Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation

Abstract

What roles have nuclear nonproliferation and counterproliferation played in U.S. grand strategy since 1945? 1 And what insights does this history provide into the sharp, contemporary debates over the past, present, and future trajectory of U.S. grand strategy?Most accounts of postwar U.S. grand strategy focus on two broad but distinct missions: (1) to contain great power rivals and (2) to open the world's economy and political systems to encourage the ºow of trade, resources, and capital.2 There has been considerable debate over the origins, continuity, and effectiveness of both the containment and openness missions, and over identifying when these strategies have been at odds and where they have overlapped.

First Principles First: International Relations Theory and the Debate Over U.S. Grand Strategy

“…There are a number of studies examining U.S. nonproliferation tools (for a discussion see Gavin, 2015), but more fine-grained analyses addressing the effectiveness of individual and combined policy levers is needed. For instance, research that disentangles whether the U.S. commitment is sufficient to provide leverage (closest to Deep Engagement), or must be coupled with a global/regional institutional order (Liberal Internationalism), and/or a strong commitment to use force against potential proliferators (Conservative Internationalism) would be informative.…”

Variation in delegation size in multilateral diplomacy

“…The desire to prevent the emergence of new nuclear powers was present already at the time of negotiation of the NPT (Popp et al, 2017;Shaker, 1980), particularly for the United States. The very idea of the non-proliferation regime has been very strongly supported by the successive American administrations, and the United States has successfully used sanctions to oppose the emergence of new nuclear powers (Gavin, 2015;Miller, 2014). Even countries like France, once paying little attention to the risks of nuclear proliferation, over time have become extremely concerned with such risks and have become very strong promotors of non-proliferation norms (Pouponneau and Mérand, 2017).…”

Fools Rush Out? The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing

“…In case after case over the past several decades-from Germany and Italy to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan-this combination of factors has been central to keeping the nuclear club surprisingly small and exclusive. 40 In this context, it is hard to see how adopting offshore balancing would put the nuclear genie back in the bottle in a case like North Korea. But it is easy to imagine how that shift would dramatically increase proliferation pressures elsewhere.…”