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Maintaining a nonproliferation regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Joseph S. Nye
Joseph S. Nye
Affiliation:
As a Deputy Undersecretary of State, the author (now professor of Government at Harvard) was responsible for much of the policy discussed. He wishes to make readers aware of this possible barrier to objectivity in judgments, though every effort has been made to assure that the statements in the article are accurate. For their comments he wishes to thank (but not implicate) McGeorge Bundy, John Deutch, Leonard Ross, Peter Cowhey, Barry Steiner, Reinhard Rainer, Randy Rydell, David Deese, Michael Mandelbaum, George Quester, Kenneth Waltz, and others.
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Extract

Three-and-a-half decades have passed since the energy of the atom was used in warfare. Yet rather than nuclear doom, the world has seen a surprising nuclear stability thus far. Equally remarkable is the fact that over the same period nuclear technology has spread to more than two score nations, yet only a small fraction have chosen to develop nuclear weaponry. A third notable point has been the development of an international nonproliferation regime—a set of rules, norms, and institutions, which haltingly and albeit imperfectly, has discouraged the proliferation of nuclear weapons capability.

The wrong policies in the 1980s—i.e., policies that put the United States in an overly rigid position on the nuclear fuel cycle or which lower the priority the United States gives to the issue in security terms—could still sacrifice the current modest success in regime maintenance. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to the political problem of proliferation. But given the difficulty of constructing international institutions in a world of sovereign states, and the risks attendant upon their collapse, political wisdom begins with efforts to maintain the existing regime with its presumption against proliferation.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , Winter 1981 , pp. 15 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1981

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References

1 Weltman, J. J., “Nuclear Revolution and World Order,” World Politics XXXII (01 1980): 192.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Lovins, Amory, Lovins, L. Hunter, Ross, Leonard, “Nuclear Power and Nuclear Bombs,” Foreign Affairs 58 (Summer 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Waltz, Kenneth, “Toward Nuclear Peace,” Adeiphi paper forthcoming. Both articles make a number of good points. In my judgment each would be destructive as a guide to policy for reasons spelled Out in this article.Google Scholar

3 See Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, J. S., Power and Interdependence (Boston: Little Brown, 1977)Google Scholar, Ch. 1. Also Oran Young, “International Regimes,” and Haas, Ernst, “Why Collaborate? Issue Linkage and International Regimes,” World Politics 32 (04 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Contrary to some opinions, safeguards need not be perfect to deter diversion and have a significant political effect. The necessary probability of detection is debatable, but thus far I am unaware of significant diversion of IAEA safeguarded materials.

5 Personal communication, Jacoby, Henry, MIT, August 1976.Google Scholar

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16 Lovins, et al., op. cit, p. 1138 (though they are correct in its limited effectiveness in displacing oil).Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 1140.

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19 In my judgment these considerations are not adequately dealt with by Waltz, cited above.

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22 Shinbun, Asaui, editorial, 25 February 1980.Google Scholar

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