Following START: Risk Acceptance and the 1991–1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Evolution of the Us Strategy Toward the Nuclear Nonproliferation After the Cold War
Міжнародні відносини, суспільні комунікації та регіональні студії, 2020
The article analyzes the US strategy in the nonproliferation field during three decades (in 1990s – 2018) and during the presidency of four US presidents (Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump). The author considers the key guidelines of US nonproliferation strategy that are described in four Nuclear Posture Reviews (NPR) issued by each post-Cold War presidential administration. These documents describe the US nuclear policy in general, but the author focused on analysis of those their sections that were devoted to dealing with the risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons. The National Security Strategies of 1996 and 2002 were also analyzed in the article to clarify the nonproliferation aspects of US strategy that were not explained well in the published excerpts of the first two Nuclear Posture Reviews of presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. As George Bush faced with the new challenges that required developing updated nonproliferation strategy like he terro...
Rational Choice Theory in Early Cold War US Defense PolicyThe Role of 'Defense Rationalists'
hc.ceu.hu, 2008
II defense policy in the late 1940s, based on the new weapon: the nuclear bomb. The 'A-bomb' rewrote the rules of traditional Clausewitzian warfare and presented a strategic puzzle to the United States, the (then) only superpower possessing such weaponry: how to use the weapon and what to use it for. To answer these questions, the US military turned to civilian scientists who later became known as the "defense rationalists". Defense rationalists in research institutions, such as the RAND Corporation figured prominently in the development of the US's Cold War strategies using rational choice. Among their works one can find many examples of other applications of game theory, the problem of inference, survivorship bias and, counterforce, systems analysis, mutually assured destruction and the Nash equilibrium. This paper outlines my future research on the role of the defence rationalists in the policy innovation process, culminating in the US's early Cold War policy. It tries to answer the central research question: Why did rational choice theory in particular become the foundation of early Cold War US nuclear defense policy? Looking beyond RAND, the paper employs an epistemic community (a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular issue-are and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain) framework to assess the plausibility of a supply-driven policy innovation process, i.e. the scientific experts framing the problem and presenting the policy answer favoured by the community as well. A positive answer would have implications for our understanding of the construction of the Cold War as a polarized conflict.
The Principled Utility Maximiser: Normative Decision-Making by Foreign Policy Elite
This paper analyzes the two logics of action - the logic of appropriateness and the logic of expected consequences - in foreign policy decision-making. Human actions are considered to be rule-based, but only partly so. The great diversity of human motivation and modes of action mean that behavior is “driven by habit, emotion, coercion, and calculated expected utility, as well as interpretation of internalized rules and principles.” In considering foreign policy decision-making, Henry Kissinger made this very point; “I believed equally that no nation could face or even define its choices without a moral compass that set a course through the ambiguities of reality and thus made sacrifices meaningful.” Ole Holsti made a similar observation in stating that belief systems impose “cognitive restraints on rationality.” Whilst the logics of actions are considered a fault-line between rationalists and constructivists, individual rationality as Cass Sunstein notes, “is a function of social norms. The costs and benefits of action, from the standpoint of individual agents, include the consequences of acting inconsistently with social norms.” We must, therefore, consider this diversity in an individual’s decision-making processes. I consider this diverse approach the most advantageous in considering foreign policy decision-making in the pursuit of problem-driven research. Both logics of action play a part in the process, hence, I have designated the decision-maker a principled utility maximizer.
Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2023
In this paper, we provide an empirical test for the theoretical claim that ambiguous nuclear threats create a "commitment trap" for American leaders: when deterrence fails, supposedly they are more likely to order the use of nuclear weapons to avoid domestic audience costs for backing down. We designed an original survey experiment and fielded it to a sample of 1,000 U.S. citizens. We found no evidence of a commitment trap when ambiguous nuclear threats are made. Unlike explicit threats, ambiguous ones did not generate domestic disapproval when the leader backed down; the decision to employ nuclear weapons led to more public backlash for the leader than being caught bluffing; and the threats did not influence public preference for nuclear use across our scenarios. Our findings contribute to the scholarly literature on nuclear crisis bargaining and policy debates over the future of US declaratory policy.
2001
Assessing the Optimism-Pessimism Debute; Nuclear Proliferation, Nuclear Risks, and Theuries of Stafe Action, Ph.D. thesis, ZOO1 Nathan Edward Busch, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto This dissertation focuses on the current debate in international reiations literature over the risks associated with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. On this subject, IR scholars are divided into roughly two schools: prolifention "optimists," who argue that proliferation can be beneficial and that its associated hazards are at least surmountable, and proliferation "pessimists," who believe the opposite. This debate centers upon a theoreticaL disagreenient about how best to explain and predict the behavior of states. Optimists generally ground their arguments on rational deterrence theory and maintain that nuclear wapons can actually increase stability arnong states, while pessimisn ofien çround their arguments on "organization theory," which conten...
A World of Risk: The Current Environment for US Nuclear Weapons Policy
US Nuclear Weapons Policy: Confronting Today's …
The United States currently has some 10,000 nuclear weapons in its stockpile. 1 They are there because of a long chain of technical and political decisions made in the past. Although current U.S. nuclear weapons policy may be understood in light of this history, it should be assessed in the context of present international security risks. These risks include dangers left over from the cold war era, challenges posed by states that are newly growing in power, and the dramatic new presence of nonstate actors. The salient features of this new environment, the context of technology and international politics in which nuclear weapons decisions must now be made, are the subject of this chapter.
Reducing nuclear weapons risk: behavioural insights and the human factor in nuclear decision-making
Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is a world-leading policy institute based in London. Our mission is to help governments and societies build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world. Reducing nuclear weapons risk Behavioural insights and the human factor in nuclear decision-making 1 Chatham House Summary-Behavioural insights have helped improve the choice architecture in policy environments such as personal finance and public health. As nuclear weapons risks rise globally, behavioural insights have the potential to contribute significantly to the vital task of improving nuclear decision-making.-This research paper highlights four aspects of nuclear weapons policy in which behavioural insights could be relevant and useful: reducing overconfidence among decision-makers; addressing concerns about miscommunication in nuclear decision-making; minimizing errors in nuclear policy implementation; and increasing public and political engagement.-Overconfidence can lead to reckless decision-making, underestimation of the consequences of avoiding arms control efforts, denial over the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons and assumptions that adversaries share the same perspectives. This paper argues that overconfidence can be regulated and readjusted through exercises such as 'premortems', calibration, simulations, 'red-teaming' and reframing.-In times of crisis, heightened tensions and mistrust can lead to miscommunication between nuclear weapons states, which in turn increases the risk of escalation. Such risk is growing due to evolving technology, cyber activities, disinformation campaigns, the emergence of new nuclear-armed actors and increased uncertainty in crisis situations. Miscommunication in nuclear weapons policy can be reduced through perspective rotations, improved internal communication, the use of mediators and redundancy planning.-Errors involving nuclear weapons can arise for multiple reasons-including technical malfunctions, procedural failures and human factors-and the risk of human error is always present, regardless of how rigorous safety measures may be. Depending on whether an 'error' is a rule-based mistake, a knowledge-based mistake or an action-based slip, the likelihood of it occurring can be reduced through receiver operating characteristic curves, opportunities for correction and learning, improved personnel well-being policies and hierarchies of hazard controls.-Public and political salience regarding nuclear weapons interact in complex ways. A variety of factors, including the media, global events and prevailing political narratives, can shape public opinion on nuclear weapons. Public awareness can lead to changing views among policymakers, often influenced by cultural, economic, historical and even religious factors. Behavioural insights show that both public and political engagement can be increased by using film and media, encouraging transparency of previously classified information and providing relatable and visual reminders of the real-world impact of nuclear weapons use. Reducing nuclear weapons risk Behavioural insights and the human factor in nuclear decision-making 1 Kahneman, D.