Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1788779
Łukasz Kulesa
ABSTRACT In 2013, Poland embarked on an ambitious and wide-ranging program to acquire conventional long-range precision-strike capabilities. The two main reasons were to strengthen the operational capacities of the armed forces to face what they perceived to be an increased danger of a military conflict with Russia; and, second, to create a stronger deterrent effect by demonstrating a credible threat to retaliate against targets inside Russia in the event of an attack. While previously Poland had relied predominantly on the deterrence effect of its membership in NATO and its close relations with the United States, the launch of the “Polish fangs” project demonstrated a more nuanced approach. Poland would work toward increasing the credibility of NATO’s deterrence posture, while also investing in independent long-range strike capabilities as a way to broaden its options. The process of acquiring and operationalizing the elements of the Polish long-range strike complex is ongoing, with little effect so far on broader strategic stability and balance of forces in Europe.
{"title":"Operationalizing the “Polish fangs”: Poland and long-range precision strike","authors":"Łukasz Kulesa","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1788779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1788779","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 2013, Poland embarked on an ambitious and wide-ranging program to acquire conventional long-range precision-strike capabilities. The two main reasons were to strengthen the operational capacities of the armed forces to face what they perceived to be an increased danger of a military conflict with Russia; and, second, to create a stronger deterrent effect by demonstrating a credible threat to retaliate against targets inside Russia in the event of an attack. While previously Poland had relied predominantly on the deterrence effect of its membership in NATO and its close relations with the United States, the launch of the “Polish fangs” project demonstrated a more nuanced approach. Poland would work toward increasing the credibility of NATO’s deterrence posture, while also investing in independent long-range strike capabilities as a way to broaden its options. The process of acquiring and operationalizing the elements of the Polish long-range strike complex is ongoing, with little effect so far on broader strategic stability and balance of forces in Europe.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1788779","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46758500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1775987
BreAnne K. Fleer
ABSTRACT Violence by far-right extremists has risen globally and domestically in recent years. While most media and academic attention has focused on mass shootings and other deadly conventional attacks, far-right non-state actors have also considered developing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Some far-right extremists have suggested using radiological devices, often referred to as “weapons of mass disruption,” as one means to achieve their ideological goals. Although radiological plots and successful attacks have rarely occurred, the presence of unsecured radioactive sources across the United States augments the danger of this type of terrorism. To explore dimensions of the radiological-weapons threat posed by domestic far-right extremists, this paper studies three illustrative cases of possible radiological-weapons pursuit since 2008, aiming to identify lessons from these incidents. An in-depth examination of the cases reveals foremost that some actors successfully acquired materials needed for a radiological weapon without triggering intervention by authorities. Additionally, although the individuals did not plot in large, hierarchical groups, they had links to other people and organizations that shared their far-right views and allegedly discussed their plans with others. While broad generalizations cannot be made from three cases, these incidents provide concrete examples of the far-right radiological-weapons threat and context for understanding how far-right extremists view the role of CBRN weapons.
{"title":"Radiological-weapons threats: case studies from the extreme right","authors":"BreAnne K. Fleer","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1775987","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1775987","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Violence by far-right extremists has risen globally and domestically in recent years. While most media and academic attention has focused on mass shootings and other deadly conventional attacks, far-right non-state actors have also considered developing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Some far-right extremists have suggested using radiological devices, often referred to as “weapons of mass disruption,” as one means to achieve their ideological goals. Although radiological plots and successful attacks have rarely occurred, the presence of unsecured radioactive sources across the United States augments the danger of this type of terrorism. To explore dimensions of the radiological-weapons threat posed by domestic far-right extremists, this paper studies three illustrative cases of possible radiological-weapons pursuit since 2008, aiming to identify lessons from these incidents. An in-depth examination of the cases reveals foremost that some actors successfully acquired materials needed for a radiological weapon without triggering intervention by authorities. Additionally, although the individuals did not plot in large, hierarchical groups, they had links to other people and organizations that shared their far-right views and allegedly discussed their plans with others. While broad generalizations cannot be made from three cases, these incidents provide concrete examples of the far-right radiological-weapons threat and context for understanding how far-right extremists view the role of CBRN weapons.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1775987","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48472876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1795370
Dmitry Stefanovich
ABSTRACT Russian military officials, scholars, and politicians have long been aware of reconnaissance-strike systems, and have developed a sophisticated set of military countermeasures, as well as a number of weapons with roughly the same traits. Russia monitors the ongoing proliferation of such weapons in Europe and sometimes uses it for political purposes, but general planning remains focused on the capabilities of the United States and NATO. Arms-control measures within this domain seem to be hardly possible right now, although there are several options that policy makers might consider useful, including unilateral transparency measures. The prospect of rapid development and massive deployment of new intermediate-range missiles in Europe in the mode of yet another conventional precision weapon must drive the search for advanced security-architecture ideas. Most of all, communication, including military to military, is essential for avoiding misperceptions and eventual incidents that could easily spark an all-out conflict.
{"title":"Proliferation and threats of reconnaissance-strike systems: a Russian perspective","authors":"Dmitry Stefanovich","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1795370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1795370","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Russian military officials, scholars, and politicians have long been aware of reconnaissance-strike systems, and have developed a sophisticated set of military countermeasures, as well as a number of weapons with roughly the same traits. Russia monitors the ongoing proliferation of such weapons in Europe and sometimes uses it for political purposes, but general planning remains focused on the capabilities of the United States and NATO. Arms-control measures within this domain seem to be hardly possible right now, although there are several options that policy makers might consider useful, including unilateral transparency measures. The prospect of rapid development and massive deployment of new intermediate-range missiles in Europe in the mode of yet another conventional precision weapon must drive the search for advanced security-architecture ideas. Most of all, communication, including military to military, is essential for avoiding misperceptions and eventual incidents that could easily spark an all-out conflict.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1795370","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48812587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1800314
Izumi Nakamitsu
ABSTRACT The United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs offers concluding thoughts on this special issue of the Nonproliferation Review, highlighting recent work that the international community has undertaken on the challenges of long-range conventional weapons, and offering recommendations for ameliorating the effects these weapons may have on strategic stability and international peace and security.
{"title":"Concluding commentary","authors":"Izumi Nakamitsu","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1800314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1800314","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs offers concluding thoughts on this special issue of the Nonproliferation Review, highlighting recent work that the international community has undertaken on the challenges of long-range conventional weapons, and offering recommendations for ameliorating the effects these weapons may have on strategic stability and international peace and security.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1800314","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45527829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1766226
H. Notte
ABSTRACT This article analyzes the drivers of US–Russian cooperation in the disarmament of Syria’s declared chemical weapons (CW) in 2013–14, emphasizing the primary importance of credible coercion vis-à-vis the Syrian government. It identifies additional significant drivers—including the resonance of institutional memory of cooperation through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs; continued interest alignment for Russia through consensus on a hybrid disarmament framework; and constructive relationships among senior officials on both sides—while also showing the relevance of Russian sensitivities to status, the prospects of a new round of Syria peace talks planned at the time (“Geneva II”), and expectations of positive “spillover” from narrow cooperation on Syrian CW into other areas of US–Russian relations. The article further traces and explains the unravelling of internal consensus within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the Syrian CW file between 2014 and the present day, analyzing growing frictions over the Fact-Finding Mission, the Joint Investigative Mechanism, and the Investigation and Identification Team. Disagreements within the OPCW over these issues became increasingly viewed as inextricably linked to the broader geopolitical Russia–West confrontation. Finally, the article probes the resultant implications for prospects of universalizing the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention and making progress toward a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East.
{"title":"The United States, Russia, and Syria’s chemical weapons: a tale of cooperation and its unravelling","authors":"H. Notte","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1766226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1766226","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyzes the drivers of US–Russian cooperation in the disarmament of Syria’s declared chemical weapons (CW) in 2013–14, emphasizing the primary importance of credible coercion vis-à-vis the Syrian government. It identifies additional significant drivers—including the resonance of institutional memory of cooperation through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs; continued interest alignment for Russia through consensus on a hybrid disarmament framework; and constructive relationships among senior officials on both sides—while also showing the relevance of Russian sensitivities to status, the prospects of a new round of Syria peace talks planned at the time (“Geneva II”), and expectations of positive “spillover” from narrow cooperation on Syrian CW into other areas of US–Russian relations. The article further traces and explains the unravelling of internal consensus within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the Syrian CW file between 2014 and the present day, analyzing growing frictions over the Fact-Finding Mission, the Joint Investigative Mechanism, and the Investigation and Identification Team. Disagreements within the OPCW over these issues became increasingly viewed as inextricably linked to the broader geopolitical Russia–West confrontation. Finally, the article probes the resultant implications for prospects of universalizing the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention and making progress toward a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1766226","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45969853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1809156
Joshua H. Pollack, Minji Kim
ABSTRACT South Korea’s sustained pursuit of conventional precision-strike capabilities and greater autonomy in military decision making is reshaping strategic-stability dynamics between its nuclear-armed ally, the United States, and its nuclear-armed adversary, North Korea. For the last decade, advances in conventional, precision-strike missiles in both Koreas have accompanied reciprocal threats of pre-emption and attacks on leaders, creating a new pathway for a crisis to escalate into a war. Given US security guarantees to South Korea, and North Korea’s development of a nuclear arsenal to deter the United States, any large-scale armed conflict in Korea is liable to involve the use of nuclear weapons. The traditional concern of the alliance with the quality of extended deterrence should be broadened to reflect an understanding of this triangular stability dynamic.
{"title":"South Korea’s missile forces and the emergence of triangular strategic (in)stability","authors":"Joshua H. Pollack, Minji Kim","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1809156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1809156","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT South Korea’s sustained pursuit of conventional precision-strike capabilities and greater autonomy in military decision making is reshaping strategic-stability dynamics between its nuclear-armed ally, the United States, and its nuclear-armed adversary, North Korea. For the last decade, advances in conventional, precision-strike missiles in both Koreas have accompanied reciprocal threats of pre-emption and attacks on leaders, creating a new pathway for a crisis to escalate into a war. Given US security guarantees to South Korea, and North Korea’s development of a nuclear arsenal to deter the United States, any large-scale armed conflict in Korea is liable to involve the use of nuclear weapons. The traditional concern of the alliance with the quality of extended deterrence should be broadened to reflect an understanding of this triangular stability dynamic.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1809156","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42775399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1803561
J. O’Mahoney
ABSTRACT The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) faced a serious threat only a few years after it came into force in 1970. India’s “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) in May 1974 rocked the nuclear-nonproliferation regime and cast doubt on the prospects of the NPT. Yet during the two years following the PNE, several significant countries ratified the treaty. Why did states that had been notable holdouts, like Italy, Japan, and South Korea, ratify the treaty soon after the Indian nuclear test? This article finds that the PNE galvanized pro-NPT forces in the United States and Canada, leading to changes in nonproliferation policy. In particular, it led them to threaten to withhold access to nuclear technology and materials unless the holdouts ratified the NPT. It also motivated Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to change his secret advice to Japan that the United States did not want Japan to ratify the NPT in order to keep the People’s Republic of China unsure about Japan’s nuclear intentions.
{"title":"The Smiling Buddha effect: Canadian and US policy after India's 1974 nuclear test","authors":"J. O’Mahoney","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1803561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1803561","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) faced a serious threat only a few years after it came into force in 1970. India’s “peaceful nuclear explosion” (PNE) in May 1974 rocked the nuclear-nonproliferation regime and cast doubt on the prospects of the NPT. Yet during the two years following the PNE, several significant countries ratified the treaty. Why did states that had been notable holdouts, like Italy, Japan, and South Korea, ratify the treaty soon after the Indian nuclear test? This article finds that the PNE galvanized pro-NPT forces in the United States and Canada, leading to changes in nonproliferation policy. In particular, it led them to threaten to withhold access to nuclear technology and materials unless the holdouts ratified the NPT. It also motivated Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to change his secret advice to Japan that the United States did not want Japan to ratify the NPT in order to keep the People’s Republic of China unsure about Japan’s nuclear intentions.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1803561","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46612477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.2005293
Joshua H. Pollack
The centerpiece of this issue is a collection of articles resulting from a project undertaken by research staff members of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) with the support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This study explores the consequences of the proliferation of longrange conventional precision-strike technology to certain countries—namely, those that do not possess nuclear weapons but have one or more nuclear-armed allies or partners and one or more nuclear-armed would-be adversaries. This topic occupies a special niche within a burgeoning field of study: the effects of “emerging” technologies on strategic stability. Unlike artificial intelligence, drone swarms, or quantum computing, precision strike is not a novel or experimental set of techniques; its present state of “emergence” is found instead in its dissemination across international boundaries. No longer do leading military powers such as the United States, Russia, and China have a near-monopoly on these weapons, which are now spreading rapidly across Asia and Europe. To gain an initial understanding of the implications of this trend for strategic stability, RUSI and CNS researchers examined countries “under the nuclear umbrella”—that is, those countries that rely explicitly or implicitly on an ally’s “extended” nuclear deterrence to contend with potential nuclear threats. In practice, this category currently involves treaty allies of the United States—through either bilateral treaties or the NATO alliance—and certain countries indirectly linked to NATO through membership in the European Union. The traditional concerns of extended deterrence center on geopolitics and nonproliferation: if a recipient state finds itself insufficiently “assured,” its leaders might either seek accommodation with an adversary or set out to acquire a nuclear arsenal of their own. But acquiring long-range conventional strike capabilities has begun to alter the relationships of these countries with their nuclear-armed allies and to shift their own position within the complications of nuclear policy. Strategic stability has entered the picture. Defense policy makers in nuclear-armed states tend to appreciate that their own conventional precision-strike weapons increasingly may pose a threat to an adversary’s nuclear forces, command-and-control systems, or leadership, either in conjunction with their nuclear forces or by themselves. In this context, precision strikes are already understood as a potential tool of preemption. Their influence on strategic stability—
{"title":"Introduction to the special section on non-nuclear-armed states, precision strike, and nuclear risk","authors":"Joshua H. Pollack","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.2005293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.2005293","url":null,"abstract":"The centerpiece of this issue is a collection of articles resulting from a project undertaken by research staff members of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) with the support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This study explores the consequences of the proliferation of longrange conventional precision-strike technology to certain countries—namely, those that do not possess nuclear weapons but have one or more nuclear-armed allies or partners and one or more nuclear-armed would-be adversaries. This topic occupies a special niche within a burgeoning field of study: the effects of “emerging” technologies on strategic stability. Unlike artificial intelligence, drone swarms, or quantum computing, precision strike is not a novel or experimental set of techniques; its present state of “emergence” is found instead in its dissemination across international boundaries. No longer do leading military powers such as the United States, Russia, and China have a near-monopoly on these weapons, which are now spreading rapidly across Asia and Europe. To gain an initial understanding of the implications of this trend for strategic stability, RUSI and CNS researchers examined countries “under the nuclear umbrella”—that is, those countries that rely explicitly or implicitly on an ally’s “extended” nuclear deterrence to contend with potential nuclear threats. In practice, this category currently involves treaty allies of the United States—through either bilateral treaties or the NATO alliance—and certain countries indirectly linked to NATO through membership in the European Union. The traditional concerns of extended deterrence center on geopolitics and nonproliferation: if a recipient state finds itself insufficiently “assured,” its leaders might either seek accommodation with an adversary or set out to acquire a nuclear arsenal of their own. But acquiring long-range conventional strike capabilities has begun to alter the relationships of these countries with their nuclear-armed allies and to shift their own position within the complications of nuclear policy. Strategic stability has entered the picture. Defense policy makers in nuclear-armed states tend to appreciate that their own conventional precision-strike weapons increasingly may pose a threat to an adversary’s nuclear forces, command-and-control systems, or leadership, either in conjunction with their nuclear forces or by themselves. In this context, precision strikes are already understood as a potential tool of preemption. Their influence on strategic stability—","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47753198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.2003561
Joshua H. Pollack, Cristina Varriale, T. Plant
Multiple non-nuclear-armed states in alliances with nuclear-armed states are in the process of acquiring long-range, conventionally armed precision-strike weapons, some of which have potential to contribute to attacks on enemy nuclear forces. This change in the distribution of advanced military technologies has the unintended consequence of giving these non-nuclear-armed states an active role in strategic stability. We provide a theoretical framework for understanding the newly emerging pathways to nuclear use that result. We also investigate perceptions of the role of precision-strike capabilities in six non-nuclear-armed states at various stages in the process of developing these capabilities.
{"title":"The changing role of allied conventional precision-strike capabilities in nuclear decision making","authors":"Joshua H. Pollack, Cristina Varriale, T. Plant","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.2003561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.2003561","url":null,"abstract":"Multiple non-nuclear-armed states in alliances with nuclear-armed states are in the process of acquiring long-range, conventionally armed precision-strike weapons, some of which have potential to contribute to attacks on enemy nuclear forces. This change in the distribution of advanced military technologies has the unintended consequence of giving these non-nuclear-armed states an active role in strategic stability. We provide a theoretical framework for understanding the newly emerging pathways to nuclear use that result. We also investigate perceptions of the role of precision-strike capabilities in six non-nuclear-armed states at various stages in the process of developing these capabilities.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47245607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2020.1778907
Timothy P. McDonnell
ABSTRACT The US nuclear-policy community did not always accept today’s conventional wisdom that a state’s first nuclear test is a critical milestone; that even a small, rudimentary nuclear arsenal is a major concern; and that preventing states, even allies, from acquiring nuclear weapons should be a core US foreign-policy goal. Between 1958 and 1963, Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy experimented with three different responses to the French nuclear-weapons program: (1) offering to share US-owned nuclear weapons liberally; (2) leaving France to pursue nuclear weapons unaided; and (3) offering to sell France advanced submarines and missiles. Each of these approaches was the product of evolving beliefs about when a state “went nuclear,” the potency of small arsenals, and whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons among allies undermined or advanced US interests. Understanding how Washington shifted its stance during this period sheds important light on the origins and nature of US nonproliferation policy today.
{"title":"Figuring it out the hard way: America, France, and the challenges of allied pursuit of nuclear weapons, 1958–63","authors":"Timothy P. McDonnell","doi":"10.1080/10736700.2020.1778907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2020.1778907","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The US nuclear-policy community did not always accept today’s conventional wisdom that a state’s first nuclear test is a critical milestone; that even a small, rudimentary nuclear arsenal is a major concern; and that preventing states, even allies, from acquiring nuclear weapons should be a core US foreign-policy goal. Between 1958 and 1963, Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy experimented with three different responses to the French nuclear-weapons program: (1) offering to share US-owned nuclear weapons liberally; (2) leaving France to pursue nuclear weapons unaided; and (3) offering to sell France advanced submarines and missiles. Each of these approaches was the product of evolving beliefs about when a state “went nuclear,” the potency of small arsenals, and whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons among allies undermined or advanced US interests. Understanding how Washington shifted its stance during this period sheds important light on the origins and nature of US nonproliferation policy today.","PeriodicalId":35157,"journal":{"name":"Nonproliferation Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10736700.2020.1778907","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44945854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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