THE HEALTH OF THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION REGIME

Abstract

How do we assess the health of international regimes? Many analysts have insisted recently that the nuclear nonproliferation regime is in urgent need of repair or that it should even be discarded because of its supposed ineffectiveness. However, it is essential that statements about the regime being in crisis be scrutinized for veracity and utility. While the spread of nuclear weapons poses an undeniable and serious threat to international security, a mistaken crisis mentality with respect to the regime could lead to rash attempts to alter it in unnecessary or ineffective ways or, at worst, to discard it completely. This paper returns to a theoretical framework that differentiates regimes, across both issue areas and time, to provide a more specified evaluation of regime health. By disaggregating the nuclear nonproliferation regime and assessing the individual and interactive health of multiple dimensions, a number of dimension-specific, regime-strengthening policy recommendations emerge.

Keywords:

• Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
• nonproliferation regime
• International Atomic Energy Agency
• nuclear weapons

Acknowledgements

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 2008 International Studies Association conference and at a workshop of the Center for International Studies, University of Southern California, in 2007. The authors thank Rob English, Aaron Hoffman, Sara Kutchesfahani, and Pat James for comments and advice.

Notes

1. On the successes of the NPT, see Jim Walsh, Learning from Past Success: The NPT and the Future of Non-proliferation (Stockholm: Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, 2005).

2. See for example, George Perkovich, “The End of the Nonproliferation Regime?” Current History 105 (November 2006), pp. 355–62; Tom Sauer, “The Nonproliferation Regime in Crisis,” Peace Review 18 (July 2006), pp. 334–35; Joshua Williams and Jon B. Wolfsthal, “The NPT at 35: A Crisis of Compliance or a Crisis of Confidence?” UN Association of the United States of America, Policy Brief, April 29, 2005, <www.unausa.org/Document.Doc?id=248>.

3. Pierre Goldschmidt, “The Urgent Need to Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime,” Policy Outlook No. 25 (2006); Pierre Goldschmidt, “Is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime in Crisis? If So, Why? Are There Remedies?” paper delivered to the Charlottesville Committee on Foreign Relations, Charlottesville, VA, May 11, 2006.

4. Perkovich, “The End of the Nonproliferation Regime?” p. 360.

5. Chaim Braun and Christopher F. Chyba, “Proliferation Rings: New Challenges to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” International Security 29 (Fall 2004), pp. 5–6.

6. James M. Acton, “The Problem with Nuclear Mind Reading,” Survival 51 (February 2009), pp. 119–42.

7. For comprehensive coverage, see Sharon Squassoni, Nuclear Energy: Rebirth or Resuscitation? (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009). A 2008 report of the U.S. State Department's International Security Advisory Board argued, “the rise in nuclear power worldwide, and particularly within Third World nations, inevitably increases the risks of proliferation.” See International Security Advisory Board, “Report on Proliferation Implications of the Global Expansion of Civil Nuclear Power,” State Department, April 2008, p. 1.

8. For a small but representative sample, see George Perkovich, Jessica T. Mathews, Joseph Cirincione, Rose Gottemoeller, and Jon B. Wolfsthal, Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006); William Walker, “Nuclear Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment,” International Affairs 83 (May 2007), pp. 431–53; George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, p. A15; George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World,” Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2008, p. A13.

9. Jean du Preez, “Keeping the NPT Together: A Thankless Job in a Climate of Mistrust (Interview with Ambassador Sergio Duarte),” Nonproliferation Review 13 (March 2006), p. 13.

10. See for example, Jayantha Dhanapala, “The NPT Regime: External and Internal Challenges,” remarks delivered to the Seventh Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, Washington, DC, January 11, 1999.

11. This is not a novel suggestion. See Trevor McMorris Tate, “Regime-Building in the Non-Proliferation System,” Journal of Peace Research 27 (November 1990), p. 403.

12. Several scholars position the debate as one between realism, neoliberalism, and constructivism or cognitivism. See, for example, Stephen D. Krasner, “Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 497–510; Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, “Interests, Power, Knowledge: The Study of International Regimes,” Mershon International Studies Review 40 (October 1996) pp. 177–228; Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, “Integrating Theories of International Regimes,” Review of International Studies 26 (January 2000) pp. 3–33.

13. See, for example, Stephen D. Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 185–205; Jock A. Finlayson and Mark W. Zacher, “The GATT and the Regulation of Trade Barriers: Regime Dynamics and Functions,” International Organization 35 (Fall 1981), pp. 561–602; John Gerard Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 379–415; and Oran R. Young, “Regime Dynamics: The Rise and Fall of International Regimes,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 277–97.

14. See Stephen D. Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” in Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 1. Krasner's widely recognized definition encompasses this particular emphasis, conceptualizing regimes as “principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area.”

15. See, for example, Donald J. Puchala and Raymond F. Hopkins, “International Regimes: Lessons from Inductive Analysis,” in Krasner, International Regimes; Benjamin J. Cohen, “Balance-of-Payments Financing: Evolution of a Regime,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 457–478; Arthur A. Stein, “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,” in Krasner, International Regimes; Robert O. Keohane, “The Demand for International Regimes,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 325–55; Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).

16. Keohane, “The Demand for International Regimes,” p. 354.

17. See, for example, Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change.”

18. Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences,” in Krasner, International Regimes, p. 5.

19. Young, “Regime Dynamics,” p. 279.

20. Stein, “Coordination and Collaboration,” p. 137.

21. Robert Jervis, “Security Regimes,” in Krasner, International Regimes. Keohane, “The Demand for International Regimes”; Keohane, After Hegemony.

22. Stephan Haggard and Beth A. Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” International Organization 41 (Summer 1987), p. 496.

23. See Hasenclever, Mayer, and Rittberger, “Integrating Theories of International Regimes.” See Trevor McMorris Tate, “Regime-Building in the Non-Proliferation System,” Journal of Peace Research 27 (November 1990), p. 402; Michael Brzoska, “Is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation System a Regime? A Comment on Trevor McMorris Tate,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (May 1992). Despite their differences, Tate and Brzoska see the need to find a middle ground.

24. Roger K. Smith, “Explaining the Non-Proliferation Regime: Anomalies for Contemporary International Relations Theory,” International Organization 41 (Spring 1987), p. 277.

25. Roger K. Smith, “Explaining the Non-Proliferation Regime: Anomalies for Contemporary International Relations Theory,” International Organization 41 (Spring 1987), p. 257.

26. For a related use of this framework, see Jason S. Enia and Margaret P. Karns, “Testing the Strength of Regional Cooperation: The Asian Financial Crisis as Threat or Opportunity?” paper delivered to the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA, September 2–5, 1999.

27. Brzoska, “Is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation System a Regime?”

28. Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes,” p. 64.

29. Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” p. 497; Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes,” p. 64.

30. Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” p. 498.

31. Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,”, p. 496.

32. Enia and Karns, “Testing the Strength of Regional Cooperation,” contains a similar aspect.

33. John Gerard Ruggie, ed., Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 20–22.

34. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).

35. Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes,” p. 63.

36. Stein, “Coordination and Collaboration,” p. 133.

37. Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” pp. 496–97.

38. Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes,” p. 66.

39. Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes,” p. 66.

40. The four-phase model of norm change is from Wayne Sandholtz, Prohibiting Plunder: How Norms Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

41. As Sergio Duarte, president of the 2005 NPT Review Conference argues, “It would not be reasonable to suppose that the original drafters of the NPT were clairvoyant enough to have foreseen more than 35 years ago, in the international climate prevailing at the time of the Cold War, the tensions and challenges that the NPT is experiencing in the 21st century. To decry the NPT as outdated is probably an extreme view, but the treaty is obviously under strain.” See du Preez, “Keeping the NPT Together,” p. 15.

42. See Rebecca Johnson, “The 2000 NPT Review Conference: A Delicate, Hard-Won Compromise,” Disarmament Diplomacy 46 (May 2000), <www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd46/46npt.htm>. Sergio Duarte attributed some of the problems of the 2005 conference not to the review process itself but to member states’ dispatch of inexperienced diplomats who had not participated in earlier review conferences.

43. We recognize that U.S. and Soviet/Russian stockpiles have decreased dramatically. However, the destructive power of nuclear weapons makes the still-sizeable arsenals of all the NWS a legitimate concern for proponents of complete disarmament. For this and other challenges to disarmament, see George Perkovich and James M. Acton, eds., Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009).

44. The European Commission currently participates as an observer.

45. Although, Kennedy was worried “by the feeling that by 1970 … there may be 10 nuclear powers instead of 4, and by 1975, 15 or 20,” this is certainly a debatable extrapolation. See John F. Kennedy, “The President's News Conference of March 21, 1963,” in John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, “The American Presidency Project,” University of California, <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9124>.

46. Both Sweden and Switzerland abandoned research into nuclear weapons well before the NPT came into existence. We are not suggesting that these states had no reason to be mindful of their security situations.

47. See MTCR, “The Missile Technology Control Regime,” <www.mtcr.info/english/index.html>.

48. Traditional arms control does not necessarily have a singular purpose of preventing the likelihood of armed conflict; it also serves to reduce economic costs of going to war and to limit the destructiveness of war, should it occur.

49. Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” p. 496.

50. Walsh, Learning from Past Success, p. 17.

51. See Scott D. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996), pp. 54–86; Tanya Ogilvie-White, “Is There a Theory of Nuclear Proliferation? An Analysis of the Contemporary Debate,” Nonproliferation Review 4 (Fall 1996), pp. 43–60. There is also an emerging literature that employs models other than those based on security. While we concede that non-security factors and domestic-level idiosyncrasies may play important roles in whether a state pursues nuclear weapons, we can think of no states that seriously considered nuclear weapons that did not also have significant external security threats. As some examples of works that challenge the security model of proliferation see Sagan, “Why Do States Pursue Nuclear Weapons?”; Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

52. For example, though we know from basic international economics that free trade has mutual benefits for the trading countries, states still act to protect domestic interests even in violation of agreements like those under the WTO. But the global trade regime is not in crisis because of this reality.

53. Carlton Stoiber, “The Evolution of NPT Review Conference Final Documents, 1975–2000,” Nonproliferation Review 10 (Fall/Winter 2003), pp. 126–66.

54. For more information, see the IAEA, Technical Cooperation Program, <www-tc.iaea.org/tcweb/default.asp>.

55. George Perkovich points out that unlike the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention, which outlaw the use and possession of those weapons, under the NPT, “Nuclear weapons … are temporarily legal in five countries, not illegal in three others, and forbidden essentially everywhere else—a complex and inconsistent arrangement that presents a unique set of dilemmas.” See Perkovich, “Bush's Nuclear Revolution.”

56. Article IV of the NPT is not specific on what happens if a state is not “in conformity with Articles I and II” of the treaty.

57. Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” p. 497.

58. Haggard and Simmons refer to the “'externalities’ associated with inadequate scope.” See Haggard and Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” p. 497.

59. It is worth noting that of the twenty-six NATO countries, twenty-three are NNWS. Yet, NATO membership provides them with “an alliance, which regards nuclear deterrence as a key part of its military doctrine.” See Karel Koster, “An Uneasy Alliance: NATO Nuclear Doctrine & The NPT,” Disarmament Diplomacy 49 (August 2000).

60. The 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review reaffirms the idea that “Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends.” See “Nuclear Posture Review [Excerpts],” GlobalSecurity.org, <www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm>.

61. See for example, State Department, “Iran's Noncompliance Threatens Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” February 27, 2006.

62. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?”

63. For a variety of views on this, see Bradley L. Bowman, “Chain Reaction: Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East,” report to Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, February 2008; International Institute for Strategic Studies, “Nuclear Programmes in the Middle East,” May 20, 2008.

64. Experts at a 2008 workshop on “nuclear forecasting” hosted by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, CA, concluded that an Iranian provoked nuclear cascade involving, for example, Turkey, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia was unlikely. The findings will be elucidated in a forthcoming book, Forecasting Nuclear Proliferation in the 21 ^st Century: A Comparative Perspective.

65. Thomas W. Wood, Matthew D. Milazzo, Barbara A. Reichmuth, and Jeffrey Bedell, “The Economics of Energy Independence for Iran,” Nonproliferation Review 14 (March 2007), pp. 89–112.

66. This only becomes a “crisis” when certain states seek nuclear technology. Other would-be NWS (e.g. Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil) that have since abandoned those ambitions have robust civilian nuclear programs today.

67. The president of the 2005 NPT Review Conference followed the practice of removing Pyongyang's nameplate from display but keeping it in the conference room with the presiding officer “without prejudice to the outcome of ongoing consultations on North Korea's status and its nuclear weapons ambitions.” See du Preez, “Keeping the NPT Together,” fn. 4, p. 15.

68. Joel Wit, Daniel Poneman, and Robert Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004); Charles L. Pritchard, Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007).

69. On overstatements and misperceptions of North Korean alleged subversion of the Agreed Framework, see Hugh Gusterson, “Paranoid, Potbellied Stalinist Gets Nuclear Weapons: How the U.S. Print Media Cover North Korea,” Nonproliferation Review 15 (March 2008), pp. 21–42.

70. Jean du Preez and William Potter, “North Korea's Withdrawal From the NPT: A Reality Check,” Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Research Story of the Week, April 9, 2003, <cns.miis.edu/stories/030409.htm>.

71. For a discussion of the various and complex factors that have influenced Japan's thinking on nuclear weapons acquisition see Solingen, Nuclear Logics, pp. 57–81.

72. Hedrick Smith, “U.S. Assumes the Israelis Have A-Bomb or its Parts,” New York Times, July 18, 1970, p. 1; Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 273–76.

73. India's first nuclear test did not portend a crumbling of the regime but instead an adaptation: the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Despite this, the 1998 test elicited similar fears about the survival of the regime. For example, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of its symbolic “Doomsday Clock” five minutes closer to midnight, warning that “the nonproliferation regime might ultimately collapse.” See “Nine Minutes to Midnight,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 1998, p. 4.

74. For a comprehensive list of nonproliferation organizations and agreements, see James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, “Inventory of Nonproliferation Organizations and Regimes,” updated February 6, 2009, <cns.miis.edu/inventory/index.htm>.

75. Some analysts speculate that Israel and South Africa collaborated in testing a nuclear explosive device in the Indian Ocean on September 22, 1979. However, there is no definitive evidence of this available in open sources.

76. See Thomas Graham Jr., Leonor Tomero, and Leonard Weiss, “Think Again: U.S.-India Nuclear Deal,” Foreign Policy (July 2006).

77. IAEA Staff Report, “IAEA Board Approves India-Safeguards Agreement,” August 1, 2008, <www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2008/board010808.html>.

78. See IAEA, “Safeguards Current Status—as of 21 January 2009,” <www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf>.

79. The U.S.-India nuclear deal is an exception in that it institutionalizes a transfer of nuclear technology between an NPT member and a non-member. While this deal is often cited as weakness of the regime, the Indian side of the agreement calls for division of its civilian and military nuclear programs, safeguards on its civilian nuclear facilities, and international inspections. All of these components are consistent with the broader tenets of the nonproliferation regime. Moreover, in September 2008 the NSG—an institutional component of the regime—approved the deal.

80. Brzoska, “Is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation System a Regime?”

81. Arms Control Association, “The 1997 IAEA Additional Protocol At a Glance,” fact sheet, January 2008, <www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/IAEAProtoco>.

82. See Arms Control Association, “U.S. Implementation of the ‘13 Practical Steps on Nonproliferation and Disarmament’ Agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference,” fact sheet, April 2002, <armscontrol.xykon.info/factsheets/us13steps>.

83. Andrew Semmel, “UN Security Council Resolution 1540: The U.S. Perspective,” remarks delivered at “Conference on Global Nonproliferation and Counterterrorism: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540,” Chatham House, London, October 12, 2004, <www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/37145.htm>.