01 July 2009

GPPi holds discussion on “Reactive Proliferation”

On 29 June 2009, the Global Public Policy Institute, in cooperation with Stiftung Neue Verantvortung, held a discussion entitled “Reactive Proliferation: Dealing with the Fallout from Iran and North Korea.” Speaking at the event were Philipp Bleek, Fellow at Georgetown University and Visiting Fellow at GPPi, and Ambassador Klaus-Peter Gottwald, Commissioner of the German Government on Conventional Arms Control and Disarmament, Federal Foreign Office. Moderating the discussion was Stephan Mergenthaler, Research Associate of GPPi.

As Bleek framed the issue, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, or merely the capacity to construct them rapidly, will other states in the Middle East attempt to acquire nuclear weapons as well? If North Korea does not give up or enlarges the weapons arsenal it appears to have already acquired, will other states in its region attempt to acquire nuclear weapons? The conventional wisdom is that significant "reactive proliferation" is likely; as former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz once put it, "proliferation begets proliferation." Consequently, many analysts are highly pessimistic about the potential for proliferation cascades, avalanches, chain reactions, or tipping points, especially in the Middle East. How likely is such reactive proliferation? Under what conditions would it be more or less likely? What can policymakers in other countries, such as the United States or the European Union, do to make it less likely?

Addressing these critical issues, Bleek highlighted that contrary to conventional wisdom, proliferation does not always beget proliferation. Drawing on extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis, he observed that states whose rivals pursue or acquire nuclear weapons are more likely to hedge their bets by exploring a nuclear option, but no more likely to launch nuclear weapons programs.

The counterintuitive finding that rival proliferation does not lead states to launch nuclear weapons programs is explained by factors falling into two general categories, opportunity and motivation, Bleek argued. In terms of opportunity, proliferation entails high financial costs and technological challenges. It also entails political costs, both related to the non-proliferation regime and to the dependence of countries on more powerful states averse to proliferation, particularly the United States.

In terms of motivation, nuclear weapons appear to have limited utility, both to rivals who have previously acquired them and to potential proliferants considering doing so. They help reinforce the status quo, effectively taking certain large-scale military options off the table, but yield their possessors few additional benefits. And potential reactive proliferants have access to a range of alternative responses, including obtaining security guarantees from nuclear-armed states and substituting for proliferation asymmetrically, such as by pursuing biological weapons or building up non-state proxies.

In terms of the policy challenges of Iran and North Korea, Bleek offered several observations. First, we should expect to see what we’re presently seeing in the Middle East, which is states exploring a nuclear weapons option in response to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. And the levers that policymakers have to discourage proliferation do not seem to be very effective at halting such exploration. At the same time, we should significantly lower our expectations of reactive pursuit of nuclear weapons, and therefore should be far more cautious in predicting regional cascades, dominoes, chain reactions, and similar dynamics. That said, it bears noting that policymakers may be employing such rhetoric precisely to catalyze the actions needed to prevent greater proliferation. Finally, the opportunity and motivational constraints outlined above have implications for future dynamics in the Middle East and Asia, and also provide some prescriptions for policymakers seeking to prevent reactive proliferation.

Participants responded with a number of provocative questions and observations. They included suggestions that while in the aggregate there may have been little reactive proliferation in the past, there did seem to be at least a few signal cases, such as Pakistan in response to India and Iran and Iraq. Questions were raised as to whether it mattered how countries employed their nuclear weapons, observing that while Israel had behaved relatively responsibly with its nuclear weapons, one might not have the same confidence in either North Korea or Iran’s behaviour, and implying that more aggressive brandishing of nuclear weapons, or even merely fear of such behaviour, might lead others to be more likely to reactively proliferate.

For more information, please contact Joel Sandhu

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