Securing guarantees : how nuclear proliferation can strengthen great power commitments
Journal: Texas ScholarWorks (Texas Digital Library)
Year: 2018

The number of states with nuclear weapons has grown at a much slower rate than many predicted during the early years of the Cold War. Yet the reasons for this slow rate of proliferation are not well understood. What is maintaining the (predominantly non-nuclear) status quo? Other work takes external threats and the credibility of security guarantees as given, but I show how nuclear proliferation can shape and be shaped by both. This approach allows me to show how the decisions of proliferators,