Nuclear Arms Competition Research Articles

Challenges in Nuclear Posture and Deterrence from Pakistan’s Perspective

India and Pakistan are engaged in a nuclear arms competition with new technologies and systems that have a direct bearing on their respective doctrines and nuclear postures. The statements by senior Indian leadership over the past few years throw into question the viability of India’s no-first-use posture and have placed further stress on the deterrence relationship between these two regional adversaries. India’s efforts to explore space for a limited war in a nuclearised environment have encouraged Pakistan to introduce remedial measures in the form of short-range ballistic missiles. These are part of its full spectrum deterrence, which aims to deter an entire spectrum of conventional and nuclear threats. India’s work to operationalise its second-strike capability, acquisition of ballistic missile defences and development of hypersonic weapons could undermine regional strategic stability. These efforts require countermeasures on the part of Pakistan to ensure deterrence stability between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

China and the international debate on no first use of nuclear weapons

ABSTRACT China is the only nuclear-armed country in the world that has an unconditional No First Use (NFU) of nuclear weapons policy. China’s practice of this policy and its impact on international security have important implications for the international debate around NFU and inform other countries’ potential consideration of NFU. Whether NFU policy could deliver the expected benefits of reducing the role of nuclear weapons, containing nuclear arms competition, and mitigating the risk of nuclear proliferation depends on the perceived credibility by other countries of such policy. This paper examines a number of internal challenges that may affect the perceived credibility of China’s NFU policy. One of them is Chinese military strategists’ expressed interest in threatening nuclear use in a conventional conflict under certain conditions through the so-called “lower the nuclear coercion threshold” operation. The others include the lack of institutional constraint in the Chinese system to ensure implementation of NFU and the growing ambiguities about the NFU policy’s applicability in specific scenarios as a result of new technological development. The paper offers recommendations on how China can address these challenges and work with other countries to create the conditions for the international adoption of NFU, including how to address the concerns of nonnuclear weapons states about the conventional-level security consequences. It concludes by discussing how China and the other nuclear-armed states can better fulfill their disarmament obligations by strengthening the existing NFU policy and promoting credible NFU policy more broadly.

Nuclear arms race in Asia: Players, stakes and predicates for stability

North Korea’s unpredictable behavior with respect to its nuclear arsenal is only one element of a nuclear arms competition among powers in Asia. Nuclear Asia is a potential cockpit for an outbreak of accidental nuclear war or deliberate nuclear first use, as among regional rivals and adversaries. In addition, a limited nuclear war between regional enemies could ignite intervention by outside powers and intensify, in terms of its potential for horizontal or vertical escalation. Research does not support a definitive relationship between the numbers of nuclear weapons states acting in Asia or in the Pacific and the probability of war, including nuclear war. On the other hand, the availability of nuclear weapons may make more states risk acceptant instead of risk averse in regional conflicts, and overconfident with respect to their skills in managing escalation. That finding is important because states’ abilities to manage escalation may be more important than the sizes of their arsenals.

Nuclear Arms Race in South Asia: Pakistan’s Quest for Security

The paper examines the nuclear arms race in South Asia. The security competition between India and Pakistan has been characterised by an action-reaction spiral. The paper traces the nuclear arms competition between the two South Asian rivals and argues that this relationship is a classic case of a security dilemma whereby one state’s actions cause insecurity to the other, and the other state’s efforts to augment its security make the first one insecure. The paper, thus, develops a theoretical explanation for the incessant arms race between India and Pakistan. India decided to take the nuclear weapons route, Pakistan followed; India developed sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles, Pakistan followed; India adopted an aggressive doctrine, the Cold Start, Pakistan responded by developing tactical nuclear weapons; India is developing ballistic missile defence and Pakistan is sure to respond by adjusting its nuclear force posture. It is thus not the individual weapons systems but the security dilemma that is the cause of instability in highly volatile South Asia.

Can Deterrence Ever Be Stable?

Stability has been the holy grail of deterrence strategists since the outset of the US–Soviet nuclear-arms competition. This prize has been elusive because nuclear weapons are not stabilising.

To Arms Control or Not: Lessons of Focused Case Comparisons

Arms races, in which competitors attempt to improve their military power in relation to each other, vary in the competitors’ propensity to diplomatically seek arms restraint. To assist empirical understanding of the incidence of arms restraint, this essay compares the Soviet-American nuclear arms competition in which such restraint was ample and long-standing, with a 19th-century Anglo-French naval competition in which arms diplomacy was completely absent. In a preliminary probe, three independent variables are applied to explain this variance, each logically linked to arms restraint and to self-help: (1) use or non-use of force equivalence to compare military forces; (2) use or non-use of national intelligence to reduce strategic uncertainty; and (3) linkage or non-linkage of the competition with the rival's overall diplomatic relationship. The conclusion is that only the last of these variables accounts significantly for the differences in diplomatic effort; the naval rivalry was largely disconnected from the Anglo-French geopolitical relationship, while the superpower competition was strongly linked to the larger superpower diplomatic framework. This conclusion is applied to the contemporary North Korean-American and Pakistan-India arms competitions.

Revisiting a Cold War Crisis: The Pentagon’s 1966 Search for a Missing Hydrogen Bomb

Revisiting a Cold War Crisis: The Pentagon’s 1966 Search for a Missing Hydrogen Bomb Paul S. Boyer (bio) Barbara Moran. The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History. New York: Random House, 2009. xi + 218 pages. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $26.00. One of history’s little tricks is the way it bestows lasting fame on otherwise obscure places: Waterloo, Verdun, Gettysburg, and the little town of Bethlehem come to mind. The village of Palomares on Spain’s Mediterranean coast may not rank with these others, but in the annals of the Cold War, it enjoys a certain celebrity. On January 17, 1966, a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed over Palomares while engaged in a mid-air refueling maneuver. While the bombs were “unarmed,” and thus presumably in no danger of actually setting off a thermonuclear blast, they did contain conventional explosives and a highly radioactive plutonium core. While relatively harmless on the skin’s surface, plutonium (with a half-life of 24,360 years) can be deadly if ingested. Three of the bombs fell on land and were quickly recovered. Two had disintegrated on impact, however, spewing plutonium over a wide area. The fourth fell in the sea, triggering a frantic and increasingly frustrating search by the U.S. Navy. The missing bomb was finally located in mid-March, teetering on the edge of a steep declivity in 2,500 feet of water five miles offshore. With infinite care and frustrating setbacks, it was finally raised to the surface on April 7, with no leakage of plutonium. The B-52 that crashed was part of the airborne-alert program of the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC). This initiative had been inaugurated in 1961 amid worries that a preemptive Soviet attack could cripple America’s nuclear retaliatory capacity. (War-gamers at the Air Force–funded RAND Corporation in Pasadena, California, contributed to these fears.) Under this SAC program, at least twelve of SAC’s more than 1,600 long-range bombers armed with hydrogen bombs were airborne at all times, flying patterns over Europe within striking distance of the Soviet Union. Presumably immune to any Soviet preemptive attack, they fulfilled the “deterrence” objective of U.S. [End Page 139] nuclear strategy, while vastly increasing the risks inherent in the nuclear arms competition, as the 1966 crash graphically demonstrated. The Palomares accident attracted intense media attention and inspired two 1967 books by prominent journalists: Flora Lewis’s One of Our H-Bombs is Missing and Tad Szulc’s The Bombs of Palomares. However, amid growing attention to the Vietnam War, the black freedom struggle, and protests in America’s cities and university campuses, the incident receded from historic memory and is today largely forgotten. The Day We Lost the H-Bomb brings it vividly back to our awareness. While utilizing relevant secondary sources, the work also reflects Barbara Moran’s exhaustive research in an array of primary sources, including recently declassified government documents and nearly a hundred interviews with surviving participants (including the three members of the seven-man B-52 crew who survived the crash) and experts in various technical fields. Moran, a Boston-based science journalist, has published in New Scientist, Technology Review, and similar periodicals and has researched science episodes for Nova and other PBS programs. The present book was initially planned as an article for the journal Invention and Technology. Given this background, it is unsurprising that the book’s strength lies in the story’s technical aspects, from the aerodynamics of parachutes to the physics of plutonium-based hydrogen bombs 700 times more powerful than the uranium-based Hiroshima bomb. One learns a lot about underwater searches, which in this case involved Alvin, a two-person deep-sea vehicle later involved in the exploration of the Titanic; the Aluminaut, a mini-sub funded by the head of the Reynolds Aluminum Corporation, an underwater exploration enthusiast; the Westinghouse Ocean Bottom Scanning Sonar (OBSS); and CURV, an experimental technology for recovering errant torpedoes. Moran also details the history and technology of mid-air refueling—a process many know...

Public Opinion and Nuclear Options for South Asia

Research Article| August 01 1998 Public Opinion and Nuclear Options for South Asia Samina Ahmed, Samina Ahmed Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar David Cortright, David Cortright Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Amitabh Mattoo Amitabh Mattoo Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1998) 38 (8): 727–744. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645580 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Samina Ahmed, David Cortright, Amitabh Mattoo; Public Opinion and Nuclear Options for South Asia. Asian Survey 1 August 1998; 38 (8): 727–744. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2645580 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1998 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

South Asian nuclear arms competition: An American perspective∗

Abstract The analysis of nuclear arms competition in South Asia forms part of a much larger study of American relations with the region after the Cold War carried out under the auspices of The Asia Society. The nuclear policies of both India and Pakistan enjoy strong domestic political support. While a case can be made that a rudimentary state of nuclear deterrence exists between New Delhi and Islamabad, this may be undermined by deployment on both sides of ballistic missiles.

The Power of Suggestion: Opaque Proliferation, Existential Deterrence, and the South Asian Nuclear Arms Competition

The Power of Suggestion: Opaque Proliferation, Existential Deterrence, and the South Asian Nuclear Arms Competition

Estrangement: America and the World

'The United States is estranged from the world - separate, aloof, more alone than even the most cynical or pessimistic observers might have predicted in the heyday of American postwar power', writes Sanford Ungar. In this provocative volume he and eleven other distinguished observers explore the complex and troubling reasons for that estrangement. The US emerged from World War II with a unique position and an unusual role in the world. Rarely in history had a single nation enjoyed so much prerogative and influence, and the US was confident that it could lead like-minded nations in the construction of a lasting framework of peace and friendly competition. But in the decades that followed, America's sense of its proper place in the world and its belief in the attainability of peace and prosperity have both been severely challenged. The seemingly inevitable development of diplomatic tension and nuclear arms competition with the Soviet Union, the ideological hostility of so many of the new and 'non-aligned' nations, the threatening economic competition of allies - all have contributed to America's sense of aloneness in the world.

Pakistan's Nuclear Program: Prospects for Proliferation

In recent years, Pakistan's nuclear program has generated wild speculation about its nuclear intentions and technological capabilities to manufacture atomic weapons. Pakistan's quest for nuclear technology has been perceived as a determined approach to acquire nuclear weapons capability, which would undermine confidence in the existing nuclear regime and raise the risks of a nuclear arms competition in South Asia. In this perception, Pakistan's nuclear activities are seen to have ranged from the clandestine acquisition of sensitive nuclear technologies to the production and stockpiling of fissionable materials. Pakistan's garrison geopolitical milieu, absolute inferiority of its conventional defense, and the fears of Indian domination in the South Asian region generally have been cited as strong motivations for a nuclear option. Pakistan's vulnerable security environment and the multiple threats it faces make nuclear weapons development theoretically a plausible option. But given the low levels of technological competence and almost total dependence on imported nuclear components, this option cannot be exercised without serious political and security repercussions. Pakistan's prospects for nuclear development are examined in this article with specific reference to its existing level of nuclear technology, established nuclear capability, and various motivational factors. The central themes of this study reflect the following hypotheses:

The Soviets and Strategic Arms: Toward an Evaluation of the Record

Analyses of Soviet behavior in the nuclear arms competition are no less varied than the general range of approaches to the analysis of Soviet conduct. Several distinct images of Soviet policy may be discerned in recent Western analysis. In one image, stress is placed upon the ideological roots of Soviet behavior, and it is assumed that the worldview inherent to communism leads Moscow to view nuclear competition in the context of a grand historical struggle between capitalist and socialist states. Those who accept this image view Moscow as driven to seek a position of dominance in the nuclear competition in order to advance communism or the global power of the Soviet Union. They also suggest that the leaders in the Kremlin view the arms control process as no more than a tactical means to restrain the Western defense effort.1 A second image credits Moscow with an uncontrollable impulse to seek ever higher levels of strategic power. Moscow's drive to higher levels of armaments is seen, not as the result of the commitment of the leadership to achieve military superiority, but as the result of the domination of military and defense interests and the unrestrained momentum of weapons technology in the Soviet system. Moscow's interest in arms control in this view is circumscribed by institutional pressure to arm.2

On Controlling the Soviet-American Nuclear Arms Competition

On Controlling the Soviet-American Nuclear Arms Competition

The Bargaining Chip and SALT

The bargaining chip, like the domino theory of the 1950S and 196os, has become of the most voguish ideas the field of weapons development. Yet the concept is perhaps as old as arms competition itself-certainly as old as nuclear arms competition. Decisions to build major weapons systems have frequently been justified by their promise of some future diplomatic advantage. In April 1945 James Byrnes purportedly told President Truman that the atomic bomb would put the United States in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war.' While there is little evidence the United States actually put forward the atomic bomb as a bargaining chip-offering to exchange its secrets for Soviet political concessions-Truman and Secretary of War Stimson did at least consider offering the Soviet Union partnership an international control commission exchange for settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.2 The idea came to naught. Atomic weapons continued to be stockpiled and their promised postwar political advantage awaited fulfillment. An early study of arms control and disarmament negotiations the late 1940S and 1950S concluded that the talks had become one form of the arms race itself, the aim of each nation being an increase its relative power position.3