The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions

Abstract

Building on the rationalist literature on sanctions, this article argues that economic and political sanctions are a successful tool of nonproliferation policy, but that selection effects have rendered this success largely hidden. Since the late 1970s-when the United States made the threat of sanctions credible through congressional legislation and began regularly employing sanctions against proliferating states-sanctions have been ineffective in halting ongoing nuclear weapons programs, but they have succeeded in deterring states from starting nuclear weapons programs in the first place and have thus contributed to a decline in the rate of nuclear pursuit. The logic of the argument is simple: rational leaders assess the risk of sanctions before initiating a nuclear weapons program, which produces a selection effect whereby states highly vulnerable to sanctions are deterred from starting nuclear weapons programs in the first place, so long as the threat is credible. Vulnerability is a function of a state's level of economic and security dependence on the United States-states with greater dependence have more to lose from US sanctions and are more likely to be sensitive to US-sponsored norms. The end result of this selection effect is that since the late 1970s, only insulated, inward-looking regimes have pursued nuclear weapons and become the target of imposed sanctions, thus rendering the observed success rate of nonproliferation sanctions low. I find support for the argument based on statistical analysis of a global sample of countries from 1950 to 2000, an original data set of US nonproliferation sanctions episodes, and qualitative analysis of the South Korean and Taiwanese nuclear weapons programs.Starting in the 1970s and continuing to sanctions against Iran in the present day, US policy-makers have long considered sanctions central to US efforts to halt nuclear proliferation and have employed them regularly. Many scholars of nonproliferation are similarly optimistic about the role of sanctions, arguing they are an important component of the nonproliferation policy toolkit. 1 Despite their centrality to US nonproliferation policy, the efficacy of these efforts-which include financial and trade restrictions, economic and military aid cutoffs, termination of peaceful nuclear cooperation, as well as threats to weaken military alliance relationships-remains

A Dynamic Theory of Nuclear Proliferation and Preventive War

“…Germany and Japan, the only plausible potential attackers of the US program, Coe and Vaynman (2015);Miller (2014); Rabinowitz and Miller (2015). 31 Burr and Richelson (2001).…”

Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

“…This is not a simple problem to address, but we cannot understand the causal effect of the NPT without properly accounting for the process by which states are assigned to the "treatment" or "control" group. Statistical studies published to date have generally been designed to broadly identify the correlates or predictors of proliferation (Singh and Way, 2004;Jo and Gartzke, 2007) or to test arguments about nuclear proliferation that are unrelated to the NPT (e.g., Miller, 2014). As a result, these studies aim to control for variables that might predict proliferation rather than factors that might confound the relationship between NPT ratification and proliferation.…”

“…The extant literature does not provide a clear answer. While many studies have examined the correlation between NPT ratification and nuclear proliferation (e.g., Jo and Gartzke, 2007;Horowitz, 2010;Miller, 2014), these studies are not designed to reduce the strength of the assumptions needed to infer a causal connection. States "self-select" into the treaty, meaning that whether they enter the treaty depends partly on their treaty commitment preferences (Downs, Rocke, and Barsoom, 1996;von Stein, 2005).…”

“…It is therefore important to better understand how and why nuclear weapons spread and how the risk of proliferation can be reduced. Scholars have devoted renewed attention to this issue over the last decade (e.g., Jo and Gartzke, 2007;Horowitz, 2010;Miller, 2014;Narang, 2014;Way and Weeks, 2014;Monteiro and Debs, 2014), but our understanding of the NPT's effects remains incomplete. We contribute to this burgeoning literature by showing that the NPT is central to understanding nuclear proliferation dynamics.…”

Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation

“…18 In some cases, the United States even threatened coercive actions, including sanctions or abandonment, against ostensible Cold War allies such as West Germany, Taiwan, South Korea, and Pakistan to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. 19 If containment was the sole driver of U.S. grand strategy during the Cold War, then one might imagine that the United States would have wanted its friends to possess these powerful weapons to help balance against the Soviet Union or, at the very least, would try to avoid alienating its allies with its vigorous nonproliferation policies.…”