INTRODUCTION: THE DYNAMICS OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Abstract

This special section examines the disarmament dynamics being generated by President Barack Obama and other world leaders in their advocacy of a nuclear-weapon-free world. It explores the responses of five groups of states (nuclear weapon states, threshold states, advocacy states, holdout states, and defiant states) to the new disarmament momentum, assessing whether a global consensus on—and concrete progress toward—nuclear elimination is likely. The main goals of this special section are: to generate scholarly debate on this important subject (the literature has tended to focus on understanding proliferation rather than disarmament dynamics); and to examine the potential consequences of reinvigorated disarmament leadership for the upcoming Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which will be held in New York City in May 2010.

Keywords:

• Nuclear disarmament
• nuclear abolition
• nuclear-weapon-free world
• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful to our paper reviewers, who have made numerous thoughtful and judicious comments and suggestions that have enabled us to greatly improve the quality of this research enterprise. Many thanks to Christophe Carle (French Ministry of Defense), Lewis Dunn (Science Applications International Corporation), Devin Hagerty (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), Michael Keifer (Analytic Services Inc.), Mark Smith (Wilton Park), and Christine Wing (New York University's Center on International Cooperation).

Notes

1. George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, p. A15; and “Toward a Nuclear-Free World,” Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2008, p. A13.

2. “Remarks by the President on Winning the Nobel Peace Prize,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, October 9, 2009, <www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-Winning-the-Nobel-Peace-Prize/>.

3. For a historical review of nuclear abolitionist waves, see Michael Krepon, “Ban the Bomb. Really,” American Interest 3 (January/February 2008), pp. 88–93.

4. Bernard Baruch, “Proposals for an International Atomic Development Authority by the United States Representative to the Atomic Energy Commission,” Department of State Bulletin 14 (June 23, 1946), p. 1057.

5. Paul Bracken, “The Second Nuclear Age,” Foreign Affairs 79 (January/February 2000), pp. 146–56.

6. Richard Ned Lebow, The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests, and Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 388

7. Rebecca Johnson, “Looking Towards 2010: What Does the Nonproliferation Regime Need?” Disarmament Diplomacy 84 (Spring 2007), <www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd84/84npt.htm>.

8. For a review on the proliferation risks associated with peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements, see Matthew Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,” International Security 34 (Summer 2009), pp. 7–41.