Red lines in nuclear nonproliferation

ABSTRACT

States that seek to prevent nuclear proliferation through threats of force or sanctions often set “red lines,” which set limits on nuclear capabilities beyond which a proliferator must risk triggering a punitive response. Yet despite a wide range of possible red lines that states could choose—for example, constructing a nuclear weapon (weaponization), enriching uranium, or conducting a nuclear test—the academic literature is nearly silent on the tradeoffs inherent in selecting one of these red lines over another. Specifically, what are the vulnerabilities in each red line that proliferators can exploit to advance their nuclear program while limiting the punitive response? To address this question, this article introduces a theory of red lines and how they are challenged. We apply this theory to red lines in nuclear nonproliferation and offer historical evidence to support it.

KEYWORDS:

• proliferation
• sanctions
• preventive war

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mark Bell, Christopher Clary, Phil Haun, Alex Montgomery, Vipin Narang, Ken Oye, Barry Posen, Scott Sagan, Ken Schultz, and Tristan Volpe for their comments and insights at various stages in the research that led to this paper. We also thank the editors and anonymous reviewers at Nonproliferation Review for their useful feedback.

Notes

1 Benjamin Netanyahu, Address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 27, 2012.

2 See Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Jacques Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Maria Rost Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009); Matthew Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,” International Security, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2009), pp. 7–41; Matthew Kroenig, “Importing the Bomb: Sensitive Nuclear Assistance and Nuclear Proliferation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2009), pp. 161–80; Philipp Bleek and Eric Lorber, “Security Guarantees and Allied Nuclear Proliferation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 58, No. 3 (2014), pp. 429–54; Dan Reiter, “Security Commitments and Nuclear Proliferation,” Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2014), pp. 61–80; Virginia Foran and Leonard Spector, “The Application of Incentives to Nuclear Proliferation,” in David Cortright, ed., The Price of Peace: Incentives and International Conflict Prevention (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 21–54; Andrew Coe and Jane Vaynman, “Collusion and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 77, No. 4 (2015), pp. 983–97; Francis Gavin, “Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation,” International Security, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2015), pp. 9–46; Gene Gerzhoy, “Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint: How the United States Thwarted West Germany’s Nuclear Ambitions,” International Security, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2015), pp. 91–129; Nicholas L. Miller, “The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions,” International Organization, Vol. 68, No. 4 (2014), pp. 913–44; Nicholas L. Miller, “Nuclear Dominoes: A Self-Defeating Prophecy,” Security Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2014), pp. 33–73; Ariel Levite, “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited,” International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2002–03), pp. 59–88; Alexander Montgomery, “Ringing in Proliferation: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Network,” International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2005), pp. 153–87; Nuno Monteiro and Alexandre Debs, “The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation,” International Security, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2014), pp. 7–51; Etel Solingen, ed., Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Proliferation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

3 Jacques Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016); Vipin Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation: How States Pursue the Bomb,” International Security, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2016–17), pp. 110–50.

4 This theory builds on neglected insights from Thomas Schelling. Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966); Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960).

5 Ben Zimmer, “The Long History of the Phrase ‘Red Line,’” Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2013, <acaccwww.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323993804578612210634238812>. Although the phrases “red line,” “redline,” and “thin red line” were used before the 1970s, they did not carry the same meaning. In contrast, “line in the sand” is a much older phrase with the same meaning as contemporary “red lines.” “Red line” has rapidly supplanted it in popular discourse, presumably because it avoids the rhetorical problem that lines in the sand tend not to survive even a modest breeze.

6 Bernard Gwertzman, “Kissinger Warns Syrian Acts Test Israel’s Patience,” New York Times, April 15, 1976, <www.nytimes.com/1976/04/15/archives/kissinger-warns-syrian-acts-test-israels-patience-says-that-despite.html>. Claims are based on a search of past usage in the New York Times. Text analysis of this question must tread with caution, because most uses of the phrase “red line” relate to either transportation (trains and subways) or sports (hockey).

7 Barack Obama, “Remarks to the White House Press Corps,” August 20, 2012, <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/20/remarks-president-white-house-press-corps>.

8 See Schelling, Arms and Influence, p. 69.

9 For similar definitions, see Yoel Guzansky, “Thin Red Lines: The Syrian and Iranian Contexts,” Strategic Assessment, Vol. 16, No. 2 (2013), pp. 23–24; Todd Robinson, Paul F. Diehl, and Tyler Pack, “Crossing the Red Line: International Legal Limits on Policy Options,” Yale Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 9 (2014), pp. 59–60; Bruno Tertrais, “Drawing Red Lines Right,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2014), p. 8; Bruno Tertrais, The Diplomacy of “Red Lines” (Paris: Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, 2016).

10 On the dual roles of threats and assurances in coercion, see Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp. 4, 74.

11 We use the term “red line” similarly to how Schelling uses the term “threshold” (for instance, Arms and Influence, pp. 67, 81). However, elsewhere he uses that term slightly differently to mean “saliency” (for instance, Arms and Influence, pp. 132, 135), a concept we address below.

12 James D. Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 3 (1994), pp. 577–92; Kenneth A. Schultz, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

13 For example, see James K. Sebenius and Michael K. Singh, “Is a Nuclear Deal with Iran Possible? An Analytical Framework for the Iran Nuclear Negotiations,” International Security, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2012), pp. 68–91; Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to Yes (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987); James D. Morrow, “The Strategic Setting of Choices: Signaling, Commitment, and Negotiation in International Politics,” in David Lake and Robert Powell, eds., International Relations: A Strategic Choice Approach (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 97.

14 On this challenge, see Toby Dalton, Wyatt Hoffman, Ariel Levite, Li Bin, George Perkovich, and Tong Zhao, “Toward a Nuclear Firewall: Bridging the NPT’s Three Pillars,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2017, <http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/03/20/toward-nuclear-firewall-bridging-npt-s-three-pillars-pub-68300>.

15 Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp. 66, 77.

16 On the fait accompli as a tactic, see Dan Altman, “By Fait Accompli, Not Coercion: How States Wrest Territory from Their Adversaries,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 4 (2017), pp. 881–91; Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), pp. 536–40; Ahmer Tarar, “A Strategic Logic of the Military Fait Accompli,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4 (2016), pp. 742–52; Stephen Van Evera, “Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War,” International Security, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1998), p. 10.

17 The four weaknesses are not all-or-nothing propositions. Degrees of partial weakness are common.

18 For example, Dan Altman, “Advancing without Attacking: The Strategic Game around the Use of Force,” Security Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, (2018), pp. 55–58.

19 George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy, p. 41; Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 97; Robert E. Osgood, Limited War Revisited (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979); Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp. 132–41; Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, pp. 55–75; Richard Smoke, War: Controlling Escalation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).

20 Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, p. 111. Also see Schelling, Arms and Influence, p. 138; Paul C. Stern, Robert Axelrod, Robert Jervis, and Roy Radner, “Deterrence in the Nuclear Age: The Search for Evidence,” in Paul C. Stern, Robert Axelrod, Robert Jervis, and Roy Radner, eds., Perspectives on Deterrence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 21. Smoke observes along these lines, “Decision-makers may employ a gradualist strategy to try to smudge, or avoid as much as possible, the discreteness and obviousness of saliencies they are crossing.” Smoke, War, p. 275.

21 We hope that this article may spur future research on the relationship between incremental violations and incremental punishments.

22 Taking territory by salami slicing (in peacetime) is rare. In Altman’s dataset on territorial gains by coercion and by fait accompli (“land grabs”), there are only a few cases since 1918 of repeated territorial gains by one state against another that resemble salami slicing. These are Germany (1930s), Bolivia–Paraguay (1930s), Japan-USSR (1930s), India–China (esp. 1959–62), Vietnam–Cambodia (1975–79), Ecuador–Peru (over many decades), and several states in the Spratly Islands (over decades). Set against the large number of territorial gains in that period, this set of cases is small. See Altman, “By Fait Accompli, Not Coercion.”

23 Note that the imprecision of a red line and the explicitness with which it is conveyed are different. Although being explicit about a red line can be a way to make it precise, it is important to avoid conflating the two.

24 In line with this reasoning, many studies have concluded in favor of clarity in making demands. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, p. 40; Lebow, Between Peace and War, p. 85; George and Simons, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, pp. 286–87; I. William Zartman and Maureen R. Berman, The Practical Negotiator (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 182–83; Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan, Force without War: U.S. Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution), p. 534.

25 For example, Lebovic, “Red Lines and Green Lights”; Tertrais, “Drawing Red Lines Right,” pp. 12–13.

26 Lebovic, “Red Lines and Green Lights.”

27 Snyder and Diesing, Conflict among Nations, pp. 216­–17; Scott D. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap: Why the United States Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and Chemical Weapons Attacks,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2000), pp. 85–115.

28 Another possibility is that ambiguity over one point of contention may enable states to sidestep that issue and reach agreement on another matter. Particularly in disputes over symbolic issues, ambiguity may even enable both sides to claim victory. See Jane Esberg and Scott D. Sagan, “Negotiating Nonproliferation: Scholarship, Pedagogy, and Nuclear Weapons Policy,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2012), p. 102; Zartman and Berman, The Practical Negotiator, p. 183.

29 Smoke, War, p. 312.

30 Kenneth A. Schultz, “The Enforcement Problem in Coercive Bargaining: Interstate Conflict over Rebel Support in Civil Wars,” International Organization, Vol. 64, No. 2 (2010), pp. 281–312.

31 Virginia Page Fortna, “Scraps of Paper? Agreements and the Durability of Peace,” International Organization, Vol. 57, No. 2 (2003), pp. 337–72.

32 For example, Donald Wittman, “Arms Control Verification and Other Games Involving Imperfect Detection,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 83, No. 3 (1989), pp. 923–45; Hopmann, The Negotiation Process, pp. 8–19; Lewis A. Dunn, “Arms Control Verification: Living with Uncertainty,” International Security, Vol. 14, No. 4 (1990), pp. 165–75; Stephen M. Meyer, “Verification and Risk in Arms Control,” International Security, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1984), pp. 111–26.

33 Dunn, “Arms Control Verification,” p. 166; Meyer, “Verification and Risk in Arms Control,” pp. 122–23.

34 Although the phrase “designing around” evokes incompleteness, its use is broad enough to encompass efforts to exploit any of the four weaknesses discussed here. George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy, pp. 521, 543, 571; Stern et al., “Deterrence in the Nuclear Age,” p. 20.

35 George and Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy, pp. 520–22.

36 James Lebovic, “Red Lines and Green Lights: Iran, Nuclear Arms Control, and Nonproliferation,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2016), pp. 10–42.

37 The violation of a red line with one of these weaknesses therefore cannot be assumed to be a consequence of the weakness simply because the weakness existed.

38 See Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 231, 274.

39 See, for example, Robert Windrem, “Japan Has Nuclear ‘Bomb in the Basement,’ and China Isn’t Happy,” NBC News, March 11, 2014, <www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fukushima-anniversary/japan-has-nuclear-bomb-basement-china-isn-t-happy-n48976>.

40 Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 274; “Summary of Intelligence Information Gained Concerning Israel’s Nuclear Capability and Its Impact upon US–Israeli Relations,” memo, Department of State, Top Secret, July 19, 1969, document CK3100665164, reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System.

41 See Christopher Way, “Nuclear Proliferation Dates”; Alex Montgomery and Scott Sagan, “The Perils of Predicting Proliferation, “ Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2009), p. 308; Reiss, Bridled Ambition, p. 187.

42 See David Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges of American Power (New York: Harmony Books, 2009), p. 204.

43 Bernard Weinraub, “Some Questions and Answers on India’s Test of Nuclear Device,” New York Times, May 27, 1974, p. 2.

44 Memorandum of Conversation, August 2, 1974, Nixon–Ford Administrations, FRUS, Vol. E-8, doc. 171.

45 Memorandum of Conversation, February 5, 1975, Nixon–Ford Administrations, FRUS, Vol. E-8, doc. 189.

46 Memorandum From the Chairman of the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee (Ingersoll) to President Ford, December 4, 1974, Nixon–Ford Administrations, FRUS, Vol. E-14, part 2, doc. 101, p. 331.

47 Memorandum from the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft) to President Ford, October 28, 1974, Nixon–Ford Administrations, FRUS, Vol. E-8, doc. 179.

48 Gaurav Kampani, “New Delhi’s Long Nuclear Journey: How Secrecy and Institutional Roadblocks Delayed India’s Weaponization,” International Security, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2014), p. 81.

49 Memcon, “Negotiations with Israel—F4 and Advanced Weapons,” November 12, 1968, in Cohen, “Israel Crosses the Threshold,” doc. 3c, <http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB189/IN-03c.pdf>.

50 The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, March 5, 1968. Also see Or Rabinowitz, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 29.

51 See Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1990), pp. 14–44; Mitsuru Kitano, “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation Revisisted: Determinants, Dynamism, and Policy Implications,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 23, Nos. 3–4 (2016), pp. 459–79.

52 Trevor Findlay, “Proliferation Alert! The IAEA and Non-compliance Reporting,” Project on Managing the Atom, Report 2015-04, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, October 2015, p. i. Also see Dalton et al., “Toward a Nuclear Firewall.”

53 See Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Finding Says Iran Halted Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003,” New York Times, December 4, 2007, p. A1; Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” November 2007, <www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/20071203_release.pdf>.

54 See Peter Liberman, “The Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” International Security, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2001), p. 52; Office of Scientific Intelligence, CIA, “South Africa Again Rumored to Be Working on Nuclear Weapons,” Weekly Surveyor, September 13, 1976, in “U.S. Intelligence and the South African Bomb,” ed. Jeffrey Richelson, National Security Archive EBB 181, No. 14.

55 Special Projects Division, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, South Africa: Motivations and Capabilities for Nuclear Proliferation, September 1977, in “Proliferation Watch: U.S. Intelligence and Assessments of Potential Nuclear Powers, 1977–2001,” ed. William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson, National Security Archive EBB 451, No. 1B.

56 Alexander Montgomery and Adam Mount, “Explaining US Failures to Predict Nuclear Weapons Programs,” Intelligence and National Security 29, No. 3 (2014): 372–74.

57 Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, “Revisting Osirak: Preventive Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation Risks,” International Security, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2011), pp. 116–19.

58 CIA, Directorate of Intelligence Appraisal, “The Iraqi Nuclear Program: Progress Despite Setbacks,” June 1983, in “Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980–1984,” ed. Joyce Battle, National Security Archive EBB 82, No. 19.

59 Rebecca Friedman Lissner, “Nuclear Legacies of the First Gulf War,” Survival, Vol. 59, No. 5 (2017), p. 144.

60 Robert Jervis, “Reports, Politics, and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2006), pp. 28–29.

61 See, for example, Solingen, Nuclear Logics, pp. 127–28; CIA, North Korea’s Expanding Nuclear Efforts, May 3, 1988, in “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: The Declassified U.S. Record,” ed. Robert Wampler, National Security Archive EBB 87, No. 10.

62 See appendix of Christopher Way and Jessica Weeks, “Making It Personal: Regime Type and Nuclear Proliferation,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 58, No. 3 (2014), pp. 705–19; Philipp Bleek, “When Did (and Didn’t) States Proliferate? Chronicling the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,” Discussion Paper, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA, June 2017, <www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/When%20Did%20%28and%20Didn%27t%29%20States%20Proliferate%3F_1.pdf>. Since Way’s dataset begins in 1945 and Bleek’s in 1939, we do not count the omission of the United States in Way’s dataset as a disagreement.

63 Bleek codes Argentina, Australia, Egypt, and Taiwan as exploring rather than pursuing nuclear weapons. Way codes Yugoslavia as exploring rather than pursuing.

64 If misapplied, this type of red line can also suffer from incompleteness. For instance, focusing nonproliferation efforts on high-risk reactors and reprocessing while neglecting uranium enrichment leaves open a path to the Bomb.

65 On Taiwan, see Mark Fitzpatrick, Asia’s Latent Nuclear Powers: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (New York: Routledge, 2016), ch. 3. On South Korea and Egypt, see Findlay, “Proliferation Alert,” pp. 72–79.

66 S.M. Short, M.R. Weimar, J. Phillips, and H.A. Mahy, “Economic and Non-proliferation Policy Considerations of Uranium Enrichment in Brazil and Argentina,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, August 2008, <www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-17757.pdf>.

67 R. Scott Kemp, “The Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes: The Gas Centrifuge, Supply-Side Controls, and the Future of Nuclear Proliferation,” International Security, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2014), pp. 39–78.

68 Ibid., pp. 54–55.

69 Ibid., p. 53. It may be easier to detect a covert uranium-conversion facility, which produces the uranium hexafluoride gas that is fed into the centrifuges. See R. Scott Kemp, “Initial Analysis of the Detectability of UO₂F₂ Aerosols Produced by UF₆ Released from Uranium Conversion Plants,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 16 (2008), pp. 115–25.

70 David Albright and Paul Brannan, “The Al-Kibar Reactor: Extraordinary Camouflage, Troubling Implications,” Institute for Science and International Security, May 12, 2008, <www.isis-online.org/publications/syria/SyriaReactorReport_12May2008.pdf>.

71 See Michael Schoeppner, Alexander Glaser, and Mark Walker, “Detecting Clandestine Plutonium Separation Activities with Krypton-85,” paper delivered at INMM 56th Annual Meeting, Indian Wells, CA, July 12–16, 2015, p. 9.

72 Gary Solis, The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War, 2nd edn. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 196.

73 See David Makovsky, “The Silent Strike: How Israel Bombed a Syrian Nuclear Installation and Kept It Secret,” New Yorker, September 17, 2012, <www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/17/the-silent-strike>.

74 Victor Gilinsky, Marvin Miller, and Harmon Hubbard, “A Fresh Examination of the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors,” Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Working Paper 1701, March 2017, pp. 8, 17–20.

75 See Nicholas L. Miller, “Why Nuclear Energy Programs Rarely Lead to Proliferation,” International Security, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2017), pp. 40–77.

76 M.D. Zentner, G.L. Coles, and R.J. Talbert, “Nuclear Proliferation Technology Trends Analysis,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, September 2005, p. 2.

77 See, for instance, Matthew Bunn, Steve Fetter, John Holdren, and Bob van der Zwaan, “The Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel,” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs: Project on Managing the Atom, December 2003, <www.belfercenter.org/publication/economics-reprocessing-vs-direct-disposal-spent-nuclear-fuel>.

78 While the United States has set red lines to prevent the construction of reprocessing facilities broadly, it has not formally set red lines barring the construction of high-risk reactors except in the context of specific cases.

79 J. Samuel Walker, “Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation: The Controversy over Nuclear Exports, 1974–1980,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2001), p. 221.

80 Memorandum from the Chairman of the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee (Ingersoll) to President Ford, December 4, 1974, Nixon–Ford Administrations, FRUS, Vol. E-14, part 2, doc. 101, p. 330­31.

81 See Miller, “The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions.”

82 On Iran, see William Burr, “A Brief History of US–Iranian Nuclear Negotiations,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 65, No. 1 (2009), pp. 21–34. On South Korea and Taiwan, see Miller, “The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions.” On Pakistan, see Samina Ahmed, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Turning Points and Nuclear Choices,” International Security, Vol. 23, No. 4 (1999), pp. 184–85. On Brazil, see Matias Spektor, “The Evolution of Brazil’s Nuclear Intentions,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 23, Nos. 5–6, pp. 635–52.

83 On France, see Pierre Lellouche, “Breaking the Rules without Quite Stopping the Bomb: European Views,” International Organization, Vol. 35, No. 1 (1981), pp. 47. On West Germany, see William Glenn Gray, “Commercial Liberties and Nuclear Anxieties: The US–German Feud over Brazil, 1975–7,” International History Review, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2012), p. 466.

84 Lellouche, “Breaking the Rules,” p. 47.

85 Joseph Cirincione, Jon Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), p. 303; Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Iran Nuclear Chronology,” <www.nti.org/media/pdfs/iran_nuclear.pdf?_=1316542527>.

86 “Iran Relieved about Nuclear Sale,” New York Times, May 12, 1995, p. A8.

87 See Jeffrey Richelson, Spying on the Bomb (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), pp. 509–10.

88 In the context of negotiations, these options are not mutually exclusive. A nonproliferator can continue to seek rollback while accepting a halt as part of an interim agreement or as a secondary objective.

89 For IAEA definitions of significant quantities, see “IAEA Safeguards Glossary, 2001 Edition, International Nuclear Verification Series, No. 3,” International Atomic Energy Agency, <www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/iaea_safeguards_glossary.pdf>, p. 23 .

90 Jacques Hymans, “When Does a State Become a ‘Nuclear Weapon State’? An Exercise in Measurement Validation,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2010), pp. 161–80.

91 See, for instance, Alexander Glaser, “On the Proliferation Potential of Uranium Fuel for Research Reactors at Various Enrichment Levels,” Science and Global Society, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2006), pp. 1­­­–24.

92 See Jeffrey Lewis, “Significant Quantities Rant,” Arms Control Wonk, March 1, 2012, <www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/205028/significantly-wrong-about-significant-quantities/>. As Hymans notes, it is also possible to possess an SQ but still fail to design a working weapon. See Hymans, “When Does a State Become a ‘Nuclear Weapon State’,” p. 162. Also see Braden Goddard, Alexander Sodolov, and Vitaly Fedchenko, “IAEA ‘Significant Quantity’ Values: Time for a Closer Look?” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 23, Nos. 5–6 (2016), pp. 677–89.

93 Andrew Brown and Alexander Glaser, “On the Origins and Significance of the Limit Demarcating Low-Enriched Uranium from Highly-Enriched Uranium,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2016), pp. 131–37.

94 On Iran’s enrichment levels pre-JCPOA, see World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in Iran,” April 2017, <www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/iran.aspx>.

95 Pakistan and NSDD-99 Work Program, September 7, 1984, DNSA, CO01547.

96 Kenneth Adelman, Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, to Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Programs and US Security Assistance,” June 16, 1986, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Mandatory Declassification Review Release, obtained and contributed by William Burr and included in NPIHP Research Update #6, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114316>.

97 Pakistan and NSDD-99 Work Program, September 7, 1984, DNSA, CO01547.

98 Fred McGoldrick to John Negroponte, “Pakistan,” April 9, 1987, Secret, enclosing memo from Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary for Near East and South Asian Affairs, “Action Plan on Pakistan Nuclear And Security Problems,” to Secretary of State," April 9, 1987, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Mandatory Declassification Review Release, obtained and contributed by William Burr and included in NPIHP Research Update #6, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114319>.

99 David E. Sanger, “Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, August 8, 2004, <www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/world/diplomacy-fails-to-slow-advance-of-nuclear-arms.html>.

100 Note the acknowledgement of the incompleteness problem with a No Nuclear Weapons red line. David E. Sanger, “Leaving the Options Open with Iran,” New York Times, February 24, 2007, <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E0D7103EF937A15751C0A9619C8B63>.

101 James Reynolds, “Israel’s Fears of a Nuclear Iran,” BBC News, January 20, 2012, <www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16655995>.

102 For this quotation and a more extended discussion see Jacques E.C. Hymans and Matthew S. Gratias, “Iran and the Nuclear Threshold: Where Is the Line?,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2013), pp. 13–38.

103 For a summary of the evolution of Israel’s red lines and Iran’s success at defying them, see Graham Allison, “Red Lines in the Sand: Israel’s Credibility Problem on Iran,” Foreign Policy, October 11, 2012

104 See Wyn Bowen and Joanna Kidd, “The Iranian Nuclear Challenge,” International Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 2 (2004), p. 269; Tom Sauer, “Coercive Diplomacy by the EU: The Iranian Nuclear Weapons Crisis,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007), p. 619; Mustafa Kibaroglu, “Good for the Shah, Banned for the Mullahs: The West and Iran’s Quest for Nuclear Power,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 60, No. 2 (2006), pp. 210–12.

105 Sauer, “Coercive Diplomacy by the EU,” pp. 620–22

106 See Paul Kerr, “Security Council Broadens Iran Sanctions,” Arms Control Today, April 2, 2007, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_04/SecurityCouncil>.

107 Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger, “Strategy on Iran Stirs New Debate at White House,” New York Times, June 16, 2007, <www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/washington/16diplo.html>; Elaine Sciolino, “On Nuclear Seesaw, the Balance Seems to Shift to Iran,” New York Times, November 30, 2007, <www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html>.

108 William J. Broad, “Iran’s High Card at the Nuclear Table,” New York Times, June 17, 2012, <www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/sunday-review/irans-high-card-at-the-nuclear-negotiation-table.html>.

109 David Sanger and William Broad, “U.S. Sees Window to Pressure Iran on Nuclear Fuel,” New York Times, January 3, 2010, p. 1.

110 On the multilateral sanctions and their impact, see Suzanne Maloney, “Sanctions and the Iranian Nuclear Deal: Silver Bullet or Blunt Object?” Social Research, Vol. 82, No. 4 (2015), pp. 887–911.

111 Benjamin Netanyahu, Address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 27, 2012.

112 Isabel Kershner and Rick Gladstone, “Netanyahu’s Bomb Diagram during U.N. Speech Stirs Confusion in Israel,” New York Times, September 29, 2012, <www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/world/middleeast/netanyahus-bomb-diagram-stirs-confusion-in-israel.html>.

113 Louis Charbonneau, “What Is Israel’s ‘Clear Red Line’ on Iran?” Reuters, September 27, 2012, <www.reuters.com/article/us-un-assembly-israel-redline/qa-what-is-israels-clear-red-line-on-iran-idUSBRE88Q1TA20120927>.

114 See Hymans and Gratias, “Iran and the Nuclear Threshold,” p. 15.

115 Thomas Erdbrink, “Iran Sees Success in Stalling on Nuclear Issue,” New York Times, May 14, 2012, <www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/world/middleeast/iran-sees-success-in-stalling-on-nuclear-issue.html>.

116 See Rabinowitz, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests, pp. 29–31.

117 See Committee on Reviewing and Updating Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—Technical Issues for the United States (Washington, DC: Academies Press, 2012.

118 See Rabinowitz, Bargaining over Nuclear Tests, pp. 92–97; Richelson, Spying on the Bomb, pp. 283–316; Avner Cohen and William Burr, “Israel’s Apparent 1979 Nuclear Test,” Politico Magazine, December 8, 2016, <www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/1979-vela-incident-nuclear-test-israel-south-africa-214507>.

119 See Rabinowitz, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests; Or Rabinowitz and Nicholas Miller, “Keeping the Bombs in the Basement: US Nonproliferation Policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan,” International Security, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2015), pp. 47–86.

120 “Summary of Intelligence Information Gained Concerning Israel’s Nuclear Capability and Its Impact upon U.S.–Israeli Relations,” memo, Department of State, Top Secret, July 19, 1969, document CK3100665164, reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System.

121 Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 214.

122 Quoted in Rabinowitz and Miller, “Keeping the Bombs in the Basement,” p. 76.

123 Quoted in ibid., p. 79.

124 Rabinowitz, Bargaining on Nuclear Tests, p. 149.

125 Rabinowitz and Miller, “Keeping the Bombs in the Basement,” pp. 67–69.

126 Special Assistant for NPI, NFAC, CIA, to Resource Management Staff, Office of Program Assessment et al., “Request for Review of Draft Paper on the Security Dimension of Non- proliferation,” April 19, 1981, Pakistani Nuclear History Collection, Wilson Center Digital Archive, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114233>.

127 Francois Murphy, “Iran Once Again Exceeds a Nuclear Deal Limit: IAEA Report,” Reuters, November 9, 2016, <www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear/iran-once-again-exceeds-a-nuclear-deal-limit-iaea-report-idUSKBN1342T1>.

128 Tyler Rodgers, “Visiting Vienna: What Haley Needs to Remember about Verifying the Iran Nuclear Deal,” Arms Control Now, August 22, 2017, <www.armscontrol.org/blog/2017-08-22/visiting-vienna-what-haley-needs-remember-about-verifying-iran-nuclear-deal>. See also, in this issue of Nonproliferation Review, Paul Kerr, “The JCPOA and Safeguards, Model or Outlier?”

129 See, for instance, Fred McGoldrick, “The U.S.–UAE Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: A Gold Standard or Fool’s Gold?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 30, 2010, <www.csis.org/analysis/us-uae-peaceful-nuclear-cooperation-agreement-gold-standard-or-fool%E2%80%99s-gold>.

130 See World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in South Korea,” June 20, 2017, <www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/south-korea.aspx>.

131 See, for example, Mark Fitzpatrick, “South Korea Nuclear Cooperation Deal Not as Simple as 123,” April 23, 2015, International Institute for Strategic Studies, <www.iiss.org/en/politics%20and%20strategy/blogsections/2015-932e/april-ea11/south-korea-nuclear-cooperation-deal-not-as-simple-as-123-a371>.

132 Frank N. Von Hippel, “South Korean Reprocessing: An Unnecessary Threat to the Nonproliferation Regime,” Arms Control Today, March 4, 2010, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_03/VonHippel>.

133 See World Nuclear Association, “Japan’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” June 2017, <www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/japan-nuclear-fuel-cycle.aspx>.

134 Wade Huntley, “Speed Bump on the Road to Global Zero: US Nuclear Reductions and Extended Deterrence in East Asia,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2013), pp. 305–38.

135 On NSG limits on enrichment and reprocessing transfers, see “NSG Revises Rules on Sensitive Exports,” Arms Control Today, July 5, 2011, <www.armscontrol.org/20110627/NSG_Revises_Rules_on_Sensitive_Exports>.

136 See Thomas Wood, Amy Seward, and Robert Otto, “Market-Based Policies for Nuclear Nonproliferation,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 23, Nos. 3–4 (2016), pp. 409–23; Tristan Volpe, “Atomic Inducements: The Case for ‘Buying out’ Nuclear Latency,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 23, Nos. 3–4 (2016), pp. 481–93.