The History of Proliferation Optimism: Does It Have a Future?

Abstract

Students of international politics known as ‘proliferation optimists’ argue that when it comes to the spread of nuclear weapons ‘more may be better’ because nuclear weapons deter great power war and produce greater levels of international stability. This essay provides a critique of proliferation optimism, challenging optimism’s conception of nuclear deterrence theory, its logical underpinnings, and its policy recommendations. It does this by conducting an intellectual history of proliferation optimism, identifying the core weaknesses of proliferation optimism as a theoretical framework, and articulating the myriad threats posed by nuclear proliferation.

Key Words:

• Nuclear Weapons
• Nuclear Proliferation
• Deterrence
• Proliferation Optimism
• Proliferation Pessimism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank: the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) for financial support; Henry Sokolski, Robert Zarate, and participants at research seminars at Stanford University, the Legatum Institute, and NPEC for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper; and Arjun Gupta for research support.

Notes

¹ James R. Clapper, ‘Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community’, Statement for the Record, US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 29 Jan. 2014, <www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/testimonies/203-congressional-testimonies-2014/1005-statement-for-the-record-worldwide-threat-assessment-of-the-us-intelligence-community>.

² Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: Norton 1997); David J. Karl, ‘Proliferation Optimism and Pessimism Revisited’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/4 (Aug. 2011), 619–41.

³ Frank Gavin, ‘The Ivory Tower–Policy Gap in the Nuclear Proliferation Debate’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/4 (Aug. 2012), 573–600.

⁴ Lawrence Freedman. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003).

⁵ See, for example, Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapons: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1946).

⁶ Jacob Viner, ‘The Implications of the Atomic Bomb for International Relations’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, delivered 16 Nov. 1945.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Brodie, The Absolute Weapon.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons.

¹¹ Albert Wohlstetter, The Delicate Balance of Terror(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 1958).

¹² Albert Wohlstetter, ‘Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N+1 Country’, Foreign Affairs 39/3 (April 1961), 355-87.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Lawrence Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic (Princeton UP 1965).

¹⁶ Bruno Tertais, ‘Destruction Assuree: The Origins and Development of French Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1982’, in Henry D. Sokolski (ed.), Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute 2004).

¹⁷ Ibid., 95.

¹⁸ Ibid., 86.

¹⁹ Ibid., 64.

²⁰ Ibid., 86.

²¹ Pierre Marie Gallois, Le Sablier du Siecle: memoires (Lausanne: L’Age d’homme 1999), 402.

²² Tertais, 83.

²³ Ibid., 82.

²⁴ Ibid., 96.

²⁵ Pierre Marie Gallois, Stratégie de l’âge nucléaire (Paris: François-Xavier de Guibert 1960).

²⁶ Wohlstetter, ‘Nuclear sharing’.

²⁷ This section draws heavily from Harvey M. Sapolsky, ‘The US Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile Program and Finite Deterrence’, in Henry D. Sokolski, Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute 2004).

²⁸ Kenneth Waltz, ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better’, Adelphi Papers 171 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies 1981).

²⁹ For a review of these debates as they pertain to South Asia, see Karl, ‘Proliferation Optimism and Pessimism Revisited’.

³⁰ Kenneth Waltz, ‘Why Iran Should Get the Bomb’, Foreign Affairs (July/Aug. 2012), 2–4.

³¹ Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons.

³² Gavin, ‘The Ivory Tower-Policy Gap’.

³³ Ibid., 597.

³⁴ For more, see Robert Litwak, Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 2012).

³⁵ Robert Powell, ‘Nuclear Brinkmanship with Two-Sided Incomplete Information’, American Political Science Review 82/1 (1988), 155–78; Robert Powell, ‘Nuclear Deterrence and the Strategy of Limited Retaliation’, American Political Science Review 83/2 (1989), 503–19.

³⁶ Charles Glaser, Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton UP 1990).

³⁷ Brodie, The Absolute Weapon.

³⁸ Robert Powell, Nuclear Deterrence Theory: The Search for Credibility (New York: Cambridge UP 1990).

³⁹ Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale UP Press 1966).

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Matthew Kroenig, ‘Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve’, International Organization 67/1 (2013) 141–71.

⁴³ See for example, Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (New York: Greenwood Press 1978).

⁴⁴ Kroenig, ‘Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve.’

⁴⁵ Klaus Knorr Limited Strategic War (New York: Praeger 1962); Powell, ‘Nuclear Deterrence and the Strategy of Limited Retaliation’, 503–19.

⁴⁶ Powell, ‘Nuclear Deterrence and the Strategy of Limited Retaliation’.

⁴⁷ Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2010).

⁴⁸ Steven Weber, ‘The End of the Business Cycle?’, Foreign Affairs 76/4 (July/Aug. 1997), 65–82.

⁴⁹ Thomas Schelling, ‘Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack’, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Paper 1958).

⁵⁰ Knorr, Limited Strategic War.

⁵¹ Of course there is no guarantee that Washington would have used nuclear weapons as planned in the event of actual conflict. It should be noted that US nuclear threats were intended not only to deter the Soviet Union, but also to reassure NATO partners and dissuade them from seeking independent nuclear forces.

⁵² Schelling, Arms and Influence.

⁵³ Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton UP 1993).

⁵⁴ Michael Levi, On Nuclear Terrorism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2007).

⁵⁵ Fissile Materials Working Group, ‘After Bin Laden: Nuclear Terrorism Still a Top Threat’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 13 May 2011.

⁵⁶ On deterring terrorism, see Matthew Kroenig and Barry Pavel, “How to Deter Terrorism,” The Washington Quarterly 35/2 (Spring 2012), 21–36.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ Levi, On Nuclear Terrorism.

⁵⁹ David Albright, Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies (New York: Free Press 2012).

⁶⁰ Glenn H. Snyder, ‘The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror,’ in Paul Seabury (ed.), The Balance of Power (San Francisco: Chandler 1965), 184–201.

⁶¹ Robert Rauchhaus, ‘Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: A Quantitative Approach’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 53/2 (April 2009), 258–77; Michael Horowitz, ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons and International Conflict: Does Experience Matter?’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 53/2 (April 2009), 234–7.

⁶² Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent.

⁶³ See, for example, Donald Rumsfeld, The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington DC: Dept. of Defense March 2005).

⁶⁴ See, for example, Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France; Wilfred L. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy (Princeton UP 1971).

⁶⁵ Philipp Bleek, ‘The Nuclear Domino Myth: Why Proliferation Rarely Begets Proliferation’, PhD dissertation, Department of Government, Georgetown Univ., 2010.

⁶⁶ Francis J. Gavin, ‘Blasts from the Past: Proliferation Lessons from the 1960s’, International Security 29/3 (Winter 2004/2005), 100–35.

⁶⁷ Bleek, ‘The Nuclear Domino Myth’.

⁶⁸ Barry Posen, ‘A Nuclear-Armed Iran: A Difficult, but not Impossible Policy Problem,’ Century Foundation Report, 2006, <http://web.mit.edu/cis/pdf/posen_frenchcen.pdf>.

⁶⁹ Wohlstetter, ‘Nuclear sharing’.

⁷⁰ Colin Kahl, ‘Policy Pessimism vs. Proliferation Optimism: The Case of Iran’, Paper Prepared for the Nuclear Studies Research Initiative Launch Conference, Austin, TX, 17—19 Oct. 2013.

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Matthew Kroenig

Matthew Kroenig is an Associate Professor and International Relations Field Chair in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at The Atlantic Council. He is an expert on US national security policy and strategy, international relations theory, nuclear deterrence, arms control, nuclear nonproliferation, Iran, and counterterrorism. He is the author or editor of several books, including A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat (forthcoming 2014) and Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (2010), which won the International Studies Association Best Book Award, Honorable Mention. His articles on international politics have appeared in such publications as American Political Science Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He regularly provides commentary on BBC, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, and many other media outlets. From May 2010 to May 2011, he served as a Special Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, where he worked on defense policy and strategy for Iran. In 2005, he worked as a strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he authored the first-ever, US government strategy for deterring terrorist networks. For his work, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Outstanding Achievement. Dr Kroenig regularly consults with the defense, energy, and intelligence communities. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.