势促成了《中导条约》的诞生;进入21世纪后,北约对俄的挤压以及中导技术扩散促使俄罗斯抛出条约全球化倡议;近年来,美国霸权地位相对衰落促其选择退约。但美俄两国政治形势变化及领导人更迭也深刻影响了条约的“生、住、变、灭”的时机和方式。戈尔巴乔夫的“新思维”改革与当时高涨的核裁军运动为签署《中导条约》提供了特殊的政治、社会背景。特朗普政府奉行“美国优先”理念,频频废约“退群”,《中导条约》随之沦为牺牲品。在不同历史时期,陆基中导在全球战略稳定中所起的作用不同。在20世纪60年代初,它是美苏中央威慑的支柱。在20世纪70~80年代,它是影响延伸威慑的重要因素。进入21世纪后,它成为俄罗斯对付美国导弹防御的斗争手段。当前,陆基中导在跨域威慑中扮演日益重要的角色。大国中导博弈正卷土重来,但它必将带有与以往不同的诸多新特点。     

Uncertain Justice for Nuclear Terror: Deterrence of Anonymous Attacks Through Attribution

In light of ongoing work to improve nuclear attribution capabilities, policymakers could be tempted to consider a nuclear terrorism deterrence doctrine relying strongly on the ability of those capabilities to support retaliation against states that supply materials used anonymously in an attack. Although the United States must develop the best possible nuclear attribution capabilities, at the very least to support response actions after an attack, prospects for deterrence are uncertain. To accommodate these uncertainties, as well as the wide range of possible nuclear terrorism scenarios, the United States should adopt a broadly scoped operationally ambiguous declaratory policy in the context of a comprehensive strategic doctrine to prevent nuclear terrorism.