Nuclear Proliferation and Counter-Proliferation: Policy Issues and Debates

Schneider, Barry R.

doi:10.2307/222715

Cited by 18 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…According to Schneider (1994:216), potentially the most useful means to terminate acquisition efforts once begun are (i) the prevention of access to nuclear technology; (ii) the provision of alternatives to nuclear weapons; and (iii) the use of military force. Each of these counter‐proliferation strategies involves inherent trade‐offs regarding effectiveness and cost.…”

Section: Nuclear Proliferation and Conventional Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Support for preemption is only likely to be solid if the proliferator has not been dissuaded from proliferating by other means and is immediately and directly threatening something of great interest to a potential attacker (Quester 1981). Also, since tactical surprise is difficult to achieve and targeting intelligence difficult to gather, conventional attacks are unlikely to affect total destruction of all materiel, which would subsequently lead to the survival of the program and the redoubling of proliferation efforts on the part of the target (Schneider 1994). 5 Finally, the diplomatic environment and the state of both the proliferator’s nuclear program and conventional arsenal have important ramifications for destructive preemption decisions.…”

Section: Nuclear Proliferation and Conventional Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Waltz (1981Waltz ( , 1990 argues, endemic proliferation may instill general stability and foreign policy responsibility. In more specific settings, a proliferator's (State A) acquisition of nuclear weapons might be supported by another (State B) when acquisition offsets the power of State B's rivals (for example, for the United States, the Ukraine and Pakistan)-or guarantees the existential security of State A (for example, Israel)-without constraining State B's diplomatic options or requiring it to lend prohibitively costly military support (Mearsheimer 1993;Martel and Pendley 1994;Schneider 1994). 5 See also Wilson (1991), who posits that the failure of potential opponents to recognize the extreme difficulty in weaponizing nuclear energy programs causes them to take unnecessary risks through militarized preemption.…”

Section: Nuclear Proliferation and Conventional Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6 6 Indeed, Schneider (1994:226) identifies only four such instances of “preemptive counter‐proliferation” since World War II. Three of these involved the targeting of Iraq (by Iran in 1980; by Israel in 1981; and by the United States in 1991), while the remaining instance involved the targeting of Iran (by Iraq in 1987).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001

Sobek

Foster

Robison

2012

International Studies Quarterly

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The possession of nuclear weapons confers many benefits on a state. The path to proliferation, however, is often violent. When a state initiates a nuclear weapons program, it signals its intent to fundamentally alter its bargaining environment. States that once had an advantage will now be disadvantaged. This change in the environment is not instantaneous, but evolves slowly over time. This gives states both opportunities and incentives to resolve underlying grievances, by force if necessary, before a nuclear weapons program is completed. Our cross-national analyses of nuclear weapons program and the onset of militarized conflict confirm this expectation. In particular, the closer a state gets to acquiring nuclear weapons, the greater the risk it will be attacked (especially over territorial issues). Once nuclear weapons are acquired, however, the risk of being attacked dramatically drops, though not below the risk of attack for non-proliferators.Conventional wisdom holds that the possession of nuclear weapons offers states security from a number of international threats. In particular, the possession of nuclear weapons insulates a state from challenges to its most salient concerns (such as territorial integrity). While ultimately beneficial to proliferators, the path to nuclear status is generally neither instantaneous nor undetectable. As such, it behooves states that wish to challenge proliferators to realize their political goals sooner rather than later. Proliferators, on the other hand, have an incentive to delay the resolution of the contentious issue until the deployment of their nuclear weapons.In this article, we use this set of interacting incentives as a point of departure in delineating a theory of the relationship between the nuclear proliferation process and the frequency with which proliferators are targeted in conventional militarized conflicts. Though much previous scholarship has been devoted to this question, we believe that extant views have focused too narrowly on one subset of that relationship: the preemptive employment of conventional capabilities by status quo powers in order to physically disable or destroy proliferators' nascent nuclear programs. In developing a broader treatment of the strategic interaction between states, we posit that the various stages of deterrent nuclear proliferation are best conceived of as sequential steps in a bargaining process over preexisting disputes that were instrumental in spurring proliferators to consider nuclear options. As such, we contend that the primary rationale for status quo states' conventional targeting of proliferators should derive not from the desire to physically disrupt nuclear development (which is, at best, a difficult task), but from the desire to reach favorable conclusions to underlying disputes before the deployment of nuclear weapons drastically complicates the issue.The effect of nuclear proliferation on conventional targeting is tested quantitatively by looking at states in four different stages of the proliferation process: n...

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Section: Nuclear Proliferation and Conventional Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nuclear Proliferation and Conventional Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nuclear Proliferation and Conventional Coercionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001

Sobek

Foster

Robison

2012

International Studies Quarterly

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“…The studies of international relations from different international policy approaches (Adler & Barnett, 1998; Davis, 1993; Farrell, 2002; Gartzke & Kroenig, 2009; Hymans, 2006; Lavoy, 1993; Monteiro & Debs, 2014; Nacht et al, 2021; Schneider, 1994; Snyder, 1990; Thayer, 1995; Waltz, 2012) have analysed these paradigmatic cases of nuclear proliferation. Technology produces results beyond itself, over society.…”

Section: Strategic Technologies and International Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Press and the Intelligence Community: The Construction of OTRAG and Cóndor as Global Threats

Blinder

2024

International Studies

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This article studies the way the US government through the Central Intelligence Agency, the Washington Post and the New York Times approached in tandem the development of rockets in Argentina and in two African countries (Zaire and Libya) during the last stretch of the Cold War. A qualitative analysis is carried out from primary government and journalistic sources, looking at how the media acted alongside the government and the intelligence community, providing the same information and a very similar interpretation of the facts, building common sense and a geopolitical imaginary. This is a geopolitical analysis of the construction of imagery of the dangerous identity of the OTRAG and the Cóndor II in the 1970s and 1980s. The conclusions show that both cases were construed as a geopolitical identity on non-core countries that ended in pressures, the projects be terminated, managing to build a sense by which the economic and political interests of the United States were projected hegemonically as universal interests.

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Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime: Between Prevention and Prohibition

Růžička¹

2018

Regulating Global Security

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Nuclear Proliferation and Counter-Proliferation: Policy Issues and Debates

Cited by 18 publications

References 52 publications

Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001

Conventional Wisdom? The Effect of Nuclear Proliferation on Armed Conflict, 1945-2001

The Press and the Intelligence Community: The Construction of OTRAG and Cóndor as Global Threats

Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime: Between Prevention and Prohibition

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