Strategic Nuclear Sharing

J. Schofield

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137298454
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique militaire

The sharing of nuclear weapons technology between states is unexpected, because nuclear weapons are such a powerful instrument in international politics, but sharing is not rare. This book proposes a theory to explain nuclear sharing and surveys its rich history from its beginnings in the Second World War.

1

Introduction: Nuclear Sharing and Why More May Be Better

We don’t expect states to share nuclear weapons, their technology or their delivery systems, because of the difficulty the donor has in assuring the reliability of the recipient state.¹ Nevertheless, nuclear sharing has occurred in a number of instances. It started with France, the UK and the US; then continued with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during the Second World War; the US and its NATO allies; the USSR and China; France, Israel and South Africa; and China and Pakistan. On a lesser scale, other states have also acted counter to the conventional wisdom and shared expertise that enhanced the nuclear capability of recipient states. Most nuclear sharing occurs between allies, but the overwhelming numbers of allies do not share nuclear weapons. Whether they do so depends to a large extent on the prevailing strategic incentives to share, particularly whether adversaries have tacitly negotiated an agreement to manage their competitive nuclear diffusion, whether the allies are democratic, and the stability of their domestic decision-making processes.² Historically, only grave security threats are likely to overrule the reluctance of states to share the sensitive technology of the most powerful weapons. Iron, which Pliny described as “the most useful and most fatal instrument in the hand of man,”³ was the preeminent capital weapon of pre-modern times, and its sharing was prohibited by most societies, from the Hittites⁴ and Philistines,⁵ to Charlemagne.⁶ States are concerned that allies they equip with nuclear weapons may become less compliant, but donor states are far more concerned that the technology will spread to enemies, or that not giving to allies will cause a friendly alliance to collapse, or that proliferation may lead to instability and escalate to a general war.⁷

As part of the 1968/1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nuclear weapon states promise not to assist non-nuclear weapon states to obtain nuclear weapons (Article 1), who in turn promise not to receive nuclear weapons (Article II).⁸ The 1987 Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is explicit in its purpose of seeking to reduce the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by reducing their methods of delivery, and stipulates that states must “presume” against exports of missiles whose purpose is WMD delivery. These widely ratified multilateral treaties give the impression that because nuclear sharing is a violation of international law, there is therefore little trade in nuclear weapons. However, nuclear weapons have been shared and my goal is to explain the conditions under which this occurs.⁹ The definition of what enables nuclear weapons capability must be broad, because theoretically segregating nuclear warheads and missiles in a study of the diffusion of power in the international system is neither historically accurate nor strategically insightful. States routinely coordinate their nuclear weapons and missile programs to coincide.¹⁰ No state has invested in missile technology for space exploration that has not also had, at some point, a strategic interest in obtaining at least the reserve capacity to launch nuclear weapons.¹¹ Sharing nuclear weapons entails considering not simply the nuclear warheads, but also the materials, fissile and otherwise, the technology, the manufacturing capability and the delivery means, including missiles, bombers and submarines, and in effect, anything that contributes to or enhances a nuclear military capability. A fission demonstration device without a means of delivery may be worse than useless, creating vulnerability, instability and incentives for preventive attack.¹²

Nuclear sharing is the deliberate or permissive transfer between a donor and a recipient state of resources that facilitate a military nuclear capability, with the intention of affecting a change in the strategic environment of the international system, or for the purpose of bartering for vital resources. Negligence is excluded, but permissiveness (when a donor state could otherwise have stopped proliferation) is not. Permissiveness may give the recipient state the capacity to manufacture or use nuclear weapons. The assumption here is that the nuclear donor has superior technical ability to the nuclear recipient, although the dynamics of nuclear sharing apply to partnerships as well.¹³ Nuclear sharing in this context consists of the creation of human capital, direct transfer of nuclear fuels and fissile explosives, associated command and control technology, or delivery vehicles.¹⁴ Sharing of nuclear weapons is a relative measure of assistance, and placed on a linear scale approaches the other extreme of active nonproliferation. At the middle of the scale are permissive policies that allow proliferation where it otherwise could have been slowed (such as between the US and Israel and Pakistan, or the US and Soviet Union with regard to China and India, respectively).¹⁵

It has been demonstrated that states receiving nuclear assistance can accelerate and economize their own nuclear efforts, such as by leapfrogging technology.¹⁶ Other forms of diffusion, typically inadvertent, such as through espionage,¹⁷ capture,¹⁸ observation of the isotope debris of nuclear tests,¹⁹ or commercial exchange of dual-use applications²⁰ by state or non-state actors,²¹ are far slower.²² The benefits of sharing vary between states. Some, such as China, Pakistan and South Africa, were initially heavily dependent on foreign providers for their enrichment capacity, and sharing in those cases provided a significant fillip to their respective nuclear weapons programs.²³

The overall findings of this book are that the most common reason that states do not share is because of agreements between adversarial donors not to share, followed by fears that proliferation will sunder an alliance, that states will lose their influence over others, and finally because of the dangers of escalation. In the rare instances in which nuclear sharing does occur, states most often share nuclear weapons for reasons of security. These reasons are subdivided into three categories: more often to make an ally safer, then to ensure an ally does not bandwagon with an adversary and finally to dissuade an ally from proliferating on their own. The second most common cause of nuclear sharing is for barter of vital resources, often also nuclear materials. Thirdly, nuclear sharing may be pursued to embolden a proxy state to threaten the sphere of influence of an adversary. States will only provide nuclear expertise to states in their own sphere of influence if they can render them permanently dependent. Democratic states are more likely to share with other democracies, and importantly, are more likely to share the most significant nuclear technology: fusion warheads, sea launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and ballistic missile submarines (SSBN). When states do share nuclear weapons, they are aware in principle that the regime stability of the recipient state is important, but in practice this is a principle less often observed. Most decisions to share nuclear weapons are miscalculations, typically the result of fragmented domestic decision-making processes. Most political elites are not confident that possessing nuclear weapons will ensure peace, so are reluctant to share.

The easy deterrence model of nuclear sharing

In a 1982 monograph, Kenneth Waltz boldly asserted that the spread of nuclear weapons would lead to peace. His argument was simply that since nuclear weapons cannot be defended against, and secure second strike arsenals virtually guarantee a retaliatory strike more costly than any political gain, states would not rationally start wars that would lead to nuclear escalation. Nuclear weapons were also so immensely destructive that it would be difficult to misinterpret their devastating deterrent value. The political outcome is that nuclear arsenals preserve the status quo in the current international system.²⁴ This argument is encapsulated by the easy deterrence model that argues nuclear weapons are robust deterrents against war. This approach is typified by early French theorists such as Pierre Gallois.²⁵

In this conception, nuclear deterrence is relatively straightforward to achieve because the destructive power of nuclear weapons is so easily perceivable.²⁶ According to Robert Jervis, nuclear weapons therefore reduce disputes and war and make preserving the status quo relatively easy.²⁷ Nuclear weapons have not been found to be particularly useful as coercive instruments.²⁸ It follows that a state’s willingness to share nuclear weapons would be determined by its positioning within the international system. States that benefit from the maintenance of the status quo are therefore likely to permit the sharing of nuclear technology with any and all other states.²⁹ States that seek to overturn the international order through coercion or war are therefore less likely to share nuclear weapons technology with potential adversaries. In addition, status quo states that require war to counter the erosion of their position in the international system are unlikely to share nuclear weapons technology with non-nuclear states that are the engine or the beneficiaries of this deterioration.

It is important to test these propositions because they can be deduced from the widespread belief that nuclear deterrence is robust because nuclear retaliation and escalation are incredibly dangerous, especially since nuclear weapons states share very rarely. Furthermore, states challenging the international system are as likely to share nuclear weapons as the established powers, because nuclear weapons can be used to blunt intervention and impair extended deterrence.³⁰ Furthermore, aspiring or new nuclear states are often hostile to nonproliferation policies which have been directed against them by the world’s established powers, and for an initial period at least, advocate the right of states to proliferate counter to these prohibitions. Finally, significant security threats can cause donor states to think in the short term, although by proliferating, established powers may create new challengers, while challengers may create adversaries to their expansion.

The easy deterrence sharing model makes two major assumptions that may explain its failure to predict the rarity of nuclear sharing: first, that the destructive power of nuclear weapons makes deterrence robust; and second, that states have a status quo orientation. In fact, either or both may be untrue. First, the power of nuclear weapons may not be as absolute as suggested by Bernard Brodie, with some scholars arguing that the historical influence of nuclear weapons has been exaggerated.³¹ For John Mearsheimer, nuclear weapons cannot guarantee security because the stability–instability paradox undermines deterrence: standoffs between second strike arsenals neutralize the threat of escalation, paradoxically making lower-level inter-state conflict safe from escalation. Second, states may be reluctant to share nuclear weapons because the international system is populated not by status quo defensive positionalists, but by states seeking hegemony.³² States seeking to dominate the international system will be less likely to cede counterbalancing nuclear arsenals.

The puzzle

The puzzle of Waltz’s “More May Be Better” is that it is theoretically compelling, yet empirically inaccurate and normatively terrifying. The overwhelming majority of states have not shared nuclear weapons, and yet if their decision-makers accept that nuclear war is unwinnable, then they should accept his dictum. The purpose of this book is to examine competing explanations to see which best explains why Waltz’s proposition, that states could be expected to share nuclear weapons, is wrong.

This theoretical response to the easy deterrence model is conducted in two parts: Chapter 2 surveys three explanations for why states do not share nuclear weapons. Chapter 3 proposes an explanation for why states share that is different from Waltz’s rationale.

The organization of the book

The book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 examines why states generally do not share nuclear weapons, and Chapter 3 proposes a security calculus model that better explains why they do. Chapter 4 develops an explanation for the rarity of nuclear sharing by examining the incidence of nuclear nonproliferation bargains between adversaries. Chapter 5 prov...