Nuclear opportunism: A theory of how states use nuclear weapons in international politics

ABSTRACT

How do states use nuclear weapons to achieve their goals in international politics? Nuclear weapons can influence state decisions about a range of strategic choices relating to military aggression, the scope of foreign policy objectives, and relations with allies. The article offers a theory to explain why emerging nuclear powers use nuclear weapons to facilitate different foreign policies: becoming more or less aggressive; providing additional support to allies or proxies, seeking independence from allies; or expanding the state’s goals in international politics. I argue that a state’s choices depend on the presence of severe territorial threats or an ongoing war, the presence of allies that provide for the state’s security, and whether the state is increasing in relative power. The conclusion discusses implications of the argument for our understanding of nuclear weapons and the history of proliferation, and nonproliferation policy today.

KEYWORDS:

• Nuclear weapons
• foreign policy
• nuclear revolution

Acknowledgments

For helpful comments and suggestions, the author thanks Hal Brands, Matthew Bunn, Christopher Clary, Cosette Creamer, Raymond Duvall, Tanisha Fazal, Peter Feaver, M. Taylor Fravel, Francis Gavin, Gene Gerzhoy, Charlie Glaser, Brendan Green, David Holloway, Keir Lieber, Sean Lynn-Jones, Ron Krebs, Jeffrey Knopf, Martin Malin, Nicholas Miller, Steven Miller, Alex Montgomery, Vipin Narang, Barry Posen, Sebastian Rosato, Joshua Rovner, Scott Sagan, Todd Sechser, Etel Solingen, Nina Tannenwald, Jane Vaynman, Rachel Whitlark, and audiences and workshop participants at Harvard Kennedy School, M.I.T., Monash South Africa, Stanford University, the Tobin Project, the University of Minnesota, the 2015 Nuclear Studies Research Initiative Conference, the 2016 Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, and the 2016 Notre Dame International Security Center Emerging Scholars in Grand Strategy Conference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ ‘Likelihood and Consequences of a Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Systems’, U.S. Special National Intelligence Estimate 4–63, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 155, Document 8.

² Mark S. Bell, ‘Beyond Emboldenment: How Acquiring Nuclear Weapons Can Change Foreign Policy’, International Security 40/1 (2015), 87–119.

³ Ibid., 88–91. I follow the definition of foreign policy as ‘the collection of means and ends with which a state pursues its goals with respect to another state.’

⁴ Important works in this tradition include Bernard Brodie (ed.), The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt Brace 1946); McGeorge Bundy, ‘To Cap the Volcano’, Foreign Affairs 48/1 (1969), 1–20; Bernard Brodie, ‘The Development of Nuclear Strategy.’ International Security 2/4 (1978), 65–83; Robert Jervis, ‘Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn’t Matter’, Political Science Quarterly 94/4 (1979), 617–633; Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better’, The Adelphi Papers 21/171 (1981); Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press 1982); Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Misconceptions in American Strategic Assessment’, Political Science Quarterly 97/2 (1982), 187–206; Charles L. Glaser, ‘Why Even Good Defenses May Be Bad’, International Security 9/2 (1984), 92–123; Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospects of Armageddon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1989); Charles L. Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990); Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, American Political Science Review 84/3 (1990), 730–745; Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1999); Charles L. Glaser and Steve Fetter, ‘National Missile Defense and the Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy’, International Security 26/1 (2001): 40–92.

⁵ Brodie, The Absolute Weapon, 24.

⁶ Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, 732.

⁷ Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy, 361.

⁸ Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, 739.

⁹ Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence.

¹⁰ Van Evera, Causes of War, 244, 249.

¹¹ Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security 18, no. 2 (1993), 73, 74.

¹² Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W. W. Norton 2003), 39; Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 45.

¹³ Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons.

¹⁴ Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1984), 13. See also Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy; Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities.’

¹⁵ For example, S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2007).

¹⁶ For example, Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2010); Matthew Kroenig, ‘Force or Friendship? Explaining Great Power Nonproliferation Policy’, Security Studies 23/1 (2014), 1–32. Francis J. Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation’, International Security 40/1 (2015), 9–46.

¹⁷ Bell, ‘Beyond Emboldenment’.

¹⁸ Gideon Rose, ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy’, World Politics 51/1 (1998), 144–72; Walter Carlsnaes, ‘Foreign Policy’, in Handbook of International Relations, ed. Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth A. Simmons (London: Sage, 2002); Ole R. Holsti, ‘Models of International Relations and Foreign Policy’, Diplomatic History 13/1 (1989), 15–44; Colin Elman, ‘Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?’, Security Studies 6/1 (1996), 7–53.

¹⁹ This label mirrors Keir Lieber’s theory of ‘technological opportunism’, which similarly emphasizes the primacy of politics in conditioning the effects of technologies on international politics. Keir A. Lieber, War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics Over Technology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2005).

²⁰ This follows Bell, ‘Beyond Emboldenment’, 92.

²¹ Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1987), 21–26; Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2014).

²² Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 44.

²³ Ibid., ch. 3.

²⁴ C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014), 203.

²⁵ For example, Ashley J. Tellis, C. Christine Fair, and Jamison Jo Medby, Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella: Indian and Pakistani lessons From the Kargil Crisis (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 2002); Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent; Vipin Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace? Pakistan’s Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability’, International Security 34, no. 3 (2010), 38–78; Fair, Fighting to the End.

²⁶ Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2012), 207, 216, ch. 11.

²⁷ On the 1967 war, see Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press 1998), ch. 14. On the 1973 war, see Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 187–191.

²⁸ Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press 2000), 21.

²⁹ John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton 2001), 31.

³⁰ Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, 25–26.

³¹ Mancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser, ‘An Economic Theory of Alliances’, Review of Economics and Statistics 48/3 (1966), 266–279.

³² On British independence after acquiring nuclear weapons, see Bell, ‘Beyond Emboldenment.’

³³ Wilfrid L. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1971), 9.

³⁴ Quoted in Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 168.

³⁵ Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy, 234.

³⁶ Philip H. Gordon, ‘Charles de Gaulle and the Nuclear Revolution’, in Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945, ed. John Lewis Gaddis (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999), 234; Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy.

³⁷ Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998), 38; Robert Jervis, ‘Do Leaders Matter and How Would We Know?’, Security Studies 22/2 (2013), 176.

³⁸ Walt, The Origins of Alliances.

³⁹ This prediction only applies to the acquiring state’s relationships with its junior allies. As previously discussed, independence is still incentivized for the acquiring state’s relationships with its senior allies. Even for declining states, senior allies can be a constraint on their foreign policy, and nuclear acquisition thus makes independence from the senior ally politically attractive.

⁴⁰ Both approaches are regularly used in quantitative studies.

⁴¹ ‘The Secretary of State to the Acting Secretary of State (15 September 1950)’, FRUS 1950 vol. 3, document 573, 1229–1231.

⁴² ‘Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary (10 September 1948)’, FRUS 1948, vol. 1, part 2, document 42–43, 624–628.

⁴³ Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking Press 1951), 538.

⁴⁴ Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 111–112.

⁴⁵ Baldev Raj Nayar and T.V. Paul, India in the World Order: Searching for Major-Power Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003), 214.

⁴⁶ For discussions of the dates at which India acquired different capabilities, see Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, ch. 4; George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Los Angeles: University of California Press 2002); Gaurav Kampani, ‘New Delhi’s Long Nuclear Journey: How Secrecy and Institutional Roadblocks Delayed India’s Weaponization’, International Security 38/4 (2014), 79–114.

⁴⁷ Nayar and Paul, India in the World Order, 2–3.

⁴⁸ Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, 14, 59.

⁴⁹ Robert Munro, for example, argued that ‘India’s reach for great power status is in shambles. The keystone of Indian power and pretence in the 1980s, the Indo-Soviet link, is history.’ Ross H. Munro, ‘The Loser: India in the Nineties’, The National Interest 32 (1993), 62–63.

⁵⁰ Thongkholal Haokip, ‘India’s Look East Policy: Its Evolution and Approach’, South Asian Survey 18/2 (2011), 239.

⁵¹ Ashok Kapur, India: From Regional to World Power (New York: Routledge 2006), 5.

⁵² Sandy Gordon, India’s Rise to Power (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1995), 121.

⁵³ Haokip, ‘India’s Look East Policy’, 243.

⁵⁴ For example, M. Taylor Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, ‘China’s Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure’, International Security 35/2 (2010), 48–87; Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, ch. 5.

⁵⁵ Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China’s Search for Assured Retaliation’, 57–66.

⁵⁶ For a full discussion of this case, see Bell, ‘Beyond Emboldenment’.

⁵⁷ Similarly, the theory only examines the benefits that nuclear weapons offer states and does not examine the costs that may accompany nuclear acquisition. The process of proliferation can be dangerous for states, and nuclear weapons may also come with disadvantages. For example, Jervis argues that ‘the possession of nuclear weapons can decrease the state’s freedom of action by increasing the suspicion with which it is viewed.’ Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 3. However, if nuclear weapons also bring with them serious costs, or if other states can take actions to mitigate the benefits a state receives from acquiring nuclear weapons, then this should bias against finding an effect at the point of nuclear acquisition. If so, examining changes in behavior at the point of nuclear acquisition may in fact underestimate the true effect of nuclear weapons.

⁵⁸ Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China’s Search for Assured Retaliation’.

⁵⁹ Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent.

⁶⁰ James D. Fearon, ‘Two States, Two Types, Two Actions’, Security Studies 20/3 (2011), 438.

⁶¹ Kenneth A. Oye, ‘Explaining the End of the Cold War: Morphological and Behavioral Adaptations to the Nuclear Peace’, in International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, ed. Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995); Bell, ‘Beyond Emboldenment’, 99–100.

⁶² For example, Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence.

⁶³ For example, Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’; Matthew Kroenig, ‘Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve: Explaining Nuclear Crisis Outcomes’, International Organization 67/1 (2013), 141–171; Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era; Austin Long and Brendan Rittenhouse Green, ‘Stalking the Secure Second Strike: Intelligence, Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy’, Journal of Strategic Studies 38/1–2 (2015), 38–73; Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ‘The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence’, International Security 41/4 (2017), 9–49; Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long, ‘The MAD Who Wasn’t There: Soviet Reactions to the Late Cold War Strategic Balance’, Security Studies 26/4 (2017), 606–641.

⁶⁴ On the threats faced by Iran and potential senior allies, see Vipin Narang, ‘Nuclear Strategies of Emerging Nuclear Powers: North Korea and Iran’, The Washington Quarterly 38/1 (2015), 86–87. Although power dynamics in the Middle East are fickle, it seems hard to argue that Iran is significantly rising in power. Indeed, Iran has suffered unwelcome recent changes in the balance of power, including the civil war threatening ally Bashar Al-Asad in Syria, the ongoing effect of multilateral sanctions on the Iranian economy, and the recent rise of the Islamic State.

⁶⁵ Erica D. Borghard and Mira Rapp-Hooper, ‘Hizbullah and the Iranian Nuclear Programme’, Survival 55/4 (2013), 86.

⁶⁶ See, for example, Nicholas L. Miller, ‘Nuclear Dominoes: A Self-Defeating Prophecy?’, Security Studies 23/1 (2014), 33–73; Nicholas L. Miller, ‘The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions’, International Organization 68/4 (2014), 913–944; Kroenig, ‘Force or Friendship?’; Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’; Andrew Coe and Jane Vaynman, ‘Superpower Collusion and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’, Journal of Politics 77/4 (2015), 983–997.

⁶⁷ For other accounts of why the US finds nonproliferation attractive, see Kroenig, ‘Force or Friendship?’, Gavin, ‘Strategies of Inhibition’.

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Mark S. Bell

Mark S. Bell is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota.