Harald Muller

The
Future
of
Nuclear
http://www.twq.com/08spring/docs/08spring_muller.pdf
Weapons in an
Interdependent World
2008 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
The Washington Quarterly 31:2 pp. 6375.
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008 63
Harald Muller is director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt in
Germany and a professor
of international relations at Frankfurt University. He may be reached at
[email protected].
This is not only the age of growing proliferation temptations, but
also of globalization and power change. We are in a seminal transition
from
the European-Atlanticdominated, state-powercentered, geostrategic,
and
geoeconomic era to the future Asian-dominated, governance-needy,
universalist
agea transition that demands breathtaking changes in thinking.
The well-entrenched strategic communities are, almost by definition,
conservative.
Even though the catchword new is attached to market preferred
strategies (new threats, new nuclear age, etc.),1 what is marketed
is pretty
well known, from French nuclear strategy to NATOs doctrine to Putins
revival
of Gromyko-like boasting about military power. In reality, a new
security
paradigm requires bold steps to establish an international order based
on
rule-governed cooperative security.2 It is not arms control that is
obsolete,
but the pipe dreams about absolute security, full spectrum
dominance, and
other concepts of unilateral illusion. The Cold War was nothing other
than
the training ground for a much more ambitious and challenging
cooperative
game.
The paradigm shift we are facing is no less than what the geniuses of
European
integration after World War II, such as Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de
Gasperi,

Jean Monnet, and Robert Schuman, endeavored after 400 years of

mutual
slaughter by their fellow Europeans. Intellectual inertia tempts us to
deal with
old acquaintances as if nothing has changed since the Manhattan
Project,
the Sputnik shock, or the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty
(NPT). Yet, the world is profoundly different. Although the nation-state
has
not already been relegated to the ash heap of history and the utility of
arms
l Harald Muller
The Washington 64 Quarterly Spring 2008
control cannot be confined to the special conditions of the Cold War,
the circumstances
affecting state survival today are very different from those of the
centuries since the Westphalian system was installed in 1648.
It is ironic that pundits of old ways of thinking star as revolutionaries.
Some
declare that arms control is dead; because it was invented for the Cold
War, it
has to be obsolete because that era is over. The prescription is instead
to insist
on pushing forward with national missile defense (invented for the
1960s
and revived in the 1980s), refuse a change in NATOs nuclear posture
(invented
for the 1950s), and maintain a four-digit number of strategic nuclear
warheads, including a sizable part on high alert, as throughout the Cold
War.
Measures of cooperative security applied to armaments are not
obsolete at all
under present circumstances, even though these circumstances are
different
from those of the Cold War. Such measures, however, are naturally
anathema
if one today embraces unfettered self-help and a position of superiority
with a
view to staying ahead in an ever-accelerating arms race as many did
throughout
the Cold War.3
Arms control, arms reductions, disarmament, and nonproliferation are
humble servants of state security. They are not impediments to
national

defense, but rather they complement it, relieving defense efforts from
unnecessary
burdens. State security is contingent on the politico-economic
environment
within which states exist. For this reason, it would be parochial if
the security community did not recognize that states face new and
immense
changes that call for institutionalized security cooperation, particularly
agreed
nuclear weapons reductions.
Growing Interdependence
Todays international environment is characterized by thick
interdependency
that is growing by the day through the inexorable processes of
globalization.
Even assuming capability and the obligation of the state to protect its
citizens
against any excessive negative consequences of unfettered
globalization, such
regulatory activities necessitate broad-based international cooperation
including
not just states but nonstate actors as well.4
Such cooperation leads away from the traditional ways of the
Westphalian
system in which states and societies usually cared for and fenced in
themselves.
Self-help as the general norm in security and economics is no longer
viable in a world in which almost anybody depends on everybody.
Some may
greet that development as the dawn of an age of cosmopolitanism,
others may
loathe it as the beginning of an age of uniformity, but it cannot be
helped
globalization is progressing anyway. Pushing unilateralism presents no
way
out, as the Bush administration is learning at the cost of the people
who have
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008
The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World l
65
elected it twice. This insight forms the basis of the European Union,
whose
founding members recognized that their security and economic wellbeing
were inexorably intertwined and acted accordingly, breaching with
centuries

of political tradition. Today, this basic condition has extended to most

parts of
the globe.
For tomorrow, the world needs a security
order in which distrust among participants
is reduced to such a degree that far-reaching
cooperation becomes possible. Cooperation
yields gains, and gains are distributed among
participants. If a state fears that the profit
that its collaboration affords to another state
actor will be turned against it, readiness to cooperate
shrinks down to zero.5 If there is sufficient
confidence that a partner will abide by
the rules to which all have committed, however, readiness to extend
cooperation
will grow proportionally. Cooperative security,6 then, is the key not only
to keeping peace in an age of globalization, but also the necessary
condition
to enhancing cooperation in nonsecurity sectors as well, with a view to
avoid
common evil such as climate change or global health hazards, to
regulate
disturbances such as uncontrolled migration and terrorism, and to
enhance
welfare by increasing trade and investment and by curbing negative
social
externalities.
The function of arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation in this
context is to help move the world from an era of self-help into an era of
cooperative
and collective security. Arms control textbooks of the 1960s and 1970s
did not address this transformational function. This role of a catalyst
and an
amplifier for transformational policy came between 1985 and 1992,
when arms
control and security policy in general generated a positive feedback
circle that
transferred the world from one stage, Cold War, to another, general
security
cooperation in Europe.7
When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in Moscow, he faced the great
challenge
of convincing his Western partners that he was a different type of
leader.
He also sought to prove to his peers in Moscow that the sweeping
changes he

was about to pursue in Soviet military strategy and the ensuing

posture were
not risking the national security of the Soviet Union. Arms control
helped
him in both regards. He used it to signal to the West that the first
political
changes were not just cosmetic, but something that would have
tangible positive
consequences for Western security.
The first signal he sent was the acceptance of binding obligations to
allow
observers to large maneuvers, which were agreed during the
Stockholm conThe world needs
a security order in
which far-reaching
cooperation becomes
possible.
l Harald Muller
The Washington 66 Quarterly Spring 2008
ference in 1986. One year later, he signed the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty, in which the United States and the Soviet Union
agreed
to eliminate all nuclear-armed ground-launched intermediate ballistic
and
cruise missiles. The United States proved willing to give up the
Pershing II
missile in the INF Treaty, a weapon that Moscow saw as meant to
decapitate
the Soviet leadership in a conflict, due to its very short flight time of
eight
minutes from Western Europe to Moscow and
to its high precision. Gorbachev renounced a
definitive quantitative advantage, as the Soviet
Union had to scrap about three times as
many warheads as the United States did, and
accepted very intrusive inspections at military
facilities on the Soviet Unions own territory
for the first time.
Encouraged by the INF Treaty, the West became
willing to enhance security cooperation
and to engage in a wider-reaching economic exchange. The United
States,
with some reluctance, agreed to include conventional aircraft in the
Conventional

Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty of 1990, subjecting the most

capable conventional weapon in Western possession to constraints and
reductions.
The CFE Treaty created equal levels of conventional forces in Europe
from the Atlantic to the Urals, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START) I in 1990 and START II in 1992 enhanced strategic nuclear
stability
by reducing the warhead-to-missile ratio. START II also prohibited
intercontinental
ballistic missiles with more than a single warhead altogether. Because
the Soviet Union had many more heavy missiles that could carry six
or even
10 warheads, a possible Soviet first strike, one of the main threat
scenarios
that had haunted U.S. strategic planners, became obsolete.
Gorbachev used arms control to convince his Western partners step by
step that he was serious about dtente, but Western concessions
helped him
to convince his Soviet colleagues that the West was not about to abuse
these
bold Soviet steps. Western behavior generally did not become more
aggressive
as a consequence of more balanced military structures in Europe. Arms
control progress thus served as a large-scale confidence-building
measure and
facilitated concessions at the political plane as well, such as the
increasing
political independence granted to Soviet allies in Eastern Europe up to
the fall
of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
There is no alternative to an era of security cooperation. Hegemony is
no
longer working, a world state is light years away, and a heterogeneous
community
of almost 200 states is pressed to develop peaceful coexistence and
cooperation despite an environment of deep mutual mistrust, salient
conflicts,
Nuclear weapons
reductions are
essential to manage
great-power relations.
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008
The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World l
67
and, above all, multiple arms races, not least a new emerging one
among the

major powers.
The Current Arms Race
The signs of this emerging race are apparent. The United States,
according
to its national security strategies of 2002 and 2006, is poised to defend
superiority
at almost all costs against all potential rivals.8 In order to achieve this
lofty goal, it has developed victory-granting offensive options
throughout all
dimensions of military contestsea, land, air, space, and the electronic
spectrum.
Full spectrum dominance, underlined by the hope and a determined
program for ballistic missile defense, may sound promising to U.S.
strategists
but projects to be a nightmare for those who might view Washington
with less
trustful eyes than most Europeans do, including major powers China
and Russia,
among others.
Not surprisingly, China has reacted to the trend in U.S. armaments with
a measured but steady development of its nuclear deterrent. Yet even
today,
the second-strike capability of Beijings deterrent posture against the
United
States is at best small and at worst not ensured at all. China has
demonstrated
an antisatellite capability, although of relatively primitive vintage,
which it has
tested as a targeted signal to the United States. After many failed
Chinese and
Russian attempts to negotiate a prohibition of stationing weapons in
space,
China is prepared to develop its own military options. A situation in
which
everybody is nervous about the vulnerability of its satellite assets
cannot be
labeled stable.
Russia has reciprocated the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile
Treaty by renouncing its START commitment. Consequently, Russia is
free to
return to the production and deployment of multiple independently
targetable
reentry vehicles, the stability nightmare of the old days. It is now
focusing

on maneuverable warheads and advanced decoys while also pushing

for enhanced
conventional options within the limits of its technical capabilities.
The recently tested Russian version of the daisy cutter bomb,
although not
the miracle weapon announced in the press, demonstrates a renewed
readiness
to compete in the arms race. These dangerous weapons could enter
the
arms trade and eventually end up in the hands of nonstate actors, a
sobering
thought that should not be lost on security analysts.
As China and Russia struggle to find means of self-defense and
deterrence
to protect their perceived vital interests and status, India is taking
efforts to
keep up with Chinas progress. Although the Indian military
expenditure is
one-quarter to one-third of Chinas, Indias forces are probably more
effective,
its navy is more experienced and proficient, and its mastery of
information
l Harald Muller
The Washington 68 Quarterly Spring 2008
technology may make advances in the revolution in military affairs
smoother
than for its Asian neighbor. India and China are in a subdued and
relatively
slow but nevertheless progressing nuclear arms race, and a naval arms
race
is ongoing as well, with Chinas naval positions in Burma and Pakistan
and
Indias only joint forces headquarters in the Andaman Islands in the
Bay of
Bengal as clear indicators. With India racing against China, Pakistan
follows,
racing behind India as well as it can.
The United States is not doing badly for an advanced economy with 3
to
4 percent growth, but the two Asian giants are making headway with
growth
rates close to or higher than 10 percent. Of course, there are stumbling
blocs
on their road to development, such as fragmentation and a backward
infrastructure
in India and vast regional disparities and an anachronistic political

system in China. Yet, the United States has its own stumbling block: an
enormous
budget deficit as a consequence of imperial overstretch that shows no
signs of abating. Any or all of the three could stumble or could continue
the
present economic trend. Assuming continuation, China will be at the
United
States economic level within one generation, and India will be one-half
of a
generation later.
A power transition creates dangerous times.9 Most challenges to a
hegemon
in world history, whether successful or not, have precipitated war or a
series of
wars. Todays interdependence will surely serve to make great powers
cautious
about armed conflict, but it cannot completely guarantee such a
conflict will
not occur. Bones of contention exist, notably between the United
States and
China: Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the competition for Persian
Gulf
and Central Asian energy resources. Although there exists a naive
belief that
great-power war has been eliminated as a possibility in world politics,
exaggerated
complacency could become extremely dangerous. Interdependence
itself and advanced weaponry, nuclear weapons included, would mean
that a
violent contest among the big powers would be an unmitigated
catastrophe.
The relationships among those powers must be carefully managed if a
clash is
to be avoided, and nuclear weapons reductions are an essential
contribution
to this management.
Paranoids, Pygmies, Pariahs, and Proliferation
U.S. strategist Richard Betts coined the three Ps in 1976 to cover the
most
prominent motivations for nuclear proliferation: paranoids, pygmies,
and
pariahs.10 States with exaggerated concerns about existential threats
to their
security try to procure the ultimate assurance of their survival. Small
states

long for an existential deterrent against potentially more powerful

enemies.
For badly isolated states, nuclear weapons might not just be the only
way to
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008
The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World l
69
persist in a wicked world but might also provide a means to overcome
the
loathed isolation.
In all three models, the process that leads to nuclear weapons is not
independent
of the international security environment. This environment is
in turn largely shaped by the great powers, who happen to be the five
official
nuclear-weapon states. Their record in creating a viable environment
for
smaller actors to remain nonnuclear is unconvincing. China has been
bullying
Taiwan and continues to do so. Threatening
gestures toward Japan enhances Tokyos nervousness,
already aroused because of North
Koreas nuclearization. Chinese territorial
claims in the South China Sea could have had
serious repercussions among resource-rich
countries of Southeast Asia; fortunately, China
has turned to milder manners recently.
In contrast, Russia plays hardball with its
near abroad and unwisely flexes its political
muscle on the presently favorable energy market.
The United States always keeps all options on the table and pleases
itself with declaring axes of evil at will without considering the
possible
repercussions in the target states. U.S. presidential candidates appear
to be
in a kind of competition over which Muslim country should be the
primary
target for an air attack, with Iran, Pakistan, and even Saudi Arabia
having
been nominated as candidates by armchair strategists.11 The U.S.
inclination
to pressure, sanction, threaten, and occasionally attack enemies of its
choice,
a threat which invariably has a nuclear undertone, contributes to the
anxiousness

of the paranoids, pygmies, and pariahs to acquire some sort of

deterrent,
if not nuclear then at least biological or chemical weapons.
The smaller nuclear-weapon states have a less negative record in
practice.
Yet, in terms of doctrine, the United Kingdom has quietly followed the
U.S.
lead to expand the contingencies for employing nuclear weapons to
chemical
and biological environments,12 and then-president Jacques Chirac of
France
declared access to strategically important resources to be a vital
interest covered
by the nuclear umbrella.13 Oil-producing states should be forgiven if
they
are not amused about this hardly veiled threat.
The Brittle State of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime
The NPT is the cornerstone of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. It
rests on
a bargain between nuclear-weapon states and nonnuclear-weapon
states. The
latter agree to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons but are
guaranteed the
The state of the
nonproliferation
regime is a dangerous
precondition for
rampant proliferation.
l Harald Muller
The Washington 70 Quarterly Spring 2008
right to develop civilian nuclear energy without constraints as long as
they are
parties to the treaty in good standing. All parties are obliged to engage
in civilian
nuclear cooperation to give this right substance, and the nuclearweapon
states are committed to making serious moves toward nuclear
disarmament.
Until 2000, the nonnuclear-weapon states, particularly those
belonging to
the Non-Aligned Movement, were not uncritical of the nuclear-weapon
states
record, but they were satisfied that the process of disarmament was
underway.
The 2000 NPT Review Conference brought the hard-fought compromise
of the

13 steps on nuclear disarmament, a series of moderate, incremental

measures
that would lead to some progress without questioning the nuclearweapon status
of the five in the foreseeable future.14 Nevertheless, in 2005 the
nuclear-weapon
states, led by the United States and to a certain degree by France,
refused to
recognize to what they had agreed in 2000, having apparently come to
the conclusion
that the concessions were too far-reaching. Among nonnuclearweapon
states, there is now the strong impression that the NPTs Article VI, the
disarmament
obligation, is dead in the eyes of the nuclear haves. With the bargain
shattered, the iron law of armament would apply: the most powerful
weapon of
an era is inevitably either had by none or by all. The present state of
the nuclear
nonproliferation regime, combined with the fundamental insecurity of
all states
with whom the nuclear-weapon states have unfriendly relations, seems
to be a
dangerous precondition for rampant proliferation.
A world populated by many nuclear-weapon states poses grave
dangers. Regional
conflicts could escalate to the nuclear level. The optimistic expectation
of a universal law according to which nuclear deterrence prevents all
wars15
rests on scant historical evidence and is dangerously naive. Nuclear
uses in
one part of the world could trigger catalytic war between greater
powers,
drawing them into smaller regional conflicts, particularly if tensions are
high.
This was always a fear during the Cold War, and it motivated
nonproliferation
policy in the first place. Moreover, the more states that possess nuclear
weapons
and related facilities, the more points of access are available to
terrorists.
Combating Nuclear Terrorism
We hear and read frequently that arms reduction and nonproliferation
agreements
are useless against nuclear terrorism because terrorists do not abide
by

treaties. This empty phrase justifies unmitigated self-help strategies,

including
preventive war. Of course, terrorists do not obey the law, and no one
who has
proposed considering utilizing nonproliferation agreements for that
purpose
has ever pretended that they do. What agreements can achieve,
however, is
to oblige states-parties to take measures that make it much more
difficult for
terrorists to obtain the most dangerous weapons.
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008
The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World l
71
One of the striking victories for this approach was UN Security Council
Resolution 1540, which was adopted in 2004 on the initiative of the
Bush
administration. Resolution 1540, in a nutshell, has universalized
undertakings
that either were contained in the international treaty regimes
governing the
realms of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons proliferation or
emerged
from voluntary agreements of countries that were willing to strengthen
the
norms contained in these treaties. These measures aim to establish
strict state
control over materials, equipment, and technologies that in the wrong
hands
could help terrorists make these particularly deadly weapons.
In addition to Security Council actions, the work of states-parties to
these
treaties to add additional antiterrorist instruments to their previous
practice is
noteworthy. The parties to the Biological Weapons Convention use their
cycle
of meetings of experts and states-parties, initially placebos to
compensate for
the failed attempt to agree on a transparency and compliance protocol,
to seek
ways for better protection against terrorism.
Nuclear Disarmament and Its Red Herrings
Taking complete nuclear disarmament as a serious and achievable
objective
would contribute to a world order shaped by cooperative security.
Some argue

that nuclear disarmament is impossible because nuclear technology

cannot be
uninvented. This has not hindered states and societies from prohibiting
all
sorts of unwanted things, such as dangerous drugs, fluorocarbons,
chemical
weapons, dum-dum bullets, and slavery.
Nuclear disarmament is necessary because the logic of armament
under the
security dilemma is cogent. Either no one possesses them for their
security, or
all do.16 If a few possess them while the rest do not, security will be
distributed
unequally, and the uncertainty will be too big for the have-nots to
resist
the temptation to catch up in the long run. That the threats and
policies of
the nuclear haves can only accelerate this process is obvious. The NPT
recognizes
this crisp logic by combining Article II, the renunciation of nuclear
weapons by nonnuclear-weapon states, with Article VI, the obligation
by
the nuclear-weapon states to disarm. To believe that the rest of the
world will
entrust nuclear stewardship forever in a select few is exactly the naive,
idealist
utopianism that nuclear pundits ascribe to promoters of nuclear
disarmament,
such as Generals Smedley Butler and Charles A. Horner or Andrew J.
Goodpaster,
Henry Kissinger, Paul Nitze, Sam Nunn, William Perry, and George P.
Shultz.17
Second, some claim that what the nuclear-weapon states do does not
affect
the course of proliferation and nonproliferation at all.18 Rather,
proliferators
act on their idiosyncratic security concerns or their sinister
machinations for
l Harald Muller
The Washington 72 Quarterly Spring 2008
power expansion. In reality, however, the actions of nuclear-weapon
states affect
the proliferation/nonproliferation process in no less than four ways.
First,
they shape the security environment of potential proliferators. Even a
conventional

threat from a nuclear-weapon state always carries a nuclear shadow.

Second, they project the politico-military utility
of nuclear weapons by their doctrines and
strategies. Third, they project the status value
of nuclear weapons (this particularly applies to
the smaller, European nuclear-weapon states,
France and the United Kingdom). Finally,
they weaken the norm of nonproliferation by
undermining the unity of the NPT community,
thus preventing it from acting with determination
against rule-breakers. To believe that these four impact paths are
inconsequential in the difficult if not agonizing deliberations of a
government
considering to go nuclear is far removed from political realism.
Whereas the all or none logic is the negative part of the prodisarmament
argument, the positive is that identifying the formidable obstacles and
de vising incremental measures to denuclearize leads toward everincreasing
security cooperation, which is necessary anyway in the age of
globalization.
Nuclear disarmament will only be possible by devising a sequence of
carefully
drafted steps, each of which brings us closer to the goal without
endangering
the national security of any party involved in the process.
That leads to the third antidisarmament red herring, that the end-state
is treated as if proponents would wish to achieve it tomorrow. Yet,
disarmament
is path dependent. For example, it requires precise knowledge about
the nuclear weapons infrastructure of every country involved. This
could be
achieved by starting with a verified cutoff treaty that would supervise
factories
in which fissile material has been produced for weapons purposes and
of
facilities in which there is a flow of material from refurbished nuclear
weapons
as long as they still exist. As we come closer to the end-state, more
and more
sites will have to be included, and intrusiveness will become more indepth.
As time goes by, nuclear-weapon states gain an ever more precise
picture of
what their peers have and where.19

Likewise, the history of nuclear weapons production will have to be

established
as precisely as possible. A precedent is available. During the
International
Atomic Energy Agencys verification of South Africas nuclear
disarmament claims, the agency had to retroactively reestablish the
record of
fissile material production and use. The task will be more challenging
by orders
of magnitude for the larger nuclear-weapon states, but it is far from
clear
that it would be impossible.
The disarmament
process would extend
over 30 to 50 years.
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008
The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World l
73
The disarmament process would extend over 30 to 50 years. Perhaps
an initial
goal of 30 years could be a helpful stimulus, after which an extension
for
all can be granted by agreement if the obstacles prove too formidable.
It is unlikely
that a national plan for cheating would be kept alive for so long, as the
process will not only be the result of governments actions but will
conversely
help transform the way governments think and define their security, as
it did
during the terminal phase of the Cold War as discussed earlier. The
world of
states will not stay the same, just as the European world of states did
not stay
the same through 50 years of the European integration process. States
will
change their ways in an environment of increasingly institutionalized
nuclear
security cooperation. Denser institutionalization
and bolder steps will become possible as
states change their practices.
Twenty years into the disarmament process,
different possibilities will be realistically attainable
for politicians, just as security cooperation
for the European Community eventually
became possible after initially being excluded
at its foundation. The process must start

somewhere, and its path must be well chartered.

For this reason, the recent change in the policies of the U.S. and British
governments is highly welcome. They have opened a serious
discussion on the
conditions of a nuclear weaponsfree world and on the snags and
stumbling
blocs in the way toward it.20 Even though governments inherent
caution will
obviously and inevitably emphasize snags and stumbling blocks more
than the
goal, it is nevertheless a necessary and positive step to engaging the
rest of the
world in a serious debate on these issues.
Designing the Future
Decisive parameters must inform the design for future nuclear arms
reductions
policies. The world has shrunk, and mutual dependence is increasingly
the condition of humans and of nation-states as well, which remain the
most
important political units on the globe. Traditional power politics, an
emphasis
on national rather than regional and global security, and unfettered
attempts
at national self-aggrandizement bring us closer to the abyss and are
likely to
prove counterproductive to the actor who embarks on these roads in
todays
international system.
In this environment, institutionalized security cooperation in the form
of arms control, arms reductions, disarmament, and nonproliferation
are a
categorical imperative. Nuclear disarmament is at the center of this
process.
The European world
of states did not stay
the same through 50
years of integration.
l Harald Muller
The Washington 74 Quarterly Spring 2008
It is not meant as the goal for tomorrow, but for a fixed date in the
distant
future. Focusing on this objective will force the major powers to work
on
their mutual relationship in a way that affects all other aspects of
security.

In moving toward the objective of zero nuclear weapons, they will also
influence
the motivations of the have-nots and, through the legitimacy of their
own actions, will make it much easier to enforce nonproliferation
against
those few who would stubbornly pursue nuclear weapons programs in
a disarming
environment.
Notes
1. Michael Rhle, Enlightenment in the Second Nuclear Age,
International Affairs 83,
no. 3 (May 2007): 511522; Joachim Krause, Enlightenment and
Nuclear Order,
International Affairs 83, no. 3 (May 2007): 483500.
2. See William Walker, Nuclear Enlightenment and CounterEnlightenment, International
Affairs 93, no. 3 (May 2007): 431454; William Walker, Weapons of
Mass
Destruction and International Order, Adelphi Papers, no. 171 (2004).
For the broader
concept of cooperative security, see John Steinbruner, Principles of
Global Security
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000).
3. See National Security Strategy of the United States of America,
September 2002,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf (hereinafter 2002 NSS).
4. Dieter Senghaas and Michle Roth, eds., Global Governance for
Development and Peace:
Perspectives After a Decade (Bonn: Dietz, 2006).
5. Joseph M. Grieco, Cooperation Among Nations: Europe, America and
Non-tariff Barriers
to Trade (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990).
6. John Steinbruner, Principles of Global Security (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution
Press, 2000).
7. Harald Mller and Niklas Schrnig, Dynamics of Arms and Arms
Control: An Exemplary
Introduction in International Relations (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos,
2006).
8. See 2002 NSS; National Security Strategy of the United States of
America, March
2006, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006.
9. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University
Press, 1981).

10.
Richard
K.
Betts,
Paranoids,
Pygmies,
Pariahs
and
Nonproliferation, Foreign Policy,
no. 26 (Spring 1977): 157183.
11. Chris Dorsey, Tancredo Says Threat of Attack on Holy Sites Would
Deter Terrorism,
IowaPolitics.com, July 31, 2007, http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.
iml?Article=101389; Obama Terror Vow Angers Pakistan, Associated
Press, August
3,
2007,
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/03/obama.pakistan.ap/index.ht
ml;
McCain Jokes About Bombing Iran, Associated Press, April 19, 2007,
http://www.
msnbc.msn.com/id/18202742/.
12. Tony Blair Introduces White Paper, Statement to Parliament,
Disarmament Diplomacy,
no. 83 (Winter 2006): 1214; Rebecca Johnson, Blair Wins Trident Vote
After
Telling UK Parliament That the NPT Gives Britain the Right to Have
Nuclear Weapons,
Disarmament Diplomacy, no. 84 (Spring 2007): 6070.
The Washington Quarterly Spring 2008
The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World l
75
13. Speech by M. Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic, During his
Visit to the Strategic
Forces, January 19, 2006, http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Speech-byM-JacquesChirac,6771.html.
14. George Perkovich et al., Universal Compliance: A Strategy for
Nuclear Security (Washington,
D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), pp. 151153.
15. Kenneth M. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be
Better, Adelphi
Papers, no. 171 (1981).
16. Robert Jervis, Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma, World
Politics 30, no. 2
(January 1978): 167214.
17. George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam
Nunn, A World Free
of Nuclear Weapons, Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, p. A15;
George P. Shultz et
al., Toward a Nuclear-Free World, Wall Street Journal, January 15,
2008, p. A13.
18. See Pierre Hassner, The End of the NPT Regime? International
Affairs 83, no. 3

(2007): 462463.
19. See Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Security
Communities (Cambridge,
Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
20. Christopher A. Ford, The 2010 NPT Review Cycle So Far: A View
From the United
States
of
America,
December
20,
2007,
http://www.state.gov/t/wmd/nnp/c21893.htm;
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Margaret
Becket, Speech
to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Non-Proliferation
Conference,
Disarmament Diplomacy, no. 86 (Autumn 2007): 5964.
The developments in military technology often had an important impact on structures and
processes of political systems. In the later half of the 20th century, the nuclear revolution
led to mindless escalation in the nuclear sector with each Cold War bloc having the
ability to annihilate its potential adversary many times over. Deterrence was based on a
balance of United States and Soviet forces and the theory of mutual assured destruction
(MAD). In a context of such lunacy where each side sought to terrorise the other, the
United States and the Soviet Union had each at one point over 30 000 nuclear warheads,
enough firepower to destroy the world many times over!
But while the world may have Fortunately, with the ending of the cold war and the
tearing down of the iron curtain, signature of the INF, START I and START II treaties has
become possible, together with numerous unilateral reductions in nuclear arsenals. These,
if ratified and implemented in good faith, could reduce stockpiles to more reasonable
proportions and open the way for negotiation of further disarmament treaties. Or is this
perhaps too much to hope for?