Nuclear Deterrence In A Multipolar World

The view that America and Russia have burned their candles on security cooperation with respect to nuclear weapons is simply mistaken. This timely study identifies twelve themes or issue areas that must be addressed by the United States and Russia if they are to provide shared, successful leadership in the management of nuclear world order. Designed as supplementary reading in upper division and graduate courses in national security policy, defense, and nuclear arms control, it is also suitable for courses taught at military staff and command colleges and-or war colleges.

This report has aimed to take stock of the nuclear policies and postures of the United States and its three primary nuclear rivals--Russia, China, and North Korea. We therefore have covered only a part of the global strategic landscape, which includes five additional nuclear weapons states and an aspiring nuclear power in Iran. Nevertheless, this partial assessment has demonstrated that the nuclear order is undergoing a transition. We are entering an unprecedented multipolar nuclear world where the United States must simultaneously deter two nuclear great powers, and the nuclear dangers are growing.

This Report contains a Consensus Report and the papers submitted to the April 6 -10, 1995 NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Strategic Stability In The Post-Cold War World And The Future Of Nuclear Disarmament, held in Washington D. C. , United States Of America of at The Airlie Conference Center. The workshop was sponsored by the NATO Division Scientific and Environmental Affairs as part of its ongoing outreach programme to widen and deepen scientific contacts between NATO member countries and the Cooperation Partner countries of the former Warsaw Treaty Organization. The participants recognize that the collapse of the former Soviet Union has left a conceptual vacuum in the definition of a new world order. Never before have the components of world order all changed so rapidly, so deeply, or so globally. As Henry Kissinger points out, the emergence of the new world order will have answered three fundamental questions:" What are the basic units of the international order? What are their means of interacting? and What are the goals on behalf of which they interact? " The main question is whether the establishment and maintenance of an international system will turn out to be a conscious design, or the outgrowth of a test of strength. The concept of a planning framework that could shape or govern these interactions is emerging and may now be at hand. Capturing this emerging framework is the thrust of this NATO-sponsored Advanced Research Workshop.

In the twenty-first century, the United States confronts an international system of great complexity and shifting security challenges. Among these challenges are those posed by nuclear weapons. Instead of becoming obsolete or being marginalized by the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons have become more important to present and future international stability and peace but the relationship is paradoxical. On one hand, the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states with unsettled grievances or hegemonic ambitions threatens to destabilize local balances of power and set off regional arms races. In addition, the possible acquisition by terrorists of nuclear weapons or fissile materials creates a threat that may be ’beyond deterrence’ according to hitherto accepted concepts. On the other hand, nuclear weapons in the hands of other states can contribute to stable deterrence and help to prevent nuclear proliferation to international miscreants. Certain cases loom large in the short run that highlight this book’s relevance, including the possible acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran and the continuing tensions created by North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The Obama ’pivot’ of national security and defense emphasis to Asia reflects not only the growing economic importance of that region, but also the growing number of security dilemmas in a region that is already awash in nuclear forces. The management of nuclear crises and even the possible need to terminate nuclear wars before they expand beyond a single region are among the possible challenges facing future U.S. and allied policy makers and military leaders.

The threat of nuclear weapons did not fade away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather, the geopolitical disorders of the post-Cold War era and the rise of global terrorism have ensured that they remain conspicuously present on the world stage as a serious international concern. With the eight or nine nuclear powers maintaining about 27,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenals to this day, it is clear that they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The primary mission of these nuclear forces has been and remains deterrence. Using plain language rather than policy jargon, this historically focused book shows how nuclear deterrence has worked rather than how it should. It then shows how the growing threat of nuclear proliferation threatens to create a far more complicated international situation largely because of the attendant proliferation of state nuclear deterrents. By drawing on a wide array of new sources from international archives and the latest in international scholarship, Coleman and Siracusa put some of the most important and enduring problems of nuclear deterrence over the past sixty years into global context. Nuclear deterrence in the real world often operates very differently from how it should according to the prevailing theories, and Coleman and Siracusa take a fresh look at how nuclear weapons policy has been made, finding that it often has had surprisingly little to do with what works and what does not. By studying in depth how governments here and abroad have confronted and dealt with some of the most important issues in nuclear weapons policy, for example, How many nuclear weapons are enough? and What is it that will deter? they find that the making of nuclear weapons policy is a complex, fluid bargaining process subject to the tides of politics, budgets, threat perception, ideology, technology, parochial service rivalries, flawed information, and sometimes just plain wishful thinking.

This book contains papers presented at a conference held at the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation in 1991. The papers reflect the spectrum of thought in the expert community that is likely to frame the policy debate over the future of nuclear deterrence. .

A leading international security strategist offers a compelling new way to "think about the unthinkable." The cold war ended more than two decades ago, and with its end came a reduction in the threat of nuclear weapons—a luxury that we can no longer indulge. It's not just the threat of Iran getting the bomb or North Korea doing something rash; the whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics. In short, we have entered the second nuclear age. In this provocative and agenda-setting book, Paul Bracken of Yale University argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities. He walks us through war-game scenarios that are all too realistic, to show how nuclear weapons are changing the calculus of power politics, and he offers an incisive tour of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia to underscore how the United States must not allow itself to be unprepared for managing such crises. Frank in its tone and farsighted in its analysis, The Second Nuclear Age is the essential guide to the new rules of international politics.