Indeed, shifting the focus to strategies of proliferation—which endogenizes a state's level of desire for nuclear weapons (demand) and its ability to obtain them (supply)—not only is important in its own right, but may help integrate the presently disconnected literatures on the supply of and demand for nuclear weapons.5 In addition, a review of the roughly thirty cases of nuclear pursuers suggests that there is little relationship between the motivations for nuclear pursuit and a state's ultimate choice of proliferation strategy. The question, then, is which one. The problem, of course, is finding a willing supplier—a nuclear weapons state that is willing to place part of its own arsenal under the sovereign control of another state. 124–125. How do states pursue nuclear weapons? To establish the universe of cases, I include states that explored or pursued nuclear weapons according to Christopher Way and also Philipp Bleek.53 Entry into this universe is obviously not random. See Richelson, Spying on the Bomb, p. 325. Hiders tend to prefer pathways to nuclear weapons that are easier to conceal, and they are willing to sacrifice efficiency to maximize secrecy. Kassenova is a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. The theory also predicts, however, that if Japan were to face U.S. abandonment, it would have to generate a domestic consensus before being able to shift to an active weaponization strategy, which might not be a trivial task despite Tokyo being forced to confront an acute security environment alone.123. Nehru was not naïve, however. If one accepts de Gaulle's perception that France might be left to face the Soviet Union alone, the theory does explain French acquisition strategy, but otherwise has a difficult time doing so.59 However, besides such outliers, nuclear acquisition theory explains the overwhelming majority of the proliferation strategies selected by states. The demand for nuclear weapons is weak because they face no real security threat for which nuclear weapons offer an attractive solution. Hedging is an attractive strategy for states with a permissive security environment, offering optionality without the risks of an active proliferation strategy. One exception is Jacques E.C. There was nothing in the immediate security environment pushing Nehru to overcome his abhorrence of nuclear weapons and authorize weapons-related work, limiting any discussion of developing nuclear weapons to the political fringes. In addition to extensive internal review, the report has been reviewed by the Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards Advisory Panel, the Energy Program Advisory Committee, the Technology Assessment Advisory Council, and others.The report addresses the The theory is structured as a decision tree that, from the view of a state's political leaders, asks: Given the external and domestic political environment, which strategy of proliferation should the state optimally choose? To illustrate this point, I show that a state experiences systematically more military conflict as it approaches the point of weaponization. Enjoying a huge parliamentary majority after his mother's assassination, Rajiv unilaterally ordered the weaponization of India's nuclear capabilities the next spring. Author's interview with Chandra. 227–236. A desire for prestige—the other hypothesized source of demand—should not generate active nuclear weapons pursuit in the absence of these two conditions. The relationship between economic vulnerability and nuclear proliferation has been explored by various authors, including Solingen, Nuclear Logics; and Nicholas L. Miller, “The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions,” International Organization, Vol. Crossword No 000464 posted on June 30, 2021, The Sun 2-Speed Crossword No 000547 Answers, Invalidate Yearbook Removing Second Article. In fact, it may be the case that all the states in the system that meet these criteria have already acquired nuclear weapons: for instance, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, China, and, at the end of its pursuit, India. Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of Conflict [Van Creveld, Martin] on Amazon.com. Sagan, “The Causes of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” especially pp. He also thanks Alexander Downes, Taylor Fravel, Francis Gavin, Charles Glaser, Jacques Hymans, John Mearsheimer, Robert Pape, Scott Sagan, Elizabeth Saunders, Caitlin Talmadge, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and feedback, as well as the participants at the McGill University International Relations Workshop, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, the Brown University International Security series, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the University of Chicago Program on International Security Policy series, and the George Washington University Institute for Security and Conflict Studies. In short, the literature on why states want nuclear weapons—the overwhelming majority of the proliferation scholarship in the past quarter century—has little to say about how they might acquire them.6, Additionally, analyzing strategies of proliferation is novel because the extant literature on nuclear proliferation tends to treat nuclear pursuit as a binary, linear process. Political leaders or the general public in democracies may have ideological or economic preferences against weaponization, as in Sweden and Switzerland in the 1960s. Several cases, including the Indian case, show that individual leaders can stall or veto weaponization for personal or idiosyncratic reasons. They may also fear reactive proliferation by their rivals if their efforts become known. First, states including India, Japan, and Sweden have at times sought to put the various pieces in place to weaponize at a later date if necessary, but have consciously stopped well short of acquisition by selecting a variety of hedging strategies.8 The goal was not to build nuclear weapons, but to establish a nuclear weapons program that could be completed at a time of their choosing. Under the threat of removal, Rajiv told the scientists that at “every step you have to inform [me personally] and seek approval.”88 To augment this control, the various scientific and military organizations were disconnected, operating in isolation. The disincentives far outweigh the incentives for such a path. The process may not be easy or expedient, as the case of India shows. During World War II But the authorization for theoretical work on the Subterranean Nuclear Explosion for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP) program as a concession to domestic forces that perceived the acuteness of the Chinese threat was a hard hedge. This book investigates what is driving Iran's nuclear weapons programme in a less-hostile regional environment, using a theory of protracted conflicts to explicate proliferation. Originally published in 1993, this volume was unique in its scope and approach: Unlike most literature on nuclear weapons proliferation at the time, the essays in this volume offer theoretical discussions and suggest testable hypotheses ... During the past decade, the United States and Russia have joined in a number of efforts to reduce the danger posed by the enormous quantity of weapons-usable material withdrawn from nuclear weapons. Second, if the state seeks only the option to weaponize in the future, under what conditions might it break out and fully weaponize, and where does it want to stop on the spectrum of its program?17 If it does seek nuclear weapons, then it must consider how to go about developing them. Why do they select particular strategies to develop them, and how do these choices affect the international community's ability to prevent nuclear proliferation? Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister after his mother's assassination, in 1984. It opens a window of protection against the major power patron, during which the client can attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, while the patron's diplomatic and military protection provides the client cover against other external powers. Nuclear proliferation is a reliable source power that can be converted into electricity. Different strategies of proliferation offer different opportunities and vulnerabilities for nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation, with significant implications for international security. Nuclear and non-nuclear weapons and systems are becoming increasingly entangled, raising the risks of inadvertent escalation in a conflict. This hedging takes the position “explicitly not now, but explicitly not never.” Hard hedging brings the question of nuclear weapons into the potential proliferator's mainstream political debate. Other proliferators such as Israel and Pakistan exploited the U.S. provision of immunity, extended for unrelated geopolitical reasons, to employ sheltered pursuit strategies and weaponize under the protection of the United States, which ultimately tolerated both countries’ possession of nuclear weapons (although it insisted that neither country test a bomb). The proliferation of nuclear weapons has been far slower than routinely expected because, insofar as most leaders of most countries (even rogue ones) have … If, however, a state faces an acute security threat alone and there is a domestic consensus for weaponization, then it should pursue an active nuclear weapons acquisition strategy. There is certainly evidence of Gourevitch's second image reversed in this case. Sheltered pursuers are in a unique category that balances the desire for speed and secrecy, while their patron state protects them from external efforts to stop them. First of a proposed series of annual reports on worldwide nuclear holdings from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, this volume chronicles the history of proliferation, considers its dynamics, and makes some prognoses based on ... 148–177; George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb; Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India's Quest to Be a Nuclear Power (Delhi: HarperCollins, 2000); Gaurav Kampani, “New Delhi's Long Nuclear Journey: How Secrecy and Institutional Roadblocks Delayed India's Weaponization,” International Security, Vol. Nuclear proliferation became an increasingly major concern after France and then China joined the nuclear “club” in the 1960s. Vipin Narang, “What Does It Take to Deter? Author's interview with adviser in the prime minister's office, June 2015. Second, after the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force in 1968, the distribution of the other strategies has not been highly skewed toward any particular one. Therefore, although varying intensity of demand is certainly important to the strategy of acquisition that a state selects, with lower intensity demand more likely to correlate with, for instance, hedging strategies, the underlying source of that demand matters less. Nevertheless, a state facing an acute security threat alone should at least pursue a hard hedging strategy even in the absence of a domestic consensus on nuclear weapons acquisition. Toward Accountable Nuclear Deterrents: How Much is Too Much? Shortly after joining the NPT, Sweden became a founding member of the Zangger Committee, which was designed to work out the exact definitions of the material and equipment to be restricted by the NPT. Table 3 shows the empirical distribution of proliferation strategies. See William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle': The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64,” International Security, Vol. Although it was perturbations in India's security environment that triggered its final sprint to nuclear weapons, India's security pressures were strongly refracted through a domestic political prism. This view makes two implicit assumptions. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00268. 4. “Fracture” means that there is lack of agreement at the domestic level that nuclear weapons are an answer to the state's security problems, inhibiting the constituencies that favor nuclear weapons from selecting an active acquisition strategy. If a change in a variable occurs while a state is pursuing nuclear weapons, the theory would predict that a change in the state's proliferation strategy should also occur. Arunachalam quoted in Chengappa, Weapons of Peace, p. 260. In addition, the statute requires that: 1‘ Among all the factors in making this India's hesitation until 1989, and its decision to sprint thereafter, was not a product of global nonproliferation norms or efforts—in fact, it was the opposite. Chandra had only become defense secretary the month before, having just come from the Ministry of Water Resources. Horizontal Proliferation : spread of nuclear weapons to new countries Vertical Proliferation: when nuclear weapons states increase the size of their nuclear arsenals. 257–260. This book offers a unique approach by examining why states that have the military capability to severely damage a proliferating state’s nuclear program instead choose to pursue coercive diplomacy. Nuclear proliferation can be a rough process for the international system and the proliferator. Translations in context of "ASPECT OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION" in english-french. Gaurav Kampani correctly notes that “the process of weaponization and operational planning within the Indian state in this period was characterized by inefficiency, delay, and dysfunction” as well as tremendous amounts of secrecy.86 According to key members of Rajiv Gandhi's advisory circle, however, this situation was not accidental. Finally, the ongoing strength of the nonproliferation and counterproliferation regime will likely force many future proliferators to select hiding strategies. Furthermore, although fewer states have pursued nuclear weapons over time—both because many that thought about pursuing them have already done so, and because the increasingly robust U.S.-led nonproliferation regime has deterred many states from even exploring nuclear weapons options54—a significant number of states have continued to attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. The Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program works to strengthen international security by diagnosing acute nuclear risks, informing debates on solutions, and engaging international actors to effect change. Similarly, these efforts might trigger greater emboldenment by the proliferator. China-India Nuclear Relations After the Border Clash, Narrowing the U.S.-China Gap on Missile Defense: How to Help Forestall a Nuclear Arms Race, Critiquing the State Departmentâs Nuclear Posture Clarification, Is It a Nuke? Some acquirers sprint at the end of their quest for nuclear weapons, but few after the first generation of proliferators (e.g., the permanent five members of the UN Security Council) have started and finished with a sprinting strategy. For overviews and evaluations of the literature on the causes of proliferation, see Scott D. Sagan, “The Causes of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. The program’s work spans deterrence, disarmament, nonproliferation, nuclear security, and nuclear energy. Transferring HEU technology to a non-nuclear-weapon state is seen as a grave proliferation risk, because it could enable that state to move closer to a nuclear weapons breakout capability without penalty and because it increases the risk of nuclear theft by non-state actors for use in a basic gun-type nuclear device. Dalton is the co-director and a senior fellow of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. The dual-use missile program initiated in 1983 by Indira Gandhi (the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program) worked in parallel, not in conjunction with, the military and the AEC. In deciding how to pursue nuclear weapons, states must consider three sets of variables: (1) their immediate security environment, (2) their internal domestic context, and (3) their international nonproliferation constraints and opportunities. Jawaharlal Nehru quoted in Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, p.34. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 7. Strategies of nuclear proliferation also have significant policy implications for the contemporary proliferation landscape. Analysts of international politics have debated heatedly over the likely consequences of the spread of nuclear weapons. When nuclear cooperation with the United States resumed in 1958, the British deployed Likewise, states that have had, for example, security motivations for pursuing nuclear weapons have chosen every available strategy of proliferation. Nuclear Proliferation, 1949-present. Of course, if we are compelled as a nation to use it for other purposes, possibly no pious sentiments of any of us will stop the nation from using it that way.”62 In the mid-1950s, Nehru sanctioned the building of India's plutonium reactor purchased from Canada, which was not under international safeguards, as well as a reprocessing facility at Trombay in the early 1960s, which could theoretically produce weapons-grade plutonium. 4 (Autumn 1978), pp. How then might vulnerable states pursue nuclear proliferation? This site uses cookies. Perhaps a country such as Australia, with vast territory, a remote location, and defensible sea borders, could fall into this category if it were ever to actively pursue nuclear weapons. He acknowledges support from the Stanton Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. See Richelson, Spying on the Bomb, pp. Thus, from 1964 through 1989, India's political leaders stopped short of weaponization, even though they authorized significant steps to put the pieces of a weapons program in place to compress the time to acquisition at a later date. Swaran Singh quoted in Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, p. 127. Jamie Kwong is the Stanton pre-doctoral fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hard hedging may include theoretical work on nuclear explosives, the capability to produce weapons-grade fissile material, work on weapons designs and delivery vehicles, and the development of bureaucratic organizations to manage a nuclear weapons capability. Weapons are also important ; and Hymans, Achieving nuclear Ambitions: scientists Vol... Drivers and trends in nuclear proliferation available to states: hedging, sprinting, hiding, and in... 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