Proliferation Theory
This term refers to competition between two or more countries to stockpile nuclear weapons. Historically, the United States and U.S.S.R’s Cold War military actions have been the best example of this proliferation term happening until treaties like the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) began to limit their arsenals in the 1960s (De Bruin April 28th Slides).
What is a Nuclear Arms Race?
By 1960, this is the country, out of France, the United Kingdom, and Israel, that had not yet begun to proliferate (De Bruin April 28th Slides)
What is Israel?
'Sticks and Carrots’ includes rewards such as security guarantees, economic assistance and sanction relief, military assistance, and face-saving political benefits and punishments such as economic sanctions, conditional threats of alliance abandonment, and external military intervention for this purpose (Mehta 2020).
What is nuclear reversal?
This nuclear weapons option involves a country using peaceful premises like energy programs to develop the capacity for a bomb. This method allows a country to mitigate international interventions to stop proliferation and to rapidly build (or threaten to rapidly build) a nuclear arsenal during conflict (Brewer et al 2022).
What is hedging?
In this year, the U.S.S.R. overcame the United States for the first time in number of nuclear warheads (Plokhy 2011).
What is 1977 (De Bruin March 3rd Slides)?
This treaty has states agreeing that they are obligated to help remediate harms of nuclear testing by helping victims and taking steps to stop environmental consequences (NTI.org 2022).
What is The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)?
This Western country developed a nuclear arsenal in the mid to late 1900s that couldn’t resolve security concerns because it was incapable of assured retaliation but operated as a symbol of status and modernity (Seitz 2021).
What is France?
The following factors had this impact on the likelihood of war between India and Pakistan:
Pakistan's asymmetric escalation posture, the preponderance of positive rather than negative control procedures on their nuclear weapons, transportation of nuclear materials either over poor infrastructure or clandestinely and through tunnel networks, and growing anti-Indian terrorism (Narang 2010; Narang 2019; Markey 2023).
What is increased risk?
Ukraine had turned over their post-Cold War U.S.S.R. arsenal voluntarily to Russia. Currently, Russia is invading Ukraine and Putin is making threats of using nuclear force. While scholars are divided on how much this will impact proliferation, there is a concern that it will send this message to potential proliferators/nuclear states (Brewer et al. 2022).
What is nuclear reversal is dangerous, and security guarantees from superpowers are not enough to protect your state’s borders?
This proliferation model is criticized by Sagan for the following two reasons: 1) using nuclear decision-makers statements at face value when projecting false reasons is often strategic and 2) working backwards to find explanations of threats after the proliferation occurred rather than exploring all options (Sagan 1996).
What is the Security Model?
This state initially pursued nuclear weapons without significant international opposition and out of a desire to project against the unknown possibility of a U.S. strike during a war in the region. This state also wanted to defend against growing U.S. influence in their region, and to be able to hold their own as a world power. U.S. attempts at compelling this state to stop nuclear development failed, because the U.S. deemed military action too costly (Mehta 2020).
What is China?
Natural uranium can be enriched to its fissile isotope for the purpose of providing nuclear weapons with their explosive payload (Siracusa 2008). In February of 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency detected near weapons grade levels of uranium in Iran of this concentration, triggering concerns that the United States and Israel needs to step up counterproliferation with Iran or destabilize the international environment through military intervention to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons (Davenport 2023).
What is 84% (Davenport 2023)?
This aspect of nuclear decision making is influential in a leader’s cost-benefit analysis while considering nuclear force. This aspect forms early in life, prior to holding a public office and shapes their worldview and threat perceptions. For example, weak deterrence optimist George H.W. Bush, who was confident in the deterrent strengths of the US military, developed this aspect of his decision making during his experience in the military where he began to think dictators must be stopped by resolute force (Whitlark 2021).
What are the leader's prior beliefs?
This is the country whose nuclear posture has changed from a catalytic posture to an asymmetric escalation posture because it no longer viewed Beijing as a reliable third party patron that would be compelled by this country’s threat of breaking out known nuclear capabilities to intercede and de-escalate conflicts on their behalf. (Narang 2015) Now, this country is threatening first-use of nuclear weapons when a conventional strike is launched preemptively or is imminent against its leadership or nuclear forces, when a military attack against important state targets has occurred, or when the leadership deems that only nuclear use could prevent the expansion of a conventional war (Terry 2022).
What is North Korea?
This is the reseach method for addressing empirical limitations of prior research on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), as it attempts to account for states’ self-selection. This research method was utilized by Fuhrmann and Lupu (2016) to understand the relationship between NPT membership and nuclear proliferation while controlling one of the primary confounding variables. The study found a negative association between NPT ratification and proliferation, suggesting that NPT ratification has a causal effect on nonproliferation and is not an effect of it (Fuhrmann and Lupu (2016).
What is a matched pairs analysis of two country-years that have and have not joined from their likelihood to ratify based on prior treaty commitments (De Bruin April 28th Slides; Fuhrmann and Lupu 2016)?