Steven Smet
Paper prepared for presentation at SGIR 7th Pan-European Conference in Stockholm
‘Where did we go wrong?
Can a misinterpretation of the past lead to inadequate policies in the
future?
In a first section, I examine the relationship between post-Cold War cases of nuclear proliferation
and unilateral disarmament efforts by the United States. I will attempt to demonstrate that there is
only a weak link between the history of post-Cold War nuclear proliferation and U.S. policy. In other
words, the current disarmament policies do not adequately respond to the dangers of future nuclear
proliferation.
In a second section I show that the two main reasons for the renewed attention towards global
disarmament (the threat of ‘rogue’ regimes arming themselves with nuclear weapons and ‘tipping
points’) are in fact not new and are often exaggerated due to a misunderstanding of the history of
the Cold War and the so called Long Peace.
A new ‘START’ for nuclear disarmament?
Since the late 1990s, and especially in light of the terrorist attacks on the United States
in September 2001, two threats have increased in salience in U.S. policy debates: the
acquisition and use of nuclear weapons by non-state actors who are not susceptible to
punishment strategies of deterrence, and nascent state proliferators employing their
nuclear arsenals in attempts to coerce their neighbors and dominate their regions.
Moreover, there is the increasing global demand for nuclear energy (‘nuclear renaissance’),
which will spread the infrastructure necessary to produce fissile nuclear materials still
wider - making the job of the terrorists seeking the bomb easier and the odds that a
nuclear weapon will be used greater. These threats, coupled with the demise of the U.S.Soviet rivalry, have led to growing calls for a stronger U.S. role in leading global nuclear
disarmament.
The most dramatic example is the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons articulated
by former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry,
former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former Chair of the Senate Armed Services
Committee Sam Nunn in a January 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed.1
The steps they advocated are well-known, including reducing alert levels, substantially
cutting nuclear force levels, working toward a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT),
halting the production of fissile material for weapons globally, and improving the security
of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material worldwide.2
Their vision has since been endorsed by former and current leading politicians. President
Barack Obama, for example, called repeatedly for “a world in which there are no nuclear
weapons.”3
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This and the next generation of statesman have the unique opportunity to make the
elimination of all nuclear weapons the leading principle of nuclear disarmament policies.
Causes of nuclear proliferation
The question is whether these proposed measures with respect to nuclear disarmament
will have an (positive) impact on the behavior of aspirant proliferators. Former Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown and former Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch argue that
the goal of complete elimination of nuclear weapons is counterproductive: ‘‘It will not
advance substantive progress on nonproliferation; and it risks compromising the value that
nuclear weapons continue to contribute, through deterrence, to U.S. security and
international stability.’’4
If we take a look at the history of post-Cold War nuclear proliferation we can see that U.S.
conventional military prowess and regional security concerns are more powerful drivers of
global nuclear proliferation than U.S. nuclear policy. 5
Motivations for the acquisition of nuclear weapons vary from one prospective nuclear
entity to another. For terrorist groups, the wish to be able to inflict maximum
(psychological) damage is enough of a reason. For nations, the situation is more complex,
with a mixture of drivers, including the perception that the possession of nuclear weapons
will enhance their international and national prestige and will improve their bargaining
position.
One of the most clear examples of this perception was postwar France of Charles de
Gaulle. For de Gaulle the atomic bomb was a dramatic symbol of French independence and
thus was needed for France to continue to be seen as, by itself and others, a great power
(a kind of ‘third power’, next to the United States and the Sovjet Union). In a letter to
President Eisenhower he stated6: “A France without world responsibility would be
unworthy of herself, especially in the eyes of Frenchman. It’s for this reason that she
disapproves of NATO, which denies her a share in decision-making and which is confined to
Europe. It is for this reason too that she intends to provide herself with an atomic
armament. Only in this way can our defence and foreign policy be independent, which we
prise above everything else.”7
The overwhelming motive, however, is usually the belief that the possession of nuclear
weapons will improve national security or that not having them will damage it. The
rationale can take several forms. The ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons is seen as a
deterrent to nuclear attack on the possessor. It is also seen as a deterrent to conventional
attack, especially a conventional attack by an opponent considered to have an
overwhelming advantage in conventional forces.8 For example, Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear
weapons tests were based heavily on its perception of India as a threat.9
The primary motivation behind North Korea’s nuclear effort since the end of the Cold
War is unclear, but it is sensible to suggest, as Michael Mazarr does, that among
Pyongyang’s motivations are deterring U.S. conventional military invasion and nuclear use,
seeking a bargaining chip for greater economic assistance and bilateral talks with the
United States, and desiring increased freedom of action in Northeast Asia.10 The need to
deter a U.S. attack was underscored by the United States labeling North Korea as a
member of the ‘Axis of Evil’.
Lastly, Iran’s nuclear energy program - a suspected precursor to a weapons program was born in the 1960s and intensified in the 1980s due to regional security threats. Now
one of Iran’s security concerns is the large U.S. military footprint in the Persian Gulf region,
2
especially in neighboring Iraq. Given this, nobody should be surprised if Iran wants nuclear
weapons.11
U.S. willingness to employ its conventional military forces
Compared to its nuclear arsenal, the United States has exercised less restraint over
employing its advanced conventional military forces for the goal of regime change since
the 1980s, and potential adversaries such as Iran know this.12 The relatively lower
threshold for the United States to employ overwhelming conventional military force for
coercive goals is likely contributing to some cases of nuclear proliferation. The
incongruence between the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and reluctance to forcibly change the
North Korean regime, to some observers, sends a message to potential adversaries of the
United States: to deter the world’s strongest military power, states must possess nuclear
weapons. Though North Korea did not test a nuclear device until 2006, various sources
report that U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that North Korea might have possessed one
or two nuclear weapons prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.13
On balance, U.S. nuclear policy has had minor influence over the post-Cold War
cases of horizontal nuclear proliferation relative to the effect of regional security dynamics
and U.S. conventional military capabilities. In other words, the nuclear weapons of the U.S.
are in fact an excuse, rather than a reason for such weapons. In this view, a drastic
reduction of the U.S nuclear stockpile may take away the excuse to proliferate, but it don
not have an impact on the real causes of nuclear proliferation.
Some might conclude that these proposed measures in the framework of a nuclear free
world, will have little or none impact on the behaviour of potential future proliferators.
Thus, the relationship between U.S. nuclear policy and the actions of proliferators is not a
compelling rationale for a greater U.S. effort to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
At the moment, there is a growing concern that the steps the international community
wants to take with respect to nuclear disarmament are not an adequate response to the
danger and underlying causes of nuclear proliferation
Added value of profound nuclear disarmament
Does this mean that the idea of a nuclear free world is irrelevant in combating nuclear
proliferation? In other words, is there an added value in preventing the spread of nuclear
weapons?
Reducing U.S. deployed nuclear weapons, say, to 1,000, preferably as part of an agreement
with Russia, as well as sharply cutting reserve stockpiles and increasing launch delay times,
are steps justifiable on other grounds, such as reducing the chance of accidental or
unauthorized launch. As in the case of the test ban, they act more to remove an excuse for
proliferation than they do to reduce the real forces that drive it and thus are likely to be
marginal, though positive, in reducing proliferation incentives in potential proliferating
states. However, the United States playing a leading role in global nuclear disarmament
would be a powerful signal to other non–nuclear-weapon states in order to support
strengthened non-proliferation rules, inspections, and controls over fissile materials.
A dramatic change in U.S. nuclear weapons policy would help restore the credibility of
Washington's efforts to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials. This
newfound credibility should make it possible to achieve much-needed progress on the
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non-proliferation agenda: negotiating a verifiable end to the production of fissile material
for weapons purposes, securing the early ratification and entry into force of the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and strengthening the inspections provisions of
international safeguards agreements undertaken by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).14
The various proposals for improving the security of existing stockpiles, internationalizing control of uranium-enrichment and fuel reprocessing technologies, limiting
the degree of enrichment, and globally halting production of fissile material for weapons
all would be helpful steps in reducing possible leakage from state to nonstate actors.15
Global Zero as a necessary condition for nuclear non-proliferation
In sum, we can see on the one hand a weak link between the post-Cold War cases of
nuclear proliferation and U.S. nuclear policy and on the other hand we see that drastic
reductions in U.S. nuclear stockpiles will not have a strong impact on the behaviour of
nuclear proliferators. An appropriate approach towards nuclear (non-) proliferation has to
take into account two things:
First of all, each non-proliferation policy must have the intention to combat the
underlying – real – causes of nuclear proliferation.
Main causes of nuclear proliferation are the perception that nuclear weapons will enhance
national security, improve international prestige and strengthen the bargaining position.
One possible approach consists in compensating the aspirant proliferator with
economic, financial or material support (carrots) in case dismantling his military nuclear
program. In December 2003, the international community succeeded in convincing Libya to
abandon its nuclear weapons program in exchange of (economic) re-integration into that
same community.
If the most important reason for nuclear weapons programs is the belief that they
improve national security, as is likely the case, the best carrot is an alternative provision of
security that the recipient sees as preferable in order to resolve the threat to their security
or sovereignty.
In North Korea and Iran, their unstable security situation principally drives or will drive
their nuclear policies. If they are to renounce or not seek nuclear weapons, they would
have to decide that they are more secure without them, in some combination of an
existential (survival of the state) and a strategic (survival of the regime) sense.
It is doubtful whether a U.S. security guarantee, even if offered and accepted by those
nations, would then be seen as a sufficient substitute for a nuclear weapons capability of
their own. The Middle East is not Western Europe, Iran is not in a global struggle with the
United States as was the Soviet Union, and 2010 is not 1950. Moreover, American security
guarantees are mainly based on mutual alliances (e.g. NATO). The lack of such alliances –
let alone diplomatic relations – diminishes the chance that these guarantees will be
accepted.
The only approach that could possibly be successful is that of direct, incremental
diplomatic negotiations – with the addition of positive incentives and diplomatic efforts to
end regional security conflicts.
Of crucial importance is what one can call ‘the degree of involvement’ of the demandside. In other words, what are the interests from their perspective? What are their
demands? How do they assess the situation? Which solutions to the problem do they
propose? The current situation, in which a very small number of powerful states,
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determine the conditions under negotiations can take place, in not very efficient. At the
moment, however, we cannot notice any bidirectional kind of diplomatic negotiations. A
dramatic example was the failed effort of the EU-3 with regard to Iran, whereby EU-3
overestimated its own persuasiveness and underestimated the willingness and demands of
Iran.16
Secondly, nuclear disarmament may not be seen as an end in itself. Given the link
between nuclear proliferation and regional security conflicts, it is crucially important that
nuclear disarmament and resolution of political security conflicts goes hand in hand.17
In this way, nuclear disarmament takes away the excuse to nuclear proliferation and
simultaneously conflict resolution treats the real causes of it.
Concrete steps, like nuclear arms reductions, implementation of a Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, and universal adoption of the Additional Protocol—would improve political
dynamics and confidence between nuclear-armed and non–nuclear weapon states.18
In this way, the current disarmament initiatives can be a powerful signal from the nuclear
weapons states that the political will exists to work towards a world without nuclear
weapons and to make any progress on the path of nuclear nonproliferation.
Elimination of all nuclear weapons may not be seen as the only possible solution to
nuclear proliferation, but must be understood as a necessary condition to create a
favorable environment in which nuclear non-proliferation can take place. Only if nuclear
disarmament as well as the underlying causes of nuclear proliferation are combated in an
incremental way, one can make significant progress on the way to Global Zero.
As mentioned before, in 2007 four prominent former policymakers, two Republicans
and two Democrats, warned that “unless urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will
be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically
disorienting, and economically costly than Cold War deterrence.”19 As David Ignatius
observes, “We inhabit a world that makes the Cold War seem like the good old days.”20
This view, shared by many practitioners and scholars in the field of nuclear
proliferation, has been labeled by Francis Gavin as ‘nuclear alarmism’. Nuclear alarmists
focus on two major threats: 1) ‘rogue’ regimes and 2) tipping points. In addition, alarmists
often mischaracterize the past, especially the so-called Long Peace, while conflating
nuclear history with Cold War history and Cold War history with post-World War II history.
I will attempt to demonstrate that these threats (which are the main reason for the
renewed attention to global nuclear disarmament) are not new and often exaggerated,
leading to wrong policies.
Rogue states
Rogue states are seen as those that participate in unsavory behavior: violating
international norms; threatening violence against their neighbors; supporting terrorist
organizations; and committing human rights violations against their citizens. Before the
2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was identified as a rogue state, a definition that still
applies to Iran and North Korea.21
However, neither rogue regimes nor the fear they inspire, is new. Throughout the postWorld War II period, analysts worried that proliferation among unstable countries could
increase the likelihood of nuclear war.22 Such deterministic assessments rested on the
assumption that these countries “would act less maturely with nuclear weapons under
their belt, thus inevitably leading to regional, and in turn global, instability.”23 Yet no
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nuclear crisis involving a small country has approached the danger and risk levels seen
during confrontations between the superpowers during the Cold War.
More important, contemporary analysts often forget that two of the United States’
communist adversaries whose ‘rogue’ status, by current definitions, was unparalleled in
the atomic age, pursued nuclear weapons: the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of
China (PRC). Joseph Stalin’s Russia was both a murderous and secretive regime; it violated
international norms and pursued aggressive foreign policies even before it tested an
atomic bomb.
In 1964, when the PRC tested its first nuclear device, China was perhaps the most ‘rogue’
state in modern history. Mao Zedong’s domestic policies caused the death of tens of
millions of China’s citizens. Moreover, he had pursued an aggressive foreign policy before
the atomic test. Examples include attacking India, fighting the United States directly in
Korea and by proxy war in Vietnam and threatening war over Taiwan. Mao made a series
of highly irresponsible statements about the PRC surviving and even thriving in a nuclear
war. No country in the post–World War II period—not Iraq, Iran, or even North Korea—has
given U.S. policymakers more reason to fear its nuclearization than China.
Today China has one of the most restrained and most responsible nuclear force
postures and deployment policies of any nuclear power; it maintains a minimal deterrent
under tight command and control while eschewing a first-use doctrine.24
That Iran—surrounded by rivals with nuclear ambitions and singled out by the United
States, the largest military power in the world—has an interest in nuclear weapons is not
surprising. Even assessments that view Iranian behavior as a challenge to U.S. interests in
the Middle East do not consider the regime as threatening as the PRC was during the
1960s. As Shahram Chubin writes, “It is not overtly confrontational or given to wild swings
in behavior or to delusional goals; it has not denounced arms control treaties to which it
formally adheres; and there is evidence of pluralism and some debate within the
country.”25
A deeper understanding of nuclear history and the underlying geopolitical
circumstances Iran faces makes the prospect that it would take actions (such as supplying
Hamas or Hezbollah with nuclear weapons) that could invite its own destruction highly
unlikely. Nuclear weapons are often most desirable to countries that are located in
unstable regions or that acquired statehood in ways that make them feel particularly
vulnerable to claims against their legitimacy, whether or not they are considered ‘rogue’.
U.S. regional security dynamics and the historical origins of the state in question may be
more important than regime type in determining whether a state will want nuclear
weapons and how it might behave once it acquires them.
Nuclear tipping points
One of the greatest fears of nuclear alarmists is that if a state acquires nuclear
weapons, others will follow. However, the idea of a nuclear tipping point or chain reaction
is not new. Fears of a tipping point were especially acute in the aftermath of China’s
nuclear test in 1964: it was predicted that India, Indonesia, and Japan might follow. A U.S.
government document from that time identified “at least eleven nations (India, Japan,
Israel, Sweden, West Germany, Italy, Canada, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Rumania, and
Yugoslavia)” with the capacity to go nuclear, a number that would soon “grow
substantially’ to include ‘South Africa, the United Arab Republic, Spain, Brazil and
Mexico.”26
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These predictions were largely wrong. Even more, analyst Moeed Yusuf concludes that
“the pace of proliferation has been much slower than anticipated by most.” The majority
of countries suspected of trying to obtain a nuclear weapons capability “never even came
close to crossing the threshold. In fact, most did not even initiate a weapons program.” If
all the countries that were considered prime suspects over the past sixty years had
developed nuclear weapons, “the world would have at least 19 nuclear powers today.”27
Nor is there convincing evidence that a nuclear proliferation chain reaction will occur.
Rather, the pool of potential proliferators has been shrinking. Proliferation pressures were
far greater during the Cold War. In the 1960s, at least twenty-one countries either had or
were considering nuclear weapons research programs. Today only nine countries are
known to have nuclear weapons. Belarus, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Libya, South Africa, Sweden,
and Ukraine have dismantled their weapons programs. Even rogue states that are/were a
great concern to U.S. policymakers—Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea— began their
nuclear weapons programs before the Cold War had ended. As far as is known, no nation
has started a new nuclear weapons program since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Ironically, by focusing on the threat of rogue states, policymakers may have
underestimated the potentially far more destabilizing effect of proliferation in
‘respectable’ states such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
The so-called Long Peace
The so-called Long Peace was not as peaceful or stable as ‘nuclear alarmists’ claim.
During the Cold War, the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies spent trillions of
dollars, fought proxy wars and overthrew governments. The competition between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union was not free of crisis. To give just a few examples: between 1950 and
1953, a civil war in an area of geopolitical significance to the United Sates, the Korean
Peninsula, threatened to escalate into a global conflagration in large measure because of
the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union. In the 1950s the Soviets issued
nuclear threats against the British and the French during the Suez crisis, and the United
States threatened the PRC over disputes in the Taiwan Strait. Between 1958 and 1962, the
United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a standoff over the isolated city of Berlin,
culminating in the Cuban missile crisis.28
Even after the emergence of mutual vulnerability during the 1960s, there were periods
of marked instability, uncertainty, and danger. Wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan killed
hundreds of thousands and threatened to escalate into broader conflicts. In 1963 the
United States approached the Soviet Union about a preemptive nuclear attack on the PRC;
in 1969 the Soviets approached the Americans with the same proposal. Richard Nixon’s
administration issued nuclear threats on several occasions. At different times, each
superpower received false information—as late as 1979 for the United States and 1983 for
the Soviet Union—that its adversary was planning a nuclear attack.
To be sure, the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States did not lead to
world war. If, however, one defines stability as the absence of crisis, uncertainty, and risktaking behavior that could lead to war, then this rivalry looks different indeed. Upon close
historical inspection, nuclear weapons often caused Cold War crises between the
superpowers, for two basic reasons: nuclear weapons affected statecraft in ways that
often undermined international stability, and the particular strategies employed by the
United States were often the cause of crises that would never have occurred in the
prenuclear world.29 Nuclear weapons destabilized international politics in several ways
7
during the Cold War that are often overlooked by contemporary alarmists. They nullified
the influence of other, more traditional forms of power, such as conventional forces and
economic strength, allowing the Soviet Union to minimize the United States’ enormous
economic, technological, and even ‘soft power’ advantages.
Underlying political motivations of nuclear proliferation
Scholars and practitioners often assume that the Cold War was the most important
factor shaping world politics during the decades following World War II. From a military
perspective, it was: from the end of that conflict until the late 1980s, two states possessing
the most fearsome military power in history confronted each other with varying degrees of
intensity and in nearly every part of the world. This conflict, understandably, dominated
the concerns of leaders and citizens in both countries, and it casts an enormous shadow
over understanding the second half of the twentieth century. However, it was not the only
issue animating international relations, nor was it the only factor driving nuclear
proliferation. The United States and the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons and their
strategies in large part because of their geopolitical rivalry with each other. This fact has
prompted many U.S. strategists, policymakers, and scholars to view the entire post–World
War II period solely through a Cold War lens.30 The remaining seven states that developed
nuclear weapons as a result of programs begun during the Cold War, however—France,
Great Britain, India, Israel, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, and South Africa—did
so for reasons that went beyond, and at many times had little to do with, the U.S.-Soviet
rivalry. Robert Jervis, for example, notes, “The most important change in world politics—
decolonization—was one that neither offended nor was engineered by either
superpower.”31 The implosion of empires, European integration, tensions in the Middle
East, and the changing balance of power in East and South Asia, while connected to the
Cold War, were often as and at times more important drivers of nuclear proliferation. Why,
for example, did France and Great Britain develop nuclear weapons when they were under
the U.S. nuclear security umbrella? To be sure, they feared the Soviet threat to Western
Europe. But they had other security concerns as well.32 Both countries worried that the
United States might abandon Western Europe after World II, leaving them to defend
themselves. Moreover, both were concerned about the future political orientation of
Germany and wanted to protect themselves against the reemergence of an aggressive
regime in Central Europe. Could either state gamble that, at some point in the future,
another expansionist Germany would not emerge, this time armed with nuclear weapons?
Both France and Great Britain began their nuclear programs before World War II,
possessed empires that created worldwide security commitments, and perceived
themselves as potential great powers. Both underwent a painful and at times dangerous
decolonization process that dominated the concerns of policymakers as much, and at times
more than, fears of the Soviet Union. Nuclear weapons, French and British policymakers
hoped, might preserve their countries’ great power status, or at least slow their decline,
and provide a measure of independence from the superpowers.
India and Israel, as new states with uncertain legitimacy, unresolved territorial disputes,
and troubling regional security problems that would have existed in some form or another
even if there had been no Cold War, felt compelled to explore nuclear weapons programs
almost from the start of their nationhood. For India, nuclear weapons not only provided
security against China and Pakistan; they also allowed it to resist pressure to ally with
either the United States or the Soviet Union and instead position India as a leader of the
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nonaligned world. For Israel, nuclear weapons provided security in the face of hostile,
larger neighbors in a world where it had few reliable allies. Largely because India’s and
Israel’s interest in nuclear weapons fell outside a Cold War framework, narrowly defined,
the United States was unable to offer meaningful security guarantees or persuade either
country, despite great efforts, to abandon its weapons programs. Other states developed
nuclear weapons for reasons only little related to the Cold War. Pakistan’s weapons
program was developed in response to India’s. South Africa developed nuclear weapons
because, among other things, it was worried about a “possible race war between the
apartheid regime and black African nations.”33 Other near-nuclear programs, including
those of Argentina, Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan, were motivated as much by
regional security issues as by the superpower rivalry. Even states with weapons programs
of most concern in recent years—Iran, North Korea, and Iraq—began during the Cold War.
Few would argue, however, that Cold War logic drove these states toward proliferation.
To conclude, distinguishing Cold War history from the larger post–World War II history
offers a better understanding of the forces driving proliferation today. Looking back, it
does not appear that regime type or the structure of the international system was the
most important factor determining who acquired weapons, when they acquired them, and
what their strategies were. Nor did the NPT or the emergence of nuclear parity and
assured destruction between the superpowers halt proliferation, as might have been
expected; the 1970s witnessed intense nuclear proliferation pressures in many regions.
Trying to find the real causes of nuclear proliferation is critically important in setting up
both counter-proliferation policies and nuclear disarmament policies. Therefore, it is
always more useful to understand the political and security environment in which a state
finds itself when attempting to understand the strategies it might employ before
developing a specific kind of approach towards current nuclear proliferation policies.
Notes
1 George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger en Sam Nunn, ‘A World Free of Nuclear
Weapons’, in: Wall Street Journal, January 2007, p. A15 and George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry
A. Kissinger en Sam Nunn, ‘Toward a Nuclear Free World’, in: Wall Street Journal, January 2008, p.
A13
2 Ibid., p. A13
3 Speech of President Obama in Prague, April 5, 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-AsDelivered/
4 Harold Brown & John Deutch, ‘The Nuclear Disarmament Fantasy’, in: Wall Street Journal,
November 2007, 9. A19. See also Harold Brown, ‘New Nuclear Realities’, in: The Washington
Quarterly, vol. 31, nr. 1, winter 2007-2008, p. 7-22
5 Bruce M. Sugden, ‘Assessing the Strategic Horizon’, in: The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 15, nr. 3,
November 2008, p. 502-503
6 Raju G. C. Thomas (ed.), The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime. Prospects for the 21st Century,
London, Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999, p. 78
7 Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope: Renewal and Endeavour, New York, Simon and Schuster,
1971, p. 209
8 Harold Brown, ‘New Nuclear Realities’, in: The Washington Quarterly, vol. 31, nr. 1, winter 20072008, p. 10
9
9 Samina Ahmed, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Turning Points and Nuclear Choices’, in:
International Security, vol. 23, Spring 1999, p. 178-204
10
Michael J. Mazarr, ‘’Going Just a Little Nuclear: Nonproliferation Lessons from North Korea’, in:
International Security , vol. 20, Fall 1995, p. 100
11 Scott D. Sagan, ‘How to Keep the Bomb from Iran’, in: Foreign Affairs, vol. 85,
September/October 2006, p. 55
12 Bruce M. Sugden, ‘Assessing the Strategic Horizon’, in: The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 15, nr.
3, November 2008, p. 503-504
13 Federation of American Scientists, ‘Nuclear Weapons Program’, Federation of American
Scientists website, November 2006, www.fas.org
14 Ivo Daalder & Jan Lodal ‘The Logic of Zero: Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons’, in:
Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008, p. 86
15 Sidney Drell, ‘The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons’, in: Physics Today, vol. 60, nr. 6, June 2007, p.
54-59
16 Tom Sauer, ‘Struggling on the World Scene: an Over-Ambitious EU versus a Committed Iran’, in:
European Security, vol. 17, nr. 2-3, June-September 2008, p. 273-293.
17 George Perkovich, ‘Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: Why the United States Should Lead’ in: Policy
Brief of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2008, p. 7
18 Ibid., p. 7
19 George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger en Sam Nunn, ‘A World Free of Nuclear
Weapons’, in: Wall Street Journal, January 2007, p. A15 and George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry
A. Kissinger en Sam Nunn, ‘Toward a Nuclear Free World’, in: Wall Street Journal, January 2008, p.
A13
20 David Ignatius, ‘New World Disorder’, in: Washington Post, May 4, 2007
21 Gavin, Francis ‘Same As It Ever Was. Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation and the Cold War’, in:
Security Studies, vol. 34, nr. 3, 2009 p. 13
22 Moeed Yusuf, ‘Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons’, in:
Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Paper Series, nr. 11, 2009, p. 25
23 Ibid., p. 47
24 Jeffrey Lewis, The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China’s Search for Security in the Nuclear Age,
Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2007, pp. 1-25
25 Shahram Chubin’ Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions’, in: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Policy Brief, 2009 p. 44
26 R. Murray, ‘Problems of Nuclear Proliferation outside Europe’, December 7, 1964, p. 1
27 Moeed Yusuf, ‘Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons’, in:
Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Paper Series, nr. 11, 2009, p. 61
28 Gavin, Francis ‘Same As It Ever Was. Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation and the Cold War’, in:
Security Studies, vol. 34, nr. 3, 2009 p. 23
29 Lieber, War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology, New York, Cornell
University Press, 2005n p. 145
30 Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of
the Post–Cold War Era, New York, Oxford University Press, 2002
31 Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of
Armageddon, New York, Cornell University Press, 1989
32
Maurice Vaisse, La France et l’atomique Française:1945–1958, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1994
33
Joe Palca with Stephen D. Rosen, ‘North Korea and Nuclear Proliferation’, Talk of the Nation,
transcript, National Public Radio, October 9, 2006, p. 6.
Steven Smet is a PhD student at the Department of Political Sciences (University of Antwerp) and
the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN) in Mol
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