Nuclear Weapons Ambitions Research Articles

Atomic Ayatollahs: Explaining Iran’s post-revolutionary nuclear path

Iran is generally considered to be seeking nuclear weapons, a view based on the country’s adoption in the mid-1980s of an increasingly covert nuclear acquisition strategy combining clandestine activity with a rise in sensitive assistance from states and black market providers. Why Iran chose an uncompromising nuclear path under the global radar remains contentious. This article re-examines changes in Iran’s nuclear behavior since 1985 and argues that the change of course toward secrecy was influenced by factors other than a possible nuclear weapons aspiration. Important but sometimes neglected explanatory factors include the isolation of post-revolutionary Iran from the international nuclear marketplace and the move toward stricter export controls in the international non-proliferation regime. By emphasizing these factors, this article aims to create a more nuanced understanding of a crucial phase in Iran’s nuclear past while providing alternative explanations that challenge the prevailing Western view of Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions.

Keeping the Bombs in the Basement: U.S. Nonproliferation Policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan

How has the United States behaved historically toward friendly states with nuclear weapons ambitions? Recent scholarship has demonstrated the great lengths to which the United States went to prevent Taiwan, South Korea, and West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet seemingly on the other side of the ledger are cases such as Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, where the United States failed to prevent proliferation, and where many have argued that the United States made exceptions to its nonproliferation objectives given conflicting geopolitical goals. A reexamination of the history of U.S. nonproliferation policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan, based on declassified documents and interviews, finds that these cases are not as exceptional as is commonly understood. In each case, the United States sought to prevent these states from acquiring nuclear weapons, despite geopolitical constraints. Moreover, once U.S. policymakers realized that prior efforts had failed, they continued to pursue nonproliferation objectives, brokering deals to prevent nuclear tests, public declaration of capabilities, weaponization, or transfer of nuclear materials to other states.

Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint: How the United States Thwarted West Germany's Nuclear Ambitions

When does a nuclear-armed state's provision of security guarantees to a militarily threatened ally inhibit the ally's nuclear weapons ambitions? Although the established security model of nuclear proliferation posits that clients will prefer to depend on a patron's extended nuclear deterrent, this proposition overlooks how military threats and doubts about the patron's intentions encourage clients to seek nuclear weapons of their own. To resolve this indeterminacy in the security model's explanation of nuclear restraint, it is necessary to account for the patron's use of alliance coercion, a strategy consisting of conditional threats of military abandonment to obtain compliance with the patron's demands. This strategy succeeds when the client is militarily dependent on the patron and when the patron provides assurances that threats of abandonment are conditional on the client's nuclear choices. Historical evidence from West Germany's nuclear decisionmaking provides a test of this logic. Contrary to the common belief among nonproliferation scholars, German leaders persistently doubted the credibility and durability of U.S. security guarantees and sought to acquire an independent nuclear deterrent. Rather than preferring to renounce nuclear armament, Germany was compelled to do so by U.S. threats of military abandonment, contradicting the established logic of the security model and affirming the logic of alliance coercion.

How to Really Engage Iran: A Proposal

After the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001 (“9/11”), American public opinion understandably disfavored talk of negotiating with perceived enemies of the state. In this context, President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign was criticized for its stated choice to engage Iran directly and to meet its president without preconditions. Thus, it became politically advantageous to appear tough with Tehran; the harrowing events of the Iran Hostage Crisis in the not-so-distant past added fuel to the fire. However, the ultimate question of how the world’s only remaining superpower may legitimately challenge Iran’s nuclear pursuits in accordance with international law must not be affected by changing political winds or by a Hollywood director’s choice of anti-American depictions. Thus, this Article first reviews U.S.-Iranian diplomatic history and principles of international law governing the use of force; to American eyes, Iran appears as a bulimic man with plenty of posturing though indeterminate intentions and nuclear weapon capabilities. Next, the Article looks to lessons learned from dealing with such “rogue” states as Cuba, North Korea and Libya. The Obama Administration’s first term foreign policy presages a continued stalemate with Iran, as Iran tends to not violate international law; moreover, Iran is unable to abandon one of its most vital national security interests. Finally, the Article suggests an alternative negotiation route. After decades of frayed diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran, the same-old strategies will predictably lead to only more frustration and continued deadlock. In this regard, the P5 1 should consider offering Iran the option of withdrawing from the NPT entirely or adhering to an NPT side letter that recognizes its nuclear weapons ambitions by enabling it to become a nuclear-capable state. Such a gesture of even-handedness has the collateral benefit of further revealing the parties’ intentions and improving regional peace and security.

President Obama's Nuclear Legacy

ABSTRACT President Obama has built a lasting legacy by reducing the number of nuclear weapons and their role in U.S. policy—laying a foundation for further reductions and making progress in securing fissile materials. This article reviews that legacy and provides an outline for bolder action in a possible second term. In such a term, Obama would also have an historic opportunity to do more to fulfill his Prague vision and enhance our security by tossing out the remaining cold war-era policies. He could achieve these goals by pursuing an additional round of arms reductions with Russia, securing Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, pulling tactical nuclear weapons out of Europe, and continuing to contain the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Were President Obama to achieve substantial progress on this agenda, it would be one of the most substantial and long-standing accomplishments of his presidency.

Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation: Theory and a Case Study of Tito's Yugoslavia

Programs of international civil nuclear cooperation—of “Atoms for Peace”—have come under growing criticism for unintentionally fostering nuclear weapons proliferation in developing countries. However, drawing on the literature on international technology transfer and on Albert Hirschman's theory of exit, voice, and loyalty, this article argues that Atoms for Peace efforts may often seriously hamper developing countries’ nuclear weapons ambitions by empowering their scientific workers and by facilitating the brain drain to the developed world. The article then presents a case study of the historical nuclear program of Yugoslavia, which received very generous help from the Atoms for Peace programs of the United States, Soviet Union, and European states at a time when nonproliferation controls were minimal. The international ties of the Yugoslav nuclear program made its scientific workers much less likely to choose simple loyalty to the Tito regime, and much more likely to choose voice or exit, accelerating the program's ultimate collapse.

North Korea and the US State Sponsors of Terrorism List*

On 11 October 2008, the Bush administration removed North Korea from the State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism. Pyongyang had been on the list since 1988 and was placed there after the November 1987 bombing of Korean Airlines flight 858 over the Andaman Sea. Though North Korea went on the list for terrorist actions, its removal became part of the Six‐Party process to convince Pyongyang to forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions. This article will explore these issues and examine the leverage the terrorism list had on North Korean behavior, how the USA chose to utilize that leverage, and North Korea's response to US efforts. This article argues that the intertwining of the terrorism list with denuclearization gave the USA leverage in the Six‐Party Talks but there were limits to what this leverage could gain. Moreover, the links to the denuclearization process also generated leverage for North Korea that it exercised, creating a more complex and crosscutting mix of costs and incentives that was more difficult for Washington to control.

U.S. Policy toward North Korea in Strategic Context: Tempting Goliath's Fate

Since the collapse of the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework in 2002, the Bush administration has failed to restrain North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions, principally because of the constraints of highly idealized convictions. Resolution of the Korean nuclear crisis now depends on U.S. initiative beyond the boundaries of these predispositions and beyond the terms of the nuclear crisis itself.

Just Whose Side Is Time On?

President Bush's bold National Security Strategy document of September 2002 would appear to have been written with North Korea as much as Iraq in mind. Yet the Bush administration has been uncharacteristically passive in responding to the challenge posed by Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions, especially in comparison with the forceful manner with which the administration dealt with Iraq. In the latter case, Bush mobilized the full weight of military force; seemed disdainful of allies, international institutions and multilateral diplomacy; and moved forward with what his critics deemed reckless abandon. In the case of North Korea, on the other hand, the President has emphasized patience, close coordination with allies and an overall lack of urgency oddly at variance with his `axis of evil' characterization of the regime in Pyongyang, and with dangerous advances in North Korea's nuclear arsenal. This essay attempts to explain the rationale behind the Bush administration's surprisingly relaxed approach to the North Korea challenge.

US Policy and the Nuclear Weapons Ambitions of the “Axis of Evil” Countries*

This article examines US policy as it pertains to the nuclear weapons objectives of what the Bush administration identified as the countries making up the “axis of evil,” pre-war Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Having drawn the same conclusion as that appearing in the 2000 report of the Project for the New American Century, which alleged the involvement of these countries in illicit activities relating to nuclear weapons, the Bush administration initiated an overtly hostile and accusatory policy toward each of these nations after 9/11.Undeterred by the paucity of evidence and the failure to find a nuclear weapons program (or any weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq, the Bush administration has remained relentlessly focused on the nuclear weapons ambitions of North Korea and Iran, all the while ignoring or minimizing diplomatic efforts that are not hegemonic and confrontational. This paper stresses that for the past several years the Bush administration has not hesitated in using questionable and uncertain information relating to the nuclear weapons objectives of the “axis of evil” countries, even though it has demonstrated no interest in eliminating US nuclear weapons as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligates it to do.

Iran's nuclear programme

Despite last-minute haggling, Iran and the EU-3 (the UK, France and Germany) have reached agreement to restore a ‘temporary’ suspension of Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme. In exchange, the Europeans sponsored a resolution at the IAEA Board of Governor’s meeting, adopted on 29 November 2004, that did not refer Iran to the UN Security Council. The stage is now set for Iran and the EU-3 to enter into negotiations, scheduled to start in mid-December, to seek a long- term agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Prospects for the talks are uncertain, however, and a key factor will be the US position on any possible Iranian–European deal.

The Clinton Administration's Early Defense Policy toward Asia

During the first year of the Clinton administration, American defense poli- cy toward Asia was marked by substantial continuity with policies created by former President George Bush, increasing tension over North Korea`s nuclear weapons program, and growing uncertainty over Clinton`s willingness to pay for a US military force structure necessary to meet American post-Cold War strategic requirements. Clinton benefited from the previous work of the Bush administration, which formulated the East Asia Strategy Initiative (EASI), a careful, phased approach to reducing US forward-deployed military forces in Asia, in response to a declining threat from the former Soviet Union. In their early poIicy statements, Clinton administration officials reaffirmed the pace of EASI force reductions. The Bottom-Up Review, a major review of overall US force levels issued in September 1993, affirmed Clinton`s intention to maintain US forward-deployed troop levels at about 100,OOO. Considerable anxiety, however, has resulted from early doctrinal and defense budget disputes within the Clinton adminsitration. Early initiatives to define a more limited role for the United States in world leadership and to limit US military capabilities to fight only one war at a time were reversed, in part due to the concerns of American allies in Asia. Yet, the declared inten- tion, made by Clinton during his July visit to South Korea, to preserve a US capability to fight two wars has fallen into question over concern that his defense budget will not be able to afford the forces proposed in the Bottom- Up Review. Estimates of a five-year cumulative budget shortfall for the Bottom-Up Review force range from $100 billion to $35 billion. If Clinton does not increase his expenditures on defense, one result may be a further reduction of US military forces deployed in Asia. In Korea, Clinton`s efforts in 1993 and early 1994 to craft a diplomatic solution to North Korea`s nuclear weapons ambitions have given way to sterner measures after an inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities in March 1994 revealed progress in building plutonium reprocessing facilities and a new larger nuclear reactor. The confrontation with North Korea also highlighted the importance of China and Japan in the event that political and economic sanctions become necessary to compel North Korean compliance with nuclear inspections. Clinton began military-to-military contacts with China that had been suspended by Bush and proposed to Japan that it cooper- ate with the US in building Theater Missile Defense systems. In Southeast Asia, Clinton undertook to improve defense relations with Malaysia and the Philippines. However, Clinton`s efforts to improve military relations could become overshadowed by his efforts to politicize trade relations with China and Japan. Clinton`s proposal to increasingly manage trade with Japan threatens to increase sympathy in Japan for proposals to create an Asian trade zone that could exclude the United States. Such an event would constitute a major set- back for future US relations with Asia.

Nuclear Policies in Developing Countries

D EVELOPING country governments embarking upon nuclear power programmes invariably argue that they are motivated principally by economic growth and energy security considerations. Rarely do leaders openly avow nuclear weapons ambitions, though there are exceptions, such as Sukarno and Saddam Hussein. Since 1974, however, the 'peaceful' nature of many Third World nuclear programmes has become suspected for three interrelated reasons. First, the Indian peaceful nuclear explosion highlighted the possibility that assistance provided by the industrialised nations can be diverted for production of a nuclear explosive. Second, growing technological capabilities brought the nuclear weapons option closer to many developing countries. Contracts between European vendors and Brazil, Pakistan, and South Korea for the supply of reprocessing plants, capable of producing weapons grade plutonium, amplified this concern. Third, doubts also arose concerning the ability of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system to slow or arrest the spread of nuclear weapons. The lack of confidence in the NPT system shown by the Israeli bombing of an IAEAsafeguarded facility in an NPT member state, Iraq, merely expressed more violently a concern which is shared in many quarters. Growing suspicion has led nuclear supplier governments, especially in North America, to restrict certain nuclear exports. Especially during the Carter administration, disagreement among the suppliers, as well as between suppliers and recipients, undermined the good will which is essential to the success of non-proliferation efforts. In examining the ambiguity of Third World intentions, this article begins by distinguishing between major approaches to nuclear power development, which call for different supplier policies. Four possible driving forces-security objectives, economic objectives, domestic politics, and foreign influences-are analysed in hopes of reaching a conclusion on how best to proceed. Developing country governments may be grouped into three categories: (1) those that have not yet introduced nuclear power to their countries; (2) those that pursue nuclear power programmes with high priority on developing self-