Scientific intelligence, nuclear assistance, and bargaining

Members of the non-proliferation regime give technical assistance to countries contemplating nuclear weapons. This is puzzling: it facilitates the behavior donors wish to stop, and other forms of concessions do not have this drawback. Why do it? I develop a model of uncertainty, bargaining, and nuclear proliferation. In it, assistance hastens acquisition time but also generates a signal about the recipient’s domestic nuclear proficiency. This allows donors to better calibrate other concessions to the recipient. In equilibrium, donors sometimes find the information worth sacrificing bargaining leverage for. However, despite providing information, assistance can cause proliferation if donors believe that the recipient is competent but observe a misleading signal indicating incompetence. This paper works toward understanding how scientific intelligence affects international negotiations, an underexplored subject matter for political scientists.

Nuclear Proliferation and Pakistan

Pakistan, India, Israel in addition to North Korea became successful to get sensitive nuclear assistance from other nuclear weapon states and became successful nuclear weapon states. The major objective of this research is to know Pakistan’s nuclear path that what factors motivated it to get nuclear weapons. The qualitative methodology is used and secondary data is being analyzed with content analysis to get the findings. This article tries to look at nuclear proliferation and nuclear non-proliferation regimes to check out Pakistan’s nuclear path. The article finds three things. First, the sense of conventional military inferiority and insecurity against India led Pakistan to follow nuclear path. Second, the cold war in Afghanistan between the United States and the Soviet Union proved to be a blessing in disguise for Pakistan to fulfill its dream of becoming a nuclear weapon state. Third, Pakistan became successful to get sensitive nuclear assistance from the China. Pakistan became successful in achieving the milestone of getting the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons in 1980s era.

Supply to Deny: The Benefits of Nuclear Assistance for Nuclear Nonproliferation

Recent scholarship on nuclear proliferation finds that many forms of nuclear assistance increase the odds that recipient states pursue nuclear weapons programs. While these studies may help us understand select cases of proliferation, they overshadow the role of nuclear supply in bolstering global nonproliferation efforts. After the risks of nuclear assistance became well-known following India's nuclear explosion in 1974, most major suppliers conditioned their assistance on recipients joining nonproliferation agreements. Case studies of states’ decision-making regarding these agreements illustrate how the provision of nuclear technology has been an effective tool in persuading states to join such agreements, the most important of which is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). By joining the NPT, states strengthen the global nonproliferation regime and increase the costs of any potential future decision to proliferate. The offer of nuclear assistance has done far more to bolster global nuclear nonproliferation efforts than recent research suggests.

U.S. Policy to Curb West European Nuclear Exports, 1974–1978

After India's detonation of a nuclear explosive in 1974 publicly demonstrated the proliferation risks from nuclear assistance, the U.S. government increased its efforts to control nuclear exports worldwide. In doing so, U.S. policymakers faced challenges from two major West European allies, France and West Germany, both of which pursued their commercial interests through nuclear exports to countries such as Pakistan, Brazil, Iran, and India, among others. Despite multilateral efforts including the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and bilateral negotiations with the supplier governments, the administrations of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter attained only partial success. The commercial interests of nuclear firms, the influence of pro-export coalitions inside supplier countries, and the emerging importance of the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries as alternative suppliers influenced the outcome. The United States was more successful in restraining the French through a series of quid pro quo arrangements than it ever was with the West Germans. Using recently declassified archival documents, this article sheds new light on U.S. nonproliferation policy in the aftermath of the 1973 oil price shock.