THEORIES OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

Abstract

Traditionally, American thinking on proliferation—whether by scholars or practitioners—has been dominated by the realist camp. According to this view, nuclear weapons are very valuable to states, so only strong supply-side control measures can stop the world's natural tendency toward rampant proliferation. However, realist intuitions have proven a very poor guide to the historical realities of nuclear proliferation. Therefore the idealist camp, which takes a different approach particularly to the demand side of the proliferation equation, has become increasingly prominent in academic circles and even in the policy world. Idealists are exploring the question of the demand for the bomb at three levels of analysis: international, domestic, and individual. This new research avenue is a very positive development, but idealism has its own potential pitfalls.

Keywords:

• Causes of nuclear proliferation
• Realism
• Idealism

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Peter Lavoy, Alexander Montgomery, and participants at the “Proliferation 2016” workshop at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. In the literature on international relations, “idealism” refers to a theoretical emphasis on the causal power of ideas (including identities, perceptions, emotions, cultures, and so on), not necessarily to a sunny and optimistic outlook on life.

2. The aim of this article is to discern ideal-typical tendencies in the thinking of scholars of proliferation, rather than to provide an encyclopedic account of all of the work being done in this field. For more of an encyclopedic account, see William C. Potter, “The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons,” in Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason, eds., The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 146–178.

3. Paul Bracken, Fire in the East: the Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).

4. Stanley A. Erickson, “Economic and Technological Trends Affecting Nuclear Nonproliferation,” Nonproliferation Review 8 (Summer 2001), pp. 40–54; T.V. Paul, Power vs. Prudence: Why States Forgo Nuclear Weapons (Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000).

5. Avery Goldstein, “Discounting the Free Ride: Alliances and Security in the Postwar World,” International Organization 49 (Winter 1995), pp. 39–71.

6. Robert Powell, “Absolute and Relative Gains in International Relations Theory,” American Political Science Review 85 (Dec. 1991), pp. 1303–20.

7. Not surprisingly, realists have time and again cited de Gaulle approvingly. However, realist explanations of France's path toward nuclear weapons fall short; see Jacques E. C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 85–113.

8. For several examples, see John Mueller, “The Escalating Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons,” in T.V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett, and James J. Wirtz, eds., The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 73–98.

9. Figure from Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, p. 4. The original model of nuclear capability was developed in. Stephen M. Meyer, The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984). Richard Stoll has updated Meyer's data: see Rice University Web Site, <http://es.rice.edu/projects/Poli378/Nuclear/Proliferation/model.html>.

10. William M. Arkin, “The Sky-Is-Still-Falling Profession,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50 (March/April 1994), p. 64.

11. Benjamin Frankel, ed., Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications (London: Frank Cass, 1991).

12. Ariel Levite, “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited,” International Security 27 (Winter 2002/3), pp. 59–88.

13. Zachary S. Davis, “The Realist Nuclear Regime,” Security Studies 2 (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 79–99.

14. The “proliferation optimist” argument of Kenneth Waltz has always been a decidedly minority viewpoint even among realists. For the proliferation optimism-pessimism debate, see Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth M. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003).

15. Henry D. Sokolski, Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001).

16. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “The A. Q. Khan Illicit Nuclear Trade Network and Implications for Nonproliferation Efforts,” Strategic Insights 5 (July 2006), < www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2006/Jul/albrightJul06.asp>. For a less alarmist perspective, see Alexander Montgomery, “Ringing in Proliferation: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Network.” International Security 30 (Fall 2005), pp. 153–87.

17. This is not to argue that we should do away with supply-side controls, but rather that the loose supply-side controls of the past cannot have stopped the rampant proliferation realists expected; that expected proliferation never came. So, to answer our puzzle we need to look beyond the “realist” elements—inspection, verification, the threat of sanctions—of the nonproliferation regime. This is a point even some realists are beginning to recognize; compare T. V. Paul, “Strengthening the Nonproliferation Regime: The Role of Coercive Sanctions,” International Journal 51 (Summer 1996), pp. 440–65, with T.V. Paul, “Systemic Conditions and Security Cooperation: Explaining the Persistence of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 16 (April 2003), pp. 135–54.

18. Fernando A. Milia, “Armamento nuclear en el Cono Sur: un dislate estratégico,” Boletín del Centro Naval 113 (Jan.–March 1995), pp. 87–92. For more on the Argentine case, see Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, ch. 6.

19. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

20. Scott D. Sagan, “Rethinking the Causes of Nuclear Proliferation: Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” in Victor A. Utgoff, ed., The Coming Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation, US Interests, and World Order (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2000), pp. 17–50. This is a more developed version of Sagan's “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 54–86.

21. Thomas Schelling, “An Astonishing Sixty Years: The Legacy of Hiroshima” (Nobel Prize Lecture), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (April 18, 2006), pp. 6089–93; Miroslav Nincic, Renegade Regimes: Confronting Deviant Behavior in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).

22. Thus George Perkovich's detailed historical account, India's Nuclear Bomb, is ominously subtitled: The Impact on Global Proliferation. George M. Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley : University of California Press, 2002).

23. Amartya Sen, “India and the Bomb,” Journal of Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 6 (Oct. 2000), pp. 16–34.

24. Etel Solingen, “The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint,” International Security 19 (Fall 1994), pp. 126–69.

25. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation.

26. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

27. Robert Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World: Political-Development Ideas in Foreign Aid and Social Science (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973).

28. Rawi Abdelal, Yoshiko M. Herrera, Alastair Iain Johnston, and Rose McDermott, eds., “Identity as a Variable: Conceptualization and Measurement of Identity,” unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, 2006.

29. Hugh Gusterson, People of the Bomb: Portraits of America's Nuclear Complex (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004); Hugh Gusterson, Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

30. Peter R. Lavoy, “Nuclear Myths and the Causes of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 2 (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 192–212; Peter R. Lavoy, Learning to Live with the Bomb: India, the United States and the Myths of Nuclear Security (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2007).

31. Figure from Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, p. 61.

32. My more holistic analysis of McMahon suggests that, in spite of his quantitative score, he did not share Gorton's oppositional nationalism. For more on the Australian case, see Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, chs. 3 and 5. See also Jacques E. C. Hymans, “Isotopes and Identity: Australia and the Nuclear Weapons Option, 1949–1999,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Spring 2000), pp. 1–23.