IV. THE IMPLICATIONS OF A NUCLEAR IRAN

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Notes

¹Josh Rogin, ‘32 Senators Call for “No Containment” Strategy for Iran’, Foreign Policy: The Cable, 16 February 2012.

²Howard LaFranchi, ‘House Adopts Hard Line on Iran. Would Stance Move US Closer to War?’, Christian Science Monitor, 17 May 2012. Emphasis added.

³Helene Cooper, ‘Obama Tells U.N. New Democracies Need Free Speech’, New York Times, 25 September 2012.

⁴ Daily Telegraph, ‘William Hague: A Nuclear Iran Could Cause a “Cold War”’, 18 February 2012.

⁵ BBC News, ‘Stern Warning for N Korea’, 23 May 2003.

⁶Vipin Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace? Pakistan's Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability’, International Security (Vol. 34, No. 3, Winter 2010), p. 40.

⁷Peter Liberman, ‘The Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb’, International Security (Vol. 26, No. 2, Fall 2001).

⁸Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’, p. 46; Harsh V Pant, ‘India's Nuclear Doctrine and Command Structure: Implications for Civil-Military Relations in India’, Armed Forces and Society (Vol. 33, No. 2, January 2007); Ali Ahmed, ‘Reviewing India's Nuclear Doctrine’, Policy Brief, Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, 24 April 2009; Rajesh M Basrur, Minimum Deterrence and India's Nuclear Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006).

⁹Verghese Koithara, Managing India's Nuclear Forces (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2012), p. 101.

¹⁰Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’, p. 46; Pant, ‘India's Nuclear Doctrine and Command Structure’; Ahmed, ‘Reviewing India's Nuclear Doctrine’; Basrur, Minimum Deterrence and India's Nuclear Security.

¹¹Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’, p. 44; Timothy D Hoyt, ‘Pakistani Nuclear Doctrine and The Dangers of Strategic Myopia’, Asian Survey (Vol. 41, No. 6, 2001); Scott D Sagan, ‘The Evolution of Pakistani and Indian Nuclear Doctrine’, in Scott D Sagan (ed.), Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

¹²On how the principles of opacity may be relevant to a nuclear Iran, see Avner Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), Kindle edition, location 3469 (ch. 9).

¹³Note that a state may choose different positions along these different dimensions, even where this seems counterintuitive. It is possible to envisage a nuclear posture that accepts counterforce on the one hand but shuns nuclear war-fighting on the other. This would make sense if the military targets of counterforce were seen as valid targets for punishment rather than purely battlefield assets. An example of this can be found in aspects of Chinese nuclear thinking. See Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘China's New “Old Thinking”: The Concept of Limited Deterrence’, International Security (Vol. 20, No. 3, Winter 1995–96), p. 19; M Taylor Fravel and Evan S Medeiros, ‘China's Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure’, International Security (Vol. 35, No. 2, Fall 2010), p. 70.

¹⁴Stephen Peter Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 251–52.

¹⁵Scott D Sagan and Kenneth N Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2^nd ed. (New York: W W Norton & Co, 2003), pp. 53–55.

¹⁶Nader Entessar, ‘Iran's Nuclear Decision-Making Calculus’, Middle East Policy (Vol. 16, No. 2, Summer 2009), pp. 31–34.

¹⁷Mark Hibbs, ‘An IAEA Conversation with Rafsanjani’, Arms Control Wonk blog, 18 October 2011.

¹⁸David E Sanger, ‘U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site’, New York Times, 10 January 2009; Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘Assessing Iran's Nuclear Programme’, Survival (Vol. 48, No. 3, Autumn 2006).

¹⁹R Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick, ‘Pakistani Scientist Khan Describes Iranian Efforts to Buy Nuclear Bombs’, Washington Post, 14 March 2010.

²⁰Frederic Wehrey et al, The Rise of the Pasdaran: Assessing the Domestic Roles of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2009), p. xi.

²¹Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’, p. 66.

²²Anthony H Cordesman and Abdullah Toukan, ‘Analyzing the Impact of Preventive Strikes against Iran's Nuclear Facilities’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 10 September 2012, p. 45.

²³Phil Stewart and Adam Entous, ‘Iranian Missile May Be Able to Hit U.S. by 2015’, Reuters, 19 April 2012.

²⁴Jeffrey Lewis, ‘Iranian ICBM by 2015?’, Arms Control Wonk blog, 21 April 2010.

²⁵Anthony H Cordesman and Alexander Wilner, ‘Iran and the Gulf Military Balance II: The Missile and Nuclear Dimensions’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16 July 2012, pp. 6–10.

²⁶Anthony H Cordesman and Alexander Wilner, ‘Iran and the Gulf Military Balance II: The Missile and Nuclear Dimensions’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 16 July 2012, pp. 6–10.

²⁷These calculations are drawn from Joshua R Itzkowitz Shifrinson and Miranda Priebe, ‘A Crude Threat: The Limits of an Iranian Missile Campaign Against Saudi Arabian Oil’, International Security (Vol. 36, No. 1, 2011), pp. 6–10.

²⁸Eric S Edelman, Andrew F Krepinevich, Jr and Evan Braden Montgomery, ‘The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran’, Foreign Affairs, 1 January 2011, p. 68.

²⁹Martin Indyk, ‘Iran Spinning Out of Control’, New York Times, 29 February 2012.

³⁰Siegfried S Hecker, ‘Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises’, Daedalus (Vol. 139, No. 1, Winter 2010), p. 11.

³¹‘North Korea's Ballistic Missile Programme’, IISS Strategic Dossier, 2004.

³²See Dalia Dassa Kaye and Frederic M Wehrey, ‘A Nuclear Iran: The Reactions of Neighbours’, Survival (Vol. 49, No. 2, Summer 2007), p. 121.

³³Ashley J Tellis, India's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001).

³⁴John Mueller, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), ch. 5.

³⁵Charles Krauthammer, ‘In Iran, Arming for Armageddon’, Washington Post, 16 December 2005.

³⁶Aaron Goldstein, ‘There is Nothing Rational about Iran's Regime’, American Spectator, 13 March 2012.

³⁷US State Department, ‘NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security’, 7 April 1950.

³⁸Alan Lawrance, China's Foreign Relations since 1949 (Abingdon: Taylor and Francis, 2007), p. 75.

³⁹Fravel and Medeiros, ‘China's Search for Assured Retaliation’, p. 51.

⁴⁰Rogin, ‘32 Senators Call for “No Containment” Strategy for Iran’.

⁴¹Cited in Francis J Gavin, ‘Same as it Ever Was: Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War’, International Security (Vol. 34, No. 3, Winter 2009–10), p. 14.

⁴²Kaye and Wehrey, ‘A Nuclear Iran’, p. 124; for more detail, see Matthew Duss, ‘The Martyr State Myth’, Foreign Policy, 24 August 2011.

⁴³Ronald L Burgess, Jr, ‘Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee’, testimony on the current and future worldwide threats to the national security of the United States, 16 February 2012, available at <http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2012_hr/021612burgess.pdf>, accessed 26 October 2012.

⁴⁴Tom Wilson, ‘Iran's Dangerous Concoction of Nuclear Ambitions and Shiite Messianism’, The Commentator, 3 August 2011.

⁴⁵Anna Mulrine, ‘US Military Officials Urge Caution on Attacking Iran’, Christian Science Monitor, 20 February 2012.

⁴⁶ CBS News, ‘The Spymaster: Meir Dagan on Iran's Threat’, 12 September 2012.

⁴⁷Ian Deitch, ‘Israeli Premier Says Iran Wants to Destroy Israel’, Associated Press, 21 May 2012.

⁴⁸Anthony H Cordesman, ‘Iran's Evolving Threat’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 21 January 2010.

⁴⁹ Guardian, ‘US Embassy Cables: Israeli Optimism Erodes in Face of Regional Enemies’, 28 November 2010.

⁵⁰Yehuda Ben Meir and Olena Bagno-Moldavsky, Vox Populi: Trends in Israeli Public Opinion on National Security 2004-2009, Memorandum No. 106 (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2010), p. 25. However, nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran were viewed as the most serious threat facing Israel, measured at 6.2 on a 1–7 point scale.

⁵¹Jack A Goldstone, Eric P Kaufmann and Monica Duffy Toft, Political Demography: How Population Changes are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 216–32.

⁵²Ben Meir and Bagno-Moldavsky, Vox Populi, p. 24.

⁵³Marc Trachtenberg, ‘Proliferation Revisited’, University of California at Los Angeles, 24 June 2002, p. 4, <www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/trachtenberg/cv/prolif.doc>, accessed 26 October 2012.

⁵⁴Thomas C Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 188–91, 199–200. Emphasis added.

⁵⁵Michael Horowitz, ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons and International Conflict: Does Experience Matter?’, Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 53, No. 2, April 2009).

⁵⁶Erik Gartzke and Dong-Joon Jo, ‘Bargaining, Nuclear Proliferation, and Interstate Disputes’, Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 53, No. 2, April 2009).

⁵⁷Kyle Beardsley and Victor Asal, ‘Nuclear Weapons as Shields’, Conflict Management and Peace Science (Vol. 26, No. 3, July 2009).

⁵⁸According to the Correlates of War project, militarised disputes refer to conflicts between states that do not involve a full-scale war. Such conflicts must cause fewer than 1,000 deaths, and some form of military force must be used or threatened. This definition is the standard one used in the field of political science. See Faten Ghosn, Glenn Palmer and Stuart Bremer, ‘The MID3 Data Set, 1993–2001: Procedures, Coding Rules, and Description’, Conflict Management and Peace Science (Vol. 21, 2004), pp. 133–54.

⁵⁹James Fearon, ‘How do States Act after They Get Nuclear Weapons?’, The Monkey Cage blog, 29 January 2012.

⁶⁰Gavin, ‘Same as it Ever Was’, p. 10.

⁶¹Glenn H Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 226.

⁶²S Paul Kapur, ‘India and Pakistan's Unstable Peace: Why Nuclear South Asia is not Like Cold War Europe’, International Security (Vol. 30, No. 2, Fall 2005), p. 146.

⁶³Michael Krepon, ‘The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception, and Escalation Control in South Asia’, Henry L Stimson Center, May 2003, p. 2.

⁶⁴Bharat Karnad, India's Nuclear Policy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008); Sumit Ganguly, ‘Nuclear Stability in South Asia’, International Security (Vol. 33, No. 2, Fall 2008); Peter R Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 10–12.

⁶⁵Daniel Byman, ‘Passive Sponsors of Terrorism’, Survival (Vol. 47, No. 4, Winter 2005/06); Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

⁶⁶Michael Eisenstadt, The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Operational and Policy Implications (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University, August 2011), p. 7.

⁶⁷Daniel Byman, ‘Iran, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (Vol. 31, No. 3, March 2008).

⁶⁸Manoj Joshi, ‘We Lack the Military That Can Deter Terrorism’, Mail Today, 26 November 2009.

⁶⁹Paul Pillar, ‘We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran’, Washington Monthly (March/April 2012).

⁷⁰Jean-Loup Samaan, ‘The Day after Iran Goes Nuclear: Implications for NATO’, Research Paper No. 71, NATO Defense College, January 2012, p. 5.

⁷¹Patrick Knapp, ‘The Gulf States in the Shadow of Iran: Iranian Ambitions’, Middle East Quarterly (Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 2010).

⁷²Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 93–100.

⁷³Peter R Lavoy, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War: The Crisis Management Strategies of Pakistan, India, and the United States’, in Peter R Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia, p. 192.

⁷⁴Walter C Ladwig III, ‘A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine’, International Security (Vol. 32, No. 3, Winter 2007/08).

⁷⁵Shashank Joshi, ‘A Very Special Relationship: The US-Pakistan Alliance Darkens’, RUSI.org, 26 September 2011.

⁷⁶International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance (Vol. 112, No. 1, 2012), p. 306.

⁷⁷Ash Jain, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Iran's Global Ambitions: Troubling Scenarios’, Policy Focus No. 114, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 2011, p. ix.

⁷⁸Ash Jain, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Iran's Global Ambitions: Troubling Scenarios’, Policy Focus No. 114, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 2011, p. ix

⁷⁹Samaan, ‘The Day after Iran Goes Nuclear’, p. 5.

⁸⁰Bruce D Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacy in Local Wars 1945–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 135.

⁸¹Scott Sagan, Kenneth Waltz and Richard K Betts, ‘A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Nuclear Disaster’, Journal of International Affairs (Vol. 60, No. 2, 2007), p. 137.

⁸²For an example of this argument, see F Gregory Gause III, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1994), p. 169.

⁸³Jain, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Iran's Global Ambitions’, p. xi.

⁸⁴Richard L Russell, ‘Arab Security Responses to a Nuclear-Ready Iran’, in Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson (eds), Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2005), p. 31.

⁸⁵Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret, Kindle edition, location 217 (Introduction).

⁸⁶ Daily Telegraph, ‘North Korea Ranked Last on Nuclear Safety – Australia First’, 11 January 2012; Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder, ‘The Ally From Hell’, Atlantic Monthly, December 2011.

⁸⁷James C Wendt and Peter A Wilson, Post INF: Toward Multipolar Deterrence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1988), pp. 23–27.

⁸⁸Gavin, ‘Same as it Ever Was’, p. 10.

⁸⁹US Intelligence Community, ‘Warning of War in Europe’, 1984, p. 24, available at <http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001486834/DOC_0001486834.pdf>, accessed 26 October 2012.

⁹⁰William A Owens, Kenneth W Dam and Herbert S Lin, Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2009), p. 294; Glenn C Buchan, David M Matonick, Calvin Shipbaugh and Richard Mesic, Future Roles of U.S. Nuclear Forces: Implications for U.S. Strategy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2003), p. 15; Sam Nunn, ‘Changing Threats in the Post-Cold War World’, in John M Shields and William C Potter (eds), Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. xiv.

⁹¹Edelman, Krepinevich, Jr and Montgomery, ‘The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran’, p. 74; Anthony H Cordesman and Khalid R Al-Rodhan, Gulf Military Forces in an Era of Asymmetric Wars (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007), p. 221.

⁹²Rajesh M Basrur, South Asia's Cold War: Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in Comparative Perspective (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), p. 68.

⁹³Christopher Ford, ‘Thinking About a Poly-Nuclear Middle East’, Hudson Institute, 9 July 2012.

⁹⁴Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 73–74; Sagan, Waltz and Betts, ‘A Nuclear Iran’, pp. 141–42.

⁹⁵Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’, pp. 66–68.

⁹⁶Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 63–65; Matthew Fuhrmann and Sarah E Kreps, ‘Targeting Nuclear Programs in War and Peace: A Quantitative Empirical Analysis, 1941–2000’, Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 54, No. 6, December 2010).

⁹⁷Christopher Clary, ‘Thinking about Pakistan's Nuclear Security in Peacetime, Crisis and War’, Occasional Paper No. 12, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, September 2010, p. 13.

⁹⁸Narang, ‘Posturing for Peace?’, pp. 72–73.

⁹⁹Clary, ‘Thinking about Pakistan's Nuclear Security’, p. 21.

¹⁰⁰Peter Jones, ‘Succession and the Supreme Leader in Iran’, Survival (Vol. 53, No. 6, 2011/12), p. 106.

¹⁰¹David E Sanger and William J Broad, ‘U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms’, New York Times, 18 November 2007.

¹⁰² Daily Telegraph, ‘William Hague: A Nuclear Iran Could Cause a “Cold War”’, 19 February 2012.

¹⁰³ The Hindu, ‘India, Pak Agree to Extend Nuclear Risk Reduction Pact for 5 Years’, 21 February 2012.

¹⁰⁴ The Hindu, ‘India, Pakistan Exchange Nuclear Lists’, 1 January 2012.

¹⁰⁵George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2001), p. 276.

¹⁰⁶Bhumitra Chakma (ed.), The Politics of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011), pp. 204–05.

¹⁰⁷Edelman, Krepinevich, Jr and Montgomery, ‘The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran’, p. 67.

¹⁰⁸Obviously, this is to set aside Israeli nuclear weapons – which, in any case, have not been a motive force behind Iran's nuclear activities.

¹⁰⁹The phrase is used in Bruno Tertrais, ‘The Consequences for NATO of a Nuclear-Armed Iran’, Halifax Paper Series, German Marshall Fund of the United States, 1 November 2010.

¹¹⁰Cited in Francis J Gavin, ‘Blasts from the Past: Proliferation Lessons from the 1960s’, International Security (Vol. 29, No. 3, Winter 2004/05), p. 17.

¹¹¹Wolfgang K H Panofsky, ‘Capability versus Intent: The Latent Threat of Nuclear Proliferation’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 14 June 2007.

¹¹²Scott D Sagan, ‘Nuclear Latency and Nuclear Proliferation’, in William C Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova (eds), Forecasting Nuclear Proliferation in the 21st Century, Vol. 1: The Role of Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), p. 98; Llewelyn Hughes, ‘Why Japan Will Not Go Nuclear (Yet): International and Domestic Constraints on the Nuclearization of Japan’, International Security (Vol. 31, No. 4, Spring 2007); Jacques E C Hymans, ‘Veto Players, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation: Domestic Institutional Barriers to a Japanese Bomb’, International Security (Vol. 36, No. 2, Fall 2011).

¹¹³Jacques E C Hymans, ‘Botching the Bomb: Why Nuclear Weapons Programs Often Fail on Their Own – and Why Iran's Might, Too’, Foreign Affairs (May/June 2012).

¹¹⁴Moeed Yusuf, ‘Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons’, Policy Paper No. 11, Brookings Institution, January 2009, p. 4.

¹¹⁵Gavin, ‘Blasts from the Past’, p. 19. Emphasis added.

¹¹⁶This was true at least until 1960, when the US did offer some guarantees to Sweden. See S Moores, ‘“Neutral on Our Side”: US Policy towards Sweden during the Eisenhower Administration’, Cold War History (Vol. 2, No. 3, April 2002), p. 50.

¹¹⁷See, respectively, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, ‘Nuclear Weapons in the Balkans: Why Yugoslavia Tried and Serbia Will Not’, in Potter and Mukhatzhanova (eds), Forecasting Nuclear Proliferation in the 21st Century; T B Johansson, ‘Sweden's Abortive Nuclear Weapons Project’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Vol. 42, No. 3, March 1986).

¹¹⁸David Albright and Corey Gay, ‘Taiwan: Nuclear Nightmare Averted’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Vol. 54, No. 1, January/February 1998).

¹¹⁹Christopher W Hughes, ‘North Korea's Nuclear Weapons: Implications for the Nuclear Ambitions of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan’, Asia Policy (Vol. 3, January 2007), pp. 96–98.

¹²⁰Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, p. 317.

¹²¹Sumit Ganguly, ‘India's Pathway to Pokhran II: The Prospects and Sources of New Delhi's Nuclear Weapons Program’, International Security (Vol. 23, No. 4, Spring 1999).

¹²²Wyn Q Bowen and Joanna Kidd, ‘The Nuclear Capabilities and Ambitions of Iran's Neighbors’, in Sokolski and Clawson (eds), Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, p. 53.

¹²³Bruce Riedel, ‘Saudi Arabia: Nervously Watching Pakistan’, Brookings Institution, 28 January 2008.

¹²⁴Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 202.

¹²⁵Riedel, ‘Saudi Arabia’.

¹²⁶C Christine Fair, ‘Has the Pakistan Army Islamized? What the Data Suggest’, Working Paper 2011–13, Mortara Center for International Studies, Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, September 2011, pp. 19–20.

¹²⁷Anthony H Cordesman, Western Strategic Interests in Saudi Arabia (London: Taylor and Francis, 1987), p. 139.

¹²⁸C Christine Fair, Pakistan: Can the United States Secure an Insecure State? (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2010), p. 121. Thomas Lippman claims that the forces left because ‘oil prices hit historic lows and the Saudis could no longer afford them’; see Thomas W Lippman, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Saudi Strategy’, Middle East Institute Policy Brief No. 5, January 2008, p. 8.

¹²⁹Mujib Mashal, ‘Pakistani Troops Aid Bahrain's Crackdown’, Al Jazeera, 30 July 2011.

¹³⁰Ian Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998), p. 238; Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 13.

¹³¹Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), p. 35.

¹³²Aparna Pande, Explaining Pakistan's Foreign Policy: Escaping India (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), p. 156.

¹³³Yana Feldman, ‘Saudi Arabia: Past Nuclear Policies’, SIPRI, July 2004.

¹³⁴Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (New York: Walker Publishing Company, pp. 286–87.

¹³⁵Jane Perlez, ‘Saudi's Visit to Arms Site in Pakistan Worries U.S.’, New York Times, 10 July 1999.

¹³⁶Mark Fitzpatrick (ed.), ‘Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A.Q. Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks’, IISS Strategic Dossier, 2007, p. 83.

¹³⁷ Washington Times, ‘Pakistan, Saudi Arabia in Secret Nuke Pact’, 21 October 2003.

¹³⁸Hugh Tomlinson, ‘Saudi Arabia Threatens to Go Nuclear “Within Weeks” if Iran Gets the Bomb’, The Times, 10 February 2012.

¹³⁹Paul Lewis, ‘Defector Says Saudis Sought Nuclear Arms’, New York Times, 7 August 1994.

¹⁴⁰Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 193–200.

¹⁴¹Samaan, ‘The Day after Iran Goes Nuclear’, p. 6; see also Richard L Russell, ‘A Saudi Nuclear Option?’, Survival (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2001).

¹⁴²Martin Butcher, Ottfried Nassauer, Tanya Padberg and Dan Plesch, Questions of Command and Control: NATO, Nuclear Sharing and the NPT, PENN Research Report 2000, Project on European Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Berlin, March 2000, pp. 21–22.

¹⁴³See ‘If the Bombs Go: European Perspectives on NATO's Nuclear Debate’, RUSI Whitehall Report 1-11, May 2011.

¹⁴⁴Bruno Tertrais, ‘Kahn's [sic] Nuclear Exports: Was There a State Strategy?’, in Henry D Sokolski (ed.), Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2008), p. 41.

¹⁴⁵ NTI.org, ‘Saudi Arabia Missile Profile’, November 2011; for more detail on the deal with China, see Yitzhak Shichor, East Wind over Arabia: Origins and Implications of the Sino-Saudi Missiled Deal, China Research Monograph No. 35 (Berkeley, CA: Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1989).

¹⁴⁶Russell, ‘A Saudi Nuclear Option?’, p. 74.

¹⁴⁷Russell, ‘A Saudi Nuclear Option?’, p. 73.

¹⁴⁸Cordesman, Western Strategic Interests in Saudi Arabia, p. 257.

¹⁴⁹ New York Times, ‘Prince Hints Saudi Arabia May Join Nuclear Arms Race’, 6 December 2011.

¹⁵⁰Chemi Shalev, ‘Dennis Ross: Saudi King Vowed to Obtain Nuclear Bomb after Iran’, Haaretz, 30 May 2012.

¹⁵¹US embassy in Riyadh, ‘US Cable: Saudi Views on Iran’, 10 January 2009, <http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id = 186553>, accessed 26 October 2012.

¹⁵²US embassy in Riyadh, ‘US Cable: Scenesetter for APHSCT Townsend Visit to Saudi Arabia, 5–8 February 2007’, 1 February 2007, <http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id = 94861>, accessed 26 October 2012.

¹⁵³As Steven Cook notes, ‘What is amazing is how many people take the Saudis seriously’; see Steven A Cook, ‘Don't Fear a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East’, Foreign Policy, 2 April 2012.

¹⁵⁴Jack Straw, ‘Backbench Debate on Iran’, Hansard, HC Debates, 20 February 2012, Vol. 540, Col. 650.

¹⁵⁵Tertrais, ‘Kahn's [sic] Nuclear Exports:’, pp. 27–28.

¹⁵⁶Ewen MacAskill and Ian Traynor, ‘Saudis Consider Nuclear Bomb’, Guardian, 18 September 2003.

¹⁵⁷Josh Pollack, ‘Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931–2002’, Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs (Vol. 6, No. 3, September 2002).

¹⁵⁸James Thomson, ‘US Interests and the Fate of the Alliance’, Survival (Vol. 45, No. 4, 2003).

¹⁵⁹David E Sanger and Eric Schmitt, ‘U.S.-Saudi Tensions Intensify With Mideast Turmoil’, New York Times, 14 March 2011.

¹⁶⁰Marc Lynch, ‘Arab Uprisings: The Saudi Counter-Revolution’, POMEPS Briefing No. 5, 9 August 2011, p. 4.

¹⁶¹Marc Lynch, ‘The What Cooperation Council?’, Foreign Policy, 11 March 2011; David Aaron, Frederic Wehrey and Brett Andrew Wallace, The Future of Gulf Security in a Region of Dramatic Change: Mutual Equities and Enduring Relationships (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2011), p. viii.

¹⁶²Anthony H Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian, ‘The Gulf Military Balance in 2010’, Center for Strategic and Internation Studies, 23 April 2010.

¹⁶³Kate Amlin, ‘Will Saudi Arabia Acquire Nuclear Weapons?’, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 1 August 2008.

¹⁶⁴James Dobbins, Alireza Nader, Dalia Dassa Kaye and Frederic Wehrey, Coping with a Nuclearizing Iran (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2011), p. 31.

¹⁶⁵David Roberts, ‘Examining Qatari-Saudi Relations’, The Gulf blog, 28 February 2012.

¹⁶⁶Dassa Kaye and Wehrey, ‘A Nuclear Iran’, p. 112.

¹⁶⁷Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 91.

¹⁶⁸For explanations of the terms balancing and bandwagoning, see Thomas J Christensen and Jack Snyder, ‘Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity’, International Organization (Vol. 44, No. 2, Spring 1990).

¹⁶⁹Ulrichsen, Insecure Gulf, p. 92.

¹⁷⁰Carina Solmirano and Pieter D Wezeman, ‘Military Spending and Arms Procurement in the Gulf States’, SIPRI Fact Sheet October 2010, p. 3.

¹⁷¹Mark Landler and Stephen Lee Myers, ‘With $30 Billion Arms Deal, U.S. Bolsters Saudi Ties’, New York Times, 29 December 2011.

¹⁷²‘Table of Arms Exports to Saudi Arabia, 1990–2011’, SIPRI, October 2012. Figures are expressed in 1990 dollars.

¹⁷³The original claim is that of Yair Evron, on the basis of ‘private information’, cited in Russell, ‘A Saudi Nuclear Option?’, p. 78. No date is supplied.

¹⁷⁴Lippman, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Saudi Strategy’, p. 4; see also Shichor, East Wind over Arabia, p. 60.

¹⁷⁵Lippman, Lippman, ‘Nuclear Weapons and Saudi Strategy’, p. 4; see also Shichor, East Wind over Arabia, p. 6.

¹⁷⁶Bruno Tertrais, ‘Pakistan's Nuclear and WMD Programmes: Status, Evolution and Risks’, Non-Proliferation Papers No. 19, EU Non-Proliferation Consortium, July 2012, p. 16.

¹⁷⁷That said, A Q Khan has claimed that Pakistan's civilian leaders, including then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, approved his nuclear transfers to other states. See Rob Crilly, ‘AQ Khan Claims Benazir Bhutto Ordered Nuclear Sale’, Daily Telegraph, 17 September 2012.

¹⁷⁸Sultan Souud Al-Qassemi, ‘Prince Nayef's Death Makes a Big Difference in the Middle East’, Guardian, 19 July 2012.

¹⁷⁹Edelman, Krepinevich, Jr and Montgomery, ‘The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran’.

¹⁸⁰ New York Times, ‘The Nuclear “Implementation Study”’, 11 March 2012; Trevor Taylor, ‘Implications of the US Nuclear Posture Review’, RUSI.org, 8 April 2010.

¹⁸¹Japanese ports were used, however. See Martin Fackler, ‘Japan Says It Allowed U.S. Nuclear Ships to Port’, New York Times, 9 March 2010.

¹⁸²Richard Spencer, ‘Egypt and Iran Forging Closer Links with Ambassadors Plan’, Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2011.

¹⁸³Leaked US cable cited in Seyed Hossein Mousavian, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012), p. 6.

¹⁸⁴US embassy in Cairo, ‘US Cable: Scenesetter for Requested Egyptian FM Aboul Gheit Meeting with the Secretary’, 9 February 2009.

¹⁸⁵ Haaretz, ‘Report: Iran Appoints First Ambassador to Egypt in 30 Years’, 19 April 2011.

¹⁸⁶ Al-Ahram, ‘Israel Eyes Suez Trip of Iran Warships with Worry’, 21 February 2011.

¹⁸⁷Mehdi Khalaji, ‘Iran on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood’, The Iran Primer blog, United States Institute of Peace, 25 February 2011.

¹⁸⁸Cook, ‘Don't Fear a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East’.

¹⁸⁹Cook, ‘Don't Fear a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East’.

¹⁹⁰Julian Borger, ‘Wikileaks Cables: Egypt “Turned Down” Black-Market Nuclear Weapons Deal’, Guardian, 19 December 2010.

¹⁹¹Bowen and Kidd, ‘The Nuclear Capabilities and Ambitions of Iran's Neighbors’, pp. 61–62.

¹⁹²Robert J Einhorn, ‘Egypt: Frustrated but Still on a Non-Nuclear Course’, in Kurt M Campbell, Robert J Einhorn and Mitchell B Reiss (eds), The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2004), p. 57.

¹⁹³Bowen and Kidd, ‘The Nuclear Capabilities and Ambitions of Iran's Neighbors’, p. 64.

¹⁹⁴Richard L Russell, Weapons Proliferation and War in the Greater Middle East: Strategic Contest (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p. 64; Cordesman and Al-Rodhan, Gulf Military Forces in an Era of Asymmetric Wars, pp. 169–74.

¹⁹⁵Paul Holtom et al., ‘Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2010’, SIPRI Fact Sheet, March 2011, p. 7.

¹⁹⁶For instance, see Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, p. 152.

¹⁹⁷Philipp C Bleek and Aaron Stein, ‘Turkey and America Face Iran’, Survival (Vol. 54, No. 2, April–May 2012), pp. 27–28.

¹⁹⁸Dobbins, Nader, Kaye and Wehrey, Coping with a Nuclearizing Iran.

¹⁹⁹International Crisis Group, ‘In Heavy Waters: Iran's Nuclear Program, the Risk of War and Lessons from Turkey’, Middle East and Europe Report No. 116, 23 February 2012, p. 21.

²⁰⁰Morton Abramowitz and Henri J Barkey, ‘Turkey's Transformers: The AKP Sees Big’, Foreign Affairs (Vol. 88, No. 6, November/December 2009), p. 118; for the Turkish foreign minister's own exposition of the term, see Ahmet Davutoglu, ‘Turkey's Zero-Problems Foreign Policy’, Foreign Policy, 20 May 2010.

²⁰¹ Economist, ‘Turkey and Syria: One Problem with a Neighbour’, 20 August 2011.

²⁰²International Crisis Group, ‘In Heavy Waters’, p. 4.

²⁰³Joe Parkinson, ‘Iran Sanctions Put Wrinkle in Turkish Trade’, Wall Street Journal, 19 March 2012.

²⁰⁴Kenneth Katzman, ‘Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses’, Congressional Research Service, 23 March 2012, p. 21.

²⁰⁵Rick Gladstone, ‘Turkey to Install U.S.-Designed Radar, in a Move Seen as Blunting Iran's Missiles’, New York Times, 2 September 2011.

²⁰⁶Dobbins, Nader, Kaye and Wehrey, Coping with a Nuclearizing Iran, p. 51.

²⁰⁷Samaan, ‘The Day after Iran Goes Nuclear’, p. 5.

²⁰⁸Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, ‘Public Opinion Surveys of Turkish Foreign Policy 2012/1: Conditional Support for Nuclear Armament’, <http://www.edam.org.tr/document/Edam2012Survey1.pdf>, accessed 26 October 2012.

²⁰⁹Robert S Norris and Hans M Kristensen, ‘US Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe, 2011’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Vol. 67, No. 1, 2010), pp. 66–67.

²¹⁰Sinan Ulgen, ‘Turkey and the Bomb’, carnegieendowment.org, February 2012, p. 12.

²¹¹Kingston Reif, ‘Dutch Parliament Says No to the F-35’, Nukes of Hazard blog, 9 July 2012.

²¹²George Perkovich, Malcolm Chalmers, Steven Pifer, Paul Schulte and Jaclyn Tandler, ‘Looking beyond the Chicago Summit: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the Future of NATO’, carnegieendowment.org, April 2012, pp. 4–5.

²¹³Ian O Lesser, ‘Turkey, Iran and Nuclear Risks’, in Sokolski and Clawson (eds), Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, p. 90.

²¹⁴Fotios Moustakis, The Greek–Turkish Relationship and NATO (London: Frank Cass, 2003), p. 41.

²¹⁵Ulgen, ‘Turkey and the Bomb’, p. 1.

²¹⁶Cook, ‘Don't Fear a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East’.

²¹⁷Bowen and Kidd, ‘The Nuclear Capabilities and Ambitions of Iran's Neighbors’, p. 66.

²¹⁸Ulgen, ‘Turkey and the Bomb’, pp. 15–21.

²¹⁹Yair Evron, ‘An Israel-Iran Balance of Nuclear Deterrence: Seeds of Instability’, in Ephraim Kam (ed.), Israel and a Nuclear Iran: Implications for Arms Control, Deterrence, and Defense, Memorandum No. 94 (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2008), p. 60.

²²⁰Uzi Rubin, ‘Missile Defense and Israel's Deterrence against a Nuclear Iran’, in Kam (ed.), Israel and a Nuclear Iran.

²²¹Sagan, ‘The Evolution of Pakistani and Indian Nuclear Doctrine’, p. 247.

²²²Ulrichsen, Insecure Gulf, p. 82.

²²³Jason Burke, ‘Iran was Behind Bomb Plot against Israeli Diplomats, Investigators Find’, Guardian, 17 June 2012.

²²⁴ Guardian, ‘State Department Cables: Saudis Distrust Pakistan's Shia President Zardari’, 1 December 2010.

²²⁵Atul Aneja, ‘Iran Puts Ties with Pakistan to Test’, The Hindu, 19 October 2012.