Nuclear Proliferation: Are More Nuclear Weapons Better?

Introduction

The infamous nuclear optimism debate of Kenneth Waltz surfaced in 1995 when Waltz and Scott D. Sagan published their article “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons.” The article encapsulates the two caveats that center on the intricacies of nuclear proliferation across the globe. Sagan takes a liberalist approach to the horizontal spread of these disastrous weapons, highlighting that “more may be worse” to maintain peace in the international system following the precedents of the world wars and therefore, taking the route of nuclear pessimism.  

Kenneth Waltz maintains a contrasting narrative. He presents the globalized world through a realist lens, pointing out the greedy nature of the international system, where states must acquire increasingly harmful weaponry to maintain their security. In this regard, he suggests “more may be better.” Waltz’s perspective codifies nuclear weapons not as a means of destruction but rather as tools of deterrence that may hinder the adversaries from engaging in full-scale wars because the retaliatory attack by nuclear weapons shall lead to total annihilation.

Suppressing Vertical Proliferation

Waltz’s optimistic approach to the spread of nuclear weapons stems from the need to inhibit the vertical proliferation of these harmful weapons by regional and global hegemonies. To him, creating magnanimous stockpiles of nuclear arsenals while arbitrating for complete disarmament is not only hypocritical but also feeds into the security dilemma that prevails among states that cannot depend upon nuclear weapons to deter their adversaries.

Countries like the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom have hoarded weapons of mass destruction (WMD) for years in an attempt to remain militarily ahead of the rest of the world. Since 1945, these states have worked tirelessly to develop and advance their nuclear weapons programs, while forbidding other states from creating nuclear weapons.

These states have always strived to maintain their superiority over the nuclear “have-nots,” most prominently through the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Articles I, II, and III of the treaty expressly discourage the exchange of fissile material with NNWS (non-nuclear weapon states) for the purposes of nuclear armament. On the other hand, the clause for disarmament – Article VI – has intentionally been kept ambiguous to grant the NWS (nuclear weapon states) a means to retain their weapons without violating the terms of the treaty.

In this scenario, Kenneth Waltz outlines the significance of existential deterrence whereby the mere presence of nuclear weapons serves as an adequate deterrent for full-scale war. He argues that a system driven by nuclear exploitation can only exist in harmony if nuclear parity remains, and parity can only be attained through the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons across the globe.

Kenneth Waltz points out that the attainment of nuclear weapons will work as a means to lower the security dilemma at a strategic level that will inhibit the states from engaging in full-scale war with each other. He does recognize that limited or conventional skirmishes will continue inevitably, but the presence of nuclear weapons will considerably lower the chances of World War III breaking out.

The World After 1945

Through Waltz’s lens, the world has seen strategic peace for the past sixty years since the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He attributes this “peace”—which he defines as the “general absence of war among the major states of the world”—to the invention of nuclear weapons. He recognizes, however, that the use of nuclear weapons for offensive purposes will be nothing short of catastrophic for the world, but that these weapons serve as a great defensive tool to inhibit the escalation to full-scale war.

Furthermore, he calls attention to the fact that conflict is a constant feature of the anarchic world that cannot be discarded but that the presence of nuclear weapons as a deterrent aids in maintaining strategic stability among states at a global level. The Cold War is perhaps the biggest evidence to support this claim. Though there was a war between two global superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) who had a large plethora of nuclear arsenals at their disposal, it did not witness the rivals utilize these weapons against each other.

The war lasted nearly four decades; however, neither of the states dared to employ these WMDs for their own benefit. Instead, they engaged in proxy wars centered on other developing states, such as Vietnam, Cuba, and South Korea. Why did they choose to do that?

Kenneth Waltz answers this through the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD). He states that an attack of such a magnitude as observed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would lead to complete annihilation, and that was not the goal of the war. The goal was to establish a unipolar world with either one of these two states acting as the hegemon. If the United States had deployed nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union’s territory, the massive retaliatory nuclear attack would’ve wiped out the USA. This mutual destruction deterred the two states from engaging in a nuclear war.

Moreover, the world had already seen the horrific consequences of a nuclear attack on Japan, and the United States was already under scrutiny for launching the attack in the first place. If the USA were to use nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union, its integrity as a rational state would be in jeopardy and its status as the hegemon would be challenged on the grounds of erratic military decisions.

The Hoax of the Nuclear Umbrella

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has cemented itself as the key provider of nuclear security to states that do not have their own nuclear arsenals. These states rely upon the United States to grant them nuclear support in case of conflict with states that have their own nuclear weapons. This “nuclear umbrella” has been seen as a monumental step towards curtailing the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons all the while granting nuclear security to states that are in need of it. It goes to show that even NWFS that promote Sagan’s view of “more may be worse” recognize the perks of nuclear weapons as a mode of deterrence and security.

Unfortunately, the foolproof efficacy of the nuclear umbrella exists solely in theory. The recent Russia-Ukraine conflict has shed light on America’s hesitation to employ nuclear weapons in order to offer support to Ukraine. Although international scholars do point out that Ukraine was not an explicit member of NATO when the conflict broke out, they also acknowledge the extensive extent of American encouragement to join NATO despite Putin’s vehement discouragement regarding the endeavor.

As a result, Ukraine was left to fend for itself in the face of attacks from the conventionally stronger Russia without any nuclear help from NATO. This fateful encounter has left deep doubts about the efficacy and reliability of the nuclear umbrella. Japan and South Korea, especially, have realized the gravity of this situation and wish to establish their own nuclear plants to avoid such a fate as Ukraine in the future by China or North Korea.

This debacle consolidates Waltz’s positive view of states acquiring nuclear weapons for their own security. If nuclear optimism had prevailed in accordance with Waltz’s principles, Ukraine would not be suffering at the hands of Russia and would be at the mercy of the USA for nuclear support. Ukraine must also regret liquidating its own nuclear weapons with the recent resurgence of conflict.

In 1991, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was left with nuclear arsenals and nuclear plants on its territory that previously belonged to the USSR. In 1994, however, Ukraine signed the NPT and liquidated its nuclear weapons in an attempt to ensure a nuclear-free future. In light of the recent events that have taken place between Russia and Ukraine, the latter would have greatly benefited if it had held onto its nuclear weapons, as it would have acted as a means to deter Russia from attacking Ukrainian territory. 

The Peril of Non-State Actors and Rogue Nations

The international community has, for decades, pondered over the adverse effects of normalizing nuclear weapons across the globe. The most prominent issue with proliferation, they argue, is what would happen if non-state actors or rogue states acquired these monstrous weapons. The pessimists insist that this would lead to a new wave of terrorism that they categorize as nuclear terrorism.

The presence of nuclear weapons, coupled with the irrational nature of non-state actors, increases the prospect of a nuclear war tenfold. Moreover, Sagan points out the lingering threat of non-state actors stealing fissile materials and generators to build their own nuclear power plants; or, they could craft dirty bombs with uranium and deploy them on state territories.

Kenneth Waltz disagrees with this narrative. The lack of precedents for such an event ever happening in history, he states, disproves the severity of the threat at hand. Rogue states and non-state actors have never hijacked any other state’s nuclear program. Waltz argues that this is due to these actors limited intellectual capabilities and the vast structure of a nuclear plant.

A nuclear plant is seldom centered in one spot. It’s a dismantled system spread across different areas; therefore, a non-state actor would have to acquire all the parts of a nuclear plant from various securely guarded areas, which would be close to impossible due to the technical expertise required for the task. Additionally, all these parts are marked with a tracking device that monitors their movement. If a theft of this nature were to occur, it would be incredibly easy to capture the assailants before disaster struck.

In a hypothetical scenario where these actors can somehow successfully steal parts of a nuclear plant, the assembly process would be too intricate for them to carry out. Additionally, HEU (highly enriched uranium)—needed to start a chain fission reaction—needs to be stored at an optimum temperature in a specific container to ensure it works properly in the reactor, which the non-state actors do not know of.

Concerning dirty bombs, Kenneth Waltz argues that they do not cause total annihilation or a catastrophe of a level recorded in Japan. Dirty bombs’ entire purpose is to spread radioactivity in an area. Its scope is rather limited, which inhibits it from causing mass destruction. Waltz affirms that the threat of nuclear weapons being used by non-state actors is a deluded hogwash that is unsupported by any evidence.

Rogue states such as North Korea have been dragged into the international system for being too irrational to have nuclear weapons. Waltz highlights that rationality is a contested concept that does not have a codified set of instructions. North Korea may be labeled as an irrational rogue state, but it has never engaged in a nuclear war with any state. It has utilized nuclear weapons for what they are worth: as a deterrent.

Inadvertent Nuclear War

Sagan claims that horizontal proliferation will pave the way for inadvertent nuclear war among states, even if they did not intend to engage in nuclear conflicts among each other. He asserts that miscalculation and miscommunication may lead to an accidental nuclear war that could destroy the world. Waltz agrees that human error may play a crucial role in the utilization of nuclear weapons for offensive purposes and instances such as the Cuban missile crisis and the Pulwama crisis highlight the apparent risk of accidental full-scale war among states.

However, Waltz also points out that in each scenario, both the conflicting states had nuclear weapons at their disposal but chose not to deploy them, even though their animosity for each other ran very deep. Waltz attributes this restraint to the cost-benefit of engaging in a full-scale nuclear war. Even if a miscellaneous accidental attack does take place, it would most likely be at the conventional level without nuclear weapons (as was observed in the Pulwama crisis). In this situation, the response inarguably dictates the outcome of the conflict. A state would rationally avoid nuclear escalation as it is cost-inefficient, mutually destructive, and largely counterintuitive to the goals of the war.

The Cuban missile crisis has been dubbed as a classic representation of miscommunication in a war-like scenario. Waltz iterates that the crisis did not lead to nuclear escalation due to miscommunication, but Sagan argues that it just as easily could have. In response, the optimist asserts that such a miscommunication could exist in a centralized form of C&C (command and control). Furthermore, the threat of accidental war could be diminished through betting the C&C systems by incorporating a decentralized form of communication that requires a unanimous decision by all the people involved. This would take away the risk of miscommunication in a war-like scenario and pave the way for a peaceful use of nuclear weapons.

Conclusion

The entire premise of Kenneth Waltz’s perspective of nuclear optimism revolves around the use of nuclear weapons for defensive purposes to maintain strategic deterrence with other states, minimize the risk of nuclear dependency, and contain the prevalent security dilemma that torments the international system. He proclaims that peace can only exist in a system that is driven by anarchy if states gain nuclear parity. Waltz’s perspective is intricate and extensive, debunking many of the negative assumptions associated with the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons.

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