Proliferation and International Crisis Behavior
| Author | Victor Asal,Kyle Beardsley |
| Published date | 01 March 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343307075118 |
| Date | 01 March 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
139
Introduction
The primary justification for the US invasion
of Iraq in 2003 was the fear that the Iraqi
government was developing weapons of mass
destruction (WMD), which included the possi-
bility that Saddam Hussein was continuing in
his efforts to build nuclear weapons. Preventing
the proliferation of nuclear weapons has been
a driving force behind US policy towards
North Korea and Iran as well. Much of the
literature about nuclear weapons since the
1950s has been about how to control or elim-
inate them, and enormous diplomatic effort
has been invested in constraining their prolif-
eration. Is the effort to stop proliferation –
which can be measured in lost lives, diplomatic
effort, and billions of dollars – worthwhile?
Are there possible advantages to proliferation
that might justify a different attitude towards
the spread of nuclear weapons? This article
attempts to provide empirical insight for part
of this broad question. Proliferation may lead
to a host of problems, ranging from nuclear
terror to nuclear accidents to war (Sagan &
Waltz, 2003). This article has a narrower focus
and examines only the issue of war.
© 2007 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 44, no. 2, 2007, pp. 139–155
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
and Singapore) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343307075118
Proliferation and International Crisis Behavior*
VICTOR ASAL
Department of Political Science, State University of New York, Albany
KYLE BEARDSLEY
Department of Political Science, Emory University
The literature on international conflict is divided on the impact of nuclear proliferation on state con-
flict. The optimists’ argument contends that nuclear weapons raise the stakes so high that states are
unlikely to go to war when nuclear weapons enter the equation. The pessimists rebut this argument,
contending that new proliferators are not necessarily rational and that having nuclear weapons does not
discourage war but rather makes war more dangerous. Focusing on one observable implication from
this debate, this article examines the relationship between the severity of violence in crises and the
number of involved states with nuclear weapons. The study contends that actors will show more restraint
in crises involving more participants with nuclear weapons. Using data from the International Crisis
Behavior (ICB) project, the results demonstrate that crises involving nuclear actors are more likely to
end without violence and, as the number of nuclear actors involved increases, the likelihood of war con-
tinues to fall. The results are robust even when controlling for a number of factors including non-nuclear
capability. In confirming that nuclear weapons tend to increase restraint in crises, the effect of nuclear
weapons on strategic behavior is clarified. But the findings do not suggest that increasing the number
of nuclear actors in a crisis can prevent war, and they cannot speak to other proliferation risks.
* The replication data are available for download at http://
www.prio.no/jpr/datasets. Please see http://cidcm.umd.
edu/icb for a complete description of the International
Crisis Behavior data and an interactive database of the
crises. Please direct all correspondence to VAsal@email.
albany.edu.
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 44 / number 2 / march 2007
140
Specifically, we seek to answer the ques-
tion posed by Waltz (Sagan & Waltz, 2003:
6): ‘Do nuclear weapons increase or decrease
the chances of war?’ One side of this dis-
cussion contends that proliferation will lead
to a decrease in the level of interstate violence
because ‘Nuclear weapons, then and now,
deter threat or retaliation posing unaccept-
able damage’ (Cimbala, 1998: 213). The
opposing argument questions the very logic
of deterrence as suggested above when it
comes to nuclear weapons. Aron (1965), for
example, argues that new proliferators may
not be as rational as the original nuclear
states. Thus, as nuclear weapons spread, the
deterrence that operated between the Soviet
Union and the United States of America
during the Cold War might not apply.
Much of the literature on the impact of
nuclear weapons does not empirically test the
arguments made (Geller, 2003: 37; Huth &
Russett, 1988: 34). Here, we strive to move
beyond speculation to observe the impact of
nuclear proliferation on the level of violence
used in crises. We examine the relationship
between the severity of the violence in crises
in the International Crisis Behavior (ICB)
dataset and the number of involved states with
nuclear weapons, controlling for other factors
that increase the likelihood of severe violence.1
We find that crises involving nuclear actors are
more likely to end without violence. Also, as
the number of nuclear actors involved in a
crisis increases, the likelihood of war continues
to drop. Drawing from Waltz (Sagan & Waltz,
2003) and the rational deterrence literature,
we argue that states facing the possibility of a
nuclear attack will be more willing to concede
or back down from violent conflict.
Proliferation: Good or Bad; for
What and Whom?
Not surprisingly, much of the current literature
examines the nature of nuclear proliferation
from the perspectives or interests of the United
States of America (Clark, 1997; Powell, 2003).
For the USA, non-proliferation means fewer
enemies with the ability to threaten the
American heartland. But proliferation may
damage more than the USA’s ability to defend
itself. Proliferation may severely constrain the
projection of US or Western force abroad in
regions of strategic importance (Payne, 1997).
The negative impact of proliferation on
the security environment, however, may be
seen in a very different light if the security and
political interests of the USA do not drive the
analysis. Indeed, several non-US perspectives
reject non-proliferation arguments, as ‘divid-
ing states into “responsible” ones who can set
and change the rules of the game and those
“irresponsible” nations who have to accept
the rules leads to discriminatory ideas of non-
proliferation’ (Mashhadi, 1994: 107; see also
Goheen, 1983).2Or, as Singh (1998) bluntly
states, arguments for non-proliferation may
be dismissed as ‘Nuclear Apartheid’.
For some states, proliferation has such
important strategic value that they will make
any effort to go nuclear, as in the case of Iraq
in the 1980s and 1990s (Kokoski, 1995). The
justification for proliferation in countries like
India, Iraq, and Pakistan is often security
(Sagan, 1996/97). Mearsheimer (1990: 20)
argues, ‘states that possess nuclear deterrents
can stand up to one another, even if their
nuclear arsenals vary greatly in size’. Gallois
1We should note that our unit of analysis is the crisis. Our
findings do not get at the behavior of specific states and the
different outcomes of crises for different states. We should
also note that we do not test the question of how the number
of nuclear weapons each actor possesses impacts crisis behav-
ior. The question of minimal deterrence is important, but it
lies beyond the scope of the current study, which seeks to
examine the impact of the very presence of nuclear actors.
2Mason (1992: 149) argues that this attitude is also part
of what motivated French resistance to an anti-proliferation
attitude prior to their membership to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty. ‘France disagrees with the underlying logic of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is seen as an additional
manifestation of “patronizing Anglo-Saxon Puritanism”
which finds it normal to divide the world into civilized
countries (i.e., countries which would have a responsible
attitude toward their nuclear weapons) and uncivilized
countries (i.e., the rest of the world).’
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