Security, Economics and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Morality

Keeping or Surrendering the Bomb

Liang Tuang Nah

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9783319622521
• eBook ISBN: 9783319622538
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book seeks to elucidate the decisions of states that have chosen to acquire nuclear arms or inherited nuclear arsenals, and have either disarmed or elected to retain their warheads. It examines nuclear arms policy via an interconnected framework involving the eclectic use of national security based realism, economic interdependence liberalism, and nuclear weapons norms or morality based constructivism. Through the various chapters examining the nuclear munitions decisions of South Africa, Ukraine and North Korea, a case is built that a state's leadership decides whether to keep or give up "the Bomb" based on interlinked security, economic and norms governed motivations. Thereafter, frameworks evaluating the likelihood of nuclear proliferation and accessing the feasibility of disarmament are then applied to North Korea and used to examine recent Iranian nuclear negotiability. This book is an invaluable resource for international relations and security studies scholars, WMD analysts and post graduate or undergraduate candidates focusing on nuclear arms politics related courses

© The Author(s) 2018

Liang Tuang NahSecurity, Economics and Nuclear Non-Proliferation MoralityNew Security Challengeshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62253-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Liang Tuang Nah¹

(1)

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

End Abstract

Among weapons, nuclear arms have arguably caused the most alarm and concern. With their unmatched deterrence capabilities, nuclear arms are both shunned for their horrific destructive potential and desired as strategic equalisers to convince adversaries not to threaten the nuclear proliferant’s security.

This book seeks to investigate the reasons behind nuclear arms development and why some nuclear weapons proliferators or inheritors have subsequently chosen to voluntarily disarm. The aim is that a systematic study of nuclear arms acquisition and disarmament will lead to a workable framework for predicting nuclear weapons proliferation, forecasting the success of nuclear disarmament policies and proposing policy changes to enhance their effectiveness.

This analysis of nuclear armament and disarmament drivers will be performed using a tripartite theory approach involving realism , liberalism and constructivism . Specifically, only middle- or third-world powers will be examined as these have shown the highest propensity to pursue nuclear weapons in recent times. Primary focus will be given to examining the security-based (realist) , beneficial interdependence economics–based (liberalist) and international norms–based (constructivist) factors contributing to (1) the nuclear arms relinquishment in Belarus and Kazakhstan within a few years of inheriting former Soviet nuclear weapons in 1991, (2) nuclear arms acquisition and subsequent total nuclear disarmament in South Africa , (3) the policy debate between those who wished to retain nuclear arms and those who wanted to relinquish them in Ukraine and (4) the North Korean nuclear programme during periods of nuclear brinkmanship (1993–1994, 2002–2006 and 2009) as well as visible disarmament progress (2007–2008). Lastly, Iran’s negotiated agreement to curtail its nuclear programme in 2015 will be analysed as a secondary subsidiary case. As will be subsequently elaborated, neither realism, nor liberalism nor constructivism serves as an exclusive driver of nuclear armaments policy. They all have mutually reinforcing and interrelated roles to play. While current unitary cause scholarship about nuclear weapons makes for parsimonious reading, eclectic multidimensional analysis also has an important explanatory contribution.

Additionally, the realist, liberalist and constructivist theoretical frameworks will be further analysed by accounting for the roles that interdependence-, norms- and leadership-based factors play in all three theories across both the nuclear arms acquisition and relinquishment phases. This will be explained in Chap. 2.

Fundamentally, this book aims to derive interconnected eclectic tripartite explanatory frameworks utilising realism, liberalism and constructivism to account for nuclear arms proliferation or disarmament in the developing world. These frameworks are more versatile, holistic and comprehensive than unitary theories while compensating for the explanatory weaknesses and blind spots inherent within realist, liberal and constructivist nuclear arms scholarship. Furthermore, originality will be reinforced by the analysis of shared characteristics such as interdependence or counter-interdependence, norms and leadership that apply across all three theories in these interlinked tripartite frameworks. It would be better for us to have more rather than less elucidative understanding of the terrifying doomsday weapons of our postmodern era.

Findings Supporting the Tripartite Theory Model

In the subsequent chapters, the following will be proven:

1. 1.
   Even though eventual relinquishment of inherited nuclear arms was assured for both Belarus and Kazakhstan , realist, liberal and constructivist influences still played noteworthy roles in the denuclearisation process.
2. 2.
   The interlinked eclectic realist, liberalist and constructivist tripartite framework displays efficacy in substantiating the nuclear arms development and decommissioning decisions of South Africa , the arguments for nuclear munitions retention and reasons for eventual nuclear weapons abnegation in Ukraine , and both the pro and counter nuclear proliferation rationales espoused by or influencing the North Korean government.
3. 3.
   Shared interdependence or counter-interdependence, norms and leadership traits permeate the realist , liberal and constructivist analysis performed for the principal South African, Ukrainian and North Korean case studies.
4. 4.
   Lastly, it is possible to amalgamate all the tripartite frameworks across all the key case study nations to derive eclectic templates utilising security-based realism, economic interdependence liberalism and social constructivism, which can both assess the strength of nuclear proliferation imperatives and evaluate the likelihood that any proliferator might agree to disarm. This will be applied to the North Korean exemplar to gauge the extent of its desire for nuclear arms retention and suggest the way forward for the USA and its regional allies to manage or attenuate Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. Furthermore, the applicability of a realist–liberalist–constructivist framework for explaining Iran’s willingness to negotiate away its uranium enrichment and plutonium-processing capabilities in July 2015 will be elaborated.

The Arguments Ahead

In order to set the stage for systematic nuclear proliferation analysis, Chap. 2 will explain the theories used, flesh out the eclectic conceptual model, validate the case studies chosen for analysis and clarify any exclusions in this book’s research (e.g. why certain case studies or proliferation causational routes are not considered).

Thereafter, Chap. 3 will examine the strongest case for endogenous nuclear disarmament, South Africa, by establishing the historical background of the South African nuclear weapons programme, analysing the strategic impetus and decisional frameworks promoting nuclear weapons development and explaining the security-based realist, economic liberalist and social constructivist reasons for President de Klerk to decommission the clandestine nuclear arms programme in 1989. Hence, Chap. 3 should provide a pre- and post-disarmament examination of the motivations driving South African nuclear arms policy along with relevant evidence buttressing the aforementioned tripartite theory framework.

Turning to Ukraine, Chap. 4 will cover the analysis considering realist, liberalist and constructivist factors in the debates between those supporting nuclear disarmament and those who advocated the retention of nuclear arms, and elaborate on what the leadership in Kiev successfully obtained through negotiations to satisfy the security-based realist and economics-based liberalist requirements of the Ukrainian parliament such that it would approve total disarmament. As with the chapter on South Africa, content substantiating this book’s tripartite theory framework will be provided.

Chapter 5 examines the final principal case, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). As with Chaps. 3 and 4, the realist, economic liberalist and social constructivist reasons paving the road to atomic arms development, from the Korean War to the twenty-first century, will be discussed. Thereafter, North Korea’s role as a split-outcome disarmament/rearmament case will surface as the realist, liberalist economic interdependence and social constructivist factors behind the steps towards nuclear disarmament during the 2007–2008 period will be explored. After deconstructing the nuclear armaments policy decisions made by Pyongyang, explanatory models supporting both arms building and nascent arms decommissioning, using the trilateral theoretical framework, will be derived.

Next, Chap. 6 will consolidate all the findings of the South African, Ukrainian and North Korean exemplars, to identify common and unifying frameworks accounting for nuclear arms development/retention and disarmament/relinquishment. To validate the arms development model, it will be used to evaluate contemporary realities concerning the North Korean nuclear munitions programme in order to assess how entrenched the DPRK’s nuclear weapons building efforts really are. Thereafter, factoring in disarmament intransigence or resistance on Pyongyang’s part, disarmament model efficacy will be tested by using it to formulate a disarmament-based strategy or approach that can best address the Kim regime’s realist, liberalist and constructivist concerns, leading to negotiative progress regarding Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme that facilitates regional stability.

Lastly, Chap. 7 deconstructs the case of Iran where the relinquishment of most of Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities as part of a deal that Tehran signed with the West in July 2015 will be used as a contemporary test case supporting the realist–liberalist–constructivist framework accounting for nuclear non-proliferation policy, even as Tehran has yet to build any nuclear warheads.

Amid the plethora of books and works addressing the spread of nuclear weapons, this tome gets to the crux of the matter of why the ultimate deterrent is sought or relinquished rather than m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theories, Conceptual Model, Initial Case Analysis and Excluded Considerations
• 3. South Africa as a Classic Nuclear Armament and Disarmament Exemplar
• 4. Fiercely Negotiated Ukrainian Nuclear Disarmament
• 5. Contentious North Korean Disarmament Prospects
• 6. Policy Relevant Tripartite Theory Nuclear Policy Models and Their Application to North Korea
• 7. Conclusion: Can the Tri-theoretic Models Explain the Iranian Case?
• Backmatter