The Sturdy Child vs. the Sword of Damocles: Nuclear Weapons and the Expected Cost of War

Abstract

Is the world better off with nuclear weapons or without? Nuclear pessimists point to the potentially devastating costs of a nuclear war. Nuclear optimists argue that nuclear weapons reduce the likelihood of war and are thus beneficial. This debate is inconclusive in part because it misses an important conceptual point. We should care both about the cost of war and the likelihood of war, as they combine to form the expected cost of war, which is the product of the two. I discuss five implications of focusing on expected costs. Three support the pessimists: (1) nuclear weapons raise the upper limit on how destructive wars can be; (2) there may be a floor on how low the likelihood of war can go; and (3) risk aversion over damage will raise the expected cost of nuclear war. The remaining two support the optimists: (4) strategic models exhibit a declining expected cost of war; and (5) casualty data show that the expected cost of war is declining over its observed range in the past two hundred years.     

On Extended Nuclear Deterrence

This analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s territory. Do these measures discourage third-party aggression? Defence pacts involving nuclear-armed states effectively bolster extended deterrence. One risk of extending nuclear protection from the American perspective, however, is that it might pull the United States into unwanted wars by risk-acceptant protégés. Yet, in a nuclear context, the risk of alliance entrapment is generally overblown. Placing nuclear weapons on an ally’s territory does much less to bolster extended deterrence than one might initially think. Although foreign nuclear deployments may reassure allies and promote non-proliferation to some degree, their value for extended deterrence is fairly minimal. The United States continues to deploy nuclear weapons in five European countries, but the case for maintaining these deployments is decidedly weak.     

A Dutch revolt? The salience of the nonstrategic nuclear weapons issue in Dutch politics

Transparency, international credibility, democratic accountability, a new realism in defense expenditures – these basic policy goals fit awkwardly with the current deployment of nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) on Dutch territory. Most parties in the Netherlands want the NSNW removed. Some are even willing to challenge the idea that only consensus among all 28 NATO Allies can lead to the removal of the NSNW. The new Dutch minister of foreign affairs for example, Frans Timmermans, has a long track record of calling for an end to the deployment of US nuclear weapons on Dutch territory. Without NATO consent if necessary. His appointment fits with the political shift that we have seen over the past few years in Dutch politics. This article looks at the political rationale behind that shift: who are the main political actors involved? How have domestic and international pressures influenced party positions? The article also looks at the possibilities a new Dutch Government has were it to challenge the NATO consensus on NSNW. Would the USA refuse to take the NSNW away? How would NATO react and what could mitigate Allied concerns?     

Ceci n'est pas une…American nuclear weapon in Belgium

There is hardly anybody in Belgium who publicly defends the continued deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons on Belgian territory. The longer these weapons stay, the more the existing nuclear weapons policy and by extension North Atlantic Treaty Organization itself will be regarded as illegitimate. While one should not expect massive demonstrations similar to that at the beginning of the 1980s, the pressure to protest increases. By describing the different societal and political actors in Belgium and their respective views on the possible withdrawal of US tactical nuclear weapons, this article tries to explain the gap between policymakers and citizens on this issue. The main explanatory variables are a low-profile diplomatic culture and the lack of a strong link between the anti-nuclear movement and the political parties in power, resulting in the absence of political leaders at the governmental level, who clearly speak out in favor of withdrawal.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Politics,proximity and paranoia: the evolution of Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint

This article traces the evolution of Kashmir as a “nuclear flashpoint,” and the relationship between Kashmir, nuclear weapons, and regional security. The first section discusses the concept of a geopolitical flashpoint, providing a definition and a series of historical examples. The Kashmir issue and its role in the broader Indo-Pakistani conflict fit reasonably neatly into this definition. A second section briefly traces the history of nuclear weapons programs in the region, as the potential for nuclear escalation by competing powers or their allies is a key factor in defining nuclear flashpoints (a post-1945 phenomenon). The third section examines the evolution of the Kashmir issue and successive Indo-Pakistani crises within a nuclearized regional environment from 1984 to 2003. The final section assesses the prospects for Kashmir in the near future, and concludes that due to underlying political factors, Kashmir will remain a nuclear flashpoint for the foreseeable future.     

Editor's note

This article examines the argument that the ability of a government to generate “audience costs”—to create a situation, that is, in which it would pay a domestic political price for backing down—plays a key role in determining how international crises run their course. It does this by looking at a dozen great power crises to see how well various aspects of the audience costs argument hold up in the light of the historical evidence. The audience costs mechanism, it turns out, does not play a major role in any of those crises—a conclusion which, the author claims, has certain important methodological implications.     

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.     

UN Troop Deployment and Preventing Violence Against Civilians in Darfur

ABSTRACT

Does the presence of UN peacekeeping force lower civilian fatalities at the local level? If it does, is it because of their coercive military capacity or for other reasons such as their roles in monitoring and reporting violent atrocities? To explore these questions, I study the deployment of peacekeeping units in Darfur and its impact on violence against civilians. Using original geocoded data of UN deployments before and after the intervention, I examine what aspects of such deployments impact one-sided civilian killings by government and rebel groups. Results indicate that deploying UN peacekeepers in an area restrains belligerent from targeting civilians. However, the military capacity of peacekeepers is not a significant predictor of violence against civilians. While their ability to defend themselves is extremely important for peacekeepers, these findings caution against the militarization trend in UN peacekeeping and seek to reshift focus on other substantive aspects of peacekeeping.     

The Interdependence of U.S. Troop Deployments and Trade in the Developing World

The relationship between political conflict and trade has contributed to a riveting discussion in international relations about whether trade produces conflict, or whether conflict itself reduces trade. Most studies proxy "the flag" using militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). However, extensions of "the flag" might well obtain in environments short of MIDs. A more general way to proxy the flag is troop deployments. The deployment of military troops is an essential element of foreign policy. Using panel data for 126 developing countries from 1965 to 2002 and a two-stage least square approach, this essay investigates the relationship between trade and United States troop deployments. We find that trade and troops have a nonrecursive relationship: trade follows the flag and troops follow trade. Given the increased insecurity in the world today, the results are timely and reinforce previous research about the reciprocal relationship between the flag and trade.     

War Games redux? Cyberthreats,US–Russian strategic stability,and new challenges for nuclear security and arms control

Some 30 years since the release of the Hollywood blockbuster War Games, the possibility that hackers might break into nuclear command and control facilities, compromise early warning or firing systems, or even cause the launch of a nuclear weapon has become disturbingly real. While this challenge will impact all nuclear-armed states, it appears particularly acute for the USA and Russia given their large, diverse, and highly alerted nuclear forces. The fact that east–west relations have deteriorated to a nadir perhaps not seen since the 1980s, strategic instability has increased – particularly in the wake of the Ukraine and now Syria crises – and that the nuclear arms reductions agenda appears to have reached a standstill makes this challenge particularly pressing. In this discouraging milieu, new cyberthreats are both exacerbating the already strained US–Russia strategic balance – particularly the perceived safety and security of nuclear forces – and at the same time creating new vulnerabilities and problems that might be exploited by a third party. Taken together, these dynamics add another major complication for current arms control agreements and possible future nuclear cuts, and also seem likely to increase the possibility of accidents, miscalculation, and potential unauthorised nuclear use, especially given the large number of nuclear weapons that remain on “hair-trigger” alert.     

Proof of the Bomb: The Influence of Previous Failure on Intelligence Judgments of Nuclear Programs

When intelligence agencies assess whether a state is pursuing nuclear weapons, how much evidence is enough? I argue that intelligence agencies adopt different standards for rendering definitive judgments in such situations. This, in turn, pushes them toward different kinds of mistakes. Urgent judges reach definitive conclusions about the existence of secret nuclear weapons programs more quickly and with less evidence than their peers. They risk seeing ambitious nuclear schemes where none exist. Skeptical judges wait longer and accumulate more proof before reaching definitive conclusions. They risk erring in the direction of underestimation. Where existing work focuses on intelligence accuracy, I show that variation in judgment is a distinct and important dimension of performance. What, then, drives judgment? I test an explanation based on the dynamic influence of previous intelligence failure. I observe that the judgment of intelligence agencies in two states, the United States and Israel, was differentially affected by failure as they tracked potential nuclear proliferation by Libya and Syria. These controlled comparisons constitute a novel approach to the study of nuclear intelligence performance. I find significant support for my explanation. Fearing repeat failure, intelligence agencies alter their efforts and standards of proof in an area critical to statecraft.     

Weapon system selection and mass-casualty outcomes∗

If contemporary terrorism is assumed to be increasing in lethality, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons theoretically are assumed to provide interested groups with the ability to achieve a higher kill ratio per incident, why have terrorist organizations, specifically those seeking to produce large amounts of casualties, continued to predominantly employ conventional weapon systems instead of chemical and biological ones? Not negating the possibility of such occurrences, I found that missions and groups specifically seeking to produce large amounts of casualties will prefer employing conventional weapons systems, while others predominantly focusing on inciting fear, panic and general disruption – regardless of the amount of resultant casualties, may be more tempted to use unconventional weapons.     

Deploying EU military crisis management operations: a collective action perspective

This article will work towards a multi-level collective action approach for understanding the deployment of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) military operations. It is multi-level because it uses three levels of analysis: firstly, the international level, where events that create threats to certain values catalyze the process leading to the deployment of an operation; secondly, the national level, where EU governments formulate their national preferences towards prospective deployments based on utility expectations; and thirdly, the EU level, where EU member states negotiate and seek compromises to accommodate their different national preferences. The strength of the model will be demonstrated through empirical case studies on the deployment processes of EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina and EU NAVFOR Atalanta off the coast of Somalia. The article will also provide an overview of the existing theoretical literature on the deployment of CSDP military operations.     

Models of Crisis Decision Making and the 1990–91 Gulf War

The 1991 Persian Gulf War is a “most likely” case for several crisis decision-making models. It commanded presidential attention, arose when bureaucrats were fighting over post-Cold War budgets, and evoked the strong organizational cultures of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. We use this case to assess the contexts, decision stages, and issue areas in which alternative crisis models have the most explanatory power. We find that presidents are most powerful in agenda setting, choosing among options, crises, and high-politics issues. Bureaucratic politics diminishes in crises and best explains the behavior of mid-level careerists, the formulation of options, and the shaping of post-war budgets. Most striking, even in crises organizational cultures strongly shape tactical military decisions, choices among weapons systems, and the willingness of officials to risk their careers on behalf of their organizations’ values. Overall, these findings argue for greater attention to the influence of organizational cultures in crises.     

Arms Negotiation,War Exhaustion,and the Credibility of Preventive War

Why do some states agree to suspend their weapons programs in exchange for compensation while others fail to come to terms? I argue that the changing credibility of preventive war is an important determinant of arms construction. If preventive war is never an option, states can reach mutually preferable settlements. However, if preventive war is not credible today but will be credible in the future, a commitment problem results: the state considering investment faces a “window of opportunity” and must build the arms or it will not receive concessions later on. Thus, agreements fail under these conditions. I then apply the theoretical findings to the Soviet Union’s decision to build nuclear weapons in 1949. War exhaustion made preventive war not credible for the United States immediately following World War II, but lingering concerns about future preventive action induced Moscow to proliferate.     

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.