Let’s make a (nuclear) deal: Bargaining, credibility, and the third offset strategy

ABSTRACT

An institutional perspective on nuclear deterrence cooperation within alliances has the potential to fundamentally reorient how we think about analyzing nuclear and deterrence decision-making between nuclear patrons and non-nuclear clients. It comes at a time when the presidency of Donald Trump is sure to test many of the core claims and assumptions in security studies, especially relating to bargaining and credibility within alliances. This article surveys questions that will be core to the research agenda involving alliance institutions and nuclear weapons during the Trump presidency and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Extended deterrence
• nuclear weapons
• credibility
• bargaining
• reputations
• institutions
• alliances

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Van Jackson is an Associate Professor in the College of Security Studies at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. He is the author of the book Rival reputations: Coercion and credibility in US-North Korea relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). His research interests include Asian security, U.S. foreign policy, strategic studies, and international relations theory.