Proliferation Optimism and Pessimism Revisited

Policies to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have, for the most part, been modeled on strategies originally devised to counter the danger of nuclear proliferation. While useful in countering a traditional CBN (chemical/biological/nuclear)/WMD threat, current counter-proliferation and non-proliferation regimes are insufficient to meet the challenge of maritime terrorism. Maritime terrorism represents a new category of threat; one that partially overlaps with conventional WMD, but for which – due to the scope and nature of the maritime industry – traditional counter-proliferation policies may be inadequate and even inappropriate. This article outlines the means by which maritime shipping can be used as WMD and discusses the policies implemented to deal with these threats, in light of the challenges presented to traditional conceptualizations of WMD and counter-proliferation strategies.     

Effects of Nuclear Technology Export Competition on Nuclear Nonproliferation

ABSTRACT

While nuclear suppliers compete in markets, they simultaneously partner in other fields. This produces a delicate relationship between civilian nuclear programs and nuclear weapon proliferation. This study explores how export competition affects suppliers’ conditions of supply related to nuclear nonproliferation. We investigated three export cases (India, North Korea, and South Korea) and identified four effects that competition has on the conditions of supply related to nonproliferation. First, under highly competitive conditions, suppliers might hesitate to enforce the conditions of supply to avoid negotiation conflicts with recipients. Second, suppliers focus on politically and economically attractive recipients while mostly ignoring unattractive ones, perhaps allowing proliferation problems to fester out of view in marginal states. Third, suppliers can build consensus on the conditions of supply to avoid being the only party experiencing negotiation conflicts. Fourth, suppliers can constrain others from relaxing the conditions of supply to maintain economic benefits and nonproliferation norms. The first two effects accelerate proliferation while the last two promote nonproliferation. Although the extent of these effects can vary with changes in nonproliferation norms, they can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between nonproliferation and civilian nuclear programs.     

The only choice is both choices: balancing assurance and coercion in nonproliferation-focused alliance-management strategies

ABSTRACT

Conventional theories of alliance management often overemphasize the utility of either assurance or coercion in preventing allied nuclear proliferation. Historical analysis reveals that prioritizing either of these two tactics to the exclusion of the other is inadvisable. A strategy that focuses solely on security guarantees or coercive threats is likely to encourage an allied state to pursue a hedging strategy, in which the client state continues to clandestinely develop its own nuclear capabilities while remaining underneath its patron’s defensive “umbrella.” This article introduces a new framework for understanding the effectiveness of nonproliferation-focused alliance-management strategies. By exploring the cases of West Germany and South Korea, the article concludes that the best way to prevent allies from pursuing nuclear weapons is to combine assurance with coercion. This establishes an incentive–punishment relationship that limits an ally’s motivation to develop nuclear weapons. These conclusions have particular salience today, as conversations over nuclear-weapons development have become increasingly normalized in Germany and particularly in South Korea. The United States’s capacity to influence its allies’ nuclear behavior is currently being eroded through the degradation of both patron credibility and client dependence, weakening the long-term viability of the global nonproliferation regime.     

Beyond Iran: Containing Nuclear Development in the Middle East

ABSTRACT

Several states in the Middle East have noted their interest in nuclear energy programs, but current cost and timeline estimates understate the difficulties that these states will face. A state-level analysis of nuclear development capacities in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates suggests that building nuclear infrastructure in the region will, in fact, be a lengthy and expensive endeavor, due to concerns such as export constraints, public opposition, a lack of human resources, and high overhead costs. This has implications for nuclear weapon nonproliferation: first, fears that these developing nuclear energy capabilities may facilitate possible weapon proliferation are premature, and second, there is time to ensure that any burgeoning nuclear infrastructure in the region remains safe and civilian in nature.     

EXTRAORDINARY VISITS

North Korea has the bomb but not much of a nuclear arsenal. For fifty years, it pursued the plutonium path to the bomb in parallel with its pursuit of nuclear electricity. My visits to North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex provided a window to its plutonium capabilities. After having made six visits to North Korea, Pyongyang surprised me during my seventh visit last November by showing me a small, modern uranium enrichment plant, which I was told was needed for its new indigenous light water reactor program. However, the same capabilities can be used to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel. Following a pattern of having made poor risk-management decisions during much of the past twenty years of diplomacy dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat, Washington remains in a standoff with Pyongyang.     

A Reversal of Fortunes? Extended Deterrence and Assurance in Europe and East Asia1

ABSTRACT

The extended deterrence relationships between the United States and its allies in Europe and East Asia have been critical to regional and global security and stability, as well as to nonproliferation efforts, since the late 1950s. These relationships developed in different regional contexts, and reflect differing cultural, political and military realities in the US allies and their relations with the United States. Although extended deterrence and assurance relations have very different histories, and have to some extent been controversial through the years, there has been a rethinking of these relations in recent years. Many Europeans face a diminished threat situation as well as economic and political pressures on the maintenance of extended deterrence, and are looking at the East Asian relationships, which do not involve forward deployed forces as more attractive than NATO’s risk-and-burden-sharing concepts involving the US nuclear forces deployed in Europe. On the other hand, the East Asian allies are looking favorably at NATO nuclear consultations, and in the case of South Korea, renewed US nuclear deployments (which were ended in 1991), to meet increased security concerns posed by a nuclear North Korea and more assertive China. This paper explores the history of current relationships and the changes that have led the allies to view those of others as more suitable for meeting their current needs.     

Involving the elephant: technical isolation and the role of India in a possible solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis

Apart from North Korea, no state's nuclear program in the twenty-first century has raised more concern to international security than Iran's. While Iran insists that its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purpose in line with Article IV of non-proliferation treaty, the USA and its allies insist that Iran has military intentions and called for sanctions. The failure of sanctions to deter Iran from its nuclear agenda had made many scholars and policy-makers call for a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Situated within this debate, this paper positions itself as an antagonist to the preemptive airstrike option and argues that involving India in a possible nuclear “iron curtain” against Iran – a move known as technical isolation – remains the best option to the current nuclear crises.     

Chinese views of the nuclear endgame in North Korea

ABSTRACT

This article examines Chinese views of North Korea’s nuclear-weapon program during the Donald J. Trump administration. It shows that China has portrayed itself as a responsible country that promotes regional stability, unlike the United States, which has engaged in military brinkmanship with North Korea. Some Chinese foreign-policy experts have asserted that Beijing should back Pyongyang in the event of war because of their shared history of humiliation by great powers, while others have favored working with other regional partners. Another theme in Chinese discourse about North Korea is that Pyongyang is an impetuous, ungrateful regime that impedes Beijing’s ability to attain its core interests of regional stability, economic development, and heightened global influence. This negative assessment of North Korea drove Beijing’s endorsement of stricter UN sanctions in 2017. While Beijing has punished Pyongyang for its wayward policies, China responded favorably to North Korea’s decision in April 2018 to stop nuclear tests and partake in international dialogue. Beijing seeks to help Pyongyang gradually disarm and develop its economy within a Chinese-led East Asian order. The article concludes by explaining how Beijing’s recent, more positive view of Pyongyang is likely to affect its support for American efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear-weapon program.     

ENERGY FOR SECURITY:

Though North Korea agreed to partial denuclearization in February 2007, achieving that goal is at best a long way off. A natural gas pipeline linking all of Northeast Asia and promising energy and economic help could help convince the isolated nation to step away from its nuclear programs entirely; it could also provide the nonproliferation and energy security benefits that have eluded the region for so long. These economic benefits could motivate the other nations involved in the six-party talks to deal with North Korea more than if only nuclear reactors were offered.     

IS STUXNET PHYSICAL? DOES IT MATTER?

Cyber-weapons are software and software, at least intuitively, is non-physical. Several authors have noted that this potentially renders problematic the application of normative frameworks like UN Charter Article 2(4) to cyber-weapons. If Article 2(4) only proscribes the use of physical force, and if cyber-weapons are non-physical, then cyber-weapons fall outside the purview of Article 2(4). This article explores the physicality of software, examining Stuxnet in particular. First, I show that with a few relatively uncontroversial metaphysical claims we can secure the conclusion that Stuxnet is physical. In particular, there exist instances of Stuxnet that are both located in space and causally efficacious, and this is very strong evidence for their being physical. Second, I argue that the question of physicality is actually irrelevant for the moral evaluation of an attack like Stuxnet because of its undeniably physical effects. Finally, I argue that some features of Stuxnet should make us optimistic about the prospects for discrimination and proportionality in cyberwarfare.     

BALLISTIC TRAJECTORY

North Korea has been one of the world's most active suppliers of ballistic missile systems since the mid-1980s, but the nature of its missile export business has changed significantly during this period. Unclassified, publicly available data show that the great majority of known deliveries of complete missile systems from North Korea occurred before 1994. The subsequent fall-off took place a decade too early to be explained by the Proliferation Security Initiative of 2003. It can be explained by a combination of factors that have reduced demand. First, after selling production equipment for ballistic missiles to many states, especially in the Middle East, North Korea by the late 1990s had become primarily a supplier of missile parts and materials, not complete systems. Second, after Operation Desert Storm, some missile-buying states shifted their attention away from ballistic missiles in favor of manned aircraft, cruise missiles, and missile defense systems supplied by Western powers. Third, some states experienced pressure from the United States to curtail their dealings with North Korea. During the last decade, having shed most of its previous customer base, North Korea has entered a phase of collaborative missile development with a smaller number of state partners, particularly Iran and Syria. Its known sales of complete missile systems are relatively small and infrequent. North Korea's time as missile supplier to the Middle East at large has ended, but there is a risk that regional states will turn to North Korea as a supplier of nuclear technology in the future.     

OF HAWKS AND DOVES

The policies toward countries aspiring to acquire nuclear weapons continue to be heavily contested, differing even among countries that consider nuclear proliferation as one of the main threats to international security. This article maps the actual policies of liberal democracies toward Iran and North Korea along a continuum from confrontation to accommodation. Using data from an expert survey, the authors outline four main findings. First, policies toward both Iran and North Korea have become increasingly confrontational over time. Second, no policy convergence was observed among the states studied; that is, notwithstanding the adoption of joint sanctions, differences remained between states preferring confrontation and those opting for accommodation. Third, states maintained remarkably stable policy profiles over time. Finally, despite obvious differences between the norm violations of North Korea and Iran, states generally followed remarkably similar policies toward both countries. The authors’ findings indicate that states exhibit stable preferences for either confrontation or accommodation toward nuclear aspirants. Although a comprehensive examination of the causes of these policy differences is beyond the scope of this article, the authors present evidence that a major cleavage exists between members and non-members of the Non-Aligned Movement, indicating that the degree to which nuclear aspirants’ sovereignty should be respected is a main issue of contention.     

A nuclear-armed North Korea without ICBMs: the best achievable objective

This article analyzes the North Korean nuclear crisis from a balance-of-power perspective. It is in the long-term interests of international peace for a secure and independent North Korea to serve as a buffer between US and Chinese ground forces. However, the conventional military advantage of the South Korean-American alliance over North Korea has grown drastically since the end of the Cold War, threatening North Korea’s survival. Since North Korea lacks any reliable ally, nuclear weapons represent its most cost-effective way to restore a balance of power and thus secure itself. Accepting security guarantees in exchange for its nuclear arsenal is rhetorically appealing but not a viable approach. North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), however, has overcompensated for the post-Cold War imbalance, inviting talk in Washington of waging a preventive war. Persuading North Korea to give up its ICBM capability, not its nuclear arsenal, should therefore be the primary objective of US diplomacy.     

Japan's plutonium policy: Consequences for nonproliferation

ABSTRACT

What do we mean by nuclear proliferation? What does it mean to proliferate? This article investigates both the literal and figurative meaning of the term “proliferation.” It argues that many of the definitions and conceptualizations of nuclear proliferation often used by scholars are either limited in their utility or logically inconsistent. It then reconceptualizes and redefines the term, incorporating an understanding of both its etymological origins and the geopolitical context in which the phenomenon occurs. It concludes by exploring the potential impact that the politicization of the phenomenon may have on the identification of occurrences of proliferation, from both an academic and a policy-making perspective.     

Initiating a cooperative denuclearization effort with North Korea

ABSTRACT

As the United States and North Korea pursue negotiations on a “denuclearization” agreement, the two countries should consider initiating cooperative measures as a way to build confidence and encourage finalization of a complete agreement. Based on lessons from the initial engagements carried out under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program in states of the former Soviet Union (FSU), initial cooperation should focus on safety and security, training, and infrastructure elimination. By offering to implement these initiatives now while negotiations are underway, the United States could gain additional insights into North Korean intentions. These early initiatives could be proposed without compromising the US maximum-pressure campaign on North Korea by using the current authorities of the CTR program and carefully designing specific exemptions that may be required for any agreed measures. If North Korea is truly interested in pursuing disarmament efforts, the initial cooperative projects would enable them to begin reaping potential benefits while negotiations continue with sanctions still in place. These initial proposals could also be expanded to include additional international partners such as Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan. Such programs and initiatives would support and supplement longer-term strategies to address North Korean weapons-of-mass-destruction challenges.     

From Remote Control to Collaboration: Conducting NGO Research at a Distance in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

Using a domestic violence-prevention project in Tajikistan as an example, we examine how international non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) knowledge production-at-a-distance, working through in-country teams who in turn rely on their local brokers, raises questions around ownership, power and privilege. These include issues around language and translation; motivations and agendas; and the neo-coloniality of data extraction and analysis. Yet, long-distance approaches can also have an emancipatory dynamic, leading to new forms of coproducing knowledge, although the frameworks for this continue to be de?ned by the Global North, even if the categories of ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ are becoming increasingly blurred.     

Contributors

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, the United States has increasingly turned to targeted sanctions and export restrictions, such as those imposed against Iran and North Korea, in order to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. One vexing problem, however, is how to contend with jurisdictional hurdles when the violations occur overseas, in countries that are unable or unwilling to assist US enforcement efforts. To solve this problem, US prosecutors are turning to strategies with significant extraterritorial implications— that is, exercising legal authority beyond national borders. One such tool is to use civil legal procedures to seize assets linked to sanctions or export-control violations in jurisdictions that lack cooperative arrangements with US enforcement agencies. While this may be an attractive strategy to bolster enforcement efforts against overseas illicit procurement, using such tools is not without consequence. This article explores the political, legal, and technical implications of enforcing extraterritorial controls against overseas non-state actors by exploring the recent uses of civil-asset forfeiture against Iranian and North Korean procurement networks.     

Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment. by William Inboden

This article predicts that the nuclear weapon states may opt sooner for nuclear elimination than generally expected. This delegitimation of nuclear weapons is due to five factors whose importance has grown since the mid-1990s: nuclear proliferation, the risk of nuclear terrorism, the nuclear taboo, missile defence, and the increased importance of international law. The article starts with categorizing nuclear weapons policies: nuclear primacy, maximum deterrence, minimum deterrence, existential deterrence, and post-existential deterrence. The nuclear weapon states will probably shift their policies from nuclear primacy (US), maximum deterrence (Russia), minimum or existential deterrence (UK, France, Israel, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea) to post-existential deterrence (or elimination), taking one step at a time.     

The Evolution of US Extended Deterrence and South Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions

ABSTRACT

Extended deterrence has been a main pillar of the security alliance between the United States and South Korea (Republic of Korea [ROK]) since the end of the Korean War. The changing dynamics of US extended deterrence in Korea, however, affected Seoul’s strategic choices within its bilateral alliance relationship with Washington. Examining the evolution of US extended deterrence in the Korean Peninsula until the Nixon administration, this article explains why South Korea began its nuclear weapons programme in a historical context of the US–ROK alliance relationship. This article argues that President Park Chung-hee’s increasing uncertainty about the US security commitment to South Korea in the 1960s led to his decision to develop nuclear weapons in the early 1970s despite the fact that US tactical nuclear weapons were still stationed in South Korea.     

朝核问题对中国边境安全的影响

朝核问题一直是困扰东北亚地区安全的核心问题,自20世纪90年代第一次朝核危机至今．朝核问题不但没有得到妥善解决,反而更加复杂。2006年10月9日,朝鲜宣布成功进行了地下核试验,朝鲜半岛再一次成为全球关注的焦点。在前人研究的基础上,就朝核问题产生的背景,朝核问题对中国边境地区经济、地区稳定以及生态环境等方面产生的影响进行分析和探讨。