The Power of the NPT: International Norms and Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament

ABSTRACT

There is a lingering disagreement among scholars on how the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) affects nonproliferation and disarmament outcomes. Drawing on constructivist scholarship on international norms, this article examines the extent of the NPT's effect in the case of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine found itself host to the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. Despite Ukraine's initial commitment to become a non-nuclear state, it proceeded along a difficult path toward NPT accession. Most controversial and directly at odds with the NPT was Ukraine's claim to ownership of its nuclear inheritance as a successor state of the Soviet Union. This article argues that, while much domestic discourse about the fate of these nuclear weapons was embedded in the negotiation of Ukraine's new identity as a sovereign state vis-à-vis Russia and the West, the NPT played an important, structural role by outlining a separate normative space for nuclear weapons and providing the grammar of denuclearization with which Ukraine's decision makers had to grapple.     

NONPROLIFERATION POLICY CROSSROADS:

On October 1, 2008, Congress enacted a proposal that originated with President George W. Bush in 2005 to approve an unprecedented nuclear trade pact with India by removing a central pillar of US nonproliferation policy. Despite the numerous political challenges confronting the Bush administration, the initiative won strong bipartisan support, including votes from Democratic Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. The four-year struggle to pass the controversial US-India nuclear trade agreement offers an exceptionally valuable case study. It demonstrates a classic tradeoff between the pursuit of broad multilateral goals such as nuclear nonproliferation and advancement of a specific bilateral relationship. It reveals enduring fault lines in executive branch relations with Congress. It vividly portrays challenges confronting proponents of a strong nonproliferation regime. This article is based on an analysis of the negotiating record and congressional deliberations, including interviews with key participants. It assesses the lessons learned and focuses on three principal questions: how did the agreement seek to advance US national security interests?; what were the essential elements of the prolonged state-of-the-art lobbying campaign to win approval from skeptics in Congress?; and what are the agreement's actual benefits—and costs—to future US nonproliferation efforts?     

The Problem of Weak Nuclear States

Governments are increasingly recognizing the problem posed by internally weak nuclear-capable states. The problem, however, is under-theorized. This article brings together literature on sovereignty and international order, the nonproliferation regime, and weak states, and introduces new concepts to provide a more structured understanding of this problem. Insight comes from focusing attention on the function and governance of two nuclear estates (termed the production and operational estates), and on their resilience to decay and disorder occurring within the state and society. Drawing on empirical observation, the authors suggest a typology of weakness in nuclear states, involving state fragmentation typified by the former Soviet Union, the “hard weak state” typified by North Korea, and the internally conflicted state typified by Pakistan. Although these types give rise to distinctive difficulties, their alleviation depends heavily on the maintenance of internal authority within the state and estates, the presence or absence of cooperative relations, and the international regulatory framework's vitality.     

Does Geopolitical Risks Predict Stock Returns and Volatility of Leading Defense Companies? Evidence from a Nonparametric Approach

Abstract

We use the k-th-order nonparametric causality test at monthly frequency over the period of 1985:1 to 2016:06 to analyze whether geopolitical risks can predict movements in stock returns and volatility of 24 global defense firms. The nonparametric approach controls for the existing misspecification of a linear framework of causality, and hence, the mild evidence of causality obtained under the standard Granger tests cannot be relied upon. When we apply the nonparametric test, we find that there is no evidence of predictability of stock returns of these defense companies emanating from the geopolitical risk measure. However, the geopolitical risk index does predict realized volatility in 50% of the companies. Our results indicate that while global geopolitical events over a period of time is less likely to predict returns, such global risks are more inclined in affecting future risk profile of defense firms.     

TIME-VARYING CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH KOREA-UNITED STATES AND JAPAN-UNITED STATES MILITARY ALLIANCES UNDER CHINESE THREAT: A PUBLIC GOOD APPROACH

This paper investigates the nature of two military alliances under Chinese threat. The findings are as follows: First, South Korea does not consider China a significant threat while Japan and the United States have recognized China as a serious threat since the 1990s and the 2000s, respectively. Second, the relationship between South Korea and the United States is a true military alliance for all time periods, but the nature of the alliance has changed since the 1970s. Third, although Japan began to form an alliance relationship with the United States in the 1990s, Japan is considered a more significant ally by the United States. This paper implies that, should China provoke a military confrontation, it might be difficult to deduce a common solution among the three countries because of the different response to military threats from China.     

Strategic defense and attack for series and parallel reliability systems: reply 1 to comment 1

Kovenock and Roberson's [2011] comment provides initial work which has the potential, when suitably extended, to advance the research frontier. Kovenock and Roberson's paper consists of three sections. The first section is an interesting introduction. The second section, titled ‘Model and Main Result,’ provides no contribution beyond Hausken [2008a]. It consists of Equations (1)–(10) which are equivalent to equations developed by Hausken, and Equation (11) which is equivalent to the utility requirements u???0 and U???0 provided after Equation (17) in Hausken. The third section provides interesting ideas about mixed-strategy equilibria that can be extended in future research.     

SAVING THE NPT

For more than forty years, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has provided major security benefits to the international community; however, the treaty is suffering from internal and external pressures, and benign neglect on the part of its members is undermining its authority. To ensure the treaty's continued viability, it is time for member states to start showing the NPT the respect it deserves and to renew their commitments to its fundamental purposes. Achieving this requires remedial action in at least four areas of vulnerability: reinvigorating nuclear disarmament; strengthening nonproliferation; overcoming the NPT's institutional deficit; and fostering a rapprochement between NPT and non-NPT states that does not abandon the goal of treaty universalization. There is still time before the 2010 NPT Review Conference for concerted action to restore the NPT's vitality and for the United States to resume its leadership role on behalf of the treaty and its membership.     

战时装备调配保障决策模型构建研究

分析了战时装备调配保障决策的特点,运用模糊聚类分析法对装备调配保障对象进行了分组和优先级排序,以此为基础,运用目标规划法构建了战时装备调配保障决策模型,最后,通过实例验证了模型的可行性和有效性．     

基于Bayes理论的固有可用度定时截尾试验方案

为解决小子样条件下进行产品固有可用度试验验证的问题,基于Bayes理论,提出了一种固有可用度定时截尾试验方案．该试验方案在假设故障间隔时间和修复时间均服从指数分布的前提下,将现场试验分为同时进行的可靠性和维修性定时截尾试验2个部分,要求在利用验前试验信息的基础上,使本次试验获得的验后分布还可以作为下一次现场试验的验前分布,提高了试验数据的利用率,具有较好的经济效益．     

Identifying the spoilers in the security sector reform – disarmament demobilisation and reintegration process in the Congo

The Congolese security sector reform – disarmament demobilisation and reintegration (SSR-DDR) process has suffered from setbacks in its military sector during the last 10 years, such as insufficient funding, lack of coordination and domestic reluctance to major changes, with as a result, a very fragile and disjointed Army. These problems have deepened as officers have defected from the Army and caused new instability in the East of the Congo. This article aims to analyse the recent mutinies and the reaction by the Congolese government by applying a capabilities-based approach in combination with a typology of spoilers. The objective is to identify and classify the spoilers and answer the questions of why they emerge now and how they are dealt with on a national level. From the analysis, the author suggests that there are several spoilers involved in the current situation – the most powerful being the Congolese and the Rwandan governments, prompting the question of whether an international involvement is necessary to solve the problem.