Both the systemic- and country-level evaluations show that an empirical correlation be- tween the size of great power nuclear arsenals and the proliferation outcomes of second-tier states exists from 1968 onwards. This provides support for this chapter’s hypotheses that the formal nonproliferation regime embodied in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s “grand bargain” was indeed incorporated into the political discourse. While there is no inherent reason for nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation to be interdependent, the ex-
39
However, the cross-sectional models are unable to differentiate the effect between state perceptions of the United States and of the Soviet Union—this is likely due to high multicollinearity within the interaction effects. It appears from this finding that the great powers are best treated collectively with respect to the grand bargain.
pansion of the nuclear club to France and China in the early 1960s, as well as the initiation of programs by Israel and India, forced the reconsideration of the status quo by the great pow- ers. A discriminatory regime—one that legitimized their own possession of nuclear weapons while forbidding them to others—would be by itself unacceptable, as both the technology and desire necessary for nuclear weapons had begun to diffuse throughout the international system. As an intermediate step, the non-nuclear states required an incentive, which was provided in the Article VI promise to move toward disarmament, a central condition of the Non-Aligned Movement’s negotiations on the NPT.
The need for a formal regime became apparent as the central conditions of the early nuclear age—bipolar stability and nuclear-protected spheres of influence—became less cred- ible. The early Cold War exhibited the prevalence of the great power security substitution effect: heavy investments by the United States and Soviet Union in nuclear and conven- tional forces were deemed by second-tier states to be equivalent to domestic armament, as a replacement rather than as a threat. Gaullist France and Maoist China developed nuclear weapons only as they found themselves alienated from their respective bloc leaders.40
The logic of extended deterrence became central to Schelling’s (1966) framework, which informed American debate on nuclear strategy through the end of the Cold War. Maintaining a strong American nuclear capability was seen as the best way to eliminate the need for other Western states to pursue an independent option. It was only recently that many former high-level officials acknowledged that this is no longer a valid paradigm in an era of second-tier nuclear proliferation.41
By 1968, the threat of second-tier proliferation was clearly felt by the great powers, and extended deterrence was undermined as a tool of nonproliferation. The “grand bargain” became a replacement incentive for second-tier states to forgo nuclearization. This outcome 40The United Kingdom has been consistently excluded from this category due to their heavy involvement
in the Manhattan Project and World War II-related nuclear research, which predates even the American program.
41
cf. George P. Schultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation,”The Wall Street Journal, 7 March 2011.
was a concession granted by great powers as part of the cooperative outcome of the for- mal nonproliferation regime, an exercise in diplomacy, rather than the exertion of military coercion. As a result of the underlying dynamics that led to this regime, the post-NPT environment showed a strengthening of the incentives that existed during the early Cold War.
In the current NPT regime, great-power nuclear arsenals are less likely to be seen as a form of security, and high levels of American and Soviet nuclear weapons—in violation of the spirit of the NPT—legitimate the nuclear weapons programs of aspirant states. In particular, those states most closely aligned with great powers, and therefore most likely to enjoy a security relationship with such a patron, are most sensitive to their patron’s nuclear arsenal and most likely to pursue a domestic nuclear option under the current regime. Nuclear reduction, by adhering to the norms established in the NPT, creates the political capital necessary to coerce compliance by deviant states on nonproliferation issues. By reducing the importance of nuclear weapons in their defense strategies, as New START (as a continuation of the previous START agreements) and the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review have done, the United States and Russia lessen the likelihood that nuclear-aspirant states will successfully acquire such weapons.
With the successful implementation of New START scheduled for 2018, the United States and Russia will be limited to 1,550 nuclear weapons each, from 2,200 in 2010. This represents the remarkable success of arms control since the height of the Cold War. In 1986, the United States and Soviet Union collectively possessed 63,977 operational nuclear warheads (25,204 of them strategic weapons); by 2018 they will possess less than 5% of those levels. Aside from the inherently reduced likelihood of accidental nuclear war, the reductions made over the last twenty-five years provide substantial evidence that the great powers have accepted the necessity of nuclear disarmament as a means of positive security gain.42 However, the
42Despite making the promise to do so in 1968, the Soviet Union never decreased the size of its nuclear
arsenal until 1986–87. Early American attempts to bring down nuclear expenditures in 1965 and 1973 stalled, with levels holding at around 23,500 until the late 1980s.
low-hanging fruit may soon be running out. Nuclear officials at the US Air Force believe that unconditional secure second strike requires at least 1,000 warheads; beyond this point, nuclear reduction engenders trade-offs with direct deterrence capabilities.43 It is principally
for this reason that further nuclear reductions beyond New START are unlikely, and that the NPT’s “grand bargain” will arrive at an equilibrium state.