Emerging Nuclear Powers', International Security, Vol. 21:3 (Winter 1996-1997), pp. 87-119.
employment in the past, the essay will seek to demonstrate that atomic weapons
can essentially only keep the peace when being handled by rational decisionmakers for exclusively defensive/deterring purposes in a conducive strategic
environment. As these vital conditions are, however, not perforce endemic to
international relations, nuclear arms can accordingly only under very specific
circumstances, and thus by no means as a general rule, help to preserve
international peace and stability.
Irrational Behaviour
7 Respectively the balance of threat. See Stephen M. Walt, 'Alliance Formation and the Balance of
World Power,' International Security, Vol. 9:4 (Spring 1985), pp. 3-43.
8 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press Inc.,
Reprinted in 2010), pp. 116-128. On balance of power conceptions across different IR school of
thoughts, see in particular: Richard Little, The Balance of Power in International Relations:
Metaphors, Myths and Models (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
9 George H. Quester, 'Crises and the Unexpected', Journal of International History, Vol. 18:4
(Spring, 1988), pp . 703-704.
10 James G. Blight and David A. Welch, 'Risking The Destruction of Nations: Lessons of the
Cuban Missile Crisis for New and Aspiring Nuclear States, Security Studies, Vol. 4:4 (Summer
1995), pp. 817-819.
11 On the Cuban Missile Crisis, see in particular Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of
Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (London: Longman, 1999); David R. Gibson, Talk at
the Brink: Deliberation and Decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2012); Norman Polmar and John D. Gresham, DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink
of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2006).
the eventual denouement of that highly dangerous situation that its potential
escalation into open conflict had at times been anything but an entirely unrealistic
possibility.12 That prudence and judicious reasoning in the end helped to forestall
nuclear warfare should not detract from the fact that less prudent judgments could
ultimately just as easily have precipitated it. Above all, the fortunate circumstance
that cooler heads eventually prevailed was altogether not the result of inevitably
rational thinking alone, but rather the merit of sober circumspection by individual
minds at crucial and potentially decisive moments during their internal
deliberations, most notably in an attempt to resist the repeatedly advocated calls by
civilian and military officials for much more rigorous action-including preemptive
missile strikes against Russian defenses on Cuba and thus, by implication, the
prospect of an all-out atomic war.13 If less reasonable decision-makers had been in
charge or unable to overcome the more belligerent opinions surrounding them,14 or
had judged the intentions and motivations of their adversaries less perceptively,15
then the entire event might well have taken a much darker and less favourable
outcome.
Similarly, rational decision-making could also easily have succumbed to
impulsive overreaction when Soviet warning systems incorrectly reported on 26
October 1983 the launch of several American ICBM's headed directly towards
Russian territory.16 If only lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov had strictly followed
his instructions that night to advise his superiors of any critical radar activity
instead of accurately suspecting it to be a mere computer malfunction,17 it is widely
12 Barton J. Bernstein, 'Reconsidering the Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years Later,' Arms Control
Today, Vol. 42:8 (October 2012), pp. 39.
13 Marc Trachtenberg, 'The Influence of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis',
International Security, Vol. 10:1 (Summer 1985), pp. 140-156.
14 Michael Dobbs, 'Why we should study the Cuban Missile Crisis', Special Report 205
(Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, June 2008), p. 10.
15 James G. Blight and David A. Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets reexamine the Cuban
Missile Crisis (New York: Harper and Collins, 1989), pp. 310-313.
16 Dave Webb, 'On the Edge of History: the Nuclear Dimension, in: Mark Levene, Robert Johnson
and Penny Roberts (eds.), History at the End of the World: History, Climate Change and the
Possibility of Closure (Penrith: Humanities-Ebooks, 2010), pp. 176-177.
17 David Hoffmann, 'I had a funny feeling in my gut', The Washington Post, 10 February 1999,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm [accessed 9
November 2013]; Anna Libak, 'Nuclear War: Minuteman', Weekendavisen, 2 April 2004,
http://www.brightstarsound.com/world_hero/weekendavisen.html [accessed 9 November 2013].
agreed that Soviet leaders would in all likelihood not have adhered to standard
protocol procedures calling for confirmation of the registered threat by additional
sources first, but owing to wide-spread distrust of American intentions in general,
would instead have reacted to it in strict accordance with their predefined
contingency plans, i.e. with a strategy which envisaged nothing less than
countervailing enemy aggression with equally destructive force.18
Various individual factors such as miscommunication or internal
disagreement might thus not only compromise the finding of a sensible solution to
nuclear threats, but there can also be no certainty that they will invariably result in
a unitary reaction across all nation-states,19 regardless of which policy-makers
helped to devise it or under which distinct cultural and/or ideological environments
they operated while doing so.20 The historical record simply does not bear out the
assertion that states view matters of international import all more or less along the
same lines and thus ultimately also deal with them in roughly the same way.21
Such a realization, in turn, has significant implications for states' principal
attitude towards the international balance of power.22 For one, there may well exist
varying interpretations as to how exactly the structures of a mutually beneficial
balance would have to look like, in particular though what type of state interaction
and international norms would need to inform it.23 Accordingly, international actors
may not per se accept the purported virtues of a continuously stable balance of
18 Scott Shane, Cold War's Riskiest Moment, Baltimore Sun, 31 August 2003,
http://hnn.us/article/1709#bombs9-5-03 [accessed 9 November 2013].
19 Kerry Kartchner draws specific attention to the fact that what one type of society may normally
define as irrational action might at the same time very well be considered less so by another culture.
Kerry M. Kartchner, Strategic Culture and WMD Decision Making, in: Jeannie L. Johnson, Kerry
M. Kartchner and Jeffrey A. Larsen, Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction
(Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), p. 57, 62.
20 Caroline F. Ziemke, Philippe Loustaunau, and Amy Alrich, Strategic Personality and the
Effectiveness of Nuclear Deterrence (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2000), pp. iiiviii.
21 Robert 0. Keohane, "Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Politics", in: Robert O.
Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 14.
22 In this context, 'balance of power' refers to the even distribution of power between the major
powers of the international system. On the various definitions of the 'balance of power'-concept see:
See Vesna Danilovic, When the Stakes are high. Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), p. 73.
23 Randall L. Schweller, Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 28.
power.24 Yet if rationality and common sense can in general not be guaranteed of
unfailingly governing national decision-making processes, they may arguably be
even less so with revisionist powers bent on modifying substantial features of the
existing order from the outset,25 let alone with such elements as would willingly
dismantle it in its entirety. When such intent is central to the latter's motivations,
any means capable of helping them effect the kind of dramatic and convulsive
change they seek is by definition an acute and imminent threat to peace, security
and regional stability itself. Nuclear weapons may then be the single most
dangerous instrument for undermining peace on a global scale, and this essentially
not only on account of their obliterative force, but also since they might likewise
act as an added incentive to irrational behaviour in international politics itself by
prompting actors to take excessively bold and counter-productive action in pursuit
of their national objectives.
Again, the Cuban Missile Crisis serves as an instructive example, albeit this
time in relation to Soviet leaders' decision for bringing it about in the first place. In
so doing, nuclear weapons ultimately figured on two separate accounts as a
possibly disastrous usurper of world peace. For one, American nuclear missiles in
Turkey and thus in close proximity to Russian territory constituted an important
reason why Nikita Krushev attempted his perilous gamble on Cuba to begin with.26
Secondly, the Soviet Union's own nuclear arsenal had emboldened its leadership to
gradually adopt an ever more daring stance in international politics, notably by
instilling in them the belief that out 'existential fears', atomic weapons would
invariably act as a reliable means for discouraging American countermeasures
against Soviet enterprises.27
The overriding objective of the Soviet Union's dangerous adventure of
24 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1981), pp. 185-187.
25 Schweller, Unanswered Threats, p. 29.
26 Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (trans. and ed. by Jerrold L.
Schechter) (Boston: Little Brown, 1990), pp. 170-177; Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the
Cuban Missile Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1989), pp. 10-11.
27 Vladislav M. Zubok and Hope M. Harrison, The Nuclear Education of Nikita Krushev, in:
John L. Gaddis, Philip H. Gordon, Ernest R. May and Jonathan Rosenberg, Cold War Statesmen
confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.
141-170.
28 Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little Brown, 1970), pp. 493-494; The
Malin Notes: Glimpses inside the Kremlin during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in: James G. Hershberg
and Chrisitian F. Ostermnann, Cold War International History Porject Bulletin: The Global Cuban
Missile Crisis at 50, Vol. 17/18 (Wilson Center, Fall 2012), p. 299.
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CWIHP_Cuban_Missile_Crisis_Bulletin_17-18.pdf
[accessed 26 Nopvember 2013].
29 Kenneth N. Waltz, 'Why Iran Should Get the Bomb', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91:4 (July/August
2012), pp. 2-5.
30 See Gregory L. Keeney and Detlof von Winterfeld, 'Identifying and Structuring the Objectives of
Terrorists' (California: CREATE Homeland Security Center, 2009), p. 10.
http://create.usc.edu/publications/KeeneyReport.pdf [accessed 27 November 2013].
31 In that regard, there can effectively be no assurance that terrorists will be barred access to
nuclear technologies indefinitely. Fissile materials might after all be acquired in a number of
different ways, most notably by engaging in black market arms trade or by filling the political
vacuum created by the civil chaos and disorder in the wake of a nuclear society's recent state
failure. See Graham Allison and Douglas Dillon, 'Nuclear Terrorism Fact Sheet' (Harvard: Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs, 2010).
http://www.nuclearsummit.org/files/FACT_SHEET_Final.pdf [accessed 23 November 2013].
Nuclear Compellence
32 This view is in particular advanced by defensive realists such as Kenneth N. Waltz, whereas
offensive realists, notably John J. Mearsheimer, believe that nuclear weapons might not always
deter states from aggressive action. On their respective views on nuclear warfare, see in particular
Ariel Ilan Roth and Zanvyl Krieger, 'Nuclear Weapons in Neo-Realist Theory', International Studies
Review, Vol. 9:3 (2007), pp. 369-384.
33 Kyle Bearsdley and Victor Asal, 'Winning with the Bomb', Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.
53:2 (April 2009), pp. 278-301; Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance
(Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1987).
affairs,34 a scenario which could then also witness the eventual self-defeat of
nuclear weapons' quintessential purpose by no longer having them serve as a
primarily deterring force in international politics. That very ttemptation for states
to deliberately hold out the prospect of nuclear warfare as some form of influential
bargain chip in their dealings with other nations ultimately constitutes a very real
concern which it would simply be a folly to ignore or dismiss as an unfounded
objection to the idea of a 'nuclear peace.'35
The sheer gravity and scope of the issue will become even clearer when
further considering the substantial difficulty in not only assessing what states might
apply their nuclear arms in an offensive rather than defensive capacity, but
essentially even more so in establishing how, when and under what circumstances
they might do so. On that note, a central argument advanced by 'nuclear peace'theory maintains that atomic weapons are inherently capable of ensuring stability
by simple virtue of their employment after all entailing the unacceptable prospect
of mutually assured destruction.36 Yet need such a dismal eventuality always be the
case? Isn't it conceivable that states might still resort to nuclear warfare yet
ultimately stay just beneath the threshold of total annihilation?37
More specifically, decision-makers may well reach a point where they
might seriously consider the tactical use of their nuclear weapons in order to attain
a predefined objective.38 Here too the Cuban Missile Crisis holds as a pre-eminent
example, notably as the Soviet Union had after all not only moved nearly 100
tactical nuclear missiles to the island, but also since it was ultimately at the
discretion of local Soviet commanders alone to decide whether to make use of
them in the event of an American invasion, and this essentially without being
34 North Korea arguably being the foremost example in this regard. See Christopher Bluth, 'Norms
and International Relations: The anachronistic nature of neo-realist approaches', POLIS Working
Paper No. 12 (Leeds: School of Politics and International Studies, 2004), pp. 17.
35 Michael Horowitz, 'The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: Does Experience Matter?', Journal of
Conflict Resolution, Vol. 53:2 (April 2009), pp. 251; Erik Gartzke and Matthew Kroenig, 'A
Strategic Approach to Nuclear Proliferation', Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 53:2 (April
2009), pp. 158-159.
36 Waltz, 'Why Iran should get the bomb', pp. 2-5.
37 Michael Sheehan, The Balance of Power: History and Theory (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp.
174-177 .
38 See Alistair Millar and Brian Alexander, Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Emergent Threats in an
Evolving Security Environment (Dulles, VA: Brassey's Inc., 2003).
required to wait for final approval from Moscow first.39 Had they chosen to do so,
then this would most certainly have resulted in an American response with tactical
nuclear warheads as well.40
Eleven years before during the Korean War, there had already been voiced
similar intentions for using tactical nuclear weapons by senior American military
and civilian officials.41 In that particular instance, President Truman eventually
rejected the execution of any such plans, notably out of acute concerns over the
incalculable and potentially disastrous ramifications that such an ill-advised and
utterly disproportional course of action might have, in particular the fear of
provoking a massive retaliatory response by the Soviet Union and/or Communist
China and thereby contributing to a possible escalation of the conflict well beyond
the Korean peninsula.42 Importantly, however, the fact that American policymakers after Hiroshima and Nagasaki always refrained from a tactical usage of
nuclear weapons even as less far-sighted minds held that option capable of
accomplishing limited short-term objectives should not detract from the possibility
that other governments might ultimately fail to display an equal measure of rational
reasoning and prudence as to the unforeseeable long-term consequences of their
employment.
They key point to retain here is that there is simply no telling whether states
will take a unitary stance to the subject of atomic warfare. How could the
international community ever guarantee that governments will invariably give
precedence to atomic weapons as an instrument of deterrence rather than of
39 Graham Allison, 'The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91:4 (July/August 2012),
p. 11.
40 See in particular: Memorandum from Chairman JCS Maxwell Taylor from the President,
"Evaluation of the Effect on US Operational Plans of Soviet Army Equipment Introduced into
Cuba," , 2 November 1962. (National Archives, Record Group 218 (Joint Chiefs of Staff), Records
of Chairman Maxwell Taylor, box 6, October 1962). Digital Copy available at:
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB397/
41 James F. Schnabel, United States Army in the Korean War: Policy and Direction: The First Year
(Washington D.C., Center of Military History, 1992), pp. 283-284; R. Dingman, 'Atomic Diplomacy
during the Cold War', International Security, Vol. 13:3 (Winter 1988/1989), pp. 53.54, 66-67; Max
Hastings, The Korean War (London: Pan Books, 2010), pp. 257-258, 266, 272.
42 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs Vol. II (New York: Doubleday, 1955), pp. 394-395; Dingman,
'Atomic Diplomacy during the Cold War', pp. 75, 90; Schnabel, United States Army in The Korean
War, pp. 287-290, 324.
10
compellence, or that fundamentally different views over their basic purpose and
possibilities of use will not in the end rather endanger instead of bolstering
international peace and stability? After all, if tactical nuclear warfare should
threaten to become a reality in international relations, there can hardly be any
doubt that other states would not before long see their own security and vital
interests at grave risk by such an alarming and deeply worrying probability. Neither
would they simply let themselves be intimidated by fears over nuclear annihilation.
Instead they would react to such dangers in an adequate and expedient fashion;43
and although their response need not necessarily involve a nuclear retaliation, it
might nevertheless come about in the form of a comparably destructive counterstrike with conventional weapons.44 At any rate, it stands to reason that the cause of
peace and stability would hardly be benefited by such or similarly grim
developments.
True, western powers have traditionally viewed the atomic bomb as a
device of distinctly deterring character; and going by their present national
strategies, they may reasonably be expected to continue doing so.45 In like manner,
nations such as China and the Russian Federation arguably seek to maintain a
43 Barry D. Watts, 'Nuclear Conventional Firebreaks and the Nuclear Taboo'
(Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2013), pp. 71-73.
http://www.csbaonline.org/about/contact/ [accessed 26 November 2013]; Ali Ahmed, 'India,
Nuclear Weapons and Massive-Retaliation: The Impossibility of Limitation', IPCS Article No.
4135 (New Dehli: Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, 2013).
http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/ipcs-debate-india
nuclear weapons-and-massive-retaliation-the-impossibility-4135.html [accessed 27 November
2013].
44 Tod Lindberg, 'Nuclear and Other Retaliation after Deterrence fails' (Pennsylavania: Strategic
Studies Institue, September 2004), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/DigitalLibrary/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=94828
[accesed 27 November 2013]; Tom Nichols, 'The Case for Conventional Deterrence', The National
Interest, 12 November 2013. http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-case-conventionaldeterrence-9381 [accessed 26 November 2013].
45 National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington D.C.: The White House, May 2010),
p.14, 23.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf,[accessed
30 October 2013]; Nuclear Posture Review Report (Washington: United States Department of
Defense, April 2010),
http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20nuclear%20posture%20review%20report.pdf [accessed
28 October 2013]; A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainity: The National Security Strategy
(London: October 2010), p. 30.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61936/nationalsecurity-strategy.pdf [accessed 28 October 2013].
11
12
for why Nikita Khrushchev attempted to alter the bipolar balance of power in the
first place,50 so that an evener distribution of power may indeed have lead to a
higher degree of stability between their two nations.
Ultimately, however, it is extremely doubtful that a roughly equal nuclear
striking power could have achieved that end on its own, notably as the outbreak of
'conventional warfare' after all still represented a not implausible eventuality at the
time.51 In particular, Khrushchev didn't regard nuclear parity merely as an
assurance against American aggression, but rather also as a powerful means of
compellence for obtaining his own objectives in Western Europe.52 Altogether,
Soviet actions thus clearly illustrate the difficulty in accomplishing a true 'nuclear
peace', i.e. the idea of having the atomic bomb solely act as defensive means
against rather than an offensive implement of state aggression.
In addition, the prospect of nuclear compellence also helps to expose
another inherent weakness of the argument that national nuclear deterrents will
invariably strengthen regional stability,53 namely its failure to adequately consider
the sheer infinite cycle of nuclear rivalry likely to be set in motion by an increase
in atomic countries.54 For how else then in a climate of deep mutual distrust and
massive armament build-up is such a world populated by nuclear countries to end?
And where or when exactly would such an evolution stop? Will it really only take
one additional nuclear power to restore stability to some particularly volatile
regions?55 Will Israel really buy into the idea that a nuclear Iran might actually
reduce political tensions in the area; or China, Japan and South Korea believe the
same with regard to North Korea? And what about other regional actors? Isn't it
50 Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision, pp. 92-95.
51 In August of the previous year, an escalation of the Berlin Crisis into major conflict had after all
only narrowly been avoided. See Frederick Kempe, Berlin 1961. Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the
most dangerous place on earth (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2011).
52 Notably control over West Berlin. Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision, p. 105.
53 Kenneth N. Waltz, 'Peace, Stability and Nuclear Weapons', IGCC Policy Papers PP15
(Berkeley: Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, 1995), pp. 11-14.
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4cj4z5g2 [accessed 27 November 2013].
54 Scott D. Sagan, 'Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?: Three models in Search of a Bomb',
International Security, Vol. 21:3 (Winter, 1996-1997), pp. 57-59; Bearsdley and Asal, 'Winning with
the Bomb', pp. 25.
55 Waltz, 'Why Iran Should Get the Bomb', pp. 2-5.
13
legitimate to assume that some might want to launch their own nuclear programme
in response, ostensibly out of purely defensive concerns?56
In short, there will always be countries that might, rightly or wrongly, dread
the thought of having yet another state join the global club of atomic nations,
especially when it is situated in immediate range of its own borders. And the by far
most important reason for this is that it might ultimately not even matter at all
whether some countries would actually harbour thoughts of nuclear compellence.
Rather the mere fact alone that other nations may with good cause not believe them
to follow such declarations is already reason enough for why nuclear weapons
might not indefinitely preserve international peace and security.57
Irrespective of how Iran and North Korea will internally develop, it will
nevertheless be a very tough sell for most other nations to simply accept the notion
that they might yet after all be trusted to keep the Atomic Bomb solely for its
supposedly innate stabilizing powers in international relations. The fact that the
global community in general, and their regional neighbours in particular, already
perceive in both their rhetoric and actions a certain reluctance for complying with
international norms and standards ultimately makes theses states a source of
potential instability to them which likely stands to endanger peace even further if
they were to actually obtain the means for waging nuclear warfare.58
In that case, it would be all but impossible to allay fears that in spite of
assurances to the contrary, the new nuclear powers might still come to regard the
threat of nuclear warfare as a coercive tool for pursuing their own national
56 Bradley B. Bowman, 'Chain Reaction: Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East',
(Washington D.C.: United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 2008).
http://www.cfr.org/world/chain-reaction-avoiding-nuclear-arms-race-middle-east/p15721 [accessed
27 November 2013].
57 Witness in particular Israel and NATO members' anxieties regarding a nuclear Iran. Jean-Loup
Samann, 'The Day after Iran Goes Nuclear: Implications for NATO', NATO Research Paper No. 71
(Rome: NATO Defense College, 2012), pp. 1-8.
58 In particular wide-spread Israeli fears of Iranian leaders actively seeking to destroy the state of
Israel. Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton, and Matthew Irvine, 'Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel and the
Bomb' (Washington: Center for a New American Security, June 2012), p. 13.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?lng=en&id=144190 [accessed 26
November 2013].
14
objectives.59 Such a reality, in turn, could easily result in pre-emptive countermeasures by other nations to anticipate or outright eliminate any such threat,
regardless of whether it was imminent or not.60 All the same, profound mutual
suspicions as to the other side's 'real' intentions would likely accompany political
interactions for years to come, and as history has demonstrated time and again, it
may then well take but a minor and seemingly insignificant incident to spark largescale aggression and thereby effectively break up whatever superficial state of
peace and stability had hitherto existed.61 That is to say with one not
inconsequential difference, namely that nuclear weapons and not conventional
warfare might this time around bring the conflict to a sudden and possibly
catastrophic end.
Finally, nation-states might by then also no longer be the only international
actors in possession of nuclear materials. Precisely because terrorists and other
irreconcilable groupings may, however, not be dissuaded from violence and
aggression,62 they could ultimately pose an even greater challenge to international
peace and security than nuclear rogue states do, all the more so as they are after all
often entirely indifferent to the survival of any one particular country.63 Yet once
59 Roslyn Warren, 'Miscalculating Nuclear Deterrence in the Middle East: Why Kenneth Waltz gets
it wrong', Global Security Studies Review, Vol. 1:1 (December 2012), p. 36-38.
60 Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton, and Matthew Irvine, 'Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel and the
Bomb', p. 24.
61World War I is in that regard perhaps only the most prominent example. Altogether, modern
history is rife with peripheral incidences ultimately ending in supra-regional territorial conflict,
arguably reaching as far back as to the origins of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) while
furthermore including, among others, the Crimean War (1853-1856), the French-Prussian War of
1871; and also the Marco Polo Bridge Incident igniting the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).
See in particular Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb, The Origins and Prevention of Major
Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University, Press, 1989); Dale C. Copeland, The Origins of Major
War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000); Kagan, Donald, On the Origins of War and the
Preservation of Peace (New York: Doubleday, 2009).
62 Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, 'The Great Debate: Is Nuclear Zero the Best Option?', The
National Interest (Sept-Oct 2010), p. 89; Robert Galluci, 'Averting Nuclear Catastrophe:
Contemplating Extreme Responses to U.S. Vulnerability', Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, Vol. 607 (September 2006), pp. 5158.
63 Evidently, there exists substantial disagreement as to how or if terrorist organizations such as AlQaeda could ever use nuclear weapons. Thus whereas academics like John Mueller argue that their
intent for unleashing nuclear warfare has been grossly exaggerated, relevant government agencies
and research groups routinely assess such a threat much more urgent and real. See John Mueller,
Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010), pp. 161-216; The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment of Nuclear Terrorism"
15
16
their relative power, then there simply is no logical basis for supposing that nuclear
compellence might not sooner or later take up a pre-eminent role in the foreignpolicy strategy of a particular power.67 If anything, the prospect of more nuclear
states existing under anarchy could only function as an accelerator of conflict, and
thus not as a perpetual safeguard against it.68
Neo-realistis would also do well in appreciating that the primary reason
why the world has been spared large-scale conflict these past few decades was
ultimately anything but the merit of nuclear deterrence alone. Rather the nuclear
age also concurred with an era in which anarchy, though still a predominant and
formative aspect of international relations, arguably came to bear upon interstate
relationships in a more restrained and slightly less aggressive fashion than in
previous decades.69 Accordingly, it may not only have been the spectre of atomic
warfare which precluded powerful nations from engaging in acts of sustained
aggression, but also the realization that under the established order they simply
didn't stand to gain quite as much as earlier powers had done by reverting to all-out
warfare. Put differently, there existed less incentive for seeking major international
change, let alone for substituting the established system with a fundamentally
different order of international organization.70
Undoubtedly, nuclear weapons played a crucial part in preventing the
recrudescence of major international strife. Importantly, however, that fact alone
cannot insure future generations against their presence potentially still expediting
such conflict, especially once the benefits for operating in conformance with
international norms and standards cease to appeal to states in sufficient measure-or
are being resented altogether.71 That international actors might then be inclined to
take more belligerent approaches in pursuit of their national interests is after all not
67 Warren, 'Miscalculating Nuclear Deterrence in the Middle East', pp. 36-40.
68 Peter R. Lavoy, 'The Strategic Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation: A Review Essay', Security
Studies, Vol. 4:4 (Summer 1995), pp. 695-753.
69 Bluth, 'Norms and International Relations', pp. 4-8.
70 Richard Ned Lebow, 'The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism',
International Organization, Vol. 48:2 (Spring, 1994), pp. 269-273; John D. Mueller, Retreat from
Doomsday. The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989); Carl Kaysen, 'Is War
Obsolete: A Review Essay', International Security, Vol. 14:4 (Spring 1990), pp. 42-64.
71 Kerry M. Kartchner, Strategic Culture and WMD Decision Making, pp. 58-60.
17
only predicted by offensive realism itself,72 but anyone familiar with the history of
interstate relationships may likewise discern how contrary to prevalent realist
assumptions, intra-national developments in conjunction with distinctive
ideological, culturual and/or nationalist influences may at times also leave a
profound and lasting mark upon the formulation and implementation of decidedly
less pacific foreign policies.73 Hence, there can be no telling if, when or how a state
might attempt to rectify the international distribution of power in its own favour. In
such event, however, peace and stability may only escape lasting damage with
aggressors who ultimately dispose of but limited means for effecting the change
they seek, and that explicitly excludes the possession of nuclear arms.
Nuclear weapons may thus only help to preserve peace and security in an
international environment of restricted anarchy; otherwise they might well pose an
imminent threat to these ideals themselves. Surmising them capable of preventing
large-scale conflict on their own is ultimately to ignore the distinctive character
and structure of the international system itself, in particular that it is not a stable or
unalterable feature of inter-state relations,74 but rather a dynamic constellation
capable of not only engendering various strategic scenarios, but also different
national responses to it.75 It is likewise to ignore the impact of nation-states
domestic make-up upon their transnational affairs;76 and, most importantly, it is to
ignore how governments perceive or 'construct' themselves the nature and
constrictions of international anarchy.77 Do they consider self-help and aggression
a necessary function of anarchy, or rather an institution developed by state
72 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2001), pp. 131-133.
73 Joe D. Hagan, 'Domestic Political Systems and War Proneness', Mershon International Studies
Review, Vol. 38:2 (Oct, 1994), pp. 183-207; Michael C. Howard, 'Ideology and Internal Relations',
Review of International Studies, Vol. 15:1 (January 1989), pp. 1-10; Mark L. Haas, The Ideological
Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789-1989 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).
74 Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is what states make of it: the Social Construction of Power Politics',
International Organization ,Vol. 46:2 (Spring 1992), pp. 391-425.
75 Zaheer Kazmi, Polite Anarchy in International Relations Theory (New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2012), pp. 51-78.
76 Jack S. Levy, 'War and Domestic Politics', Journal of Interdisciplinary Politics, Vol. 18:4 (Spring
1988), pp. 653-573.
77 Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb, The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, Press, 1989), pp. 79-100.
18
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