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.     

Frustration and Delay: The Secondary Effects of Supply-Side Proliferation Controls

Abstract

Do trade barriers help slow the spread of nuclear weapons? Supply-side controls on proliferation equipment and material are often dismissed as ineffective because nuclear weapons–seeking states can develop methods to circumvent the controls. However, these global export controls have important secondary effects. By creating barriers to trade, export controls force states to develop costly and inefficient methods that interfere with progress toward nuclear weapons development. Using case evidence beginning with the advent of the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s export control regime in 1974, I argue that the resulting delay and frustration can change leaders’ strategic calculations regarding the value of their nuclear weapons programs. These findings demonstrate that proliferation controls do slow the spread of nuclear weapons, both by delaying existing programs, and by decreasing the likelihood that leaders will make decisions to continue with, or even start, nuclear weapons programs.     

Predicting Peril or the Peril of Prediction? Assessing the Risk of CBRN Terrorism

Since the mid-1990s, academic and policy communities have debated the risk posed by terrorist use of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Three major schools of thought in the debate have emerged: the optimists, the pessimists, and the pragmatists. Although these three schools of thought draw on the same limited universe of data on CBRN terrorism, they arrive at strikingly different conclusions. Given the highly subjective process of CBRN terrorism risk assessment, this article analyzes the influence of mental shortcuts (called heuristics) and the systemic errors they create (called biases) on the risk assessment process. This article identifies and provides illustrative examples of a range of heuristics and biases that lead to the underestimation of risks, the overestimation of risks and, most importantly, those that degrade the quality of the debate about the level of risk. While these types of biases are commonly seen as affecting the public's perception of risk, such biases can also be found in risk assessments by experts. The article concludes with recommendations for improving the CBRN risk assessment process.     

The Historical Rarity of Foreign-Deployed Nuclear Weapon Crises

What are the strategic costs of foreign-deployed nuclear weapons? Thus far, scholars have focused primarily on the possible benefits: deterring adversaries and reassuring allies. There is little scholarship on the costs side of the cost–benefit equation. This article evaluates one potential cost: that deployments generate crises. I argue that such deployments have, historically, rarely resulted in crises because few deployments generate the level of threat necessary for the target of the deployment to forcefully act. Crises are likely only in the rare situations when the deployment is to an area that the rival views as vital and the deployment threatens to embolden the deploying or host state. I examine all foreign nuclear deployments to support these claims. The results have implications for ongoing debates on the effects of nuclear weapons and US nuclear deployments abroad today.     

Eisenhower's disarmament dilemma: From chance for peace to open skies proposal

President Eisenhower's image as a promoter of ‘peace and nuclear disarmament’ was established through speeches he made such as ‘Atoms for Peace’ (December 1953) and ‘Open Skies’ proposal (July 1955). However, Eisenhower's approach to the subject cannot be grasped without an understanding of his attitude towards the relationship between arms, war and disarmament. As he saw it, not only would the mere existence of nuclear weapons not trigger a war, they were actually the best guarantee against the eruption of a global conflagration. The real threat to world security was the repressive, closed, totalitarian and expansionist Soviet regime. War could be prevented only by a dramatic change in the competing ‐ and threatening ‐ ideology and social structure embedded in the Soviet system. Until then, the existence of nuclear weapons would ensure the free world's safety.     

Nuclear Turbulence in the Age of Trump

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons has served as the normative anchor of global nuclear orders since 1968. Remarkably successful with respect to peaceful uses of nuclear energy and non-proliferation, it has failed to achieve nuclear disarmament. In 2017, geopolitical tensions had intensified in several regions across the world; there were no nuclear arms control negotiations between any of the nuclear-armed states and two of the leaders of countries with nuclear weapons appeared volatile and unpredictable. With fewer warheads but spread amongst more countries, some in conflict-prone regions, nuclear risks and threats have grown, as has the realisation that the world lacks the capacity to cope with the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. Like-minded states and civil society advocates teamed up to heighten the consciousness of nuclear dangers and convened a United Nations-mandated conference to negotiate a prohibition treaty adopted on 7 July. In the ensuing bifurcated global nuclear order, it has become necessary to reconcile latent tensions between the two nuclear regimes, for example with regard to safeguards standards, institutional linkages, and enforcement agencies.     

The effects of uncertainty and sex in a crisis simulation game

We conducted an experimental test of spiraling behavior, sex differences, and uncertainty in a simulated crisis situation. We investigated the relationship between weapons acquisition and the likelihood of engaging in aggressive behavior, such as going to war. The sample included 100 male and female subjects who participated in a crisis simulation in same‐sex dyads; each student was instructed to role play the leader of a country in conflict with another leader over a nearby island replete with newly discovered oil resources. Participants were randomly assigned to stimulus materials that manipulated the certainty of the information they received about their partner's force structure. In four cycles of decision‐making, each participant made procurement decisions, took an action related to the conflict, including decisions about going to war, completed questionnaires on characteristics such as the hostility and trustworthiness of themselves and their opponents, and wrote messages to the other member of the pair. The results of the study demonstrate a strong relationship between weapons acquisition and hostility. In addition, we found large and robust sex differences, showing that men are much more likely than women to acquire weapons and engage in aggressive behavior at every stage. There was no effect of uncertainty on either arms procurement or aggression.     

(Nuclear) Change of Plans: What Explains Nuclear Reversals?

What explains a state’s decision to give up its nuclear weapons program? While instances of nuclear reversal figure prominently in international politics, evidence in the literature has been largely piecemeal. We offer a novel conceptualization of the proliferation process as nonlinear, potentially including instances of reversal, as well as pursuit of a nuclear program and acquisition of nuclear weapons. Employing this theoretical framework, we consider states’ cost-benefit calculations in each phase of the proliferation process, and we test our theory using a multistate model. Two counterintuitive findings emerge from this framework. First, nuclear latency increases the likelihood of pursuit and acquisition but also increases the likelihood of reversal by reducing the costs of restarting a program in the future. Second, the nonproliferation regime discourages states without a nuclear program from pursuing and acquiring nuclear weapons while at the same time making states with nuclear programs less likely to reverse course.     

Reluctant disarmer: Italy's ambiguous attitude toward NATO's nuclear weapons policy

Of the five North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) European countries of US nuclear forward deployment, Italy is the least-known and studied case, even though the country hosts the largest number of US nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs) and still has two bases of deployment. The paper aims at filling this gap by analyzing Italy's current view on the presence, value, and future of NSNWs hosted on its territory. The analysis begins with the examination of the process of profound devaluation that has minimized, starting from the end of the cold war, Italy's original interest in this category of weapons. It then examines the reasons why Rome continues to pursue conservative nuclear weapon policies and distances itself significantly from the progressive camp of NATO members, particularly Germany, that explicitly call for the withdrawal of US NSNWs from Europe. Through the study of the Italian domestic politics and security culture, the article explains Italy's opposition to any radical change in the NATO nuclear status quo, and its reluctance to pursue policies that are consistent with the process of nuclear devaluation that the country has experienced over the past two decades.     

Environmental effects of GATT/WTO membership: an empirical evaluation

ABSTRACT

One of the great questions for scholars of international relations and economics concerns the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the natural environment. Does membership in the multilateral trade regime constrain environmental regulation and increase the environmental burden of national economies? Do countries pay a heavy environmental price for trade liberalization? Although this question has been debated extensively, there is little statistical evidence to contribute the debate. We provide a comprehensive statistical analysis of the environmental effects of joining the multilateral trade regime. We collected data on a variety of environmental policies, institutions, and outcomes that should be influenced by the General Agreementon Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO membership if the predictions of environmental pessimists or optimists are valid. A wide range of statistical models designed to identify the causal effect of the GATT/WTO on the environmental indicators shows that joining the GATT/WTO does not have negative effects on environmental quality.     

Isn't it Time to Say Farewell to Nukes in Turkey?

Abstract

The attitude of Turkish officials toward the US nuclear weapons deployed in Turkey for over four decades has been static. Officials have understandable arguments, based on their threat analysis, as to why these weapons should be retained in Turkey. However, since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the international security environment has undergone radical changes. The classical deterrent value of nuclear weapons no longer applies with these emerging threats. At the same time, there is an increased probability of unauthorized use of crude radiological devices or nuclear weapons by terrorist organizations. In addition to increased security at storage sites, bolder steps must be taken by concerned countries to get rid of nuclear weapons. Such steps should begin with drawing-down US nuclear weapons deployed in allied countries including Turkey.     

NATO,ballistic missile defense and the future of US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe

Abstract

Within the next few years, NATO will need to make a collective decision about the future of US tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe. While opinion about the value of these weapons is not as split as conventional wisdom might suggest, and while NATO will remain a nuclear alliance irrespective of this decision, balancing politics and strategy looks likely to be a difficult task. This decision is made far more complex by the determination of NATO officials to link the withdrawal of these weapons to reciprocal reductions in Russian TNW in Europe, and by the possibility of substituting the key strategic and political link they provide with a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. This article shows how we have arrived at this position, highlights the potential benefits to NATO Europe of BMD, and considers the key questions that the Alliance will face in achieving this. Ultimately, this article shows how the future of TNW in Europe is likely to be linked to whether NATO values arms cuts with Russia, or the deployment of missile defenses, as its central priority.     

Atomic Leverage: Compellence with Nuclear Latency

Nuclear proliferation is not a binary outcome with uniform consequences, but instead spans a continuum of latent capacity to produce nuclear weapons. At various thresholds of technical development, some countries leverage nuclear latency to practice coercive diplomacy. How and when does nuclear technology provide a challenger with the most effective means to extract concessions in world politics? This article claims that compellence with nuclear latency puts a challenger on the horns of a credibility dilemma between demonstrating resolve and signaling restraint, and identifies a sweet spot for reaching an optimal bargain where the proliferation threat is credible while the assurance costs of revealing intent are low. Historical studies of South Korea, Japan, and North Korea validate this Goldilocks principle and find that it consistently reflects the ability to produce fissile material. Contrary to conventional wisdom about proliferation, nuclear technology generates political effects long before a country acquires nuclear weapons.     

A Long War in the East: Doctrine,Diplomacy, and the Prospects for a Protracted Sino-American Conflict

Increasing diplomatic tension between China and the United States has led to concerns about military conflict, possibly including rapid nuclear escalation. Scholars have spent less time considering the opposite scenario: protracted conventional war. This analysis explains why a combination of politics, geography, and technology may conspire to produce such a war, despite the fact that both sides are planning for a short, high-intensity fight. It shows how the Peloponnesian War, an ancient conflict fought with ancient weapons, nonetheless provides a warning of what might happen in the present. It also describes a grim trade off that American policy-makers will face in the event of war. Washington can take steps to reduce the chance of nuclear escalation, but in so doing will make a long war more likely. The conclusion describes the diplomatic challenge of war termination in a protracted conflict where neither side can compel the other to back down.     

Following the Party in Time of War? The Implications of Elite Consensus

Prominent perspectives in the study of conflict point to two factors that exert substantial influence on public opinion about foreign intervention: (1) news about casualties and (2) signals from partisan elites. Past work is limited, however, in what it can say about how these two factors interact. We present an experiment designed to understand the surprisingly common scenario where elites send competing messages about whether the public should support war or oppose it—and these messages do not coincide with party divisions. We find that partisans are generally insensitive to news about casualties, but they become noticeably more sensitive when they perceive within-party disputes over support for the war. Independents, however, respond to news of casualties irrespective of what messages elites send. These findings shed light on when and how the public responds to competing and unclear cues and speak to the role of public opinion in determining conflict outcomes and democratic foreign policy-making more broadly.     

特朗普政府对朝核问题的危机管理及前景研判

2017年的朝核危机实质上是特朗普政府实施边缘政策而带来的一场危机,即,通过极限施压迫使朝鲜在战争和让步之间做出选择,以推动半岛无核化进程。然而,特朗普政府对朝核问题的危机管理因朝鲜的外交对冲、美国国内政治因素的制约以及国际合作的缺失使双方谈判陷入僵局,美国国内甚至出现是否会默认朝鲜有核的争论。若要真正推动朝鲜半岛无核化取得实质性进展,特朗普政府的现实方案仍是设定有限目标,并由联合国安理会制定可逆条款,约束美朝不信守承诺的行为,以国际社会的担保减少美朝互信缺失带来的消极影响,加快推进半岛无核化的和平进程。     

Nuclear Proliferation in the Post-Cold War Era

Nuclear weapons look set to stay with us, fulfilling as they do a different role from that of conventional weapons, in terms of their deadly potential for massive destruction. Indeed, nuclear weapons served as a stabilizing force during the hostile Cold War period. Sine the end of the Cold War, our world has undergone huge changes. Relative peace continues to be maintained on the basis of the logic of a ＂balance of terror＂, but the nuclear cloud hanging over human beings has never quite left us. Both the U.S. and Russia retain large nuclear arsenals, and a significant number of state and non-state actors on the stage of world politics continue to show interest in this lethal weapon. So-called ＂nuclear crises＂ flare up and test the wodd＇s nerves every now and again, and with some major nuclear powers continuing to make adjustments to their nuclear policies, the world nuclear proliferation position appears to be undergoing significant and profound change and transformation. In this article the author intends to help readers to become acquainted with the nuclear status quo as well as the characteristics of post-Cold War nuclear proliferation. The author also aims to help readers to understand the causes of the post-Cold War nuclear proliferation.     

Negotiating Verification: International Diplomacy and the Evolution of Nuclear Safeguards, 1945–1972

Nuclear safeguards have been an essential part of the global order since the beginnings of the nuclear age. The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], an international bureaucracy that is supposed to be a non-political, technical institution administers this global nuclear safeguards regime. Even though safeguards have always been controversial, they have turned out to be the most enduring item in the international community’s toolbox to prevent or slow down the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states. This analysis shows that nuclear safeguards, whilst they survived the fall of the Iron Curtain, were a genuine invention of the Cold War. At the beginning of the nuclear age, there was an overall understanding that safeguards were not strong enough to prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons. It was only over the course of the late 1950s and 1960s that safeguards moved from the margins to the centre of diplomatic negotiations about global nuclear order. Newly declassified records from the IAEA Archives in Vienna offer insights into the evolution of early nuclear safeguards and suggest that negotiation patterns, proceedings, and settings affected the outcome of this nuclear diplomacy.     

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.     

Killing the MLFfithe Wilson government and nuclear sharing in Europe, 1964-66

This article investigates the claim of Britain's Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to have 'killed' the Multilateral Force, an attempt to bring about nuclear sharing within NATO and answer the supposed German desire for equality of status. Earlier accounts have often seen the Multilateral Force as being abandoned, largely thanks to shifts in American policy, in late 1964. The case argued here is that the proposal continued to tax the alliance well into 1966, that important elements in the American and German governments continued to support it and that the British do deserve some credit for bringing the whole idea to an end. In particular the launch of an alternative proposal (the 'Atlantic Nuclear Force'), Wilson's readiness to argue with Washington and Bonn, and the exploitation of French withdrawal from NATO in 1966 proved important, even if British opposition was only one of several factors working against nuclear sharing. In the process he was also able to neutralise the dangers posed to him in the domestic political sphere by the debate over nuclear weapons.