Abstract
What explains a state’s decision to give up its nuclear weapons program? While instances of nuclear reversal figure prominently in international politics, evidence in the literature has been largely piecemeal. We offer a novel conceptualization of the proliferation process as nonlinear, potentially including instances of reversal, as well as pursuit of a nuclear program and acquisition of nuclear weapons. Employing this theoretical framework, we consider states’ cost-benefit calculations in each phase of the proliferation process, and we test our theory using a multistate model. Two counterintuitive findings emerge from this framework. First, nuclear latency increases the likelihood of pursuit and acquisition but also increases the likelihood of reversal by reducing the costs of restarting a program in the future. Second, the nonproliferation regime discourages states without a nuclear program from pursuing and acquiring nuclear weapons while at the same time making states with nuclear programs less likely to reverse course.
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Country or Region: Pakistan
Marwah, Onkar
Abstract
The new international nuclear regime requires accession to fullscope safeguards and an acceptance of the formal restraints imposed by the London Nuclear Suppliers Group on the worldwide availability of sensitive nuclear technology, materials, and equipment. The underside of the nuclear market, however, consists of surreptitious transfers by suppliers to special recipient states. Pakistan has capitalized on the existence of such a market to acquire the means to make nuclear weapons. Though South Asia is likely to be the first region outside of the central strategic system to harbor nuclear-armed national rivals, the situation is manageable through the imposition of innovative institutionalized constraints on the region. Neutrally conceived, these constraints can be adapted for other regions facing nuclearization. In the long run, the imbalance of capabilities between India and Pakistan will manifest itself in the nuclear field as it has in others.
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Kroenig, Matthew
Abstract
Scholars have long debated whether nuclear superiority or the balance of resolve shapes the probability of victory in nuclear crises, but they have not clearly articulated a mechanism linking superiority to victory, nor have they systematically analyzed the entire universe of empirical cases. Beginning from a nuclear brinkmanship theory framework, I develop a new theory of nuclear crisis outcomes, which links nuclear superiority to victory in nuclear crises precisely through its effect on the balance of resolve. Using a new data set on fifty-two nuclear crisis dyads, I show that states that enjoy nuclear superiority over their opponents are more likely to win nuclear crises. I also find some support for the idea that political stakes shape crisis outcomes. These findings hold even after controlling for conventional military capabilities and for selection into nuclear crises. This article presents a new theoretical explanation, and the first comprehensive empirical examination, of nuclear crisis outcomes.
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Krieger, Zanvyl, and Ariel Ilan Roth
Abstract
This essay identifies a difference of opinion over the role of nuclear weapons as an absolute deterrent as the basis for the theoretical disagreement between Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer regarding whether security is attained through the maintenance of the status quo or through the aggressive elimination of potential rivals. The essay traces the writings of both scholars over a period of decades to demonstrate how Waltz has come to regard nuclear weapons as making conquest so unprofitable that possessing them provides absolute security. It also shows how Mearsheimer holds a more ambiguous position on the deterrent strength of nuclear weapons, which helps to explain why he believes that states still seek security through offensive action. The essay offers a guide to show how these important theories influence and shape current policy debates over the proliferation of nuclear weapons to both state and nonstate actors.
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Batcher, Robert T
Abstract
This essay evaluates the likely consequences of a hypothetical nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan by estimating the civilian casualties that would result from nuclear attacks on targets within the two countries. Why India and Pakistan require nuclear weapons or the political situations that might lead to nuclear war are not addressed, but given the tension between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and the fact that they have fought multiple wars and have had numerous other military engagements since their independence in 1947 provides ample context for investigation.
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Basrur, Rajesh
Abstract
Notwithstanding its acquisition of nuclear weapons capability, India has adhered to a long-standing commitment to universal nuclear disarmament. Its optimism over recent global initiatives is clouded by the concern that these may well be discriminatory and biased toward nonproliferation. Currently, India continues to pursue the capabilities it feels are consistent with minimum deterrence. The prerequisites for its participation in the disarmament process include deep cuts by the United States and Russia, multilateral steps toward a convention committing all states to universal disarmament and toward the adoption of the principle of No First Use, and the involvement of China and Pakistan in the process. A key to facilitating India’s participation would be its full transition from an outsider to an insider vis-à-vis the nonproliferation regime.
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Paliwal, Avinash
Abstract
This article seeks to examine the foreign policy behaviour of weak states in regions marked by politically turbulent geostrategic environments. An analysis of Afghanistan’s foreign policy behaviour vis-à-vis Pakistan and India lends focus to this aim. India–Pakistan rivalry has gained traction as a key factor in determining Afghanistan’s stability in the wake of the drawdown of Coalition forces. Missing from this debate, however, is consideration of Afghanistan’s agency as a weak state with an independent set of policy preferences. Based on primary interviews with a diverse set of Afghan political actors the article outlines two competing policy advocacies: Pakistan friendly and Pakistan averse. The article argues that these advocacies are key to understanding Afghanistan’s India–Pakistan dilemma. Departing from the ethnic lens used to explain Afghan politics and its regional linkages, this article shows that Kabul’s relations with Islamabad determine its approach towards New Delhi regardless of ethnic rivalries. Understanding domestic Afghan narratives in this regional context is therefore imperative to adequately assess South Asia’s prospective security calculus.
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Rajmaira, Sheen
Abstract
This article examines the foreign policy behavior of two rival states, India and Pakistan. Previous studies of this dyad reveal competing causal claims concerning the nature of Indian and Pakistani relations. I argue that Indian and Pakistani foreign policy behavior exhibits strong short-term relations in the context of long-term “memories” that shape future expectations of their bilateral relations. The results indicate that reciprocity in Indo-Pakistani relations is shaped by a long-term equilibrium and suggest a reconceptualization of the nature of the Indo-Pakistani relations. The findings highlight the legacy of suspicions between these two countries, providing sober insights into the possibilities for reducing conflict and promoting cooperation in South Asia.
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Khan, Zafar
Abstract
Very little is known about Pakistan’s nuclear policy and, in particular, about its adoption of minimum deterrence, given the existence of nuclear ambiguity and the absence of public, official documentation of Pakistan’s understanding of minimum deterrence. Therefore, despite its innocuousness, ‘minimum’ remains a vague and complex phenomenon short of definitional concreteness when it is brought to a real conceptual test. On the one hand, minimum is regarded as a small number of deterrent forces arguing against expansion and arms competition, while, on the other hand, it is viewed as a relative, and therefore continually evolving, concept depending on the region’s fast-changing strategic environment. A conceptual basis for the concept of minimum is explored, leading to the question: why does Pakistan pursue minimum deterrence? It traces out the rationale of Pakistan’s minimum deterrence as conceptualized following the 1998 nuclear tests. This rationale of Pakistan’s minimum deterrence is then analysed in light of the essentials of minimum deterrence in order to see whether it is consistent with the basics of minimum as conceived here.
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Farooq, Talat
Publication Year: 2019
US-Pakistan Relations: Pakistan’s Strategic Choices in the 1990s
Summary
US foreign policy-making from the end of the Cold War to after 2001 is crucial to understanding the years of strong US engagement with Pakistan that would follow 9/11. This book explains Pakistan’s strategic choices in the 1990s by examining the role of the United States in the shaping of Islamabad’s security goals.
Drawing upon a diverse range of oral history interviews as well as available written sources, the book explains the American contribution to Pakistani security objectives during the presidency of Bill Clinton (1993-2001). The author investigates and explains the dynamics which drove Islamabad’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, its support for the Taliban and its approach towards the indigenous uprising in Indian Kashmir. She argues that Clinton’s foreign policy contributed to the hardening of Islamabad’s security perspectives, creating space for the Pakistani military establishment to pursue its regional security goals. The book also discusses the argument that US-Pakistan relations during this period were driven by a Cold War mindset, causing a fissure between US global and Pakistan’s regional security goals. The Pakistani military and civilian leadership utilized these divergent and convergent trends to protect Islamabad’s India-centric strategic interests.
The book addresses a gap in the relevant literature and moves beyond the available mono-causal explanations often distorted by a mixture of intellectual obfuscation and political rhetoric. It adds a Pakistani perspective and is a valuable contribution to the study of US-Pakistan relations.
Mochizuki, Mike M., and Deepa M. Ollapally, eds
Summary
This important book analyzes nuclear weapon and energy policies in Asia, a region at risk for high-stakes military competition, conflict, and terrorism. The contributors explore the trajectory of debates over nuclear energy, security, and nonproliferation in key countries—China, India, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Arguing against conventional wisdom, the contributors make a convincing case that domestic variables are far more powerful than external factors in shaping nuclear decision making. The book explores what drives debates and how decisions are framed, the interplay between domestic dynamics and geopolitical calculations in the discourse, where the center of gravity of debates lies in each country, and what this means for regional cooperation or competition and U.S. nuclear energy and nonproliferation policy in Asia.
Khan, Zafar
Abstract
Neither bilateral nor multilateral approaches have successfully convinced India and Pakistan to become part of the nonproliferation regime, but a dynamic that includes China (with or without the United States) might just create some form of a strategic restraint regime in South Asia.
Read the article here
Gates, Scott, and Kaushik Roy
Publication Year: 2016
Unconventional Warfare in South Asia: Shadow Warriors and Counterinsurgency
Summary
India is the world’s tenth largest economy and possesses the world’s fourth largest military. The subcontinent houses about one-fifth of the world’s population and its inhabitants are divided into various tribes, clans and ethnic groups following four great religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Framing the debate using case studies from across the region as well as China, Afghanistan and Burma and using a wealth of primary and secondary sources this incisive volume takes a closer look at the organization and doctrines of the ‘shadow armies’ and the government forces which fight the former. Arranged in a thematic manner, each chapter critically asks; Why stateless marginal groups rebel? How do states attempt to suppress them? What are the consequences in the aftermath of the conflict especially in relation to conflict resolution and peace building? Unconventional Warfare in South Asia is a welcomed addition to the growing field of interest on civil wars and insurgencies in South Asia. An indispensable read which will allow us to better understand whether South Asia is witnessing a ‘New War’ and whether the twenty-first century belongs to the insurgents.
Khripunov, Igor
Abstract
The first decade of the 21st century saw the international community take new legal measures to prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from falling into the hands of nonstate actors. Together with the discovery of the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear proliferation network in 2004, the September 11 attacks in 2001 represented a wake-up call. These events triggered a search for viable options to expeditiously remedy the most glaring gaps in existing international practices, which were not originally intended to meet the terrorist threat.
This search culminated on April 28, 2004, when the UN Security Council unanimously enacted Resolution 1540, a binding legal instrument to deal with new threats that traditional WMD policies could not adequately address. The rationale behind the resolution was to complement and reinforce existing treaties rather than replace them. Indeed, its text explicitly states that none of its obligations alter or conflict with the rights and obligations of parties under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, or the Biological Weapons Convention or alter the responsibilities of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.[1] Seen in the context of previously established regimes, Resolution 1540 was meant to spur states to carry out their responsibilities under these accords, enlist nongovernmental stakeholders in the fight against WMD proliferation, and widen that fight to include nonstate groups.
In remarks last year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “welcome[d] stronger international measures to prevent terrorist groups” and other nonstate actors “from gaining access to the most lethal weapons and materials” and said that “[b]olstering [the] rule of law in this field is essential.”[2]
Read the article online here.
Kristensen, Hans M
Abstract
Nearly half a century after the five declared nuclear-weapon states in 1968 pledged under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,”[1] all of the world’s nuclear-weapon states are busy modernizing their arsenals and continue to reaffirm the importance of such weapons.
None of them appears willing to eliminate its nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future.
Granted, the nuclear arms race that was a main feature of the Cold War is over, and France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have reduced their arsenals significantly. Nevertheless, huge arsenals remain, especially in Russia and the United States. China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and possibly Israel are increasing their stockpiles, although at levels far below those of Russia and the United States. All nuclear-armed states speak of nuclear weapons as an enduring and indefinite aspect of national and international security.
As a result, the world’s nine nuclear-armed states still possess more than 10,000 nuclear warheads combined, of which more than 90 percent are in Russian and U.S. stockpiles. In addition to these stockpiled warheads, those two countries possess thousands of additional nuclear warheads. These warheads, retired but still relatively intact, are in storage awaiting dismantlement. Counting both categories of nuclear warheads, the world’s total combined inventory includes an estimated 17,000 nuclear warheads (fig. 1).
Moreover, many non-nuclear-weapon states that publicly call for nuclear disarmament continue to call on nuclear-armed allies to protect them with nuclear weapons. In fact, five non-nuclear-weapon states in NATO have volunteered to serve as surrogate nuclear-weapon states by equipping their military forces with the necessary tools to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons in times of war—an arrangement tolerated during the Cold War but entirely inappropriate in the post-Cold War era in which NATO and the United States are advocating strict adherence to nonproliferation norms as a foundation for international security.
Thus, although the numerical nuclear arms race between East and West is over, a dynamic technological nuclear arms race is in full swing and may increase over the next decade. Importantly, this is not just a characteristic of the proliferating world but of all nuclear-armed states. New or improved nuclear weapons programs under way in those countries include at least 27 for ballistic missiles, nine for cruise missiles, eight for naval vessels, five for bombers, eight for warheads, and eight for weapons factories (fig. 2).
Read the article online here.
