Blasts from the Past: Proliferation Lessons from the 1960s

Gavin, Francis J.

doi:10.1162/0162288043467504

Cited by 49 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…187). Many US officials and pundits saw the PRC as considerably more aggressive and risk-acceptant than the Soviet Union given Mao’s assertion that if ‘half of mankind died’ in nuclear war, ‘the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist’ (Gavin, 2005: 100–101).…”

Section: China’s 1967 H-bomb Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk made it clear during the hearings preceding the vote that the US was going to forgo sharing nuclear weapons with its allies and concentrate on international agreements promoting non-proliferation (Mulhollan, 1968: 4). Johnson ‘made the change at great risk and some political cost’ (Gavin, 2005: 130).…”

Section: China’s 1967 H-bomb Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Strategic surprise, nuclear proliferation and US foreign policy

Cohen

Rapport

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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What are the effects of strategic surprise on foreign policy? We apply mechanisms from cognitive psychology and foreign policy analysis — the hindsight bias and policy engagement — to theorize about how political leaders attribute blame for strategic surprises and the consequences for their foreign policies. We argue that leaders who are hardly engaged with policy matters related to a surprise will tend to believe that it should have been foreseen, attribute blame to domestic culprits and favour significant changes in foreign policy. Conversely, those more involved with policy planning will blame an adversary’s deception and resist policy change. We illustrate these hypotheses empirically by examining the cases of the Truman administration’s reaction to the 1949 Soviet nuclear test and the Johnson administration’s reaction to the 1967 Chinese thermonuclear explosion. Despite their similar international and domestic political environments, the two presidents reacted quite differently to the two surprises. Truman, who was weakly engaged with nuclear matters prior to 1949, authorized major policy changes and reorganized the Central Intelligence Agency. Conversely, Johnson’s deeper involvement in nuclear matters led him to attribute blame for the surprise to Chinese deception. He sought to use the 1967 test to advance his ongoing efforts to secure the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The findings suggest that the variables of policy engagement and the hindsight bias can predict how leaders’ foreign policies will respond to surprises regarding nuclear weapons proliferation and potentially other shifts in the balance of power.

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Section: China’s 1967 H-bomb Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: China’s 1967 H-bomb Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic surprise, nuclear proliferation and US foreign policy

Cohen

Rapport

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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“…In the early 1960s, for example, US officials worried that a nuclear-armed China would cause Taiwan, Japan, India, Pakistan, and other states to acquire nuclear weapons. 66 In hindsight, we now know that they were correct in some cases, but wrong in others. Using statistical analysis, Philipp Bleek has shown that reactive proliferation is not automatic, but that rather, states are more likely to proliferate in response to neighbors when three conditions are met (1) there is an intense security rivalry between the two countries, (2) the potential proliferant state does not have a security guarantee from a nuclear-armed patron (3) and the potential proliferant state has the industrial and technical capacity to launch an indigenous nuclear program.…”

Section: Further Proliferationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The History of Proliferation Optimism: Does It Have a Future?

Kroenig

2014

Journal of Strategic Studies

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Students of international politics known as 'proliferation optimists' argue that when it comes to the spread of nuclear weapons 'more may be better' because nuclear weapons deter great power war and produce greater levels of international stability. This essay provides a critique of proliferation optimism, challenging optimism's conception of nuclear deterrence theory, its logical underpinnings, and its policy recommendations. It does this by conducting an intellectual history of proliferation optimism, identifying the core weaknesses of proliferation optimism as a theoretical framework, and articulating the myriad threats posed by nuclear proliferation.Should we worry about the spread of nuclear weapons? At first glance, this might appear to be an absurd question. After all, nuclear weapons are the most powerful weapons ever created by humankind. A single nuclear weapon could vaporize large portions of a major metropolitan area, killing millions of people, and a full-scale nuclear war between superpowers could end life on Earth as we know it. For decades during the Cold War, the public feared nuclear war and postapocalyptic nuclear war scenarios became a subject of fascination and terror in popular culture. Meanwhile, scholars carefully theorized the dangers of nuclear weapons and policymakers made nuclear nonproliferation a top national priority.

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“…As Francis Gavin has shown, there is no historical relationship between the designation of states as 'rogue' by the US and the propensity of those states for irrational actions when it comes to nuclear weapons. 48 The Soviet Union and China-both of which were routinely identified as 'rogues' following their acquisition of nuclear weapons-exercised restraint and responsibility in managing their respective nuclear stockpiles. Interestingly, by contrast, during the early period of the Cold War, it was the United States that periodically issued explicit and thinly veiled nuclear threats against non-nuclear weapon states in an effort to gain coercive advantage during crises.…”

Section: Extended Nuclear Deterrence Is Redundant In the Twenty-firstmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extended nuclear deterrence in East Asia: redundant or resurgent?

O’Neil¹

2011

International Affairs

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Nuclear weapons have lost none of their capacity to stir serious debate among scholars and policy-makers. Despite the passage of time since the Cold War-a period during which the harsh reality of mutual assured destruction pervaded relations between the superpowers-there remains a wide gulf dividing both policy-makers and non-government experts over what the appropriate role for nuclear weapons should be in the twenty-first century. This debate has ebbed and flowed over the past two decades and has been characterized by surges of optimism from those who believe nuclear weapons will be consigned to the dustbin of history in the near future and matching surges of pessimism from those who maintain that nuclear weapons will always be with us.In recent discussions, significant attention has focused on the issue of nuclear deterrence and the closely related question of whether security guarantees from nuclear weapon states to non-nuclear weapon states involving the possible use of nuclear weapons have a place in the twenty-first-century global strategic landscape. While some have sought to highlight what they see as the continuing utility of extended nuclear deterrence, other contributors to the literature remain sceptical that it has a role to play in stabilizing strategic relationships among states. Some, indeed, argue that extended nuclear deterrence constitutes a major obstacle to reducing the salience of nuclear weapons worldwide. According to this perspective, by reifying nuclear deterrence as a dimension of the security guarantees that lie at the heart of its alliance networks, the United States is effectively blocking progress towards bringing the number of nuclear weapons down to levels where complete disarmament can become a feasible option for policymakers. 1 Others have even claimed that, given doubts about whether any US administration would actually consider employing nuclear weapons in situations other than when American territory is threatened directly by a nuclear-armed adversary, extended deterrence is merely a rhetorical device designed to shore up alliances. As one leading expert has observed, 'there is no such thing as "the nuclear umbrella" … one US administration after the other has told allies what they wish to hear, calculating that a little loose rhetoric is surely less harmful than * This article was written as part of an Australian Research Council project (LP0883246). 1 See e.g. Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal, 'The logic of zero: toward a world without nuclear weapons ', Foreign Affairs 87: 6, Nov.-Dec. 2008, pp. 80-95.

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Blasts from the Past: Proliferation Lessons from the 1960s

Cited by 49 publications

References 2 publications

Strategic surprise, nuclear proliferation and US foreign policy

Strategic surprise, nuclear proliferation and US foreign policy

The History of Proliferation Optimism: Does It Have a Future?

Extended nuclear deterrence in East Asia: redundant or resurgent?

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