Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations, McGill University and Director, University of Montreal-McGill Research Group in International Security. He has published eight books including Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (with James Wirtz and Michel Fortman, Stanford, 2004).

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The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons

Stanford University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments..........................................................................................vii1 Introduction...........................................................................................12 Bases of the Tradition of Non-Use......................................................................153 The United States and the Tradition I: The Truman and Eisenhower Years (1945-1961).....................384 The United States and the Tradition II: Kennedy to Clinton (1961-2001).................................645 Russia, Britain, France, China, and the Tradition......................................................926 The Second-Generation Nuclear States: Israel, India, Pakistan, and the Tradition.......................1247 Nonnuclear States, the Tradition, and Limited Wars.....................................................1438 The Tradition and the Nonproliferation Regime..........................................................1589 Changing U.S. Policies and the Tradition...............................................................17810 Conclusions...........................................................................................197Notes....................................................................................................217Select Bibliography......................................................................................277Index....................................................................................................305

Chapter One

IN AUGUST 2008, the world observed the sixty-third anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, history's first and only instances of nuclear attack. Since 1945, the nuclear age has generated considerable debate on the utility, morality, and legitimacy of the acquisition, possession, control, and use of nuclear weapons. Buried in the global discourse on the nuclear dilemma is the fact that atomic weapons have not been used militarily by any nuclear state since 1945. While their non-use between nuclear states may largely be explained by the operation of mutual deterrence, it remains a puzzle as to why these weapons have not been used against nonnuclear opponents, who could not retaliate in kind. In some cases, nuclear weapon states (NWS) have lost the wars they fought against nonnuclear weapon states (NNWS). Occasionally, NWS have experienced the temptation to use their atomic arms, yet desisted from doing so. In other instances, nonnuclear states initiated crises or wars, anticipating non-use of atomic weapons by the defending nuclear state. In some other cases, NNWS continued fighting with NWS, and thereby imposed enormous costs on the latter in personnel and resources, even though the NWS had the capability to retaliate with nuclear weapons and thus terminate the war expeditiously.

I argue that the unwillingness to use nuclear weapons can be partially attributed to an informal norm inherent in the tradition of non-use, which has gradually emerged since 1945. A tradition in this sense is a time-honored practice of non-use that has been followed by nuclear states since 1945 as an "accustomed obligation." This tradition has largely been shaped by two dominant factors: first, an appreciation of the material character of the weapon concerned (i.e., the horrendous short- and long-term impact its use would create), beginning with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but more powerfully entrenched following the hydrogen bomb tests in the early 1950s; second, the negative reputational effects its use would generate, especially in terms of projecting poor images, signaling wrong intentions, and setting bad precedents. The awareness among nuclear states that the unpredictability and enormity of nuclear weapons use actually reduced their utility for most strategic purposes involving nonnuclear states caused them to practice self-deterrence. Over time, the iterated non-use of nuclear weapons became self-perpetuating through the establishment of an informal norm: that is, later decisions to refrain from nuclear use were based, in part, on previous decisions to desist and a desire to continue the practice.

Tactical/strategic constraints also need to be examined in order to understand why nuclear arms have not been used since 1945. However, an explanation solely based on the tactical and strategic unsuitability of the weapon is unlikely to show us the larger picture of non-use for over sixty years as these considerations are context-dependent. The non-use of nuclear weapons under varying strategic/tactical circumstances suggests that other causal mechanisms might be operating more powerfully or alongside strategy and tactics in the choices of nuclear states. In other words, the story of non-use of nuclear arms is much larger than what a pure strategic/tactical account can offer. This book provides a larger discussion of the politics of nuclear non-use, not only in terms of the crisis decisions made by nuclear powers involving nonnuclear states but also from the perspectives of different states on the usability or nonusability of nuclear weapons in world politics at large.

Although previous works on the subject locate the reasons for non-use largely in either rationalist/materialistic or in normative/ideational considerations, I argue that both sets of factors need to be examined in order to get a comprehensive and more accurate view of the phenomenon of nonuse. In that sense, this book approaches the subject on the basis of analytical eclecticism that has been proposed by some social scientists. This approach also combines the logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness as presented by James March and Johan Olsen. The reputational argument developed in Chapter 2 is based on a rational logic of consequences, while the normative argument inherent in the tradition of non-use relies on a logic of appropriateness. I argue that the reputational variables linked to the logic of consequences are the primary causal factors for understanding the continued non-use of nuclear weapons, but the logic of appropriateness in the form of a normative prohibition inherent in the tradition of non-use has intermingled with the former, especially as the nuclear age has advanced. First, reputation arbiters such as scientists, strategists, peace movements, and developing-country leaders helped increase the reputational costs of nuclear use through compelling arguments using a logic of appropriateness as well as a logic of consequences. Second, the practice of non-use became reinforced through iteration over time, through mechanisms that included both the entrenchment of costs for using nuclear weapons (consequences) and the development of ideas about responsible state behavior (appropriateness).

This book approaches the subject from a puzzle-driven perspective as opposed to a purely paradigm-driven approach. While paradigms offer disciplinary coherence, allowing scholars to devote their energies to research programs that share common assumptions, premises, dominant variables, and units of analysis, they also limit the prospects for answering pressing policy issues or intellectual puzzles that do not have black-or-white answers. Further, when analysts attempt to pigeonhole explanations to fit one paradigm or another, they tend to leave out the nuances involved in the explanation for the phenomenon they study....