NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: 

DIMINISHING THREAT? 

William H. Kincade

INSS Occasional Paper 6 

Proliferation Series
ii

December 1995 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

US Air Force Academy, Colorado 
iii
iv

 The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air 

Force, the Department of Defense or the US Government. This report is 

approved for public release by SAF/PAS; distribution is unlimited. 

********

 This paper was originally presented at the annual conference of the 

International Studies Association, Chicago, Illinois, February 1995. 

******** 

 Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded 

to: Director, Institute for National Security Studies, HQ USAFA/DFE, 2354 

Fairchild Drive, Suite 5D33, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO 

80840, 719-472-2717, or directly to the author. 
v
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

I. Evolution of Proliferation 1 

II. The Nth Country Problem Revisited 3 

 Proliferation: A Second Look 5 

 Progress in Non-Proliferation 8 

 State of the Debate 11 

III. The Nuclear Club: Technical Barriers to Entry 13 

 Faustian Bargains 16 

 Proliferation Paradox 19 

IV. The Nuclear Club: Growing Disincentives to Join 19 

 The Deployment Decision 21 

 Technology Constraints 23 

 Economic Implications 29 

 The Politics of Weaponization 31 

 Guarding the Guardians 33 
vii

V. Proliferation Implications 35 

 Nuclear Maturity 35 

 Governmental Learning 35 

 Generational Change 36 

 Reverse Demonstration Effect 36 

 Alternative Scenarios 38 

VI. Future Non-proliferation Policy 

 41 

Endnotes 45 
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ix

FOREWORD 

 We are pleased to publish this sixth volume in the Occasional Paper

series of the US Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This 

monograph represents research first presented at the annual conference of the 

International Studies Association in Chicago in February 1995. We felt that its 

important and provocative message deserved broader dissemination as an INSS 

Occasional Paper.

 INSS is co-sponsored by the National Security Negotiations Division, 

Plans and Operations Directorate, Headquarters US Air Force (USAF/XOXI) 

and the Dean of the Faculty, US Air Force Academy. The primary purpose of 

the Institute is to promote research done within the DOD community in the 

fields of arms control, proliferation, national security, regional studies, the 

revolution in military affairs, information warfare, and environmental security. 

INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various disciplines and across 

services to develop new ideas for USAF policy making. The Institute develops 

topics, selects researchers from within the military academic community, and 

administers sponsored research. We also host conferences and workshops 

which facilitate the dissemination of information to a wide range of private and 

government organizations. INSS is in its fourth year of providing valuable, 

cost-effective research to meet the needs of the Air Staff and our other sponsors. 

 This paper proposes an unusual and more sanguine view of the 

problem of nuclear proliferation. Dr Kincade points out that the pace of nuclear 

weapons testing and deployment has slowed in recent decades, while there has 

concurrently been an increase in the availability of nuclear knowledge. While 

non-proliferation efforts by the supplier states may explain part of this success, 

he postulates that domestic political decisions by potential proliferators play an 

equal or greater role. Deciding whether or not to weaponize and deploy a 
x

nuclear capability is certainly not the first step for a state wishing to achieve 

nuclear status, but it may be the most important. Here a number of domestic 

factors come into play that have little to do with international constraints or 

concerns about prestige: economics, internal politics, government learning, 

generational change, and so on. Kincade’s findings are counter-intuitive in the 

proliferation literature, and, if true, suggest that the problem cannot be dealt 

with solely using traditional means. 

 Dr Kincade’s thesis merits careful consideration by those involved in 

the proliferation debate as well as those in the policy making community. His 

ideas are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of INSS, the US Air 

Force, or the Department of Defense. 

 We appreciate your interest in INSS and its research products. We 

hope we are meeting a need for this type of analysis and reflection, and we look 

forward to publishing these papers on a regular basis. 

JEFFREY A. LARSEN, Lt Colonel, USAF 

Director, Institute for National Security Studies 
xi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 With the end of the Cold War, concern about the multiplication of 

nuclear-armed nations has made proliferation one of the leading issues on the 

international security agenda. Its prominence has been bolstered by related 

anxieties over the spread of advanced conventional weapons technologies, longrange delivery systems, and chemical and biological weapons. The collapse of 

the Soviet Union contributed to burgeoning fears of a possible epidemic of 

nuclear weapons. There is evidence suggesting, however, that the momentum 

of diffusion assumed in the epigraphs to this study may be abating, rather than 

accelerating. If true, this would be all the more surprising in light of the fact 

that the technical route to nuclear weapons now presents fewer obstacles than in 

the past. 

 An apparent paradox is emerging. On the one hand, the technical 

barriers to entry into the nuclear club have been progressively eroded; yet the 

drive to obtain nuclear weapons has been declining. This trend confounds the 

commonly-accepted systemic explanation for nuclear proliferation: to obtain the 

power and prestige perceived necessary to improve its security position, a state 

seeks nuclear weapons, creating in the process a pro-nuclear bureaucracy that 

augments the initial drive. 

 The anomaly of fewer potential proliferators despite reduced technical 

barriers suggests that decisions about acquiring nuclear weapons may now be 

influenced by a calculus different from traditional explanations for proliferation, 

and are less affected by strategies of denial. 

 The objective of this analysis is to illustrate that nuclear diffusion is a 

declining, though still dangerous, phenomenon that requires reevaluation in 

terms of basic concepts, research, and policy. The paper reviews the progress of 

proliferation and non-proliferation and examines the debate over both. It then 
xii

examines the evolution of anti-proliferation measures, chiefly those of denial. 

Emerging disincentives to diffusion are suggested and the broader implications 

of these disincentives and related nuclear postures are assessed, along with 

factors that might either explain or reverse them. The final section explores 

changes in approaches to non-proliferation that might be conducive to 

exploiting new conditions and thinking. 

 These observations illustrate a point that has been neglected in much of 

the non-proliferation literature: the crucial demarcation line in the current 

phase of the nuclear era lies between nuclear weapons initiatives and viable, 

deployable nuclear forces. Even as the problem of building a prototype 

becomes simpler, the challenge of fielding a fully-fledged nuclear force grows 

more daunting. The difficulty of meeting this challenge may be a primary 

reason fewer states are willing to undertake the effort. 

 The very way in which proliferation has been viewed in the past needs 

updating, both to take account of new factors that may be at play and also to 

prevent an outdated mindset from causing new non-proliferation opportunities 

or techniques to be missed. This would entail adopting a more differentiated 

perspective on possible proliferators to facilitate policies more tailored to the 

various stages of, and motivations for, nuclear weapons acquisition. 
1
2

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY 

Lieutenant General Paul E. Stein 

Superintendent 

Brigadier General Ruben A. Cubero 

Dean of the Faculty 

HEADQUARTERS, US AIR FORCE 

PLANS AND OPERATIONS DIRECTORATE 

Major General Robert E. Linhard 

Director of Plans 

Lieutenant Colonel Todd A. Bodenhammer 

Chief, National Security Negotiations Division 

USAF INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES 

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey A. Larsen 

Director/Editor 

Ms Cari Gast-Mulherin 

Editor 
3

2Lt Grant Simmons 

Technical Support 

Ms Marsha Taylor 

Cover Design 
4

INSS OCCASIONAL PAPERS

1. Explaining Weapons Proliferation: Going Beyond the Security 

Dilemma. Gregory J. Rattray, July 1994 

2. The Ukrainian Military: Instrument for Defense or Domestic 

Challenge? Oleg Strekal, November 1994 

3. North Korea’s Nuclear Program: The Clinton Administration’s 

Response. William E. Berry, Jr., March 1995 

4. Environmental Assistance as National Security Policy: Helping 

the Former Soviet Union Find Solutions to its Environmental 

Problems. Robert L. Dunaway, November 1995 

5. Economic Power in the Sino-U.S. Relationship. Kevin F. 

Donovan, December 1995 

Nuclear Proliferation: Diminishing Threat? 
5

I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970...there may be ten 

nuclear powers instead of four, and by 1975, fifteen or 

twenty... 

 -- John F. Kennedy, March 19631

If Ukraine were to seize control of the weapons...it would 

immediately become the world's third-largest nuclear 

power... 

 -- Christopher Drew, May 19932

I. Evolution of Proliferation 

 During the Cold War, the problem of nuclear proliferation tended to 

take a back seat to superpower competition and other priorities. Issues related 

to the spread of nuclear weapons were often decided by how potential 

proliferators were positioned in terms of the global power struggle. Thus, 

Pakistan and Iraq made significant progress in acquiring nuclear weapons 

technology during the 1980s, when the United States appeared to acquiesce in 

their activities, in part because Reagan Administration officials believed their 

assistance was needed to combat a Soviet strategic threat in the Persian Gulf.3

 With the end of the Cold War, concern about the multiplication of 

nuclear-armed nations has made proliferation one of the leading issues on the 

international security agenda. Its prominence has been bolstered by related 

anxieties over the spread of advanced conventional weapons technologies, 

long-range delivery systems, and chemical and biological weapons. The 

collapse of the Soviet Union--combined with revelations about the extent of 

the Iraqi nuclear development program (1991) and the former existence of a 

small, South African nuclear arsenal (1993)--contributed to burgeoning fears 

of a possible epidemic of nuclear weapons. Once a concern of only a small 

subset of arms control specialists, nuclear proliferation became a front-page 
6

issue and ominous tales of "loose nukes" provided a replacement for earlier 

stories about communist expansion.4

 

 There is evidence suggesting, however, that the momentum of 

diffusion assumed in the epigraphs to this study may be abating, rather than 

accelerating.5

 If true, this would be all the more surprising in light of the fact 

that the technical route to nuclear weapons now presents fewer obstacles than 

in the past, as evidenced by the growing availability of fissile material, bomb 

designs, and delivery systems. An apparent paradox is emerging. On the one 

hand, the technical barriers to entry into the nuclear club have been 

progressively eroded; yet the drive to obtain nuclear weapons has been 

declining. Stated another way, as civil and military technology has reached a 

more or less "homogeneous level" across national boundaries, the denial 

strategies developed to obstruct would-be proliferators have decreased in 

effectiveness. Nonetheless, the number of potential proliferators has leveled 

off, and begun to decline.6

 This trend confounds the commonly-accepted 

systemic explanation for nuclear proliferation: to obtain power and prestige 

perceived to improve its security position, a state seeks nuclear weapons, 

creating in the process a pro-nuclear bureaucracy that augments the initial 

drive.7

 The anomaly of fewer potential proliferators despite reduced 

technical barriers suggests that decisions about acquiring nuclear weapons 

may now be influenced by a calculus different from traditional explanations 

for proliferation, and are less affected by strategies of denial. A finding to this 

effect would have significant implications for proliferation research, arms 

control policy, and paradigms of both proliferation and non-proliferation. 

Current paradigms would need to be refined to incorporate new processes or 

factors at work. Research would have to be redirected from assessing "Why 

do states go nuclear?" to examining "Why do states eschew the nuclear path?" 

Finally, international non-proliferation policy would need to incorporate 
7

support for local anti-proliferation dynamics to supplement the more 

traditional policies of technical denial. 

 The objective of this analysis is to illustrate that nuclear diffusion is a 

declining, though still dangerous, phenomenon that requires reevaluation in 

terms of basic concepts, research, and policy.8 The analysis reviews the 

progress of proliferation and non-proliferation and examines the debate over 

both. The paper then examines the evolution of anti-proliferation measures, 

chiefly those of denial. Emerging disincentives to diffusion are suggested and 

the broader implications of these disincentives and related nuclear postures are 

assessed, along with factors that might either explain or reverse them. The 

final section explores changes in approaches to non-proliferation that might be 

conducive to exploiting new conditions and thinking. 

II. The Nth Country Problem Revisited 

 Little heard today, the term ‘Nth country problem’ was once central 

to the non-proliferation lexicon, standing for "the possibility of diffusion of 

nuclear weapons to an indeterminate [N] number of countries."9

 The goal of 

non-proliferation was to confine that figure to the smallest number above zero 

that could be managed. Recalling President Kennedy's 1963 fears of as many 

as 20 nuclear weapon states by 1975, some satisfaction can perhaps be taken 

from the reflection that 32 years after he expressed this concern--and 20 years 

after the point when he expected N to equal 15 or 20--the number of nuclear 

powers stands at no more than nine and probably closer to six, only a few 

more than the four existing in 1963.10 Further, no nuclear weapons have been 

detonated in anger in 50 years. 

 More interesting than observance of what French analyst Raymond 

Aron called "the nuclear taboo" against use, is the slow pace of nuclear 

weapons diffusion in the last 50 years, as compared either to worst-case 

scenarios or in absolute terms.11 According to the 1968 Nuclear Non-
8

Proliferation Treaty (NPT), status as an accepted nuclear weapon state (NWS) 

is conferred by a test of a nuclear explosive before 1967, as stated in Article 

IX:"...a nuclear-weapon State is one which has manufactured and exploded a 

nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to January 1, 1967." 

This definition yielded five NWS. 

 Since 1967, four states have unofficially become NWS. India tested 

a nuclear device in 1974.12 Although a nuclear test has not been fully 

confirmed, Israel is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan 

acknowledges a "modest" but now-abated bomb-making program.13 And 

South Africa has provided abundant information on its now-defunct nuclear 

arms program and arsenal.14 Taking the known-test instances into account and 

estimating the non-test or unknown-test cases, the dates when states became 

nuclear-capable reflect the proliferation progression shown in Table 1. 

Table 1. Presumed Nuclear-Weapon Nations: 1st Atomic Test or 

Prototype 

1. United States July 1945 

2. Union of Soviet Socialists Republics August 1949 

3. United Kingdom October 1952 

4. France February 1960 

5. Peoples Republic of China October 1964 

6. Israel ~196715

7. India May 1974 

8. Union of South Africa ~1979 

9. Pakistan ~1987 

 The periodization of nuclear weapons capability is perhaps more 

instructive if represented in the linear fashion of Figure 1. Discounting 

overblown claims that Ukraine, Belarus, or Kazakhstan were exploiting or 

could exploit, in any realistic sense, the former Soviet weapons stationed on 

their territory, it reveals a declining rate of diffusion in the last 20 years of the 

nuclear age as compared to the first 30.16 

Proliferation: A Second Look 
9

 It is important to acknowledge that there are great disparities in the 

nuclear capabilities of the nine nations. Of the four most recent states to have 

acquired a nuclear weapons potential, only Israel is deemed to have 

deployable forces of any significance.17 South Africa has been at pains to 

demonstrate that it has destroyed its arsenal of some six bombs, as well as the 

plans to make them. Despite its 1974 test of a peaceful nuclear explosive, 

"India still does not appear close to building a nuclear arsenal," according to 

Mitchell Reiss and Robert Litwak.18 Announcing in February 1992 its ability 

to assemble a device, Pakistan also stated that it would halt production of 

fissile material and nuclear bomb cores. However, some reports suggest it 

would not dismantle the cores until India followed suit.19 

Figure 1: NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION BY DECADE 

1945-1995 

(Date of First Nuclear Test) 

 1945 1st Decade:

 USA 1945 

 USSR 1949 

 UK 1952 3

 1955 2nd Decade:

 France 1960 

 PRC 1964 2

 1965 3rd Decade:

 Israel 1967 

 India 1974 2

 1975 4th Decade:

 So. Africa 1979 1

 1985 5th Decade:

 Pakistan 1987 1

 1995
10

 Thus, it seems reasonable to distinguish the six nuclear-armed 

nations--the five acknowledged, treaty-accepted nuclear-weapon states plus 

Israel--from the three other states that have, in various ways, suspended their 

nuclear weapons programs. The gap between the capabilities of these two 

groups--one possessing arsenals ranging from the low hundreds of weapons to 

several thousand, another one possessing technology but no known deployed 

or deployable weapons--illustrates the shortcomings that characterize much of 

the current discussion and analysis of nuclear proliferation. While it is certain 

that these analytic problems have understandable origins, it is necessary to 

eliminate them from conceptual frameworks, as they are ill-suited to present 

circumstances. 

 Greatest of the conceptual anomalies in proliferation is the use of a 

1967 nuclear weapon test by the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the primary 

yardstick to determine the approved NWS. This definition and date make 

India an outlaw nuclear-weapon state, but does not address the status of either 

South Africa or Israel, as they have not tested. Arguably, Pakistan is also not 

an outlaw, if it has not tested a device. This testing criterion was appropriate 

earlier in the nuclear era, when a test was deemed an essential, visible 

milestone on the path to nuclear force development. More recently, however, 

testing is such that it may be neither visible nor essential.20 Furthermore, the 

testing guideline creates invidious and largely irrelevant distinctions, as 

between India, on the one hand, and Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa on the 

other.21 

 Since all of the countries that undertook nuclear weapons programs 

in the first half of the nuclear age weaponized the products of these initiatives, 

it was naturally assumed that any state with such a program would 

automatically develop deployable forces.22 In the early 1990s, South Africa 

reversed this process. In addition, Brazil and Argentina mutually rescinded 

their development programs, and India and Pakistan halted on the threshold of 

a deployable force. The canonical proliferation code, however, scarcely 
11

acknowledges important distinctions such as these, and therefore may be 

rejecting signs that the nuclear option may be losing its charm. 

 These observations illustrate a point that has been neglected in much 

of the non-proliferation literature: the crucial demarcation line in the current 

phase of the nuclear era lies between nuclear weapons initiatives and viable, 

deployable nuclear forces.23 Another concept that is little noted is that, even 

as the problem of building a prototype becomes simpler, the challenge of 

fielding a fully-fledged nuclear force grows more daunting. The difficulty of 

meeting this challenge may be a primary reason fewer states are willing to 

undertake the effort. 

Progress in Non-Proliferation 

 The apparently inexorable march of nuclear proliferation foreseen 

three decades ago may thus be a chimera.24 If the criterion for status as a 

nuclear power was a strict military standard of retaining a viable and deployed 

or deployable nuclear force, rather than the technical standard of detonating a 

device and the informal benchmark of possessing a prototype, the pace of 

proliferation is even more moderate than indicated earlier, as shown in Figure 

2. 

 Using this more precise and restrictive categorization yields the 

following proliferation head-count at the half-century mark: six nuclear 

powers, two nuclear-weapons-capable states with suspended production 

programs (India and Pakistan), one former nuclear power (South Africa), four 

former potential proliferants (Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan, and South Korea)25

and three ex-Soviet republics currently in the process of meeting nonproliferation commitments.26 

Figure 2. STATES RETAINING DEPLOYED/DEPLOYABLE 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS, 1945-95 

 1945 1st Decade: 
12

 USA 1945 

 USSR 1949 3 

 UK 1952 

 1955 2nd Decade: 

 France 1960 

 PRC 1964 2 

 1965 3rd Decade: 

 Israel 67 1 

 1975 4th Decade: 

 0 

 

 1985 5th Decade: 

 0 

 1995

This means a new nuclear power every seven years, on average, yet none in 

the 16 years since South Africa began producing its small arsenal. This might 

suggest a growing consensus on the disutility of nuclear forces. 

 The more important issue, however, is the list of active proliferators, 

i.e., states still seeking a prototype device and perhaps a viable nuclear force. 

The states commonly at the top of this list are Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North 

Korea.27 It is a worrisome group; not only have these four nations sought the 

capacity to make nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons of mass 

destruction, their current governments are thought capable of employing them. 

Nonetheless, the list is shorter than was predicted in the late 1970s, when 

nuclear diffusion was also, briefly, a leading issue.28 Such a short list could 

make diffusion prevention more manageable by allowing international 

energies to be concentrated on the fewer, though more difficult cases listed in 

Table 2. 
13

Table 2. Potential Proliferators, Past and Present

A. Former 

Potential 

Proliferators 

B. Improbable 

Proliferators 

C. Possible 

Proliferators 

D. Plausible 

Proliferators 

Argentina* Belarus* India Iran* 

Brazil Kazakhstan* Pakistan Iraq* 

South Korea* Ukraine* Libya* 

Taiwan* North Korea* 

South Africa* 

* Party to the NPT 

 In the cases of the active or plausible proliferators, the picture is not 

totally bleak. The harsh treatment administered by the international 

community to Iraq after the full extent of its nuclear program was discovered 

in the wake of the Gulf War ought to be a cautionary lesson to any other state 

planning to develop a clandestine bomb or nuclear force.29 Libya's muchpublicized efforts to obtain nuclear capability or to facilitate a so-called Arab 

bomb in the 1970s and 1980s seem to have ground to a halt with the decline in 

Libya's oil wealth, and perhaps also as a result of Colonel Muammar Qadafi's 

reputation as an "international troublemaker."30 

 The agreement reached in 1994 by the United States and North 

Korea--whereby Pyongyang will gain interim oil supplies and alternative 

nuclear power technology in return for dismantling its nuclear facility at 

Yongbyon, thereby maintaining adherence to the NPT--has elicited 

considerable skepticism in the West.31 However, it may prove to be a 

reflection of North Korea's attempt to join the nuclear disutility consensus 

suggested above. Finally, although Iran seems to be the one would-be 

proliferator not stymied or entertaining second thoughts, it remains a long way 

from reaching the bomb.32 

 From the perspective of prevention achieved and the gap between 

proliferation expectations and outcomes, a case can certainly be made that the 

nuclear diffusion problem--while always serious--is manageable.33 To be 

sure, this picture might change radically if significant global or regional 
14

instability were to occur. However, the support for the NPT reflected in its 

indefinite extension in 1995 can be construed as a vote of confidence in the 

persistence of at least the current level of international stability (or as a vote of 

no confidence in nuclear weapons as a solution in an insecure world). What is 

less clear is whether the instruments for coping with proliferation are the most 

efficacious for the changing nature of the problem. 

State of the Debate 

 A number of analysts have discerned this abatement of nuclear 

proliferation, though few have seen in it a possible trend and most have 

attributed it to a number of systemic forces, such as the end of the Cold War; 

the operation of the non-proliferation regime, or the higher precedence 

accorded to it; or the emerging goal of acquiring nuclear weapons without 

actually deploying nuclear forces. Leonard Spector notes, for example, that 

"traditional non-proliferation efforts are having their greatest success."34 

Mitchell Reiss is foremost among those seeing diminished diffusion largely as 

a product of external factors. In Bridled Ambition, an exhaustive study of nine 

cases, he identifies a generalized version of post-Cold War "new thinking" 

about nuclear forces and cites the trend toward offering economic rewards 

rather than imposing sanctions, U.S. non-proliferation policies, increased 

attention to the non-proliferation regime, and local political leadership as 

central to the slowing or curtailing of nuclear weapons programs.35 

 Other analysts emphasize the impact of local decisions on 

proliferation postures as the primary rationale for curtailment. Rosalind 

Reynolds advances the thesis that India and Pakistan have achieved mutual 

deterrence without weaponizing their capability, while North Korea has 

effectively used its nuclear potential as a bargaining tool to gain concessions 

from the United States--another classic purpose of nuclear weapons.36 Etel 

Solingen explains different internal proliferation postures by distinguishing 

between “internationally-minded, liberalizing economic coalitions,” which 
15

avoid nuclear initiatives owing to their cost and adverse impact on 

participation in transnational economic regimes, and "inward-looking, 

nationalist-confessionalist" governments that pursue state-driven economic 

growth and security self-reliance and tend for both reasons to support nuclear 

weapons initiatives.37 

 Thus, somewhat unexpectedly, the consensus on the centrality of 

nuclear proliferation as an internal security issue has provoked contention in a 

policy area once regarded as the preserve of like-minded specialists. Whereas, 

in the past, the main fissure was between government officials, who deemed 

the problem a secondary one, and academics or public interest advocates who 

thought bureaucrats too tame, in the current environment the most 

fundamental premises of proliferation and non-proliferation paradigms, 

precedents, policy, and prospects are in dispute. The division between 

governmental and non-governmental specialists continues.38

 A sample of the issues in current contention includes the inevitability 

of technological determinism; the impact of the non-proliferation regime; the 

influence of the end of the Cold War; the efficacy of export controls; the 

impact of counterproliferation and its compatibility with classical nonproliferation efforts; changing concepts of security in the evolving 

international environment; and basic questions of whether the nuclear 

diffusion situation is improving or worsening and what should be done about 

it. Some, like Spector, see progress in the making, while others perceive the 

spread of nuclear weapons as the defining security issue of the decade.39 

 Amidst this contention, one detects tendencies to overvalue external 

imperatives conducive to nuclear diffusion (e.g., security self-reliance in a 

system approaching anarchy) or favoring nuclear restraint (e.g., the nonproliferation regime). It is also possible to underrate complex political and 

policy-making processes within which international and domestic factors are 

becoming increasingly unfavorable to the deployment of nuclear capabilities. 
16

III. The Nuclear Club: Technical Barriers to Entry 

 International diplomacy--amicable or coercive--combined with 

concrete incentives and disincentives has been central to the non-proliferation 

effort almost from the beginning and will remain so in the future. 

Complementing the diplomatic track has been the track of technical denial. 

As the nuclear age has unfolded, technical barriers to membership in the 

nuclear club (as shown in Table 3) have decreased in effectiveness, despite 

efforts to preserve them.40 

Table 3. Types and Examples of Nuclear Denial Strategies 

A. Fissionable and Fissile Material

• Monopoly control of uranium deposits 

• Nuclear fuel accounting and diversion prevention under International 

Atomic Energy Agency safeguards program 

• Restrictions on recycling spent fuel rods 

• Vigilance regarding nuclear fuel or fissile material from former USSR 

B. Nuclear Weapon Design 

• Security classification of weapon designs and engineering details 

• Strict security control of nuclear weapons and components 

C. Plant Equipment and Weapon Components 

• Export restrictions on sensitive manufacturing equipment (e.g. calutrons) 

and system components (e.g. klystrons) 

• Multilateral coordination of exports through Nuclear Suppliers Group 

scrutiny of contracts 

D. Delivery Systems 

• Unilateral constraints on export of missiles and aircraft to certain regions 

or end-users 

• Multilateral restrictions on missiles or other delivery system technology 

through Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) 
17

 The first state to actively engage in non-proliferation activities was 

the United States, which, in a joint Anglo-American effort, attempted to gain 

monopoly control of sources of uranium worldwide even before the 

Manhattan Project produced a working bomb.41 Well ahead of the bombing of 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American and English officials also planned to 

acquaint the world with the known scientific principles of atomic explosives--

but not the details of the many esoteric engineering problems solved in the 

Manhattan Project--through the release of the so-called “Smyth Report: 

Atomic Energy for Military Purposes.”42 

 The United States, however, had second thoughts about its wartime 

atomic partners, Britain and Canada. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 

imposed a total prohibition on sharing data on atomic weapons or the 

manufacture of fissionable substances from which fissile matter is produced 

with any nation.43 Similar restrictions apply to weapons-related hardware, 

such as the calutrons used to enrich uranium to weapons grade or the klystrons 

that form part of the electronic triggers in nuclear weapons. 

 Later, following India’s detonation of an atomic device developed 

from its civil nuclear power industry, states which sold nuclear power 

technology formed the London or Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Its 

purpose was to constrain the transfer of dual-use technology--having both 

civil and military applications--to non-nuclear weapon states (NNWSs). By 

the 1980s, it had become increasingly apparent that restrictions on nuclear fuel 

and weapons technology were inadequate to prevent the making of nuclear 

weapons. The U.S. again took the lead in promoting the creation of the 

Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to inhibit the transfer and 

diffusion of weapon delivery systems technology. 

 It may be that these and the other measures that constitute the 

international non-proliferation regime have slowed the diffusion of nuclear 

weapons technology. However, it is more certain that these restrictions were, 

and are, not always rigorously or uniformly enforced. When it became clear 
18

that Britain was determined to acquire nuclear weapons, the U.S. offered 

assistance that continues to this day. Later, limited aid was also extended to 

France, which, while rejecting the initial offer, accepted U.S. tankers to refuel 

its nuclear bombers and computer technology used in making the French 

hydrogen weapon.44 

 In addition to supplying direct assistance, the U.S. and other suppliers 

have at times looked the other way when potential proliferators were acquiring 

nuclear technology. This was particularly true if such behavior suited other 

policy objectives, such as the struggle with the communist states. The case of 

India and Pakistan clearly illustrates this policy; before U.S. aid to Pakistan 

was cut off in 1990 under the Pressler Amendment, Pakistan was thought to 

have the highly enriched uranium to make five or ten nuclear weapons, and 

India was estimated to have enough plutonium for 40 to 60 weapons.45 

Faustian Bargains 

 Ironically, perhaps one of the greatest long-term contributors to 

undermining technical barriers to the development of nuclear weapons was a 

U.S.-sponsored program that stressed the electric power potential of nuclear 

energy. The US assisted states in the acquisition of civil power production 

technology, in return for international inspection of their nuclear research and 

production facilities. Proposed by President Eisenhower in the UN General 

Assembly, December 1953, the "Atoms for Peace" initiative lead to the 1957 

creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).46 While the 

concept and its implementation played an essential role in the international 

coordination of anti-proliferation efforts through the IAEA Safeguards 

program, it was bound to involve a Faustian bargain. 

 On the one hand, the creation of IAEA provided a forum for limited 

but essential superpower cooperation. It also fostered the spread of nuclear 

power technology in a manner permitting nations with limited weapon 

ambitions to acquire and exploit nuclear technology quickly, and without 
19

endless outside concerns over their long-term objectives.47 It is difficult to 

imagine a remotely effective international non-proliferation regime without 

the IAEA and its safeguards. A world of states with nationally-generated and 

unmonitored civil nuclear power programs would be one of limitless 

suspicion. 

 Despite its contributions to international stability, it is important to 

acknowledge that Atoms for Peace also had several potentially negative 

proliferation consequences. The program led to the training of tens of 

thousands of nuclear physicists and engineers, and it resulted in the provision 

of nuclear fuel, research and production reactors, and nuclear power plant 

technology to scores of countries. These human and material assets--initially 

provided for the most part by the NWS and advanced nuclear power 

countries--constitute a critical mass, not only for the exploitation of nuclear 

power but also, with sufficient interest and industry, for making nuclear 

weapons. Furthermore, the evolution of nuclear technology created new 

proliferation problems, such as reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to obtain 

fissile material. Thus, Atoms for Peace spread the technology and the 

hardware which facilitated the steady circumvention of restraining barriers by 

states determined to gain nuclear weapons. 

 By 1980, when the U.S. began a systematic effort to constrain 

proliferation of advanced delivery technologies--chiefly ballistic and cruise 

missiles--the proverbial barn door was wide open. In a second Faustian 

bargain, the major arms-supplying states competed to sell such delivery 

systems to potential proliferators, sometimes justifying the sales as ways of 

satisfying the security appetites of the recipients and thereby reducing 

proliferation pressures. Thus, aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons are 

available on the international market; some non-nuclear states have acquired 

ballistic missiles (and, like Iraq, extended the range) or cruise missiles, 

ostensibly for use with conventional munitions; while others are developing 

both types of missiles indigenously. 
20

 India, for example, has the durable and adaptable British-made 

Canberra bomber and numerous Jaguar and MIG ground-attack fighters that 

could be rigged for nuclear weapons. India also deploys the Prithvi missile in 

versions with 90-and 150-mile ranges and 250 to 500 pound payloads; is 

developing the Agni I intermediate-range ballistic missile, and designing the 

longer-range Agni II; and has successfully tested the Lakshya unmanned 

vehicle that can also function as a cruise missile.48 Pakistan, for its part, has 

U.S.-made F-16 attack fighters, thought to be its choice for a delivery vehicle, 

has bought the Chinese short-range M-11 ballistic missile, and is developing 

medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs).49 North Korea is developing 

MRBMs and intermediate-range missiles (IRBMs).50 

Proliferation Paradox 

 The growing ability of would-be nuclear-weapon states to overcome 

technical barriers placed in their path does not necessarily mean that a 

determined nation can easily field a viable nuclear force. The gradual decline 

in the effectiveness of these obstacles signifies that the prerequisites for 

development of a nuclear device program are available with effort and that a 

delivery system--albeit with modest performance characteristics--is not 

beyond reach. 

 It is this condition which constitutes the proliferation paradox: as 

acquisition of basic nuclear-weapon materials and technology has become 

easier, fewer states are committing to or engaging in the nuclear option. From 

the standpoint of conventional proliferation thinking, this is counter-intuitive. 

It raises interesting questions about the nature and automaticity of diffusion; 

the dominance of security, prestige, and bureaucratic factors in contemporary 

proliferation motivation; the continuing efficacy of technical non-proliferation 

measures; and the current state of the diffusion threat. 
21

IV. The Nuclear Club: Growing Disincentives to Join 

 The logic of nuclear proliferation derives mainly from the motivation 

seen in the cases of the current nuclear weapon states and Israel. From 

concerns of security, prestige, or both, a nation makes a commitment to go 

nuclear. In due course it fulfills that commitment, either deploying a 

significant and visible force or, as in the case of Israel, maintaining its force 

behind a veil. NWSs repose the deterrent or compellence power of their 

nuclear arsenals in uncertainty as to whether, or under what conditions, they 

might be used. Israel relies on this, as well as the additional ambiguity 

regarding the extent of its forces. 

 The logic of non-proliferation has been, for the most part, linear and 

universalistic in terms of its principles. It involves a mix of sticks (denial or 

punishment) and carrots (nuclear power, security assistance, etc.), with the 

emphasis often on sticks. The Clinton Administration's new recipe favoring 

rewards, as in the Ukrainian and North Korean cases, has been criticized 

because, among other things, it departs noticeably from the traditional 

approach stressing negative consequences. The prevailing paradigms of 

proliferation and non-proliferation are, in political culture jargon, reductionist 

and Western, as well as deeply embedded in the non-proliferation regime. 

They may therefore no longer be able to address changing international 

realities. 

 If the number of nuclear-armed states grew only to six in the 25 years 

between 1945 and 1970, while the number of nuclear-capable states has 

shrunk since 1980, causes of nuclear restraint not clearly addressed by these 

models seem to be at work. A number of country studies--most notably 

Mitchell Reiss's Bridled Ambition--have suggested possible causes of nuclear 

self-restraint. More theoretical analyses have also indicated several 

possibilities.51 
22

 This is not to say that dramatic new reasons to forgo the deployment 

of nuclear forces are being discovered. Rather, that there may be a 

reevaluation of the issues which influence nuclear proliferation decisions. The 

following pages speculate on the reasons for eschewing nuclear deployment. 

The Deployment Decision 

 In most earlier cases of nuclear decision-making, including the South 

African case, the decision to field some kind of nuclear force appears to have 

been a foregone conclusion, one inherent in the original decision to embark on 

a program to develop a nuclear explosive device.52 Moreover, for the first 

three nuclear weapon states (U.S., USSR, and UK), developing deployment 

methods for the weapons was not a consideration, since World War II had 

produced bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons (albeit not at 

intercontinental ranges). 

 While the development of nuclear technology and the acquisition of 

weapons required new handling, safety, and security measures associated with 

contemporary nuclear forces, other deployment-related decisions seemed 

relatively uncomplicated by today's standards. Until the advent of long-range 

ballistic missiles, for example, nuclear forces and other targets could be 

defended by relatively straightforward and readily available measures like 

dispersal, camouflage, interceptor aircraft, anti-aircraft artillery, and nucleartipped surface-to-air missiles like the American Bomarc. 

 Now, however, costly, highly complex and hardened early-warning, 

command and control, and interception systems are necessary to protect 

nuclear forces and the investment in them, as well as to ensure that they 

operate effectively. Where the prospective antagonists are cheek-by-jowl--as 

at the head of the Persian Gulf, in South Asia, or on the Korean Peninsula--no 

early-warning or protective system may adequately address the protective task. 
23

In this environment, a small, vulnerable deterrent force may invite intervention 

and provoke instability rather than inhibit aggression. 

 The deployment decision is, of course, not a single decision. There is 

a myriad of decisions ranging from the seemingly trivial to the obviously 

crucial. The main categories of deployment decision-making include 

determining: 

• the precise nature of the threat 

• missions and targets 

• allocation of mission to services 

• size and types of forces 

• the sequence of deployment 

• the means of securing nuclear force against internal and external 

threats 

• the availability of resources and opportunity costs 

• the impact of deployment on allies and adversaries 

• future expansion and modernization requirements 

• required command and control facilities, authorities, and procedures. 

In some situations, provisions for maintaining internal security--i.e., protecting 

the force from seizure, sabotage, or unauthorized use--might be almost as 

demanding as those for protecting it from external threats. 

 Depending on the political and economic system, the prevailing 

perceptions, and the regional power balance within which this sequence of 

decisions is to be made, different categories of decisions will have varying 

significance and salience. Overall, however, some aspects of decision-making 

are sure to raise profound issues and thus potential differences regarding the 

appropriate approach to deployment. These differences may in themselves 

block or seriously complicate the deployment step. 

 Although not significant in the programs of the current NWSs, 

competing views on deployment could assume greater importance in many of 

today’s cases. In North Korea, the decision to create a nuclear weapon 
24

capability appears to have split the leadership in Pyongyang. The case of Iraq, 

however, indicates such division is not necessarily the rule. The length of 

time it takes a clandestine proliferator to, first, create a nuclear device and then 

build a viable nuclear force also offers opportunities for revising the decision 

by means of a change in government, outside intervention, or both. 

 The important point is that while a nuclear weapon research and 

development program may escape serious domestic challenge, the 

contemporary reality of nuclear proliferation is that moving to the deployment 

phase--once seemingly automatic--involves steps likely to be highly 

controversial within a government or society. Such a move would likely entail 

an irrevocable commitment with high and continuing costs and social, 

political, and environmental burdens. It is also likely to be visible physically 

and fiscally. Some of the controversies latent in the process of deployment 

decision-making are suggested below. 

Technology Constraints 

 By the 1970s, the technological requirements for fielding a nuclear 

force had become more demanding than 25 years earlier and would continue 

to present a greater challenge to would-be proliferators. Whereas the initial 

nuclear powers were able to ‘grow up’ with the technology, contenders for 

nuclear status today must catch up with the path-breakers. Earlier in the 

nuclear age, innovators suffered from the principle that it is simpler to be an 

imitator; the Soviet Union took advantage of this throughout the Cold War.53 

To realize this benefit, however, the imitator must pursue the innovator closely 

or fall too far behind to catch up. 

 This is the condition of most would-be nuclear-armed states, not in 

terms of bomb technology or of aircraft delivery systems, but in terms of the 

myriad technologies now needed for an effective nuclear force. It is not in the 

making of a bomb nor in the acquisition of a delivery system that the 

challenges lie, but in a host of associated systems. Rodney Jones and Steven 
25

Hildreth note that for sophisticated systems the "technical obstacles are not 

trivial." They cite engineering challenges over physics problems and the costs 

of necessary infrastructure as among these obstacles that have led to what they 

term "no-first production" policies.54 

 The problem is partly illustrated by the difference between 

developing a workable bomb and an effective missile. One physicist, writing 

on the current requirements for producing an explosive device, concluded that 

"...so far as is known, no nation which has attempted to detonate a nuclear 

explosive has failed on its first attempt."55 In contrast, efforts to develop 

reliable and effective cruise and ballistic missiles have been plagued with 

problems, from Nazi Germany's V-1 and V-2 programs to India's Agni missile 

program, and even by the superpowers. 

 Owing to its special geopolitical situation, South Africa was able to 

circumvent most of these challenges by building a very simple bomb and 

adopting a simple strategy. In the event of an unmanageable challenge by the 

Soviet-backed forces then on its borders, Pretoria would detonate a nuclear 

weapon on the ground--followed by a bomb drop over the Atlantic, if 

necessary--to engage Western aid. If neither demonstration availed, the other 

bombs would be delivered by Buccaneer, Mirage, or Canberra aircraft.56 Most 

potential proliferators will not be afforded the luxury of a simple weapon, 

simple delivery vehicle, and simple strategy because they are in closer 

proximity to major rivals with significant conventional retaliatory capability. 

 Less than the up-front technology of bombs and bombers, it is the 

follow-on technologies required for the deployment of a viable force that may 

discourage or inhibit proliferators. Presumably, the reason for the current 

proliferation of cruise and ballistic missile technology is that potential 

proliferators have come to understand that a nuclear bomber force is a 

vulnerable one, especially subject to a preemptive strike by contemporary 

conventional weapons. Indian efforts to buy a Soviet missile submarine seem 
26

to indicate that at least one nuclear-capable state is thinking ahead along those 

lines, as well. 

 As missile technologies are mastered, proliferators must then 

contemplate the need for sophisticated ancillary technologies such as earlywarning systems, launcher protection systems, satellite reconnaissance and 

positioning systems for target identification and location, hardened and 

redundant command-and-control systems, and weapon security and fail-safe 

systems. 

 Figure 3 is a simplified, notional depiction of the development and 

deployment stages and related decisions involved in acquiring an effective and 

viable force. It assumes that force development is driven, as it was for the 

nuclear super-powers, by specific threats that will improve technologically, 

requiring the proliferator to expand or modernize.57 As a representation of 

some 

Figure 3. MAJOR STAGES IN NUCLEAR FORCE DEVELOPMENT 

AND DEPLOYMENT 

Stage 1: Research Development, Testing, and Prototyping

o Develop nuclear device o Develop delivery system 

o Test nuclear device o Test delivery system 

o Develop production prototype o Develop Production model 

Stage 2: Weapon Production and Handling

o Prepare secure production o Prepare secure stockpiles 

 facilities and handling facilities 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

o Develop doctrine for weapon o Train personnel in production, 

 deployment handling and use 

Stage 3: Deployment of Initial Operating Capability
27

o Provide personnel security o Provide force security: 

 procedures and systems hardening, redundancy, 

 defense, and dispersion 

o Develop secure, survivable o Select and assign targets 

 command-and-control systems 

Stage 4: Force Expansion and/or Modernization

o Improve force capability: o Improve force and 

 size, performance, etc. command-and-control 

 capability 

o Expand targeting and o Revise employment doctrine 

 delivery options for improved capability
28

of the decisions facing a proliferator downstream, Figure 3 illustrates the 

consequences of the initial decision to deploy. 

 If countries like India remain in the development stage, and are no 

further along than the dashed line in stage two, they are on the threshold of a 

series of decisions and tasks that were accepted almost automatically by the 

first nuclear powers. Yet, if taken by a contemporary proliferator, these 

decisions would necessitate greater exertions owing to the technology gap 

between small and relatively primitive nuclear forces and the forces deployed 

today by the leading nuclear weapon states. This is not to say that the 

proliferator must emulate the arsenal of the United States. Still, it would be 

unwise to ignore the technical possibilities and risks that the continuous 

expansion and modernization of American and Soviet forces reveal. 

 The modernization and expansion imperatives appear to be inevitable 

for existing or would-be nuclear-armed states not so well situated as South 

Africa. Britain and France are both involved in nuclear force modernization. 

A nuclear force effective against regional foes would not likely be so against 

the arsenals of the NWSs or, more realistically, against a counterstrike by 

advanced conventional forces. Indeed, an irony of the current era in weapons 

technology is that conventional arms--often heirs to improvements in range, 

accuracy, speed, and lethality pioneered for nuclear weapons--have 

increasingly been replacing nuclear arms for many missions. 

 Nonetheless, some would-be proliferators, as well as opponents of 

proliferation, seem to view the acquisition of a minimum force--a few bombs 

and a few bombers or missiles--as the end state. Such a force, however, might 

prove an invitation to preventive attack or preemption--perhaps by nonnuclear means --rather than as an effective instrument of local deterrence or 

hegemony.58 

 An additional factor that may deter some would-be nuclear powers is 

that, in political terms, nuclear power is not only the product of an arsenal but 

also of territorial scale. As the arsenals of the NWSs grew and improved, the 
29

ability to absorb a nuclear attack and respond with secure, second-strike 

weapons assumed an increasingly important role in the balance of terror. This 

capability was the product of sheer geographical size, the use of the opacity of 

the oceans to shield the second-strike weapons from attack, as well as the 

guarantees--actual or probable--that a medium nuclear power could call on the 

U.S. nuclear umbrella. 

 Three of the six nuclear-armed states have both the territory and 

ocean access to make a willingness to absorb a first strike and then retaliate 

seem credible. Additionally, Britain and, implicitly, Israel and France have an 

American nuclear guarantee to rely on. Among the candidates for the status of 

nuclear-armed state, only India has the territorial expanse and broad ocean 

access to be in the same league as China, Russia, and America. This may 

account for its pursuit of advanced sea-based delivery systems while holding 

back on weapons production. 

 Finally, the decision to deploy nuclear weapons may increasingly be 

influenced by the fact that advanced conventional weapons can perform most 

of the tasks once assigned to nuclear munitions. One reason the United States 

recently deactivated many tactical nuclear weapons is that their roles were 

usurped by conventional arms that are very accurate, lethal, and versatile. For 

technologically advanced armed forces, precision-guided conventional 

munitions are the weapons of choice. Thus, ironically, would-be nuclear 

proliferators may not be pursuing the technology of today but yesterday 

(though, in fact, most covet both). 

Economic Implications

 The bomb-at-any-cost approach was so much a part of initial 

programs and has figured in enough other cases (e.g., Pakistan and Iraq), that 

the economics of nuclear weapons decision-making received scant attention. 

Most would-be proliferators do not command the resources to fund a weapons 

development program without significant opportunity costs elsewhere in their 
30

economies. However, the cost of a nuclear weapons R&D program--one that 

could produce the components for several bombs--need not be excessive, if 

the effort is undertaken in tandem with creating a commercial nuclear power 

industry, and if it is not a crash project like the U.S. and Soviet efforts. 

 For at least the last 20 years, though, the costs of a decision favoring 

deployment of a viable nuclear force have been a different matter. Taken 

together, the costs of the numerous programs associated with such a viable 

nuclear force will probably dwarf initial developmental investment.59 

 In principle, the budgetary impact of these costs could be moderated 

by spreading delivery system acquisition, preparation of secure nuclear 

stockpiles and bases, training, and other essential expenditures over longer 

periods. Practically, though, this would entail the risks commonly related to 

concurrent decisions on interactive features of a planned force. Thus, a 

delivery system might have to be chosen before the final design of the nuclear 

device was proven, and fixed nuclear facilities might have to be designed 

before crucial features of the force were known with high certainty. Such 

activities might also signal deployment intentions sooner than desired. 

 In major U.S. weapons acquisition programs in the 1960s and 1970s, 

"excessive concurrency" due to program acceleration was found by the 

Government Accounting Office to be the largest single cause of cost overruns. 

An example of this would be beginning production of a new class of 

submarines before the prototype had been fully tested. This would lead to the 

requirement to redesign, remanufacture, and back-fit elements of the system in 

units that were in advanced stages of production.60 At the beginning of the 

nuclear age, the penalties for wrong decisions were less severe, owing to 

relatively primitive early-generation technologies, or they seemed more 

tolerable. Inevitably, however, as technologies mature and become more 

complex, the margin for error declines. 

 The economic implications of a deployment decision are very high 

and fraught with risk. A decision to acquire a minimum force--for example, 
31

one squadron of 24 fighter-bombers dispersed at four locations in hardened 

revetments, good early warning equipment, and a robust command-andcontrol system but no air defense against cruise or ballistic missiles--would 

reduce the budgetary impact but might also prove a tempting target for a 

preventive conventional attack. A more effective and viable force--including 

a mix of widely dispersed and hardened aircraft and missiles, state-of-the-art 

early warning and air defense, and robust and redundant command and 

control--would, require far more capital investment and increased annual 

operating costs. 

 Except in the case of authoritarian regimes like Iraq, Iran, and North 

Korea, the probability is that the costs of deploying a force of any capability or 

significance would provoke a debate over resource allocation, especially if the 

champions of alternative spending priorities were in any way informed about 

the long-term additional costs of force expansion and modernization. In times 

of economic uncertainty or transition, low national growth rates, trade or 

budget deficits, currency fluctuation or devaluation, or similar economic 

stress, fiscal arguments against weaponizing a nascent nuclear capability 

would be potent.61 

The Politics of Weaponization

 Many of the technical and economic disincentives to deployment 

cited above involve difficult domestic decisions or trade-offs, imposed or 

influenced by broad external developments, such as major changes in the 

global economy, or the emergence of patterns of technological innovation, 

evolution, and diffusion that discourage nuclear force proliferation. The 

degree of domestic political awareness of these international pattern changes 

is related to the openness of the polity or the strength of its democracy. The 

most likely proliferators in Table 2 (Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea) are the 

most closed and authoritarian states, as well as the ones with the greatest 

pretensions to international power or fear of their enemies. Brazil and 
32

Argentina, on the other hand, as a result of their own achieved détente, agreed 

to a cessation in nuclear weapons rivalry after the 1983 election of Raul 

Alfonsin as Argentina's first democratic president in more than 10 years.62 

South Africa gave up its small force as a result of the end of the Cold War, 

which lessened its security concerns, and of President F.W. de Klerk's effort to 

democratize the country.63 

 As South Korea and Taiwan have moved hesitantly toward 

democracy, they have also proved susceptible to U.S. influence regarding 

nuclear proliferation. Presumably they count their security relations with 

Washington--explicit and tacit--as a better guarantee than independent nuclear 

forces. 

 Democracy is comparatively robust in India. In Pakistan, it has been 

the norm but not always the practice.64 Both countries have paused on the 

threshold of deployment. If links between democratization and nonproliferation remain unclear or inconsistent, evidence of the nexus of highly 

authoritarian regimes, political ambition, and nuclear ambition is strong.65 

 Military, technological, and economic considerations pertaining to 

nuclear decision-making merge in the political arena, even in authoritarian 

states where the arena may be very small. They are then subjected to political 

considerations at the international, regional, national, local, and party levels. 

Often this results in the emergence of contentious political issues and debate. 

 One such issue has already been indicated: differences over the 

allocation of resources, between nuclear forces and other national priorities 

(such as a stronger economy or avoiding international bankruptcy). Disputes 

might also arise as a result of inter-service competition for the nuclear force 

role. Few, if any, states today can afford, as could the U.S. and the USSR at 

the height of the Cold War, to let each of the major armed services have a 

significant nuclear role. 

 The deployment decision has additional bureaucratic implications. 

The proliferation paradigm tends to emphasize the role of powerful nuclear 
33

agencies--energy ministries, atomic energy commissions, research facilities--

as driving forces in the decision chain leading to eventual deployment. The 

clout of such institutions is usually considerable during the R&D phases of a 

nuclear weapons program, but, depending on the organization or character of a 

government, its influence may be diluted when it comes to the actual 

deployment decision.66 Other senior officials and cabinet members may ally 

against nuclear force deployment in an effort to protect or enlarge their own 

allocations. 

 The military services may also have joint or separate interests that 

would be at risk from a nuclear deployment decision, such as maintaining 

budget shares or avoiding diversion of funds from preferred programs. The 

1949 admirals' revolt in Washington resulted from the cancellation of the 

Navy's new aircraft supercarrier to fund more B-36 nuclear bomber wings for 

the U.S. Air Force. This fueled Naval opposition to deterrence doctrine, and 

its labeling of the doctrine as "immoral."67 Negative reevaluation of the 

contemporary deterrent value, military utility, and long-term costs of nuclear 

forces can as plausibly come from the military services as from political 

circles. Opposition of this kind could lead to postponement or avoidance of a 

decision favoring deployment, especially if the government suffers from 

weakness in its leadership, or internal divisions and factionalism. 

Guarding the Guardians

 A civil government contemplating deployment needs to have strong 

faith in the character of its military forces. A military government must have 

an equally strong faith that it will not be usurped. Nuclear force deployment 

further implies reposing great trust in the loyalty and judgment of specific 

personnel, both military and civilian, to ensure proper authority of units at 

several levels of command. All of these imperatives imply high degrees of 

social cohesion, consensus, and homogeneity or, in their absence, very 

effective social regimentation. 
34

 Reaching consensus on who should control nuclear forces might 

prove difficult in a polity with strong and unresolved ethnic, religious, class, 

or ideological differences. This is especially true if the cleavages have 

expressed themselves in violence and communal strife, as they have in Iraq, 

India, and Pakistan.68 The control issues will be less contentious in states 

where the societies are relatively homogeneous and the recent history of 

relations with antagonists is not rife with conflict. Therefore, in more 

heterogeneous and strife-torn polities, additional considerations under the 

rubric of ‘who-will-guard-the-guardians?' may raise further barriers to a 

deployment decision. 

 Histories of political instability may also inhibit nuclear proliferation, 

since few will want to commit to a very long-term program that might one day 

end up in ‘the wrong hands.’ Shahram Chubin notes: 

...decisions made at one time can take effect at another. A 

new regime may look at the world differently, put a different 

priority on acquiring nuclear weapons and pursue them for 

quite different ends. Any progress made by its 

predecessor...may then contribute to new and unforeseen 

ends.69

Perhaps in combination with other disincentives, inability to address the issue 

of weapons control in the face of domestic division and internal instability 

could provide a strong reason for halting on the threshold of force 

deployment. 

V. Proliferation Implications 

 The proliferation paradigm tends to assume a single-minded and 

unitary governmental decision-making approach to nuclear weapons 

acquisition that is seen mainly among authoritarian regimes.70 Economic, 

technical, military, and political disincentives to nuclear deployment may 
35

cumulatively be enough to encourage political leaders to eschew nuclear 

capability and seek to harmonize their differences with rivals or sources of 

perceived threats. The cases reviewed earlier and the possible disincentives 

just summarized suggest the need for a better understanding of nuclear 

decision-making on a country-by-country basis, including behavior reflecting 

both nuclear reservations and nuclear ambitions. 

Nuclear Maturity

 Evidence of a subtle yet substantive change of views on the utility 

and legitimacy of nuclear forces may lie in the instances where the acquisition 

of nuclear weapons has been reversed, halted, or slowed. The factors 

contributing to such change might be of several kinds: (1) governmental 

learning, (2) generational change, and (3) several kinds of reverse 

demonstration effects. 

Governmental Learning

 Governmental learning describes a long-term, collective, and 

experiential process that bears strongly on policy change and innovation and 

has especially significant implications for security policy and arms 

limitation.71 The governmental learning concept suggests that, in varying 

ways and degrees, some of the potential proliferators have moved from starker 

representations of reality to richer ones and toward improved ways of 

harmonizing ends and means. Learning of this kind can be simple or complex, 

involve step-by-step or break-through acquisition of knowledge, and include 

solitary, parallel, or dynamic experiences. The nuclear diffusion chronologies 

illustrated earlier seem to indicate that proliferation abatement began before 

the end of the Cold War--though its end accelerated that process--and may 

reflect the process of governmental learning. 

Generational Change
36

 In aspects of nuclear decision-making such as governmental learning 

we may be witnessing the impact of generational change. The perspectives of 

today may have little in common with those of the decision-makers of the 

1940s and 1950s. It should be more evident, for instance, that as means to 

ensure security, nuclear weapons are a highly problematic solution, at times 

creating insecurities at least as great as any they allay. Generational change, 

as seen in the Soviet case and perhaps detectable in others, probably abets the 

process of governmental learning. 

Reverse Demonstration Effect

 Among the factors that impel proliferators along their course is the 

demonstration effect. The demonstration effect drives imitation both among 

economic producers and military forces and can be reversed as well, so that 

emulated behavior becomes rejected behavior. Other possible influences 

include the partial but real delegitimization of nuclear weapons resulting from 

superpower declarations that nuclear war could not be won and must never be 

fought, and the nuclear reduction efforts of the U.S. and the USSR in the late 

1980s and early 1990s. Thus, nuclear learning and the reverse demonstration 

effect of denuclearization may push in the same direction as prohibitive costs, 

unwelcome political divisions, and technical hurdles--against a deployment 

decision. 

 A related influence may be that the symbolism of nuclear 

accomplishment has steadily degraded in the last 10 to 20 years. Once nations 

pursued nuclear capability because they gained prestige from mastering the 

physics of nuclear explosions. Now the symbolic value of nuclear capability 

is more likely to be negative, associated with Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, 

Colorado's Rocky Flats arsenal, the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington, 

and equivalent ex-Soviet weapon facilities.72 

 This is not to suggest that proliferators are suddenly deciding to 

follow the new, uncertain path of denuclearization begun by the U.S. and the 
37

former Soviet Union. Rather, the superpowers’ retreat from long-standing 

competition in this area may have raised, or given new urgency to, questions 

about the usefulness of nuclear weapons in achieving broad national goals. 

Viewing it as a whole, U.S. and Russian analysts have been finding more fault 

with the dynamics and products of their forty-year arms rivalry. These lessons 

may induce others to consider where their programs could take them.73 

 These possible motives point to a related factor which helps explain a 

notable decline in proliferation and the retreat of the superpowers from 

expansion of their atomic arsenals. The evolution of nuclear maturity seems 

clear in the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa, as well as the U.S. 

and Russia. It may be too soon to include India or Pakistan in this company, 

although the confidence-building measures they have taken in the 1990s 

provide hopeful signs. However, it is important to note, maturity of this kind 

is reversible. It is instructive, in the context of an apparent slowdown in 

nuclear diffusion, to reflect on commentaries on the Swedish decision not to 

select the nuclear option: 

Sweden's decision to forgo the acquisition of nuclear 

weapons is a consequence of the cumulative effect of a 

number of small decisions and actions over two decades.74

Because a procurement decision was not perceived to be 

especially urgent and the political situation favored the 

postponement of any decision, pro or con, valuable time was 

gained for reflection on the costs and benefits of acquiring 

nuclear weapons. At the same time, international thinking 

on the roles and utility of nuclear weapons matured. One 

result was that [in Sweden] broader security policy 

considerations triumphed over purely military and tactical 

arguments.75 

Alternative Scenarios

 Considerations other than nascent maturity accompanied by the 

vexing decisions suggested earlier may yield a better explanation for the 

decline in diffusion. Pakistan and India may be ‘lying-low’ while their 
38

delivery vehicle programs catch-up to their weapon efforts. Even so, the 

resulting pause might well be a long one, possibly offering a window of 

opportunity for policy change through a continuous demonstration effect or 

through the process of government learning. It may be that there is domestic 

consensus only for weapon and delivery system development, not deployment. 

Circumstantial and anecdotal evidence exists to support this inference in the 

case of South Asia.76 

 The Israeli example and its strategy of nuclear ambiguity may also 

have encouraged others to develop their own variants. Bombs (or 

components) in the basement may have as much deterrent effect or bargaining 

leverage as is needed, yet run fewer risks of preventive attack, international 

condemnation, sanctions, or isolation. Rosalind Reynolds argues that in South 

Asia and North Korea nuclear-capable or would-be nuclear-capable states 

have effectively used their differing threshold conditions to achieve classic 

goals associated with actual nuclear forces. India and Pakistan have achieved 

reciprocal nuclear dissuasion, although the stability of this condition remains 

contentious, while North Korea has bartered its nuclear weapons potential for 

the oil and modern nuclear power technology its shrinking economy 

desperately needs.77

 Domestic disincentives to deploy nuclear forces may change, 

diminish, or vanish. For example, if having a nuclear capability without 

deployed forces is the point at which domestic political consensus can 

currently be sustained, a future conflict or threat could shift this consensus 

toward deployment. 

 Still other scenarios provide ample reason for continuing to be 

concerned about proliferation. It is conceivable that political leaders in states 

suspected as proliferators are waiting to determine the role of nuclear weapons 

after the Cold War. Will these weapons be viewed as decisive in terms of 

threat-making, military utility, or political power, as they were in the past? Or 

will they be seen as indecisive or unusable? If their former status is preserved, 
39

proliferation may expand rather than contract. The spread of nuclear weapons 

(horizontal proliferation) could also slow the decade-long process of reversing 

vertical proliferation (the growth of the American and Soviet-Russian nuclear 

arsenals). 

 It is likely that differences in national goals between the nuclear 

haves and nuclear have-nots (and between the Cold War and the post-Cold 

War periods) have produced different evaluations of the utility of nuclear 

weapons. The leading NWSs have declared that a nuclear war cannot be won 

and must not be fought, and have also questioned the value of nuclear arms, 

considering their numerous costs and uncertain record of effectiveness 

coercion.78

 In the wake of the Cold War, however, those states that feel 

threatened (e.g. North Korea) or want to threaten (e.g. Iran) may see nuclear 

forces as attractive equalizers of the local, regional, or international military 

balance. Such nations need not even threaten to use a small nuclear force 

against a potential adversary. Instead, it could threaten to use it to retaliate 

against a third party, if its actions are contested or its demands not met. For 

example, a hypothetically nuclearized North Korea might vow, under 

international pressure, to destroy not Seoul, but a Japanese city if sanctions or 

other measures are not lifted, or if conventional counterforces are deployed.79 

It is far from clear how, or whether, an NWS could use its nuclear superiority 

to counter such a threat or whether international opinion would permit the use 

of nuclear weapons for such a purpose. Thus, the NWSs may be inhibited 

from employing their nuclear advantage, while others might not be.80 

 Other motives and explanations for the seeming decline in 

prospective proliferation have been developed, most of them less sanguine 

than those hypothesized in these pages. These alternate interpretations for 

proliferation postures may not challenge, so much as complement, the 

explanation indicated here. It is plausible, on the one hand, that domestic 

disincentives to creating viable nuclear forces obliged decision-makers to 
40

employ whatever diplomatic leverage a modest nuclear capability offered 

them. On the other hand, although significantly less plausible, is that decisionmakers chose a strategy of ambiguity and found that it accorded well other 

international and domestic needs and interests. 

VI. Future Non-Proliferation Policy

 The counsel here is, therefore, not to neglect proliferation but to alter 

or supplement strategies for coping with it. To some degree, U.S. policy shifts 

already reflect this imperative of post-Cold War non-proliferation. In late 

1993, the Clinton administration softened the largely threat-based approach it 

inherited from the Bush Administration in dealing with Ukraine on ex-Soviet 

nuclear weapons, and adopted a conciliatory policy that has been successful.81 

The administration has used a mixed approach to North Korea, but with the 

emphasis increasingly placed on rewards rather than punishment.82 It has kept 

up pressure on Iraq, despite the continuing evidence that the Iraqi response to 

threats is usually only temporary or partial compliance with the demands.83 

 The ‘behaviorist’ approach of conditioning conduct by reward and 

punishment holds that, as between the two, rewards are vastly more effective. 

This seems to hold true where the behavior is international rather than 

individual. In the post-Cold War era, in particular, when nuclear or 

conventional threats by NWSs have lost much of their credibility (as in 

Chechnya and Yugoslavia), emphasis on persuasive rather than coercive 

diplomacy seems more likely to yield the desired outcome. 

 In this connection, however, it is important not to confer too much 

credibility on the threat-making potential of possible or suspected 

proliferators, as the U.S. did in overrating Ukraine's nuclear option. 

Government officials, proliferation specialists, and news reporters who 

exaggerate nuclear capability or potential tempt states to keep or acquire 
41

nuclear weapons and raise expectations of the rewards that can be attained, 

both by acquiring and by giving up nuclear capability or weapons. 

 Continuing efforts to reverse vertical proliferation remain essential to 

the campaign against horizontal proliferation. As the NWSs were the role 

models for proliferation, so must they now be the role models for 

denuclearization. A comprehensive test ban treaty and constraints on the 

accumulation of fissile materials would be effective in this regard. Similarly, 

while the progress of denuclearization by the U.S. and Russia has been 

slowed, in part by the very magnitude of the reductions to which they have 

already committed themselves, it would be useful to map out the desired 

course for future cuts. Developing a plan for reductions beyond START I and 

START II would be a useful exercise for scouting the nuclear terrain of the 

future and identifying the conditions under which further cut-backs would be 

more or less likely. This must include conditions relating to Britain, France, 

and China, the nuclear-armed and nuclear-capable states, and potential 

proliferators. Other measures along these lines include re-examination of the 

role of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones in the light of the recent actions of South 

Africa, Brazil, and Argentina and exploration of the proposal for Nuclear Safe 

Zones. These would encompass nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable states but 

would contribute to regional confidence and provide a starting point for 

eventual nuclear reductions in regions where they are adopted.84

 The chief implication of government learning, generational change, 

and the reverse demonstration effect in the present context, however, may be 

that the downturn in nuclear diffusion and proliferation possibilities described 

at the outset involves more than adopting a different perspective in evaluating 

and classifying the spread of nuclear weapons. As intimated earlier, the very 

way in which proliferation has been viewed in the past is in need of updating, 

both to take account of new factors that may be at play and also to prevent the 

dead hand of an outdated mindset from causing new non-proliferation 

opportunities or techniques to be missed. This would entail adopting a more 
42

differentiated perspective on possible proliferators to facilitate policies more 

tailored to the various stages of, and motivations for, nuclear weapons 

acquisition. 

 As in all cases where incentives are sought to encourage behavior 

that is acceptable to a community, it is also important not to examine just the 

actual or possible defectors from the regime but also those that have joined it. 

This means concentrating more on the experience and security calculus of 

NPT adherents for lessons that may be applicable to the candidate nuclear 

states. While actual and potential proliferators will be especially resistant to 

tutelary tactics and cultural imperialism, it is nevertheless important to find 

ways to stress the security and other disincentives to possession of nuclear 

forces. 

 Overall, therefore, the most important contributions to constraining 

proliferation in the future may have to do, not with improvements in concrete 

measures, but in improved ways of thinking about the proliferation problem. 

We need to encourage a revision in thought amongst those who see nuclear 

forces as solving more problems, with fewer consequences, than they can. 
43

ENDNOTES

1

 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House

(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 897. 

2

 Christopher Drew, "U.S. Seeks New Start with Ukraine on Nuclear Arms," Chicago 

Tribune, May 12, 1993, p. 8. 

3

 See the overview by Sen. John Glenn, "This Country Encouraged the Spread of 

Nuclear Weapons," Washington Post, June 24, 1992. For a summary of how concern 

about a Soviet drive to the Persian Gulf--made possible or abetted by Iranian 

fundamentalism and instability--animated U.S. regional policy in the 1980s, see the 

author's "On the Brink in the Gulf, Part 1: Onset of the ‘Classic' 1990 Crisis," Security 

Studies, 2:2, Winter 1992, pp. 178-180. 

4

 George Questor, "Conceptions of Nuclear Threshold Status," in Regina Cowen 

Karp, ed., Security With Nuclear Weapons: Different Perspectives on National 

Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 226, similarly notes how the 

media recycle old ‘news' about proliferation in sensational terms. Shahram Chubin--in 

an essay in Mitchell Reiss and Robert S. Litwak, eds., Nuclear Proliferation after the 

Cold War (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1994), p. 34--also notes that 

both bureaucrats and academics have incentives for hyping proliferation after the Cold 

War; bureaucrats and academics, of course, are the principal sources of reporters 

covering foreign affairs. 

5

 A notable example is Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain 

Their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington: Wilson Center Press, 1995). Reiss analyzes 

nine cases of apparent nuclear self-denial. He does not assert, however, that this 

constitutes a trend. 

6

 On the process of innovation-imitation that produces general technological similarity 

or homogeneity, see William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed 

Forces, and Society Since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 

54. 

7

 In his conclusion to Nuclear Proliferation after the Cold War, Reiss identifies these 

factors, pp. 336-337, as "Incentives during the Cold War," along with "technological 

determinism." 

8

 A further ramification might be that proponents of versions of neo-realist or 

structuralist theory that disallow any influence from the unit or internal level on state 

behavior, emphasize exclusively the role of the system in determining state action, and 

regard nuclear diffusion--albeit, somehow, ‘selective'--as beneficial for stability would 

face still another challenge to the explanatory power of these variants of the theory. 

The contention of the pope of neo-realism, Kenneth Waltz, that system dynamics will 

cause Japan and Germany to go nuclear would be much harder to sustain, for example, 

if it were shown that domestic restraint on entry overcame or supplant systemic 

conditions favoring the nuclear option. For Waltz's predictions regarding Japan and 
44

Germany, see his "The Emerging Structure of International Relations," International 

Security, 18:2, Fall 1993, p. 54. Critical of this view is Glenn Chafetz's "The End of 

the Cold War and the Future of Nuclear Proliferation: An Alternative to the Neo-realist 

Perspective," Security Studies, 2:3/4, Spring/Summer 1993. 

9

 Definition in George W. Rathjens, The Future of the Strategic Arms Race: Options 

for the 1970s (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1969), p. 51. 

10 The more cynical may argue that Kennedy's estimate was merely self-serving, since 

he was striving for a Limited Test Ban Treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union at the 

time. His assessment, however, was consistent with those of specialists. As Alastair 

Buchan, then director of the (International) Institute for Strategic Studies, noted in his 

introduction to A World of Nuclear Powers?--published after China detonated its first 

atomic device--"the biggest gap in the chain reaction of proliferation may be from the 

fifth to the sixth. From the sixth to the sixteenth the progression might be rapid" 

(Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966), p. 9. Related to fears of a sudden 

expansion in nuclear powers, another prime proliferation concern of the time was 

expressed by Stanley Hoffmann in the same volume (p. 121): the complex problem of 

"too many fingers on a trigger" or an unstable, many-sided nuclear face-off or 

competition. 

11 Aron is quoted by Hoffmann, A World of Nuclear Powers?, p. 99. 

12 India is among those styled a ‘de facto Nuclear Weapon State,' reflecting the 

present semantic and conceptual problems of past thinking on proliferation and nonproliferation, which conflates a test and a nuclear arsenal. Even states that have not 

detectably tested are informally counted in the ‘de facto NWS' camp. 

13 On Pakistan's announcement, see R. Jeffrey Smith, "Pakistan Can Build One 

Nuclear Device, Foreign Official Says," Washington Post, February 7, 1992. For the 

timing of Pakistan's acquisition of nuclear capability, see Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 

187 and 215. On the recent state of nuclear programs and policy in India, Israel, 

Pakistan, and South Africa, see the chapters by, respectively, Brahma Chellaney, Shai 

Feldman, Ali T. Sheikh, and David Fischer in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit. 

14 For a brief overview, see R. Jeffrey Smith, "South Africa's 16-Year Secret: The 

Nuclear Bomb," Washington Post, May 12, 1993. A more exhaustive account is in 

Reiss, Bridled Ambition [Note 5]. 

15 Author's estimate based on Seymour M. Hersh, The Sampson Option: Israel's 

Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 

177 (which addresses production). 

16 For the numerous and varied obstacles to the use of the Soviet weapons by the three 

ex-republics, see the author's study of the leading case, "Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine: 

Hollow Threat, Wasting Asset," Arms Control Today, 23-6, July/August 1993, pp. 13-

18. In the meantime, all three have taken appropriate steps to carry out their 

obligations under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, ratify the START I treaty, and adhere to 

the NPT. 
45

17 While Western, and presumably other, intelligence agencies had known of Israel's 

weapons for nearly 20 years, significant public confirmation came only in 1986 when 

The Sunday Times (London) Insight Team gained information from Mordechai 

Vanunu, an employee at Israel's Dimona nuclear research complex. For the revelations 

and Vanunu's fortunes, see: "Revealed: The Secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal" and 

"How the Experts Were Convinced," Sunday Times, October 5, 1986; "France Admits 

it Gave Israel Bomb" and "Kidnap Fears for Israeli Who Gave Nuclear Secrets," 

Sunday Times, October 12, 1986; United Press International, "Priest Says Israelis Hold 

Missing A-Plant Worker," Washington Post, October 27, 1986; and Glenn Frankel, 

"Israeli Who Told of A-Bomb Vanishes," Washington Post, October 29, 1986. 

18 Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., Introduction, p. 6. 

19 Pakistan's fissile (explosive) matter is highly enriched uranium (HEU). Plutonium 

also provides fissile material, which comes from isotopes capable of nuclear fission 

(i.e., fissionable). See the sources in Note 10, especially Ali T. Sheikh, in Reiss and 

Litwak, p. 196. 

20 Regarding nuclear weapon development without testing, see William J. Quirk, 

"How Necessary is Nuclear Testing for Proliferant Nations? The Future Role of U.S. 

Nuclear Weapons" (Livermore CA: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1993) 

cited in Ryukichi Imai, "Post-Cold War Nuclear Non-proliferation and Japan," in The 

United States, Japan, and the Future of Nuclear Weapons: Report of the U.S.-Japan 

Study Group on Arms Control and Non-proliferation After the Cold War (Washington: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1995), p. 134. Quirk indicates that highyield, compact thermonuclear devices require testing but devices using simple gun- or 

implosion-type designs do not. 

21 Israel, for example, deployed its nuclear-capable Jericho I missile in the early 

1970s, the Jericho II in the early 1980s, and an extended range version of the Jericho II 

in 1987, well ahead of the deployment of similar weapons by would-be proliferators; 

see Leonard S. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 

1987-1988 (Cambridge MA: Ballinger, 1988), pp. 27 & 188. 

22 Sweden explored the prospects but did not undertake a weapons development 

program per se; see Lars Wallin, "Sweden," in Regina Karp, ed., Security With 

Nuclear Weapons? (Note 4), p. 366. 

23 A nuclear arsenal consisting of a very small number of weapons would, to be sure, 

have a certain value for threat-making but also runs grave risks of inviting a preemptive disarming first strike, as the Soviet leadership realized after Stalin's death. 

These risks motivate nuclear weapons states to develop stockpiles of at least 100 

weapons or so as an insurance policy. Such considerations might not influence a 

terrorist organization possessing a bomb, but, as yet, there has been no sign of the 

much-feared terrorist atomic bomb; other weapons seem adequate to terrorist acts. 

24 The Foreword to the Report of the U.S.-Japan Study Group cited in Note 22 

describes "...a background of continued high levels of nuclear armament, persistent 

threats of nuclear proliferation, and the burgeoning growth of conventional military 

forces" The proliferation threat does, indeed, persist. The issue to address now is 
46

whether it persists at the level of intensity of an earlier era. While linear extrapolation 

from a few data points, as reflected in Figures 1 and 2, is a risky basis for projecting 

trends, it does raise important questions about the degree or probability of the 

proliferation threat. Methodologically, it provides a more accurate picture of 

proliferation than do similar linear extrapolations made by treating these cases as 

identical. 

25 India and Pakistan have been dubbed "opaque proliferators" by Benjamin Frankel, 

signifying that their "nuclear weapon capabilities...are ‘suggested,' rather than openly 

acknowledged," according to Devin T. Hagerty, "The Power of Suggestion: Opaque 

Proliferation, Existential Deterrence, and the South Asian Nuclear Arms Competition," 

in Security Studies, 2:3/4, Spring/Summer 1993, p. 257 and Note 130. This seems a 

rather misleading classification, since no matter how much their nuclear programs lack 

transparency, they do not constitute deployed or viable nuclear forces. 

26 On denuclearization progress in Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, see Beyond the 

Nuclear Peril: The Year in Review and the Years Ahead, Report No. 15 (Washington: 

Henry L. Stimson Center, January 1995), pp. 13-17. 

27 John Arquilla and Paul K. Davis, in "Modeling Decision-making of Potential 

Proliferators as Part of Developing Counterproliferation Strategies" (Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND Corp., 1994) focus on North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, implicitly 

acknowledging the reduced threat of Libyan proliferation per se. Their study addresses 

types of decision-making among possible proliferators and thus the "demand" rather 

than the "supply" or supplier side of proliferation. 

28 In a seminal article in this period, for example, Richard K. Betts listed a dozen 

possible proliferators: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Libya, North Korea, 

Pakistan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, and Yugoslavia ("Paranoids, Pygmies, 

Pariahs and Non-proliferation Revisited," Foreign Policy No. 26, Spring 1977, 

reprinted with updating in Security Studies, 2:3/4, Spring/ Summer 1993). Other 

notable works in this period were Albert Wohlstetter et al., Moving Towards Life in a 

Nuclear Armed Crowd? (Los Angeles: Pan Heuristics, 1976) and Thomas C. Schelling, 

"Who Will Have the Bomb?" International Security, 1:1, Summer 1976. Stimulating 

concern was the recognition that fissile material would soon be available to many states 

in the spent fuel rods from their civilian nuclear power plants. This led to the U.S.-

sponsored International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE). On INFCE, see the 

essays by Theodor Winkler and Gloria Duffy in William H. Kincade and Christoph 

Bertram, Nuclear Proliferation in the 1980s: Perspectives and Proposals (New York: 

St. Martin's Press, 1982). 

29 On Iraq's treatment and the warning it may send to others, see the essays by Gary 

Samore and Shahram Chubin in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., as well as Reiss's 

concluding chapter. Samore notes (p. 31) that "Saddam Hussein provided an 

invaluable service to the international community. By serving as a warning of what 

might have been, he has given the international community greater reason and 

resources to deal with the threat." A useful overview of the Iraqi program is R. Jeffrey 

Smith and Glenn Frankel, "Saddam's Nuclear-Weapons Dream: A Lingering 

Nightmare," Washington Post, October 13, 1991. Possible secret proliferators will be 
47

subject to closer scrutiny in future; this will push up the high existing cost of 

developing a nuclear weapon capability in secret. 

30 On Qadafi's reputation and Libya's efforts, see Shahram Chubin, "The Middle East," 

in Reiss and Litwak, pp. 53-54. See also Leonard S. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb, 

pp. 196-204. The Economist, "Nuclear Non-proliferation," March 25, 1995, p. 23, 

notes that Algeria, Libya, and Syria have had nuclear ambitions but have been "too 

strapped for cash to get far." On their nuclear efforts, Shai Feldman, "Israel," in Reiss 

and Litwak, p. 78. 

31 See two 1994 Washington Post articles by Jessica Mathews defending the accord 

against its detractors: "A Sound Beginning With North Korea," October 21, and "A 

Good Deal with North Korea," October 30. Critics objected to negotiating with 

Pyongyang at all; see Albert Wohlstetter, "Too Many Flip-Flops," Washington Post, 

June 26, 1994. The October 21, 1994 "Agreed Framework" appears in Disarmament

(New York: United Nations) XVII:2, 1994, pp. 136-140, and Arms Control Today, 

24:10, December 1994, p. 19. A summary of its provisions is in Beyond the Nuclear 

Peril, p. 33. 

32 An Iranian device is not seen as an immediate danger, as Chubin makes clear in his 

analysis cited in Note 32. The task facing the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of 

reviving the earlier, broad nuclear program of the deposed Shah Mohammed Reza 

Pahlevi, one designed to lead to a "nuclear option," while confronting strong U.S. 

counter-action. See Jon B. Wolfsthal, "Iran, Russia Sign Nuclear Deal, Raising 

Proliferation Concerns," Arms Control Today, 25:1, January/February 1995, quoting 

Defense Secretary William Perry and outgoing CIA Director James Woolsey on 

obstacles to any near-term Iranian nuclear weapons capability. 

33 Mitchell Reiss, in the final chapter of Nuclear Proliferation after the Cold War, p. 

347, reaches a similar conclusion, noting that "Disincentives [to diffusion] have 

generally been strengthened and reinforced, whereas incentives have generally 

weakened." His focus is mainly on technical and external factors and less on military 

or political reasons that may account for decreased interest in nuclear capability. 

34 "Neo-Non-proliferation," Survival, 37:1, Spring 1995, p. 69. 

35 See Note 5. 

36 Rosalind G. Reynolds, "The Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Programs; NonWeaponized Tools for Diplomacy," paper presented at the 36th Annual Convention of 

the International Studies Association, Chicago IL, February 22, 1995. 

37 "The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint," International Security, 19:2, Fall 

1994. 

38 See, for example, the exchange in Survival, 37:2, Summer 1995, pp. 174ff., between 

Leonard Spector and two Department of Defense officials, Ashton B. Carter and 

Mitchel B. Wallerstein. 
48

39 See Benjamin Frankel, "An Anxious Decade; Nuclear Proliferation in the 1990s," 

Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 13, September 1990, and similar, but not necessarily 

pessimistic, articles cited by Spector in "Neo-Non-proliferation," p. 83, Note 11. 

40 Chubin makes a similar point in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., p. 59, but also notes "...it 

is getting harder and costlier to proliferate: more and better resources are available 

through better detection, better equipment, better coordination, and more diplomatic 

muscle." Largely a product of the 1991 discoveries about Iraq's weapon program, 

these improvements make hiding a program more problematic but do not alter the 

weakening of scientific and technological obstacles once considered the main barriers. 

41 On the attempt to corner uranium sources, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and 

Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random 

House, 1988), pp. 134 & 469. 

42 Prepared beforehand by Princeton University physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth and 

published immediately after the Hiroshima attack, its subtitle is: “The Official Report 

on the Development of the Atomic Bomb under the Auspices of the United States 

Government, 1940-1945.” For background, see Bundy, op. cit., Chapter IV. The 

report disclosed information already widely known to the international community of 

physicists; see L. Badash, E. Hodes, and A. Tiddens, Nuclear Fission: Reaction to the 

Discovery in 1939 (LaJolla CA: Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, 

University of California, San Diego, 1986). 

43 Bundy, op. cit, pp. 467-470. By his account, the Congress was largely ignorant of 

the British contribution, without which an atomic bomb could not have been developed 

by 1945. 

44 Bundy, op. cit., pp. 474-494. 

45 Leonard S. Spector, with Jacqueline R. Smith, Nuclear Ambitions: The Spread of 

Nuclear Weapons, 1989-90 (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1990), p. 9. The Pressler 

Amendment to the 1985 Foreign Assistance Act bars foreign aid to countries which the 

president cannot certify as not in possession of a nuclear device. Dr. K. 

Subrahmanyam, foreign affairs consulting editor for India's Economic Times, in a 

paper at the National Defense University’s symposium on "Counterproliferation: 

Security Dimensions of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) Proliferation," 

Washington, November 16-17, 1994, p. 17, cites estimates of a Pakistani stock-pile 

"ranging from two to seven or eight weapons," following the common practices of (1) 

using the estimates of Western anti-proliferators and (2) conflating amounts of fissile 

material with real weapons. In his paper at the same conference, former chair of the 

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Dr. Munir Ahmad Khan employs similar 

practices to estimate the strength of India's nuclear capability as to potential weapons 

and delivery systems. [Hereinafter, papers from this conference are identified as 1994 

NDU WMD Symposium materials.] 

46 The Atoms for Peace program, combined with the NPT, is deemed to mark the U.S. 

shift from a strict policy of denial to a mix of "constructive engagement" and selective 

denial; see National Academy of Sciences, Nuclear Arms Control: Background and 

Issues (Washington: National Academy Press, 1985), p. 237. In Bridled Ambition, p. 
49

326, Mitchell Reiss notes that the acceleration of proliferation by Atoms for Peace is 

reflected in India's 1974 nuclear test. 

47 On superpower cooperation in the formation of the IAEA, see David Holloway, 

Stalin and the Bomb (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 348-354. 

48 Data from The Military Balance 1992-1993 (London: International Institute for 

Strategic Studies, 1992), p. 132; Chellaney in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., pp. 180 & 

184; and "The Global Proliferation of Theater Ballistic Missiles," Arms Control Today, 

24:3, April 1994, pp. 29-30. India's shorter-range Prithvi has the larger payload. 

49 Jon Wolfstahl, "U.S. Bid to ‘Cap' Indian-Pakistani Programs Faces Opposition," 

Arms Control Today, 24:4, May 1994, p. 18 and Jon Wolfsthal, "South Asia's Arms 

Race Continues to Cause Serious Concern," Arms Control Today, 24:8, October 1994, 

p. 19. 

50 In 1994, CIA Director R. James Woolsey confirmed work on two missiles with 

ranges in excess of 1,000 and 2,000 miles. R. Jeffrey Smith, "CIA Confirms North 

Korea's New Missiles," Washington Post, March 18, 1994. See also David Wright and 

Timur Kadyshev, "The North Korean Missile Program: How Advanced Is It?" Arms 

Control Today, 23:3, April 1994, pp. 9-12, and the summary, pp. 29-30, "The Global 

Proliferation of Theater Ballistic Missiles." 

51 Other country studies indicating the influence of domestic and other restraining 

factors are to be found in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., especially those on India, Pakistan, 

South Africa, and Brazil and Argentina. See also the studies of Canada and Sweden by 

John Barrett and Lars Wallin, respectively, in Karp, ed., Security With Nuclear 

Weapons?. More speculative or theoretical analyses suggesting a possibly significant 

influence of internal variables on nuclear restraint are the essays by George Questor 

and Harald Muller in the same volume and Questor's essay in the companion volume 

edited by Regina Cowen Karp: Security Without Nuclear Weapons? Different 

Perspectives on Non-Nuclear Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Yet 

the tendency to emphasize the determining role of external incentives for proliferation 

and non-proliferation remains strong. 

52 Canada, which was to obtain nuclear weapons from the U.S., and Sweden, where a 

nuclear weapons program contemplated in the 1960s was hotly debated, are, of course, 

exceptions. See the essays by Barrett and Wallin cited in the preceding Note. The 

progression of American decisions from research and development to use is detailed in 

the author's "The United States: Nuclear Decision Making 1939-1989" in Karp's 

Security With Nuclear Weapons? and reflects the interlocking nature of decisions. 

53 For its use of American breakthroughs at the onset of the nuclear age, see Holloway, 

op. cit. 

54 Rodney W. Jones and Steven A. Hildreth, Modern Weapons and Third World 

Powers, CSIS Significant Issues Series, Vol. VI, No. 4 (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 

1984), pp. 77-80. 
50

55 Peter D. Zimmerman, "Technical Barriers to Nuclear Proliferation," Security 

Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3/4, Spring/Summer 1993, p. 354. 

56 See R. Jeffrey Smith, "South Africa's 16-Year Secret: The Nuclear Bomb," and 

Reiss, Bridled Ambition, pp. 15-16, for slightly varying accounts. 

57 Essentially the same diagram appears in the author's "The United States: Nuclear 

Decision Making, 1939-1989," in Karp, Security With Nuclear Weapons?, p. 22. 

58 On the perils of pre-emption or preventive attack for a small nuclear force, see Scott 

D. Sagan, "The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and 

the Spread of Nuclear Weapons," International Security, 18:4, Spring 1994, pp. 74-85. 

Sagan challenges the contention of neo-realist promoters of ‘stabilizing' nuclear 

proliferation that any new nuclear power would, of necessity, act with extreme caution, 

citing evidence of incaution by the existing nuclear powers. Israel's 1981 bombing of 

Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor offers an ambiguous lesson regarding a preventive 

conventional attack. It may encourage a determined proliferator, like Saddam 

Hussein, to adopt elaborate measures to prevent identification of bomb-making 

facilities. Yet, these measures will likely raise significantly the cost and time for 

developing a nuclear capability. 

59 On the impact of cost increases experienced by proliferators from export controls, 

see Litwak and Reiss, op. cit., p. 342. 

60 Cost Growth in Major Weapons Systems (Washington: General Accounting Office, 

May 1973). 

61 Ali T. Sheikh cites economic transition as a factor affecting Indian and Pakistani 

opinion on security issues in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., p. 192. In their papers at the 

1994 NDU WMD Symposium, Khan of Pakistan and Subrahmanyam of India cite 

economic factors and declining defense spending, respectively, as influences on 

decision-making. 

62 On South American, see Monica Serrano, "Brazil and Argentina" in Reiss and 

Litwak, op. cit; Itty Abraham, "Pakistan-India and Argentina-Brazil: Stepping Back 

from the Nuclear Threshold?" Occasional Paper No. 15 (Washington: Henry L. 

Stimson Center, October 1993) and Tom Collina and Fernando Barros, "Transplanting 

Brazil and Argentina's Success," ISIS Report February 1995 (Washington: Institute for 

Science and International Security). 

63 On the South African program and its termination, see Spector, The Undeclared 

Bomb, pp. 286-300, and, Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., Chapter 9 by David Fischer. 

64 Using a schema applied by Timothy Colton to the former Soviet republics, India 

would be a proto-democracy, Pakistan a pre-democracy, and Iraq and North Korea 

anti-democracies. See Colton and Robert Legvold, eds., After the Soviet Union: From 

Empire to Nations (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), pp. 22-23. 

 

65 Chubin, in the Reiss and Litwak volume, p. 36, also makes an explicit link between 

authoritarian rule and proliferation. 
51

66 Mitchell Reiss is among those identifying the importance of bureaucratic 

momentum in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., pp. 336-337. 

67 On the Admirals' Revolt, see David Alan Rosenberg, "American Atomic Strategy 

and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision," Journal of American History, 66;1, June 1979, and 

"The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945-1960," 

International Security, 7:4, Spring 1983; Edmund Beard, Developing the ICBM: A 

Study in Bureaucratic Politics (New York; Columbia University Press, 1976); and 

Walter Millis, Arms and Men: A Study in American Military History (New Brunswick 

NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1981), p. 325. 

68 Brahma Chellaney calls "controlling domestic unrest" the top security priority of 

India, Pakistan, and other Asian states in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., p. 166. In his 

paper for the 1994 NDU WMD Symposium, p. 3, Munir Ahmad Khan notes that the 

South Asian states are "faced with serious economic, social, ethnic and political 

problems." 

69 Chubin, in Mitchell and Reiss, op. cit., p. 54. 

70 For example, a split within North Korea's government on nuclear issues has been 

detected; see Don Oberdorfer, "The Silence of a Strange Land," Washington Post 

Outlook, January 29, 1995. 

71 For an application of the learning model to security policy change, and a fine 

summary of concepts and review of seminal literature, see Robert Legvold, "War, 

Weapons, and Soviet Foreign Policy," in Seweryn Bialer and Michael Mandelbaum, 

eds., Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 

1988). 

72 Macmillan is quoted in Muchkund Dubey, "The Only Alternative is the Elimination 

of Nuclear Weapons," Disarmament, XVII:2, 1994. George Questor addresses the 

possibility of reduced prestige from nuclear mastery in "Nuclear Pakistan and Nuclear 

India: Stable Deterrent or Proliferation Challenge" (Carlisle Barracks PA: U.S. Army 

War College, Strategic Studies Institute, November 1992), p. 7. For the problems 

posed by nuclear sites, see Gary Lee, "Nuclear Plant Cleanup Assailed," Washington 

Post, March 15, 1995. 

73 Among many examples of ‘new thinking' about the Cold War, see George 

Perkovich, "Counting the Costs of the Arms Race," Foreign Policy No. 85, Winter 

1991-92. At the 1994 NDU WMD Symposium, Georgi E. Mamedov, formerly a 

Soviet specialist on U.S. arms control policy and now Deputy Minister for Foreign 

Affairs of the Russian Federation, delivered remarks on "Counteracting the 

Proliferation of WMD" noting that “the end of the Cold War and the tough East-West 

confrontation" caused "improvement of the general strategic situation." 

74 Paul M. Cole, Sweden Without the Bomb: The Conduct of a Nuclear-Capable 

Nation Without Nuclear Weapons, RAND Report MR-460 (Santa Monica CA: RAND, 

1994), p. xiii. 
52

75 Lars Wallin, "Sweden," in Karp, Security With Nuclear Weapons?, p. 380. 

76 See the papers by Khan and Subrahmanyam in the 1994 NDU WMD Symposium 

materials (Note 47) and Questor's “Nuclear Pakistan and Nuclear India” for such 

evidence. 

77 Questor, op. cit., observes that each country has hostages in members of the other's 

dominant ethno-religious groups and that nuclear reactors in each nation represent a 

form of ‘bomb' that the other side can detonate. 

78 Stalin's reaction to Hiroshima was to direct his subordinates that, under no 

circumstances, would the USSR yield to nuclear pressure, even though the U.S. had a 

monopoly on the technology. See Holloway, op. cit., p. 133 and pp. 154-161. 

79 Representative Les Aspin speculated in a similar vein on hypothetical Iraqi 

possession of nuclear weapons before the 1990 Gulf Crisis, noting how different U.S. 

coalition-building would have been and that future nuclear states might be 

"undeterrable" ("From Deterrence to Denuking: Dealing with Proliferation in the 

1990s," Washington: February 18, 1992, photocopy). 

80 The speculation by Aspin on the limitations of deterrence, cited in the previous note, 

has in recent years expressed itself in particular as a problem of American selfdeterrence regarding the use of virtually any kind of force. See Dagobert L. Brito and 

Michael D. Intrilligator, "The Economic and Political Incentives to Acquire Nuclear 

Weapons," Security Studies, 2:3/4, Spring/Summer 1993, pp. 291-292; A. J. Bacevic, 

"The Use of Force in Our Time," Wilson Quarterly, XIX:1, Winter 1995; Jerome H. 

Kahan, "Nuclear Threats from Small States" (Carlisle PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 

U.S. Army War College, June 1994); and Stanley R. Sloan, "The United States and the 

Use of Force in the Post-Cold War World: Toward Self-Deterrence?" (Washington: 

Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, July 1994). 

81 On these developments, see the author's article cited in Note 16 and his "Eurasia 

Letter: Unneighborly Neighbors," co-authored by Natalie Melnyczuk, Foreign Policy, 

No. 94, Spring 1994. 

82 Robert Carlin's essay, "North Korea," in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., p. 134 and 

elsewhere makes a very strong case that North Korea's self-image will not allow it to 

act under perceived pressure or threats. Reynolds, in her paper on non-weaponized 

tools for diplomacy, notes, p. 14, that North Korea honors the value of "juche," or selfreliance and independence." 

83 For a persuasive analysis of the failure of U.S. threats to achieve more than 

temporary and tactical compliance by Saddam Hussein, see Mustafa Javed Ali, "United 

States Post-Gulf War Policy Towards Iraq Under the Lens of Cognitive Psychology 

and Deterrence Theory," The American University, December 1994, photocopy. 

84 On nuclear safe zones, see Ali T. Sheik, in Reiss and Litwak, op. cit., p. 201.