Nuclear security

Change the incentives: Stigmatize nuclear weapons

According to mainstream international relations theory, states build nuclear weapons because they need them for security, particularly to counter the capabilities of beefy adversaries. The renowned British defense strategist Michael Quinlan, for example, wrote in 2007 that “countries do not acquire or retain a nuclear armoury, with all its costs and other drawbacks, as a matter of idle whim – they do so for reasons centred upon […] their national security.”

Quinlan is quite right that states do not build nuclear arsenals on a whim, but his “security model” of proliferation, while influential in both policy circles and academia, does not tell the whole story. Although the security model may explain a handful of cases, and provide nuances to others, it cannot explain why the world’s nine nuclear-armed states are not generally small states in need of a “great equalizer,” but rather are major powers with mighty conventional capabilities, perfectly able to deter adversaries without threatening them with weapons of mass destruction.