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Introduction
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the twotier international security system has formally legitimized the possession of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands of the five nuclear weapons states (i.e., the United States, France, Britain, the Peoples’ Republic of China, and the Russian Federation).1 The strategic political problem in the increasingly tense relationship between the nuclear have states and the nuclear have-not states is that the international security system is inherently unfair and structurally unequal. On the one hand, the obligations of the nuclear have-not states to abide by international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes continue in full legal force.2 On the other hand, the nuclear weapons states continue to modernize their strategic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities (while the United States pursues a grand strategy that includes the militarization of space, building a national missile defense system, developing mini-nuke [and bunker-buster] systems, and improving related advanced nuclear, WMD and ballistic weapons systems). The long-standing historical accusations of discrimination against the legitimate national security needs of the nuclear have-not states are embedded in these international security realities.
In this context, the dominant Western debate on global proliferation policy has not fully investigated an important theoretical question: Is it in the national security interests of some major Third World states to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, given the resistance of the nuclear weapons states to protecting them against a potential nuclear or WMD attack from a rogue Third World state, a global terrorist group, or in certain counter-instrumental scenarios, from a “crazy” nuclear weapons state?3 While the global proliferation system has different drivers in the various Third World regions (i.e., Northeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa), an important minority of major Third World states remain focused on advancing their supreme interests under (and in some cases in spite of) the current international and regional nonproliferation enforcement protocols and safeguards treaty regime(s).4
This nonproliferation research study posits that the limited negative (and positive) security assurances extended by the nuclear weapons states (combined with their collective unwillingness to significantly reduce their impressive strategic nuclear weapon inventories towards the goal of real nuclear disarmament) to the nuclear have-not states are not very reliable. Because of this and other negative international security conditions, the unintended policy consequence is that some major Third World states have increased strategic political incentive(s) to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in order to secure their long-term security interests and protect their national sovereignty.
However, this global nuclear security argument does not have a sympathetic voice in the U.S. and Western nonproliferation and security literatures or among U.S. national security decision-makers. In the post-September 11th environment, U.S. defense neo-conservatives and defense conservatives as well argue that major Third World states with or seeking nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities must be disarmed, diplomatically if possible, or with overwhelming military force if necessary.5 The U.S. and Western nonproliferation and security literatures are not overly sensitive to the alternative viewpoint that some (but not all) major Third World states may acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities for legitimate (and not illegitimate) national security reasons.6
For that matter, some major Third World states may acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities not to directly or indirectly threaten U.S. or Western security interests, but to secure their supreme national interests and sovereignty. Moreover, the Western nonproliferation literature is biased in understanding why nuclear have-not states do or do not acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities and in overestimating the nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities of nuclear have-not states.7
Currently, U.S. political leadership and national security decision-makers promote counter-proliferation strategy and pre-emptive offensive strikes, to either diplomatically disarm or win military conflicts against major Third World states with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.8 In a real sense, nuclear and WMD nonproliferation studies have become a subset of counter-proliferation and anti-proliferation analysis because the Western security community (especially in the United States) contends that it is both strategically dangerous and morally unacceptable for major Third World states to possess nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.9 The debate on whether democracies and non-democracies with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities are ethically or morally equivalent is irrelevant in the realism universe where power capabilities define what is right and what is wrong. In the Western security literature, it is assumed that democratic states with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities exercise by definition a higher moral authority in matters of war and peace and that non-democratic states with or seeking nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities do not.10
While these debates are compelling and organized (informed by prevailing American and Western international relations theories and international security models), they do not satisfactorily examine the underlying political, security and cultural dynamics driving the global proliferation problem from Third World perspective(s).11
This nonproliferation policy study suggests that it is in the long-term strategic interests of major Third World states to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities given: 1) the unreliable and limited negative (and positive) security guarantees provided by the nuclear weapons states; 2) the continued modernization of the nuclear weapons states’ nuclear and WMD capabilities; 3) the unwillingness of the great powers to move towards significant levels of nuclear disarmament as agreed to in the 1969 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and its continuously negotiated protocols agreed to by the nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states alike; and 4) the aggressive counter-proliferation policies and pre-emptive military behavior of the United States towards Iraq and continued U.S. diplomatic threats made against other major Third World states with or acquiring nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.12
The central issue examined is: do major Third World states have an implicit strategic justification to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities; if they do, what is the nature of their insecurity dilemma, how are they acquiring nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, what are their nuclear and WMD guidance doctrines, what are their nuclear and WMD acquisition and deployment policies, and where do they hide their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities?
This study posits that nuclear and WMD thinking and practices emerging from the Third World are conceptually different and politically divergent from the prevailing Western strategic nonproliferation and counter-proliferation paradigm(s), the latter based on a double standard praxis dedicated to supporting “friends” and attacking “enemies” with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities or advancing towards these very lethal capabilities. They are conceptually different in the special sense that they are historical reactions by the weak states against the great powers’ continuing discriminatory nuclear and WMD policies and unwillingness to downgrade the high currency placed on strategic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities as a central attribute of national and international power. The political examination of the global nuclear weapons and WMD threat from a strictly U.S. and Western security perspective is incorrect. These prevailing Western security perspectives downplay divergent global (and regional) nuclear weapons and WMD trends, in effect invalidating non-Western nonproliferation thinking and practices.13
By way of organization, Section 1 examines the political origins of the Third World’s resistance to global nonproliferation treaties and safeguards regimes. Section 2 discusses the complex insecurity dilemma faced by some major Third World states as it relates to the nuclear weapons and WMD issue. Section 3 examines the central elements of the global proliferation threat within the diversified Third World framework. Section 4 outlines the directions in nuclear weapons and WMD acquisition and deployment practices in the Third World. Section 5 explores various nuclear weapons and WMD concealment practices in the Third World. The nonproliferation policy study concludes with some observations on proliferation and non-proliferation transformations and trends occurring throughout the international security system.
The Whys of Third World Resistance to International Nonproliferation Treaties and Safeguard Regimes
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Major Third World states are caught between two powerful international forces, the counter-proliferation and preemptive- minded United States and the nonproliferation dedicated four nuclear weapons states. The political tensions between the nuclear weapons states and some major Third World states are complicated by the former bloc’s preference for strictly enforcing their non-nuclear and non-WMD objectives through crippling political, diplomatic, economic, financial, trade, and military sanctions.14 Under these unequal policy conditions, the widening division between the nuclear have states and the nuclear have-not states has become an important and divisive driver in increasing both the intensity and lethality of the global proliferation threat. The compelling resistance of some major Third World states to the prevailing American and Western-driven nuclear and WMD nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes are deeply embedded in this historically unequal and unjust relationship; and it is the long-term strategic military basis for the proliferation threat to international stability and peace.15 This relationship has created a symbolic (but temporary) rift between nuclear and WMD-capable major Third World states and non-nuclear and non-WMD major Third World states in arriving at an agreed consensus on the future relevance of international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes in light of the emerging counter-proliferation strategy and the pre-emptive military threat postures by the United States to use massive military force (as it already has in Iraq), if necessary, against “enemy” major Third World states and enemy non-Third World states with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, or advancing to acquire those globally and regionally destructive capabilities.16
Politically, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Brazil, Egypt, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Iran, and North Korea have traditionally complained that the cold war and post-cold war nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes are unfair to the non-nuclear weapons states. They have argued that
current international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes are discriminatory and benefits the nuclear weapons states and their “friends” (i.e., major Third World and non-Third World states that have nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities not subject to the constant international recriminations or negative sanctions due to alliance commitments).17 They posit that the permanent division of the international security community into nuclear-have states and nuclear have-not states invites instability leading to systemic disorder.18
These states have refused to follow the dictates of the international community in strict adherence to these global and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes with the notable recent exception of Libya, who has decided to forego advancing the development of its embryonic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in exchange for normal diplomatic, political, economic, financial and trading relations with the United States and the international community.19 In this context, India and Pakistan have become“unofficial members” of the Club of Five, and they
have decided to seek strategic political relations with the United States while modernizing their growing nuclear weapons and WMD stockpiles.20
In the first instance, some major Third World states (North Korea and to a lesser extent, Iran) are secretly acquiring access to or indigenously developing nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, even at the risk of being shut out of the international political economy and foregoing the alleged benefits of positive (or friendly) relations with the United States and the nuclear weapons states.21 At a deeper political level, their political behavior suggests that they will not entrust their supreme national security interests to the five nuclear weapons states or to the UN Security Council (including Pakistan and India and to a lesser extent South Korea), in the event of a major escalation or crisis affecting their national independence.
In the second instance, a majority of Third World states are compromised by their low power status in the international security system. They are compelled (especially targeted are the non-nuclear weapons states with nuclear and WMD potential) to adhere to international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes by the nuclear weapons states’ threat(s) of negative sanctions or military force, led by the United States.22 These states have entered the twenty-first century in an extremely vulnerable national security position, while the rapid expansion and modernization of the nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities by the nuclear weapons states continues in full force. Under any normal national security scenario, if a major Third World state is attacked by a rogue Third World state or a global terrorist organization with nuclear weapons or WMD capabilities (or even by an advanced nuclear weapons state like the United States), they must either wait for the UN Security Council to act, or they must plea to the five nuclear weapons states to intervene to save what is left of their state and society.23
It is highly unlikely that the UN Security Council or the nuclear weapons states will come to their rescue in a time-sensitive manner (if at all), resulting in either their partial devastation or their annihilation as sovereign states. The security benefits alleged to be part of the NPT bargain for major Third World states are not sufficient in and of themselves to provide minimum deterrence structures for national defense.24 Presently, non-nuclear weapons states must depend on the rationality of an enemy not to use nuclear weapons or WMD capabilities, a very dangerous and highrisk national security planning scenario with possibly fatal national consequences. Moreover, major Third World states’ reliance on arms control mechanisms to prevent an enemy nuclear and/or WMD attack is also not dependable.25 In the first case, if we assume that some nuclear and WMD-capable Third World states are rational unitary decision-makers, their decision not to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities cannot continue indefinitely, without a significant degradation in the high levels of threat emanating from the international and regional security environment. The critical assumption here is that they will ignore as long as it is tolerable the insecurity dilemma that the majority of Third World states face in the first decade of the twenty-first century.26
In the second case, if we assume that some nuclear and WMD-capable Third World states are counter-rational or“crazy” decision-makers (as implied in the U.S. counterproliferation and non-proliferation security literatures), their historical decision not to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities will be of short time duration in order to meet the high levels of threat coming from international and regional security environments with survivable minimum deterrent forces. The critical assumption here is that they will address the insecurity dilemma they face by acquiring nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.27 In either case, the national policy decision to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities will (can) occur under conditions of rationality or counter-rationality, even if it goes against the direct national security interests of the United States, the great powers, and powerful regional enemies.
Insecurity Dilemmas Faced by Major Third World States??????????????????????????????????????
The theoretical development of a new national security model in the nuclear and WMD proliferation domain(s) for major Third World states has not occurred yet, in regards to addressing their special insecurity requirements (and security) needs in the first decade of the twenty-first century.28 The nuclear insecurity dilemma facing major Third World states is quite compelling: they must either depend on the positive security assurances offered by the nuclear weapons states or offered by the UN Security Council to successfully deter a nuclear or WMD attack from a nuclear weapons state, a powerful regional enemy, a sophisticated global terrorist organization or a capable insurgent non-country group, or they must develop their own nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities to secure their national defense and permanent interests.29
Historically, major Third World states’ dependency on conventional military instruments—even at the higher end of the military technological spectrum—cannot guarantee them a minimum deterrence posture or for that matter, a positive war-fighting position in the international or regional threat environments of the future. The meaning of deterrence for major Third World states parallels in a sense the intellectual and philosophical debate in the U.S. strategic security literature on what deterrence means for the United States in the post-cold war threat environment.30
Higher-end conventional military instruments are insufficient to deter or delay a determined attack by an enemy armed with nuclear weapons and/or WMD capabilities. However, higher end conventional military instruments allied with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities provide a sufficient minimum deterrence. There are two central military defense positions that major Third World states must consider in determining whether they will acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, assuming they have the available human, financial, and technological resources: the less is better nuclear rule and the more is better nuclear rule.31
Less is Better Nuclear and WMD Thinking
In the first case, “less is better nuclear and WMD thinking” dominates in the Third World. Major Third World states that purposely forego nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities have concluded that their supreme national security interests must take a back seat to the political, economic, trading, financial, and technological exchange benefits of having harmonious diplomatic relations with the nuclear weapons states, especially with the United States.32
It is a precarious security position to be locked into, since the United States and the nuclear weapons states have not traditionally shown a dedicated willingness to intervene to protect major Third World states from external aggression, let alone from a potential nuclear and WMD attack from states with dedicated nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities. The real deficit of security assurances for this category of major Third World states (except those coming from the UN Security Council, which is controlled by the nuclear weapons states’ discriminatory voting regime) is not reassuring. While the majority of Third World states support the international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes (i.e., the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, the Comprehensive Test Ban Accord, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Warfare Convention, and related nonproliferation and WMD treaties and safeguard regimes), their long-term national security interests are profoundly threatened by the current modernization of strategic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities by the nuclear weapons states, as well as the near-total absence of security guarantees (positive or negative) from them.33
The pursuit of self-help by major Third World states and the security benefits it brings has been stifled because of the absence of security guarantees (and confidence-building measures) from the nuclear weapons powers. Notwithstanding the fact that the 1970 NPT was suppose to provide definite “security benefits” to the non-nuclear weapons states in the Third World, the post-September 11th international and regional threat environments have degraded those “security benefits” because of the new U.S. strategic counterproliferation policy with its pre-emptive military option(s), which theoretically and practically threatens the sovereignty and interests of major Third World states.
Nonetheless, most major Third World states have opted to rely on the unreliable promises of the nuclear weapons states and/or the UN Security Council to come to their national defense, if a nuclear-armed and WMD-armed adversary attacks their homelands. They have decided to “forget” the minimum deterrence option and secure the positive political and economic benefits of nuclear and WMD nonproliferation cooperation with the nuclear weapons states. However, these strategic political decisions may well be temporary decision phenomena in the Third World, especially for those states who have the domestic capacity to produce nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities and who face legitimate global and regional security threats (i.e., Brazil, Iran, South Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Egypt, and at the first world level, Japan and Germany).
In this context, the U.S. pre-emptive offensive strategy with its accompanying massive military strike at the Iraqi homeland in March 2003 clearly signaled to the Third World the real strategic value of a minimum deterrence posture (witness North Korea and potentially Iran).34 The political consequences of the Bush administration’s counter-proliferation strategy may in all likelihood encourage a real acceleration (not a de-acceleration) in the growth of secret nuclear and WMD proliferation initiatives among some insecure major Third World states with the domestic material resources, technical know-how, and international black market access, despite the recent political movement by Libya to allow the United States and the West to remove its developing nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.35
It can be argued that Libya is a unique case in the nonproliferation debate since it was under severe U.S. and international sanctions for a long time because of its acts of terrorism worldwide and support for international terrorism. After it was revealed by U.S. and Western European intelligence sources that the West knew that Pakistan’s Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was routing critical nuclear weapons design(s) and related nuclear weapons technological know how to Libya, its leadership decided to use its “potential” nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities as negotiating leverage to end crippling international sanctions and begin the bargaining to attract U.S. and Western political and economic assistance to rebuild Libya’s shattered economy, crippled industrial economic infrastructure, and anemic oil industry.36
There is some evidence to suggest that Libya has not really benefited from ending its nuclear weapons and WMD research development activities. Moreover, the United States and the West did not provide Libya with positive security assurances, and it still faces crippling restrictions in its political, economic and military relations with the United States.37
More is Better Nuclear and WMD Thinking
In the second case, the view that “more nuclear and WMD is better” is closely held by some major Third World states.38 Their national policy determination is that the security promises of the United States, the nuclear weapons states, and the UN Security Council are not strong or compelling enough to act as a “firewall” deterrence to externally-based nuclear and WMD aggression from known or unknown foes in the future.39 Specifically, the acquisition of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities by this group of major Third World states is viewed as a natural policy development in meeting both minimum deterrence needs and general national security requirements, and it is not viewed as an “irrational” national policy decision to increase their influence in the international and regional security systems.
The nuclear weapons states’ negative (and, in some cases, positive) sanctions on this category of major Third World states are seen as unacceptable infringements on their national security interests and sovereignty.40 Their decision calculus is that the economic and financial benefits of cooperation with the nuclear weapons states is outweighed by the strategic requirement(s) to advance their national security interests above all else. In their view, negative sanctions, although not desired or wanted, are necessary evils to be endured.41 While the functional utility of targeted and comprehensive sanctions is being debated in the United States and in the West, this minority of major Third World states has consciously ignored the debate by pursuing activist policies which increases (and not decreases) their nuclear and WMD options.42 Labeled as rogue states or worst, they are unaffected by such self-serving characterizations made by some of the nuclear weapons states, witness the counter-instrumental behavior of Iraq and the massive U.S. political and military reactions.43
But unlike the Iraqi case, these major Third World states utilize “calculated ambiguity” to hide their nuclear weapons and WMD research design developments (and actual capabilities) from the international community, especially the United States.44 They have not forcefully engaged the United States or the international community in obnoxious political ways to bring global attention to their nuclear weapons and WMD activities (except North Korea and to a lesser extent, Iran), which has allowed them to quietly build their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities. The Gulf War I and the negative sanctions’ aftermath taught them not to publicly advertise their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities to the United States or the international community, or to act in a manner which would bring undue attention to their nuclear and WMD research and development activities.45
In the current conflict between the United States and Iraq, the “calculated ambiguity” strategy followed by some major Third World states has been beneficial, although dangerous in the long run. Iran’s utilization of the calculated ambiguity strategy while allegedly pursuing nuclear energy research and development activities is viewed by the United States and Israel as a deceptive smoke screen to hide its development of nuclear weapons and other WMD capabilities. These types of secret actions have been the basis of recent western intelligence predictions that global proliferation is long-term threat to stability and peace.
Strategic Dimensions Driving the Nuclear Weapons and WMD Proliferation Threat
As outlined, this minority of major Third World states is the advanced guard of what will be an extremely unique nuclear and WMD security development in the early twentyfirst century.46 The creeping expansion and broader sophistication of the global proliferation threat beyond what currently exists will be the cardinal rule and may well threaten international security as it is now broadly defined. This section discusses the Western and Third World arguments against and for nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation. It concludes by outlining central elements of the global proliferation threat.
The Western Nuclear Weapons and WMD Argument
In the United States and the West in general, there are two conflicting views on the nature of the global proliferation threat. First, it is argued that the global nuclear and WMD threat is an incremental phenomena caused by either organized authoritarian systems or robust military security
communities in the Third World.47 It is posited that this Third World phenomena is best addressed by the enforcement and strengthening of existing international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes and through other legal and extralegal means. In this context, encouraging all
non-nuclear weapons states in the Third World to strictly adhere to the central articles of the 1970 NPT and associated negotiated nonproliferation protocols is encouraged by the nuclear weapons states, encouraging major Third World states to return as signatories to the NPT (North Korea), as well as bringing into the NPT framework major Third World states who are presently not signatories of the treaty (Pakistan, India and Israel).48 Furthermore, it is argued that a strongly enforced containment policy of positive sanctions, which distributes time-sensitive economic, financial, and trading benefits, as well as strengthening the security benefits provided by the NPT will together maintain the international and regional nonproliferation line of defense.49
The second argument is that the global proliferation threat is a national security state phenomenon, encouraged by cooperative political and military communities led by a“crazy leadership elite” within the major Third World state. The “crazy leadership elite” is usually depicted as dictatorial, brutal and a major danger to American and Western security interests. The historical and policy record indicates that the United States labels such regimes in the worst possible language and utilizes a dynamic political and diplomatic campaign to encourage international condemnation of the targeted Third World state with the goal(s) of initiating international economic sanctions or if necessary to implement a pre-emptive military strategy against it. This neoconservative defense view posits that the threat of negative sanctions or the active use of massive military force will minimize the development of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in targeted major Third World states, and thereby reduce their direct threat to the security of the United States, the Western alliance, and international security in general.50
However, neither argument is entirely correct because it is apparent that the nuclear weapons states’ nonproliferation approach has not deterred all major Third World states from seeking nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.51 On the one hand, states that do not seek nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities cannot do so because of either structural economic or technological constraints, among other important national reasons. Their lack of financial resources keeps them from sustaining access to the international black and grey markets to acquire nuclear materials and WMD technologies. On the other hand, states that acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities do so because they can; and they are not limited by economic, financial, technical or technological constraints. In addition, they can financially sustain access to the international black and grey markets to acquire nuclear materials and fuel and WMD technologies, or they can go overseas and steal these nuclear materials and fuel and WMD technologies and “rent” or kidnap the scientific and technological research personnel.52 It can be argued that major Third World acquiring nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities are doing it for the same strategic political, policy, and operational reasons as Israel, including:
• to deter a conventional attack;
• to deter all levels of unconventional (chemical, biological, nuclear) attacks;
• to preempt enemy nuclear attacks;
• to support conventional preemption against enemy nuclear assets;
• to support conventional preemption against enemy nonnuclear (conventional., chemical, biological) assets; and
• for nuclear war-fighting (using neutron nukes, tactical nukes, micronukes, and tiny-nukes).53
There are other U.S. and Western arguments to explain why states acquire or don’t acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities includes national prestige, leadership changes, bureaucratic coalition building, technological modernization, and domestic electoral politics. These cold war and post-cold war arguments have long dominated the U.S. and Western debate on why states do or do not acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, to the point of intellectually excluding alternative explanations.54
Major Third World Nuclear Weapons and WMD Argument
There is an intellectual argument from the Third World competing with the West’s primary position on why major Third World states pursue nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities. This argument has a greater intellectual and moral legitimacy in the Third World, although it does not have the same intellectual persuasiveness in the American and Western nonproliferation and nuclear security literatures. Basically, it contends that the global proliferation issue is an ever evolving anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-status quo process strongly driven by maturing strategic cultures in some major Third World states and solidified by their search for national security. This strategic political process is a natural reaction by these maturing strategic cultures to many centuries of humiliation, degradation, embarrassment, exclusion, unequal treatment (and unequal treaties) and high levels of economic, political, cultural, and military subjugation to the West, and more recently, to the United States.
The search for global respect and power underlies the nuclear and WMD cultural dynamic in the Third World, especially in the case of states like Pakistan, India, North Korea, and increasingly by some important sectors of the Iranian strategic community.55 The goal of this minority of Third World states is to find maximizing political solutions to advance their nuclear and WMD security interests in order to completely “reverse” the negative Western impact on their national independence and freedom of nuclear and WMD decision.56 In their decision calculus, prevailing international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes are “artificial creations” of the nuclear weapons states and consequently are viewed as real impediments to both the expression and actualization of legitimate national nuclear security interests.
Paradoxically, national self-help is an integral component of this non-Western argument, and its policy currency is rising fast in the Third World. Its central prominence rests in the fact that the five nuclear weapons states have refused to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons and WMD arsenals towards nuclear disarmament levels as spelled out in the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and related nonproliferation treaty protocols. Moreover, they have collectively resisted implementing robust policies to substantially accelerate their nuclear and WMD disarmament activities. At the same time, they have also decreased the benefits of self-help for non-nuclear weapons states by the active threat of negative sanctions, sweetened by publicly voiced cycles of positive sanctions. This imposed cold war compromise was accepted by most non-nuclear weapons states because of the contest between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
In the post-cold war period, complaints of nuclear weapons states practicing nuclear and WMD neo-colonialism are growing ever present among many major Third World states. The double standard in the global proliferation paradox is that the nuclear weapons states continue to modernize their extensive strategic nuclear weapons arsenals and unique chemical, biological, bacteriological, ballistic missile systems and other exotic advanced weapons capabilities, while at the same demanding that non-nuclear weapons states refrain from similar extended nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation activities, or move towards complete disarmament.57 More specifically, the proliferation double standard also has political and diplomatic dimensions wherein states with nuclear and WMD capabilities are not humiliated or asked to reconsider their nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation positions (and become signatories of the 1970 NPT and abide by its central articles) by the United States and the nuclear weapons states if they are viewed as “friends” or “geopolitical allies” of convenience (including Israel, Pakistan and India), while other major Third World states are either humiliated and forced to move towards a nonproliferation policy position supported by the nuclear weapons states despite the prevalence of external national security threats.58
The strategic cultural paradigm emerging among some major Third World states is generating concern among high governmental circles in the United States. There is the tacit understanding that the international security system is approaching the “window” of a multidimensional nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation threat, which is much more complex than previously acknowledged (especially given the recent Pakistani role in selling nuclear weapons technology and materials to other major Third World states, and the evidence of a highly secretive global nuclear weapons technology and fuel trading regime utilized by interested major Third World states).59 This global proliferation threat will be a watershed in future international security relations between the nuclear-have states and the nuclear have-not states. The threat has been aggravated by asymmetrical global and regional nonproliferation treaties, which the United States and the nuclear weapons states have enforced through unequal treaties, negative sanctions, unbridled nationalism, and naked force.
In truth, a larger minority of major Third World states have not accepted these standing global and regional nonproliferation rules and values, including: 1) vertical proliferation has political hegemony over horizontal proliferation activities (i.e., we know what is best for the world rule); 2) vertical proliferation is legitimate and horizontal proliferation is illegitimate (i.e., we morally dictate what is best for the world rule; 3) vertical proliferation is an accepted security property in the international security system, while horizontal proliferation is not (i.e., we sanction what the rules are in the world); and 4) vertical proliferation is “good,” while horizontal proliferation is “bad” (i.e., we determine what the military basis of international peace and stability is in the world rule).60 The Bush administration’s political support for strengthening global and regional nonproliferation treaties (its central articles) and safeguard regimes includes the following demands:
• strengthen the treaty and the regime to prevent future noncompliance problems.
• perform a comprehensive review of all Treaty articles to untangle the co-mingling of the Treaty’s obligations and benefits (security).
• bring states outside the Treaty with nuclear weapons (with either un-safeguarded or safeguarded nuclear weapons programs, Israel, Pakistan, and India) back into the Treaty’s obligations.
• strengthen the Treaty so that non-nuclear weapons states that violate its principal Articles are encouraged to comply with their nonproliferation obligations (North Korea and Iran).
• strengthen the Treaty so that non-nuclear weapons states that withdraw from it are encouraged rejoin it (North Korea), terminate their nuclear weapons and WMD programs (Libya and South Africa) and observe all of the Articles of the Treaty.
• eliminate any conceptual or policy difference in the interpretation of the Articles in the Treaty with the strategic purpose of preventing the acquisition of nuclear weapons through enrichment or reprocessing facilities.
• encourage the IAEA Board of Governors to create a special committee of the Board to strengthen compliance with safeguards agreements.
• affirm and reinforce implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1540.61
From a major Third World perspective, these standing U.S. and Western rules and values prevent the prudent search for a permanent nonproliferation consensus between the nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear weapons states. The bottom line is that the deep political tension created by the double standard has begun, on the part of some major Third World states, a strategic reevaluation of their adherence to even “acceptable” international nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes, despite their public diplomatic voice.
Specific Elements of the Nuclear Weapons and WMD Proliferation Threat
The reaction of some major Third World states to the Western double standard has sat into motion an array of sophisticated and covert counter-responses. These responses are not entirely hardware oriented, but they have more to do with the more important human (or software) elements in the maturing global proliferation threat, including:
• the emergence and growing maturation of nuclear and WMD strategic culture(s) in the Third World where strong internal debates on the merits of acquiring, deploying and exporting nuclear weapons technology and personnel are encouraged.
• the rise in the Third World of innovative nuclear and WMD scientific and technological research environments, the cultivation of advanced nuclear and WMD human resources expertise, the creative utilization of the Global Internet system for nuclear and WMD research and increasingly advanced and secret development of nuclear and WMD manufacturing capabilities.62
• the broad development of strategic conceptual abilities by major Third World states’ nuclear and WMD decision makers.63
• the development of mini-max deterrence postures and related military doctrinal systems in the Third World; and
• the growth of a national political will to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in the Third World.64
These important policy developments driving the emerging Third World strategic discourse requires a fuller explanation. First, the slow rise of nuclear and WMD strategic culture(s), practices and analysis is a revolutionary development in the Third World.65
Its evolution has been triggered by nationalistic, racial, ethnic, and religious realignments in some major Third World states, as a healthy (or unhealthy) national security adjustment to the historically intrusive policies of the nuclear weapons states. Strategic culture is defined here as national decision-making authorities’ ideological interpretation of and political behavior towards the external strategic political and military security environment, with the expressed goal of developing a geopolitical doctrine to guide future policy actions. A recent example of this new phenomena is the Pakistani nuclear military elite’s nearly decade long distribution of nuclear weapons technologies and enriched fuel to countries in both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds for reasons of ideology, religion, and cash.66 It is clear that these major Third World states are developing a compelling geosecurity vision; and it is both anti-American and anti-Western in its content and direction.
Second, the institutional support of nuclear and WMD scientific, technological, and manufacturing research environments, the training of advanced nuclear and WMD research personnel in elite foreign and domestic universities and research institutes, the innovative scientific and technical exploitation of the global Internet system for nuclear and WMD information gathering and applications, and the funding of national nuclear and WMD manufacturing capabilities (hidden deep in state military security budgets) have arisen from the state’s strategic culture guiding political
decision making.
The ideological basis of major Third World states involved in nuclear weapons and WMD research and acquisition activities rests on all of the above elements. While future U.S. counter-proliferation planning and pre-emptive military actions will be targeted at convincing major Third World states to stop developing nuclear and WMD capabilities (destroying hardened nuclear and WMD sites if required), the future basis of nuclear and WMD development in major Third World states will be in possessing, utilizing, and protecting a critical mass of expert scientific, technological
and policy personnel, as well as in maintaining access to the international black and grey markets to acquire nuclear and WMD technologies and materials secretly and quickly, if geopolitical external events threatens their supreme security interests.
Third, the strategic conceptual abilities of decisionmakers in the Third World have grown because of their involvement in regional wars, their close study of western strategic cultural behavior and military actions over time, and long-standing joint command and training exercises with the militaries of the great and medium powers. Close interaction (and secret cooperation) between the military establishments of major Third World states has also increased their strategic conceptualizing abilities to both learn and apply new military doctrines and tactics, especially in the nuclear and WMD domain. States that have cooperated with the United States include Israel and to a lesser extent, India and Pakistan. In any case, these combined activities over time have strengthened the decision-making foresight and planning capabilities of those national authorities concerned with satisfying their national nuclear and WMD security requirements.
Notwithstanding the gross strategic mistakes made by the Iraqi leadership during and after Gulf War I and in the current contest with the United States and the United Nations in the post Gulf War II era, major Third World decision-makers have “learned” to both formulate and implement their nuclear and WMD policy positions with prudence and foresight.
Fourth, some major Third World states have decided that the pursuit of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities is of the highest political priority (including Pakistan, India, and North Korea).67 Presently, Iran continues to suggest that it is not developing nuclear weapons but is engaged in nuclear energy research. It is very possible that Iran, if it continues its present course, could develop a fullblown nuclear energy program while a member of the NPT community and rapidly developed a minimum deterrent nuclear force.68 Despite the virulent objections of the international community and of the nuclear weapons states, these states are developing a broad and diverse array of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities (along with advanced conventional military forces) driven by a national political will to succeed.69
On a related front, there is a group of major Third World states (Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, and South Korea) with the national political will (and the human, economic, scientific and technological resources) to develop nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities. They have decided not to do so because of extreme pressures from the United States, the international community in the past, and domestic political problems. Negative changes in the international or regional security environments could, however, trigger a major nuclear and WMD capabilities buildup on their part, absent active American counter-proliferation intervention to stop them.70
Fifth, a small minority of major Third World states realize that nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities have an intrinsic defensive (and offensive) function which closely fits in with their national political priorities.71 In the Third World, the defensive doctrine of minimum deterrence, wherein a small but survivable nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities may be sufficient to deter an external nuclear or WMD attack from the hegemon, the great powers or regional enemies, is gaining increasing policy importance. Minimum deterrence requires that a major Third World state possess advanced military capabilities of a kind which would force a potential attacker to reconsider a threat of nuclear blackmail or a nuclear attack (e.g., India’s concern about Pakistan and the Peoples’ Republic of China or Iran’s concern about Israel’s sophisticated nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities).72 Fear would force the potential attacker to assess the level of unacceptable national damage that would occur, if he went through with the nuclear blackmail threat or launches a lethal nuclear strike. Iraq is as an example of a major Third World state that did not have operational nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities when it attacked Kuwait during the Gulf War I. If it had, a minimum deterrence status might have prevented its national devastation by the United States and the international community and later on its invasion and countrywide occupation by American military forces in 2003.
Finally, the national will to acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities are part and parcel of the emerging Third World realities already discussed. National will is the strategic willingness of non-Western national decision-making authorities not to adhere to international and regional nuclear and WMD nonproliferation norms and safeguard regimes and to act only in the supreme national interests of the state. Specifically, it requires that national decision-making authorities secretly pursue nuclear and WMD acquisition policies to their logical end (and at all costs), in order to acquire the nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities consistent with the state’s minimum deterrence needs, thereby informing its overall national security objectives. There is no available evidence to suggest that all or some of these nuclear weapons and WMD policies are not being pursued in the present international security climate and in all likelihood, they may will accelerate in the decades ahead.
The total (or partial) dismissal of these new strategic developments by Western security experts, intelligence officials, and strategic policymakers ignores the compelling fact that some major Third World countries are rapidly advancing in these areas, whether there is “tangible evidence” or not.73 This is not a surprising finding. The recent discovery of elite elements in the Pakistani scientific and military establishment distributing nuclear technology, nuclear know how, and enriched uranium worldwide to major Third World states for over twenty years without being closed down by Western intelligence agencies shows how serious (and destabilizing) these new strategic developments have been.74 Recent U.S. political demands to control these global and regional nuclear weapons and WMD activities includes the following:
• address the central issue of noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations.
• significant expansion of intelligence sharing among military and law enforcement organizations to shut down illegal laboratories (Proliferation Security Initiative).
• freeze the assets of rogue scientists, and aid in their capture.
• stricter international border controls.
• more generous funding for legitimate scientists working in sensitive areas to ensure they are not corrupted by potential nuclear traffickers.
• that states sign the International Atomic Energy’s Additional Protocol on inspections are allowed to import equipment for their civilian nuclear programs.
• that the 40-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group not sell uranium-enrichment and plutonium-reprocessing equipment to any country that does not already possess such technology, and for all states currently working to acquire such enrichment capabilities renounce those efforts.75
There is a prevailing strategic ethnocentrism and policy arrogance on the part of the United States (and by Western countries in general) that assumes major Third World states would not dare do what they do, cannot do what they do well, cannot strategically think as they do, cannot plan for their unique nuclear and WMD security needs, cannot develop sophisticated nuclear and WMD technologies or develop accompanying national authority decision structures to use these exotic military technologies effectively. This Western operational bias also posits that these actual (or potential) nuclear and WMD developments are long-term and are really not worth worrying about or planning for right now because they are just too “outlandish.” This form of false thinking is dangerous.76
The Unaccepted Truths Behind the Nuclear and WMD Acquisition and Deployment Strategies of Major Third World States
Unnoticed in the global proliferation debate is that some major Third World states’ quest for nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities has gained increasing support from domestic strategic elites and important military leadership, religious and ideological elements in the state and civic society. In the post-Gulf War and U.S./Iraqi crisis periods underlying the international security environment, this quest is informed by increasing fear and growing insecurity: fear of the “neo-imperialist” intentions and massive military capabilities of the United States and of the great powers; and driven by national insecurity in part generated from internal domestic pressures and regional enemies. The domestic strategic elite(s) is composed of the central ruling group, including various political, security, economic, scientific, religious and cultural organizations. The military leadership includes the armed services, including Special Forces, special intelligence and counter-intelligence groups, and in some cases, secret nuclear and WMD assault formations. On the one hand, domestic strategic elites basically support the acquisition (and deployment) of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities to both protect the state and maintain their political legitimacy. Their self-interests are aligned with the national security ethos of the state. The primacy of sovereignty and independence is the basis of these permanent self-interests, as well as the basis of their power and privileges within the state.
The military leadership supports both the acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in order to expand their high technology military budgets and broaden their national security mission statement; and it is consistent with their stated security mission, as well as in encouraging a stronger “bond” with the domestic strategic elite. In some cases, this power relationship may be reversed, with the military leadership acting as the central political authority in the state, with the domestic strategic elite operating in a subordinate decision-making capacity. In this circumstance, there is much more political incentive for the military to pursue nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.
This national consensus between the domestic strategic elite and the military leadership of the state is mutually beneficial, and it allows for the development of a broader agreement between other important sectors of the nation on the nuclear and WMD issue as well. In this context, the prohibitive costs of geo-economic, geo-psychological, and geocultural warfare sanctions by the nuclear weapons states is integrated into the calculus of the targeted nation’s longterm nuclear and WMD decision-making. Even in scenarios where military force by the United States is used to either disarm of destroy the initial nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities of a major Third World state, the latter may have in strategic reserve nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities for either defensive or offensive purposes. Again, the Indian, Pakistani, and North Korean cases are demonstrative of this growing consensus in the Third World.
The dynamic strength of the nuclear weapons and WMD programs in North Korea, India, Pakistan (and to a lesser extent Iran), among others major Third World countries, is reflected in the rich variation of acquisition, concealment and counter deception practices being pursued by these powers. Their nuclear and WMD practices are unique because of the country-by-country variation arising from the particular strategic culture and because of the special nature of the national leadership of the state. The similarities in the nuclear weapons and WMD acquisition practices of major Third World states may include but are not limited to:
• the covert manipulation of the international arms market (black and gray).
• the promotion of secret nuclear and WMD trading relations with global arms marketers and high technology corporations in the Western world and non-Western world.
• the encouragement of bilateral technology and scientific relations with the great and medium powers interested in doing (secret) business with them, as well as with major Third World states or groups with major Third World states willing to trade, sell or barter their nuclear weapons, WMD and ballistic missile technologies.
• indigenous efforts to develop nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities by importing (or buying) foreign scientists and militarized high technology systems from friendly (and enemy) states.
• the development of interlocking (and top secret) military technological and scientific cooperation among major Third World states.77
• the secret encouragement of nuclear and WMD high technology thefts from both friendly and enemy countries (the recent U.S. intelligence reports that Russian nuclear military research centers and nuclear arms despots have lost “unknown” amounts of enriched uranium78).
• sophisticated reverse engineering of imported (or stolen) of nuclear and WMD high technology systems and high technology sub-systems.79
During the Cold War, these increasingly sophisticated practices and relations were commonplace. What is very different in the first decade of the twenty-first century is that their utilization are now integral elements in the nuclear weapons and WMD acquisition policies of some major Third World states and, they are potentially accessible to major Third World states who chose to use them in the future.
Present and Future Directions in the Nuclear and WMD Concealment Policies by Major Third World States
The nuclear and WMD concealment (and counter-deception) policies of some major Third World states are increasingly sophisticated since the end of Gulf War I.80 The reasons for these deep stealth practices include: 1) grave uncertainty about their national security and political economic futures; 2) strong fears of the intentions of nearby friendly and enemy states; and 3) irrational (or extra-rational) strategic calculations of the long-term military, technological, and economic threats posed by the United States and the great powers (recently aggravated by U.S. counterproliferation policy and pre-emptive military invasion of Iraq and to a lesser extent the rising levels of diplomatic and military threats aimed at North Korea and Iran). The secret acquisition of nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, without regard to international and regional nuclear nonproliferation treaties or associated safeguard regimes may well become commonplace events in the twenty-first century.81
On these basis, U.S. counter-proliferation strategy and pre-emptive military planning will face extremely difficult security challenges from some major Third World states beyond what is currently imagined or what is now being heatedly argued.82 These strategic military challenges will come from major Third World states pushed to the far margins of the international security system and with some of them operating within nuclear and WMD security “alliances.” These alliances will be closed-ended, well financed, well managed, and dedicated to acquiring nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.83 Moreover, these alliances will be integrated learning entities, capable of extracting, sharing, and applying strategic military lessons, advanced dual technologies, and strategic concealment practices gleaned from the activities of nuclear weapons states.
Concealment practices are a very important component in the nuclear and WMD acquisition and development architectures of some major Third World states. Their singular purpose is to deceive, frustrate, distract, hide, cloak, delay, and confuse the technological and human-tasked surveillance methods and intrusive intelligence activities of the nuclear weapons states and their regional enemies.84 These advanced “black arts” are refined, redeveloped, and repackaged to prevent the nuclear weapons states and their regional enemies from penetrating their unique deception and counter-deception systems. The defensive ability of these systems to prevent external discovery is extremely robust, since the national security of the state is involved.
Iraq is clearly the ultimate deception and counter-deception model for future trends in this important area.85 Given the mixed inspection and verification record of United Nations officials, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and Western intelligence services (i.e., the CIA and Mossad) in ferreting out nuclear and WMD programs in that country, the Iraqi model is now being rigorously studied in major Third World states’ policy sciences and specialized military academies.86 The present and future deception practices of some major Third World states may include the following:
• the non-inclusion of nuclear and WMD research articles in domestic refereed and non-referred scientific or technological journals, while accessing and monitoring all U.S. and other high technology countries’ scientific and technological journals. This informational strategy also includes the transfer of all internal written nuclear and WMD documents to computer disk technology, to prevent location and discovery by extra-national intrusive agents.87
• the protection of all high-valued nuclear and WMD scientists and technicians in securely dispersed national, regional, and local research sites. This human resource personnel strategy also includes the secret abduction of foreign scientists and technicians from their home countries or the direct purchase of the skills of foreign scientists and technicians with highly valuable nuclear and WMD expertise.
• the countrywide distribution of all strategic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in mobile and irregular urban and rural concealment patterns.
• hiding large and medium sized nuclear weapons and WMD research and development manufacturing systems (as well as their numbers) deep underground, under river systems, inside large mountains, inside super hardened bunkers, or in artificially created urban and rural environments.
• erecting sophisticated “dummy” nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities to (temporarily or permanently) fool U.S. and Western surveillance during periods of critical testing or during the initial development of a major crisis event.
• the wide displacement of critical nuclear weapons and WMD technology components for real-time “total or partial assembly” before or during expected major crisis events.
• the utilization of advanced deception and misinformation methods to test nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.
• the monitoring of U.S. and Western surveillance practices to develop counter-surveillance strategies, in order to develop all nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities in secret.
• the sophisticated manipulation of advanced computer and cyber warfare technologies to mislead U.S. and Western counter-information and counter-cyber efforts on domestic nuclear and WMD activities.88
• the increasing utilization of both psychological warfare and propaganda activities to convince international publics that domestic nuclear and WMD activities do not exist, and
• the use of advanced political diplomacy techniques to manipulate stronger powers, win allies, and prevent external military attacks against domestic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.89
These “cloak and hide” practices are only suggestive of the ways in which some major Third World states are both acquiring and concealing their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities at all levels of development. More imaginative practices will be developed and are being developed, as a direct and indirect function of the increasingly robust counter-acquisition and counter-concealment technological and intelligence gains made by the United States and the West against them. The political implications of these evolving practices — given the current proliferation intelligence deficit in the United States (and in the West) and the seeming inability of its central intelligence community to close it — may evolve into such a high level of extreme sophistication that the application of successful anti-acquisition and anti-concealment strategies may prove very difficult and costly to maintain.
Conclusion
This study has essentially argued that minimum deterrence is the new praxis informing nuclear and WMD decision-making and acquisition in some major Third World states, in order to maintain their security and freedom of action. The creation of an ancillary knowledge paradigm based on understanding non-Western theories and practices influencing the global and regional proliferation threat phenomena is required. The emerging strategic security literatures developing in India, Pakistan and in other major Third World states may well become the intellectual and ideological foundation of this new paradigm for reengaging them to return to the NPT and safeguard regimes.90
The strict reliance on the theories and approaches informing American and Western nonproliferation (and counter-proliferation) policy analysis and decision making, which has failed to anticipate where non-Western nuclear and WMD trends are headed and what they mean, is both paternalistic and self-serving in fully explaining current and emerging proliferation trends in the Third World. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, the pursuit of very sophisticated conventional and non-conventional land, air, and sea warfare systems will be part and parcel of their desire to strengthen both overall national security planning and improve the quality of their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, given the real lack of WMD cooperation and nuclear technology and fuel export controls agreement between these states and the nuclear weapons states.91 This strategic trend is consistent with some major Third World states building a compelling minimum deterrence posture to deter the great powers from attacking them in the post U.S./Iraqi environment.
Moreover, some major Third World states (or sub-actors within the state including the military, scientists and other important elites as we have seen with the Pakistan nuclear proliferation crisis) will continue to assist other major Third World states through the secret sharing or selling of critical nuclear design technology, nuclear materials and uranium fuel and WMD technologies. They will do so to satisfy their particular strategic ideological, religious, political, cultural and profit-making reasons and because of their fear, anger and dissatisfaction with the United States and the West.92 There is also a danger of the secret transfer of nuclear weapons and WMD technology to global terrorist groups from certain major Third World states as well.93 At this writing, there is no convincing empirical evidence that the nuclear weapons states will “rapidly build down” their strategic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities towards significant nuclear disarmament levels as outlined in the NPT and related protocols or fundamentally alter the international military system towards less dangerous levels of threat for the weak powers.94 Although it is argued that the SALT, START, Moscow Treaty (2002) and related arms reduction processes indicates a strong willingness on the part of the United States and the Russian Federation to continue to “build down” strategic nuclear weapons systems and accelerate battlefield and tactical nuclear systems reductions in the future (while Britain, France, and the PRC modernize their strategic nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities), it is still the case that their strategic nuclear weapons and WMD inventories suggest power, prestige, and security to those states without them. In this context, the evolving national nuclear and WMD decision-making abilities of some major Third World states will continue to develop and mature. These states do not possess the sophistication of the great powers’ strategic nuclear and WMD systems, and therefore remain very vulnerable (even with minimum deterrence) to the great powers’ massive retaliatory and precision-oriented nuclear and WMD strike forces. The bottom line is that these states are (temporarily) deterred from attacking the great powers, given their weak nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities.95
At the same time, they will react defensively using their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities as an integral component of an active deterrent defense posture.96
However, some major Third World states will pose a serious strategic challenge to the international security system (and the great powers) by the middle of the twenty-first century, precisely because they want to both reduce their national security vulnerability and increase their minimum deterrence posture.97 If the history of military conflict between the West and the Third World is anywhere suggestive, the latter will not be significantly deterred from future military conflicts with the United States or with the other nuclear weapons states when their supreme national security interests are severely threatened.98 A most likely strategic consequence of this multiple-level military threat from the Third World (a nuclear-armed North Korea, for example) may well be a real alteration in the “deep structure” of the post-cold war international and regional security system(s), tilting it towards increased crisis instability and, in some cases, towards strategic instability.99
Endnotes
1. The international problem of nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation ranks as the number one security challenge to the global community of nations. The potential threat of an international nuclear holocaust occurring because of the spread of nuclear weapons grows more ominous as time goes on. This international nonproliferation security analysis lays out the political and policy problems facing and confounding relations the nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear weapons states, outlining their contending views on the fairness and benefits of international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes, as well as the long-term implications of U.S. counterproliferation strategy and pre-emptive military policies towards major Third World states. See Susanna Schrafstetter and Stephen Twigge, eds., Avoiding Armageddon: Europe, the United States and the Struggle for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, 1945–1970 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2004) and Bernard I. Finel, Grave New World: Security Challenges in the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003).
2. Paul Richter, “Bush, El-Baradei to Discuss Safeguarding Nuclear Technology,” Los Angeles Times, 15 March 2004, p. A3. See Jason Ellis, “Beyond Nonproliferation: Secondary Supply, Proliferation Management and US Foreign Policy,” Comparative Strategy 20 (January 2001): 25–43 and Christophe Soule, “The Future of Nuclear Weapons,” Futuribles 290 (October 2003): 63–66.
3. The debate on “rogue nations” has been defined in the United States and in the West as those state actors who have or are acquiring nuclear (and radiological) weapons and WMD (chemical, biological, bacteriological, and ballistic missile) capabilities threatening international security and stability. See Wyn O. Bowen, The Politics of Ballistic Missile Nonproliferation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Although there is a semantic distinction between rogue behavior and rogue states, this distinction falls into obscurity depending on who is doing the defining. See Guarav Kampani, “Second Tier Proliferation: The Case of Pakistan and North Korea,” The Nonproliferation Review 9 (Winter 2002–2003): 107–116 and Sumit Garguly, “Pakistan, The Other Rogue Nation,” Current History 103 (April 2004): 147–50. At the same time, the Bush administration’s “axis of evil” is a logical rhetorical continuation of the “rogue nations” definition. For in-depth analysis, see Noy Thrupkaew, “Tilting on the Axis (of Evil),” American Prospect 14 (February 2003): 34–36; Ahrari M. Ehsan, “Rogue States and NMD/TMD Policies in Search of a Rationale?” Mediterranean Quarterly 12 (2001): 63–100; Eric Herring, “Rogue Rage: Can We Prevent Mass Destruction?” The Journal of Strategic Studies 23 (2000): 188–212; and Raymond Muhula, “Rogue Nations, States of Concern, and Axes of Evil: Examining the Politics of Disarmament in a Changing Geopolitical Context,” Mediterranean Quarterly 14 (2003): 76–95. For an earlier series of articles on rogue states and rogue state behavior see Oleg Bukharin, “Problems of Nuclear Terrorism,” The Monitor: Nonproliferation, Demilitarization and Arms Control 2 (Winter–Spring 1996): 3–4; Richard T. Cupitt,“Target Rogue Behavior, Not Rogue States,” The Nonproliferation Review 3 (Winter 1996): 46–54; Martyn Pipper, Deterrence, Weapons of Mass Destruction and Security Assurances: A European Perspective (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, 1996); Kim Murphy, “‘Rogue Nation’ or Terrorist Poses Serious Nuclear Threat, Perry Says,” Los Angeles Times, 9 January 1995, p. A4; and Michael Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America’s Search for a New Foreign Policy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995).
4. There is much misinformation on which major Third World or non-Third World states are pursuing nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities and which are not. However, it is clear that improved nonproliferation enforcement and nuclear weapons states’ decision to strengthen the NPT and safeguard regimes is clashing with a frantic search by non-nuclear weapons states for national security based on a credible minimum deterrence in an increasingly threatening international security environment. See Richard Butler, “Improving Nonproliferation Enforcement,” The Washington Quarterly 26 (2003): 133–45 and Stephen J. Cimbala, “Nuclear Proliferation and ‘Realistic Deterrence’ in a New Century,” European Security 11 (2002): 33–47.
5. In the second Bush administration, the “nuclear hawks” include Jack Crouch, Deputy National Security Adviser; Robert Joseph, Undersecretary for Arms Control; and John Rood, White House Special Adviser. See Guy Dinmore, “US Allies Fret at Hard Line of ‘Nuclear Hawks’,” Financial Times, 5–6 February 2005, p. 5. Current nuclear weapons planning and design activities organized by the U.S. Defense Department and conducted in various U.S. nuclear weapons research laboratories to build more lethal and accurate nuclear armaments for battlefield, tactical, and heavy strategic targeting objectives in Third World and non-Third World threat environments may actually encourage an acceleration of negative nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation events in the Third World. While a majority of these new nuclear systems are in the research and design stage(s), there is a strong likelihood that some if not all of these systems may be mass-produced in the future to reinforce U.S. strategic deterrence and pre-emption military capabilities. For an excellent history on U.S. efforts to discourage strategic nuclear proliferation, see Henry D. Sokolski. Best of Intentions: America’s Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2001).
6. Charles L. Thornton, “The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,” The Nonproliferation Review 9 (2002): 135–52 and Michael Barletta, “After 9/11: Preventing Mass Destruction Terrorism and Weapons Proliferation,” Nonproliferation Studies 4 (May 2002): 1–74.
7. The prevailing view that major Third World states acquire nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities to directly threaten the United States and the Western alliance fails to take into full account the former’s strategic interests. See Gawdat Bagdat,“Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Iraq and Iran,” The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 28 (Winter 2003): 423–49; Aaron Karp, “The Spread of Ballistic Missiles and the Transformation of Global Security,” The Nonproliferation Review 7 (Fall–Winter 2000): 106–22; Henry F. Cooper, “The Rising Threat of Missile Proliferation,” The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 21 (Winter 1996): 371–82; Lewis Dunn, “Rethinking the Nuclear Equation: The United States and the New Nuclear Powers,” Washington Quarterly 17 (1994): 5–25; and Lewis Dunn, Controlling the Bomb: Nuclear Proliferation in the 1980s (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982).
8. See Derek D. Smith, “Deterrence and Counterproliferation in an Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Security Studies 12 (Summer 2003): 152–97. The counterproliferation strategy of the Bush administration towards Iran in 2005 may well have to reconsider its hard-line policy and provide positive incentives to convince Iran to mothball its dynamic nuclear weapons programs, recommending Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization and underwriting significant economic, financial, and trading benefits to Iran in alliance with the European Community (Britain, France, and Germany)( Sonni Efron, “U.S. Weighs Change of Tactics to Discourage Iran’s Nuclear Aims,” Los Angeles Times, 1 March 2005, p. A8).
9. There is a robust cottage industry in the United States and Western Europe focused on developing the advanced military means (and the intellectual justification) to confront and disarm major Third World states with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities or those states secretly and rigorously moving in that direction. While Western alliance policy is the central construct for maintaining and advancing international and regional nonproliferation treaties and related safeguard regimes, the United States has taken the strategic counter-proliferation leadership in the Western alliance by arguing for the use of extraordinary military and political/diplomatic/economic measures to either convince or force major Third World states to give up their nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities. The Bush administration’s approach to major Third World states pursuing or possessing nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities has its historical and intellectual origins in the 1990s (some analysts argue even earlier) when a veritable cascade of journal articles and authoritative books were produced in the United States by defense neo-conservatives and conservatives alike arguing for a more interventionist U.S. policy to prevent nuclear and WMD proliferation. For a wide-ranging discussion on the policy origins on of U.S. counterproliferation doctrine and its pre-emptive military strategy, see Ashton Carter, “Overhauling Counterproliferation,” Technology in Society 26 (April–August 2004): 257–69; Martin Butcher,“What Wrongs Our Arms May Do: The Role of Nuclear Weapons in Counterproliferation,” Physicians for Social Responsibility (August 2003): 18–108; Robert Litwak, “Non-Proliferation and the Dilemmas of Regime Change,” Survival 45 (Winter 2003–2004): 7–31; and Daryl G. Kimball,“Turning Away From Nuclear Weapons,” Arms Control Today 33 (July–August 2003): 1–2. For an earlier set of well-argued analysis on the U.S. counterproliferation focus and pre-emptive military strategies, see Angelo Cordevilla,“Counterproliferation and Beyond,” Washington Quarterly 18 (Winter 1995): 142–93; Pete V. Domenici, “Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Washington Quarterly 18 (1995): 145–52; Natalie J. Goldring, “Skittish on Counterproliferation,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 52 (March 1994): 12–13; Stuart E. Johnson and William H. Lewis, eds., Weapons of Mass Destruction: New Perspective on Counterproliferation (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, 1995); Walter L. Kirchner and Joseph F. Pilat, “The Technological Promise of Counterproliferation,” Washington Quarterly 18 (1995): 153–66; James Kitfield, “Counterproliferation,” Air Force Magazine (October 1995): 56–59; Steven M. Kosiak, Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation: Investing for a Safer World? (Washington, D.C.: Defense Budget Project, 1995); Thomas W. Lippman, “If Nonproliferation Fails, Pentagon Wants
Counterproliferation,” The Washington Post, 1994, p. A11; Angus McColl, “Is Counterproliferation Compatible with Nonproliferation?” Airpower Journal 11 (Spring 1997): 99–109; Harald Muller and Mitchell Reiss, “Counterproliferation” Putting New Wine in Old Bottles,” Washington Quarterly 18 (1995): 143–54; Barry R. Schneider, “Nuclear Proliferation and Counter-Proliferation: Policy Issues and Debates,” Mershon International Studies Review 38 (1994): 209–34; Gregory F. Treverton. Integrating Counterproliferation in Defense Planning (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, 1997); and R.F. Goheen, “Problems of Proliferation: U.S. Policy and the Third World,” World Politics 35 (January 1983): 194–215.
10. The debate on whether democratic states with massive nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities possesses moral hegemony over those non-democratic states with minimum nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities is an extremely important issue which has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. At first glance, the United States, Britain and France are "democratic states” and the Peoples’ Republic of China and the Russian Federation are not. In the realist universe, moral hegemony is based on the preponderance of hard and soft power capabilities and by that definition the democratic states exercise moral hegemony, a situation that is much resented by Russia and China. Second, the political question of whether major Third World democracies with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities (e.g., India) and those that are not democratic states (e.g., North Korea, Pakistan and perhaps Iran in the future) with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities are constantly lectured and threatened by democratic states in the West that they cannot secure their national nuclear security interests has generated over time great resentment in the Third World. See Sean Malloy, “The Realist Logic of International Security,” Cooperation and Conflict 38 (June 2003): 91–95 and T.V. Paul. Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forego Nuclear Weapons (Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen University Press, 2000).
111. The American and Western nonproliferation literature does not exhaustively explore the universe of nuclear and WMD security requirements of major Third World states. This state of affairs is understandable because of the international consensus led by the United States and the Western alliance that nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities are destabilizing in the hands or under the control of major Third World states. Peter Dombrowski and Rodger Payne, “Global Debate and the Limits of the Bush Doctrine,” International Studies Perspectives 4 (November 2003): 395–408. However, the one-sidedness of the Western debate suggests that there may not be a real possibility of a rational discussion on the legitimate national security requirements of major Third World states, whenever (positive or negative) security guarantees from the nuclear weapons states are not forthcoming or not viewed as reliable when offered and whenever the international security environment become too threatening to non-nuclear weapons states. Some major Third World analysts argue that the theoretical and conceptual “apartheid” embedded in the nuclear and WMD literature is driven by U.S. neoconservative and conservative academics and policy analysts, with the structural effect that their alleged intellectual analysis is (mis)-informing the actions of international and regional nonproliferation decision makers. See Jaswant Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid,” Foreign Affairs 77 (1998): 41–52 and Jaswant Singh, “Obstacles in the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,” U.S.I. Journal 128 (April–June 1998): 155–61. However, the literature focuses liberally on the global security needs of the nuclear weapons states in future conflict situations, instances where WMD-actual or WMD-capable Third World states may pose strategic threats to U.S. and Western national interests. See Donald G. Boudreau. “On Advancing Non-Proliferation,” Strategic Analysis 14 (February 1992): 327–42 and Jane Nolan, Peter Rodman, John Simpson, Gary Milhollin, and Harald Muller, “The Counter-Proliferation Debate: Are Military Measures or Other New Initiatives Needed to Supplement the Non-Proliferation Regime?” A panel discussion from the Conference on Nuclear Non-Proliferation: The Challenges of A New Era, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (12–18 November 1993), p. 32. In a post-cold war environment where nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities are growing more sophisticated among the nuclear weapons states—creating novel security uncertainties as the new century unfolds—analytical questions which do not fully examine the nuclear and WMD proliferation issue from all legitimate perspectives goes against the established scientific traditions of strategy and action.
12. The issue of nuclear disarmament and ending the role and weight of nuclear weapons in the international security system is a very “squishy” policy problem. The United States and the four nuclear weapons states posit that they will inevitably reduce their strategic nuclear weapons and other advanced nuclear capabilities down to zero in the future, while they acknowledge that they must continue to improve and recalibrate their nuclear arsenals to maintain their respective strategic deterrence postures. See John Deutch, “A Nuclear Posture for Today,” Foreign Affairs (January–February 2005): 49–60. From the Third World perspective, the five nuclear weapons states are not moving fast enough to disarm; and they feel increasingly threatened by the unstable international and regional threat environments. See Lawrence S. Wittner. Towards Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to Present (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003); Jonathan Schell, “The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons,” CDI Monthly 3 (1998): 72–77; and J.D. Holum,“The CTBT and Nuclear Disarmament: The U.S. View,” Journal of International Affairs 51 (Summer 1997): 263–81.
13. Derek D. Smith, “Deterrence and Counterproliferation in an Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Security Studies 12 (Summer 2003): 152–97 and William Hartung, “Prevention, Not
Intervention: Curbing the Nuclear Threat,” World Policy Journal 19 (Winter 2002–2003): 1–11.
14. See Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal and Miriam Rajkumar, eds., Deadly Arsenals-Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002); Douglas Pasternak and Tim Zimmermann,“Critical Mass: Counterproliferation Measures,” U.S. News and World Report, 17 April 1995, pp. 39–45; and Tim Zimmermann, “Proliferation: Bronze Medal Technology is Enough,” Orbis 38 (Winter 1994): 67–82.
15. Jonathan Peterson, “Iraq’s Defiance Keeps Chance of Strikes Alive,” Los Angeles Times, 23 November 1998, pp. A1–A10.
16. Ilan Bermand, “The Bush Strategy at War,” The National Interest 74 (Winter 2003–2004): 51–57.
17. Some major Third World states have not incurred the same intensity or longevity of political, economic, and military sanctions applied by the United States and other nuclear weapons states, as have other major Third World states that pursued nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities. This is one of the main problems with the international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regime(s) that major Third World states are most upset with, and which they frequently refer to as a blatant double standard. See Tyler Marshall, “South Asia Testing May Blast a Hole in 3-Decade-Old Double Standard,” Los Angeles Times, 5 June 1998, p. A12 and Jim Mann, “U.S. Respect Only A Nuke or Two Away,” Los Angeles Times, 3 June 1998, p. A5. It is interesting to note that Iraq and most recently Libya are no longer members of the anti-Western school of thought on nonproliferation and proliferation, the former because of invasion and occupation by the United States and its coalition allies and the latter because it sees its long-run interests been best met through alliance or semi-formal relations with the United States and the West.
18. Richard Falkenrath, “Weapons of Mass Reaction: Rogue States and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Harvard International Review 22 (May 2000): 52–55.
19. See Patrick E. Tyler, “Pakistan Called Libyans Source of Atom Design,” New York Times, 6 January 2004, pp. A1–A11; Raymond Bonner and Craig S. Smith, “Pakistani Said To Have Given Libya Uranium,” New York Times, 21 February 2004, pp. A1–A6; John Burton, Stephen Fidler and Mark Husband, “Pakistani Ring ‘Fed Libya Nuclear Parts,” Financial Times, 21–22 February 2004, p. 1; Douglas Frantz, “Libya Arms Development Surprises U.S.,” Los Angeles Times, 21 February 2004, p. A1; Mark Huband, “Libya Had Diverse Nuclear Weapons Programme, Says IAEA,” Financial Times, 21–22 February 2004, p. 3; John Burton,“Malaysia’s Respected New Premier Falls Foul of Climate of Corruption,” Financial Times, 18 March 2004, p. P3; Michele Dunne, “Libya: Security is not Enough,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 32 (2004): 8–15; and George Joffe,“Libya: Who Blinked, and Why” Current History 103 (2004): 221–25.
20. It is interesting to note that U.S. foreign political and economic sanctions against India and Pakistan during the cold war period to prevent their development and deployment of nuclear weapons ultimately failed to work because of the countervailing supreme national security interests of the two South Asian states. See Guatam Adhikari, “India and America: Estranged No More,” Current History 103 (April 2004): 158–64; Mohammed Ayoob, “South Asia’s Dangers and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Orbis 45 (Winter 2001): 123–34; Jerome Conley, Indo-Russian Military and Nuclear Cooperation: Lessons and Options for U.S. Policy in South Asia (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001); Timothy D. Hoyt, “Pakistani Nuclear Doctrine and the Danger of Strategic Myopia,” Asian Survey 41 (November 2001): 956–77; Mohammed Ayoob, “Nuclear India and Indian-American Relations,” Orbis 43 (Winter 1999): 59–74; Samir K. Sen, “He Who Rides a Tiger: The Rationale of India’s Nuclear Tests,” Comparative Strategy 18 (1999): 129–36; and Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli, India, Pakistan and the United States: Breaking with the Past (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997).
21. While Iran is currently pursuing nuclear energy self-sufficiency in a country rich in hydroelectric potential and oil and gas resources, it also operates a vast secret nuclear research infrastructure to produce nuclear weapons if it so decides. Recently, there has emerged new information suggesting that black market nuclear suppliers twenty years ago secretly offered Iran a veritable shopping list of nuclear weapons design and nuclear technologies required to build a sophisticated a nuclear weapons production center, but the nation’s leadership turned down the offer. See Douglas Frantz, “Gaps Seen in Iran’s Nuclear Disclosure,” Los Angeles Times, 25 February 2004, p. A3; William J. Broad,“Uranium Traveled to Iran Via Russia, Inspectors Find,” New York Times, 28 February 2004, p. A4; Shahram Chubin and Robert Litwak, “Debating Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations,” Washington Quarterly 26 (Autumn 2003): 99–114; Ray Takeyh, “Iran’s Nuclear Calculations,” World Policy Journal 20 (Summer 2003): 21–28; and Michael Eisenstadt,“Russian Arms and Technology Transfers to Iran: Policy Challenges for the United States,” Arms Control Today 31 (March 2001): 15–22.
22. David Cortright, ed., Smart Sanctions: Targeting Economic Sanctions (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002); Barbara Slavin,“Sanctions May Be Losing Favor As Top Policy Weapon,” USA Today, 25 June 1998, p. 10A; and Shiraz Sidhva, “Afraid of Sanctions,” Far Eastern Economic Review 161 (May 1998): 71–72.
23. For a review on the important issue of nuclear weapons proliferation and WMD terrorism, see Andrew O’Neil, “Terrorist Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction: How Serious is the Threat?” Australian Journal of International Affairs 57 (2003): 99–122; John Parachini, “Putting WMD Terrorism into Perspective,” The Washington Quarterly 26 (2003): 37–50; Jonathan Spyer, “The Al-Qa’ida Network and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 8 (September 2004): 29–42; David Albright and Holly Higgins, “A Bomb for the Uumah,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March–April 2003): 45–49; Tyler Marshall, “UN Powers Take Up Arms Issue,” Los Angeles Times, 5 June 1998, p. A12; and Gary Taubles, “Countering Nuclear Terrorism: Dwindling Capabilities?” Science no. 5201 (February 1995): 96–100.
24. The U.S. policy decision to greatly strengthen the NPT in the next extension debate and prod the International Atomic Energy Agency to strengthen safeguard regimes will not be a cakewalk given the rising resistance by the Third World. For insight into the last extension debate in the 1990s, see John B. Rhinelander and Adam E. Scheinman, eds., At the Nuclear Crossroads: Choices about Nuclear Weapons and Extension of the Nonproliferation Treaty (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995).
25. See David Sloss, “Forcible Arms Control: Preemptive Attacks on Nuclear Facilities,” Chicago Journal of International Law 4 (Spring 2003): 39–57 and Henry Sokolski, US Nonproliferation Policies Since 1945: Their Strategic Premises and Implications (Washington, D.C.: The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, 1995).
26. Kurt Campbell, Robert Einhoan, and Mitchell Reiss, eds., The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider their Nuclear Choices (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004).
27. See Roland Bleiker, “A Rogue is a Rogue is a Rogue: US Foreign Policy and the Korean Nuclear Crisis,” International Affairs 79 (July 2003): 719–38 and David E. Sanger, “Nuclear Reality: America Loses Bite,” New York Times, 20 February 2005, pp. 1–4.
28. One of the central theoretical questions not adequately addressed in the nuclear and WMD literatures is the (in)-security dilemmas faced by major Third World states. It is the “smoking gun” or the “tipping point” in the nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities debate from the Third World perspective. The problem of increasing security while not threatening the security of other states is the essence of the security dilemma. See Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” in Conflict After the Cold War: Arguments of War and Peace, ed. Richard K. Betts (New York: Longman, 2002), pp. 400–415. For a series of informed analysis on the (in)-security dilemmas faced by major Third World states, see Alan Collins,“State-Induced Security Dilemma: Maintaining the Tragedy,” Cooperation and Conflict 39 (March 2004): 27–44; Donald L. Berlin, “The Indian Ocean and the Second Nuclear Age,” Orbis 48 (Winter 2004): 55–70; Kanti Bajpai, “India and the Bomb,” Dissent 48 (Fall 2001): 21–25; Samina Ahmed,“Security Dilemmas of Nuclear-Armed Pakistan,” Third World Quarterly 21 (October 2000): 781–93; Brian Job, The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992); and Mohammed Ayoob,“The Security Problematic of the Third World,” World Politics 43 (1991): 257–83.
29. See Alan Collins, “State-Induced Security Dilemma: Maintaining the Tragedy,” Cooperation and Conflict 39 (March 2004): 27–44; Samina Ahmed, “Security Dilemmas of Nuclear-Armed Pakistan,” Third World Quarterly 21 (October 2000): 781–84; and Gavin Cameron. Nuclear Terrorism: A Threat for the 21st Century (Monterey, Calif.: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999).
30. For an excellent discussion on the need to reconsider the meaning and operationality of strategic deterrence doctrine in the post cold war international environment, see Keith B. Payne, “The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction,” Comparative Strategy 22 (December 2003): 411–28 and Avery Goldstein. Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000).
31. Zachery Davis S. and Benjamin Frankel. The Proliferation Puzzle: Why Nuclear Weapons Spread and What Results (Stanford, Calif.: International Specialized Book Services, 1993).
32. See Andrew Newman, “Arms Control, Proliferation and Terrorism: The Bush Administration’s Post-September 11 Security Strategy,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 27 (March 2004): 59–88 and Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A Duty to Prevent,” Foreign Affairs 83 (January– February 2004): 136–50.
33. John Baylis and Robert O’Neil, eds., Alternative Nuclear Futures-The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the Post-Cold War World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) and Eric Arnett, Nuclear Weapons After the Comprehensive Test Ban: Implications for Modernization and Proliferation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
34. Mubashir Zaidi, “Pakistan Admits Possible Nuclear Ties with Iran,” Los Angeles Times, 24 December 2003, p. A.0 and Sooni Efron, “Secret Iran Nuclear Plan Discovered,” Los Angeles Times, 13 February 2004, pp. A1–A10.
35. Sharon A. Squassoni, “Disarming Libya: Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Congressional Research Service 34 (2004): 1–6 and Yahia H. Zoubir, “Libya in US Foreign Policy: From Rogue State to Good Fellow?” Third World Quarterly 23 (2002): 31–53.
36. Douglas Frantz, “A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout,” Los Angeles Times, 27 February 2005, pp. A1–A12 and Jamie Calabrese, “Carrots and Sticks: Libya and US Efforts to Influence Rogue States,” Strategic Insights 3 (2004): 1–9.
37. See Festus Ohaegbulam, “U.S. Measures against Libya since the Explosion of Pam Am Flight 203,” Mediterranean Quarterly 11 (2000): 111–35; Ronald Bruce St. John, “Apply ‘Libya Model’ to Iran and Syria,” Foreign Policy in Focus 23 (2004): 45–49; and Joseph Sinai, “Libya’s Pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” The Nonproliferation Review 64 (1997): 982–1000. South Africa is a first case of a major Third World state that acquired nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities; and its Afrikaner political elite decided to renounce them because of severe pressure from the United States and the international community and perhaps more importantly because of pressing domestic political reasons associated with the incoming African National Congress government led by Nelson Mandela in the 1980s.
38. See Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003); Scott Sagan,“The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,” International Security 18 (Spring 1994): 66–107; Kenneth Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” American Political Science Review 84 (September 1990): 731–45; and Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1981).
39. Edward M. Luttwak, “Nuclear Deterrence Is A Western Illusion,” Los Angeles Times, 14 June 1998, p. M5. For an excellent discussion on the critical historical need for a renaissance in international security studies, see Stephen M. Walt, “The Renaissance of Security Studies,” International Studies Quarterly 35 (June 1991): 211–39.
40. See William M. Arkin, “Calculated Ambiguity: Nuclear Weapons and the Gulf War,” Washington Quarterly 19 (1996): 3–18; Rod Barton, “Eliminating Strategic Weapons: The Case of Iraq,” Pacific Research 6 (August 1992): 11–13; and Richard K. Betts, “Paranoids, Pygmies, and Nonproliferation Revisited,” Security Studies 2 (Spring–Summer 1993): 3.
41. The global debate on the utility of negative (and positive) sanctions as a central means to prevent or discourage nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation activities was destroyed by the multiple Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in the late 1990s. See Mario E. Carranza, “At the Crossroads: US Non-Proliferation toward South Asia after the Indian and Pakistani Tests,” Contemporary Security Policy 23 (April 2002): 93–128 and Raju G. C. Thomas and Amit Gupta, eds., Indian Nuclear Security (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000). A long-term and counter-instrumental outcome of the U.S. negative sanctions regime in South Asia was that Pakistan and to a lesser extent, India have being offered and accepted positive incentives (i.e., debt relief, trade credits, and waivers on bank loans) from the United States to refrain from the export of their growing nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities to other major Third World states. See Elizabeth Mills, “India and the United States: Deal to be Done,” World Market Research Centre 60 (April 2004): 25–26; Peter R. Lavoy, “Managing South Asian’s Nuclear Rivalry: New Policy Challenges
for the United States,” The Nonproliferation Review 10 (Fall 2003): 89–94; Rajesh Rajagopalan, “The Evolution of Pakistan Policy, 1999–2001,” South Asian Survey 10 (July 2003): 117–44; and D. Mistry, “Diplomacy, Sanctions, and the US Nonproliferation Dialogue with India and Pakistan,” Asian Survey 5 (September 1999): 735–71. This double standard outcome has not been ignored by major Third World states that must now carefully reconsider the benefits and the costs of developing nuclear weapons and/or WMD capabilities. See Stanley A. Erickson, “Economic and Technological Trends Affecting Nuclear Proliferation,” Nonproliferation Review 8 (Summer 2001): 40–54 and John Arquilla, Modeling Decision making of Potential Proliferators As Part of Developing Counter-proliferation Strategies (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, 1996). Given the recent disturbing information that important sectors of the military/industrial complex in Pakistan sold and/or bartered very sensitive nuclear weapons designs, technologies and fuel to major Third World states (Iran, Libya, and North Korea) for more than twenty years casts an invidious light on the consistency of U.S. reward and sanction policies. What is even more disturbing is that U.S. and Western intelligence services did not move to thoroughly destroy Dr. Khan’s worldwide nuclear smuggling ring until the Libyan nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities admission hit the global headlines. Each time the United States wanted to move in to arrest Dr. Khan and dissolve his nuclear smuggling ring, major geopolitical events (i.e., the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the September 11th terrorist event) intervened to prevent the “rollup and cleanup.” There is some evidence that Dr. Khan’s nuclear smuggling ring quiet for the last few years is beginning to reemerge from its “deep underground sleep” and is now reengaging with major Third World states interested in purchasing its nuclear weapons design(s) and nuclear technological secrets.
42. Tyler Marshall, “Clinton Seeks Flexibility in Imposing Sanctions,” Los Angeles Times, 9 September 1998, p. A4.
43. See Abraham Sofaer, “On the Necessity of Pre-Emption,” European Journal of International Law 14 (April 2003): 209–26 and Sherle R. Schwenninger, “The Rift over Rogues: Europeans Are Dismayed by Washington’s Growing Multilateralism,” Nation 263 (1996): 21–24.
44. See Andrew Newman, “The Disarmament of Iraq: WMD Nonproliferation Template?” Australian Journal of International Affairs 58 (June 2004): 221–40 and Khalil Dokhanchi, “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Rogue States and Weapons Proliferation,” Journal of Peace Research 33 (May 1996): 241–44.
45. See Michael Eisenstadt, “Can the United States Influence the WMD Policies of Iran and Iraq,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (September 2000): 1–11 and David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Iraq’s Quest for the Nuclear Grail: What Can We Learn?” Arms Control Today 22 (July–August 1992): 3–11.
46. Christopher Daase, “The Beginning of the End of the Nuclear Taboo: On the Crisis of Legitimacy for the World Nuclear Order,” Zeitschrift fur Internationale Beziehungen 10 (June 2003): 7–41.
47. See Ashton Carter, “Overhauling Counterproliferation,” Technology in Society 26 (April–August 2004): 257–69; David Karl, “Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996–97): 87–119; Steven Flank, “Exploding the Black Box: The Historical Sociology of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 3 (Winter 1993–94): 259–94; and John Maxwell Hamilton, “Nonproliferation and he National Interests: America’s Response to the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientist 49 (1993): 50–51.
48. See Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter,” A Duty to Prevent,” Foreign Affairs 83 (January–February 2004): 136–50; Peter D. Feaver and Emerson M.S. Niou, “Managing Nuclear Proliferation: Condemn, Strike or Assist?” International Studies Quarterly 40 (June 1996): 209–33; and Peter D. Feaver, “Proliferation Optimism and Theories of Nuclear Operations,” Security Studies 2 (Spring–Summer 1993): 159–91.
49. Chung-in Moon and Jong-yun Bae, “The Bush Doctrine and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” Asian Perspective 27 (2003): 47–77 and Timothy L. Savage, “Letting the Genii Out of the Bottle: The Bush Nuclear Doctrine in Asia,” Asian Perspective 27 (2003): 9–45.
50. Rajamani Ramamurthy, “On Both Sides, South Asia Nuclear Weapons Are in Mature Hands,” Los Angeles Times, 8 June 1998, p. B5. See also Michael Ryan Kraig, “The Political and Strategic Imperatives of Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia,” India Review 2 (January 2003): 1–48; Lo James,“Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: Theory and Practice,” International Journal 58 (Summer 2003): 395–414; Peter R. Lavoy, “Managing South Asia’s Nuclear Rivalry: New Policy Challenges for the United States, The Nonproliferation Review 10 (Fall 2003): 84–94; and Maleeha Lodhi, “Security Challenges in South Asia,” Nonproliferation Review 8 (Summer 2001): 118–24.
51. See Nafeez Ahmed, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq (East Sussex, England: Clairview Books, 2003); Rolf Ekeus, “The Iraqi Experience and the Future of Nuclear Proliferation,” Washington Quarterly 15 (1992): 67–74; Rolf Ekeus, “Unearthing Iraq’s Arsenals,” Arms Control Today 22 (April 1992): 6–9; Mark Magnier and Barbara Demick, “North Korea May be in ‘Anybody but Bush Camp’,” Los Angeles Times, 25 February 2004, p. A9; William J. Broad, “Uranium Traveled to Iran Via Russia, Inspectors Find,” New York Times, 28 February 2004, p. A4; and Barbara Demick, “North Korea May Have Nuclear Backup Plan,” Los Angeles Times, 24 February 2004, p. A7.
52. See David E. Sanger and William J. Broad,“Pakistan’s Nuclear Earnings: $100 Million,” New York Times, 16 March 2004, p. A8 and Josh Meyer,“U.S. Discusses Depth of Khan’s Nuclear Network,” Los Angeles Times, 16 March 2004, p. A3.
53. Louis Rene Beres, “Israel’s Bomb in the Basement: A Revisiting of ‘Deliberate Ambiguity’ vs. ‘Disclosure’ in Efraim Harsh, ed., Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 113–33.
54. See Michael J. Siler, “Explaining Variation in Nuclear Outcomes Among Southern States: Bargaining Analysis of U.S. Non-Proliferation Policies Towards Brazil, Egypt, India and South Korea” (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1992).
55. K. Subramanyam, “An Equal Opportunity NPT,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,” 49 (June 1993): 37–39. The majority of Third World criticism over the alleged unfairness of international and regional nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regime(s) has come from the South Asia region, particularly India. Historically, the Peoples’ Republic of China, Brazil, Egypt, Syria, Argentina, Cuba, South Korea, Iraq, and Iran have also voiced their criticisms of these treaties and regimes.
56. Douglas Frantz, “Censure Spurs Iran to Ban U.N. Monitors,” Los Angeles Times, 14 March 2004, p. A3; Craig S. Smith, “Alarm Raised Over Quality of Uranium Found in Iran,” New York Times, 11 March 2004, p. A12; and Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger, “North Korea Hides New Nuclear Site, Evidence Suggests,” New York Times, 20 July 2003, pp. 1–6.
57. See Harold Feiveson, ed., The Nuclear Turning Point: A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-alerting of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999); Andy Oppenheimer,“North Korea, Pakistan and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: Destructive Deals,” The World Today 60 (February 2004): 26–67; and Scott Sagan,“Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons,” International Security 21(Winter 1996–97): 54–86.
58. American support for some major Third World states with nuclear weapons and WMD capabilities, Israel and Pakistan (as well as India) confounds the search for a permanent nonproliferation agreement between the nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear weapons states because of the double standard in the U.S. nonproliferation position alluded to earlier (Erich Marquardt, “Why the U.S. Supports the State of Israel,” Power and Interest News Report, 7 October 2004, pp. 1-2; Chuck Nuebauer, “Musharraf Has Rumsfield’s Support in Nuclear Case,” Los Angeles Times, 29 March 2004, p. A3; and Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991).
59. Selig Harrison, “A Nuclear Safety Plan for Pakistan,” Financial Times, 19 March 2004), p. 13. See also Arian L. Pregenzer. “Securing Nuclear Capabilities in India and Pakistan: Reducing the Terrorist and Proliferation Risks,” The Nonproliferation Review 10 (Spring 2003): 124–31 and Robert E. Rehbeing, “Managing Proliferation in South Asia: A Case for Assistance to Unsafe Nuclear Arsenals,” Nonproliferation Review 9 (Spring 2002): 92–111.
60. Sooni Efron, “Bush Outlines a Plan to Halt Nuclear Proliferation,” Los Angeles Times, 12 February 2004, p. A8 and Joel Brinkley and William J. Broad,“U.S. Lags in Recovering Fuel Suitable for Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, 7 March 2004, p. 8.
61. Andrew K. Semmel, “How Should the Regime Be Adjusted in a World Where Nine States Possess Nuclear Weapons?” 14 December 2004 http://www.state.gov/t/np/rls/rm/40055.htm.
62. The black and gray markets for nuclear weapons design and nuclear technologies are flourishing internationally. The U.S. and Western efforts to close down the illegal suppliers of these dangerous and destabilizing technologies have not been successful. Moreover, the inability to reduce the significant uranium “leakage” from nuclear weapons sites in the Russian Federation to unknown sources complicates global nonproliferation efforts. See Douglas Frantz, “Dutch Confirm Possible Spread of Arms Secret,” Los Angeles Times, 20 January 2004, p. A3; Douglas Frantz and Maura Reynolds,“Individuals Supplying Nuclear Trade, Officials Say,” Los Angeles Times, 29 January 2004, p. A19; and Douglas Frantz and John Myer, “For Sale: Nuclear Expertise,” Los Angeles Times, 22 February 2004, pp. A1–A8. Moreover, the inability to reduce the significant uranium “leakage” from nuclear sites in the Russian Federation to unknown sources complicates the global nonproliferation efforts.
63. Mark Magnier and Barbara Demick, “North Korea May Be in ‘Anybody but Bush’ Camp,” Los Angeles Times, 25 February 2004, p. A9.
64. Barbara Demick, “North Korea May Have Nuclear Backup Plan,” Los Angeles Times, 24 February 2004, p. A7.
65. The nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation debates in major Third World states addresses major national security concerns and policy issues unique to their strategic cultures and motivating political constituencies. In a real sense, these debates are the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the non-Western perspectives of the international and regional nuclear nonproliferation treaties and safeguard regimes. See Runa Das, “Broadening the Security Paradigm: A Note on the Tension Between the Realist and Anti-Proliferation Lobbies in India,” Indian Journal of Political Science 62 (June 2001): 253–63 and Haider K. Nizamani, “Describing the Nuclear Elephant: Nuclear Policy and Politics in India and Pakistan,” Millennium 29 (Spring 2000): 141–51. See also Rajesh Rajagopalan, “The Evolution of Pakistan’s Nuclear Policy, 1999–2001,” South Asian Survey 10 (July–December 2003): 231–46; and Michael Quinlan,“How Robust is India-Pakistan Deterrence,” Survival 42 (Winter 2000): 141–54.
66. One of the issues not yet addressed in the Khan nuclear smuggling ring problem is the role and impact of religion and culture in both targeting and accelerating the illegal transfer of sensitive nuclear weapons designs and uranium fuels from Pakistan to major Third World states. See David Rohde,“General Denies Letting Secrets of A-Bomb Out of Pakistan,” New York Times, 27 January 2004, p. A6; Kathy Gannon, “Explosive Secrets from Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, 30 January 2004, p. B15; Douglas Frantz, Paul Watson, and Mubashir Zaidi, “Pakistan Caught in a Web of Evidence,” Los Angeles Times, 3 February 2004, pp. A1–A6; William J. Broad, David E. Sanger, and Raymond Bonner, “A Tale of Nuclear Proliferation: How Pakistani Built His Network,” New York Times, 12 February 2004, pp. A1–A18; Mubashir Zaidi, “Pakistani Accuses 7 of Helping Khan Share Nuclear Secrets,” Los Angeles Times, 12 February 2004, p. A9; Craig S. Smith, “Roots of Pakistan Atomic Scandal Traced to Europe,” New York Times, 19 February 2004, p. A3; David Rohde, “Pakistani Linked to Illegal Exports Has Ties to Military,” New York Times, 20 February 2004, p. A6; and David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “Pakistan May Have Aided North Korea A-Test,” New York Times, 27 February 2004, p. A8.
67. The history and motivations driving major Third World states’ pursuit of nuclear |