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Nuclear Devolution and World Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

John J. Weltman
John J. Weltman
Affiliation:
Australian National University
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Abstract

This essay examines the balance of constraints and advantages set by the international environment, as that balance impinges upon national decisions relating to the acquisition of nuclear weaponry. The effect of the balance is to reduce constraints against such acquisition, and to increase advantages; thus, some increase in the number of nuclear-weapons states is likely. It is possible that the general and local effects on international stability which would follow from such an increase in number may not affect the stability of the central balance adversely. The effects in local nuclearized environments will vary, depending in part on the policies of outsiders, but any assumption of massive instability would be unwarranted.

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Type
Research Article
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World Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , January 1980 , pp. 169 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1980

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References

1 The literature on nuclear proliferation is extensive, and we will not attempt to note it exhaustively here. Major bibliographies can be found in Dunn, Lewis A. and Kahn, Herman, Trends in Nuclear Proliferation, 1975–1995 (Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Hudson Institute 1976)Google Scholar; Wohlstetter, Albert and others, Moving Toward Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd? (Los Angeles: Pan Heuristics 1976)Google Scholar. For an encyclopedic collection of data and documents, see Nuclear Proliferation Factbook (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office 1977). An account of recent developments, and an authoritative projection as to the state of the uranium market, can be found in Strategic Survey, 1977 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies 1978), 108–13.

For some recent studies of note, see (in addition to the above); Maddox, John, “Prospects for Nuclear Proliferation,” Adelphi Papers, No. 113 (Spring 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenwood, Ted and others, Nuclear Proliferation (New York: McGraw-Hill 1977)Google Scholar; The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (March 1977); Gompert, David C. and others, Nuclear Weapons and World Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill 1977)Google Scholar; Quester, George H., The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1973)Google Scholar; SIPRI, Safeguards Against Nuclear Proliferation (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press 1975)Google Scholar; Epstein, William, The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control (New York: Free Press 1976)Google Scholar; Marwah, Onkar and Schulz, Ann, eds., Nuclear Proliferation and the Near-Nuclear Countries (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger 1975)Google Scholar; Lawrence, Robert M. and Larus, Joel, eds., Nuclear Proliferation: Phase II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 1974)Google Scholar.

For an account of the evolution of American attitudes toward nuclear proliferation, see Bader, William B., The United States and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Pegasus 1968)Google Scholar. Current U.S. policy is embodied formally in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978. For accounts of this policy, see Nye, Joseph S., “Nonproliferation: A Long-Term Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 56 (April 1978), 601–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, Frederick and others, “The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978: Reactions from Germany, India, and Japan,” International Security, iii (Fall 1978), 44–66Google Scholar.

2 For an understanding of this process, see, e.g., Quester, George H., Nuclear Diplomacy: The First Twenty-Five Years (New York: Dunellen 1970)Google Scholar.

3 See Weltman, “On the Obsolescence of War,” International Studies Quarterly, xviii (December 1974), 395–416.

4 See Waltz, Kenneth N., “The Stability of a Bipolar World,” Daedalus, Vol. 93 (Summer 1964)Google Scholar; Osgood, Robert E. and Tucker, Robert W., Force, Order and Justice (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1967), esp. 3–192Google Scholar.

5 See, e.g., the following articles, all in Annals (fn. i): Lewis A. Dunn, “Nuclear Proliferation and World Politics,” 96–109; Frederick C. Thayer, “Proliferation and the Future: Destruction or Transformation,” 133–46; Michael Nacht, “The United States in a World of Nuclear Powers,” 162–74.

6 For an early prediction of the extensive spread of nuclear weapons, based simply on a survey of capabilities, see National Planning Association, tgyo Without Arms Control (Washington, D.C 1958)Google Scholar. If, for purposes of simplification, we take the date of first detonation of a nuclear device as marking the emergence of a new nuclear power, the intervals are as follows:

First (U.S.A., 1945) to second (U.S.S.R., 1949): 4 years

Second to third (U.K., 1952): 3 years

Third to fourth (France, 1960): 8 years

Fourth to fifth (China, 1964): 4 years

Fifth to sixth (India, 1974—“peaceful”): 10 years

7 For analyses of factors impinging upon the French, British, and Chinese decisions, see, e.g., Rosecrance, Richard N., The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press 1964)Google Scholar.

8 See Wohlstetter (fn. 1).

9 See, e.g., Ryukichi Imai, “Safeguards against Diversion of Nuclear Material: An Overview,” Annals (fn. 1), 58–69.

10 See, e.g., Maddox (fn. 1).

11 See, e.g., Greenwood (fn. 1), 99–107.

12 See Maddox (fn. 1), esp. 8–14.

13 Ibid., 22–26; SIPRI (fn, 1).

14 At the time of writing, reports in the public press suggest that the “direct” route, via surreptitious acquisition of an uranium enrichment plant, has been chosen by Pakistan. See International Herald Tribune, April 18, 1979, and May 3, 1979.

15 See, e.g., Rosecrance (fn. 7), 308; Beaton, Leonard and Maddox, John, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons (London: Institute for Strategic Studies 1962), 19Google Scholar.

16 For some discussions of Israel's creative use of the manipulation of ambiguity, see George H. Quester (fn. 1), 82–102; Evron, Yair, “Israel and the Atom: The Uses and Misuses of Ambiguity, 1957–1967,” Orbis, xvii (Winter 1974), 1326–43Google Scholar; Freedman, Lawrence, “Israel's Nuclear Policy,” Survival, xviii (May-June 1975), 114–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dowty, Alan, “Nuclear Proliferation: The Israeli Case,” International Studies Quarterly, xxii (March 1978), 79–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Schelling, , “Who Will Have the Bomb?,” International Security, 1 (Summer 1976), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley 1979)Google Scholar.

19 See, e.g., Tucker, Robert W., The Inequality of Nations (New York: Basic Books 1977)Google Scholar.

20 For a recent survey of the literature on the effects of interdependence, see Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr., “International Interdependence and Integration,” in Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., eds., Handbook, of Political Science, VIII (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley 1975), 363–414Google Scholar. The argument denying that the modern world has become more interdependent is made by Waltz, Kenneth, “The Myth of National Interdependence,” in Kindleberger, Charles, ed., The International Corporation: A Symposium (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press 1970)Google Scholar.

21 See, e.g., Tucker (fn. 19); Bull, Hedley, The Anarchical Society (London: Macmillan 1977), 316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Kothari, “Sources of Conflict in the 1980's,” Adelphi Papers, No. 134 (Spring 1977). 2.

23 Ibid., 6.

24 Cf., e.g., Gallois, Pierre, The Balance of Terror: Strategy for the Nuclear Age (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1961)Google Scholar; Liska, George, “Nuclear Diffusion: Domestic, Regional, and Global Perspectives,” in Political Problems of Nth Country Arms Choices 1966–1980 (Columbus, Ohio: Mershon Center for Education in National Security, Ohio State University 1965), 86–119Google Scholar.

25 This is the burden of Stanley Hoffmann's argument in “Nuclear Proliferation and World Politics,” in Buchan, Alastair, ed., A World of Nuclear Powers? (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1966), 89–121Google Scholar. See also Deutsch, Karl W. and Singer, J. David, “Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability,” World Politics, xvi (April 1964), 390–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Buchan's “Introduction,” in Buchan, op. cit., 1–11. The classic argument for the virtues of a bipolar situation, as inducing a general political calculability and thus stability, is made by Kenneth Waltz (fn. 4).

26 “Terror in Theory and Practice,” in Hoffmann, , The State of War (New York: Praeger 1965), 251Google Scholar.

27 Beaton and Maddox (fn. 15), 202–3.

28 Bull (fn. 21), 125–26.

29 Schelling, , The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1960)Google Scholar, passim.

30 See also Waltz, Kenneth N., “What Will the Spread of Nuclear Weapons Do to the World?” in King, John Kerry, ed., International Political Effects of the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O 1979)Google Scholar.