Conflict and Cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation

Abstract

This article critically reviews scholarship on the role of conflict and cooperation in conditioning nuclear proliferation. We start by laying out the trajectory of scholarship on the causes of proliferation, organizing it in three waves: (a) security and (b) nonsecurity drivers of proliferation, and (c) supply constraints on nuclear acquisition. We then examine the recent turn in the proliferation literature toward a strategic interaction approach, focusing on how conflict and cooperation between proliferators, their adversaries, and their allies shape the spread of nuclear weapons. We argue for an integrated framework for analyzing the tools states can deploy to foster or stymie proliferation. Finally, we sketch an agenda for research on nuclear proliferation. Here, we argue that scholarship should (a) incorporate nonsecurity dynamics into the strategic interaction approach to the study of proliferation and (b) combine rigorous theory with careful historical research to further our understanding of the causes of proliferation.

Why Nuclear? Explaining North Korea’s Strategic Choice of Going Nuclear and Its Implications for East Asian Security

“…For instance, by viewing North Korea’s nuclear weapons essentially as a tool to strengthen its weakened international position, Cha and Kang’s accounts have limitations in explaining Pyongyang’s persistent pursuit of nuclear weapons regardless of its improved position in the international system (e.g., the replacement of the Soviet Union by China as North Korea’s main patron, and South Korea’s pledge to help North Korea’s economic development at inter-Korean summits). Hymans’ account of North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons would be convincing if only we were to know where national identity conceptions come from, since a leader’s threat assessment has much to do with the strategic circumstances the state faces (Debs and Monteiro, 2017: 335). Likewise, Solingen’s (2007) account cannot satisfactorily explain why North Korea’s inward-looking elites facing external threats insist on acquiring nuclear weapons while many other countries that have similar characteristics (i.e., inward-looking elites) to North Korea (e.g., Cuba) do not.…”

“… 1 Debs and Monteiro point out that, until quite recently, security considerations in the process of nuclear proliferation have largely been neglected in the literature. See Debs and Monteiro (2017: 346). …”