This issue opens with an article by Karen Winzoski (National University of Singapore) examining the role of the US chemical industry in US chemical weapons policy from the 1960s through the 1990s. Winzoski explores why the industry went from supporting the government's chemical weapons programs—and lobbying against restraints on such weapons—to refusing requests to manufacture them and ultimately advocating on behalf of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Winzoski finds that the industry's desire to overcome its negative public image, along with an interest in securing increased long-term profits, led to the policy reversal.
Kirk C. Bansak (James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies) uses two case studies to assess the connection between the civilian and military uses of biological research and the negative public perception of the US biodefense program. In the first case study, Bansak details the controversy over building a high-containment biodefense facility in Boston, a facility many local residents believe will be used to develop biological weapons. In the second case study, the author reviews the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, which flourished in part because of the Soviets’ mistaken belief that the US biodefense program concealed work on offensive weapons. Bansak explains how such misperceptions can have a negative impact on US national security and offers suggestions for introducing greater transparency to avoid these problems.
Using several different theories—game theory, prospect theory, and liberal international theory—Jacqueline C. Reich (Chestnut Hill College) evaluates whether a strategy of incrementalism can succeed in getting non-nuclear weapon states to forsake nuclear weapons in return for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapon states’ arsenals—the “bargain” at the heart of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). She concludes that incrementalism alone probably won't achieve the dual objectives of the NPT but notes that each theory offers different approaches that can, working in tandem, help create the desired results.
Jeffrey S. Lantis (College of Wooster) also looks at the NPT, though in this case at how recent decisions to expand trade in nuclear power technology to non-NPT states, and India, in particular, will affect the traditional nonproliferation norm of restraint. By studying the 2008 US-India nuclear deal, especially the role of elite policy makers on both sides, Lantis seeks to offer a new model of norm change to supplement existing constructivist theory on norm creation and establishment. He concludes that existing theoretical constructs cannot wholly account for the apparent evolution of traditional nonproliferation norms.
It has long been known that North Korea has been a major supplier of ballistic missiles since the mid-1980s. But as Joshua Pollack (consultant to the US government) reports, unclassified data on missile sales shows that most of North Korea's known deliveries occurred before 1994. While some claim that the 2003 Proliferation Security Initiative is responsible, Pollack demonstrates that several factors drove demand down much earlier, including North Korea's previous sales of missile production equipment, growing interest in aircraft, cruise missiles, and missile defense systems (following the first Iraq war), and pressure from the United States on some states to terminate their transfers from North Korea. Today, although risks remain, North Korea's sales of complete missile systems are rare and its status as a major supplier to the Middle East at large is over.
In the first of two viewpoint articles in this issue, Nancy Gallagher (Center for International and Security Studies, University of Maryland) asks the nonproliferation and disarmament community to reconsider and reframe its positions on four key issues—strategic stability, alliance relations, institution-building, and nuclear energy—in order to break through some of the unintentional roadblocks on the path toward reducing nuclear dangers and eliminating nuclear weapons.
In the second viewpoint article, Siegfried S. Hecker (Center for International Security and Cooperation) recounts his seven visits to North Korea—including his most recent trip last November. Hecker discusses what he learned on those visits, as well as Washington's poor diplomatic track record of trying to manage the North Korean nuclear threat.
Michael Krepon (Henry L. Stimson Center) wraps up this issue with a detailed review of a new two-volume study of nuclear proliferation offering both policy-relevant theories and comparative country studies from around the world.