NEGOTIATING NONPROLIFERATION: Scholarship,Pedagogy, and Nuclear Weapons Policy

In nuclear nonproliferation negotiations, many governments pursue multiple objectives, and changes in policy can occur rapidly—and often unexpectedly. For these reasons, understanding nonproliferation requires empathy and imagination rather than just historical fact. This article considers one teaching tool to encourage such insight—simulations—and demonstrates how teaching and scholarship can interact to improve our understanding of the complex decisions and negotiations involved in nuclear nonproliferation. The article consists of five parts: first, it explains the benefits of simulations as both a policy development tool in Washington and as a teaching tool in universities; second, it describes the pedagogical strategy of the Stanford University simulation program; third, it shows how the simulations have identified and highlighted theoretical and substantive insights that are often neglected in scholarly studies of nonproliferation; and fourth, it describes how students are tested to enhance the learning experience from the simulation. Fifth and finally, the article provides concluding observations about how using simulations in the classroom can help scholars develop insights that improve their understanding of real-world nuclear negotiation dynamics and outcomes.     

Limiting cyberwarfare: applying arms-control models to an emerging technology

ABSTRACT

An arms race in cyberspace is underway. US and Western government efforts to control this process have largely been limited to deterrence and norm development. This article examines an alternative policy option: arms control. To gauge whether arms-control models offer useful lessons for addressing cyber capabilities, this article compiles a new dataset of predominantly twentieth-century arms-control agreements. It also evaluates two case studies of negotiated agreements that regulate dual-use technologies, the 1928 Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical- and biological-weapon use and the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. The analysis underscores the limits of norm development for emerging technologies with both civilian and military applications. It finds lessons for developing verifiable, international cooperation mechanisms for cyberwarfare in the regulatory model of international aviation. Conventionally, arms-control agreements take advantage of transparent tests or estimates of arms. To restrict cyberwarfare activities, experts and policy makers must adapt arms-control models to a difficult-to-measure technology at an advanced stage of development and use. Further investigation of international regulatory schemes for dual-use technology of similar diffusion and development to the internet, such as international civil aviation, is needed.     

How old is too old? An economic approach to replacing military aircraft

The US Air Force is asking when to replace its aging aircraft. We develop a framework to identify economically optimal replacement strategies that recognizes cost trade-offs and incorporates age effects. We also preview a stochastic methodology. We use the framework to identify an optimal strategy, defined by the replacement age, for a generic fleet and conduct a sensitivity analysis. Quantitative illustrations show that the range of strategies that provides close-to-optimal outcomes widens as the operating and support (O&S) cost growth rate decreases and the ratio of the acquisition price to the initial O&S cost increases. A wider range implies more decision-making leeway.     

Power-Sharing in Civil War: Puzzles of Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

Syria's slide into sectarian civil war in 2011 raises a new fundamental knowledge question about the conditions under which power-sharing pacts can be clinched as an approach to war termination. When intrastate conflicts escalate into violent sectarian struggles, power-sharing is a likely basis of an eventual political settlement in situations where partition is off the table. This article contends that there remain two puzzling knowledge gaps about power-sharing as the basis for peace agreements to end civil wars: first, the specific conditions under which elites find it in their own interest to share power with bitter adversaries rather than fight on the battlefield, and second, how war-ending elite-negotiated pacts may evolve into more enduring social contracts. These puzzles, critical for policymakers and still unresolved in the scholarly literature, suggest the need to develop more contingent- and context-specific knowledge if research findings are to more capably contribute to peacemaking efforts.     

Book Reviews

Patrick Finney (ed.), The Origins of the Second World War. London: Arnold, 1997. Pp.xvi + 461, index. £15.99. ISBN 0–340–67640‐X.

Maria Emilia Paz, Strategy, Security, and Spies: Mexico and the US as Allies in World War II. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. Pp.xii + 264, 10 illus., biblio., index. $55 (cloth); $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0–271–01665–5 and 01666–3.

Norman J.W. Goda, Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa and the Path toward America. College Station, Texas A&;M University Press, 1998. Pp.xxvi + 307, 2 maps, biblio., index. $39.95. ISBN 0–89096–807–1.

Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp.xii + 525, biblio., index. £25; $34.95. ISBN 0–521–64044‐X.

Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp.viii + 270, index. $35. ISBN 0–801403201–4.

Eric Arnett (ed.), Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in South Asia after the Test Ban, SIPRI Research Report No.14. Oxford: Oxford University Press/Stockholm Int Peace Research Institute, 1998. Pp.viii + 98, index. £12.99. ISBN 0–19–8294115.

T.V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett and James J. Wirtz (eds.), The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and Emerging International Order. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1998. Pp.vi + 312, index. $47.50/£36. ISBN 0–472–10863–8.     

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.     

India's Aspirations and Strategy for the Indian Ocean – Securing the Waves?

India has increasingly high aspirations in the Indian Ocean, as enunciated by politicians, naval figures and the wider elite. These aspirations, its strategic discourse, are of pre-eminence and leadership. India's maritime strategy for such a self-confessed diplomatic, constabulary and benign role is primarily naval-focused; a sixfold strategy of increasing its naval spending, strengthening its infrastructure, increasing its naval capabilities, active maritime diplomacy, exercising in the Indian Ocean and keeping open the choke points. Through such strategy, and soft balancing with the United States, India hopes to secure its own position against a perceived growing Chinese challenge in the Indian Ocean.