PROLIFERATION SECURITY SEARCHES DO NOT VIOLATE ... · Web viewIn short, it is unlikely that a...

West Coast Publishing 1Proliferation Good/Bad

Proliferation Good/Bad

Proliferation Bad – Rapid.........................................................................................................................................2Proliferation Bad – Snowballs..................................................................................................................................3Proliferation Bad – Nuclear War..............................................................................................................................4Proliferation Bad – Nuclear War..............................................................................................................................5Proliferation Bad – Nuclear War..............................................................................................................................6Proliferation Bad – Nuclear Terrorism.....................................................................................................................7Proliferation Bad – Japan.........................................................................................................................................8Proliferation Bad – Japan.........................................................................................................................................9Proliferation Bad – Japan.......................................................................................................................................10Proliferation Bad – Japan.......................................................................................................................................11Proliferation Bad – Taiwan.....................................................................................................................................12Proliferation Bad – Middle East..............................................................................................................................13Proliferation Bad – Saudi Arabia............................................................................................................................14Proliferation Bad – Iran..........................................................................................................................................15Proliferation Bad – A2: Deterrence........................................................................................................................16Proliferation Bad – A2: Deterrence........................................................................................................................17Proliferation Bad – A2: Public Opposition..............................................................................................................18Proliferation Bad – A2: Prolif Inevitable.................................................................................................................19PSI Good – Multilateralism.....................................................................................................................................20PSI Good – Proliferation.........................................................................................................................................21

Proliferation Good – General Defense...................................................................................................................22Proliferation Good – Threats Exaggerated.............................................................................................................23Proliferation Good – Threats Exaggerated.............................................................................................................24Proliferation Good – Threats Exaggerated.............................................................................................................25Proliferation Good – Deterrence............................................................................................................................26Proliferation Good – Deterrence............................................................................................................................27Proliferation Good – Deterrence............................................................................................................................28Proliferation Good – No Prolif................................................................................................................................29Proliferation Good – Slow Prolif.............................................................................................................................30Proliferation Good – Conventional War.................................................................................................................31Proliferation Good – Allied Prolif...........................................................................................................................32Proliferation Good – Japan.....................................................................................................................................33Proliferation Good – Japan.....................................................................................................................................34Proliferation Good – Saudi Arabia..........................................................................................................................35Proliferation Good – NPT Fails...............................................................................................................................36Proliferation Good – A2: Accidents........................................................................................................................37


Proliferation Bad – Rapid

Proliferation would be rapid because of nuclear hedging Mitchell Reiss, fmr director of the Reves Center for International Studies, 2004, “The Nuclear Tipping Point”

Or it may be that countries would not sprint to cross the nuclear finish line but rather hedge their bets by working quietly and methodically to acquire the technology and materials necessary to build nuclear bombs on short notice once a political decision was made. Today, many of the building blocks for a nuclear arsenal—the scientific and engineering expertise, precision machine tools, computer software, and nuclear design information—are more readily available than ever before. And what is unavailable on the open market can be purchased on the black market due to the flourishing illicit trade in nuclear technology and materials between and among rogue (or what used to be termed pariah) states. A hedging strategy would allow a state to gradually increase its nuclear competence and shrink the period of its greatest strategic vulnerability: the time between a decision to acquire nuclear weapons and the actual possession of a usable nuclear arsenal. States that adopt this approach could remain poised on this non-nuclear precipice for months or even years, awaiting a political decision to tip them over the edge.

There is an invisible threshold to fast proliferationKurt Campbell, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security and Robert Einhorn, senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program, 2004, The Nuclear Tipping Point, pg. 346

We can take some comfort in the study's conclusion that while the tipping-point phenomenon may be an apt metaphor for the process of proliferation, we are neither at the tipping point nor destined to reach it. But there is something very troublesome about this metaphor: movement toward the tipping point starts very slowly, picks up speed, and then becomes swift and irresistible. At the earliest stages, movement is barely discernible. By the time the tipping process becomes readily identifiable, it may be very difficult to stop. So are we now in a state of proliferation equilibrium, with the balance level and stable? Or are we sliding imper- ceptibly toward the tipping point? We honestly do not know. What we do know is that keeping safely away from the tipping point will require the international community to act with unity, imagination, and strength. And it should act now, before it's too late.


Proliferation Bad – Snowballs

Proliferation snowballs and escalatesVictor A. Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division, 2002, “Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions,” Institute for Defense Analyses, Survival, v. 44, pg. np

As proliferation continues, it generates increased pressures for further proliferation . For example, some states may be discouraged by each failure of international efforts to limit proliferation and come to see runaway proliferation as inevitable. Accordingly, such states may feel it prudent to make contingency preparations to become nuclear powers themselves, in turn causing other states to do the same. In addition, states may feel encouraged to develop WMD by the extra attention and other types of political and economic gains won by states that have previously done so. Indeed some states will feel that they must have their own nuclear deterrent forces simply because their spread ultimately makes them a key symbol of a modern state. The strongest increases in pressures to proliferate are felt by states that see themselves as potential targets of aggression by those who have gone nuclear or are about to. Prospective victims cannot expect to counter an opponent’s nuclear weapons solely by increases in their own conventional forces.

This is especially true of the United States reneges on commitmentsVictor A. Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division, 2002, “Proliferation, Missile Defence and American Ambitions,” Institute for Defense Analyses, Survival, v. 44, pg. np

What would await the world if strong protectors, especially the United States, were no longer seen as willing to protect states from nuclear-backed aggression? At least a few additional states would begin to build their own nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to distant targets, and these initiatives would spur increasing numbers of the world’s capable states to follow suit. Restraint would seem ever less necessary and ever more dangerous. Meanwhile, more states are becoming capable of building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Many, perhaps most, of the world’s states are becoming sufficiently wealthy, and the technology for building nuclear forces continues to improve and spread. Finally, it seems highly likely that at some point, halting proliferation will come to be seen as a lost cause and the restraints on it will disappear. Once that happens, the transition to a highly proliferated world would probably be very rapid. While some regions might be able to hold the line for a time, the threats posed by wildfire proliferation in most other areas could create pressures that would finally overcome all restraint.

Absent US credibility, rogue proliferation spills overKurt M. Campbell, Senior Vice President and Kissinger Chair in Naitonal Security, CSIS, 2003, “National Proliferation Beyond Rogues,” The Washington Quarterly, p. 10-11.

One of the primary reasons for seeking to block various states, such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, from achieving nuclear status has long been the concern about how such a capacity would affect neighboring states. A rogue state’s successful acquisition of a nuclear weapon could trigger a range of potentially destabilizing regional responses, including the further proliferation of nuclear weapons beyond the rogue state and the prospect of exacerbated regional rivalries. This central concern has been one of the driving factors behind U.S. diplomacy in the recent past, including the protracted negotiation of the Agreed Framework with North Korea in 1994. This issue is also arguably one of the animating features behind the “axis of evil” phrase in the president’s State of the Union address and the harder U.S. line toward Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—all states seeking to acquire, or which have already begun to develop, nuclear weapons. U.S. approaches to countering rogue-state proliferation range from more intensive efforts at diplomacy to threats of the use of force . Nevertheless, the underlying goal is the same: to prevent an unsavory regime from acquiring the mantle of new nuclear power.


Proliferation Bad – Nuclear War

Proliferation would be rapid and lead to nuclear war Theodore Taylor, fellow of the American physical society, no date, “Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” http://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/Breakthrough/book/pdfs/taylor.pdf

Nuclear proliferation - be it among nations or terrorists - greatly increases the chance of nuclear violence on a scale that would be intolerable. Proliferation increases the chance that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of irrational people, either suicidal or with no concern for the fate of the world. Irrational or outright psychotic leaders of military factions or terrorist groups might decide to use a few nuclear weapons under their control to stimulate a global nuclear war, as an act of vengeance against humanity as a whole. Countless scenarios of this type can be constructed Limited nuclear wars between countries with small numbers of nuclear weapons could escalate into major nuclear wars between superpowers. For example, a nation in an advanced stage of “latent proliferation,” finding itself losing a nonnuclear war, might complete the transition to deliverable nuclear weapons and, in desperation, use them. If that should happen in a region, such as the Middle East, where major superpower interests are at stake, the small nuclear war could easily escalate into a global nuclear war. A sudden rush of nuclear proliferation among nations may be triggered by small nuclear wars that are won by a country with more effective nuclear forces than its adversary, or by success of nuclear terrorists in forcing adherence to their demands. Proliferation of nuclear weapons among nations could spread at an awesome rate in such circumstances, since “latent proliferation” is far along in at least several dozen nations, and is increasing rapidly as more nuclear power plants and supporting facilities are built in more countries. In summary, much more serious international attention than is now

New nuclear states lead to instability Michael Horowtiz, Dept of Political Science @ UPenn, 2-10-2009, “The Spread of nuclear Weapons and International Conflict: Does Experience Matter?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, SAGE

The hypotheses above are compared to a null hypothesis predicting no effect between time and behavior. Given the dichotomous nature of the dependent variable, the most appropriate statistical model is logistic regression.18 These tests include Huber-White robust standard errors and control for the possibility of fixed time effects with peace-year splines (Beck, Katz, and Tucker 1998).19 Table 1 presents initial statistical representations of the relationship between MID reciprocation and the possession of nuclear weapons, building from a simple model without any control variables to larger models including relevant controls. The results show a clear and consistent statistically significant impact to learning over time with nuclear weapons. The control variables behave in the predicted directions. As Schultz finds, reciprocation is less likely when a challenger is democratic. Interestingly, as the relative power of Side A in a dispute increases, reciprocation appears more likely. This suggests that the general relationship between power and dispute reciprocation is not necessarily linear. Neither the dyadic-satisfaction variable nor the joint-nuclearpossession variable, measuring whether both sides have nuclear weapons, is significant. 20 In general, the significance of the Side B nuclear-weapons variable suggests there is something inherent about nuclear capabilities that influences militarized behavior, although the nuclear variable for Side A is not significant. However, the results show that nuclear experience matters as well. The Side A nuclear-experience variable is –0.024 and significant at the .05 level. Given the caveats above about the indirect nature of these tests, the nuclear-learning argument seems clearest in explaining the results for challengers. The negative and significant coefficient for Side A shows that the challenges of older nuclear states are reciprocated significantly less than the challenges of younger nuclear and nonnuclear states.



Proliferation leads to miscalculation and escalating conflict, ends in nuclear wars Gareth Evans, Professorial fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences @ University of Melbourne, and Yoriko Kawaguchi, Co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, 12/15/2009, “Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers,” http://www.icnnd.org/ reference/reports/ent/ downloads.html

Ensuring that no new states join the ranks of those already nuclear-armed must continue to be one of the world’s top international security priorities. Every new nuclear-armed state will add significantly to the inherent risks – of accident or miscalculation as well as deliberate use – involved in any possession of these weapons, and potentially encourage more states to acquire nuclear weapons to avoid being left behind. Any scramble for nuclear capabilities is bound to generate severe instability in bilateral, regional and international relations. The carefully worked checks and balances of interstate relations will come under severe stress. There will be enhanced fears of nuclear blackmail, and of irresponsible and unpredictable leadership behaviour. In conditions of inadequate command and control systems, absence of confidence building measures and multiple agencies in the nuclear weapons chain of authority, the possibility of an accidental or maverick usage of nuclear weapons will remain high. Unpredictable elements of risk and reward will impact on decision making processes. The dangers are compounded if the new and aspiring nuclear weapons states have, as is likely to be the case, ongoing inter-state disputes with ideological, territorial, historical – and for all those reasons, strongly emotive – dimensions. The transitional period is likely to be most dangerous of all, with the arrival of nuclear weapons tending to be accompanied by sabre rattling and competitive nuclear chauvinism. For example, as between Pakistan and India a degree of stability might have now evolved, but 1998–2002 was a period of disturbingly fragile interstate relations. Command and control and risk management of nuclear weapons takes time to evolve. Military and political leadership in new nuclear-armed states need time to learn and implement credible safety and security systems. The risks of nuclear accidents and the possibility of nuclear action through inadequate crisis control mechanisms are very high in such circumstances. If this is coupled with political instability in such states, the risks escalate again. Where such countries are beset with internal stresses and fundamentalist groups with trans-national agendas, the risk of nuclear weapons or fissile material coming into possession of non-state actors cannot be ignored. The action–reaction cycle of nations on high alerts, of military deployments, threats and counter threats of military action, have all been witnessed in the Korean peninsula with unpredictable behavioural patterns driving interstate relations. The impact of a proliferation breakout in the Middle East would be much wider in scope and make stability management extraordinarily difficult. Whatever the chances of “stable deterrence” prevailing in a Cold War or India–Pakistan setting, the prospects are significantly less in a regional setting with multiple nuclear power centres divided by multiple and cross-cutting sources of conflict.



Proliferation leads to nuclear use, terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons, miscalculation and accidental launchGeorge Shultz, secretary of state from 1982 to 1989, William Perry, secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997,Henry Kissinger, secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, and Sam Nunn, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 1-4-2007, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116787515251566636.html

Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective . North Korea's recent nuclear test and Iran's refusal to stop its program to enrich uranium -- potentially to weapons grade -- highlight the fact that the world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era . Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing . In today's war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass devastation. And non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons are conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy and present difficult new security challenges. Apart from the terrorist threat, 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 even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American "mutually a ssured destruction" with an increasing number of potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will be used. New nuclear states do not have the benefit of years of step-by-step safeguards put in effect during the Cold War to prevent nuclear accidents , misjudgments or unauthorized launches . The U nited States and the Soviet Union learned from mistakes that were less than fatal. Both countries were diligent to ensure that no nuclear weapon was used during the Cold War by design or by accident. Will new nuclear nations and the world be as fortunate in the next 50 years as we were during the Cold War?

Allied proliferation causes nuclear warSteven Lee, Professor of Ethics @ Hobart and Smith College, 1993, Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons, p. 299

First, nuclear war could result from the behavior of other states, especially those that had formerly seen themselves as receiving protection from the nation's opponent under the nuclear umbrella. Some of theses states might well seek to acquire nuclear weapons, or to enlarge their arsenals if they were already nuclear powers, in order to provide better protection of their own against the opponent. Were such armament to occur, the uncertainties on all sides may make major nuclear war more likely that it was prior to the nation's unilateral nuclear disarmament.


Proliferation Bad – Nuclear Terrorism

We are at the nuclear tipping point – further proliferation leads to nuclear terrorismJohn Farrell, Political Analyst, 6/2/2009, “Experts Sober on Nuclear Risks,” http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2009/06/02/9207/experts_sober_on_nuclear_risks.

In the last few weeks, Iran has reaffirmed its intention to develop a nuclear capability. North Korea tested a nuclear device last week, and test-fired ballistic missiles, and U.S. and South Korean armed forces were put on high alert. The nuclear-armed Pakistani state, meanwhile, continued with its war against Taliban extremists. The actions of these nations alarm their neighbors, many of whom — Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to name a few — have the economic and technological resources to become nuclear powers themselves. "There is concern that we may be reaching a so-called nuclear tipping point," said Charles Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.And if the number of nuclear-armed states increases — to potentially as many as 30 or 40 nations — so will the likelihood that terrorists could acquire a nuclear weapon, or the enriched uranium needed to build such a device. "Nuclear terrorism is a very serious threat," said former Defense Secretary William Perry, at a Council on Foreign Relations forum Thursday. "It is the most likely way a nuclear bomb will end up being detonated in one of our cities."

Nuclear terrorism leads to a proportional response – escalates to interstate nuclear conflictJasen Castillo, Associate Political Scientist @ RAND, 2003, Nuclear Terrorism: Why Deterrence Still Matters, Current History, 102, 668, pg. 426

If terrorist groups attacked the American homeland or its interests abroad with nuclear weapons, the US government would face strong incentives to retaliate with nuclear weapons against the country that provided the nuclear capabilities. Public pressure and worries would persuade American officials to identify a state sponsor and make it the target of a nuclear reprisal. In the past, the American public has shown little reluctance to inflict casualties on foreign civilians and it would appear that a nuclear attack would demand a proportional response. Thus, a clandestine nuclear strike by terrorists would likely provoke the United States to find those states that aided the attackers and make them suffer an equal if not greater amount of pain.

Deterrence doesn’t apply to terrorists William Perry, professor at Stanford University, and Brent Sowcroft, resident trustee of the Forum for International Policy, 2009, “US Nuclear Weapons Policy.” Council on Foreign Relations, pg. np

This report primarily addresses three principal challenges that confront the United States: first, the risks of dangerous misperceptions or miscalculations between the United States and Russia; second, the emergence of more nuclear weapons-capable states; and, third, nuclear terrorism. On the threat of nuclear terrorism, traditional deterrence would not work, because stateless terrorists have no national territory that the United States could threaten to target to deter them from using nuclear weapons, though it might be able to deter the state sponsors of these groups if there were any. Another challenging issue is the availability of nuclear weapons and materials manufactured by states to terrorist groups, either through deliberate action or negligent security. The likelihood of nuclear terrorists acquiring the capability to produce weapons-usable fissile material is extremely low. They would, instead, have to acquire this material from state stockpiles.


Proliferation Bad – Japan

Japanese proliferation destroys the NPT sparking an arms raceFrank Barnaby, Nuclear Issues Consultant @ Nautilus and Shaun Burnie, Non-proliferation Activist, 8/1/2005, “Thinking the Unthinkable,” http://www.nautilus.org/napsnet/sr/2005/0573Barnaby_Burnia.pdf

“Treat nothing as inevitable” is a good principle to live one’s life by. Unfortunately, in the case of Japan’s nuclear development, it may not be sufficient. The international community - read governments - will learn to live with Japanese nuclear weapons if that occasion arises. The consequences would of course be terrible for Northeast Asia. Pressure in South Korea to respond would be huge, relations with China could become disastrous, and the global nuclear non-proliferation regime centred around the NPT reduced to a historical footnote. Japan’s existing plutonium programme is a driver for nuclear proliferation in the East Asian region and further afield. For example, Iran has cited Rokkasho to support its case for being permitted to complete its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.

East Asia arms racing destroys global economyLee Hamilton, Woodrow Wilson Institute Director, 5/1/2005, “China’s Modernizing Military,” Tulsa World, pg. np

So much of our attention is trained on the Middle East these days, but we cannot ignore East Asia. Recent weeks have brought troubling demonstrations of Chinese and Japanese nationalism; territorial disputes among China, Japan and South Korea; and the persistence of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The United States must use its power and influence to work for an Asia where China, Taiwan, Japan and the Koreas can peacefully coexist and develop at the same time. Arms-races, nuclear proliferation and heated rhetoric in East Asia threatens the lives of tens of thousands of American soldiers stationed in South Korea and Japan, and the stability of the global economy

Rearmament triggers nuclear conflictMorton H. Halperin, Director of Policy Planning at State Department, 2000, “The Nuclear Dimension of the US-Japan Alliance,” http://www.nautilus.org/archives/library/security/papers/Halperin-US-Japan.pdf

However, any realistic appraisal of nuclear dangers would suggest that neither rogue states/terrorist groups nor a deliberate Russian attack is the right focus if the goal of U.S. national security policy is to prevent the use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The most immediate danger is that India and Pakistan will stumble into a nuclear war following their nuclear tests and their apparent determination to deploy nuclear forces. A second danger will continue to be that Russian missiles will be fired on the United States by accident or as a result of unauthorized action. Over the longer run, these threats will be eclipsed by the danger that the non-proliferation regime will collapse and other states will develop nuclear weapons. A terrorist threat should, in my view, become a matter of serious concern only if there is much wider dispersal of nuclear weapons among states stemming from an open collapse of the nonproliferation regime .

Japan rearm leads to nuclear conflictEllen Ratner, White House correspondent and bureau chief for the Talk Radio News service, 1/17/2003, “Engage North Korea,” http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?article_id=30541

That is now threatened by North Korea's brazen stupidity. By rattling the nuclear saber, withdrawing from non-proliferation treaties and tossing out U.N. inspectors, the North Koreans are on the verge of making one of the colossal blunders of world history. If North Korea is not reined in, then it is likely that Tokyo will rearm – and experts predict that with Japan's high-tech, industrial economy, they could assemble a full nuclear arsenal and bomb delivery systems within three years. This would be a disaster. Not only would it trigger a new, intra-Asian arms race – for who could doubt that if Japan goes nuclear, China and North Korea would be joined by South Korea and even Taiwan in building new and more weapons? Likewise, given the memories, who could doubt that such a scenario increases the risks of a nuclear war somewhere in the region? By comparison, the old Cold War world, where there were only two armed camps, would look like kid stuff.



Japanese prolif would lead to a rapid destabilizing arms raceEmma Chanlett-Avery, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Mary Beth Nikitin, Nonproliferation analyst, 2-19-2009, “Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests,” Congressional Research Service

To many security experts, the most alarming possible consequence of a Japanese decision to develop nuclear weapons would be the development of a regional arms race.33 The fear is based on the belief that a nuclear-armed Japan could compel South Korea to develop its own program; encourage China to increase and/or improve its relatively small arsenal; and possibly inspire Taiwan to pursue nuclear weapons. This in turn might have spill-over effects on the already nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. The prospect—or even reality—of several nuclear states rising in a region that is already rife with historical grievances and contemporary tension could be deeply destabilizing. The counter-argument, made by some security experts, is that nuclear deterrence was stabilizing during the Cold War, and a similar nuclear balance could be achieved in Asia. However, most observers maintain that the risks outweigh potential stabilizing factors.

Japan rearm would cause a regional arms race Richard Halloran, staff writer, 5-24-2009, “The Dangers of A Nuclear Japan,” RealClearPolitics, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/24/nuclear_japan_96638.html

That anxiety has reinvigorated a debate about whether Japan should acquire a nuclear deterrent of its own and reduce its reliance on the US. Japan has the technology, finances, industrial capacity, and skilled personnel to build a nuclear force, although it would be costly and take many years. The consequences of that decision would be earthshaking. It would likely cause opponents to riot in the streets and could bring down a government. South Korea, having sought at least once to acquire nuclear weapons, would almost certainly do so. Any hope of dissuading North Korea from building a nuclear force would disappear. China would redouble its nuclear programs. And for the only nation ever to experience atomic bombing to acquire nuclear arms would surely shatter the already fragile international nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Japan rearm leads to East Asian arms race, kills the alliance, and hurts the Japanese economy Shinichi Ogawa, National Institute for Defense Studies (Japan), April 2003, “A Nuclear Japan Revisited,” http://www.nids.go.jp/english/dissemination/briefing/2003/pdf/64.pdf

Likewise, the political and security repercussions of Japanese nuclear weapon development would be very negative indeed. Most worrisome would the reaction of Japan’s neighboring countries. Japanese nuclear weapon development, even its intention were totally defensive, would be likely to invite caution and countermeasures from China, Russia, and South Korea even in its early stages. As a result, Japan might face a serious security problem before it succeeded in attaining the necessary SSBN/SLBM force. Although nuclear weapons, depending on their survivability and capability, can have a positive effect in helping prevent war among nuclear powers, Japan’s nuclearization may invite a serious security threat well before a strategically meaningful nuclear force can be built and deployed. Similarly, given that there are few international scenarios in which the United States benefits strategically and militarily from Japanese nuclear weapon development, a decision to develop indigenous nuclear weapons is likely to elicit a negative American response. Nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction is one of the top priorities of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. More than this, considering that Japan has been the victim of U.S. nuclear attack and that Japan’s nuclearization would inevitably lead it to develop a sizable strategic nuclear force, it is unrealistic to believe that the United States would stand by and watch Japanese nuclearization. In addition, Japan suffers from a lack of the natural resources requisite for producing nuclear weapons. By concluding agreements with Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, and the United States, Japan imports uranium ore and enriched uranium from these countries. Each of these agreements limits the use of imported uranium and nuclear materials to nonmilitary and peaceful purposes. A Japanese decision to use imported uranium for nuclear weapon development would certainly invite an embargo by the traditional suppliers. Unless Japan succeeds in making a fast breeder reactor fit for practical use and achieves a nuclear fuel cycle, such a halt of nuclear material imports would have a significant impact on the Japanese economy, considering that about 35 to 40 percent of all Japan’s electricity is generated by nuclear power.



Japanese rearm outweighs. There is a high probability, quick time frame and large magnitude for Asian warsBill Emmott, former editor of the Economist, 6/4/2008, “Power rises in the east,” The Australian, pg. np

The rise of Asia is not just, or even mainly, going to pit Asia against the West, shifting power from the latter to the former. It is going to pit Asians against Asians. This is the first time in history when there have been three powerful countries in Asia at the same time: China, India and Japan. That might not matter if they liked each other, or were somehow naturally compatible. But they do not, and are not. Far from it, in fact. Asia is becoming an arena of balance-of-power politics, with no clear leader, rather as Europe was during the 19th century. China may emerge as the most powerful of the three, but as with 19th-century Britain it is unlikely to be capable of dominating its continent. A new power game is under way, in which all must seek to be as friendly as possible to all, for fear of the consequences if they are not, but in which the friendship is only skin deep. All are manoeuvring to strengthen their positions and maximise their long-term advantages. The relationship between China, India and Japan is going to become increasingly difficult during the next decade. An array of disputes, historical bitternesses and regional flashpoints surround or weigh down on all three. Conflict is not inevitable but nor is it inconceivable. If it were to occur -- over Taiwan, say, or the Korean Peninsula, or Tibet or Pakistan -- it would not simply be an intra-Asian affair. The outside world inevitably would be drawn in, and especially the US, given its extensive military deployments and alliances in Asia. Such a conflict could break out very suddenly . Managing the relationship between China, India and Japan promises to be one of the most important tasks in global affairs during the next decade and beyond, comparable to the need to find peaceful ways to manage the relationships between Europe's great powers during the 20th century. The opportunity, in terms of commerce and of human welfare, is tremendous, if the relationship is handled well. But so is the danger if the relationship goes wrong.

Japanese nuclearization will be fastFrank Barnaby, Nuclear physicist and consultant to the Oxford Research Group on nuclear issues, 5/14/2009, “Will Japan React to North Korea’s Missile and Nuclear programmes?,” http://scitizen.com/stories/future-energies/2009/05/Will-Japan-react-to-North-Korea-s-missile-and-nuclear-programmes/

If Japan, at some future date, takes the political decision to acquire nuclear weapons, how quickly could it do so? The technology needed to produce nuclear weapons is the same as civil nuclear technology. Japan has a very advanced civil nuclear technology – one of the world’s most advanced. It has, therefore, the fissile materials, highly-enriched uranium and plutonium, and the nuclear physicists and engineers needed to produce nuclear weapons in a short time – months rather than years. Japan is, therefore, regarded as a latent nuclear-weapon country, which could relatively quickly become an actual nuclear-weapon power.



Wildfire arms races lead to nuclear warEugene Matthews, Senior Fellow @ Council on Foreign Relations, 12/2003, “Japan’s New Nationalism,” Foreign Affairs, pg. np

Having said that, Washington must persuade Tokyo not to acquire nuclear weapons. A nuclear Japan would make' Asia a more dangerous place, starting an arms race unlike any the region has ever seen. China would increase its nuclear stockpile and seek more military resources, particularly nuclear submarines. Asia would suddenly have five nuclear powers--China, India, Japan, Pakistan, and North Korea--and South Korea would quickly follow, raising the potential for disastrous conflict. To help prevent such a scenario, the United States should redouble its efforts to solve the North Korea problem. And it must do so fast, for North Korea could have a critical mass of nuclear weapons within six months. Any American solution should involve consultations with South Korea and Japan, followed by bilateral talks with North Korea and, immediately following, a multilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea to establish a framework for dialogue that could, after 24 months, lead to a new regional security arrangement. The recent, Chinese-hosted multilateral talks on North Korea were a positive step in this direction. Washington, however, must engage Pyongyang directly. Americans should remember that their interests and Chinas are not the same when it comes to North Korea--if for no other reason than because in the worst-case scenario of a war, Beijing would surely stand with Pyongyang.

Japanese arms race collapses US hegemonyZalmay Khalilzad, former UN ambassador and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Ian Lesser, PhD and Fellow @ the German Marshall Fund, 1998, Sources of Conflict in the 21st Century, pg. 31

China in world III eschews democratization and normalization for an accelerated program of military modernization, especially air and naval power-projection capabilities (Tellis et al., 1996). Japan might choose to go in one of several directions in the face of China’s drive for regional superiority. Tokyo might decide to ally itself with Beijing; it might seek U.S. support in balancing China; or it might compete with China for Asian leadership. In the worst case—our world III—Japan loses faith in U.S. security guarantees and chooses the latter path. Tokyo begins converting its economic power into military strength and deploys a small nuclear arsenal to defend itself and its interests against what it perceives as malign Chinese designs. In the rest of Asia, the second-tier powers jockey for position alongside one or another of the competitors within a complex context of border and resource disputes. In this world, NBC proliferation proceeds at a rapid clip, as actors see nuclear weapons in particular as insurance policies against the dangers around them. Power relations are fluid to the point of instability as small countries seek protectors and larger powers recruit clients. And in this world, it seems likely that a global competitor to the United States could emerge, perhaps as a result of an alliance of convenience between one of the Asian competitors and Russia.


Proliferation Bad – Taiwan

Taiwanese proliferation triggers an Asian arms raceOgu Eji Ofo Annu, Political commentator, 9/3/2004, “The Korean Peninsula, Nuclear Arms Race and World Insecurity,” Africa Resource, http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/articles/the-korean-peninsula-nuclear-arms-race-and-world-insecurity/

Taiwan will get more alarmed at all these developments and seek its own “laser-driven” � nuclear technology from the Americans or one of their allies such as South Korea. This will madden the Chinese and I would not want to hazard on the counter moves of the Chinese government. Since the “one China” � policy cannot condone two Chinas, the introduction of nuclear technology into the Taiwanese peninsula, which could irreversibly create two Chinas, would have far reaching impact. All these posturing will mean that India and Pakistan would have to refurbish their weapons program and occasionally rattle their saber for those whom it may concern. And North Korea will carry on its mission of proliferating nuclear technology for money to emerging nations and perhaps rich organizations. And Pakistan too might find a similar vocation gripping. In a world where nuclear weapon technology becomes as common as the Kalashnikovs or Uzis, no one will be too far from apocalypse.

Taiwan non-proliferation commitments aren’t inevitableDerek Mitchell, senior fellow and director for Asia in the CSIS International Security Program, 2004, The Nuclear Tipping Point, pg. 309

Although Taiwan is not developing nuclear weapons and has apparently dismantled the physical, if not the human, infrastructure with which it sought to develop them in the past, it would not take long for this island nation to resume the development process should internal or external conditions prove compelling. Taiwan's nuclear expertise is dor- mant but advanced and may be reengaged, given a political consensus.


Proliferation Bad – Middle East

Mideast prolif leads to nuclear terrorism Richard Russell, Professor of National Security Affairs at the National Defense University’s Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, Nov-Dec 2006, “Military planning for a Middle East stockpiled with nuclear weapons,” Military Review, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PBZ/is_6_86/ai_n27084058/Nuclear-armed states in the Middle East could also transfer nuclear weapons to terrorist groups. Iran is the top concern on this score. Over the past two decades, Tehran has nurtured Hezbollah with arms, training, logistics, ideological support, and money to enable it to serve as an appendage of Iranian foreign policy. Iranian support helped Hezbollah destroy the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in the early 1980s and kill about 250 Marines. (4) According to a former director of the FBI, senior Iranian government officials ordered Saudi Hezbollah to bomb Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996. (5) The explosion killed 19 U.S. airmen. Iran has used Hezbollah to do its dirty work and maintained "plausible deniability" to reduce the chances of American retaliatory actions. The strategy worked because the United States has yet to retaliate militarily against Iran. Calculating that its nuclear weapons would deter conventional retaliation against it, a nuclear-armed Iran would be emboldened to sponsor even more aggressive and devastating attacks to

push American forces out of the Middle East. A Middle East loaded with states armed with nuclear weapons also would increase the odds of "loose nukes." We worry today--and probably not enough--about Russia losing control of its nuclear weapons, but nuclear worries about Russia today might pale in comparison to those about the Middle East tomorrow . Saudi Arabia already has a slow-boiling insurgency on its hands with Al-Qaeda, which might someday manage to take over a Saudi nuclear weapons depot. The Saudi regime in the future might have to face a civil war with Iranian- or even Iraq-inspired Shi'ites in eastern Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal family could even fall victim to internal power struggles between warring Saudi princes, and control of the Saudi nuclear arsenal might determine the winner. (6) Militant Islamists inside Egypt's military ranks assassinated President Anwar Sadat. Egyptian Islamic extremists might again organize within Egypt's military to take over Egyptian nuclear weapons stocks or to topple the regime itself. The Iranian revolution in 1979 blindsided the United States and converted a security partner into a bitter foe virtually overnight. A similar watershed event could occur in Egypt or Saudi Arabia in the next 25 years. In short, in the Middle East of the

future, numerous nuclear weapons stores will sit atop potentially explosive political powder kegs like the one that exists in Pakistan today.

If terrorists get the bomb, they’ll use them against the U.S.Baltimore Sun, 7-13-2007, “Report reassesses threat by al-Qaida”, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.intel13jul13,0,1734074.story?coll=bal-attack-headlines Among the key findings of the classified document, which is still in draft form and remains to be approved by all 16 U.S. spy agencies: • The U.S. will face "a persistent and evolving terrorist threat" within its borders over the next three years . The main danger comes from Islamic groups, especially al-Qaida, and is "driven by the undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities." • Al-Qaida is probably still pursuing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and would use them if its operatives developed sufficient capability. • The terror group has been able to restore three of the four key tools it would need to launch an attack on U.S. soil: a haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, operational lieutenants and senior leaders. It could not immediately be learned what the missing fourth element is. • The group will bolster its efforts to position operatives inside U.S. borders. U.S. officials have expressed in public concerns about the ease with which people can enter the United States through Europe because of a program that admits most Europeans without visas. The document also discusses increasing concern about individuals inside the United States who are adopting an extremist form of Islam.

That causes WW3 and extinctionMohamed Sid-Ahmed, internationally renowned reporter and columnist in Al Ahram, 9-1-2004, "Extinction!" Al-Ahram Weekly, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htmWhat would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails , it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.


Proliferation Bad – Saudi Arabia

Saudi prolif causes Mideast arms racingKathleen J. McInnis, coordinator of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a researchassociate at CSIS, 2005, “Extended Deterrence,” http://www.twq.com/05summer/docs/05summer_mcinnis.pdf A recent UN report recently warned that “[w]e are approaching a point at which the erosion of the nonproliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.” 1 One major challenge to the nonproliferation regime appearing on the strategic horizon is the likely development of an Iranian nuclear capability, which could spark a wave of proliferation throughout the Middle Eastern region. With this in mind, can U.S. nuclear, conventional, and missile defense

capabilities help bolster the security of U.S. allies against the threats posed by Iranian nuclear proliferation? In addition to deterring its own adversaries, the U.S. nuclear arsenal has in the past played a vital but often overlooked role of reassuring U.S. allies against their adversaries. This assurance was a key tool in preventing nuclear proliferation among allies in the European and Asian theaters during the Cold War, despite the threat posed by the nuclear capabilities of their enemies. In today’s security environment, assurance remains an important policy objective for the U.S. arsenal. The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review states that “U.S. nuclear forces will continue to provide assurance to security partners…. This assurance can serve to reduce the incentives for friendly countries to acquire nuclear weapons of their own to deter such threats and circumstances.” 2 Will this strategy work in practice? In the Asian theater, extended deterrence has been effective, and the United States possesses some decent options for ensuring its

effectiveness in the future. The long-standing commitment of the United States to the survival of democratic states in the region, reinforced by security treaties with Japan and South Korea, has created a great deal of U.S. political credibility in the region. This political credibility, combined with U.S. military capabili ties, could be employed to deter the North Korean threat and assure U.S. allies in the region, thereby reducing the chance that they will respond to Pyongyang by building their own nuclear weapons program. The U.S. political commitment to its allies in Asia has been and remains robust, bolstered by the U.S. troop presence in Japan and South Korea for the past 50 years. This remains true despite the drawdown of U.S. forces in the Asian theater. Furthermore, should allies begin to doubt U.S. nuclear assurances, steps can be taken to reinforce the policy’s credibility. As such, despite the major challenges presented by Pyongyang’s nuclear declaration in February 2005, it is reasonably likely that East Asian allies will continue to choose to rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella well into the future rather than set off a regional nuclear domino effect. U.S. relationships in the Middle East, however, have a strikingly different character, more akin to hesitant engagement than to Washington’s well-established partnerships in Asia. A rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism, coupled with growing anti-U.S. sentiment, has strained these tenuous relations. As then–Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton recently stated, “Iranian nuclear capabilities would change the perceptions of the military balance in the region and could pose serious challenges to the [United States] in terms of deterrence and defense.” 3 One such challenge is the prospect of multiple nuclear powers emerging in an already volatile Middle East. The outcome of this scenario depends in part on the capacity and credibility of U.S. strategic capabilities, including the nuclear

deterrent. Ultimately, if key “nuclear dominos” in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, decide that U.S. security guarantees are insufficient, they may be tempted to acquire their own nuclear weapons. A U.S. extended deterrent policy in the Middle East would lack credibility, not due to a lack of physical capability or presence in the region, but rather as a result of the fragility of U.S. relations with its allies in the region, creating a uniquely dangerous situation.

Mideast arms race causes nuclear warStephen Blank, Prof @ the US Army War College, Spring 2004, Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol.3, No.1Even if we were not living in an age of military-technological revolution, the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) such regional security tendencies would have the following impacts. • All forms of conventional war in the Middle East now become possible simultaneously as nuclear power possession diffuses. Iran can employ terrorism against Israel or another state, relatively secure in the knowledge that it controls the escalation ladder and can turn this weapon on or off given its nuclear deterrence of even conventional warfare on the other side in response to the threat. These threats are not directed only at Israel but also can be directed at U.S. forces, installations, or allies, e.g. Saudi Arabia or the Gulf Emirates. They can be used in a time of “peace” to undermine the credibility of U.S. guarantees to its regional allies which ultimately take the form of guaranteed extended deterrence. Certainly possession by regional aspirants to hegemony would threaten the U.S.’ conventional ability to project power by targeting American or allied targets to deny U.S. forces access to bases, propositioned stocks, ports, or any kind of lodgment in the Middle East as a whole. • In that case, no six-month buildup in Saudi Arabia as in 1990 would now be possible. Nor would the kinds of strikes that the United States carried out against Iraq be feasible because ports, air bases, staging areas, and the like would be unavailable to it. Either U.S allies, fearing the prospect of becoming targets would deny it the access or it would just be too risky to employ those “platforms” given enemy capabilities. • States having even a minimum nuclear deterrent or WMD capability could then pursue conventional superiority over their neighbors or rivals regenerating the arms race at both ends throughout the region and further stressing already under developed local economies.83 • Not only would nuclear or chemical and biological weapons in the hands of rivals deter American and allied forces in the Middle East, the significance of nuclear weapons would change from being a primarily defensive weapons that ensured the status quo to being an offensive weapon with distinct

uses in wartime beyond merely brandishing threats. That transformation would undermine one of the foundation stones of American global strategy since 1945 but it would also herald the return of limited (and possibly even unlimited) nuclear war as a viable operational mission.

Saudi proliferation collapses the global economySteven McDowell, Lt US Navy, Post Graduate Thesis, 2003, “Is Saudi Arabia A Nuclear Threat?,” http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/theses/McDowell03.asp

The security umbrella provided by the U.S. military has enabled the United States to maintain a level of influence with Saudi Arabia, which often exercises predominant influence on the global supply of oil. If the Saudis replace their CSS-2 missile system with a more modern, nuclear missile system, the region could


spiral into a new arms race at a time when one of the region’s primary proliferators [Iraq] has been suppressed. A new arms race could potentially destabilize the global supply of oil just as the United States and the global economy are rebounding from the attacks of September 11, 2001.


Proliferation Bad – Iran

1. IRAN HAS HISTORY OF SPONSORING TERROR – NUKE TERROR LIKELYYonah Alexander, director of the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, March 5, 2006.WASHINGTON TIMES, p. B3

More specifically, Iran's lawless record of the past 25 years in sponsoring terrorism at home and abroad is rather transparent. It includes violating its own citizens' fundamental human rights; establishing, directing and supporting indigenous and foreign terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Asqa martyrs; setting up cells and networks in the Middle East, Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere; cooperating with various jihadist movements; sabotaging the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; and undermining efforts to stabilize Iraq. What is particularly alarming about Iran's integrated strategy of systematic and carefully orchestrated terrorism are two intensifying trends. The first is related to Tehran's propagation of "Jihad" (holy war) and "Shahada" (self-sacrifice), assuring the centrality of the suicide weapon in the arsenal of terrorism. For instance, in Iraq. Last year, Iran's leader Ali Khamenei praised the culture of Sahada and called the young generation of students to follow the path of martyrdom because "this is the most beautiful human value."

2. POOR IRANIAN SAFEGUARDS MAKE IT EASY FOR TERRORISTS TO STEAL NUKES Josh Frydenberg, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, March 14, 2006.HERALD SUN, p. 20

Second, an Iranian nuclear weapons capability would increase the likelihood that terrorists would get access to the bomb. The nightmare scenario is of terrorists slipping undetected across borders with a crude nuclear device ready for detonation. Recognised by the US State Department as the ''most active state sponsor of terrorism'', Iran could conceivably provide the enriched uranium or plutonium to one of its terrorist affiliates, such as Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad, for whom Israel is a common enemy. This is not far-fetched. Former US assistant secretary of defence Graham Allison believes that if the materials were available, a number of terrorist groups have both the willingness and technical expertise to use a nuclear weapon. ''Hezbollah would be well positioned to escalate to nuclear terrorism,'' he said.

3. IRAN WILL USE TERRORIST GROUP TIES TO EXPORT NUCLEAR ATTACKSRobert Berger, staff writer, February 22, 2006“Israel Concerned Over New Hamas-Iran Alliance”, VOICE OF AMERICA NEWS, p. lexis nexis

Israelis spokesman Avi Pazner says Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and therefore he says, its alliance with Hamas is an "axis of evil." "With Iran now you have both the danger of classical terrorism, of nuclear terrorism, and a state who by itself has a terroristic policy. And this is a new threat, and this is a threat that is dangerous to everybody," he said.

4. IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM IS FOR MILITARY PURPOSESElan Journo, junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, February 6, 2006.CAPITALISM MAGAZINE WEB PAGE, accessed May 31, 2006, http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4559

But to believe that Iran really hungers for nuclear energy (as it claims) is sheer fantasy. Possessing abundant oil and gas reserves, Iran is the second-largest oil producer in OPEC. To believe that it values prosperity at all is equally fantastic; Iran is a theocracy that systematically violates its citizens' right to political and economic liberty. What Iran desires is a nuclear weapon--the better to threaten and annihilate the impious in the West and in Iran's neighborhood. Iran declares its anti-Western ambitions stridently. At an official parade in 2004, Iran flaunted a missile draped with a banner declaring that: "We will crush America under our feet." (Its leaders, moreover, have for years repeated the demand that "Israel must be wiped off the map.") A committed enemy of the West, Iran is the ideological wellspring of Islamic terrorism, and the "world's most active sponsor of terrorism" (according to the U.S. government). A totalitarian regime that viciously punishes "un-Islamic" behavior among its own citizens, Iran actively exports its contempt for freedom and human life throughout the infidel world. For years it has been fomenting and underwriting savage attacks on Western and American interests, using such proxies as Hezbollah. Like several of the 9/11


hijackers before them, many senior al-Qaida leaders, fugitives of the Afghanistan war, have found refuge in Iran. And lately Iran has funneled millions of dollars, arms and ammunition to insurgents in Iraq.


Proliferation Bad – A2: Deterrence

Deterrence fails – empirics prove miscalc inevitable Marianne Hanson, Stipendiary Lecturer in Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford University, 2002, “Nuclear Weapons as Obstacles to International Security,” International Relations, 16;361

A final argument presented here in support of the elimination of nuclear weapons concerns the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear deterrence involved the strong perception that the possession of nuclear weapons deterred their use by others. It is conceded here that this might represent a utility for nuclear weapons, but as the Canberra Commission also concludes, such a utility implies the continued existence of nuclear weapons; any such utility would disappear if nuclear weapons were eliminated. Moreover, the risks and dangers inherent in relying on rational deterrence have long been evident.30 This is not a new reason for arguing against nuclear policies, but it is one worth re-stating here. With its assumption of the rationality of actors, deterrence cannot be seen as a reliable instrument for preventing a nuclear strike. Unexamined assertions that nuclear weapons must be retained to deter attack, either from another nuclear weapon state or because of a vague and undefined necessity – what Michael MccGwire describes as a wish for an ‘all-purpose security blanket’31 – not only gloss over the huge problems associated with nuclear weapons’ use but also risk perpetuating a nuclear weapons culture in which the very existence of nuclear arsenals increases the risk of accidental or ‘irrational’ use. Moreover, it is by no means accepted universally that it was nuclear weapons and their deterrent qualities that kept the peace between the Great Powers after 1945. The avoidance of war between those states can be attributed to a number of factors other than deterrence.32 It is salutary also to remember that there are numerous documented instances during the Cold War period which record a perilously close descent into a nuclear exchange because of miscalculation or misperception. There is no guarantee that we will be as lucky in preventing accidental war in the future. To use the Cold War experience to argue a usefulness of nuclear weapons at once attributes too much to their deterrent qualities and pays not enough attention to the dangers attendant on their very existence. As the above points have argued, nuclear weapons would appear to have no real utility in the maintenance of international security. When considered against the range of threats facing national, regional and global actors today, it is hard to find a compelling reason for their continued retention that outweighs the moral costs, strategic limitations, the danger of accidental use or the growth of nuclear proliferation. As the Canberra Commission has pointed out, nuclear weapons have no relevance in a world where threats to security increasingly come in the form of ethnic conflict, weak or failed states, humanitarian disasters, economic crises, environmental degradation or, as we saw in 2001, terrorism. Given this, international security can best be served by their elimination.

Their assumptions are essentialist – deterrence won’t always work Dale Walton, assistant professor in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University, Winter/Spring 2006, “Navigating the Second Nuclear Age: Proliferation and Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century,” Global Dialogue, Volume 8, Number 1–2

It would be inaccurate to claim that nuclear deterrence is either easy or outmoded and irrelevant in the twenty-first century. Deterrence concepts developed during the Cold War continue to be useful when discussing today’s challenges, but it is dangerously naive to assume that twenty-first century actors—particularly, but not only, “roguish” states such as Iran and North Korea—will act in a manner consistent with the assumptions of Cold War deterrence theory. The assumptions regarding behaviour that underpin the body of deterrence theory are simply not universally applicable; every political culture is unique (indeed, every leader is unique), and it should not be expected that states will always act in a manner consistent with deterrence theory.

New nuclear states can’t be deterred Michael Horowtiz, Dept of Political Science @ UPenn, 2-10-2009, “The Spread of nuclear Weapons and International Conflict: Does Experience Matter?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, SAGE

This article finds that there are important consequences for international politics as states gain experience with nuclear weapons. The initial evidence, while tentative, suggests that new nuclear states are


especially risky—their challenges are reciprocated more often, while their desire to demonstrate their nuclear clout makes them substantially less likely to concede when facing a challenge.


Proliferation Bad – A2: Deterrence

New states won’t build survivable forces, prevents deterrent successScott D. Sagan, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University and Co-Director, 2003, Center for International Security and Cooperation, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed with Kenneth N. Waltz, pg. 63-65

Why would professional militaries not develop invulnerable nuclear forces if left to their own devices? Five reasons emerge from the logic of organizational theory. First, military bureaucracies, like other organizations, are usually interested in having more resources: they want more weapons, more men in uniform, more of the budget pie. This could obviously lead to larger than necessary nuclear arsenals. Yet programs for making nuclear arsenals less vulnerable to attack (for example building concrete shelters or missile-carrying trains) are very expensive, and therefore decrease the resources available for the military hardware, the missiles or aircraft, that the organization values most highly. Military biases can therefore lead to more weapons but not necessarily more survivable weapons. Second, militaries, like other organizations, favor traditional ways of doing things and therefore maintain a strong sense of organizational "essence." Since efforts to decrease the vulnerability of nuclear forces often require new missions and weapon systems-and, indeed, often new organizational units-one would expect that the existing organizations would be resistant. Third, if organizational plans for war and conceptions of deterrence do not require invulnerable forces, militaries will not have incentives to pursue building them. Thus, if military officers believe that they are likely to engage in preventive war, preemptive attacks, or even launch-on-warning options, then survivability measures may be perceived as simply unnecessary. Fourth, military organizations inevitably develop routines to coordinate actions among numerous individuals and subunits, and such routines are commonly inflexible and slow to change. Even if the technical requirements for invulnerability are met, however, poorly designed standard operating procedures and military routines can undermine a survivable military force. In particular, organizational routines of military forces can produce "signatures" to enemy intelligence agencies; these signatures can inadvertently reveal secret information and the location of otherwise "hidden" military units. Fifth, organizational leaming tends to occur only after failures. Military organizations, like other organizations, have few incentives to review and adjust operations when they believe they are successful. Thus, if the first four problems create an undesirable survivability problem with nuclear forces, military organizations are unlikely to fix the problem until after an attack has revealed how vulnerable their forces really were .

Cold War examples aren’t effective – it’s only one example and it might not have been effectiveDale Walton, assistant professor in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University, Winter/Spring 2006, “Navigating the Second Nuclear Age: Proliferation and Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century,” Global Dialogue, Volume 8, Number 1–2

There are still a great many outstanding controversies concerning the reliability of deterrence during the Cold War. To claim that deterrence theory was proven to have worked because there was no United States–Soviet military conflict, much less a general nuclear war, is to assume a causal relationship which may or may not exist. Certainly, the United States attempted to deter Soviet military aggression, but whether American deterrence actually prevented war between the two powers is unknown and, ultimately, unknowable. History, unlike a laboratory experiment, cannot be repeated, and we have no “control Cold War” to compare with the real Cold War. If American strategists had not developed a sophisticated body of deterrence theory, perhaps a nuclear conflict would have occurred—or perhaps it would not. Similarly, perhaps a US–Soviet nuclear conflict would have occurred despite American deterrence if not for historical happenstance. Notably, in recent years some scholars, taking advantage of access to previously unavailable Soviet archives, have argued that at the time of his death Stalin may have been seriously contemplating a war against the West; it could be that a well-timed stroke (or poisoning) saved the world from nuclear war in the 1950s.1


Proliferation Bad – A2: Public Opposition

Public opposition doesn’t prevent proliferationKurt Campbell, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security, and Tsuyoshi Sunohara, Senior Fellow at the International Security Program of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2004, The Nuclear Tipping Point, pg. 243

Finally, although public sentiment against nuclear weapons remains strong, its ability to fully inhibit the decisions of japanese leaders should not be exaggerated . For many decades, despite its government's pro- fessed policy of nuclear disarmament, japan has relied on the United States to defend japan, even with nuclear weapons if necessary. Antimil- itarism in Japan has not prevented the country from becoming the fourth-highest military spender in the world. Nor have antinuclear senti- ments impeded Japan's extensive reliance on civilian nuclear power. Just as the Japanese people today appreciate that Japan has no choice but to rely on nuclear power to meet its energy needs, so in the future they might accept that international threats left japan with no choice but to develop nuclear weapons .


Proliferation Bad – A2: Prolif Inevitable

Proliferation is not inevitableKurt Campbell, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security and Robert Einhorn, senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program, 2004, The Nuclear Tipping Point, pg. 328

Whatever path countries may take toward the tipping point, we are almost certainly not there yet-in fact, we do not appear to be close. Indeed, a welcome overall conclusion from the case studies explored in this volume is that the global nonproliferation regime may be more durable and less fragile than has sometimes been suspected or feared. Worrisome developments in recent years have given rise to a widespread concern that a world of more and more nuclear powers is essentially inevitable-that JFK's nightmare vision had only been postponed, not avoided. To be sure, the risks of further proliferation are very real. But despite widely held feelings of pessimism about the regime itself, our focus on the individual cases in the study reveals that it is not so easy to reverse longstanding decisions to forswear nuclear weapons. The evidence suggests that there is a hidden robustness in the fraying fabric of the global non-nuclear compact.

US can constrain wildfire proliferationKenneth Bialkin et al, Trustee National Committee on American Foreign Policy, 4/29/2009, “The Greater Middle East: Is Nuclear Proliferation Inevitable?,” pg. 4

Perhaps another conference of a similar title will be held next year to discuss one such question. If so, the contents if not the title is certain to connote the perverse actions of Iran. Meanwhile, though offering no cause for optimism, the answers given by the experts provide assurance that nuclear proliferation is not inevitable. Reinforcing that assurance is the grand diplomatic return of the United States to the region and its commitment to match deceitful deeds with tough sanctions and reduce U.S. nuclear weapons arsenals in consort with Russia. A small start toward achieving nonproliferation, it can be said, has been made.

Strong US action can prevent proliferation, it’s not inevitableJon Wolfsthal, co-author of Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction and a former advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy, 2004, The Key Proliferation Questions, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1487

Lastly, the United States needs to do more hard work in addressing proliferation threats. Washington must reconfigure our policies to demonstrate it understands the nature of this threat and ensure that it takes priority over almost all other security considerations. This includes how the U.S. handles its own nuclear facilities and weapons, the support it provides to organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency, how it invests its defense and security budgets, and how the United States prioritizes its relations with other countries. Despite the challenges we face, proliferation is not inevitable and our knowledge of how and where proliferation takes place is better than most people think. The problem is that officials may not always make non-proliferation the priority it deserves to be.


PSI Good – Multilateralism

1. THE PSI ESTABLISHES MULTILATERALISM AS A GUIDING FORCE IN U.S. POLICYMichael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, July 2004. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, 98 A.J.I.L. 526, p. 543-44.

The Proliferation Security Initiative is reflective of a shift in U.S. foreign policy toward a more flexible approach to collective action that eschews both ad hoc unilateralism and institutionalized multilateralism. What Department of State Director of Policy Planning Richard Haass has characterized as a "a la carte multilateralism" involves coalitions that will vary in size and composition depending on the issue at hand, with the only constant being that the coalitions are formed and led by the United States. From Washington's perspective, this approach would seem to offer several advantages: it largely avoids problems of institutional blockage, such as those that can occur within the UN Security Council; it allows for the limitation of new initiatives to small groups of like-minded states, with the group then being expanded once momentum has been achieved; and it enables the United States to focus its persuasive efforts on those most able and willing to assist with respect to any given matter.

2. THE PSI SIGNALS A RENEWED COMMITMENT TO MULTILATERALISMRebecca Weiner, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, July 16, 2003. PROLIFERATION SECURITY INITIATIVE TO STEM FLOW OF WMD MATERIAL, accessed 11/30/05, http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/030716.htm

The PSI has been lauded on both sides of the Atlantic as an encouraging sign of the Bush administration's reinvigorated commitment to multilateralism, as well as a positive step toward preventing future instances of the type of disunity that "plagued the international community during the run up to the war in Iraq." Yet the deeper the initiative delves into issues of international law, the harder the coalition is likely to press for U.N. approval and support--an eventuality the United States is not entirely sanguine to face. More important still, the success of the PSI depends in large part not only on whether and how the logistical, legal, and economic issues are resolved, but on broad-based participation, including, experts say, that of China and Russia.

3. THE PSI CEMENTS CO-OPERATION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW-MAKINGMichael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, July 2004. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, 98 A.J.I.L. 526, p. 544.

Limiting the early stages of a law-making initiative to a core group of like-minded states is hardly a new strategy. For example, it was readily apparent in the mid-1990s attempt to develop a multilateral agreement on investment. Those negotiations were confined to the twenty-nine developed states of the Organization on Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with the express intent of creating a "free-standing" treaty to which non-OECD members could later accede on a negotiated case-by-case basis. Developed states, which already had high standards of investment protection, were thus excluding developing states from negotiations on a treaty that was intended ultimately to apply to them. And developing states would have had little option but eventually to sign on; had the negotiations been successful, accession to the agreement would likely have become a factor in the granting of foreign aid, the provision of emergency assistance by the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank's public assessment of the creditworthiness of individual developing states. PSI seems likewise designed to develop momentum among a core group of like-minded developed states, with additional states being invited--first to cooperate, then to participate--but only after agreement on principles has been achieved.


PSI Good – Proliferation

1. THE PSI IS KEY TO DETERRING NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR AMBITIONSRebecca Weiner, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, July 16, 2003. PROLIFERATION SECURITY INITIATIVE TO STEM FLOW OF WMD MATERIAL, accessed 11/30/05, http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/030716.htm

That the PSI is largely directed at North Korea was made clear in a recent press release issued by Alexander Downer, Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, who explained that although "the initiative is global in nature and while it is not directed at any one country, it is relevant to the government's concerns about North Korea, including its declared nuclear weapons programme." Downer averred that while "the mainstay for stopping the spread of these weapons remains the global system of international treaties, export control regimes and other tools built up over several decades of multilateral negotiations, ...the reality is that some states cheat on their obligations or resist joining these international regimes."

2. PSI EMPIRICALLY DETERS ROGUE STATES FROM ACQUIRING WMDMichael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia, July 2004. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, 98 A.J.I.L. 526, p. 529.

Most importantly, PSI has already produced results. In late September 2003, U.S. and British intelligence services learned that a German-owned freighter, the BBC China, was on its way to Libya carrying thousands of parts for gas centrifuges of a kind that can be used to enrich uranium. They notified the German government, which asked the ship's owner to divert the freighter to an Italian port where the suspect containers were then seized. This successful operation--which was not legally contentious because the vessel voluntarily came into port and the centrifuges were not on the manifest --has subsequently been credited with encouraging Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi to abandon his WMD programs.

3. PSI PROVIDES NECESSARY TOOLS TO LIMIT PROLIFERATIONBy Thomas D. Lehrman, J.D. Yale University, Fall 2004. VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW ASSOCIATION, 45 Va. J. Int'l L. 223, p. 258.

The Proliferation Security Initiative actuates a set of principles through which participant states have agreed to protect world public order from WMD and the terrorist and rogue state actors who would dare to use them. The challenge for the PSI participants now lies in enhancing the PSI's overall efficiency and effectiveness by encouraging an increasingly global network of bilateral and regional agreements. These new agreements must drive up the actual costs to proliferators, particularly the costs associated with the delivery of WMD, and provide appropriate incentives to the good citizens of the high seas. At the same time, these new agreements must seek, through ever greater transparency, to reduce the burdens on those states willing and able to participate in the enforcement of such agreements. This Article presents the case for an increasingly decentralized nonproliferation architecture and explains why powerful trends counsel for the adoption of such a scheme. A decentralized architecture offers capabilities not available through Cold War nonproliferation structures. However, in implementing this new architecture, rather than discard the legacy regime we should permit the new agreements to complement the old regime and fill in its widening security gaps. Just as the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and other enlightened nations of the world faced a daunting challenge in eradicating the slave trade from the high seas in the nineteenth century, so too will the PSI and its core participants be challenged in their attempts to eradicate the illicit traffic in WMD. In the nineteenth century, the superior design of British ships and their navy and a network of international agreements permitted the leading nations of the world to gradually eradicate the slave trade from the high seas. In similar fashion, institutional design matters today, not only in the technical solutions implemented to improve the transparency and monitoring of vessels and aircraft on and over the high seas, but also in the decentralized legal architecture that will permit more efficient and effective enforcement of our shared nonproliferation principles.


Proliferation Good – General Defense

Other factors prevent proliferationWilliam Potter, Director at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2010, “The NPT and Sources of Nuclear Restraint,” Daedalus, pg. np

Among the effects dampening the potential operation of a proliferation chain is the fact that nuclear decisions take place in a domestic political environment sensitive to considerations of a political-economic nature, as well as competing organizational interests and personalities. Although one may interpret the general finding–that an Iranian defection from the NPT would have a limited impact on individual country futures–as an indication of the strength and vitality of the Treaty, an alternative interpretation is that the Treaty is less central to the nuclear orientation of some states than is often assumed to be the case. This perspective appears to be borne out in the case studies of Australia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia (post- 1974). Nevertheless, a number of the project’s other case studies, including those of Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and Ukraine, highlight the significant–if indirect–positive effect the npt has on nuclear weapons restraint by reinforcing the position of institutional advocates for nuclear abstinence in domestic political debates. The Treaty also continues to have a symbolic normative value in many of the countries surveyed, and elites in states such as Australia, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, and Ukraine regard adherence to the npt as an integral part of their credentials as members of the international community in good standing.

Can’t predict proliferation William Potter, Professor of Nonproliferation Studies and Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Research Associate at the James Martin Center, Summer 2008,“Divining Nuclear Intentions,” International Security

The overall record of proliferation prognoses by government intelligence analysts and political science scholars alike instills little conªdence that the international community will receive early warning about emerging nuclear weapons threats. Repeatedly, both communities have failed to anticipate signi ªcant nuclear weapons developments in a timely fashion or, in some instances, have missed them altogether. Examples of proliferation surprises include the ªrst Soviet and Indian nuclear explosions, the initiation and successful development of Israeli nuclear weapons, the timing of India’s second and Pakistan’s ªrst nuclear tests, the rise and demise of Iraq’s nuclear activities, and the nature and scope of North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambitions.54 Illustrative of the second variety of forecasting failure—total ignorance—was the failure by U.S. intelligence to detect the revival of Yugoslavia’s covert nuclear weapons program in 1974 and its growth over the next fourteen years, an intelligence blind spot apparently shared by the Soviet government.55 Just as government and academic experts often have missed signiªcant proliferation activities, they also frequently have exaggerated the scope and pace of nuclear weapons proliferation. For reasons described in the preceding section, many current proliferation prognoses appear destined to repeat this phenomenon of “crying wolf.” The books by Hymans and Solingen do not provide simple or foolproof antidotes to the current proliferation forecasting malaise. They do, however, offer promising new insights and tools to assist policy practitioners in avoiding common errors and making better-informed estimates of nuclear proliferation futures.


Proliferation Good – Threats Exaggerated

They overstate the risk of proliferation, it won’t be dangerousMoeed Yusuf, Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-RangeFuture – Boston University, 1/112009, “Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons”, Brookings Policy Paper 11, pg. np

It is a paradox that few aspects of international security have been as closely scrutinized, but as incorrectly forecast, as the future nuclear landscape. Since the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945, there have been dozens, if not hundreds of projections by government and independent analysts trying to predict horizontal and vertical proliferation across the world. Various studies examined which countries would acquire nuclear weapons, when this would happen, how many weapons the two superpowers as well as other countries would assemble, and the impact these developments might have on world peace. The results have oscillated between gross underestimations and terrifying overestimations. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the fear that nuclear weapons might be acquired by so-called “rogues states” or terrorist groups brought added urgency – and increased difficulty – to the task of accurately assessing the future of nuclear weapons. A survey of past public and private projections provides a timely reminder of the flaws in both the methodologies and theories they employed.

Don’t trust their pessimistic predictions of proliferation, they won’t come trueMoeed Yusuf, Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-RangeFuture – Boston University, 1/112009, “Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons”, Brookings Policy Paper 11, pg. np

The parallel shift from developed-world proliferation to developing-world proliferation was accompanied by greater alarm regarding the impact of proliferation. It was felt that developing countries were more dangerous and irresponsible nuclear states than developed countries. Second, while all the countries that did eventually develop nuclear weapons were on the lists of suspect states, the estimations misjudged when these countries would go nuclear. The Soviet Union went nuclear much earlier than had been initially predicted, intelligence estimates completely missed China’s nuclear progress, and India initially tested much later than U.S. intelligence projections had anticipated and subsequently declared nuclear weapon status in 1998 when virtually no one expected it to do so. Third, the pace of proliferation has been consistently slower than has been anticipated by most experts due to a combination of overwhelming alarmism, the intent of threshold states, and many incentives to abstain from weapons development. In the post-Cold War period, the number of suspected threshold states has gradually decreased and the geographical focus has shifted solely to North-East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. There is also much greater concern that a nuclear chain reaction will break out than was the case during the Cold War.

New proliferators wont be aggressiveErik Gartzke, Professor of Political Science – UC San Diego, and Dong Joon Jo, Professor of International Relations – University of Seoul, South Korea, 2009, “Bargaining, Nuclear Proliferation, and Interstate Disputes” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol 53 No 2

Even if only some of the substantial increase in lethality from “going nuclear” can be converted into political leverage, nuclear-capable nations are bound to increase their influence in international affairs. Greater influence amounts to getting what states want without having to use force. To the degree that nuclear capabilities lead to bargains that approximate the outcomes states expect from fighting, aggression becomes less appealing, and the anxieties of opponents are reduced. Diplomacy serves as a tool for smoothing the bumpy road of world politics. The decision to proliferate is also endogenous to conflict. Nations are not assigned nuclear weapons at random but select into nuclear status despite high costs, long delays in development, and international opprobrium. Countries with significant security problems or responsibilities and substantial governmental resources are more prone to seek nuclear weapons (Jo and Gartzke 2007). These same nations fight more often, not because they possess a nuclear arsenal but because the causes of conflict also prompt states to proliferate. Nations with few enemies, modest resources, limited technology, or little dissatisfaction about world affairs are unlikely to pursue


nuclear capabilities and also are less inclined to fight. Thus, nominal nuclear status probably overstates the empirical effect of proliferation in propagating interstate disputes



Fears of a nuclear tipping point are empirically denied, analysts always overstate proliferation risksFrancis Gavin, Professor of International Affairs and Director of International Security and Law, University of Texas at Austin, Winter 2009/2010, “Same As It Ever Was: Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War,” International Security 34.3

One of the greatest fears of nuclear alarmists is that if a key state acquires nuclear weapons, others will follow. This idea of a nuclear tipping point, chain reaction, or "domino" effect, however, is by no means new. Consider this headline—"Many Nations Ready to Break into Nuclear Club"—from a front-page article in the Washington Post from June 1981.39 Articles with similar titles can be found from almost every year since at least the early 1960s. Fears of a tipping point were especially acute in the aftermath of China's 1964 detonation of an atomic bomb: it was predicted that India, Indonesia, and Japan might follow, with consequences worldwide, as "Israel, Sweden, Germany, and other potential nuclear countries far from China and India would be affected by proliferation in Asia."40 A U.S. government document 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."41 A top-secret, blue-ribbon committee established to craft the U.S. response contended that "the [1964] Chinese nuclear explosion has increased the urgency [End Page 17] and complexity of this problem by creating strong pressures to develop independent nuclear forces, which, in

turn, could strongly influence the plans of other potential nuclear powers."42 These predictions were largely wrong. In 1985 the National Intelligence Council noted that for "almost thirty years the Intelligence Community has been writing about which nations might next get the bomb." All of these estimates based their largely pessimistic and ultimately incorrect estimates on factors such as the increased "access to fissile materials," improved technical capabilities in countries, the likelihood of "chain reactions," or a "scramble" to proliferation when "even one additional state demonstrates a nuclear capability." The 1985 report goes on, "The most striking characteristic of the present-day nuclear proliferation scene is that, despite the alarms rung by past Estimates, no additional overt proliferation of nuclear weapons has actually occurred since China tested its bomb in 1964." Although "some proliferation of nuclear explosive capabilities and other major proliferation-related developments have taken place in the past two decades," they did not have "the damaging, systemwide impacts that the Intelligence community generally anticipated they would."43 In his analysis of more than sixty years of failed efforts to accurately predict nuclear proliferation, 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."44 As Potter and Mukhatzhanova argue, government and academic experts frequently "exaggerated the scope and pace of nuclear weapons proliferation."45 Nor is there compelling evidence that a nuclear proliferation chain reaction will ever 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 [End Page 18] 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.46 As far as is known, no nation has started a new nuclear weapons program since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.47 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.



Longitudinal analysis of proliferation predictions proves that their evidence is overly pessimistic Moeed Yusuf, Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University and Fellow at the Brookings Institute, January 2009, “Predicting Proliferation: The History ofthe Future of Nuclear Weapons,” Brookings Institute, policy paper 11

This study offers a brief survey of attempts to predict the future of nuclear weapons since the beginning of the Cold War.1 The aim of this analysis is not merely to review the record, but to provide an overall sense of how the nuclear future was perceived over the past six decades, and where and why errors were made in prediction, so that contemporary and future predictive efforts have the benefit of a clearer historical 1 This analysis relies on declassified U.S. government documents and English-language literature on the subject, and thus is limited in its scope. Projections by commentators in several major nuclear states, such as the Soviet Union/Russia and China, are not considered, although some analyses by Australian, British, Canadian, French, German, and Indian experts are taken into consideration. record. The survey is based on U.S. intelligence estimates as well as the voluminous scholarly work of American and foreign experts on the subject. Six broad lessons can be gleaned from this history. First, it reveals consistent misjudgments regarding the extent of nuclear proliferation. Overall, projections were far more pessimistic than actual developments; those emanating from independent experts more so than intelligence estimates. In the early years of the Cold War, the overly pessimistic projections stemmed, in part, from an incorrect emphasis on technology as the driving factor in horizontal proliferation, rather than intent, a misjudgment, which came to light with the advent of a Chinese bomb in 1964. The parallel shift from developed-world proliferation to developing-world proliferation was accompanied by greater alarm regarding the impact of proliferation. It was felt that developing countries were more dangerous and irresponsible nuclear states than developed countries. Second, while all the countries that did eventually develop nuclear weapons were on the lists of suspect states, the estimations misjudged when these countries would go nuclear. The Soviet Union went nuclear much earlier than had been initially predicted, intelligence estimates completely missed China’s nuclear progress, and India initially tested much later than U.S. intelligence projections had anticipated and subsequently declared nuclear weapon status in 1998 when virtually no one expected it to do so. Third, the pace of proliferation has been consistently slower than has been anticipated by most experts due to a combination of overwhelming alarmism, the intent of threshold states, and many incentives to abstain from weapons development. In the post-Cold War period, the number of suspected threshold states has gradually decreased and the geographical focus has shifted solely to North-East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. There is also much greater concern that a nuclear chain reaction will break out than was the case during the Cold War.

Non-prolif norms are resilientJacques Hymans, Professor of International Relations at USC, 2006, “Theories of Nuclear Proliferation,” Nonproliferation review

First, on the macro picture of proliferation, idealists say: Don’t hyperventilate . Many societies contain advocates for nuclear armament, but they also invariably contain many influential people who do not want the bomb*and many of those frankly can imagine almost no circumstance that would change their minds. It is not an accident or a lucky break that there are so few nuclear weapon states in the world today. The norm of nuclear nonproliferation has been very stable for decades, and an analysis of the demand side of the proliferation equation offers much reason to believe that the norm will continue to remain robust into the future.


Proliferation Good – Deterrence

( ) No war between nuclear powers – no reason to believe that new states will be different Thomas Barnett, strategist at the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies, 9-9-2007, “Barnett: Peace provided by nuclear weapons” http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/sep/09/barnett-peace-provided-nuclear-weapons/

Speaking to a World Economic Forum retreat, Schelling admonished everyone to remember just how effectively nuclear deterrence has worked over the past six decades. No state, he noted, that has developed nuclear weapons has ever been attacked by another state. Moreover, no state armed with nuclear weapons has ever attacked another state similarly armed. Think about that. America, the first nuclear state, is the only one ever to use them: twice on Japan to end World War II. Justified? As the child of a World War II navy veteran who would have participated in America’s inevitable invasion of the Japanese mainland, I’ll pass on that one. But what has the world witnessed since that initial demonstration effect? America, as Schelling noted, could have employed nuclear weapons in its subsequent wars but did not. Nor did the Soviets. Instead, both sides, after the close call of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, moved inexorably — and to a great extent with Schelling’s wise input — toward an understanding that nuclear weapons are for having and not using. Due to the equalizing threat of mutually assured destruction, these devices cannot win wars but only prevent them. The same logic has held all these decades for powers as diverse as the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel, with North Korea stepping up to the plate and Iran on deck. Thus, we have survived the Democratic bomb and the Totalitarian bomb, as well the Capitalist bomb and the Communist bomb. In religious terms, we’ve survived the Christian and atheist bombs, the Confucian and Hindu bombs, and the Islamic and Jewish bombs. Somehow, despite all the irrationalities ascribed to each new member, the logic of nuclear deterrence holds fast.

States do not miscalculate. Presence of nuclear weapons forces moderation in diplomacyKenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2003, p. 118-119

Much the same fears in much the same words were expressed during the cold war. The two antagonists might “go to the brink”; one would slip over the edge, and once the exchange of warheads began neither side would be willing to stop it by giving in to the other. In actuality, however, backing down in times of crisis proved not to be such a big problem. Never do two countries share a common interest more completely than when they are locked in death’s embrace. Each may want something else as well, but both want most of all to get out of the dire situation they are in. During the Kargil fighting, India went to “Readiness State 3,” which means that warheads were prepared for placement on delivery vehicles, and Pakistan apparently took similar steps. These were seen as rash and dangerous moves, but what does one expect? The United States and the Soviet Union alerted their forces a number of times. Doing so is a way of saying, “This is getting serious, and we both had better calm down.” Despite the pessimism engendered by the history of South Asia, Indian-Pakistani wars have been, as wars go, quite restrained. As Admiral Menon has written, “Any analysis of the three wars fought often refers to the rather gentlemanly manner in which they were fought with care taken to avoid civilian casualties.” Pakistan’s 1999 thrust into Kashmir may have been rash, yet as Menon has rightly said, “Subsequent Pakistani attempts to signal an unwillingness to escalate were mature and sober.” And in the Kargil campaign, India never sent its troops across the line of control.

Nuclear weapon possession empirically makes states more cautiousKenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, 1995, p. 5

Second, states act with less care if the expected costs of war are low and with more care if they are high. In 1853 and 1854 Britain and France expected to win an easy victory if they went to war against Russia. Prestige abroad and political popularity at home would be gained, if not much else. The vagueness of their expectations was matched by the carelessness of their actions. In blundering into the Crimean War, they acted hastily on scant information, pandering to their people’s frenzy for war, showed more concern for an ally’s whim than for the adversary’s situation, failed to specify the changes in behavior that threats were supposed to bring, and inclined toward testing strength first and bargaining second. In sharp contrast, the presence of nuclear weapons makes states exceedingly cautious. Think of Kennedy and Khrushchev in the Cuban missile crisis. Why fight if you can’t win and might lose everything.



Nuclear weapons deter conflict and severity of violence Victor Asal, Political Science Department @ University of Albany SUNY, and Kyle Beardsley, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University, 2007, “Proliferation and International Crisis Behavior,” Journal of Peace Research

Specifically, we seek to answer the question posed by Waltz (Sagan & Waltz, 2003: 6): ‘Do nuclear weapons increase or decrease the chances of war?’ One side of this discussion contends that proliferation will lead to a decrease in the level of interstate violence because ‘Nuclear weapons, then and now, deter threat or retaliation posing unacceptable damage’ (Cimbala, 1998: 213). The opposing argument questions the very logic of deterrence as suggested above when it comes to nuclear weapons. Aron (1965), for example, argues that new proliferators may not be as rational as the original nuclear states. Thus, as nuclear weapons spread, the deterrence that operated between the Soviet Union and the United States of America during the Cold War might not apply. Much of the literature on the impact of nuclear weapons does not empirically test the arguments made (Geller, 2003: 37; Huth & Russett, 1988: 34). Here, we strive to move beyond speculation to observe the impact of nuclear proliferation on the level of violence used in crises. We examine the relationship between the severity of the violence in crises in the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) dataset and the number of involved states with nuclear weapons, controlling for other factors that increase the likelihood of severe violence.1 We find that crises involving nuclear actors are more likely to end without violence. Also, as the number of nuclear actors involved in a crisis increases, the likelihood of war continues to drop. Drawing from Waltz (Sagan & Waltz, 2003) and the rational deterrence literature, we argue that states facing the possibility of a nuclear attack will be more willing to concede or back down from violent conflict.

Nuclear weapons deter conflict Clark Murdock, senior advisor at CSIS, March 2008, “the Department of Defense and the Nuclear Mission in the 21st Century,” CSIS, p. np

From a systemic perspective, nuclear deterrence suppressed the level of violence associated with major power competition: wartime fatalities consumed 2 percent of the world’s population in the 1600s and 1700s, about 1 percent in the 1800s, about 1.5 percent in World War I and 2.5 percent in World War II, but about one-tenth during the Cold War (minus the Korean War, which pushed fatalities up to 0.5 percent). A leading practitioner of the art of nuclear deterrence, Sir Michael Quinlan, aptly observed: “Better a world with nuclear weapons but no major war, than one with major war but no nuclear weapons.”17 Despite the close calls and the now almost inexplicable buildup of nuclear weapons by the superpowers, the fact remains: nuclear weapons kept the superpower competition from becoming a war. The violence-suppressive effect of nuclear weapons has not gone away with the end of the Cold War. Noted Cold War deterrent theorist and Nobel economics laureate Thomas Schelling told a recent World Economic Forum retreat (according to Thomas Barnett, the Pentagon’s favorite futurist) that (1) no state that has developed nuclear weapons has ever been attacked by another state and (2) no state armed with nuclear weapons has ever attacked another state similarly armed.18 With his characteristic flair, Barnett observes that the United States and the Soviet Union learned that nuclear weapons are for having and not using. Due to the equalizing threats of mutually assured destruction, these devices cannot win wars but only prevent them. The same logic has held—all these decades—for powers as diverse as the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel, with North Korea stepping up to the plate and Iran on deck. Thus we have survived the democratic bomb and the totalitarian bomb, as well as the capitalist bomb and the communist bomb. In religious terms, we have survived the Christian and atheist bombs, the Confucian and Hindu bombs and the Islamic and Jewish 16 bombs. Somehow, despite all the “irrationalities” ascribed to each new member, the logic of nuclear deterrence holds fast.19



1. OPAQUE PROLIFERATION GAINS DETERRENCE WITHOUT PROVOCATIONKenneth Waltz, Ford Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, past President of the American Political Science Association, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 2000, p. np. Accessed June 30, 2001, http://cfdev.georgetown.edu/publications/journal/vol1_1/1_6.htm

Journal You contend that Saddam Hussein did not launch lethal missiles at Israel during the Gulf War because he was deterred by the nuclear threat. This raises the question of how Israel's undeclared nuclear status affects nuclear stability. Does opacity diminish the effectiveness of deterrence? Waltz I take Israel as being a nuclear state, and I do not think anybody doubts that Israel has nuclear weapons. But as a tacit nuclear state, it doesn't admit that it has nuclear weapons. By keeping its nuclear status opaque or tacit, it relieves some of the pressure on potential adversaries. It prevents Israel from goading Arab states by always talking about its nuclear weapons, which would make it more embarrassing for surrounding Arab states not to have them, and encourage them to try a little harder to acquire the capability. So it tends to dampen it, but it doesn't fool anybody.

2. NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION WILL HAVE A DETERRENT EFFECTKenneth Waltz, Ford Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, past President of the American Political Science Association, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 2000, p. np., Accessed June 30, 2001, http://cfdev.georgetown.edu/publications/journal/vol1_1/1_6.htm

Journal, So, you do believe that these new proliferants of the future can be deterred? Waltz Well, that is a different question. The United States and the Soviet Union developed peculiar ideas of nuclear deterrence: namely that thousands of warheads are required for deterrence. That notion was always crazy. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis our estimates were that the Soviet Union had only about seventy true strategic systems. We had thousands. Were we deterred? Yes we were. We did not strike at the nuclear warheads that the Soviet Union had in Cuba. The Air Force was asked if they could hit and destroy all the targets. And remember that they were close by, and there were not that many of them. The Air Force answered: "We promise we can get 90 percent." Not enough. We were deterred. Now, nuclear weapons do not deter everybody from doing everything. They do not deter forays. They do not deter, for example, Arab countries from starting wars over the disputed terroritories. But they did dissuade the Egyptians and Syrians from trying to divide Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. They pulled back for fear that the threat of the destruction of the Israeli State would prompt the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons deter threats to the vital interests of the state, and they have done so in every case that comes to mind.

3. MERE PROXIMITY DOES NOT DEFEAT THE DETERRENT POWER OF NUCLEAR WEAPONSKenneth Waltz, Ford Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, past President of the American Political Science Association, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 2000, p. np., accessed June 30, 2001, http://cfdev.georgetown.edu/publications/journal/vol1_1/1_6.htm>

Proximity also does not mean vulnerability. Every country has enough space to move its weapons around; in order for me to believe that your force is vulnerable and consider a preemptive attack, I have to convince myself that I know exactly how many deliverable nuclear weapons you have. So if I think you have twelve weapons, I've got to know you don't have a couple more. I've got to be sure that's the number. And if I persuade myself that you have twelve and no more, I have to know where they are, and I have to be sure that you do not move them by the time I decide to attack. It's estimated by Herbert York, former director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, that a country making a relatively crude nuclear warhead would be able to make one weighing less than a ton-small enough to place in a van and move around.


Proliferation Good – No Prolif

Democratic countries won’t prolif Kurt Campbell, senior vice president and director of the International Security Program and Chair in National Security at CSIS, and Robert Einhorn, senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program and nonproliferation analyst, 2004, “The Nuclear Tipping Point”

The case studies also demonstrate the importance of domestic f actors in nuclear decisionmaking. A leading academic theory postulates that democracies do not wage war on one another, and the weight of historical evidence appears to support this contention. It is less clear what impact the adoption of democratic institutions has had Ofl a state’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons. The evidence from the case studies is rather mixed. In South Korea and Taiwan—both of which pursued secret nuclear weapons programs under authoritarian governments before the United States discovered their plans and forced them to stop—democracy exerts real constraints on the ability of both governments to pursue nuclear weapons. Not only does an aggressively free media make it much harder to keep a program secret, hut public opinion in those countries would oppose the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The same can he said for public sentiment in Japan and especially Gei•many, where politicians appreciate that advocating the acquisition of nuclear weapons would be deeply unpopular.

Egpyt won’t proliferateRobert Einhorn, senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program, 2004, The Nuclear Tipping Point, pg. 44

Yet, while Egypt seems to fit the profile of a country with a reasonably strong likelihood of pursuing nuclear weapons, there are few if any signs that it is headed in that direction. Indeed, available evidence suggests that Egypt's decision to renounce nuclear weapons may well be, in the words of Presidential Adviser Osama el-Baz, "final and irreversible. "3 Egyptian leaders seem to have reached the conclusion years ago that a nuclear weapons capability is not in their country's best interest and that seeking that capability would undermine higher national priorities, especially peace and stability in the region, economic development, and close ties with the United States. Moreover, by forgoing a substantial nuclear energy program and allowing Egypt's nuclear scientific expertise to atro- phy, Egypt has left itself without reliable, near-term options to acquire the fissile materials needed to build a bomb, especially through indigenous production.

No risk of German proliferationJennifer Mackby, political-affairs officer for the United Nations Political and Security Council Affairs Department, and Walter Slocombe, senior advisor for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, 2004, The Nuclear Tipping Point, pg. 206

Even laying aside the extreme unlikelihood of such a profound breach in transatlantic relations, it is by no means clear that such developments would induce Germany to develop nuclear weapons of its own. Although Some politicians on the conservative end of the spectrum might prefer a national nuclear force, public opinion is so opposed to even civilian uses of nuclear energy-much less nuclear weapons- that it would "be suicidal for any serious politician to make a political platform out of this subject. "83 As one analyst put it, There is no scenario in which Germany would acquire nuclear weapons . If the U.S. withdraws from NATO, if Europe breaks apart, if a new general takes over in the Russian Federation, threatening Germany, and if tensions increase drastically, even then Ger- many would not try to develop nuclear weapons . This would be for Hollywood . Germany would try to engage in discussions; we are trying to keep other states from getting nuclear weapons. We had U.S. nuclear weapons and troops in Germany to contain the Soviet Union. They had a function. Now it would be more a burden than anything else for Germany to have nuclear weapons.


Proliferation Good – Slow Prolif

Proliferation won’t be rapid Stimson Institute, summarizing a presentation by Rebecca Hersman, scholar at the National Defense University, 1-14-2009, “Trend Lines and Tipping Points for Nuclear Proliferation,” http://www.stimson.org/events.cfm?ID=655

Rebecca Hersman noted that proliferation is a multi-step process, and that this ‘dial-up’ or ‘dial-down’ process is not linear. A national proliferation strategy can therefore take a few or many years. In her view, cascades require that multiple countries match capability to intent at an accelerating rate. She noted that synchronizing capability and intent is very difficult. The concept of “tipping points” is problematic in that it suggests sudden and rapid decisions by multiple countries to cross a singular proliferation boundary. The historical record suggests otherwise – that nuclear decision-making is usually incremental, and could stall or reverse course at many stages. There is little historical evidence to suggest that a rapid expansion in the number of nuclear-armed states is likely in the future, let alone inevitable.

Proliferation won’t be rapidKurt Campbell, senior vice president and director of the International Security Program and Chair in National Security at CSIS, and Robert Einhorn, senior adviser in the CSIS International Security Program and nonproliferation analyst, 2004, “The Nuclear Tipping Point”

But if the abstainers see others moving to acquire nuclear weapons— and especially if they perceive that the penalties that would be incurred would he tolerable—then the factors that might trigger a reconsideration of nuclear options might not have to be as compelling. States that might otherwise see insurmountable obstacles to going nuclear could he more inclined to take comfort in numbers (or, perhaps more accurately, discomfort in numbers) and reconsider their nuclear options. Rather than go full speed ahead toward a nuclear weapons capability, some might consider an intermediate course of hedging their bets by acquiring the nuclear infrastructure that would leave open the option to proceed with a full-blown weapons program in the future. It is these intermediate steps, rather than a headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons, that we judge in most cases to be the more likely near-term choice for countries deciding to abandon the non-nuclear status quo. Whatever path countries may take toward the tipping point, we are almost certainly not there yet—in fact, we do not appear to he close. Indeed, a welcome overall conclusion from the case studies explored in this volume is that the global nonproliferation regime may be more durable and less fragile than has sometimes been suspected or feared. Worrisome developments in recent years have given rise to a widespread concern that a world of more and more nuclear powers is essentially inevitable—that JFK’s nightmare vision had only been postponed, not avoided. To he sure, the risks of further proliferation are very real. But despite widely held feelings of pessimism about the regime itself, our focus on the individual cases in the study reveals that it is not so easy to reverse longstanding decisions to foi’swear nuclear weapons. The evidence suggests that there is a hidden robustness in the fraying fabric of the global non-nuclear compact.


Proliferation Good – Conventional War

Nuclear proliferation decreases the risk of conventional conflictKenneth N. Waltz, Adjunct Professor & Genius, Columbia University, Professor Emeritus, UC-Berkeley, 2003, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, with Scott D. Sagan, pg. 36-37

For a number of reasons, deterrent strategies promise less damage than war-fighting strategies. First, deterrent strategies induce caution all around and thus reduce the incidence of war. Second, wars fought in the face of strategic nuclear weapons must be carefully limited because a country having them may retaliate if its vital interests are threatened. Third, prospective punishment need only be proportionate to an adversary's expected gains in war after those gains are discounted for the many uncertainties of war. Fourth, should deterrence fail, a few judiciously delivered warheads are likely to produce sobriety in the leaders of all of the countries involved and thus bring rapid deescalation. Finally, war-fighting strategies offer no clear place to stop short of victory for some and defeat for others. Deterrent strategies do, and that place is where one country threatens another's vital interests. . Deterrent strategies lower the probability that wars will begin. If wars start nevertheless, deterrent strategies lower the probability that they will be carried very far.

Nuclear weapons prevent war from escalatingKenneth N Waltz, Adjunct Professor & Genius, Columbia University, Professor Emeritus, UC-Berkeley, 2003, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, with Scott D. Sagan, pg. 36-37

Deterrence in World War II worked only where combatants shared the ability to use a horrible weapon, poison gas. All of the major combatants were capable of using it. None did. On all of the above counts, nuclear weapons reverse the logic of war that operates in conventional worlds. Nuclear weapons lessen the intensity as well as the frequency of war among their possessors. For fear of escalation, nuclear states do not want to fight long and hard over important interests-indeed, they do not want to fight at all. Minor nuclear states have even better reasons than major ones to accommodate one another and to avoid fighting. Worries about the intensity of war among nuclear states have to be viewed in this context and against a world in which conventional weapons have become ever costlier and more destructive.

Proliferation makes escalatory war impossibleKenneth N Waltz, Adjunct Professor & Genius, Columbia University, Professor Emeritus, UC-Berkeley, 2003, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, with Scott D. Sagan, pg. 6-7

Weapons and strategies change the situation of states in ways that make them more or less secure. If weapons are not well suited for conquest, neighbors have more peace of mind. We should expect war to become less likely when weaponry is such as to make conquest more: difficult, to discourage preemptive and preventive war, and to make coercive threats less credible. Do nuclear weapons have these effects? Some answers can be found by considering how nuclear deterrence and nuclear defense improve the prospects for peace. First, war can be fought in the face of deterrent threats, but the higher the stakes and the closer a country moves toward winning them, the more surely that country invites retaliation and risks its own destruction. States are not likely to run major risks for minor gains. War between nuclear states may escalate as the loser uses larger and larger warheads. Fearing that, states will want to draw back. Not escalation but de-escalation becomes likely. War remains possible, but victory in war is too dangerous to fight for. If states can score only small gains, because large ones risk retaliation, they have little incentive to fight. Second, states act with less care if the expected costs of war are low and with more care if they are high.


Proliferation Good – Allied Prolif

Allied proliferation leads to stability – it ends extended deterrence, creates credible deterrence and doesn’t risk backlashChristopher Layne, Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M, 2006, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to Present, pg. 171-172

There is nothing the United States can do that will fully reassure its allies that Washington will protect them. Recognizing this, America’s allies—especially in East Asia—have every incentive to do exactly what U.S. strategy is supposed to prevent them from doing: re-nationalize and emerge as autonomous poles of power—which will unravel the entire fabric of America’s hegemonic grand strategy.4’ Instead of vainly attempting to stem the tide of onrushing multipolaritv, as an offshore balancer the United States would implement an orderly devolution of security responsibilities—including managed proliferation of nuclear weapons—to the potential great powers (and regional ones like South Korea) that heretofore have sheltered under America’s extended deterrence umbrella.42 Given that managed proliferation would involve politically stable states that are capable of building secure, second-strike retaliatory forces, it would not be destabilizing. On the contrary, because the deterrence provided by national deterrent forces is more credible than extended deterrence provided by a distant protector, Eurasia probably would be more stable—not less—if, acting as an offshore balancer, the United States went forward with strategic devolution. In any event, given the nature of the evolving Eurasian security environment, for the United States it would be better and safer to let other states defend themselves.

Absent this, extended deterrence breaks down and causes nuclear warChristopher Layne, Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M, 2006, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to Present, pg. 171-172

Proponents of U.S. hegemony like to say that America’s military commitments in Eurasia are an insurance policy against the purportedly damaging consequences of a Eurasian great power war by preventing it from happening in the first place or limiting its harmful effects if it does happen. This is a dubious analogy, because insurance policies neither prevent, nor limit, damage to policyholders. Rather, they compensate the policyholder for damage incurred. Even on its own terms, however, the insurance policy argument is not persuasive. Both Californians and Floridians know that some types of insurance are either unaffordable or unobtainable at any price. The chances of the “Big One”—a catastrophic earthquake on the San Andreas Fault—jolting Los Angeles or San Francisco, or a Force 5 hurricane making a direct hit on Miami, are small. But if either were to happen the consequences could be catastrophic, which is why insurance companies don’t want to offer earthquake and hurricane insurance. Prospective great power wars in Eurasia represent a similar dynamic: the risk of such a war breaking out may be low, but if it does it could be prohibitively expensive for the United States to be involved. Rather than being instruments of regional pacification, today America’s alliances are transmission belts for war that ensure that the U.S. would be embroiled in Eurasian wars. In deciding whether to go war in Eurasia, the United States should not allow its hands to be tied in advance. For example, a non—great power war on the Korean Peninsula—even if nuclear weapons were not involved—would he very costly. The dangers of being entangled in a great power war in Eurasia, of course, are even greater, and could expose the American homeland to nuclear attack. An offshore balancing grand strategy would extricate the United States from the danger of being entrapped in Eurasian conflicts by its alliance commitments.

This strategy solves chain-gangingChristopher Layne, Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M, 2006, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to Present, pg. 176

If the United States adopts an offshore balancing grand strategy, it simply is not the case that the United States would he sucked into a war between Eurasian great powers. A nuclear conflict in Eurasia cannot leap the Atlantic or Pacific oceans and engulf the United States unless the United States is embroiled from the outset because of its forward military presence in Eurasia. In a nuclear world, it would be irrational to risk being involved in such a conflict for economic reasons (and, probably, for any reason).


Proliferation Good – Japan

Japanese nuclearization is on-balance good for regional stability – despite risksHugh White, visiting fellow @ Lowy Inst., Prof @ Australian, 7-16-2008, “Why Japan might have to go nuclear,” Lowy Institute, http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/07/Why-Japan-might-have-to-go-nuclear.aspx

Likewise the argument depends on the judgement that the US cannot resist a significant measure of accommodation to China’s growing power without threatening the peace of Asia. That is itself a key question, but one for another time. Suffice to say here that if China keeps growing, the US would be faced with the challenge of sustaining strategic and political primacy while it has lost economic primacy. That is, at best, a long shot. Of course the position I am exploring here remains counter-intuitive. There are very powerful and compelling arguments that a nuclear-armed Japan would be bad for regional stability. I understand and accept many of those arguments. But they need to be set against the depth and danger of the dilemma I have outlined above. Those who dismiss the idea of a Japanese nuclear capability out of hand need to explain either why the dilemma I have identified is illusory, or how it can be resolved in some other way. I would be delighted to hear a persuasive counter-argument.

Japanese nuclearization is key to regional stabilityHugh White, visiting fellow @ Lowy Inst., Prof @ Australian, 7-9-2008, “Avoiding Asia’s decline and fall,” Lowy Inst., http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/07/09/Avoiding-Asias-decline-and-fall.aspx

Our Editor, meanwhile, makes a couple of important points about Japan’s position in all this. Japan’s role is critical – it’s not just a US-China thing. But I think the implications for Japan’s strategic posture are more radical than Sam suggests. Raoul touches on the nub of the issue in his post, but let me put the point more bluntly: a stable concert in Asia is only possible if Japan is no longer a strategic client of the US, and that means it needs to have its own nuclear weapons (Ed. note: Crikey!). It is a measure of the strangeness, newness and scariness of our future that we may find ourselves concluding that, absent global abolition of nuclear weapons, an independent Japanese nuclear deterrent is necessary for peace in Asia.

Fear of Japan prolif causes China to get on board for sanctions on North Korea – only way to effectively end their programBradley K. Martin, 5-27-2009, “Time to encourage Japan and South Korea,” Global Post, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/southkorea/090527/time-encourage-japan-and-south-korea-go-nuclear?page=0,1

A different view is that what is really needed is for China, which has been propping up the North Korean economy, to become concerned enough about the fallout from Kim’s nuclear adventurism to join in truly effective sanctions. Some conservatives including pundit Charles Krauthammer have been arguing that nothing would concentrate Beijing’s mind more than the prospect of a nuclear-armed Japan. With the latest test, that notion is being examined more widely. Chris Nelson, whose influential Washington-based daily Nelson Report looks at policy issues affecting Asia, said in an e-mail that he agreed with all of Straub’s points but wondered whether Japanese nuclear armament was the “one strategic threat” that might outweigh what he said China now considers the primary threat: a “catastrophic collapse” of North Korea, spilling chaos across their shared border. If South Korea “sounded serious, in turn prompting Japan to sound serious” about developing nuclear deterrents, “at that point, and that point only, might Beijing actually risk sanctions to bring down the Kim regime,” Nelson suggested, “at which point might the Kim regime, or its designated successor, finally be forced to enter into genuine leveraged buyout negotiations.”


Proliferation Good – Japan

Japanese nuclearization wouldn’t cause a regional arms raceClifton Sherrill, Assistant professor of history and political science @ UMiss, 2001, “The Need for a Japanese Nuclear Deterrent.” Comparative Strategy, pg. 260

Japanese pacifists often argue that Japan should not attempt to develop significant independent military capabilities because of the air of distrust that lingers in the region as a result of Japanese imperialism and atrocities committed by the Japanese in the Second World War. Unquestionably reservations exist among certain aspects of society in China, Korea, the Philippines, and other areas that suffered under Japanese occupation. The antipathy toward Japan felt by victims of Japanese brutality in the Second World War, however, is not felt to the same degree by the succeeding generations in these states. For example, despite the horrors inflicted by the Japanese during World War II’s infamous “Rape of Manila,” Philippine National Security Adviser Jose Altamonte noted in 1998 the Philippines’ desire to see Japan play a leading role in ensuring regional security and to “raise from a strategic client into a full partner of the United States” [9]. Indeed, in proof of the long-held diplomatic maxim that states have no permanent enemies, only permanent interests, many states in the Asia–Pacific have signaled a willingness to accept a greater regional security role for Japan. Japan’s position as the single largest provider of economic aid in the region has made many states more open to greater Japanese involvement. Fears that Japanese nuclear weapons would spark a regional arms race are misplaced, because most other states in the region are without the capability to develop nuclear weapons and have little utility for them, and conventional build-ups would serve little purpose in response to Japanese nuclear acquisition. In any event, the destabilizing states, North Korea and China, already have developed nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles despite Japan’s abstinence.

Won’t generate instability or an arms raceAndrew O’Neil, School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University, Australia, 2007, Nuclear Proliferation in Northeast Asia, pg. 8-9

In short, it is unlikely that a nuclear-armed Japan would generate nuclear proliferation pressures in either of these countries. Finally, the chapter argues that both Japan and China will continue to have powerful incentives to ensure that any nuclear relationship remains stable and peaceful. The high degree of interdependence in the bilateral relationship between Tokyo and Beijing is exemplified by large-scale trade and investment links and shared concern over ensuring the continued free passage of energy supplies into Northeast Asia. Both countries understand that the most important prerequisite for maintaining these favorable outcomes is to avoid serious strategic tensions in their bilateral relationship and in Northeast Asia more generally.

The US won’t respond with complete abandonment of the allianceClifton Sherrill, Assistant professor of history and political science @ UMiss, 2001, “The Need for a Japanese Nuclear Deterrent.” Comparative Strategy, pg. 260

Ideally, for both Japan and the United States, a Japanese nuclear deterrent force would be developed with the full support and cooperation of the United States. Nonetheless, enthusiastic American support is not a prerequisite to the construction of a Japanese nuclear deterrent, given the advanced state of the Japanese civil nuclear program. Politically, the lack of U.S. support would be a major obstacle to creation of a Japanese deterrent; however, Japan is not without bargaining chips. As noted previously, U.S. forward deployment in the Pacific is now overwhelmingly dependent on maintaining bases in Japan. Moreover, U.S. response to Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons development was confined primarily to rhetorical opposition. Finally, Chinese opposition, although vociferous, must be viewed in the light of ongoing Chinese actions, including an aggressive nuclear build-up despite Japanese temperance [7]. Given these conditions, it is unlikely that the United States would exert the type of pressure that could damage severely the U.S.–Japan alliance in order to prevent a determined Japan from pursuing an independent nuclear deterrent.


Proliferation Good – Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia can’t buy the bombGawdat Bahgat, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, 2007, Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 84

Analysts of Saudi Arabia’s security policy have suggested four issues related to potential Saudi nuclear ambition. First, if Riyadh were to consider a nuclear option, it arguably would be likely to “buy” a nuclear device, not build one. David Albright argues that the Saudis “would be the first of the world’s eight or nine nuclear powers to have bought rather than built the bomb’57 This scenario is based on the fact that unlike North Korea, Saudi Arabia has the financial resources to purchase a nuclear bomb. Furthermore, buying instead of building would save the kingdom potential preemptive strikes on its nuclear facilities. Pakistan is often mentioned as the most likely seller, since it created a so-called Islamic bomb and has close ties to Saudi Arabia. This essay rejects the notion of an “Islamic bomb.” There are no “Christian” or “Jewish” bombs. Pakistan made the bomb to counter its archenemy, India, and is not likely to “sell” it to any other country. Simply stated, since the dawn of the nuclear age in 1945, the experience has shown that nuclear weapons are not for sale.

Saudi Arabia doesn’t have an existential threat, they won’t pursueGawdat Bahgat, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, 2007, Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 84

Second, the Israeli approach to acquiring nuclear weapons capability has been mentioned as a potential model for the Saudis to follow. Despite Israel’s close ties to the United States, it decided to create nuclear weapons. There are many differences, however, between the Israeli and Saudi cases. A fundamental one is the existential threat that the Israeli leaders perceived to their country. As the analysis in this essay indicates, Saudi Arabia does not face such a threat. Third, most analysts assume that the Saudi military is no match for the Iranian or Iraqi armies.

Turn – US military presence is the root cause of Middle Eastern proliferationGawdat Bahgat, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, 2007, Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 84

Another important motivation for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is the growing American military presence in the region since the late 1980s. At the end of Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. Navy took responsibility for protecting oil shipments and was involved in several confrontations with Iran. A few years later, the United States led an international coalition to expel Iraq from Kuwait (the 1991 Gulf War) and established military bases in several Gulf monarchies. In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan and has since maintained a military presence there and in other Central Asian states. In 2003, the United States toppled Saddam Hussein and occupied Iraq. Naturally, Iran feels threatened by this American military presence on almost all sides. Iranian leaders understand that their country’s conventional capabilities are no match for the U.S. military superiority. Within this context, acquiring nuclear weapons might deter United States from attacking Iran.23 Meanwhile, providing assurances that Washington has no intention of attacking Iran and does not seek regime change in Tehran might convince the Iranian leaders to give up their nuclear ambition.


Proliferation Good – NPT Fails

Strengthening the NPT won’t effect prolif – it’s driven by threat perception and regional tension Keith Hansen, Prof of IR at Stanford who served for eight years on the U.S. delegation during CTBT negotiations and implementation, March/April 2005, “CTBT: Forecasting the Future,” http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/h21185738p776222/fulltext.pdf

As others have persuasively argued, ultimately it will be a sense of security from perceived or actual threats that will deter proliferation efforts.9 Most countries accept the importance of global adherence to international treaties, but these conventions are at best Band-Aids when applied to the feelings of insecurity and lack of trust resulting from regional threats and conflicts. The nuclear weapons states must do their part by continuing efforts to reduce their nuclear arsenals, including the destruction of warheads. But collective efforts also must continue in the search for bilateral and international arrangements to eliminate the anxieties that drive individual countries to acquire nuclear weapons. From the CTBT experience it is obvious that national aspirations and policy objectives often override efforts to establish international norms. Ultimately, countries look inward and/or to their allies for security rather than to international organizations or agreements that are difficult to influence or control and are at times too slow to act. The one exception to this experience has been the negotiation of regional nuclear weapon- free zones, which have been adopted by the countries of Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific. These regional treaties create de facto nuclear test bans and appear to be a positive boost to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Unfortunately, the two regions where such treaties would provide the biggest contribution—the Middle East and South Asia (particularly India and Pakistan)—are precisely where insecurities from regional tensions and suspicions have made these agreements unattainable.

NPT success is an illusion – slow rate of proliferation is caused by other factorsMichael Wesley, PhD IR, Dir. Asia Inst. At Griffith, September 2005, “It’s time to scrap the NPT,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, v. 59, iss. 3

The NPT was always a flawed regime, based on an unequal distribution of status and security. Its apparent effectiveness in containing nuclear proliferation was largely due to other factors. The events of the past 15 years have only magnified the NPT's flaws. The end of the Cold War decoupled the possession of nuclear weapons from the global power structure. While many commentators were applauding the expansion of the number of NPT signatories, and South Africa, South Korea, Brazil and Argentina renounced plans to acquire nuclear weapons, deeper and more insistent proliferation pressures were building among the emerging great powers of Asia. The succession of Persian Gulf wars demonstrated to many insecure states that only nuclear—not chemical or biological—weapons deter conventional military attack. The international community was repeatedly surprised by the extent and sophistication of Iraq's, Pakistan's, North Korea's and Libya's progress in acquiring nuclear materials and know-how, each time underlining the inadequacies of the non-proliferation regime. After the 1998 South Asian nuclear tests, India's highly effective rhetorical defence of its policy and the world's half-hearted and short-lived sanctions against India and Pakistan damaged the moral authority of the NPT regime, perhaps terminally.


Proliferation Good – A2: Accidents

Accidents don’t happen and wouldn’t escalateKenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2003, p. 115-116

Another question is whether India and Pakistan can firmly control and safely deploy nuclear forces sufficient to deter. Because I have already said enough about the ease of deterrence, I shall concentrate on questions of safety and control. Sagan claims that “the emerging history of nuclear India and nuclear Pakistan strongly supports the pessimistic predictions of organizational theorists” (Ch. 3, p. 90). Yet the evidence, accumulated over five decades, shows that nuclear states fight with nuclear states only at low levels, that accidents seldom occur, and that when they do they never have bad effects. If nuclear pessimists were right, nuclear deterrence would have failed again and again. Nuclear pessimists deal with the potential causes of catastrophe; optimists, with the effects the causes do not produce. Since the evidence fails to support the predictions of pessimists, one wonders why the spread of nuclear weapons to South Asia should have bad rather than good effects. What differences in the situation of India and Pakistan may cause their fates to depart from the nuclear norm? If they and their situations are different, then the happy history of the nuclear past does not forecast their futures. American commentators dwell on the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union earlier and India and Pakistan today. Among the seeming differences, these are given prominence: differences in the states involved, differences in their histories of conflict, and differences in the distance between the competing parties. I consider them in turn.

Proliferation is the only way to moderate radical regimesKenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2003, p. 117

Whatever the identity of rulers, and whatever the characteristics of their states, the national behaviors they produce are strongly conditioned by the world outside. With conventional weapons, a defensive country has to ask itself how much power it must harness to its policy in order to dissuade an aggressive state from striking. Countries willing to run high risks are hard to dissuade. The characteristics of governments and the temperaments of leaders have to be carefully weighed. With nuclear weapons, any state will be deterred by another state’s second-strike forces; one need not be preoccupied with the qualities of the state that is to be deterred or scrutinize its leaders. In a nuclear world, any state—whether ruled by a Stalin, a Mao Zedong, a Saddam Hussein, or a Kim Jong Il—will be deterred by the knowledge that aggressive actions may lead to its own destruction.

Proximity solves escalationThomas Preston, Associate Professor of Political Science @ Washington State University, 2007, “From Lambs to Lions,” p. 72

In addition. short-range systems potentially provide important de - escalation and deterrence bolstering effects. Bernard Brodie, one of the leading strategic thinkers of the Cold War nøted the threat to use tactical weapons weapons appropriate for deterrence. or tailing that. could serve as a de-ccalating device’ 1f used in a ‘limited and essentially tightly controlled manner.” Brodie (1966. 2K) noted that with the limited use of tactical weapons, “the possibility of further escalation will, to be sure, be unavoidable but also use- fully present. It will tend to induce caution of both sides, but it will especially tend to dissuade the aggressor from testing very far the efficacy of a resolute local defense.’

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