Nuclear Deployments Research Articles

The Carbon Value of Nuclear Power Plant Lifetime Extensions in the United States

Nuclear power is currently the single largest carbon-free source of electricity in the United States. The climate mitigation cost savings of the existing U.S. nuclear fleet is denominated in hundreds of billions of dollars [net present value (NPV)] based on an integrated assessment modeling of the U.S. energy system within a globally consistent framework. Lifetime extensions of the existing nuclear fleet from 40 years to 60 and 100 years resulted in $330 billion to $500 billion (all figures are in U.S. dollars) (NPV) of mitigation cost savings for the United States under a deep decarbonization scenario consistent with limiting global temperature change to 2°C. The addition of new nuclear deployments in the United States increased the total U.S. mitigation cost savings of the 2°C climate goal by up to $750 billion (NPV). Immediate actions are required in the United States and globally to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century, and once achieving net-zero emissions, they must remain at net-zero indefinitely. Lifetime extensions of the existing nuclear fleet, in the United States and globally, support urgent near-term emissions reduction goals. Additionally, the longevity of nuclear power technologies reduces the need for new capacity additions of all carbon-free electricity sources and supports long-term actions necessary to maintain net-zero emissions.

Strategic non-nuclear weapons and the onset of a Third Nuclear Age

AbstractThree decades after what is widely referred to as the transition from a First to a Second Nuclear Age, the world stands on the cusp of a possible Third Nuclear Age where the way that we conceptualise the central dynamics of the nuclear game will change again. This paradigm shift is being driven by the growth and spread of non-nuclear technologies with strategic applications and by a shift in thinking about the sources of nuclear threats and how they should be addressed, primarily, but not solely, in the United States. Recent scholarship has rightly identified a new set of challenges posed by the development of strategic non-nuclear weaponry (SNNW). But the full implications of this transformation in policy, technology and thinking for the global nuclear order as a whole have so far been underexplored. To remedy this, we look further ahead to the ways in which current trends, if taken to their logical conclusion, have the capacity to usher in a new nuclear era. We argue that in the years ahead, SNNW will increasingly shape the nuclear order, particularly in relation to questions of stability and risk. In the Third Nuclear Age, nuclear deployments, postures, balances, arms control, non-proliferation policy, and the prospects for disarmament, will all be shaped as much by developments in SNNW capabilities as by nuclear weapons. Consequently, we advocate for an urgent reassessment of the way nuclear order and nuclear risks are conceptualised as we confront the challenges of a Third Nuclear Age.

On Extended Nuclear Deterrence

ABSTRACTThis analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s territory. Do these measures discourage third-party aggression? Defence pacts involving nuclear-armed states effectively bolster extended deterrence. One risk of extending nuclear protection from the American perspective, however, is that it might pull the United States into unwanted wars by risk-acceptant protégés. Yet, in a nuclear context, the risk of alliance entrapment is generally overblown. Placing nuclear weapons on an ally’s territory does much less to bolster extended deterrence than one might initially think. Although foreign nuclear deployments may reassure allies and promote non-proliferation to some degree, their value for extended deterrence is fairly minimal. The United States continues to deploy nuclear weapons in five European countries, but the case for maintaining these deployments is decidedly weak.

The Historical Rarity of Foreign-Deployed Nuclear Weapon Crises

ABSTRACTWhat are the strategic costs of foreign-deployed nuclear weapons? Thus far, scholars have focused primarily on the possible benefits: deterring adversaries and reassuring allies. There is little scholarship on the costs side of the cost–benefit equation. This article evaluates one potential cost: that deployments generate crises. I argue that such deployments have, historically, rarely resulted in crises because few deployments generate the level of threat necessary for the target of the deployment to forcefully act. Crises are likely only in the rare situations when the deployment is to an area that the rival views as vital and the deployment threatens to embolden the deploying or host state. I examine all foreign nuclear deployments to support these claims. The results have implications for ongoing debates on the effects of nuclear weapons and US nuclear deployments abroad today.

Sharing the bomb: how foreign nuclear deployments shape nonproliferation and deterrence

ABSTRACTWhat are the political and strategic consequences of nuclear deployments overseas? The United States continues to maintain around 200 nuclear warheads in Europe, and some observers have called for the United States to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula. This article reviews the insights from recent research on the effects of foreign-deployed nuclear weapons. It asks two central questions. First, does the evidence support the view that foreign nuclear deployments contribute to deterrence? Second, do these deployments strengthen or undermine the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons? The evidence suggests that foreign nuclear deployments contribute less to deterrence than previously believed. Further, nuclear deployments probably have mixed effects on proliferation. Unanswered questions for further research include the extent to which nuclear-sharing arrangements reassure allies, and the political and strategic consequences of canceling them.

A Reversal of Fortunes? Extended Deterrence and Assurance in Europe and East Asia1

ABSTRACTThe extended deterrence relationships between the United States and its allies in Europe and East Asia have been critical to regional and global security and stability, as well as to nonproliferation efforts, since the late 1950s. These relationships developed in different regional contexts, and reflect differing cultural, political and military realities in the US allies and their relations with the United States. Although extended deterrence and assurance relations have very different histories, and have to some extent been controversial through the years, there has been a rethinking of these relations in recent years. Many Europeans face a diminished threat situation as well as economic and political pressures on the maintenance of extended deterrence, and are looking at the East Asian relationships, which do not involve forward deployed forces as more attractive than NATO’s risk-and-burden-sharing concepts involving the US nuclear forces deployed in Europe. On the other hand, the East Asian allies are looking favorably at NATO nuclear consultations, and in the case of South Korea, renewed US nuclear deployments (which were ended in 1991), to meet increased security concerns posed by a nuclear North Korea and more assertive China. This paper explores the history of current relationships and the changes that have led the allies to view those of others as more suitable for meeting their current needs.

Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand‐Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence

How can states signal their alliance commitments? Although scholars have developed sophisticated theoretical models of costly signaling in international relations, we know little about which specific policies leaders can implement to signal their commitments. This article addresses this question with respect to the extended deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Can nuclear states deter attacks against their friends by simply announcing their defense commitments? Or must they deploy nuclear weapons on a protégé's territory before an alliance is seen as credible? Using a new dataset on foreign nuclear deployments from 1950 to 2000, our analysis reveals two main findings. First, formal alliances with nuclear states appear to carry significant deterrence benefits. Second, however, stationing nuclear weapons on a protégé's territory does not bolster these effects. The analysis yields new insights about the dynamics of “hand‐tying” and “sunk cost” signals in international politics.

Nuclear Strategy, Nonproliferation, and the Causes of Foreign Nuclear Deployments

Why do countries deploy nuclear weapons abroad? Since 1945, more than twenty states have hosted foreign nuclear weapons on their territory, and five countries continue to do so today. These deployments have important consequences for international security, yet there is little systematic research about the factors that drive them. In this article, we develop three broad theoretical frameworks to explain why foreign nuclear deployments occur. Using a new data set of foreign nuclear deployments between 1945 and 2000, we find that two factors weigh heavily in driving these deployments: the protection of allies and the projection of military power. Nonproliferation motives, however, appear to play little role. The results carry important implications for our understanding of the causes of proliferation and the sources of nuclear posture.

The price of dominance: the new weapons of mass destruction and their challenge to American leadership

This volume recommends an integrated programme of strategy, policy, arms-control negotiations and nuclear deployments to foster the necessary co-operation between America and other countries, while retaining strong nuclear deterrence as the foundation of American security strategy.

The abolition of extended nuclear deterrence in Northeast Asia

This article critically assesses the future of policies of extended nuclear deterrence in Northeast Asia. The article questions the relevance of Cold War nuclear deterrence policies in the post‐Cold War world, focusing on the obsolescence of past theoretical and historical justifications of such policies given fundamental changes in both actual nuclear force deployments and general political conditions. The operating premise of the article is that extended nuclear deterrence in Northeast Asia is already eroding, in fact if not in policy, insofar as changing force structures and political conditions have worked to undermine the credibility of extended deterrent threats. The article considers present security circumstances in light of the actual status of the policy of extended nuclear deterrence, and assesses the potential security implications of explicitly revoking such policies. The article concludes that such a policy shift could serve greatly to reduce incentives for proliferation in the region as well as promote efforts toward counter‐proliferation and nuclear weapons abolition globally.

Maritime Issues In Avoiding Nuclear War

Current naval standard operating procedures in the nuclear weapons states may be producing excessively casual deployments of nuclear warheads on the high seas, unnecessarily increasing risks of nuclear escalation in local conflicts. Examples that can be cited include the Soviet submarine that ran aground on the Swedish coast and reported British nuclear deployments near the Falklands. At the same time, any total moves toward nuclear-free zones would endanger some very valuable oceanic deployments of submarines carrying ballistic missiles, the backbone of mutual deterrence Some proposals are offered for making nuclear deployments at sea conform more with the real interest of all the states involved.

Grassroots and Gewaltfreie Aktionen: A Study of Mass Mobilization Strategies in the West German Peace Movement

The West German peace movement of the eighties has been subject to many of the 'ebbs and flows' cha racteristic of protest movements of the late sixties and early seventies, with one important exception. In contrast to the more doctrinaire Marxist/socialist orientations evinced by those earlier movements, the mobilization against the deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles has been grounded in sincere ef forts on the part of core activists to develop a German tradition of non-violence and civil disobedience. The author presents a catalogue of strategies employed by movement participants since the pro mulgation of the 1979 NATO double-track decision, divided into the subcategories of consciousness- raising or 'mobilization' activities, and direct action or 'escalation' activities. The extensive but by no means comprehensive list of possible protest actions seeks to maximize the opportunities for participa tion and to intensify one's personal identification with the movement at the grassroots level. Even though they have proved unsuccessful in blocking additional theater nuclear deployments, peace pro testers are judged to have contributed significantly to the 'democratization' of postwar German society.

Domestic consensus and nuclear deterrence

Over the past eighteen months, a substantial breakdown has taken place in the domestic consensus on nuclear policies in Europe and the United States. In Europe, mass demonstrations have occurred against the deployment of new US cruise and Pershing II ballistic missiles. These include not only young protesters, ecologists, and other cause-adopters. Many middle-aged, middle-class, conservative Europeans have also joined. Especially among the Protestant churches, leaders have condemned in ethical and religious terms the development and possession of nuclear weapons, nuclear deployments, nuclear strategy and nuclear deterrence.

A talk with Louis Harris

Over the past year, we have witnessed an impressive awakening of world public opinion to the dangers of the nuclear arms race. The West European movement for European Nuclear Disarmament is now finding counterparts in the United States. And more modest expressions of concern have been heard from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.The American public is concerned, even scared, by the enormously high level of nuclear deployments by the Soviet Union and the United States, but they are even more worried by the belligerent rhetoric of government leaders concerning the possibility of using these weapons. Not only do Administration officials speak of “limited nuclear options, “but they speak of being able to “prevail” over the Soviet Union in a “protracted” nuclear war. With the help of such comments, the American public is rapidly coming to realize that we must somehow get out from under the shadow of this Damoclean sword.One measure of their concern was the massing of more than 700,000 in the streets of New York to greet the opening of the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament on June 12. Other measures are provided by Louis Harris in the following sketch of American public opinion on the problem of nuclear war.The potential political implications of Harris's findings are stunning. And the phenomenon his figures delineate has already provoked a response from Washington: the Reagan Administration's new found passion for arms control as formulated in START. But if Harris's analysis is correct, it will take more than that to deflect the rising expectations of the American people. What is a scarcely discernible tremor in 1982 could turn into a political earthquake by 1984 unless there is measurable progress toward the elimination of any possible use of nuclear weapons as an instrument of international conflict resolution.—Bernard T. Feld