U S Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy

"Examines the history and effectiveness of US efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons"--

This volume examines the causes and consequences of nuclear postures and nonproliferation policies. The real-world importance of nuclear weapons has led to the production of a voluminous scholarly literature on the causes and consequences of nuclear weapons proliferation. Missing from this literature, however, is a more nuanced analysis that moves beyond a binary treatment of nuclear weapons possession, to an exploration of how different nuclear postures and nonproliferation policies may influence the proliferation of nuclear weapons and subsequent security outcomes. This volume addresses this deficit by focusing on the causes and consequences of nuclear postures and nonproliferation policies. It is the aim of this book to advance the development of a new empirical research agenda that brings systematic research methods to bear on new dimensions of the nuclear weapons phenomenon. Prior to the contributions in this volume, there has been little evidence to suggest that nuclear postures and policies have a meaningful impact on the spread of nuclear weapons or security outcomes. This book brings together a new generation of scholars, advancing innovative theoretical positions, and performing quantitative tests using original data on nuclear postures, nonproliferation policies, and WMD proliferation. Together, the chapters in this volume make novel theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to the field of nuclear weapons proliferation. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, international relations and security studies.

The Nonproliferation Predicament is an authoritative and comprehensive look at U.S. nonprolif-eration policy. Top U.S. scholars, analysts, and policymakers focus on the period since the Reagan administration took office and address several questions about the current state of nuclear proliferation: As the international non-proliferation regime evolves will it continue to be responsive to the problem of proliferation? Or will it become superannuated by new technologies, or enmeshed in domestic and international political controversies and conflicting interests? What nonproliferation policies are likely to be effective in the 1980s and beyond, as nations continue efforts to establish and expand nuclear industrial bases, providing them with capabilities useful for the pursuit of weapons options in the future? Does the stagnation of the international nuclear market and the difficulties of nuclear threshold states like India give reasons for hope? Or will the limited proliferation of the past prove to have been a passing anomaly in military history?