Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs 0197679536, 9780197679531

Table of contents :
Cover
Nuclear Decisions
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction to Nuclear Decisions
2. Proliferation Curves
3. A Theory of Nuclear Decision-​Making
4. Changing Proliferation Environments across the Nuclear Age
5. The Permissive Period: The Soviet Union, Israel, and France
6. The Transition Period: Sweden, South Korea, and India
7. The Nonproliferation Regime Period: Pakistan, South Africa, and Brazil
8. Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Nuclear Decisions

Nuclear Decisions Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs L I S A L A N G D O N KO C H

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Koch, Lisa (Lisa Langdon), author. Title: Nuclear decisions : changing the course of nuclear weapons programs / Lisa Langdon Koch. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022062279 (print) | LCCN 2022062280 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197679531 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197679548 (epub) | ISBN 9780197679555 | ISBN 9780197679562 Subjects: LCSH: Nuclear nonproliferation—Government policy—Case studies. | Military policy—Decision making—Case studies. Classification: LCC JZ5675.K62 2023 (print) | LCC JZ5675 (ebook) | DDC 327.1/747—dc23/eng/20230216 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022062279 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022062280 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.001.0001 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Contents Acknowledgments 

1. Introduction to Nuclear Decisions 

vii

1

2. Proliferation Curves 

10

3. A Theory of Nuclear Decision-​Making 

23

4. Changing Proliferation Environments across the Nuclear Age 

54

5. The Permissive Period: The Soviet Union, Israel, and France 

82

6. The Transition Period: Sweden, South Korea, and India 

117

7. The Nonproliferation Regime Period: Pakistan, South Africa, and Brazil 

151

8. Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs 

193

Appendix  Notes  Bibliography  Index 

203 213 247 265

Acknowledgments I began conducting the research that led to this book when I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Allan Stam supported and encouraged my work, helped me think about the big picture, and never failed to provide wise counsel. James Morrow, Philip Potter, and Robert Franseze each taught and advised me in important ways as I pursued this research in its early form and in the years after I finished my graduate work. I remember in particular the times I was lucky enough to be able to talk about the project with Al, Jim, Phil, and Rob all together, and I thank them for their invaluable insights and advice. I am also grateful for Charles Shipan’s scholarly guidance, and for his continuing mentorship. Chuck’s graduate seminar on American political institutions influenced the way I think about key institutional players and the relationships among them. I thank Cameron Thies, Thorin Wright, and many other generous scholars at the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University for their support and assistance as I finished my dissertation. I am indebted to Scott Sagan, Vipin Narang, and Branislav Slantchev, whose insights shaped my thinking about the manuscript. I reflected upon our lively discussion many times when making the revisions that have led to a better book. I thank Scott in particular for his mentorship, which began several years ago when I introduced myself after a conference panel. Scott invited me to sit down then and there to tell him about my work, and I have benefited from his generous guidance and insightful critiques ever since. My colleagues at Claremont McKenna College made the development and completion of this book possible in many different ways. I thank Hilary Appel and the Keck Center for Strategic and International Studies for supporting the development of the manuscript at key moments. The Government Department has enthusiastically supported my research since I arrived at CMC, and I thank especially Hilary Appel, William Ascher, Mark Blitz, Hicham Bou Nassif, Jordan Branch, Andrew Busch, Roderic Camp, Minxin Pei, Jack Pitney, Shanna Rose, Jon Shields, Aseema Sinha, Jennifer Taw, and George Thomas for their insights and advice. When I arrived at CMC, I had the good fortune to be assigned the office next to the other assistant professor

viii Acknowledgments in the department, Emily Pears. I thank Emily for her friendship, for many conversations about the process of writing a book, and for helping me think through theoretical tangles that arose as I wrote. For generating and sustaining a faculty writing community, I am grateful in particular to Peter Uvin, Adrienne Martin, Esther Chung-​Kim, Ellen Rentz, Sharda Umanath, Heather Ferguson, Emily Pears, and Janice Heitkamp. I thank the outstanding students who provided excellent research assistance, including Katrina Frei-​Herrmann, Daniel Krasemann, Tallan Donine, Marcia Yang, Alexander Li, Johnson Lin, Charles Warren, and my many nuclear politics seminar students, in particular Henrietta Toivanen and Stuart Brown. Katrina deserves special recognition for working with me on various projects over three years and for executing the first polished drawings of the proliferation curves. Alexander Lanoszka, Sarah Croco, Matthew Fuhrmann, and Leanne Powner each offered valuable advice during the writing process. I thank Matthew Wells for many discussions and conversations as the project evolved, and most of all for many years of friendship. At the University of Michigan, I relied on the professional knowledge and experience of political science librarian Catherine Morse, and on Sofia Rosenberg, who volunteered to translate Swedish writings into English so that I could puzzle out the characteristics of Swedish nuclear institutions. I thank David McBride and two anonymous reviewers for Oxford University Press for their valuable guidance, and Sharon Langworthy for expert copyediting. I am indebted to Donald Hafner, who taught me about nuclear weapons strategy when I was an undergraduate student at Boston College. His teaching and his ideals continue to inspire me, and I greatly value his ongoing mentorship. For their scholarly advice and their friendship, I thank Katja Favretto, Vanessa Cruz-​Nichols, and Ida Salusky. I thank Rebecca Martinez for significantly influencing my approach to the process of research and writing. I am grateful to my faith community at the Claremont Colleges, in particular Steve Davis, Esther Chung-​Kim, TJ Tsai, George Montanez, and Dave Vosburg for steadfast support. My family deserves the most thanks, starting with my mom and dad, Janice and John Langdon, and my sister, Heather, each of whom has always provided me with unconditional love and support. From the start, they have been enthusiastic about this project and its development into a manuscript, and I am deeply grateful for our many conversations and for their advice. My mother-​in-​law and father-​in-​law, Paige and Joseph Koch, have also showered

Acknowledgments  ix me with love and support ever since I had the good fortune to join their family. They have read my work, sent me articles related to my research, and thoughtfully asked me about the manuscript’s progress. My dad is professor emeritus of history at Le Moyne College, and I thank him in particular for the many, many hours he has spent reading and commenting on various drafts of this manuscript over the years. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a world historian on call while conducting case research, not least because the conversations are such great fun. I completed much of this manuscript in 2020 and 2021, during the global pandemic. My husband, Matt, and I worked hard to try to adapt to a time of significant disruption, including the loss of in-​person school for our three children for more than a year. Writing during this time was tremendously challenging, and I am truly fortunate to be part of a wonderful family of five that sustains me. Thank you, Matt, for your love and support over many years. You have been on the entire journey with me, start to finish. And finally, I thank our children, Audrey, Paul, and Timmy, who sometimes permit me to sneak in a few more minutes to write, sometimes distract me, and always fill our lives with a special joy.

1 Introduction to Nuclear Decisions The pursuit of nuclear weapons is rarely the story of a race to the bomb at any cost. Even the five initial nuclear pursuers, each of which worked to acquire nuclear weapons in the context of World War II, did not take uniform paths. The United States devoted vast national resources to developing a fission bomb as quickly as possible, and the British government provided expert and material support to that project.1 The Soviet Union, Germany, and Japan made different decisions, however, resulting in different approaches to nuclear weapons development. Those nuclear decisions shaped not only the outcome of the atomic programs but also, quite possibly, of the war itself. Japan offers an interesting example. Japan’s uneven efforts to develop nuclear weapons were initiated by Army Minister Tōjō Hideki in 1940, well before the United States launched the Manhattan Project. Most Japanese officials remained unconvinced that atomic bomb research and development should be prioritized, and the poorly funded program made slow and unsteady progress.2 However, in October 1941 Tōjō ascended to the office of prime minister. After Japan’s 1942 loss at Midway, Tōjō led the cabinet to accelerate new weapons development, including the nuclear bomb projects.3 Despite the enormously high stakes for Japan, the effort, shaped by leaders’ decisions, did not succeed. While the American nuclear weapons project took the form of a single, focused effort, under Japan’s highly militarized government, different service branches conducted separate, fragmented nuclear programs.4 As Manhattan Project scientists made swift progress toward a nuclear test in New Mexico, Japanese scientists advised military officers that atomic weapons would take too long to build and declared that American scientists surely faced the same constraints and difficulties. Within one of the navy’s nuclear projects, the frustrated captain in charge had first told the scientists to redouble their efforts. But eventually he too abandoned the nuclear project in favor of other, well-​established research and development programs that were making better progress. Scientists’ pessimistic reports continued to inform decision-​making, and in

Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0001

2  Nuclear Decisions June 1945—​less than a month before the United States would successfully test its first nuclear device—​Army Minister Anami Korechika decided to shut down the army’s nuclear program. The navy terminated a second nuclear project in July 1945.5 On August 6, 1945, the United States attacked the Japanese city of Hiroshima with the first nuclear weapon used in war. In the immediate aftermath, some leaders, including the emperor, recognized the likely implications. But the failure of Japan’s nuclear weapons effort, and the scientists’ belief that no other country could succeed where Japan had failed, injected confusion and doubt into official discussions. The army rejected the possibility of an American atomic bomb, branding as propaganda President Harry S. Truman’s post-​attack announcement to the world. And the few military officers who were willing to accept that the United States had produced one atomic bomb assumed the Americans lacked the capacity to quickly produce more. Japan’s military elected to proceed with existing plans to defend Japan from invasion.6 In contrast, Soviet leaders already knew that the US atomic effort had succeeded and correctly interpreted the news from Hiroshima.7 Having previously agreed to attack Japan no later than August 15, and realizing that the atomic bomb would change the course of the war’s conclusion, the Soviet Union launched a million-​soldier attack against Japanese troops in Manchuria on August 9, broadcasting the declaration of war on Moscow Radio a day earlier. The forceful denials and expressions of doubt from Japan’s scientific and military experts, which arose from their frustrations with the nuclear project and the decisions to abandon the work, had delayed Japan’s response to the bombing of Hiroshima. Now, reeling from the additional shock of the Soviet attack, Japan’s Supreme War Council met in a bomb shelter beneath the imperial palace and began at last to discuss surrender with new urgency.8 Despite the common context of World War II, Japan’s nuclear development looked very different from America’s, and different still from the Soviet Union’s. As today’s nuclear hopefuls work toward acquiring nuclear arsenals, their programs, too, have taken paths that have been difficult to predict. Approximately two dozen states have decided, at some point, to pursue the bomb. Yet throughout the nuclear age, the progress states have made toward that goal has been neither linear nor consistent. Why does the pursuit of nuclear weapons look so different across cases? How can we make sense of the range of paths to and away from the bomb?

Introduction to Nuclear Decisions  3

Nuclear Decisions Nuclear decisions offer the answer. State leaders make decisions within different information environments that affect their beliefs and preferences about nuclear weapons. These decisions to accelerate or reverse progress toward a nuclear weapons capability define each state’s course. Whether or not a state ultimately acquires nuclear weapons depends to a large extent on those nuclear decisions. I argue that two crucial features of the political environment affect nuclear decision-​making. Leaders make decisions not in a vacuum but in changing international and domestic contexts. First, in different proliferation eras, changes to international political and structural conditions constrain or free states to pursue nuclear weapons development. These conditions are imposed from the top down. Second, across these eras, domestic scientific and military organizations may intervene to bring about, or prevent, a nuclear decision that could redefine a state’s course to the bomb. The conditions under which scientific and military experts are able to influence state leaders from the bottom up are thus a critically important aspect of this story.

Nuclear Goals The historical record demonstrates that states do not initiate nuclear weapons programs and then uniformly follow linear paths to a singular goal. One possible explanation for erratic progression is political meddling in scientific research and development. Jacques E. C. Hymans argues that leaders who are unconstrained by state institutions often interfere in nuclear weapons programs, unintentionally disrupting progress toward the bomb. Whether scientists are free to pursue their work in ways that will advance good research and development or instead face strong incentives to appease repressive leaders through shortcuts and false reporting should affect a program’s timeline.9 This compelling argument about time-​to-​outcome, however, cannot explain the form a nuclear weapons program takes. Implicit in Hymans’s argument are the assumptions that states have a common goal—​to quickly produce nuclear weapons—​and take linear paths to the bomb. The observation that few states had obtained a speedy outcome led Hymans to conclude that something had gone wrong. However, while racing to the bomb

4  Nuclear Decisions was more common during the early Cold War, for most of the nuclear age the full-​speed-​ahead approach has been the exception, not the rule.10 Rather, leaders have exhibited a range of preferences regarding the importance and necessity of quickly acquiring a nuclear arsenal. If these nonlinear pathways are not a deviation—​if nuclear weapons development is instead typically nonlinear—​then interference with project management cannot be a sufficient explanation. I argue that the paths to the bomb are rarely linear because they are interrupted and reformed by nuclear decisions. Leaders may allow a nuclear weapons program to maintain the course it is on or even decide to slow or suspend its development. Domestic organizations are a key source of expert information that shapes the leader’s perception of the value and strategic purpose of the nuclear program. Another possible explanation is that changes in the security environment prompt a state to move toward or away from the bomb. Security concerns are an important motivator for the initial decision to start a nuclear weapons program.11 Yet the security explanation, too, is insufficient. States that do decide to begin a program may exist in insecurity for years before choosing the nuclear path. And once a nuclear weapons program is underway, many leaders appear to make nuclear decisions that are not based on either stable or changing external security environments. If security were the sole driver of nuclear decisions, we would expect to see acceleration decisions during times of high insecurity and reversal decisions during times of low insecurity. The case studies I conduct in this book do not indicate the presence of such a dynamic. For example, India’s program slowed significantly in the mid-​to late 1970s, despite nuclear weapons progress in its regional rivals, China and Pakistan. South Korea did not accelerate its program when its security environment worsened. Brazil gave up its pursuit of nuclear weapons despite little to no change in its security environment. South Africa sprinted toward a nuclear arsenal despite its significant regional military superiority. Perhaps deep concerns over Soviet interference in southern Africa, or even fears of invasion, could explain South Africa’s proliferation curve instead—​but then why did Pretoria implement two different program reversals, well before the fall of the Soviet Union?12 Within the context of an ongoing nuclear weapons program, the threat environment is not the only important factor that affects leaders’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of the nuclear weapons effort. A nuclear weapons program is one of many options available to a government that faces serious security concerns. A state could instead decide to arm conventionally, seek

Introduction to Nuclear Decisions  5 military assistance from an ally, or enter into a defense pact. Or a leader may decide to gain leverage over adversaries by hedging: pursuing nuclear development to achieve a latent nuclear weapons capability without progressing all the way to the weapons themselves. Fears of a preventive war aimed at the nuclear program could prompt either a reversal decision to remove the cause of the threat or an acceleration decision, in hopes of acquiring nuclear weapons to deter future attack. A threatening security environment could therefore lead to either type of decision or no decision at all. Security cannot fully explain states’ proliferation pathways. Because states consider different policy options in response to the strategic environment, and each option has its own potential benefits and drawbacks, nuclear weapons programs are situated within a political context. Leaders consider many possibilities beyond the simple binary outcomes of acquisition or termination, and they do so within a complex information environment that affects how the value of a nuclear weapons program is understood. They must weigh the benefits of state security against drawbacks like domestic resource trade-​offs, potential damage to strategic international relationships, and the likelihood of program success.

Decisions Define Programs My approach jettisons the assumption that leaders in nuclear weapons–​ pursuing states share a common desire to acquire nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. Instead, I hold that leaders make political decisions to accelerate, slow, or end altogether the path of nuclear weapons development. I offer a novel theory of nuclear decision-​making that identifies two mechanisms that shape leaders’ understandings of their nuclear pursuits. The external mechanism—​the proliferation constraints that emerge from the structure and politics of the international system—​has evolved across three distinct time periods, which I define and describe in Chapter 4. The internal mechanism is the intervention of domestic experts, which I briefly introduce in the next section. Leaders make decisions in an informational environment that, under the right circumstances, experts may be able to structure. I examine the conditions under which scientific and military organizations are able to influence state leaders from the bottom up. In conducting a systematic examination of proliferators extending beyond the United States, I obtain a broad range of evidence to support my

6  Nuclear Decisions arguments. Through this approach to studying nuclear proliferation, I find something very different than the conventional wisdom. Determined states do not simply pursue a straight path to nuclear weapons acquisition. Nuclear decisions define a state’s nuclear pursuits.

The Domestic Nuclear Decision-​Making Environment The internal mechanism of domestic expert influence has been present from the start of the nuclear weapons age. There were many reasons that Japanese and American leaders made such different nuclear decisions in the 1940s. The practicalities of waging war and the outcomes of battles created different constraints on each country’s national resources and capabilities. But from the start American and Japanese leaders also operated in different information environments. They made important decisions about whether, and how, to continue along the path to the bomb, and each did so within a political context that was shaped not only by the external security environment but also by key domestic organizations that house nuclear experts. I argue that the key domestic organizations that hold distinct preferences about nuclear weapons are the domestic nuclear agency and the state military. These organizations are important sources of information and incentives that can, under certain conditions, influence a leader’s beliefs about the value of a nuclear weapons program relative to the cost. They are not the sole influencers of leaders’ strategic calculations, nor can they explain every case of nuclear decision-​making. But they are a crucial source of information and influence in the nuclear context. Further, nuclear agencies and militaries may take advantage of opportunities to shape leaders’ knowledge and understanding of the domestic and international factors that affect nuclear decision-​making. An organization with greater access to and influence over the leader has greater capacity to inform and persuade. Effective organizations can alter the leader’s perceptions of the costs and benefits of pursuing nuclear weapons and may work to constrain or expand the set of options the leader will choose among. In addition, nuclear agencies and militaries have heightened abilities to influence leaders on nuclear weapons matters because leaders typically assume office without a background in nuclear science or doctrine. The secretive and technologically sophisticated nature of nuclear weapons development renders these programs largely opaque to state leaders, who then rely on

Introduction to Nuclear Decisions  7 these key organizations to signal the benefits and disadvantages of the nuclear weapons effort. Within domestic nuclear agencies, nuclear scientists are professionally invested in nuclear development and prefer to push programs forward. Nuclear agencies also enjoy an informational advantage because states do not employ rigorous oversight of the highly secret, expert processes of designing, producing, and testing nuclear weapons. I argue that more independent nuclear agencies, with greater access to political leadership, are better able to control the flow of information on nuclear benefits and to exert influence on decision-​makers both to accelerate programs and to prevent reversals. Military organizations, on the other hand, may be less likely to advocate for nuclear acceleration during development stages and more likely to allocate resources to conventional capabilities instead. Competing organizational interests may lead a military to prioritize spending on conventional arms, which provide immediate utility, rather than on the long-​term potential of developing a future nuclear capability. While militaries value the deterrent benefits of nuclear weapons, they also believe that future wars are more likely to remain conventional. Many within the military will prefer to invest organizational resources in the conventional weapons and equipment most likely to be used in war fighting. When a military organization leads the government, the leader will need to satisfy traditional military interests to remain in office and will be likely to seek to use conventional means to conduct political repression and consolidate power. Each of these organizations may—​or may not—​be able to shape the country leader’s understanding of the domestic and international factors that affect nuclear decision-​making. An organization with greater access to and influence over the leader has a greater opportunity to inform and persuade. Effective organizations can alter the leader’s perceptions of the costs and benefits of pursuing nuclear weapons and may work to constrain or expand the set of options the leader will choose among. But organizations that lack access to the leader, or that lack the capacity to advance their interests, are unlikely to have a significant effect on nuclear decision-​making.

Implications This book joins the growing literature on nuclear proliferation and reversal, offering a systematic analysis of the process and politics of nuclear

8  Nuclear Decisions decision-​making. I approach this subject from a different conceptualization of nuclear weapons programs: that they are defined by decisions to accelerate or reverse nuclear development. In doing so, I investigate the strategic decisions that create the form of nuclear weapons programs rather than focusing on the time between program initiation and the outcome of a nuclear bomb. Pursuing nuclear weapons, whether in Iran, North Korea, India, or Pakistan, is a long process punctuated by political decisions that can change the course of nuclear development. Rather than examining the conditions present when a milestone program outcome is realized, I examine the conditions present at the time the nuclear decision was made. This analysis reveals that both international structural conditions and domestic coalitions matter. Even in wartime, whose voices are heard from within the state and what preferences they express can change how a leader understands the international environment. Those domestic experts can highlight or downplay the advantages and disadvantages of steps to change the course of nuclear weapons development. The relative balance of power among the key domestic organizations, which can change as they interact with each other and their political environment, affects the ability each expert group has to influence the leader. These organizations may prefer to push the state either toward or away from nuclear weapons. If we ignore the domestic environment and instead assume that states pursue nuclear weapons along uniform and consistent paths, we underestimate the importance of the nuclear decisions that determine whether a state ultimately acquires nuclear weapons. Finally, a central argument of this book is that we should not study the decision to start a nuclear weapons program as if the state’s ultimate goal is to quickly produce the weapons. Not only do nuclear aspirants pursue different goals, but changing circumstances may also lead a state to later deviate from the original goal. And because the end results of nuclear decisions are realized months or years later, programs may reach milestones that are the product of decisions made by leaders who were responding to conditions that have since changed. Because a nuclear weapons program outcome will occur at some period of time after a nuclear decision was made, examining the conditions at the time of the outcome will be misleading. We should instead seek to understand the conditions at the time of the decision that paved the way to the outcome. This shift in focus could allow states to respond more productively to changes in their adversaries’ or allies’ nuclear weapons development and create better nonproliferation policy tools.

Introduction to Nuclear Decisions  9

Plan of the Book The book begins with the theoretical argument. Leaders are at the center of nuclear decision-​making, but they face serious constraints on their access to, and understanding of, the range of possible nuclear choices and outcomes. I present evidence of the different proliferation pathways and define nuclear decision-​making in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 I discuss how, and when, nuclear agencies and military organizations influence leaders’ decision-​making, as well as why alternative explanations are insufficient. In Chapter 4 I describe the features of each of the three historical eras I have defined, and I explain why each era comprises a distinct decision-​making context in which states operate over time. In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 I test my arguments through case studies of countries that have pursued nuclear weapons. The three chapters, each of which contains three different country studies, correspond to the three historical eras. In organizing the cases by era, I am able to examine how nuclear decision-​making has been conducted within each international context. The case study approach provides the benefit of adding context and depth to broad theorizing. One could argue that certain decisions seem to have been brought about by very specific causes, or that each decision may be situated in a unique historical and cultural context. I do not claim that the theory I present wholly explains every nuclear weapons program decision. While it is true that some decisions may be exceptional, developing a theory of decision-​making is an exercise in seeking out common factors that systematically affect the likelihood of a decision being made. Case studies allow me to explore these dynamics and attempt to illustrate common mechanisms that underlie nuclear decision-​making. Finally, in Chapter 8 I discuss nuclear decision-​making in the current case of Iran and explore the implications of this study for nonproliferation policy.

2 Proliferation Curves Much of the literature on the pursuit of nuclear weapons concerns the decision to start a program or the conditions under which states succeed in acquiring nuclear arsenals. While weapons acquisition is an outcome rather than a decision, systematic studies typically blur the distinction between the two events. Several studies first estimate a model of nuclear start decisions and then re-​estimate the model with a new dependent variable: the year of nuclear weapons acquisition. But uneven findings across these studies warn against conflating decisions (program start) and outcomes (weapons acquisition).1 Considering the two different types of events—​a decision and an outcome—​within one common framework has not generated a coherent theoretical explanation. This should not be surprising given the conceptual muddling of a political decision and an end product that is many steps removed from that initial decision. In this chapter I demonstrate that nuclear proliferation should instead be conceived of as a political process that hinges on decisions. I identify types of nuclear decisions and then present empirical evidence of the proliferation pathways—​which I call proliferation curves—​taken by six nuclear weapons pursuers. The proliferation curves indicate that leaders do not pursue nuclear weapons in uniform ways. At first glance, nuclear decisions do not appear to be easily predictable.

The Path to the Bomb From the start, nuclear decisions have been political decisions. In August 1939, as top scientists around the world conducted theoretical work on nuclear fission, then on the cutting edge of physics, Albert Einstein drafted a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many scientists already understood that the enormous energy produced by splitting uranium nuclei could be used in war. In his letter to Roosevelt, Einstein explained the potential for the development of “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” and speculated Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0002

Proliferation Curves  11 that Germany’s capture of Czechoslovakian uranium mines indicated that Hitler was already pursuing a fission bomb.2 Einstein’s letter established an informational context for Roosevelt that affected how he interpreted new, related information. The United States did not establish a nuclear weapons program until October 1941. But Richard Rhodes explains how, when news of Britain’s successful progress toward a fission bomb finally reached the president, Roosevelt understood that using nuclear energy for military purposes had the potential to “change the political organization of the world.”3 He had listened to his advisers describe the decisive power expected from these astonishingly destructive weapons, and he had considered the long-​term, strategic impact of nuclear bombs.4 Roosevelt’s early intuition that nuclear weapons would reshape the world order has been affirmed by the governments that have attempted, at great expense, to develop their own nuclear arsenals. Acquiring nuclear weapons is a feat that may redefine a state’s position in the international system, establish a new context for the state’s relationships with allies and adversaries, and mark that state as an advanced technological and scientific power. Unsurprisingly, then, because nuclear weapons are so strongly linked to state interests, decisions about nuclear weapons program development are made at the highest levels of government.

Nuclear Acceleration and Reversal Decisions Once a government has begun a nuclear weapons program, subsequent decisions may be made to accelerate or reverse the program. Because these decisions are deeply political, involving entrenched and often competing interests, they may be debated by political officials, military elites, and nuclear scientists at high levels of government. Ultimately, however, significant decisions about the course of a nuclear weapons program are political ones made by the country’s leader.5 I sort nuclear decisions into two broad categories: those that are intended to accelerate a nuclear weapons program and those that are intended to reverse it. While little scholarly attention has been paid to systematically examining acceleration across cases, country studies and a few cross-​national studies have contributed a great deal to our understanding of nuclear reversal. I follow Ariel Levite in defining nuclear reversal as a governmental decision to significantly slow, or suspend, a nuclear weapons program. Rupal

12  Nuclear Decisions Mehta also incorporates Levite’s definition in her study of nuclear reversal, allowing for the possibility that a reversing state may later restart its program after a freeze.6 A reversal decision may lead to a range of different outcomes on various timelines that may only be observable years later. Using the same logic, I define nuclear acceleration as a governmental decision to significantly speed up an existing nuclear weapons program. In Table 2.1 I provide a range of nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions that leaders have made in the course of pursuing nuclear weapons. Each of these decisions significantly contributes to a state’s progress toward or away from nuclear development and represents another piece of the proliferation puzzle. A nuclear decision can bring about a temporary acceleration or deceleration in program development, or it can have more permanent effects. States making the decision to reverse may later decide to accelerate a slowed program or revive a suspended program; this has happened, for instance, in Iran, North Korea, India, Taiwan, the former Yugoslavia, and Pakistan. Other states, after a reversal decision, may continue to make additional reversal Table 2.1  Types of Nuclear Decisions Acceleration Decisions

Reversal Decisions

• Deciding to invest significant resources in the nuclear weapons program; for example, creating or significantly expanding research and education institutions • Moving from research and development to building enrichment or reprocessing facilities • Reviving a suspended program or restarting an enrichment or reprocessing facility • Initiating a crash program to acquire nuclear weapons on a short timetable • Moving from trying to acquire off-​ the-​shelf nuclear weapons to trying to build an indigenous capacity • Deciding to move from latent nuclear weapons capacity to building a bomb • Deciding to develop thermonuclear (hydrogen) weapons • Deciding to develop deliverable nuclear weapons

• Shifting military expenditures and priorities from nuclear to conventional weapons programs • Suspending militarized nuclear research, including continuing the research program but limiting its scope to civilian nuclear energy • Making significant budget or resource reductions to the nuclear weapons program • Delaying or suspending work on enrichment or reprocessing facilities • Delaying or suspending work on militarized components of the nuclear program, such preparing a testing site • Moving from trying to build an indigenous capacity to acquiring off-​the-​shelf nuclear weapons • Deciding not to proceed with building nuclear weapons despite being capable of doing so • Suspending production of nuclear weapons or related materials • Ending a militarized nuclear program by giving up nuclear equipment/​technology to a foreign state • Dismantling an existing nuclear arsenal

Proliferation Curves  13 decisions and may ultimately decide to end their nuclear weapons programs; examples include Brazil, Australia, Sweden, South Africa, and Switzerland.7 Different types of nuclear decisions may be made for different strategic reasons. A program may be suspended because the leader has come to question the value of the nuclear weapons program, but suspension may also be a tactical move made to gain concessions through an agreement with a foreign partner. The reasons for a reversal decision are important but may not be known or understood by outside observers, or even regime insiders, not only at the time of the decision but also for many years afterward. But whether the reversal decision was made because the government doubts that nuclear weapons acquisition is still in the interests of the state, or because the government plans to extract side payments in the present and then restart the program if it becomes advantageous in the future, that decision still affects the state’s course of nuclear development. In either case, reversal slows the momentum of the nuclear program and adds months or years to the acquisition timeline. Both types of reversals could also later be reversed by nuclear acceleration decisions.8 A reversal decision made to fulfill the terms of an international agreement is vulnerable if the agreement fails or if there is a change in the conditions that facilitated the parties’ willingness to negotiate. But a reversal decision made by a leader who is losing interest in the nuclear project may also be impermanent. Either the same leader or a successor could be persuaded to reinvest in a slowed or suspended program, as occurred twice in the Indian case. Neither type of reversal is irreversible, and both types affect the course, and future outcomes, of a nuclear weapons program. Acceleration decision-​making has gone virtually unanalyzed, other than within individual country case studies. The study of nuclear reversal has obvious policy implications, as a better understanding of the conditions under which reversal occurs may aid states in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons. However, understanding the conditions under which acceleration is likely to occur also contributes to nonproliferation efforts. This is particularly true because acceleration decisions, which initiate long-​term, costly investments and do not generate immediate, usable results, are not necessarily made in direct response to external threats to a state’s security. When a leader decides to accelerate a nuclear weapons program, the intended outcome of the acceleration may not be realized for months or years. As accelerating a program constitutes a long-​term investment rather than a rapid response, it is unlikely that leaders would routinely react to sudden changes in the threat environment by making nuclear acceleration decisions.

14  Nuclear Decisions Just as I classify reversals by the decision to reverse rather than by the eventual outcome, I examine acceleration by identifying decisions to speed up nuclear development rather than by the eventual outcome of nuclear weapons acquisition. An acceleration decision may quickly result in the production of nuclear weapons, or it may not.9 But if outcomes are the variable of interest, a subsequent decision to reverse a nuclear program would hide the acceleration decision from view. Studies that limit analysis to outcomes, or that define reversal only as termination, omit these program changes. Such analyses are incomplete at best and biased at worst.

Proliferation Curves If nuclear decisions shape states’ proliferation pathways, what do different paths to and away from the bomb look like? In the following discussion I represent six states’ paths, or proliferation curves, with basic graphs. Along the proliferation curve, nuclear decisions are represented by vertical lines, each appearing during the year the decision was made. Dashed lines represent a nuclear reversal decision, with double-​dashed lines representing a permanent reversal decision. A solid line indicates a nuclear acceleration decision. Each graph measures time in years along the x-​axis and nuclear development milestones along the y-​axis. The data I used to generate each proliferation curve, and the sources I relied on, are reported in the appendix. The milestones I have selected for these graphs indicate key stages of nuclear development. As a state progresses toward, or away from, nuclear weapons, the proliferation curve travels through these different stages. States establish a research and development program, obtain uranium or plutonium, build a nuclear reactor, operate the reactor, enrich fissile material so it can be used in a bomb, test a bomb, and develop delivery systems. It is not always obvious when a state moves from one milestone to the next, in part because these accomplishments are often closely guarded secrets. The dates and milestones I use in these graphs are accurate to the best of my knowledge as of this writing. Furthermore, the progression along the path of nuclear weapons development is not always linear. Different decisions made in the course of a program have caused some states to skip over a milestone, such as accumulating a stockpile of nuclear weapons and developing delivery systems before testing a prototype bomb. A black diamond marks the time and level of each nuclear development milestone a state reaches.

Proliferation Curves  15 The lowest stage of nuclear development is classified as “nascent,” meaning the state does not yet have an operational nuclear reactor of any size. The proliferation curve begins in the year the state government makes the political decision to start a nuclear weapons program. Of the six proliferation curves shown in this chapter, only one state—​China—​began its weapons program at the lowest stage of nuclear development. Each of the other five states had existing nuclear infrastructure, at least at the reactor level, in place prior to the start decision.10 Stages 2 through 5 indicate progressive levels of enrichment and reprocessing capacity. The ability to produce fissile material to power nuclear weapons is a key hurdle to overcome in a nuclear weapons program. Whether a state decides to produce uranium or plutonium weapons—​and in many cases both options are explored—​this is the most difficult step in producing nuclear bombs, as well as one of the most expensive.11 Most importantly, a state cannot produce nuclear weapons without highly enriched uranium or plutonium from a large reactor. For stages 2 and 3, I distinguish between small and large reactors using the power output threshold of 1 megawatt (MW).12 Reactors with design power greater than 1 MW have significant fuel requirements, and a large reactor is a necessary condition for the production of nuclear weapons.13 Several states, including India and Israel, produced the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons from large research reactors rather than from industrial-​scale reactors.14 For stages 4 and 5, I distinguish between small and large uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing facilities. Large, industrial-​scale facilities that use commercial technologies can produce significantly more weapons-​grade uranium or plutonium than small, laboratory, or pilot facilities can.15 The last three stages indicate different levels of weaponization: a fission test, followed by deployable nuclear weapons, and finally a fusion (thermonuclear) test. These stages are separate from one another, as readers will note from the graphs; a state may test an atomic bomb but not build a nuclear arsenal, as India initially did, or a state may proceed directly to deployable nuclear weapons without first testing a device, as South Africa did. If a state reverses to the extent that the program regresses to an earlier stage of nuclear development, that is indicated on the graph. Finally, dark, medium, and light gray shadings indicate the status of the program before and after each nuclear decision. Dark gray represents progress toward the bomb, while medium gray indicates that the program is continuing but is holding steady at its current level or is progressing very

16  Nuclear Decisions slowly due to reductions or a lack of interest from the government. Light gray indicates the program has been suspended, either permanently or temporarily. I selected the six states represented here to provide a visual demonstration of proliferation curves that exhibit variation in several dimensions: the historical era of pursuit, whether the state ultimately acquired nuclear weapons, and regime type. I divide the nuclear weapons age into three time periods: the “permissive” decades prior to the 1964 shock of the Chinese nuclear fission test, when major world powers—​and a few minor powers—​sought the bomb with few external constraints; the “transition period,” beginning with the 1965 start of the negotiations that would culminate in the Nuclear Non-​ Proliferation Treaty (NPT), during which a nuclear nonproliferation regime was emerging; and the “nonproliferation regime period,” characterized by the deepening of the nonproliferation regime, dating from the shock of the 1974 Indian peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE). Each of these periods constitutes a different global environment with different political and structural constraints on nuclear aspirants. I develop arguments for the significance of each historical period in Chapter 4. I display two proliferation curves from each period in Figure 2.1. France and China were two of the original five countries to pursue nuclear weapons, Figure 2.1  Proliferation curves by state

Proliferation Curves  17 Figure 2.1  Continued

18  Nuclear Decisions Figure 2.1  Continued

Proliferation Curves  19 Figure 2.1  Continued

20  Nuclear Decisions beginning their programs within ten years of the end of World War II. India and South Korea were most active during the transition period between the early nuclear weapons states’ pursuits and the consolidation of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. India acquired nuclear weapons, while South Korea abandoned its program. Brazil and South Africa pursued nuclear weapons in the years after the Indian PNE, a shock that generated the political will to deepen the emerging nonproliferation regime. Brazil terminated its program, and South Africa acquired nuclear weapons and then later dismantled them. Strikingly, each of these graphs is noticeably different from the others. Progress to the bomb is neither uniform nor clearly predictable. Brazil, South Korea, and South Africa chose to slow or suspend their programs, and those programs eventually ended. But India made reversal decisions that were themselves later reversed by acceleration decisions, and it ultimately acquired and deployed a nuclear arsenal. In that successful case, the outcome—​ a nuclear weapon—​was not simply achieved after the initial decision to start a weapons program. Several other nuclear decisions were part of the proliferation process. In each case, numerous decisions were made in order to achieve nuclear weapons status. Limiting one’s attention to only one part of the proliferation curve may thus lead to mistaken conclusions about nuclear development. Leaders make decisions that change the shape of the curve. There is no one set, linear path to the bomb, but rather multiple paths formed by nuclear decisions. While nuclear decisions occur throughout these proliferation curves, it is also clear that they are relatively infrequent. This fact is unsurprising and serves to underscore the importance of the decisions. State leaders do not make dozens of nuclear reversal and acceleration decisions over the lifetime of a program. Significant nuclear decisions require political will. Both acceleration and reversal decisions are made at high levels, not only because nuclear weapons are so strongly tied to national interests, but also because they bring about policy changes, resource reallocations, and sometimes structural shifts within or among state institutions. The role of the NPT, which opened for signature in 1968 and entered into force in 1970, is not obvious at first glance. These curves do not indicate that either 1968 or 1970 was a watershed year for program development. However, the proliferation curves in the second and third time periods do stand in contrast to the French and Chinese curves in the first time period. In those later periods, reversal decisions suspend or halt programs and are

Proliferation Curves  21 sometimes followed by acceleration decisions. The paths appear bumpier and less predictable. By the mid-​to late 1970s nuclear development seems to be proceeding in a substantively different way. In Chapter 4 I address how, over time, the consolidation of the NPT and evolution of the broader nonproliferation regime, as structuring features of the international environment, affected nuclear decision-​making in these different time periods. The graphs also clearly show that nuclear weapons development milestones are achieved after nuclear decisions are made, and at what seem to be irregular intervals. Further, each decision paves the way for future decisions. States neither stumble into a nuclear weapons capability nor accidentally fall out of a nuclear weapons program. Even in states like India, known for its powerful “enclave” of nuclear scientists, key stages of nuclear development were neither reached nor abandoned unless governments made political decisions.16 The formal decision in 1972 to begin working toward a nuclear test, for example, was made by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had consulted with Indian nuclear scientists. The Atomic Energy Commission formed a committee to manage that effort in response to Gandhi’s order.17 That political decision, and the resulting preparations, made the 1974 explosion possible. Nuclear decisions are what set the program toward or away from the outcomes, and nuclear decisions are thus the focus of this book.

The Political Process of Proliferation In studying the full process of nuclear decision-​making during the lifetime of nuclear weapons programs, I address two key methodological weaknesses that are broadly present within the nuclear reversal literature. First, cross-​ national studies of nuclear reversal often only examine reversal decisions that terminated a program.18 Reversal decisions sometimes appear to be termination decisions at the time they are made but ultimately prove to be suspensions or slowdowns instead. Only in hindsight can we determine whether a reversal decision followed by several years of diminishing nuclear activity was indeed a program termination or was instead a temporary deceleration. Reversal decisions may delay a state’s progress toward acquiring nuclear weapons or building an arsenal but do not necessarily lead to the end of a program.

22  Nuclear Decisions Second, termination decisions rarely are made in isolation. States that terminate a program have typically made more than one reversal decision over periods of several years.19 Recent quantitative studies, which rely on program termination data, thus do not capture the full range of reversal decisions.20 Each reversal decision has the potential to affect the course of a nuclear weapons program. Limiting the analysis to outcomes, rather than the decisions that shape the proliferation process, leads scholars to overlook crucial turning points along the path of nuclear development. By including all nuclear decisions throughout the life of a program in my analysis, I capture the entire proliferation process. In Chapter 3 I offer a theory of nuclear decision-​making. The different proliferation paths indicate that not all leaders pursue nuclear weapons at any cost. A state’s security environment is an insufficient explanation for these different pursuits, in large part because a full nuclear weapons capability is not the only response available to a leader who faces a serious security threat. I claim that leaders’ beliefs about the state security environment and the value of a nuclear weapons program narrow the range of options they consider. Their beliefs are shaped by both the international nonproliferation environment and the relevant domestic organizations that house the state’s nuclear experts.

3 A Theory of Nuclear Decision-​Making Leaders’ nuclear decisions are critically important to understanding nuclear proliferation both historically and today. States do not initiate nuclear weapons programs and then take linear paths to a singular goal. Their various proliferation curves indicate that not all leaders pursue nuclear weapons at any cost, and a full nuclear weapons capability is not the only response available to a leader who faces a serious security threat. Many possible proliferation curves exist, moderated by nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions. Whether a state reaches the outcome of a nuclear weapon depends on those decisions. I thus examine nuclear weapons programs in terms of the decisions that shape the path of program development.

Nuclear Decision-​Making I offer two theoretical mechanisms to explain why leaders make nuclear decisions. They make decisions within different information environments that affect their beliefs and preferences about nuclear weapons. In different proliferation eras, from the top down changes to international political and structural conditions constrain or free states to pursue nuclear weapons development. Within and across these eras, from the bottom up domestic organizations may intervene to bring about, or prevent, a nuclear decision that has the potential to reshape the curve. The first mechanism, which I discuss in this chapter, comes from the bottom up. The domestic organizations that house a nation’s nuclear experts can, under certain conditions, influence a leader’s beliefs about the costs and benefits of a nuclear weapons program. The state’s security environment alone cannot explain leaders’ preferences regarding nuclear weapons, because the pursuit of nuclear weapons is far from the only option available to an insecure state. Leaders can respond to security conditions by selecting

Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0003

24  Nuclear Decisions from a range of policy responses. I argue that military and nuclear scientific organizations may intervene to shape how leaders understand and interpret the security environment. Under certain conditions, these expert organizations may work together or compete with each other to limit or expand the set of available policy options presented to the leader. Second, the political context in which leaders make decisions is shaped from the top down by the external proliferation environment. Over time the structure and politics of the international system have created permissive or constraining environments in which states might pursue nuclear weapons. I argue that the benefits and costs of pursuing nuclear weapons have been understood differently within each of three distinct proliferation environments, bookended by systemic shocks. In each proliferation environment, leaders are faced with different sets of available options. Therefore, my investigation of how domestic organizations attempt to intervene in a state’s nuclear pursuits must include the limits imposed from above by the different proliferation environments. The story of Japan’s early pursuit of nuclear weapons, which I briefly related in the opening pages of this book, helps illuminate why these changing proliferation contexts are so important. While Japan’s scientific and military experts fumbled in the terrible darkness and confusion of August 1945, trying to determine what had happened at Hiroshima, it would not be long before states would never again have reason to question the existence or power of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons hopefuls now understood that the ultimate goal could be achieved. Whether states faced external constraints and costs in pursuing nuclear weapons, however, was a different matter. Those constraints and costs, shaped by changing international political interests, have created different proliferation conditions across three distinct time periods. I discuss this top-​down mechanism further, and define and describe the three proliferation environments, in Chapter 4.

Alternative Explanations I offer a novel explanation as one way to understand why leaders might make these decisions, and especially why they might make puzzling decisions. However, I do not claim that these theoretical mechanisms determine every nuclear decision. Other factors will also affect the path of a state’s nuclear weapons program. I examine several possible alternative explanations for

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  25 proliferation pathways and discuss why each is insufficient, before turning to my theory of nuclear decision-​making.

Security Many states choose not to pursue nuclear weapons, despite possessing the requisite knowledge and resources. A state must also be willing to proceed down the costly and controversial path to the bomb. Over the past two decades, multiple studies have demonstrated the importance of the threat environment in prompting states to start a nuclear weapons program, although some measures of threat are less predictive across these studies than others.1 Scott D. Sagan identifies three different theoretical motivators that may drive states to start a nuclear weapons program: security, domestic political interests, and norms.2 As the case histories of nuclear weapons–​seeking states indicate that one or more of these motivators can be identified as contributing to each state leader’s decision to start a program, a rich literature has emerged that investigates the wide range of possible explanations. But the security-​based approach to understanding proliferation has been, and continues to be, dominant in the field. If the international system is anarchic, neorealist scholars have argued, then states will seek to help themselves by pursuing nuclear weapons.3 Whether balancing against nuclear rivals or responding to emerging threats, insecure states should seek the deterrent benefits conferred by these extraordinarily powerful weapons. As Sagan notes, the security explanation has the benefit of appearing to be the most obvious: states pursue nuclear weapons in response to insecurity. Yet in practice this parsimonious approach has overpredicted proliferation. Insecure states do not necessarily address a security threat—​even a nuclear threat—​by pursuing nuclear weapons. And states that do decide to begin a program may exist in insecurity for many years prior to starting down a proliferation pathway. Early in the nuclear weapons age, many predicted that countries with sufficient technological capacity and material wealth would likely tumble into proliferation, one after another. But a world in which countries fell like metaphorical nuclear dominoes has not come to pass. One of the most important reasons we do not observe capable states regularly responding to threats with nuclear acceleration decisions is that those decisions do not bring about immediate, useful results. Nuclear acceleration decisions incur very high costs and are implemented within bureaucratic

26  Nuclear Decisions structures that require time to adapt to altered circumstances. A program decision may require building new facilities, hiring new personnel, expanding a partnership with a foreign government, or finding new sources of material or equipment. Deciding to increase work on an existing project to move up the timeline, for example, or to open the plutonium path to the bomb, would be long-​term, highly secret initiatives that would take months or years to come to fruition. In fact, I argue in the case studies that security concerns could also prompt reversal decisions, as leaders may decide to meet emerging threats by reducing the state’s investment in nuclear weapons and reallocating resources to conventional arming. Despite its limitations, the security approach continues to be a starting point for much of the nonproliferation literature. This has three broad implications for the study of nuclear weapons. First, the security approach generates explanations at the state level. States are conceptualized as unitary actors that will respond to threats in predictable ways within the structure of the international system. Domestic-​level factors rarely enter into the analysis. In a notable exception, Vipin Narang’s security-​based model of how states pursue proliferation gives a nod to the domestic environment. He writes: The inconsistency with which domestic actors accurately assess and respond to the external security environment means, however, that variation in unit-​level consensus can exert independent influence on a state’s strategy.4

However, within the model, Narang’s investigation of the domestic political environment focuses only on whether there is consensus or not among various relevant domestic actors. This makes sense within the context of a security-​based model striving for parsimony but limits the explanatory power of the domestic environment. What preferences do different actors hold? Will some be better able to influence leaders than others? How relevant domestic actors influence decision-​making is left unexamined. Second, if states seek to acquire nuclear weapons to maximize security benefits, as the security approach assumes, then states respond to emerging nuclear threats in kind and will strive to quickly achieve nuclear weapons status. Typically, implicit in these studies is the assumption that states that initiate nuclear weapons programs will pursue the bomb at the same speed and on trajectories headed toward the same goal: acquisition.5 The proliferation curves (see Chapter 2) demonstrated that this assumption does not

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  27 hold up to an empirical investigation. Third, the security approach focuses on proliferation outcomes, which can lead scholars to miss the significance, or even occurrence, of decisions and changes that arise earlier in the life of the program. As a result, the security approach can often explain some aspects of proliferation fairly well, such as a state’s motivation to start a program, but falls short when applied to nuclear decision-​making. One recent example is Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro’s theory of nuclear proliferation, situated in the security model. The authors seek to explain whether nuclear development ends in one of two outcomes: acquisition or forbearance.6 Focusing explicitly on this binary state, which “changes only with nuclear acquisition,” Debs and Monteiro approach nuclear weapons development as if all states set out to accomplish the same goal.7 In setting their sights exclusively on the final outcome, they lose essential components of the proliferation and reversal process. For example, in the early 1960s Swedish leaders came to believe that the growing US and Soviet nuclear arsenals meant that limited nuclear exchanges were no longer a significant threat to Swedish territory, which could conceivably have been caught in the middle of such an exchange. Debs and Monteiro use that change in the security environment to explain Sweden’s final decision to terminate its nuclear program.8 But in doing so, they miss an early reversal decision that was made during the 1950s, when they claim the security environment promoted nuclear weapons pursuit. That reversal decision involved Swedish investment in conventional force modernization—​which was in large part a response to the security environment informed by military organizational preferences—​and the government’s reluctance to make simultaneous investments in a nuclear program. The security explanation also cannot account for the path Sweden took toward the bomb. If Swedish leaders were motivated to pursue nuclear weapons because they believed a nuclear deterrent would be the only way to protect the Swedish homeland from a US-​Soviet exchange, then we would expect the government to initiate a crash program to acquire a deterrent as quickly as possible. But that was not the government’s approach. Instead, the program sputtered along during the dangerous, vulnerable years of the 1950s with limited financial resources and without strong political support, as the state elected to arm conventionally (see Chapter 6). Taking a state-​level approach that focuses mainly on foreign adversaries and allies, assuming that nuclear-​pursuing states share outcome goals, and focusing on the acquisition/​reversal outcomes alone all lead Debs and Monteiro toward broad

28  Nuclear Decisions theoretical claims about the security environment’s top-​down impact on nuclear weapons programs and away from explaining the real-​world heterogeneity of responses to the security environment that emerge from within a state’s domestic political context.9 The role of security in understanding nuclear weapons pursuit is certainly important, particularly in motivating the initial decision to begin a program. But the benefits a nuclear weapons program provides and the costs it incurs can change over time. Decisions that come later in a program’s timeline may be based on different factors than the initial decision to start the program. Many leaders appear to make nuclear decisions that are not based on either stable or changing external security environments. And whether a leader responds to a change in the threat environment with a nuclear decision depends in part on the influence of nuclear or military organizations. These organizations may attempt to use security events to affect nuclear decision-​ making in service of their own agendas. Security on its own is an insufficient explanator for nuclear decision-​ making. It is certainly not unimportant, however, and I show in the empirical chapters to follow how strategic rivalries lead governments to be more hesitant to abandon their nuclear programs. Broadly, though, states have a number of possible responses to insecurity, and those responses are shaped by the domestic information environment. And as states have different objectives in mind when pursuing nuclear weapons development, security concerns will not point every government toward the same end goal.

Government Interference in Nuclear Weapons Programs Could different proliferation curves be explained by the competence or incompetence of state officials and program managers? Jacques E. C. Hymans makes the argument that leaders who are relatively unconstrained by state institutions are likely to interfere with the management of nuclear weapons programs, undermining the productivity, autonomy, and professional ethos of science workers. Program progress suffers as a result. Hymans is certainly correct that nonexpert interference in program management can damage a program’s ability to achieve nuclear development milestones. However, this argument has less to offer for an explanation of leaders’ nuclear decision-​ making, and more broadly, it falls prey to the assumption that states have common goals and take linear paths to the bomb.

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  29 First, Hymans asks a different question. In seeking to explain differences in the length of time to nuclear weapons acquisition, he explores the impact of relatively unconstrained, neopatrimonial leaders on the behavior of nuclear science and technology workers. This focus on how nuclear development progresses inside the nuclear agency examines, for instance, whether scientists are free to pursue their work in ways that will advance good research and development or feel compelled to take shortcuts that will momentarily please powerful, repressive leaders, but that will ultimately harm program development. This explanation is ultimately about top-​down effects on the outcome: Will political interference extend the time it takes to acquire nuclear weapons? I offer a theory that explains the other side of the coin: how organizations affect leaders’ decisions to invest in, or back away from, a program. I am concerned not with the scientists’ professional autonomy and ability to perform good science, but rather with the nuclear agency’s organizational autonomy, which affects the scientists’ ability to influence the leader regarding the course and survival of the program itself. Second, underlying Hymans’s theory is one of the same assumptions that also plagues the security approach: that leaders share a common desire to acquire nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. I have discussed previously that the historical record of nuclear pursuit indicates that the majority of states do not pursue the bomb with great haste. Often, leaders choose to allow a nuclear weapons program to maintain the course it is on or decide to slow down or suspend its development. As I argue, organizations are a key source of influence that frame the leader’s perception of the value of the nuclear program and affect the leader’s preference whether or not to accelerate that program. Leaders do not hold universal preferences for speeding the program along. Why is this assumption a problem? Hymans’s focus on outcomes, in combination with the assumption that the path to the bomb should be linear, leads him to draw the conclusion that states that stray from the ideal proliferation curve are deviating from the norm. In other words, if the outcome has not been realized in an efficient, timely way, something has gone wrong. This conclusion motivates a search for an explanation: that neopatrimonial regimes disrupt nuclear weapons program management. However, if these nonlinear pathways are not a deviation—​if states’ proliferation curves are in fact typically nonlinear, interrupted and shaped by nuclear decisions—​then neopatrimonialism provides an insufficient explanation. Indeed, across neopatrimonial regimes, militaries and nuclear

30  Nuclear Decisions agencies have varying levels of access to, and influence over, leaders and the nuclear project. In other words, it is not only the type of bureaucracy that matters within a state, but also the form that bureaucracy takes. And I argue that a domestic institutions–​based explanation that omits the role of the military will not be able to sufficiently explain decision-​making regarding weapons research and development across the universe of cases. Further, my approach to understanding nuclear decision-​making offers an explanation for cases that do not fit neatly into Hymans’s theoretical framework, such as China. Hymans notes that China is an exception, writing that “military and party heavyweights” protected the program from state interference.10 But when China transitioned from Mao Zedong’s leadership to Deng Xiaoping’s, military and party heavyweights were unsuccessful in protecting the nuclear weapons program from Deng’s reversal decisions. Why? The domestic organizations mechanism offers an explanation. China’s nuclear agencies had been frequently reorganized by leaders at various levels and lacked direct access to the executive, reporting instead to the Central Military Commission, the Chinese Communist Party, or an array of ministers.11 Because the Chinese nuclear bureaucracy was never given independent access to state resources, its continued operation was reliant on patrons like the military and party leaders who protected it during Mao’s regime. When Deng decided to divert resources away from nuclear weapons development and toward conventional weapons programs, those patrons had lost the power and access they needed to persuade Deng otherwise, and the program itself had no access to Deng.12 This structure stands in stark contrast to observations of other neopatrimonial regimes. For example, under Stalin’s neopatrimonial regime, the Russian nuclear agency had direct access to Stalin and was able to influence decision-​making (see Chapter 5). But agencies that lack an independent source of power or access to the leader have little ability to shape leaders’ preferences and influence decision outcomes.

Adversity: Economic Constraints, Sanctions, and Military Strikes Nuclear weapons programs require a state to invest massive financial and material resources. Yet most studies have found that state wealth has no independent impact on a state’s decision to start a nuclear program.13 Indeed, states that have tried and failed to build the bomb actually have, on average,

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  31 a higher per capita GDP than those states that succeed.14 Since nuclear weapons programs are extremely expensive, why would state wealth matter so little? Governments may decide to endure significant sacrifices in order to divert money to accelerate a nuclear program. A state may prioritize a nuclear weapons program to the extent that leaders disregard economic constraints. Because nuclear weapons are so highly valued, we should actually expect to find that states at various levels of wealth decide to pursue them. If states desire nuclear weapons strongly enough, their leaders will find a way to pay for them.15 China pursued nuclear weapons despite its limited resources at the time. China’s scientific and industrial foundations were not sufficient to support an indigenous nuclear weapons program, and thus the leadership turned to the Soviet Union for assistance with both materials and scientific knowledge. Despite suffering by the population, particularly in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward (1958–​60), when China endured “three hard years” of rationing, meat shortages, and malnutrition, Marshal Nie Rongzhen, a key figure in the Chinese nuclear weapons effort, persuaded the leadership that developing nuclear weapons would also help develop the Chinese economy.16 Premier Zhou Enlai proclaimed that China would attempt to produce an atomic bomb within eight years.17 Funding was diverted to the nuclear program, providing personnel with more food than the general public could procure and more comfortable living conditions.18 China is not the only state that found a way to fund a program it could not comfortably afford. Although Pakistan’s low level of economic development in the 1970s could have precluded investment in a nuclear program, Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Bhutto famously declared in October 1965 that the Pakistani population would “eat grass” if that was what was necessary to fund a nuclear weapons program. In Libya, Mu’ammer Gaddafi leveraged the country’s oil wealth to support his nuclear weapons dream.19 North Korea has invested in its nuclear weapons program at the expense of its people, who have suffered from periodic famines and energy shortages for decades. Even democratic India spent so much on its nuclear program that its swollen defense budget contributed to the development of a food shortage.20 Even in a time of scarcity, a motivated government can find ways to reallocate resources to support a nuclear program. Beyond domestic resource scarcity, external mechanisms of economic sanctions and the withholding of economic assistance may pose a particular resource constraint for states with nuclear ambitions. However, states that

32  Nuclear Decisions have decided to pursue nuclear weapons have considered the risks of nonproliferation measures like sanctions and have already accepted those possible harms.21 Leaders may not be prompted to reverse if the risk is realized, except in specific circumstances.22 Sanctions that are particularly well-​crafted and are imposed by a significant economic partner are more likely to be successful, but those conditions are rarely met.23 Most scholars agree that economic sanctions are generally ineffective at bringing about policy change24 and have rarely caused leaders to make nuclear reversal decisions within the context of an existing nuclear weapons program.25 Note that three of the states I mentioned as pursuing programs despite economic constraints—​ Pakistan, Libya, and North Korea—​operated their nuclear programs under various rounds of economic sanctions. A state pursuing nuclear weapons also risks becoming the target of militarized nonproliferation measures, such as the suspension of military aid or a military strike against program facilities. But strikes on foreign nuclear facilities, which are rare, may lead to program reversal or may prompt a leader to double down on investment in the nuclear weapons program.26 And strikes on a program become less likely as the program reaches more advanced levels of capacity, such as when enrichment or reprocessing facilities begin operating.27

Leader Characteristics Leaders’ personal characteristics and experiences, such as their beliefs about national identity28 or their past experiences with rebellion against the state,29 may affect their attitudes about nuclear weapons. A fine-​grained approach to leader psychology contributes to our understanding of why leaders might trust certain allies more than others, or why they might particularly value a nuclear arsenal. And bringing the leader back into the study of proliferation is necessary because nuclear decision-​making authority is concentrated in the political executive.30 However, treating leader beliefs as fixed does not account for the relationship between leaders and domestic experts or for the influence those domestic experts can, under certain circumstances, exert on leaders. Nor can it account for the proliferation environment leaders find themselves operating in, an environment structured by the freedoms or constraints associated with different international proliferation regimes. Leader traits cannot directly explain why an individual might change his or her mind about the value of a nuclear weapons program or might make different nuclear decisions at

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  33 different times. Personality traits and past experiences are clearly an important part of how people make decisions, but a person who comes to political power as a state executive encounters a new decision-​making environment. And as leaders rarely know much about their nuclear weapons programs, organizations that frame the leader’s understanding of the program’s value become particularly important. The assumption that leader preferences primarily emerge from fixed personal traits limits our ability to explain nuclear decisions made during the life of an ongoing program. A change in leadership may also explain the timing of a nuclear decision. Sometimes a nuclear decision is made when a new president or prime minister enters office. Some new executives bring to office strong attitudes regarding nuclear weapons, and they may seize their new opportunity to change state policy. But although a change in leadership has at times preceded a decision to start a program or change course within a program, it is neither a common nor widespread factor leading to either type of decision. If my argument is correct, the case studies will show that nuclear decision-​making varies within certain categories of leaders or types of regimes. The mechanisms concern the information environment that shapes any leader’s preferences about nuclear pursuits, and the theory is thus agnostic as to leader type. Cases in which a leader had a strong personal stake in the nuclear weapons program are particularly interesting and thus well-​known, but it is more typical for the leader to rely upon advisers, agencies, and other organizations to suggest a set of policy choices and then to advocate their preferred policies within that set. Most leaders are not familiar with nuclear science and technology; neither are most, especially at the beginning of their time in office, well-​versed in nuclear secrets. Indeed, even those leaders who had exceptionally high levels of personal involvement in nuclear affairs still did not operate alone, but rather in the context of their environments. Even though individual leaders have unique personalities, life histories, and leadership styles, there are common situations and conditions across the domestic and international environments that tend to make leaders more or less likely to make certain kinds of nuclear decisions.

Nuclear Goals The goals and interests of nuclear pursuers vary; therefore the desired outcomes of a nuclear weapons program will also vary. Leaders make nuclear decisions for a variety of strategic reasons, and not every state with a nuclear

34  Nuclear Decisions weapons program necessarily plans to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Recall the proliferation curves from Chapter 2. Sprinting toward weaponization is a relatively rare approach, situated largely in the post–​World War II years and taken by fewer than 20 percent of nuclear weapons pursuers.31 Rather than investigating the time to acquisition, then, I argue that we should investigate the form the nuclear pursuit takes. If the majority of states do not pursue a quick, linear path toward the bomb, what other nuclear goals might they have? States pursuing a nuclear weapons program might choose to hedge, planning to achieve a high level of nuclear technological development but not to build a nuclear arsenal. Hedging can result in a latent nuclear weapons capability, meaning that a leader would be able to reserve the option to build nuclear bombs, and those bombs could be built within a relatively short timeframe. A latent capability may be perceived by the state leader as a source of power or to generate a “virtual” nuclear deterrent without crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. Leaders could also decide to hedge in order to generate prestige or to satisfy domestic political coalitions.32 Nuclear goals can also change. A government that initially pursues nuclear weapons development with an eye on completing the path to the bomb could change course and decide to engage in hedging behavior, slowing down or suspending a program while maintaining the option to rapidly restart it later. Over the course of a program, leaders may come to believe that pursuing a nuclear weapons capability will risk preventive war, making a bad security environment even worse.33 Or a state might seek to leverage an advanced nuclear development capacity to compel a powerful ally to maintain its security commitments to the state.34 Even a state facing significant threats may decide to treat the program as a bargaining chip in negotiations with adversaries. North Korea used its plutonium reprocessing plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States. Freezing operations at Yongbyon as part of the Agreed Framework allowed the regime to maintain the option to restart the nuclear program if circumstances changed; soon after the agreement began to falter in 2002, North Korea brought the plant back online.35 And after years of investment in nuclear programs with little progress, Brazil, Argentina, and Libya planned to use their nuclear capabilities as leverage in future nonproliferation talks with foreign powers.36 The state leaders themselves may not have a clear sense of their nuclear goals or may leave the preferred outcomes deliberately vague in order to

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  35 maintain a wider range of available options. Nuclear programs are inherently ambivalent in pre-​weaponized stages; such a program could be on the path toward a nuclear arsenal or could instead be a peaceful energy program. Nuclear power capabilities are simultaneously civilian and military, and leaders can delay in defining the nature of the program, pursuing an ambiguous course of development without clearly establishing the ultimate goal.37 The civil-​military ambiguity of a nuclear development effort and the wide range of possible nuclear weapons program goals facilitate intervention by interested domestic experts, who are primarily housed in the state’s nuclear agency and military. Proliferation looks different across cases because leaders do not mindlessly push forward toward one uniform goal. As a nuclear weapons program develops over time and within changing international and domestic contexts, leaders’ perceptions of the value of a program are subject to change. That informational context is shaped by both bottom-​up and top-​down features of the political environment. I turn now to the first, bottom-​up theoretical mechanism: the ability of domestic nuclear experts to intervene in the decision-​making process. I discuss why experts matter when it comes to leaders’ beliefs about state nuclear weapons programs, whether expert organizations are likely to support or oppose nuclear development, and the conditions under which interested expert organizations will be able to access and influence state leaders.

The Nuclear Information Environment As I discussed earlier in this chapter, a leader’s own beliefs about the value of nuclear weapons are important. Beliefs affect the ways in which leaders understand the state’s security environment and the responses they consider.38 But a leader’s nuclear beliefs and preferences are not fixed. To assess whether the nuclear pursuit is still worth the cost, leaders make strategic calculations about the value of the nuclear weapons program to the state. They weigh benefits like state security and prestige against other important factors, such as the likelihood of success or potential harm from international counterproliferation efforts. Yet leaders rarely know very much about nuclear weapons programs. Even when considering a matter as crucial to the state as nuclear weapons, a busy leader’s attention is likely to be divided. Leaders facing a decision

36  Nuclear Decisions cannot perform a full search and comparison of the entire range of possible policy alternatives and outcomes. They are especially constrained when considering options within a context restricted by compartmentalized secrecy and the possession of sophisticated technical knowledge that limits the ability of nonexperts to understand facts and options. A nuclear weapons program is characterized by high levels of both secrecy and expert knowledge. Even leaders who strongly desire a nuclear arsenal may have only an impressionistic sense of the weapons and their potential utility. I argue that these constraints on decision-​makers’ access to and understanding of the range of choices and possible outcomes create an environment in which the expert organizations involved in the state nuclear weapons program enjoy a heightened ability to strategically shape decision-​makers’ beliefs and preferences about the value of that program. Under the right conditions, organizations intervene to facilitate—​or prevent—​the transmission of information from experts to country leaders.

Information Transmission from Experts to Leaders When people receive new information, if they consider that new information to be credible and persuasive, their beliefs are more likely to change. Whether information affects a decision-​maker’s beliefs depends in part on whether the decision-​maker trusts the source of the information. A decision-​ maker may be more likely to be persuaded if the source of the information is an expert or an insider.39 However, scientists and military professionals, who hold expert status due to their specialized knowledge and professional experience, are likely to hold biased views regarding the nuclear project, depending on the interests they believe to be at stake. Biased experts have incentives to act strategically in transmitting information to nonexperts. They may withhold damaging information, offering a leader only the information that supports the expert’s desired decision. If a leader consults a single biased expert, the leader should receive partial information. Similarly, if an expert with access to the decision-​maker can block a competing expert’s advice, the decision-​ maker will again receive partial information. More information should be revealed when experts with opposing biases are brought into an exchange of ideas and can rebut each other’s arguments. An expert’s ability to strategically

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  37 withhold information from a leader or to obstruct the transmission of information from a rival expert is especially important if expert biases are relatively large.40 Of course, if a leader believes the informing expert is biased, that leader should discount the expert’s advice. However, leaders often do not realize that they are only receiving partial information. Further, those that do understand this are unlikely to appropriately identify the biased information and discount it as strategic. Experts are simply much better than nonexperts at determining which sets of information have been provided by a biased source.41 Country leaders almost uniformly lack expertise in nuclear weapons development. They should be less able to perceive bias and may not be able to accurately identify the direction of bias, especially when the information appears to be technical and objective. In the case of nuclear weapons programs, the secret and highly technical nature of the information makes it especially difficult for leaders to determine what they may not have been told and whether that missing information is meaningful. Further, leaders tend to perceive technical experts as unbiased and apolitical. Nonexpert actors think of technical and scientific knowledge as objective, neutral, and apolitical. But the experts themselves understand that their technical decisions are political. In providing advice on technical policy issues, experts can both define the conversation and reshape decision-​makers’ beliefs. As Tim Büthe and Walter Mattli argue in their study of international regulatory standards, the expertise itself functions as a tool for persuasion: Given [a]‌requirement for technical reasoning, the pertinent expertise should be an important resource for exerting influence . . . insofar as [it] constrains what arguments get made, and it might even change some [decision-​makers’] view of their self-​interest.42

Experts typically gain access to political leadership through their respective state organizations. In the nuclear arena, for scientists that is most often the state nuclear agency; for military personnel it is the state military organization. The same logic that applies to information transmission at the individual expert level also applies to information transmission at the level of state organizations. If one organization can monopolize the transmission of information to the leader, that organization’s experts will have a strong informational advantage and will be able to better advance their interests.

38  Nuclear Decisions Specialized technical knowledge allows those organizations to be gatekeepers of information and expertise, giving the experts that populate the organizations power over political leaders.43 The particularly specialized knowledge held within a nuclear-​related domestic organization confers legitimacy and enhances influential reach. Indeed, organizations that come to embody technical rationality not only control information but also generate an independent legitimacy and authority.44 That authority is based not only on organizational expertise but also on outsiders’ perceptions of the organization’s neutrality. A leader that views a nuclear-​related organization as a neutral authority is likely to receive information without understanding that the organization has incentives to pursue its own strategic interests. Therefore, when a domestic organization controls the transmission of information, its leaders can frame the issue for the country leader and can limit and define the set of options the country leader receives. As Sagan explains, powerful organizational actors influence leaders’ “beliefs, the options available to them, and the final implementation of their decisions.”45 These actors exert their influence in service of organizational interests, such as attaining funding, working in service of an organizational mission, and fulfilling professional goals. Complex organizations are likely to hold strong competing interests, and the process by which those interests are adjudicated is political. Organizations thus possess their own biases.46 The picture that emerges from both information transmission theories and organization theory is that organizational bias and interorganizational competition shape the information the leader will receive. While a leader who receives information from opposing experts should be more fully informed, in practice the leader may only be listening to one expert viewpoint. The leader may trust one organization or expert more, or one organization may be better than another at communicating a coherent, consistent message to the leader. Organizations with less internal disagreement, or with a strong organization head who can silence opposing voices, will be better able to speak with a single, authoritative voice.

Influential or Irrelevant: Measuring Expert Organizations’ Capacity to Inform Leaders Understanding whether and how information passes from experts to nonexpert decision-​makers is crucial to understanding leaders’ decisions.

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  39 Interested experts with strong informational advantages, such as a high level of access to the state leader, will be able to advance their interests. The organizations that house the experts can make information transmission easier—​or harder. Several structural characteristics affect an organization’s ability to inform and influence. An organization with greater access to the leader has a greater opportunity to inform and persuade. Whether a leader trusts an expert will matter very little if that expert never gets the chance to communicate with the leader.47 Experts and organizations with competing preferences may attempt to block each other’s advice; recall that in this scenario, the leader becomes informationally worse off. The organization that reports directly to the country leader has the greatest ability to shape its message and deliver it intact to the decision-​maker. When an agency lacks direct access to the executive, other officials who do enjoy such access, such as cabinet members, can intervene by refusing to accept or pass along an agency’s reports, advice, and proposals.48 The counter to this argument in the nuclear weapons case is that leaders may be able to control access, as would suit their individual preferences. Elizabeth Saunders argues that leaders decide whether to invite domestic actors into nuclear decision-​making.49 To some extent, this is true. A government could decide to exclude the military from decision-​making during program development, prior to weaponization.50 Or a pro–​nuclear weapons leader may forge a special relationship with the head of a nuclear agency or install a trusted loyalist in the position and grant the agency special access.51 But inviting an organization to the decision-​making process is not always as easy as it sounds. Institutional characteristics may still impede the transmission of information from the organization to the leader. And structural features, the most obvious being a military-​run government, can predetermine which actors have a seat at the table. I identify three structural characteristics of organizations that I use to measure an organization’s capacity to inform and influence the leader. First, organizations that report directly to the country leader have the greatest ability to shape the message and deliver it intact. Even if the leader has invited an organization to participate, if the organization’s leadership reports to a cabinet minister or other official, those intermediaries can intervene to block or reframe the agency’s advice and proposals. And it may not be easy for an interested leader to change an organization’s structure. Informal, high access can also become more formal over time. Personal leader-​expert relationships

40  Nuclear Decisions can become institutionalized, and the organization may develop the ability to influence future leaders who hold competing preferences. Second, the position of an organization within the state bureaucracy affects that organization’s ability to promote its strategic interests. Organizations that are insulated from executive control should have greater independence to develop and then pursue their own organizational preferences, even to the point of challenging the leader’s views.52 But an organization that falls under executive control, such as within the cabinet, may be subject to the preferences of the leader. An organization that depends on the executive apparatus for authority and funding has less power and is thus less able to impose its organizational preferences on the leader. Third, a state organization that is protected by formal legal authority is more difficult for country leaders to weaken or eliminate. Legal codification increases the likelihood of the organization’s survival in the state bureaucracy and imbues the organization with greater authority and legitimacy to insert itself into decision-​making processes and shape the information environment. Max Weber highlights the importance of formality and legal authority in establishing a bureaucratic agency’s legitimacy.53 A body’s codification into law via a parliamentary act is the most formal, followed by creation via executive decree and, finally, the informal creation of an agency without official, legal documentation. A decree still lends legal personality to the agency; typically, leaders must issue subsequent decrees to formally change the agency in the future. But that action is easier, faster, and less visible than amending a law. Legal autonomy granted by parliament in an act is the most difficult for a country leader to later remove. An organization that depends on a powerful figurehead but has not been established and protected by laws may not survive financial downturns or changes in leadership and may lose its ability to pursue its interests. This particular question of legal personality is more relevant to the nuclear agency than to state militaries. Interestingly, legal formality varies both within and across cases and does not simply correspond to a state’s level of democracy. A brief look at several nuclear agencies illustrates this point. The South African and Swedish nuclear agencies were both established by parliamentary acts under different types of regimes. Both agencies neither were independent of the executive nor had direct access to the leader.54 The United States and Israel were both strong democracies when they created their nuclear agencies, but the United States codified its agency into law, while Israel eschewed formality.55 Iran was a monarchy at the time the shah created the Atomic Energy Organization

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  41 of Iran, yet legally the AEOI was created via a parliamentary act along with the shah’s decree. After the 1979 Revolution brought anti-​Western and antinuclear leaders to power and suspended nuclear activities, the organization itself, its formal structure and powers codified into law, remained intact. AEOI’s structural insulation from executive control helped facilitate the rapid revival of the nuclear program within two years.56 Different combinations of the key agency characteristics I have identified also occur across regime types. Democratic India’s nuclear agency, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), is a clear example of a highly independent and powerful organization that has historically been positioned to exercise a great deal of influence over India’s prime ministers. Nuclear scientists have been able to seize opportunities to advance their organization’s agenda, even over the dissenting voice of the military.57 On the extreme other end of regime type (autocratic Iraq) lies another example of an influential nuclear agency, which lacked the high level of bureaucratic independence from the leader that is a hallmark of India’s AEC but did enjoy direct access to the leader. Even though Saddam Hussein was personally interested in acquiring nuclear weapons, most nuclear decisions were presented to him from below, from Iraq’s nuclear agency. For example, in the aftermath of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, it was not Saddam who came up with the idea to accelerate Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, but his son-​in-​law Hussain Kamel. Kamel had recently come to power within the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization; he proposed the crash program that Saddam approved.58 While both of these agencies had direct access to the country’s leader, many nuclear agencies do not enjoy a direct line to leadership. Access, independence, and legal origin all impact whether a nuclear agency’s voice is likely to reach and persuade the leader. In the case studies I demonstrate how access to the country leader and independence to pursue organizational interests are features of both nuclear agencies and militaries that can affect the transmission of information to the leader. Depending on the organization’s autonomy, a leader may not be able to quickly or easily change those structural features. To understand the influence that nuclear agencies and state militaries have on nuclear decision-​making, I investigate their known biases, the ways in which they are able to transfer or withhold information, their position within the domestic political system, and their access to decision-​makers with regard to the nuclear project. Nuclear agencies and militaries may or may not share similar nuclear weapons preferences. Each organization—​and

42  Nuclear Decisions I argue this is especially true within military organizations—​may also have competing interests and biases within its ranks.

The Effects of Nuclear and Military Organizations on Decision-​Making To operationalize the theoretical mechanism of expert organizational influence, using the three structural features described in the preceding section, I use two independent variables. Each measures capacity to inform and influence leaders: one measures the capacity of the state nuclear agency that is most directly responsible for nuclear weapons–​related research and development, and the other measures the capacity of the state military organization. How these organizations use their influence—​in service of what nuclear goal—​is the other key component of this mechanism. Two more independent variables account for the preferences of each organization: one for the preferences of the nuclear agency and one for the preferences of the military. Does the organization support or oppose nuclear weapons development, or are there strong pockets of both support and opposition within the organization? In the remaining pages of this chapter, I discuss each type of organization’s informational advantages and then present arguments concerning each organization’s typical biases and preferences.

Informational Advantages of Nuclear Expert Organizations The nuclear agency and the state military may have opportunities to shape the leader’s understanding of the security environment, the utility of nuclear weapons, the financial cost to the state, the probability of success, the potential effect on the state’s international reputation, and many other factors that affect decision-​making. As I have argued, security events are not neutral but are interpreted through the domestic information environment. Influential organizations may use security events strategically, taking advantage of windows of opportunity to promote their own interests and agendas. The nuclear and military organizations share two characteristics, secrecy and technical opacity, that facilitate their ability to control information in general and to make claims about both the security environment and the best way for the government to respond. And the nuclear weapons project itself is imbued

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  43 with a sense of awe that further enhances the potential influence of experts within these organizations. The knowledge held by nuclear agencies and militaries is shielded by extremely high levels of security. Nuclear weapons programs, along with espionage programs, are among a state’s most secretive undertakings. Information is compartmentalized, meaning that even people who have the security clearance necessary to access the information will need additional authorization to view compartmentalized information. This is a common practice across countries. Compartmentalization ensures that the nuclear agency and the military can easily, with little administrative cost, prevent national security officials, holders of high elected office, and other members of the organization itself from accessing knowledge about the nuclear weapons program. This extreme secrecy provides nuclear agencies and militaries with more leeway to reveal what advances their organizational interests and to withhold what does not. Compartmentalization in particular limits the number of people who can discuss policy options, making the influence of the organization even more potent. For example, the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) is characterized by Avner Cohen as being the most secretive and guarded governmental agency in Israel. Certain words, such as “nuclear weapons,” were never used, even in classified documents.59 The program was so highly compartmentalized that even the IAEC itself was excluded for a few years from the operation of the Dimona project, Israel’s first nuclear facility, so that the agency could convincingly serve as civilian cover for the militarized project.60 This kind of secrecy exists across cases. Privileged access to nuclear information bolsters the influence an organization has on decision-​makers, who must rely, almost exclusively, on the keepers of that classified knowledge. Technical opacity heightens the influence of experts within the nuclear agency and the military. Nuclear weapons came to exist because scientists discovered techniques for adding an extra neutron to an unstable isotope of uranium, splitting the nucleus in two. This process, called nuclear fission, is highly technical, requiring specifically calibrated equipment and complex facilities, and the science underlying the technology is difficult to grasp. Most politicians have only a basic understanding of what a nuclear weapon is and are limited in their knowledge of how one works and what effects it would produce if used. Many decision-​makers simply do not realize what is needed for a successful program, what kind of timelines or budgets are reasonable, or what the differences are among types of processes and weaponry. In his book

44  Nuclear Decisions Pointing the Way, former UK prime minister Harold MacMillan wrote that heads of state, ministers of defense, and cabinets are at a serious disadvantage in the decision-​making process because the sophisticated weapons they authorize are so technical and difficult to comprehend.61 The nuclear agency and the military are often the only authorities on the technical aspects of the nuclear program; in some cases, only the nuclear agency has this role. Often the directing organization is also the main authority on the financial, organizational, and administrative aspects of the program. For example, in India the AEC operated without technical or expert oversight.62 In November 1964, as Indian parliamentarians in the Lok Sabha debated India’s place in a world that included a newly nuclear China, Prime Minister Shastri gave a speech that made explicit his approval of a program to develop nuclear explosives. The parliamentarians did not understand that the terms Shastri was using, like “nuclear device” and “peaceful nuclear explosive,” were gentler terms for nuclear weapons. The Lok Sabha did not fully comprehend either that the prime minister had made a decision to change India’s nuclear policy or that the country was now on the path to the bomb.63 In addition, the prospect of a nuclear weapons program, and what it would mean for Indian military strategy, was left unexplored by the parliamentarians, who lacked any information that might dispute what was being reported from the AEC. George Perkovich writes: Speakers generally took it for granted that [the AEC director] was right and India could produce an atomic bomb. . . . [They] did not analyze the technical requirements of a militarily meaningful nuclear deterrent. Instead, they offered highly generalized political notions of the new strategic environment and how India might operate within it.64

Last, a sense of awe pervades the subject of nuclear weapons. Human beings tend to feel awed by extremely large or small phenomena. Most people have shared the common experience of feeling insignificant when contemplating the vast expanse of the stars in the night sky. Some remember coming to the realization, when peering through a classroom microscope to view an amoeba on a slide plate, that an entire unseen world of invisible organisms exists around us. These moments recall the innate thrill that contains both amazement and unease, the thrill that comes from trying to comprehend such extremes of scale.65

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  45 In the same way, subatomic science evokes strong feelings of awe among most people who attempt to learn something about it. The notion that such devastating energy can be emitted from nuclear reactions that are too tiny to see, reactions that actually split apart the nuclei of atoms—​what we have learned are the fundamental “building blocks” that compose all matter—​ is astonishing. While the process takes place on a subatomic level, the effects are difficult to understand because they are hugely powerful. People have witnessed the terrible effects of fission weapons on the residents and structures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A single bomb reduced whole swaths of the cities to rubble, but even more, it caused horrific damage to the people who were caught in the blast, or who survived but then suffered the effects of radiation. Photographs of some of the injured have a nightmarish quality, particularly the gruesome severity of thermal burns. Despite this history, anecdotal evidence supports the idea that many politicians focus much more on the vast power of the weapons than on their human toll. The sheer might of nuclear weapons is something exciting, thrilling, larger than life. In the mid-​twentieth century, Australian cabinet-​ level officials admitted their ignorance of nuclear matters while professing great enthusiasm for the weapons.66 As China worked to master nuclear fission, Chairman Mao Zedong led a meeting of all senior members of the Politburo in which nuclear scientists delivered a lecture on basic nuclear physics. Exuberant over the goal of acquiring nuclear weapons, Politburo members took turns “playing with a Geiger counter to hear it click,” beaming with joy and excitement.67 Shimon Peres, speaking of Israeli prime minister David Ben-​Gurion, said, “Ben-​Gurion believed that Science could compensate us for what Nature has denied us. . . . [His] romantic, even mystical faith in science and technology sustained his utopian vision of a blossoming Negev desert and the use of nuclear power to desalinate sea water.”68 The vision Peres attributes to Ben-​ Gurion sounds more like science fiction than like science. Indeed, nuclear science does seem like science fiction to many politicians. Nuclear energy is so powerful that it can solve energy problems and water shortages; nuclear weapons are so powerful that they can deter enemies and confer global prestige. Such tools can invoke a mystical sense of being all-​powerful. The awe, the fear, and the intimidation that politicians experience when it comes to nuclear matters afford unique informational advantages to the masters of nuclear science and to the organizations that house them. Secrecy and technical opacity contribute to the potential influence the organizations have

46  Nuclear Decisions over policy making. Those organizations may have similar or competing preferences. In the following subsections I examine the sources of organizational preferences in militaries and nuclear agencies.

Nuclear Scientific Organizations: Biases and Preferences A nuclear agency’s preferences are largely driven by institutional self-​interest. Bureaucrats and scientists working for a nuclear agency will desire more funding, the advancement of scientific knowledge, more staff with which to conduct research and execute development, and better facilities and equipment. The organization may look for opportunities to use security concerns as leverage to build support for nuclear weapons development and may work in concert with other organizations with similar interests to advance their agenda.69 The staff of a nuclear agency will, above all, prioritize the continuation of the nuclear program upon which their organization and livelihoods are predicated. Continuation depends on the nuclear weapons program’s importance and relevance. To exist as more than just a maintenance organization tending to existing nuclear weapons, a program must always be moving forward: pursuing the next breakthrough, developing the next weapons system, working on the next type of nuclear reaction. Case histories bear out these assumptions. Heads of nuclear agencies are typically champions of nuclear weapons programs. While a significant number of nuclear scientists worldwide are opposed to the growth of nuclear weapons programs, the bureaucrats and scientists who work for nuclear weapons agencies self-​select into those positions. In other words, nuclear agencies are composed of individuals who believe in the mission of the agency and want to aid in the development of nuclear weapons.70 Further, heads of nuclear agencies are usually strong advocates. American nuclear weapons designer Blake Wood puts it this way: “[O]‌ne must have a forceful personality to rise to the top . . . of a large scientific and engineering enterprise. I don’t know [that] you can have it any other way.”71 Nuclear scientists, who typically populate high-​level decision-​making positions within a nuclear agency, are also part of a broader scientific community. This community has its own goals and interests, such as the desire to conduct advanced work that may garner the recognition of peers. Scientists interested in perfecting a sophisticated technology will require expensive

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  47 resources like laboratories, equipment, and staff to conduct their cutting-​ edge work. They may also argue for more funding in order to keep scientists in the country and prevent a brain drain to an ally or rival.72 In South Africa, nuclear scientists had a common set of goals and even a shared identity of sorts. Their research facilities, the nuclear agency’s headquarters, and the main research university were all located in the same geographic area. The scientists, who sometimes announced progress in nuclear science before political leaders could, desired success and prestige. One sign of this was their work to develop a unique enrichment process and not to replicate other scientists’ work from outside the country. The South African physicists did this not because the others’ work was flawed but because conducting original work was an important part of maintaining their reputations as good scientists.73 Scientists and civil servants who come to doubt the mission to produce nuclear weapons do not often try to change the nuclear agency from within; rather, they usually leave. If such scientists remain in the relevant bureaucracy, they may be marginalized or even forced out. In Taiwan, Dr. Wu Ta-​you, President Chiang Kai-​shek’s science adviser in the late 1960s, was skeptical of the state’s ability to successfully pursue a nuclear weapons program. He chose not to remain in his post for long and later learned that he had been branded a traitor by scientists in Taiwan’s nuclear agency.74 In India, prominent nuclear scientist Dr. Meghnad Saha disagreed with how the head of the program was proceeding with research and development. When he spoke out, the Indian AEC worked to successfully marginalize him. This marginalization was persistent and occurred even in minor ways: For instance, when Saha attended a conference held by the AEC to present his dissenting ideas, he was not given an opportunity to speak until the final day, limiting the discussion of his proposals.75 In France, High Commissioner for Atomic Energy Frédéric Joliot-​Curie, a devoted communist personally opposed to war, particularly against the Soviet Union, refused to conduct scientific research toward the development of nuclear weapons. He was removed from his post in 1950. In 1951 two commissioners on the French nuclear agency, the Comissariat à l’Energie Atomique (Atomic Energy Commission, or CEA), reorganized the institution so that scientific authority became subordinate to administrative authority.76 While this event occurred prior to the official French decision to pursue nuclear weapons, it illustrates how organizations can be shaped and preferences reinforced. While dissenting opinions can be expected to exist within any organization, and not all members of an agency share the same

48  Nuclear Decisions preferences, agency preferences are consolidated when those with strong dissenting opinions leave. Scientific/​bureaucratic and political interests are interrelated. Scientists and political leaders may be at odds with each other or may share the same goals regarding nuclear weapons. Some leaders have been personally invested in their nuclear weapons programs. Zulfikar Bhutto in Pakistan, David Ben-​Gurion in Israel, Charles de Gaulle in France, and Jawaharlal Nehru in India were all heads of state who were highly personally involved in directing their states’ nascent nuclear programs.77 These cases are well-​known and particularly interesting because of the leader’s personal stake, but it is more common for the leader to delegate management of the details of a program to others. As a nuclear program ages, new leaders take office and inherit an ongoing effort with its own history and momentum. And even those now-​historical figures who were personally invested in their programs still came to rely on their head scientists’ reports for information about the progress of the nuclear weapons efforts.78 There is an important distinction between a leader’s decision to start a nuclear weapons program and the decisions made within the context of an existing program. While the decision to pursue nuclear weapons is typically made and initially driven by a handful of people, after the program begins a greater number of people gain the ability to shape decision-​making.79 Consider the case of the United Kingdom, one of the first countries to begin a nuclear weapons program. In those earliest days of the military applications of nuclear science, governments simply did not yet know how to structure these programs to handle their scope and scale. At the outset of the nuclear weapons program and for the first few years, outside of the actual program staff, only the prime minister and about half a dozen to a dozen others at the ministerial level knew that Britain was pursuing the bomb. Within five and a half years of the decision to start a program, the Atomic Energy Committee was established and parliament was informed.80 As programs grow, they can no longer be led by a handful of ministers in a back room, and the number of people and organizations who can influence the course of the program increases.

Military Organizations: Biases and Preferences State militaries are complex organizations that can simultaneously hold multiple, and often conflicting, goals. While it may seem likely that militaries would choose to pour resources into a nuclear weapons program, the

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  49 historical record of military organizations’ nuclear preferences points to a much more complex reality. Organization theory suggests that militaries have parochial interests and organizational biases that shape their beliefs and preferences. A military organization cares not only about the security of the state, which is an external goal, but also about its internal goals, including its own power, resources, and survivability. Decision-​making within a military organization is likely to focus on what is best for the military, even if that decision may at times be made at the expense of the state.81 And different divisions within the military may themselves hold competing organizational interests. There is an important distinction to draw between two topics: the nuclear development decisions military organizations might prefer and how militaries might behave upon acquiring a nuclear arsenal. Militaries in possession of nuclear weapons may be emboldened by the idea of a nuclear deterrent and become more likely to engage in conventional attacks.82 Further, militaries are more likely to think about nuclear weapons in offensive terms and may be more willing to use nuclear weapons in a crisis.83 But these are behaviors that involve choices about how to utilize a nuclear arsenal; they are not decisions about nuclear weapons program development, which is what this book examines. Militaries are not uninterested in acquiring nuclear weapons. In addition to providing a deterrent, the weapons confer great prestige on a military organization. However, I argue that due to competing interests, militaries may prefer not to invest heavily in or to accelerate nuclear weapons development, despite the utility a nuclear arsenal may provide. A military policy stance or decision may have an underlying purpose that serves one set of organizational priorities among several and that may appear confusing or irrational to an outside observer who is unfamiliar with military biases and structures.84 Thus, while some members of military organization are likely to support nuclear weapons development, others are likely to be opposed. What are the sources of military opposition to accelerating nuclear weapons programs? First, conventional arms provide immediate practical utility for warfighting, which militaries highly prioritize. Nuclear weapons programs, on the other hand, are costly, long-​term programs that may never result in usable weaponry. Militaries require a fighting force of soldiers, conventional weapons, and equipment. Investing in nuclear weapons development trades off with investing in other, highly valued military systems and forces. Some in the military organization will fear that investment in nuclear weapons development

50  Nuclear Decisions will lead to the neglect of conventional weapons systems and equipment, harming military readiness.85 Other voices within the military will call for new, cutting-​edge weapons systems and programs. Successful technological innovation has the potential to give the innovator the upper hand, either offensively or defensively. The desire to innovate, however, exists in tension alongside the traditional interests of military organizations. Military officers rely on past experience and training when planning for future wars. Militaries are predisposed to prefer tested, tried-​and-​true weapons systems that have already proved their worth in battle. Personnel can become so specialized that they have a difficult time envisioning and accepting new tactics and strategies. Jack Snyder describes officers whose specialization leads them to “forget that other means can also be used toward the same end.”86 And organizational interests in protecting turf—​making sure existing programs continue to be prioritized and funded—​also contribute to organizational tendencies toward the traditional. Militaries often privilege existing programs over new systems, in part due to parochial concerns but also due to reluctance to change what has worked well in the past. Further, while militaries view war as inevitable, officers tend to believe that wars will most likely remain conventional. This is even the case among military officers in states operating in high-​threat environments with a nuclear rival, such as India and Pakistan. Pakistani general Aslam Beg put it this way: nuclear weapons are not used “to win a war, but only to deter it.”87 Indian general Sundararajan Padmanabhan said, during his tenure as Chief of Army Staff: “I do not see the weapon as a war-​fighting one . . . the nuclear weapon is also to keep in the basement.”88 And during the 1999 Kargil war between India and Pakistan, India’s army chief General V. P. Malik wrote to his army commanders that “nuclear weapons are political weapons and will not be used in war-​fighting.”89 Militaries consider the possible use of nuclear weapons and draft detailed plans for different nuclear scenarios. But nuclear weapons are not viewed primarily as weapons to be used in warfighting, and organizational plans for resource allocation follow.90 Second, among the various branches of a military organization, competition for resources and prestige generates bureaucratic clashes that can affect the course of nuclear weapons program. A military organization is not a monolith, and each service has its own particular interests.91 Based on their roles and needs, different branches of the military may perceive nuclear weapons as either helpful or harmful to their interests.92 In the United

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  51 States during the mid-​1950s, former army chief of staff General Matthew B. Ridgway was not opposed to the idea of using the nuclear arsenal. Rather, he was opposed to the high priority given to allocating resources to procure those weapons for the air force. The army believed conventional, “local” wars would be likely, and that it would be unwise to rely heavily on strategic nuclear weapons.93 The two services disagreed over whether conventional or nuclear forces were more needed, with the army advocating prioritizing investment in conventional means for warfighting. Ridgway was in no way antinuclear, but in leading the army he prioritized his service’s beliefs and preferences over those of the air force.94 Under military regimes, usually led by the army, interservice rivalry often prevents different branches of state militaries from cooperating on the nuclear project.95 In the event the state is led by a military regime, considering which objectives matter most and where to invest state resources remains a political endeavor made within the organizational context of the state military. Military regimes are focused inward. When a military organization comes to power, a relatively large army lowers the regime’s costs of maintaining order internally. Soldiers equipped with conventional weaponry can be used by the regime to consolidate power and repress the domestic population. And spending on large armies augments the power of the regime and its supporters.96 Nuclear weapons can be used to generate prestige and national sentiment but are impractical tools for conducting political repression. Even in states with high levels of external threat, as most nuclear weapons–​ pursuing states tend to be, a military regime seeks to pursue its own interests and may do so at the expense of the state’s interests.97 Diverting significant amounts of state resources to a nuclear weapons program can impede a military regime’s organizational objectives. On the path to nuclear development, there will certainly be those within the military who are enthusiastic about the prospect of a nuclear deterrent or even about the possibility of nuclear weapons use. There will also be skeptics, and their preferences also follow from their interests and mission within the military. In the case studies I measure this balance of preferences within a state’s military organization. The question of the position of an organization within the state thus matters not just for nuclear agencies but also for militaries, not least because the military can actually govern the state. The professional judgement of military officers can influence leaders more directly and is likely to be perceived as more trustworthy when the military governs. I examine the preferences

52  Nuclear Decisions of military regimes in Chapter 6 (South Korea) and Chapter 7 (Brazil, Pakistan). But the position of the military also matters in states led by civilian governments. For example, in Chapter 5 I show how the need to satisfy military preferences constrained Charles de Gaulle’s government in France, and in Chapter 6 I discuss how the military in India functions as an out-​group when it comes to nuclear policy matters.

Implications Leaders operate in an information environment that shapes their expectations about the consequences of different decisions. Even leaders with strong beliefs about nuclear weapons still make decisions in the context of information they actively solicit or passively receive from experts. The access and influence domestic experts possess or lack affect the leader’s understanding of the set of available policy options and the consequences of pursuing one path rather than another. Interested domestic experts look for opportunities to advocate pushing a nuclear program forward or pulling it back, according to their preferences. For both the nuclear agency and state military, expertise and specialization, developed through professional training, create subcultures that are specific to each organization. I argue that in the case of a nuclear agency, typically populated by scientists who are enthusiastic about the discoveries they will make to advance knowledge in their field, the organizational tendency will be to accelerate a nuclear weapons program and prevent reversal. A state military, on the other hand, will hold competing organizational interests that may either reduce or increase the likelihood of a nuclear acceleration decision. Three implications follow from this discussion. First, the state’s external security environment should contribute to nuclear decision-​making but will be interpreted through the domestic information environment. Second, influential nuclear agencies will shape decision-​makers’ beliefs and preferences about the nuclear weapons program, affecting the likelihood that leaders will make nuclear decisions. Third, influential military organizations will shape decision-​makers’ beliefs and preferences about the nuclear weapons program, but whether militaries promote nuclear acceleration or reversal will depend on the balance of preferences within the organization.

A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making  53 In the next chapter I argue that the emergence and consolidation of the international nonproliferation regime separates the history of nuclear weapons pursuit into different time periods. Leaders pursuing nuclear programs are doing so in different time periods, which I call proliferation environments, and which are defined by structural changes within the international system. I identify three proliferation environments and discuss the characteristics of each that should affect leaders’ nuclear decisions. A fourth implication follows: nuclear decision-​making should look different in the different proliferation environments.

4 Changing Proliferation Environments across the Nuclear Age Both top-​ down and bottom-​ up factors shape the information environment in which leaders make decisions about state nuclear weapons programs. In Chapter 3 I discussed the ways in which domestic experts in nuclear agencies and the state military may advance their preferences for nuclear weapons development. Under the right conditions, experts from these organizations can intervene to facilitate or impede the transmission of information to country leaders. In those cases, expert organizations have opportunities to influence a leader’s beliefs by shaping the leader’s understanding of both the value of nuclear weapons and the set of possible policy options. Leaders are also influenced by the external environment. The threat environment is an important component of the external environment, and the case studies in the following chapters consider the impact of security concerns on decision-​making. Structural changes in the international system also influence leaders’ calculations, but their effects will depend on factors such as the relational role of the state within the international system and the level of nuclear development the state has attained when the structural change occurs. The first structural change of concern to a study of nuclear decision-​making is the start of the nuclear weapons age. I argue that after that threshold event, the emergence and later consolidation of an international nonproliferation regime separates the history of nuclear weapons pursuit into different time periods. I explain why each period has imposed different constraints on nuclear proliferation, and how these different constraints have affected how leaders perceive the benefits and costs of nuclear weapons development.

Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0004

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  55

Restrictions and Incentives: How Proliferation Environments Affect Decision-​Making My theory of nuclear decision-​making identifies two mechanisms that shape leaders’ understandings of their nuclear pursuits. In Chapter 3 I discussed the internal mechanism: the intervention of domestic experts housed in the nuclear agency and state military. Given access to the leader and to nuclear decision-​making, those expert organizations shape decision-​makers’ perceptions of the value and necessity of their nuclear weapons programs. Four independent variables, measuring the organizations’ capacity to inform and nuclear weapons development preferences, operationalize this first mechanism of the theory. I now turn to the second, external mechanism: the proliferation constraints and permissions that emerge from the structure and politics of the international system. I argue that three different proliferation environments impose different constraints on nuclear proliferation. If this is correct, then nuclear decision-​ making should be affected as well. Leaders in different environments will face different restrictions and incentives as they make strategic calculations about the value of a nuclear weapons program. Therefore, the different proliferation environments do not simply exist as interesting but detached categories describing the evolution of the nonproliferation regime. They operate within the logic of the theory by affecting the set of available options states have for pursuing proliferation. The proliferation environment in which a leader operates thus constitutes the fifth explanatory variable. Each period I identify constitutes a proliferation environment with different political, organizational, legal, and normative constraints on nuclear aspirants. Nuclear hopefuls have thus pursued their goals and made decisions in different contexts, and nuclear decision-​making should look different across those periods. I have chosen to divide the nuclear age into time periods defined by the major shocks to the system, which generated the political will to bring about major systemic changes. The permissive period (1941–​1964) begins with the first nuclear weapons programs (Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and is characterized by both widespread nuclear cooperation and few limits on proliferation. The transition period (1965–​1974) is bookended by the two major shocks: the Chinese nuclear test at the end of 1964 and the Indian nuclear test in May 1974. During this period, US and Soviet interests in nonproliferation aligned, and nonproliferation norms evolved. The Treaty on the Nonproliferation of

56  Nuclear Decisions Nuclear Weapons was negotiated, opened for signature, entered into force, and began to structurally affect the proliferation environment. Its effects on potential and continuing proliferators, however, were not uniform. During the nonproliferation regime period (1975 to the present), key state and organizational actors in the international system took actions that imposed new and meaningful structural constraints on nuclear pursuers, and nonproliferation norms grew stronger. The proliferation environments I have defined could be defined differently by others, who might prefer different cut points or argue in favor of more periods with more fine-​grained identifiers. I have chosen the major shocks to the system that initiated the most significant systemic changes. Competing explanations for nuclear proliferation, like security concerns, leader type, and regime type, exist throughout the nuclear age. If the proliferation environments do affect leaders’ strategic calculations, then when I observe nuclear decisions across the environments, I expect to find that certain types of leaders, or regimes, or threats, exist throughout—​but that variation in nuclear decision-​making still exists.

The Permissive Period: 1941–​1964 In the years prior to the shock of the Chinese nuclear fission test in 1964, major world powers pursued the bomb with few external constraints. The United States and Soviet Union had opposing interests regarding nuclear weapons, and the disagreement prevented progress toward an international nonproliferation agenda until the mid-​1960s. The lucrative international market for nuclear equipment, technology, and material fostered widespread state-​to-​state nuclear assistance. The early pursuit of the weaponization of the atom took place in the international context of both World War II and groundbreaking scientific discoveries. In 1939 top scientists around the world were engaged in theoretical work on nuclear fission. Fission represented the cutting edge of physics since the 1938 discovery that bombarding the uranium atom with neutrons would cause the nucleus to split, producing much lighter chemical elements. Scientists quickly began to understand that the enormous energy produced by splitting uranium nuclei could be used in war. In August 1939, one month before Germany invaded Poland, physicists Leó Szilárd and Albert Einstein drafted a letter to US president Franklin

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  57 D. Roosevelt that explained the potential for the development of “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” and speculated that Germany’s capture of Czechoslovakian uranium mines indicated that Hitler was already pursuing a fission bomb.1 The timing was similar in Britain, where in February 1940 physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls wrote a memorandum to physicist Mark Oliphant explaining that “the energy stored in atomic nuclei” could be harnessed into a “super-​bomb” that would both cause immediate devastation and generate dangerous radioactivity.2 Oliphant sent the memorandum to Henry Tizard, who was leading the British effort to find military uses for science during the war. In response, Tizard created the committee that would become known as the MAUD Committee—​a small group of scientists who would write the report that would, after a circuitous route through a long chain of American scientists and officials from Berkeley to Washington to Chicago, reach President Roosevelt and convince him to authorize the US nuclear weapons effort in October 1941.3 Japan’s nuclear weapons program also began in 1941 (see Chapter 2), as did Germany’s.4 Both programs would, of course, end along with the defeat of their countries. In the Soviet Union, Stalin began a nuclear weapons program in 1942, having been persuaded by Commissioner for Science Sergey Kaftanov in a personal meeting.5 Multiple countries were thus pursuing the bomb in response to new scientific knowledge and political-​military interests. During this time, in the context of a brutal global war, states were free to pursue the bomb as they wished, within their capacities to do so. Each of these states understood or suspected that the others were also either involved in, or likely to start, their own programs. At the time, however, nonproliferation tools were mainly limited to military actions, such as the famous attack on Germany’s heavy water plant in Norway by Norwegian commandos and Allied bombers in 1943. Further, not every government had the same appreciation for the political and strategic implications of nuclear weaponry. While the Soviet Union and Japan pursued the bomb with limited enthusiasm, devoting scarce resources to other military projects, key decision-​makers in the United States were thinking beyond the present war. As Richard Rhodes wrote in The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Roosevelt recognized that the use of nuclear energy would be “a military development that would change the political organization of the world.”6 Rather than being motivated by the German effort, for example—​Roosevelt was largely uninterested in assessing German progress toward the bomb—​he was persuaded by the MAUD report and believed the

58  Nuclear Decisions United States would need to develop these astonishingly destructive weapons to shape the future world order.7 The United States was the first country to produce nuclear weapons and the only country to use them in war, striking the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in August 1945. Over the next few years, only the USSR and the United Kingdom actively worked to develop nuclear weapons, while states like Australia, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia began to consider whether and how to obtain nuclear weapons status for themselves.8 The United States would remain the only nuclear weapons state until 1949, when the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test. France, China, and Israel would not begin to pursue nuclear weapons until the mid-​1950s. Early efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons were marked primarily by US and Soviet proposals to shape the nuclear era in ways that would allow the two states to develop nuclear arsenals. The United States favored secrecy as a nonproliferation tool, passing the Atomic Energy Act in 1946 to prohibit nuclear cooperation with other countries without congressionally approved international safeguards.9 An early US effort to create an international agency to control atomic energy activity (the 1946 Baruch Plan) was opposed by the Soviet Union. The two great powers discussed disarmament, and later arms control, but remained at odds during the late 1940s and the 1950s, largely over Soviet displeasure with the American insistence that any agreement would need to be accompanied by inspections to verify compliance.10 As long as this disagreement persisted, there would be no international nonproliferation regime. In the early 1950s both countries made the decision to develop thermonuclear weapons, and they continued to build their arsenals throughout the decade. Recognizing that secrecy alone would not prevent nuclear proliferation, in 1953 US president Dwight Eisenhower proposed the creation of an international atomic energy agency to facilitate and control international nuclear development and cooperation. Under the Atoms for Peace program, Eisenhower encouraged nuclear-​capable nations to join the United States in exporting nuclear material and technology to states that would agree to restrict their activities to peaceful nuclear development. If nuclear knowledge would spread regardless of restrictions states might try to impose, then at least the United States could attempt to manage the spread by forming partnerships with nuclear newcomers. Eisenhower believed that Atoms for Peace would not only slow proliferation but could also be a means for arms control and for promoting cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union.11

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  59 A period of widespread international nuclear cooperation began that lasted until 1974, when India’s PNE demonstrated that foreign nuclear assistance intended for civilian use could also facilitate the development of militarized uses for nuclear energy. I discuss the PNE later as the event that created the line dividing the transition period from the nonproliferation regime period. But between 1953 and 1964, foreign assistance was not only common, it was also marked by a general lack of safeguards. This was a common feature in states’ early nuclear pathways, including India, Pakistan, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, South Africa, France, Israel, Yugoslavia, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, and Brazil.12 States pursue foreign assistance because the supply of nuclear equipment and technology can both hasten the progress a state program can make toward developing nuclear weapons and reduce the government’s expected costs of a nuclear program.13 During the permissive period the two major nuclear weapons states were responsible for a significant amount of nuclear assistance. The Soviet Union provided nuclear assistance to China, North Korea, and Yugoslavia, among others, while through the Atoms for Peace program, the United States fast-​ tracked nuclear assistance to states like Israel, India, and South Africa. Newer nuclear states, such as Canada and France, participated enthusiastically in their own cross-​border initiatives as early as the mid-​1950s; France, which was not yet a nuclear weapons state itself, began nuclear cooperation with Israel prior to the Suez crisis in 1956, and Canada finalized its first nuclear deal with India in 1955.14 This nuclear assistance was offered and received with few constraints. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been created in 1957 in large part to monitor the end-​use of nuclear transfers, in practice the agency had neither the capacity nor the authority to do so. Instead, the agency’s primary role quickly became that of a facilitator supporting international nuclear assistance.15 While the establishment of the IAEA helped shape norms about the appropriate use of nuclear energy, the first legally binding international commitment to nonproliferation, the Treaty of Tlatelolco, was still ten years away.16 Competition was fierce in the lucrative nuclear market. Potential buyers could “shop” for reactor technology, fissile material, and other nuclear equipment and materials in a global market devoid of any international consensus on regulating nuclear transfers. Nuclear suppliers competing for contracts in this buyer-​friendly environment believed they lacked leverage to require

60  Nuclear Decisions strict monitoring and verification practices. For example, in 1962 and 1963, when Canada and India were negotiating the terms of an agreement to build a CANDU nuclear reactor in Rajasthan, Canadian officials chose not to push too hard when it came to safeguards. Their reasons were typical of this time period: if Canada demanded too much from India, the thinking went, then India might decide to take its business elsewhere.17 And when supplier states did place formal restrictions on recipient states, verification that the recipients were abiding by those restrictions was minimal. In the early 1960s US and Soviet interests regarding the spread of nuclear weapons began to align for the first time, in part as the Soviet Union grew more interested in preventing nuclear proliferation. In 1960 France conducted its Gerboise Bleue nuclear test in the Algerian desert, becoming the fourth nuclear weapons power. The Soviet Union had already been concerned that the United States would enter into a nuclear-​sharing agreement with West Germany or develop a multilateral force situated within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After the French nuclear test, there was some concern in Moscow that Paris and Bonn might institute a nuclear-​sharing arrangement of their own.18 In addition, after ending its close nuclear cooperation with China in 1959, the Soviet Union noted with concern that China had elected to continue on its own path to the bomb. Many in Moscow were coming to believe that promoting nuclear nonproliferation would be in the national interest, particularly after the Sino-​Soviet split in the early 1960s.19 The October 1962 Cuban missile crisis brought the Soviet Union and United States dangerously close to nuclear war. But by the following August, changes in long-​held Soviet proliferation policies would create new opportunities for meaningful cooperation between the two world powers. In June 1963 Soviet ambassador Vassily Emelyanov shocked the IAEA board by suddenly reversing his position and voting in favor of revisions to strengthen the safeguards system. In an Orwellian twist, he then calmly asserted, without irony, that the Soviet Union had always been in favor of a safeguards regime.20 This reversal meant not only that work on strengthening safeguards could at last proceed productively within the IAEA’s working group, but also that an emerging safeguards regime would possess the legitimacy conferred by the backing of both superpowers.21 During this period the safeguards system was still limited to only a few types of equipment and technology.22 Later that summer Washington, Moscow, and London successfully finished the eight-​year-​long, stop-​and-​start negotiations to create the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), which was intended both to stop existing nuclear weapons powers from conducting future tests and to make proliferation

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  61 more difficult for countries considering, or working to develop, their own nuclear weapons. Prior to that time, Nikita Khrushchev had held firm against the American and British insistence on new international inspections to verify adherence to the treaty. But in a speech delivered on July 2, the Soviet premier proposed a ban on testing that could be monitored by the three countries’ existing verification systems. With the major obstacle preventing successful completion of treaty negotiations now gone, the three countries signed the final agreement on August 5, 1963.23 The PTBT also immediately contributed, at the margins, to other state nonproliferation policies. Some Canadian government officials, for example, cited Ottawa’s signing of the treaty as a reason to try to negotiate for stricter safeguards with Indian Department of Atomic Energy head Dr. Homi Bhabha, arguing that Canada should strive for a consistent policy approach to nonproliferation.24 A nonproliferation regime was still a long way off; the safeguards Canada secured through those negotiations were a far cry from the full safeguards that would become standard in future years. However, key members of the international nuclear community were now beginning to take both internal and public positions on nonproliferation. The Soviet reversals of 1963 may be attributable to American and British diplomatic efforts, a mutual Soviet and American desire to de-​escalate in the aftermath of the October crisis, Soviet concerns over China’s progress toward the bomb, and the potential for West German nuclear weapons—​or more likely, some combination of these factors.25 While the dynamics that led directly or indirectly to these cooperative nonproliferation measures remain subject to debate among historians, it is clear that the treaty was an early indication that a new era of cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union on nuclear proliferation issues could follow. China’s October 1964 nuclear test marked the end of the permissive period. The Soviet Union had provided significant assistance to every aspect of China’s nuclear program throughout the 1950s, ranging from advanced and highly detailed training, to secret blueprints, to the reactors and processing facilities themselves. Toward the end of this close nuclear relationship, the Soviet Union had even built a prototype atomic bomb and prepared to ship it to China by train. But in 1958, after years of growing mistrust, a deteriorating personal relationship between Mao and Khrushchev, and fundamental disagreements about the strategic value of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union secretly decided to end nuclear assistance to China.26 The prototype device was never sent. Instead, Soviet advisers stalled the Chinese scientists for months, asking them to make a series of modifications to the

62  Nuclear Decisions building that would purportedly house the device. Delivery was postponed again and again. Finally, in a letter dated June 20, 1959, the USSR formally notified China that it would no longer provide any assistance related to nuclear weapons. The loss of further Soviet assistance would delay China’s progress, but it was far too late to prevent China from acquiring the bomb. Too much had already been shared, given, and sold by the Soviet Union during the permissive period. China’s response was to proceed independently, using 596—​the digits of the year and month of the USSR’s betrayal—​as the codename for its new project.27 Building from the wealth of knowledge and resources already gleaned from the Soviet Union, the Chinese leadership proclaimed that self-​ reliance would pave the way to success.28 In 1963, four years into their effort, the successful conclusion of the PTBT negotiations only confirmed to Chinese leaders that they had been right to forge their own path. China perceived the treaty as confirmation that the Soviet Union had abandoned the socialist revolution in favor of securing a nuclear monopoly along with the established nuclear weapons states of the imperialist West.29 And indeed, the USSR and United States were both concerned about China’s rush toward a nuclear arsenal. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union was caught completely off-​guard when China crossed the nuclear threshold in 1964, but the event still served to deepen the superpowers’ shared concern that more states would soon follow.30 Throughout the permissive period, the inability of the two dominant nuclear powers to agree on whether or how to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons resulted in the absence of meaningful international constraints on proliferation. Not only the lack of constraints, but also widespread and often unsafeguarded nuclear assistance, helped advance several nuclear weapons programs during this era, including Israel’s covert efforts to acquire the bomb. States wishing to pursue nuclear weapons generally had free rein to do so, and both France and China succeeded. The shock of the Chinese nuclear test had political, normative, and legal implications, creating structural changes in the international system.

The Transition Period: 1965–​1974 The Soviet Union and United States had both understood that China would likely acquire a nuclear weapons capability in the near to midterm future.

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  63 But despite the fact that China’s test was unsurprising, it still had a significant impact on American and Soviet nonproliferation efforts. Both states anticipated that Japan and India might pursue nuclear weapons in order to balance against China, and that more states might then follow.31 Such an outcome, many officials in both countries believed, would have the potential to destabilize the US-​Soviet security environment. However, a nonproliferation-​based approach to address this problem was not simply adopted automatically. Internally, US officials debated several possible responses. By November 1964 the US Atomic Energy Commission had begun thinking about how the United States could help reassure India and suggested a Plowshare project. The AEC had created the Plowshare Program nearly a decade earlier, in the spirit of Atoms for Peace, to promote commercial and industrial uses for nuclear explosions.32 Perhaps, the nuclear agency offered, the United States could work with India, using US-​controlled technology, to conduct a peaceful nuclear explosion. Within the Defense and State Departments, a small number of staff and top-​level officials discussed a different idea: that the United States could provide assistance to military units in nine Asian countries, preparing them to receive and use US tactical nuclear weapons in the event of an imminent threat from China. Those in favor of this proposal argued that it would prevent proliferation by alleviating the recipient states’ security concerns, as the offer of a limited nuclear capability, supported by US military training and assistance, would be more credible than the typical security guarantees.33 Within two weeks of China’s test, President Lyndon Johnson, uncertain of how the United States should proceed, established a secret commission chaired by former deputy secretary of defense Roswell Gilpatric. The Gilpatric Committee was tasked with advising Johnson on how the United States should respond to the growing threat of nuclear proliferation. Johnson trusted the influential men on the committee, who had distinguished careers ranging from business to government. Their report, delivered in January 1965, argued that it was in the best interests of the United States to prioritize the prevention of the further spread of nuclear weapons, including working to negotiate a nonproliferation treaty.34 Johnson was convinced by the committee’s report. He tasked the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency with creating new policies that would adhere to the report’s key recommendations.35 By this point a nonproliferation treaty was being discussed in the United Nations Disarmament Commission,

64  Nuclear Decisions as states offered their views on what such a treaty should entail. By June 1965 the Soviet Union, alarmed by further Chinese nuclear testing that Moscow feared would spur India and Japan forward on the nuclear path, moved closer into alignment with the evolving US position on nonproliferation.36 The negotiations moved to the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) in Geneva, and the Soviet Union agreed to join the talks, which began in July. One key issue remained unresolved between the two superpowers that threatened the negotiations. The United States and West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany; FRG) had been involved, over the course of several presidential US administrations, in discussions regarding sharing US nuclear weapons with the FRG, and in a limited way with NATO. Most recently, these discussions had been resurrected by the Johnson administration in an effort to keep the FRG from pursuing nuclear cooperation with France.37 But the Soviet Union was so strongly opposed to a West German nuclear capability, even if the United States retained the final authority to use the weapons, that the prospect of a US-​European Multilateral Force impeded US-​Soviet cooperation on building a nonproliferation regime. In 1966 Johnson concluded that the US relationship with the Soviet Union had to be prioritized over the efforts to reassure the FRG, and he informed the West German government that there would be no nuclear sharing.38 This decision brought about the turning point in the treaty negotiations. In the fall of 1966, with the key strategic obstacle now removed, the Soviet Union and United States worked out a draft agreement to present to the ENDC. That draft would, in essence, become Article I, the central section of the final agreement.39 The negotiations were far from settled, as unsettled concerns among the other parties remained, but the harmony between the Soviet Union and United States meant that a successful outcome would be possible. The treaty had the potential to reshape the nuclear age, and security, economic, and reputational interests were all at stake. The remaining issues centered around the constraints the treaty would place on non–​nuclear weapons states and what disarmament measures the nuclear weapons states would be willing to agree to. A global consensus was forming that the spread of nuclear weapons was a threat—​whether to peace and security, or to the advantages of the status quo—​and defining appropriate and inappropriate state actions in the nuclear age was a high-​stakes endeavor for both the nuclear haves and have-​nots. Even after India’s leadership had come to the internal decision

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  65 that India would not ultimately sign the treaty, the country’s negotiators at the ENDC, who had played a central role for years in shaping the disputes between the nuclear haves and have-​nots, stayed on in Geneva to try to influence the final treaty language.40 The inspections called for in the draft language proposed by the Soviet Union and United States seemed to several of the non–​nuclear weapons states as not only impeding their ability to make progress in nuclear development but also carrying a high risk of industrial espionage. Since the nuclear weapons states would be exempt from this type of inspection, this highlighted the division between the nuclear haves and have-​nots that had plagued the negotiations from the start. States like Italy, Japan, and the FRG wanted assurances that under the terms of the treaty they would retain their ability to develop and purchase nuclear technology for commercial purposes.41 V. C. Trivedi, India’s chief negotiator in Geneva, referred to this division as “atomic apartheid,” arguing that the constraints being negotiated would prevent the non–​nuclear weapons states from developing the nuclear capabilities that would generate economic benefits.42 Since preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons would perpetuate the nuclear monopoly enjoyed by a handful of countries, the non–​nuclear weapons states argued for constraints to be placed on testing and arming. Disputes over what these constraints should be were difficult to resolve. States like Sweden and India were particularly concerned about establishing a link between disarmament measures for the nuclear weapons states and nonproliferation pledges for the non–​nuclear weapons states; Sweden, for example, advocated a moratorium on nuclear testing.43 In the end, the disarmament language in Article VI of the treaty was made intentionally vague to thread the needle, and the United States and Soviet Union, satisfied that the treaty would maintain the global nuclear status quo, turned their attention to bringing more states into the nascent nonproliferation regime.44 The Nuclear Non-​Proliferation Treaty (NPT) opened for signature in 1968 and entered into force in 1970.45 The NPT codified into law nonproliferation norms that had been emerging and evolving over the previous two decades. The 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which established a nuclear weapons free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean, was an important sign of the growing international support for nonproliferation norms and of states’ willingness to enter into legally binding commitments upholding those norms.46 On the heels of Tlatelolco, the NPT created the structure of a global regime, connecting nonproliferation norms to a set of tools and actions: safeguards on

66  Nuclear Decisions nuclear activity, controls on the trade of nuclear materials and technology, and disarmament. While key sections of the treaty would not be brought to fruition for years—​including the disarmament clause, which remains unmet—​the NPT nonetheless represented a clear break from the early years of the nuclear age. Prior to the treaty, the bilateral agreements states signed to finalize the details of nuclear export agreements typically involved few safeguards, relying instead on promises by the recipient state not to use the nuclear assistance for military purposes. States could, and sometimes did, choose to interpret these assurances in ways that allowed them to progress toward nuclear weapons development goals. A recipient state might set up a militarized program parallel to the peaceful program to which the assistance had been directly provided, utilizing the knowledge and possibly some of the materials from one to advance the other. In the most infamous case, the Indian government used civilian nuclear assistance from Canada and the United States to advance its peaceful nuclear explosion program, which despite its name is indistinguishable, in practical terms, from a nuclear weapons program.47 The treaty established the illegality of these common past practices. In addition, by requiring IAEA safeguards, including inspections of nuclear facilities to verify the proper use of nuclear material, on all nuclear activity in signatory non–​ nuclear weapon states, the NPT made it much more difficult for a state to try to divert material or technology to a covert military program.48 By codifying the nonproliferation norm into law and verifying compliance through the IAEA, violators could be identified and potentially punished. Signing the NPT served as a national endorsement of nonproliferation norms that tied leaders’ hands not only with international audiences but also at home. Some governments took this seriously enough to take steps to enter into alignment with the norms even before signing the treaty. Others, however, may have used the treaty as cover for an existing weapons program. Signing the treaty but not ratifying it, for example, could ease international pressure to join the new regime but not yet legally bind the signatory to the treaty’s obligations.49 Yet even this behavior indicated that the treaty was meaningful, demonstrating that states believed that acceding to the treaty but then violating its terms would be costly. And domestic audiences, including antinuclear activist groups, could now point to the treaty when working to hold their own governments accountable for their nonproliferation pledges.50

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  67 On the other hand, key members of the international community did not immediately ratify the NPT. Japan, Italy, and the FRG, three major nuclear exporters, held lengthy, heated parliamentary debates over the restrictions on civilian programs that would accompany treaty ratification. Each of these three countries was concerned about the disadvantages it could face in the nuclear export market if its civilian nuclear activities were curtailed by onerous inspections and requirements. Despite pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, none of these three nuclear suppliers would ratify the treaty during the transition period.51 India held out as well—​along with Pakistan and Israel, India has still never signed the treaty—​and France, which did not accede to the treaty until after the Cold War, remained outside the formal nonproliferation regime during this period.52 In this early stage of the global regime, actors within states were responding to the treaty by accepting or fighting the legal codification of nonproliferation norms.53 Later, material incentives and threats would help consolidate the nascent regime. The IAEA’s role in nonproliferation changed significantly after the NPT entered into force, but in practice the language of the treaty was not explicit enough to close a loophole that the nuclear suppliers would exploit. Under Article III of the treaty, transfers of certain fissionable materials and equipment would only be legal if the receiving non–​nuclear weapons state had agreed to IAEA safeguards. However, due to disagreements among the parties to the treaty, Article III did not identify which materials, equipment, and technology would fall under safeguards. The five declared nuclear weapons states of this period thus had no legal obligation under the treaty to require safeguards on particular items. In the highly competitive market for nuclear imports, any one nuclear supplier state had little incentive to adhere to the spirit of the treaty, knowing that the goal of nonproliferation would still be out of reach; another supplier state would likely offer a better deal with fewer safeguards. Argentina, for example, entertained multiple offers, from Europe, Canada, and the United States, for a nuclear power reactor in 1972. Despite the fact that the United States and Canada had already ratified the NPT, and that the CANDU reactor offered by Canada was known to present a proliferation risk, none of the bidders required full-​scope safeguards to complete a deal.54 And in response to the 1973 oil crisis and the Arab-​Israeli War of that same year, many believed the nuclear market would expand dramatically during the rest of the decade, raising the stakes even further for the nuclear suppliers.55

68  Nuclear Decisions For the remainder of the transition period the nuclear supplier states met informally in Vienna to discuss creating guidelines to identify which items would require safeguards and which would not. But until 1974 there was little political will to negotiate and implement a list of guidelines, and the nuclear supplier states would not take any legally binding steps toward the international control of nuclear exports.56 India’s nuclear test at the Pokhran test range in Rajasthan in 1974 was the event that would generate sufficient political will among the supplier states to establish a global export control regime to disrupt the nuclear market.57 An unsafeguarded research reactor, built with Canadian assistance and supplied with heavy water from the United States, had produced the plutonium for India’s PNE. Many of the nuclear suppliers viewed the test as a clear demonstration of the need for safeguards and the dangers of promoting the transfer of nuclear power technology. Indeed, IAEA historian David Fischer describes the PNE as “the first shock to the newly created nuclear non-​proliferation regime.”58 In the following section I discuss how the international response to the Indian test helped consolidate the early nonproliferation regime, and how the regime continued to expand over the next several decades. The transition period was marked by a broad acceptance of global nonproliferation norms and an active debate over how to achieve nonproliferation goals. After the shock of the Chinese nuclear test, the United States and the Soviet Union joined the emerging international consensus that nuclear proliferation was a serious threat to peace and security. Soviet-​US cooperation, facilitated by the American concession regarding nuclear sharing with the FRG, enabled real progress toward the NPT, a process that Ireland had initiated several years before but that had stalled in the absence of support from the superpowers. The treaty negotiations themselves and the actions states took in anticipation of the opening for signature of the NPT were clear indicators that the international community was moving away from the unfettered nuclear assistance of the permissive period and toward a nonproliferation regime that would include significant monitoring and verification of compliance. Putting the goals of the NPT into action, however, would require key country ratifications, the political will to implement widely accepted barriers to nuclear trade, and mechanisms to punish violators of nonproliferation norms. In the decades following the Indian nuclear test, states would build the structures and processes that support the nonproliferation regime and respond to the regime’s failures.

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  69

The Nonproliferation Regime Period: 1975–​Present The deepening, and later expansion, of the nonproliferation regime that began after the Indian nuclear test has taken many forms over the past several decades. The most important legal foundation for the regime, the NPT, has been rightly hailed as a watershed, but it has not had the same effect on all states. While neither the NPT alone nor the nonproliferation regime as a whole have prevented all proliferation, however, the regime has increasingly made proliferation instrumentally and normatively difficult. States have taken those difficulties into account when making decisions about their nuclear weapons programs, although not all states have arrived at the same conclusions. In the case studies I discuss how state goals and the nuclear information environment in which state leaders operate have contributed to the ways in which states have responded to the nonproliferation regime. The shock that ended the transition period, India’s nuclear test, highlighted the limitations of the existing international safeguards system. In doing so, it also challenged the principles of peaceful, international nuclear assistance that had animated Atoms for Peace and that were now established in the NPT. Further, India’s achievement suggested that other states might also develop nuclear power programs that could come right up to the cusp of a nuclear explosive device—​and even to a test of such a device—​without violating the nonproliferation regime in strict terms. These realizations spurred several of the main nuclear exporters into action. These exporters—​the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan, Canada, and France—​quickly agreed upon a list of material and equipment that would be controlled, meaning the items could not be exported without triggering IAEA safeguards on the receiving end. Before the end of the year, the list was active and controls had already become a part of contract negotiations between exporters and importers. Calling themselves the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the participating governments began regularly meeting in 1975.59 Under the terms of the NPT, parties to the treaty were obligated to import and export nuclear items under IAEA safeguards; I have previously mentioned that they rarely did so during the first years after the treaty entered into force. Further, safeguard agreements under the NPT were not simply imposed from the top down but had to be negotiated, and they did not immediately result in IAEA inspections. Parties to the NPT had a say in how inspections would be carried out, and inspections in some nuclear

70  Nuclear Decisions plants were actually more limited and constrained than they had been prior to the NPT.60 In contrast, the NSG, in addition to specifying what items would trigger safeguards, also included states that were not yet party to the NPT, like France and Japan.61 And the NSG participating governments agreed in 1977 to establish guidelines for safeguards that would be imposed on all non–​nuclear weapons states, whether or not those states had signed or ratified the NPT. At the time, then, the nascent export control regime, while working alongside the NPT, had effectively captured more states than the NPT. By 1977 the NSG had grown to fifteen members, each of whom agreed to implement specific controls on nuclear exports.62 The NSG came together so quickly in large part because the participating states believed it to be in their best interests. If only one state required end-​ user safeguards on nuclear exports, it risked being shut out of the suppliers’ market by states willing to ignore the new norms. But if all suppliers agreed on export controls, suppliers could both adhere to the spirit of the NPT and compete for lucrative contracts on a level playing field.63 Recall Canada’s willingness to provide a natural-​uranium reactor to Argentina in 1972, during the transition period. Rather than asking for full safeguards, Canada, despite having ratified the NPT in 1969, was satisfied with limited safeguards, imposed on the reactor only, that would expire after fifteen years. Argentina accepted the deal. But in 1976 Canada informed Argentina it would no longer abide by the terms of the contract. In order to proceed with the transfer of technology, Argentina would have to agree to full-​scope safeguards on nuclear technology and material and would also have to accede to the NPT, something Argentine leaders were unwilling to do.64 These export controls strengthened over time, and I address that aspect of the nonproliferation regime both later in this section and in the case studies. States that decided to defy the NPT’s principles and pursue nuclear weapons could still be thwarted by the export control system. The NSG did not achieve full compliance among its own members; the temptation to cheat led many firms to evade the controls. And its membership was not complete; China, a key nuclear supplier, did not join the group for decades, and India and Pakistan are still not members. But the NSG’s coordinated policies created many difficulties for nuclear weapons programs and affected leaders’ perceptions of the value of those programs. The group was thus able to make headway in accomplishing the goals aspired to in the treaty.65

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  71 The United States had led the way in bringing the NSG together.66 During these early years of the nonproliferation regime period, Washington also created a sanctions regime that had a significant impact on global proliferation behavior. The 1976 Symington and Glenn amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Nuclear Non-​Proliferation Act of 1978 (NNPA), all legislative measures passed by the US Congress, further defined what actions indicated a state was a proliferation risk. The Symington amendment required the United States to halt economic and military assistance to countries that refused full-​scope IAEA safeguards on their own nuclear fuel and facilities or that did not impose export controls on enrichment or reprocessing materials, equipment, and technology. The Glenn amendment took an even stronger stance on reprocessing, described here by Lawrence Scheinman: Any country that delivered or received reprocessing equipment, materials, or technology was subject to a cutoff of economic and military assistance regardless of whether or not it accepted full-​scope safeguards. . . . [T]‌he very act of engaging in any reprocessing-​related activity was considered so nefarious as to be tantamount to proliferation, although the Glenn amendment did not go quite that far. Implicitly, international safeguards were considered to be inadequate to deal with this technology and its product.67

As a result of the codification of these definitions and sanctions into law, US presidents who might want to ignore proliferation behavior would have to defy the amendments and face audience costs at home and abroad. In addition, according to the NNPA, a president would be required to actually issue an exemption to continue nuclear cooperation with a country that had rejected IAEA safeguards or that had crossed the nuclear weapons threshold of testing a nuclear device. Through these legislative measures, the United States significantly contributed to the deepening of the nonproliferation regime, although the US commitment was not absolute. After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan raised Pakistan’s strategic importance to the United States, President Ronald Reagan waived the Symington amendment to lift sanctions against Pakistan in the 1980s. This action was not taken without risk. Under the NNPA, Reagan had to certify each year that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons, and his administration grew increasingly concerned that General Mohammad Zia-​ ul-​ Haq’s government would reveal Pakistan’s

72  Nuclear Decisions weapons intentions so obviously as to “embarrass” Reagan.68 But Reagan’s decisions, which were controversial both in Congress and with the American public, stand out in contrast to the overall consistency with which the United States applied sanctions on violators of the nonproliferation regime. Nicholas L. Miller argues that the credibility of US nonproliferation sanctions affected nuclear weapons decision-​making within countries that valued the economic and strategic benefits of friendly relations with Washington.69 The influence of the United States was crucial, but not necessarily decisive, in consolidating the nonproliferation regime. Even under US pressure, Italy, Japan, and the FRG debated NPT accession for several years before deciding to join the treaty during this period. As more nuclear suppliers joined the pressure campaign, these three highly industrialized nonsignatories had to decide whether their concerns about proliferation discrimination and the possibility of inspections-​driven industrial espionage still outweighed the costs of remaining outside the nonproliferation regime. In the Japanese case, the combined efforts of Canada, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States facilitated Tokyo’s decision to ratify. France and China were still not party to the treaty, making ratification politically difficult within Japan. But Japan’s peaceful nuclear development was being threatened by the coordinated nonproliferation approach of the nuclear suppliers.70 The Soviet Union’s voice on the matter was particularly persuasive during 1975 and 1976, as Moscow was also soliciting bids for a contract worth more than $2 billion to Japan’s nuclear industry.71 Safeguards expanded dramatically during the first years of the nonproliferation regime period, but it had taken a full decade from the opening of the NPT for signature for the IAEA to establish a truly global presence. The EURATOM non–​nuclear weapons states of Italy, the FRG, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, for example, had not finished negotiating the constraints on IAEA inspectors until 1979.72 By then, states that refused agency safeguards had to bear reputational and material costs. Nonproliferation norms and policies had evolved to the point where there was general agreement on what state behavior was in line with, or outside of, the nonproliferation regime, regardless of whether the state actually had intentions to weaponize. By the early 1980s, 97 percent of the nuclear plants in all non–​nuclear weapons states were safeguarded by the IAEA.73 Thus, while there was a lag between when the treaty opened for signature and when the key nuclear industrial and weapons states agreed to commit to the new regime the treaty represented, by the end of the 1970s the regime

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  73 was significantly stronger than it had been in 1974. Key nuclear suppliers decided to ratify the NPT despite their serious reservations. And crucially, while France would not formally join the NPT until after the fall of the Soviet Union, the French government promised in 1975 to comply with the treaty.74 These actions were an indication of political acceptance alongside structural, system-​wide change. Beginning in 1991 and 1992, the nonproliferation regime confronted several new challenges. The international community was increasingly concerned by suspected proliferation activity within a handful of states, Iraq and North Korea chief among them. After the first Gulf War, the discovery of the progress made within Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program prompted the international community to create new nonproliferation measures and strengthen the existing system. Later, the lead-​up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq signaled that the pursuit, or suspected pursuit, of nuclear weapons had become an acceptable justification for war. Interestingly, however, the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War does not appear to have had a strong impact on nuclear weapons programs outside of the former Soviet states. For example, Britain, France, and China continued investing in their nuclear weapons programs during the decade after the Soviet Union’s demise.75 The collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrated the strength of nonproliferation norms and the costs states associated with nuclear weapons. In addition, fears of “loose nukes” and of desperate science workers who might sell nuclear secrets and material as the economy spiraled downward highlighted the inherent danger of the existence of nuclear weapons programs. Three former Soviet republics—​ Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan—​ inherited components of the Soviet program upon gaining independence. While Belarus and Kazakhstan hosted nuclear facilities, and in Kazakhstan’s case, the Semipalatinsk test site, Moscow had stationed a significant portion of its nuclear arsenal on Ukrainian soil. Virtually overnight, Ukraine appeared to become the world’s third largest nuclear weapons power. Critically, however, Moscow retained operational control of the arsenal.76 While the situation was unique, in that no other nuclear weapons state has ever splintered into multiple independent states, Ukraine’s internal debate over what to do with the inherited weapons is still instructive. Security concerns led some civilian and military officials to argue that Ukraine should hold onto the arsenal—​either temporarily, while Ukraine sought security guarantees, or more permanently—​although few took the latter position.

74  Nuclear Decisions But much of the discussion within the government focused on abandoning Ukraine’s nuclear weapons status. The debate in the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, centered not around whether to keep the arsenal but on how to gain security and economic benefits in return for giving it up.77 Why were there so few voices in Ukraine calling for retaining the arsenal? Practical concerns were a part of the story; Ukraine would have to build a nuclear infrastructure, including enrichment and reprocessing facilities, and satellites for targeting and early warning, which would incur enormous, unaffordable costs. Drawing close to Russia to obtain assistance with the arsenal was not an option the government was interested in considering, either. But the nonproliferation regime was also a key factor. Ukrainian leaders believed they would have to give up nuclear weapons status in order to gain international legitimacy as a newly independent state. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs invoked the NPT, arguing that a nuclear-​armed Ukraine could not sign the treaty and would not be accepted by the regime.78 Indeed, the NPT was coming up for renewal in 1995, which created additional pressure on Ukraine to renounce nuclear weapons.79 If Ukraine were to keep the arsenal, officials feared, the country would risk sanctions, constraints on its civilian nuclear program, damage to its reputation, and even the possibility of military intervention.80 Ultimately, Ukraine was able to trade its arsenal for economic side payments and US and Russian security assurances. Ukraine’s concern that the United States and Russia might join forces and invade in the name of nonproliferation can also be understood in the broader context of the strengthening of the regime. The cases of Libya and Iraq demonstrate how the evolution of the nonproliferation regime began to include military action. Libya had been one of the first countries to sign the NPT in 1968, but it later established a covert nuclear weapons program.81 In 1986, deepening concerns about Libyan proliferation and terrorism led the United States to impose new sanctions on the country. Libya responded with a strike against American aircraft off the Libyan coast, and in an escalating series of attacks, the two states continued to retaliate against each other. Finally, the United States conducted an attack on Libya’s two largest cities, Libyan military targets, and even the residence of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s authoritarian leader. Afterward, Gaddafi concluded that the United States might actually overthrow his regime, strengthening his conviction that Libya should continue to pursue a nuclear deterrent.82

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  75 Throughout the 1990s Libya continued to operate under the suspicion that the United States would intervene militarily. Gaddafi hedged his bets, continuing the nuclear weapons program while simultaneously negotiating for security guarantees and conventional arms from the United States and Britain. By this point the program was treated less as a national security priority and more as a bargaining chip to use as leverage in negotiations.83 After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States, the Libyan regime grew increasingly concerned about the risk of a US invasion and tried again to offer up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for protection.84 Military intervention in Iraq was the clearest signal to the international community that the process of pursuing nuclear weapons carried new risks. After the First Gulf War (1990–​1991), the public disclosure of Iraq’s covert nuclear weapons program led to severe economic sanctions, the implementation of UN-​conducted inspections, and years of US and UK air strikes. After a series of crises related to the stringent inspections program, Iraq suspended cooperation with the UN Special Commission and the IAEA in August 1998, earning condemnation by the UN Security Council.85 The United States had threatened to respond to such an action with force. In December the United States and United Kingdom conducted Operation Desert Fox, a series of heavy strikes against nearly one hundred targets in Iraq. President Bill Clinton, in remarks to the press, stated that the operation was a successful response to the Iraqi government’s continued clandestine pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. He announced: “Saddam’s days of cheat and retreat [are] over.”86 The 2003 invasion of Iraq demonstrated most clearly of all that the United States and its allies were willing to incur serious costs to prevent proliferation. While the evidence is clear today that Iraq did not restart its nuclear weapons program after the 1990–​1991 Gulf War,87 the US claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program was a key justification for the invasion.88 Saddam Hussein had misjudged the strategic environment, believing that states like Russia and France would either stop the United States from invading or convince the United States to stop well before regime change. In addition, he was confident that if an invasion occurred, the Iraqi military would be able to do so much damage to American forces that the United States would choose to leave.89 But Baghdad fell within six short weeks, and the world witnessed what could happen to a state suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons. Just as not all states have responded to the NPT in the same way, the demonstrations of military force during this portion of the

76  Nuclear Decisions nonproliferation regime period have also meant different things to different leaders. Throughout the 1990s North Korean leaders were confident that the United States would never invade, as the resulting threat to South Korean security would be a sufficient deterrent.90 Leaders with reason to fear US intervention, however, like Gaddafi, responded accordingly. The discovery of Iraq’s nuclear weapons progress contributed in a second major way to the strengthening of the nonproliferation regime. Iraq’s program had relied heavily on exports of dual-​use items that fell outside the NSG’s export controls. This disclosure created the political will needed to rapidly bring about the most significant evolution of the NSG guidelines since their inception. Within a few months the NSG’s participating governments had agreed to substantially expand the list of controlled items to include nuclear-​related dual-​use equipment, materials, software, machinery, and technology.91 This new mandate also included the stipulation that full-​scope, IAEA safeguards would now be required for non–​nuclear weapons states wishing to import significant nuclear materials, equipment, or technology.92 The strengthening of the regime in 1992 thus significantly increased the cost of dual-​use item procurement, as states had to invest substantial resources and time in the effort to thwart the new restrictions.93 Operating both as individual members and as an organization, the NSG’s strategic responses to the proliferators’ complex circumvention tactics have increased the expected costs of acquiring nuclear weapons. The nonproliferation regime has generated uncertainty; states cannot predict whether today’s nuclear suppliers will remain willing and able to sell the same nuclear technology and equipment from year to year. As buyers and sellers develop new methods to evade the regime, NSG members respond by strengthening that regime. Potential proliferators may thus be less likely to sink vast resources into precarious investments in enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.94 The NPT itself was extended indefinitely by its signatories in 1995. Formal negotiations took place during the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. The political problems that threatened to derail the extension included concerns over Israel’s nuclear weapons status; South Africa’s recent admission of not only a clandestine nuclear weapons program, but also a small nuclear arsenal; and frustrations with the slow pace of disarmament exhibited by the nuclear weapons powers. However, the Western nuclear weapons states and Russia had started working prior to the conference to garner support for the extension through diplomatic channels.95 The clear implication was that a state that voted against the extension would

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  77 be singled out as outside the regime and would be placed in opposition to the United States, Russia, and other NPT supporters.96 A compromise was reached: language about the chief political concerns would be included in the conference’s final package of documents, and an actual vote on extending the treaty would not be held. Rather, the documents would refer to the treaty’s indefinite extension.97 The overall trend during the nonproliferation regime period has been toward regime strengthening and expansion, much of which can be traced to states’ reactions to exogenous events. The regime has failed to entirely prevent the spread of nuclear weapons during this period. Yet those failures have not, to date, harmed the regime beyond repair. Instead, revelations of clandestine programs and proliferation networks have generally spurred states to find policy solutions to close loopholes and fill gaps. Nonproliferation norms deepened, and states that violated those norms faced reputational harm and the risk of economic sanctions or military strikes.

Empirical Strategy A strong nonproliferation regime continues to operate today. The regime has not ended all proliferation; determined states may still pursue nuclear weapons despite significant constraints. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (commonly known as the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty), which entered into force in January 2021, illustrates both the challenges that remain and the progress that has been made. Treaty proponents argue that the five original nuclear weapons states have failed to adhere to the disarmament clause of the NPT. More than eighty non–​nuclear weapons states have signed the ban treaty, which aims to delegitimize and outlaw nuclear weapons. If the different proliferation environments place different constraints on nuclear proliferation, however, nuclear decision-​making should be affected as well. Leaders still choose from among a set of options, but they must operate within the confines of the proliferation environment that either limit or expand that set or alter the costs and benefits of a given option. But structural explanations only go so far. The proliferation curves should be moderated by domestic organizational and institutional factors that also shape the nuclear information environment for state leaders. To test the explanatory power of my theory, in Chapters 5, 6, and 7 I examine country cases within and across the different proliferation environments. In

78  Nuclear Decisions those case studies I investigate whether and how the structural features of the international system and the key domestic organizations’ nuclear preferences and capacity to influence the leader affect nuclear decision-​making. Through this approach, I offer novel insights and interpretations that challenge current understandings of nuclear proliferation generally and particular case histories specifically. Conducting case studies of nuclear decision-​making involves limitations imposed by secrecy. Since secretive nuclear decisions are rarely observable by the international community at the time they are made, and the outcomes may not be realized until years afterward, identifying past nuclear decisions can be a challenging endeavor. In some cases the date of the decision was documented directly or confirmed by key witnesses; in others, the formal decision is less clear. Governments may deliberately mislead domestic and international audiences to misrepresent the true state of their nuclear programs. Generally, researchers should be cautious in assessing broad claims that hinge on a single case. I thus proceed carefully in drawing conclusions about state behaviors that take place behind a veil of secrecy. I conducted extensive case research, relying primarily on government documents and the existing case literature. When accounts conflicted, I prioritized information and claims that were supported by government documents or by scholars’ interviews with people who had firsthand knowledge and also had no obvious reason to provide false information. I did not rely on public statements made by governments, as a state may claim to adhere to nuclear nonproliferation ideals when it is actually pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program.98 Identifying the population of nuclear weapons pursuers is also not a simple task. The ten states that have succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons—​I include here South Africa, which dismantled its nuclear weapons, and Israel, which is not a declared nuclear weapons state—​are the easy cases; each obviously belongs on the list. But states that, as of this writing, pursued nuclear weapons without ultimately acquiring them do not necessarily fit cleanly into any one category. Some states explore the option of nuclear weapons but do not start a program, compared to other states that make the decision to pursue nuclear weapons development. Scholars have been debating the merits of various cases for years, and reasonable people may disagree about the inclusion or exclusion of several possible nuclear weapons hopefuls.99 Since earlier quantitative proliferation studies were published, new information regarding program start decisions has become available, as

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  79 researchers have requested declassification of government documents and conducted new studies. Using both new evidence and long-​standing research, I have compiled a list of countries and dates based on the best information we have as of this writing. This list does not dramatically differ from other scholars’ compilations, but it represents a meaningful improvement in our understanding of the historical timeline of nuclear pursuit, particularly with regard to its focus on decision-​making over the course of a program. When accounts conflicted, I again prioritized information supported by primary sources. In each of the case studies, political leaders pursued either a nuclear weapons program or an ambiguous nuclear capacity that would provide the option to pivot to weapons production. Some of these states succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons, while others ended their programs without reaching that milestone. For interested readers, I provide the details of nuclear weapons program start dates, nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions, and key sources in the Appendix for the full range of cases. To illustrate the challenges of missing information and conflicting scholarly accounts, I return here, briefly, to the case of Japan’s nuclear weapons effort during the early 1940s. Japan is missing as a nuclear weapons pursuer from one prominent data set, but that seems to be because the authors began their analysis in 1945, which is the same year the Japanese program concluded.100 Other studies disagree over the date Japan began its nuclear weapons program—​perhaps 1940, 1941, or 1943—​depending on the sources they choose to utilize.101 I chose to discount a less reliable source, Robert Wilcox’s 1985 book Japan’s Secret War, in favor of two well-​documented scholarly sources. The first, an article by Walter E. Grunden, Mark Walker, and Masakatsu Yamazki that was published in the peer-​reviewed journal Osiris in 2005, utilizes primary documents, including personal accounts, in the original Japanese.102 The second, an article by Tristan Grunow that was published in the peer-​reviewed Journal of American-​East Asian Relations in 2003, also uses Japanese documents in the original language and discusses earlier works by both Grunden and Masakatsu on the subject of the Japanese nuclear effort. The result of this research into Japan’s program was a fuller and more accurate picture of what happened inside the Japanese nuclear effort, which was conducted during World War II. First, I was able to pinpoint 1941 as the start of the nuclear weapons program. Grunow, along with other scholars, describes how Tōjō Hideki issued an order to both study and start a nuclear weapons program, and that Lieutenant General Yasuda Takeo, chief of the Army Aeronautics Department’s Technical Research Institute, acted on this

80  Nuclear Decisions order in April 1941. By July 1941, Japan’s Riken research institute had begun the program with army funding.103 While some nonproliferation scholars have argued that the Japanese program officially began after the Japanese defeat at Midway,104 Grunden and colleagues and Grunow demonstrate that the program was indeed already underway, and that the defeat was a key reason the government decided to accelerate the existing program. Grunow details how Prime Minister Tōjō believed that Japan would lose the war if the United States won the race to develop atomic weapons and brought this concern to the cabinet, which issued the formal directives to accelerate the nuclear program.105 The Japanese program was characterized by scientists who projected a long-​term path to the bomb that would extend far beyond the war and by a fragmented and decentralized series of programs run by different branches of the military. Within that context, program reversal decisions and Allied attacks that seriously damaged program infrastructure led to the conclusion of the program in the summer of 1945, prior to Japan’s defeat.106 I argue that case research produces a more accurate political understanding of nuclear weapons pursuit than is acquired from quantitative nonproliferation studies limited to start, acquisition, and end dates. This particular case of Japan, easily dismissed as an obvious case of the security environment’s impact on nuclear pursuit, in fact provides an example of nuclear decisions that were partly the product of a specific moment in time—​the race to harness atomic power for use in a devastating global war—​but also shaped by the information environment provided by two domestic groups: the state military and the nuclear scientists. It is important to delve into the details to identify not only accurate start and end dates but all major nuclear decision dates. Those decisions shaped nuclear program pathways. In each of the following three chapters, which correspond with the three proliferation environments, I examine three cases of state nuclear pursuit. This method allows me to clearly distinguish the influence of the proliferation environment, which the cases within each chapter share, from the influence of the domestic organizations, which vary from case to case. When a case extends across proliferation environments, I situate the case primarily in the environment in which most nuclear development occurred. In addition, I investigate whether the other proliferation environment had a different effect on decision-​making within that same case. The Soviet Union, France, and Israel fall within the permissive period. All three succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons; of the three, only the Soviet

Proliferation Environments across Nuclear Age  81 Union began a nuclear weapons program in the context of World War II. Significant nuclear development and decision-​ making occurred within Sweden, South Korea, and India during the transition period. Of these three, Sweden’s program was the most ambivalent, teetering on the edge between a research and planning endeavor and a true nuclear weapons effort. Pakistan, South Africa, and Brazil all pursued nuclear development programs with military applications during the nonproliferation regime period, although Brazil’s leaders never chose to initiate program acceleration that would begin the process of developing and building weapons. As a set, the cases exhibit variation in terms of regime type, leader traits, and organizational influence and preferences. Finally, it bears repeating that the dependent variable is nuclear decisions, not nuclear weapons acquisition. Of the nine states, some only hedged, while others succeeded in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability or a nuclear arsenal. And some may yet succeed. Because nuclear reversals may themselves be reversed later, we cannot know how the stories will end. This in itself is reason to study the decisions rather than the outcomes.

5 The Permissive Period The Soviet Union, Israel, and France

During the permissive period (1941–​1964), states pursued nuclear weapons with relatively few external constraints. Disagreement between the Soviet Union and United States—​particularly regarding international inspections—​ and a general lack of political will on all sides stood in the way of global nonproliferation regime development. The general absence of international nonproliferation norms and policies, coupled with the widespread availability of unsafeguarded nuclear assistance via a competitive and lucrative nuclear market, promoted an open environment for nuclear pursuit. In this chapter I examine nuclear decisions in three states: the Soviet Union, Israel, and France. In each case most program development and decision-​making took place during the permissive period. All three states succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons. France and the Soviet Union did so during the permissive period, while Israel achieved that milestone within two years after the end of the period. The Soviet Union was the first to begin a nuclear weapons program, in the context of World War II; France and Israel began their programs after the war. The nuclear agencies and militaries within each state contributed to shaping the decision-​making context for state leaders. The case evidence indicates that the nuclear organization in the Soviet Union was more influential than similar organizations in Israel and France. The Soviet nuclear organization enjoyed a great deal of independence and access to the state leader; key scientists were able to silence opposing voices more effectively than in the Israeli and French cases. The influence of the military organization also varies by case; during a time of political unrest in France, for example, the military wielded more political power than it might have otherwise. Nuclear decisions were made by both strong and weak leaders, within different types of political regimes, and in security contexts ranging from rivalry to existential threat.

Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0005

The Permissive Period  83

The Soviet Union Stalin’s Soviet Union presents a particularly interesting study of the dynamic between the nuclear organization and the leader. It also presents something of a hard case for the arguments I present, because the security explanation seems to apply so well. The rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union was intensifying throughout the period in which Stalin was pursuing the bomb, and the United States was clearly well ahead of the Soviet Union in developing nuclear weapons. In such a security environment, it would be reasonable to expect that the threat from the United States would function as the driver of Soviet nuclear development. Yet the evidence indicates that the nuclear organization, during times of influence, molded leaders’ understanding of what nuclear weapons were, shaping the message and the policy options in significant ways. This affected nuclear decisions and the course of nuclear weapons development (see Figure 5.1). I primarily use David Holloway’s extraordinary history of the early years of the Soviet nuclear weapons program, Stalin and the Bomb, to examine these dynamics and the strategic context within which the program began and developed. I code the nuclear organization as having high capacity to inform and influence and strong preferences for nuclear weapons development. I discuss the evidence supporting this classification at length. I code the military organization as having low capacity to inform and influence and having mixed preferences regarding the nuclear project. The proliferation environment was highly permissive; the Soviet Union enjoyed almost complete freedom from external constraints related to nuclear weapons pursuit.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions In the first years of the atomic age, the potential for the weaponization of the atom was theoretical and uncertain. Initially, British nuclear scientists doubted that the scientific study of nuclear fission would have any military significance. Many in the US government did not believe that nuclear fission was possible; reports that Germany was working to develop a nuclear bomb were met with skepticism from numerous scientists and nonscientists alike.1 In the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin was also given reports about the German program and about research into nuclear fission for military purposes generally. He did not take these reports seriously until 1942.2

84  Nuclear Decisions Figure 5.1  Proliferation curve: Soviet Union

The influence of Commissioner for Science Sergey Kaftanov led Stalin toward the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Because of his position on the State Defense Committee, Kaftanov enjoyed direct access to Stalin during World War II.3 Kaftanov believed the Soviet Union should invest in pursuing atomic weapons, but resources were being directed away from nuclear fission to conventional areas of military research. When Russian intelligence services passed along a captured German officer’s notebook containing notes indicating the Germans were hard at work on an atomic bomb, Russian

The Permissive Period  85 general G. I. Pokrovskii, a conventional explosives expert, and physicist Aleksander Leipunskii responded that the USSR should not invest in a similar project. Indeed, Leipunskii, who disagreed with Kaftanov, wrote that the best use of Soviet resources would be in conventional means to fend off the German invasion in the present rather than in the future hope of a possible nuclear weapon, which he believed would require fifteen to twenty years of research and development.4 But Kaftanov, because of his direct access to the Soviet premier, was in a position to keep pessimistic viewpoints out of political decision-​making. Kaftanov selected the policy options to present and suppressed competing preferences. In addition, as a scientist and science administrator he had a claim to expertise that lent authority to his recommendation.5 In a personal meeting, Kaftanov urged Stalin to fund work on nuclear weapons research and highlighted only the positive possibilities; Stalin, kept ignorant of dissenting opinion, was persuaded.6 The Soviet nuclear project lacked urgency, however. Intelligence regarding the German effort indicated that Germany would not be able to produce a bomb soon enough to use during the war. After Germany’s surrender in May 1945, Soviet scientists working on the nuclear weapons project attempted to obtain permission to accelerate the program, arguing that some war-​fighting resources could now be reallocated. However, this time the right people were not in place to persuade Stalin. The scientists gave their memo to Stalin’s trusted and formidable adviser L. P. Beria, head of the police and espionage. Beria suspected that the proposal was based on disinformation spread by the West to trick the Soviet Union into wasting time and money. He either did not pass the memo on to Stalin or gave it to Stalin with a warning that acceleration would be a mistake.7 Either way, Beria served as a gatekeeper, controlling the information flow and preventing the organization from shaping Stalin’s preferences. The scientists would not have to wait long. That July the United States tested its first plutonium device, the “Gadget,” in Alamogordo, New Mexico. At the Potsdam Conference on July 24, 1945, President Harry Truman informed Stalin of the successful test. Soviet intelligence had already informed Stalin that the United States was making progress toward the bomb. Yet Stalin was still surprised when the United States used the first atomic bomb to attack the Japanese city of Hiroshima. While he officially brushed off the bomb as having had little effect on the end of the war, he now recognized that nuclear weapons would reshape the postwar world order and admitted this

86  Nuclear Decisions privately. Sometime during that summer, Stalin accelerated the Soviet nuclear weapons program and established a nuclear organization to oversee the project.8 That August the State Defense Committee, which Stalin chaired, adopted a decree to establish a new nuclear organizational structure. The decree created the Special Committee on the Atomic Bomb to be the main nuclear agency to make decisions about the nuclear weapons program and present to Stalin those decisions that had to be made by the leader. Beria was made the chair of the Special Committee and reported directly to Stalin on a weekly basis.9 In addition, nuclear weapons program director and physicist Igor Kurchatov was a member of the committee and had frequent access to Stalin. Kurchatov possessed what one of his close colleagues referred to as “burning enthusiasm” for the atomic project.10 The Special Committee made suggestions that were brought to Stalin, who then responded to those suggestions by personally consulting with various scientists. The organization thus had a significant amount of independence, as the committee had its own base of power and the program head had access to the leader, although Beria could, and sometimes did, exercise his power to prevent the program’s communications from reaching Stalin.11 Now that he had been convinced of the importance of nuclear weapons, Stalin displayed a high level of personal interest in and oversight of the nuclear weapons program. He demanded weekly reports on the nuclear scientists’ progress.12 Anxious to move quickly toward the bomb, and told by his scientists that the lack of uranium was slowing the project, he condemned hundreds of thousands of people, many of them prisoners living in gulags, to hazardous labor, mining uranium in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Most of the surviving prisoners were never set free, as they knew too much about the nuclear project.13 Even so, Stalin did not initiate further program decisions on his own but was significantly influenced by his nuclear agency. This is due in part to the fact that Stalin was reliant on his chief advisers and scientists for technical information regarding the progress and potential of the program. The Soviet scientists who were in leadership positions within the nuclear organization shared similar preferences for the direction of the program. Even in Stalin’s Soviet Union, where dissent could be fatal, scientists who were morally opposed to nuclear weapons could not speak out openly without placing themselves in danger, but they could refuse to work on the project.14

The Permissive Period  87 Thus even in Stalin’s totalitarian regime nuclear weapons policy options were shaped from below, and the leader was often reactive, not proactive. The Soviet pursuit of thermonuclear capabilities further illustrates this dynamic.15 It also illustrates how the nuclear organization, though independent in several key ways as discussed earlier, still did not always have direct access to the leader and could be prevented from influencing Stalin if Beria blocked the communications pipeline. Soviet scientists initiated the research agenda on thermonuclear weapons in 1946, and by 1948 they had the basic design concept in place. The scientists viewed this research as part of the natural flow of scientific discovery. They conducted an initial test of the design, were excited that it worked, and then moved forward to actually try to build the weapon.16 But the scientists themselves could only take this project so far; constructing a hydrogen bomb would require a formal decision from the leader. Even when Kurchatov, the director of the Soviet nuclear weapons project, wanted to undertake work on controlled fusion related to the thermonuclear weapon project, he had to ask for Stalin’s approval. He did that in 1951, drawing up a draft decree and sending it to Beria for Stalin to sign.17 But despite the fact that both Beria and Stalin were eager to develop the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons capacity, and although they well understood that the United States was pursuing thermonuclear weapons, Beria sat on the proposal for a few months. He sent it up for Stalin’s approval only after becoming concerned that Argentine scientists were succeeding with controlled fusion efforts (they were not), holding a meeting of the Special Committee, and working out the details with scientists. Beria then sent the decree to Stalin, who signed it on May 5, 1951.18 The scientists received approval from Stalin to proceed with the hydrogen bomb that same year.19 Stalin had wanted to develop both fission and fusion weapons, and quickly, particularly within the context of the US-​Soviet rivalry. The leader-​nuclear organization dynamic is not the only explanation for how nuclear weapons program decisions are made. But security was not, in itself, a sufficient driver of the program, even though the Soviet Union was embroiled in multiple conflicts and near-​conflicts. From 1950 to 1953, for example, the USSR, United States, and China were all embroiled in the Korean War. The security environment would thus seem to be an obvious cause of nuclear weapons program progress in the Soviet Union. However, nuclear weapons are not the only answer to security problems, and Stalin turned much of his attention to conventional responses. Holloway

88  Nuclear Decisions finds a great deal of evidence that Stalin did not believe the United States was likely to attack, but instead that the Soviet Union should be able, in Stalin’s own words, to “repulse an attack.”20 Stalin believed the United States might attempt to use its nuclear arsenal to try to compel the Soviet Union to act according to US preferences. But he did not view nuclear weapons as the ultimate weapon of war, and even up until his death in 1953 he believed the best approach to a world with nuclear weapons was to develop counterstrategies.21 Further, Stalin was anxious to avoid a war with the United States. As a result, he focused more on the Soviet Union’s ability to defend itself. Stalin and his military planners thus turned much of their attention to ground forces, air forces, and the navy, with the Red Army as their main focus. Air defenses would, in their view, successfully counter (Stalin also used the word “repulse”) an attempted nuclear strike from the United States. Widely dispersed and camouflaged ground forces would mitigate the harm done by any successful nuclear strike. Between 1948 and 1955 the programs initiated by Stalin and the Soviet military doubled the size of the Soviet armed forces. And in 1950 Stalin vastly expanded the navy, creating a new ministry and new shipbuilding programs for both surface ships and submarines. Nuclear weapons had little effect on military operations planning.22 The military organization’s role in the nuclear project was largely relegated to the back end: once there was a nuclear arsenal, the military carried out the task of drafting the plans for nuclear weapons use. But throughout the 1940s, when the Soviet Union was developing nuclear weapons either half-​ heartedly or with haste, the military was uninvolved.23 Earlier in this section I discussed the Special Committee, which made the most important decisions related to the nuclear project and reported weekly to Stalin for his approval of proposals and plans. In describing that select group of nine members, Holloway makes sure to note that “there were no military men on the committee.”24 The Soviet case also offers an illustration of the special characteristics of nuclear agencies that I identified in Chapter 3 as contributing to their potential ability to influence leaders. Secrecy, technical opacity, and a sense of awe all provide nuclear agencies with an informational and authoritative advantage over nonexperts in political leadership positions. This asymmetry enables nuclear weapons program agencies to control information and shape preferences. Agencies endowed with characteristics that promote independence and legal authority will be even more influential.

The Permissive Period  89 In Stalin’s Soviet Union, secrecy was so stringent that even scientific terms became classified. Sensitive terms were given code words—​“zero points” for “neutrons” is one example; these codes could not be entrusted to the staff members typing the reports but had to be written in later by hand. Anxiety levels surrounding this heightened secrecy were so intense that recurring nightmares about mishandling classified material, and even a suicide, were reported. Classified information was compartmentalized, and it was said that only Iulii Khariton, the lead scientist, had access to everything related to project work. Such compartmentalization limited the number of officials who could discuss policy options related to the program.25 Information was restricted, privileged, and held firmly in the grasp of the nuclear weapons program. The highly sophisticated, technical nature of nuclear weapons also limited the ability of outside officials or political leaders to participate in decision-​ making. Even efforts from the scientists to provide a general education to administrators assigned to the project were not tremendously successful. In his role as program director, Kurchatov organized seminars to explain some of the science behind uranium processes to administrators, but the seminar participants understood almost nothing. Boris Vannikov, a high-​level state and party official involved with nuclear program decision making, was an engineer with a previous career in industry. Yet even he did not understand what the nuclear scientists were attempting to explain to him regarding their projects and their resource needs. Vannikov felt “powerless” because of the “invisible and intangible” nature of the atom and talked about how the words the scientists were using were “not in my vocabulary.”26 Consider one of the highest-​level decision-​makers in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Beria. Recall that as chair of the Special Committee he led the most important decision-​making on the nuclear project aside of Stalin himself. A few days after Russia’s first nuclear reactor went critical, a key milestone in any nuclear program, Beria visited the facility for a demonstration. When the chain reaction began, and the scientists exclaimed over their success, Beria, expecting something more visually impressive than the movement of gauges and instruments, expressed disappointment. “Is that all?” he complained. He asked to go to the reactor to see what was happening, and Kurchatov had to stop him, explaining that it would be too dangerous.27 Beria did not understand the most basic scientific principles behind the fission process. He did not realize that the process would be invisible to the human eye or that being brought to the reactor would expose his body to radiation.

90  Nuclear Decisions Stalin himself was known for asking detailed technical questions when he met with conventional weaponry, equipment, and aircraft designers. For example, in 1950 Stalin wanted to develop a jet-​powered intercontinental bomber, but jet engine technology at that time required too much fuel for such a long trip, and the fuel was too heavy for the bomber to carry. When aircraft designer Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev told Stalin such a design would be impossible, Stalin, referring to Tupolev’s mid-​ range, two-​ jet-​ engine bomber, replied: “Then put four engines on it, who’s stopping you?”28 Stalin did not understand that adding more engines to the bomber would not solve the underlying problem of the fuel requirement for an intercontinental flight. But he felt that he understood the essentials of flight and aircraft well enough to argue with Tupolev’s expert opinion and to propose his own suggestion. With nuclear weapons, however, Stalin deferred to Kurchatov, and even to Khariton. During Khariton’s only meeting with Stalin, as preparations for the first atomic test were underway, Stalin asked for a modification, but this time, when he was told it would be impossible, he stopped pursuing the issue. Holloway writes: Stalin asked whether it would be possible to use the plutonium in the bomb to make two less powerful bombs, so that there would be one in reserve. Bearing in mind that the amount of plutonium in the bomb was right for that particular design. . . . Khariton replied that that would not be possible. . . . [Stalin] accepted without demur Khariton’s answer.29

Stalin felt able to advance his own opinions about aircraft, or guns, or tanks, because he had a basic familiarity with their workings. It seems likely that Stalin was willing to debate with his conventional weapons and equipment designers, but not with his nuclear scientists, because his lack of understanding of nuclear science and technology prevented him from formulating, let alone proposing, his own suggestions.

Conclusion The Soviet pursuit of atomic and thermonuclear weapons reveals the importance of scientific and military access to the executive even in a heavily authoritarian state. Stalin’s nuclear decisions were shaped from below, both by the scientists who had direct access to him—​although Beria, despite

The Permissive Period  91 being generally pro-​nuclear, still acted as gatekeeper on more than one crucial occasion—​and by the military officers who advocated conventional counterstrategies in a world with a nuclear-​armed rival. While Stalin was interested in acquiring nuclear weapons and devoted enormous resources to the nuclear project, he did not proactively make nuclear decisions on his own accord or in direct response to changes in the security environment, but instead mainly responded to the policy preferences of the influential Soviet nuclear organization. As scientists who opposed the nuclear weapons effort were unable to speak out but could choose to leave the program, that attrition facilitated a consolidation of organizational preferences favoring nuclear weapons development. The nuclear organization enjoyed several information transmission advantages. The Special Committee on the Atomic Bomb, formed after the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, enjoyed an independent base of power and gave the nuclear weapons program director frequent access to Stalin. Because of their monopoly on nuclear expertise, lead scientists with access to Stalin were able to strategically withhold information that would undercut their arguments and proposals. Specialized and awe-​ inspiring technical knowledge gave the nuclear experts another advantage, as political decision-​makers who tried to understand atomic processes were left feeling overwhelmed and out of their depth. Even Stalin, who intervened in plans for conventional military technology development, deferred to his nuclear scientists’ expertise.

Israel A geographically small state formed in the aftermath of the Holocaust and surrounded by enemies, Israel presents a hard case for an information-​and organization-​based theory of nuclear decision-​making. Security was the reason Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-​Gurion, decided to start a nuclear weapons program in the mid-​1950s (see Figure 5.2). Israel is understood to have been a nuclear weapons state since the mid-​1960s, but to this day it maintains a policy of opacity, neither confirming nor denying a nuclear weapons capability. Here I rely primarily on Avner Cohen’s authoritative and meticulous research on the Israeli nuclear weapons program. His interviews with Israeli government officials, scientists, and military officials offer a richly detailed set of perspectives on Israel’s nuclear development

92  Nuclear Decisions Figure 5.2  Proliferation curve: Israel

during the late 1950s and the 1960s. While security is undoubtedly at the heart of the Israeli program, the inclusion or exclusion of scientific and military voices still affected nuclear decision-​making during the first decade of nuclear development. I code both the nuclear organization and the military as having low capacity to inform and influence, and having mixed preferences for nuclear weapons development. The nuclear organization in particular lacked authority and independence from the executive, a result of its informal legal origin, which I discuss later. This lack of a domestic consensus regarding the

The Permissive Period  93 value of the nuclear weapons program contributed to the notable absence of nuclear decision-​making after Ben-​Gurion’s initial decision to start. Experts with access to the leader did not typically advocate pushing the program forward, and leaders proceeded cautiously and quietly to minimize controversy. The proliferation environment was generally permissive, but with some constraints. Israel had to tread carefully with its US-​provided research reactor, which was obtained through the Atoms for Peace program and was not supposed to be used for military purposes. However, Israel’s main nuclear facility at Dimona, purchased from France in the mid-​1950s, was free from such constraints. As the Israeli program neared the goal of nuclear weapons in the mid-​1960s, the permissive period ended and the transition period began. Israel used the emerging nonproliferation regime as cover for its clandestine program, signing the PTBT as a way to signal adherence to the regime even as the program moved toward the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions The early nuclear effort took place in a threatening security environment. Yet despite Israel’s serious security concerns, both in terms of the potential threat from neighboring Arab states and Soviet interests—​and possible military involvement—​in the region, there was no consensus that Israel should pursue nuclear weapons. David Ben-​Gurion, who served as Israel’s first prime minister and then returned to that office in 1955, was one leader who believed a nuclear deterrent was the only way to ensure Israel’s survival. In the mid-​1950s he worked to gain that deterrent first through US security guarantees to Israel, but he had long had an interest in a national nuclear capability, and he had doubts about the credibility of US promises to come to Israel’s defense. But both pro-​and antinuclear weapons camps existed not only within the Israeli government but also within the scientific community and the Israeli military. Ben-​Gurion made the secret decision to start the program, but over time other interests, such as improving conventional military capabilities, placed some limits on the leader’s ability to make further nuclear decisions.30 In June 1954, between Ben-​Gurion’s two terms, Moshe Sharett was serving as prime minister. The United States, through Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program, had offered Israel a nuclear research reactor. Sharett invited key

94  Nuclear Decisions scientists to his office to discuss the offer specifically and the future of an Israeli nuclear program more broadly. The two scientists, Ernst Bergmann and Shmuel Sambursky, were both members of the IAEC, which Ben-​Gurion had created in 1952. Bergmann served as its chair and believed that Israel could, and should, pursue a nuclear weapons capability. Sambursky, along with most of his peers, disagreed; the prevailing view among most top Israeli scientists was that a nuclear weapons capability was simply out of reach at that time.31 In the meeting, Bergmann argued in favor of negotiating a contract with the United States, viewing a research reactor as a first step toward industrial production and weapons development. Sambursky argued against, advocating for a cautious approach to nuclear research that would focus on theoretical work rather than on production. Faced with a split answer from two leaders of the nuclear organization, Prime Minister Sharett held off on making a decision. Furthermore, now that the Israeli government had been confronted with this possible opportunity, it became clear that the authority for such decisions had not been established. Would the prime minister need to approve a nuclear contract with a foreign country, or should nuclear contract decisions and negotiations fall under the purview of the minister of defense? In this uncertain environment, no contract with the United States was signed.32 The design of the IAEC contributed to this uncertainty. Ben-​Gurion had founded the agency by secret order rather than codifying it into law. Several aspects of the new organization were deliberately left ambiguous, such as to whom the agency reported and who was directly responsible for the agency. The ambiguity allowed Ben-​Gurion to proceed with a nuclear program in secrecy, without involving the military, the parliament, or other officials who might disagree with the prime minister’s actions. However, this freedom came at a cost to the continuity of the Israeli program from one prime minister to the next. When Sharett took office, his lack of interest in pursuing a nuclear weapons program, a view shared by his minister of defense, meant that the agency turned more toward theoretical work than Ben-​Gurion had intended.33 When Ben-​Gurion formally returned to government in 1955 (Sharett had informally consulted Ben-​Gurion during the interim), first as defense minister and then, in November, as prime minister, he believed the timing was now right to pursue an Israeli nuclear weapons capability. By May 1955 the United States had delivered a draft contract for the discussed research

The Permissive Period  95 reactor, and Ben-​Gurion and Sharett met to carefully parse the language. They found that accepting the terms would mean that Israel could not use the US reactor for military purposes, but that Israel would still be able to pursue nuclear assistance from other countries. In addition, the contract would not technically prevent Israel from pursuing a parallel nuclear bomb project. Indeed, accepting the contract would not only give Israel access to reactor technology, it would also provide cover for parallel, clandestine activities.34 The Israeli government accepted the contract and also pursued nuclear assistance from France. The French government, concerned that Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser was inciting the rise of anti-​French violence in Algeria, believed that a strong Israel could help constrain Egypt’s ability to shape regional affairs. When Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, France sought help from Israel, proposing an Israeli attack on Egypt across the Sinai peninsula. The attack, the French government believed, would provoke international outrage. France and Britain would then offer to intervene and separate Israel and Egypt—​by retaking the Suez Canal and ousting Nasser in the process. Israel agreed to this plan, but with the understanding that France would agree to finalize the ongoing negotiations between the two countries regarding a French nuclear reactor for Israel.35 This agreement changed in Israel’s favor as the Suez crisis concluded. In October, Israeli troops captured the strategically important Sinai peninsula. Avner Cohen writes that in response, the Soviet Union delivered an ultimatum to the French coalition and directed a specific message of existential peril to Israel alone. When the United States failed to come to Israel’s aid and worked to pressure the Franco-​British-​Israeli coalition to end the conflict instead, the French government asked Israel to withdraw its troops from Sinai. Israel set terms with France: in exchange for the withdrawal, France would provide Israel with more significant nuclear assistance. France agreed—​not to a research reactor, as was originally discussed, but to a large, plutonium-​producing nuclear reactor and plutonium separation plant. The two countries now began the Dimona project, constructing this nuclear facility in the Negev desert.36 France did not require Israel to pledge to use the facility only for peaceful purposes and allowed Israel to keep the facility’s purpose secret (which was in French interests as well). This type of nuclear assistance, free from most constraints, was a hallmark of the permissive period of the nuclear age. Sometime during 1955 or 1956, Ben-​Gurion decided to seize the opportunity to go forward with a nuclear weapons program. He deliberately kept the IAEC in the dark about the separate, parallel project. This was possible

96  Nuclear Decisions because of the extreme secrecy surrounding nuclear projects in Israel. Certain words, like “nuclear weapons,” were never used, even in classified documents.37 The weapons program was so highly compartmentalized that the IAEC convincingly served as civilian cover for the Dimona project, allowing the Israeli program to progress all the way to a nuclear weapons capacity before foreign powers like the United States could be certain about the true nature or level of Israeli nuclear development.38 After Ben-​Gurion started the program, there were no major nuclear decisions made between 1956 and Israel’s achievement of nuclear weapons status, which scholars believe occurred in 1967.39 No Israeli decision-​maker implemented a crash program to accelerate nuclear weapons development, for example. Given Israel’s dangerous security environment and the value Ben-​Gurion placed on Israel’s ability to deter, why were no further nuclear decisions made? Why did the program simply proceed on its own internal timetable for the next eleven years? First, Israel had to be cautious not to reveal its true intentions, for both military and political reasons. Obvious signs of a nuclear weapons program would cause political trouble with the United States, which suspected the existence of such a program during the 1960s but could not obtain direct evidence, despite conducting inspections at Dimona.40 And public knowledge of the program would cause domestic controversy in both France and Israel.41 A clear intent to acquire nuclear weapons would also risk inviting militarized action, particularly from regional adversaries like Egypt, who would perceive such a program as a threat. Indeed, during the 1967 Six Day War, Egypt conducted a reconnaissance flight over Dimona that seriously alarmed the Israeli government.42 Throughout the 1960s, however, although the United States and Egypt had suspicions about Israel’s program, Israel largely succeeded in obscuring the level and intent of its nuclear development from both countries.43 Second, divided organizational interests meant that there were no unified voices from below to place pressure on Israeli leaders to accelerate the program or even to strongly advocate for program initiatives. The Israeli military was not yet on board with the idea of a nuclear weapons capability, and the nuclear scientists were split. Recall that the IAEC was being used as cover for the Dimona project; even highly placed, pro-​nuclear weapons scientists like Ernst Bergmann were only marginally involved. Third, the program was so secret, it lacked some of the mechanisms that allow organizational interests to be expressed to the leader.

The Permissive Period  97 The clandestine weapons project was run by a new, independent, and highly compartmentalized group within the Ministry of Defense, answering to Deputy Minister of Defense Shimon Peres, who then reported to the prime minister.44 The Dimona project was so secret, and so separate, in fact, that it required its own, secret funding stream. Funding was not provided through the state budget and was not guaranteed; instead, funds were raised privately by Ben-​Gurion and Peres. The extreme secrecy and informality created an uncertain environment for the project and meant that no long-​term, strategic plan for the program was developed.45 Ben-​Gurion was cautious about his own involvement as prime minister, relying on informal indicators of his wishes for the program rather than explicit orders.46 Further, because there was significant opposition to a nuclear weapons program within the Israeli scientific community, which doubted the likelihood of success, Peres, in establishing the Dimona project within the Ministry of Defense, cut out the scientific establishment. He populated the program with young scientists, who lacked influence, authority, and experience in working with government leaders but had can-​do attitudes about the promise of nuclear science and technology.47 For almost the entirety of the Dimona project’s development, the IAEC was sidelined, rendered largely irrelevant and stripped of influence until 1966.48 During most of this period the Israeli military remained largely uninterested in, or even opposed to, investment in a future nuclear weapons capability. Evidence from the Israeli military in the 1960s illustrates organizational overconfidence in its own capabilities and plans and the discounting of the likelihood of a real nuclear threat from abroad. Israel’s existential security concerns might lead one to suppose that the Israeli military would have thrown its support behind the development of a nuclear arsenal. Yet during this critical period in Israel’s history, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) favored allocating resources to conventional means rather than nuclear weapons development.49 In July 1962 Egypt tested rudimentary, limited-​range ballistic missiles that could have been capable of reaching Israeli territory. At the time the nuclear reactor at the Dimona complex was nearing completion. The opportunity for a nuclear acceleration decision seems obvious: the Israeli government could have responded to this new threat by speeding up work at Dimona in order to more quickly develop nuclear weapons. Indeed, Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan, among others, argued that with the prospect of nuclear weapons nearing, the government should begin to reorganize the IDF around deterrence.50

98  Nuclear Decisions However, others in the government preferred another path. While investing in the nuclear endeavor would not yield immediate gains, the benefits of spending on conventional means could be realized in the short term. And given Israel’s resource constraints, investing in the nuclear weapons program would directly trade off with investing in a strong conventional army. Worse still, diverting funds to the nuclear effort could even weaken the IDF. Proponents of building up conventional capabilities also argued that accelerating the nuclear weapons program could draw a preventive strike from Egypt.51 Where did the Israeli military stand on this trade-​off between conventional and nuclear arming? Sasha Polakow-​Suransky uses the term “fanciful” to illustrate how generals within the IDF viewed Israel’s hopes for nuclear weapons.52 Karpin describes the predominant view among Israeli generals this way: “[Generals] spoke of the projects using words like ‘visionary’—​in a mocking sense—​or even ‘hallucinatory.’ ”53 The army was in dire need of the essentials: basic gear and equipment that included not only bullets but also boots and uniforms. Allocating funds to the nuclear project felt to the army like “taking the bread out of their mouths,” as Peres explained it.54 In a high-​threat security environment, spending Israel’s scarce resources on the pipe dream of a nuclear arsenal seemed absurd to many in high military command. The generals’ aversion was fueled by concerns not only about materiel but also about doctrine. Cohen writes: The very notion of developing a nuclear doctrine was at odds with the IDF’s offensive military doctrine. Before 1967 the IDF philosophy was based on the idea of a conventional preventive war: if and when Israel faced a conventional military threat it must wage a war to destroy that threat . . . the use of nuclear weapons, even in the form of a demonstration test, undermined this commitment to a preventive war.55

The IDF’s offensive military doctrine, including its commitment to preventive war, was of primary importance in establishing organizational preferences. This preference stood in direct conflict with the potential organizational shift toward nuclear capabilities and away from offensive capabilities. With Israel’s acquisition of a functional nuclear arsenal, the Israeli military adapted and incorporated the arsenal into doctrine and planning. But the IDF’s preference was for conventional rather than nuclear arming.

The Permissive Period  99 Ben-​Gurion had been aware of this preference when he set the nuclear project in motion in the mid-​1950s; worried about a “budgetary competition” between IDF plans for investment in conventional weapons systems on the one hand and the nuclear project on the other, Ben-​Gurion had elected to leave the military out of nuclear weapons planning.56 But by the early 1960s, as members of the Israeli parliament and others began to learn more about what was happening at Dimona, Ben-​Gurion no longer had the authority to make decisions alone, as he had in the first years of the nuclear weapons program. Now that strategic concerns regarding Egypt had arisen, the prime minister had to consult with the military. Ultimately, he did not, in Cohen’s words, “accelerate the nuclear project at the expense of the conventional army,” and the program continued at its status quo pace.57 Ben-​Gurion essentially threaded the needle, pursuing both conventional modernization and nuclear weapons development at the same time, within existing limits. Military officers’ high levels of confidence in the Israeli military’s ability to defend the country with conventional means was an important part of the organizational preference for investing in conventional capabilities. While the government considered various possible scenarios in which Israel might be compelled to employ its nuclear arsenal in a last-​resort defense of the homeland and debated whether Israel should test a nuclear device, military officers found such planning and thinking foolish. Again, Cohen writes: To them, these national contingency plans of last resort seemed militarily unrealistic. . . . [T]‌hey were committed to the notion that the IDF mission was to prevent these scenarios from ever coming to pass. . . . [T]his was ingrained in military thinking. To accomplish this mission, Israel needed a strong tactical air force and a massive armored force. These [nuclear] last resort scenarios planned for the contingency that the IDF had failed in defending Israel; senior Israeli military officers believed that they were irrelevant for all practical purposes.58

Because officers did not consider the IDF’s failure to defend the country to be a realistic possibility, they maintained their focus on the conventional capabilities needed to support the IDF’s plans. These optimistic views about the IDF’s ability to successfully execute its plans contributed to the military’s belief that Israel simply did not require a nuclear deterrent. Militaries create new doctrines, plans, and operations for nuclear weapons, but militaries also require a fighting force of soldiers, conventional

100  Nuclear Decisions weapons, and equipment. And military organizations tend to prefer to keep to their traditional methods and means. The history of the state pursuit of nuclear weapons indicates that no military organization has believed that it can achieve acceptable levels of readiness in the absence of these traditional means, even with a nuclear arsenal. The Israeli state, founded in the aftermath of genocide and surrounded by potential existential threats, produced a military that, in this regard, was no different. In 1963 Ben-​Gurion stepped down, and Levi Eshkol became prime minister. By 1965 Eshkol had consolidated his power, fending off a political challenge from Ben-​Gurion, who had formed a new party and attempted to unseat Eshkol after the two men had a falling out. At this point Ben-​Gurion and Peres no longer held positions of authority and could no longer influence the direction of the nuclear weapons program. Because the program was legally informal, and Peres had, on his own authority, created the program as consisting of many small suborganizations all reporting to his office, there was little to no cross-​agency communication. No independent scientific authority existed to oversee or assess the program. This had satisfied Peres’s desire to maintain personal authority over the program, but now that Eshkol was in power, he restructured the informal organization. He likely issued secret orders to reorganize the IAEC, giving the agency the authority to direct the nuclear program and placing it directly under the office of the prime minister.59 The program had now progressed to the point where scientists would be making choices about weapons development in the absence of military input. Eshkol directed a few key people to develop a nuclear strategic doctrine.60 But he made no decisions with long-​term implications, such as authorizing a test, despite the wishes of the head scientists at Dimona. This was due in part to Eshkol’s caution in moving Israel toward a stage of nuclear development that would become obvious to foreign powers, as well as to his belief that Israel must prioritize conventional weaponry. And those Eshkol had tasked with developing a doctrine for the military utility of nuclear weapons, chief among them scientist Yuval Ne’eman and Colonel Avraham Tamir, shared the military organization’s view that Israel did not need an operational nuclear arsenal.61 By late 1966 Israel was on the nuclear weapons threshold, and Eshkol valued the benefits nuclear deterrence would provide. Yet he proceeded cautiously, surrounded by people of like mind and able to largely ignore project scientists, who lacked the ability to exert political pressure due to the structure of the nuclear agency.

The Permissive Period  101 While the Israeli case begins in the permissive period, Israel did not acquire a de facto nuclear weapons capability until the early years of the transition period. The bulk of Israeli nuclear development, however, was complete before the emergence of the nonproliferation regime. Nascent nonproliferation norms were slowly developing in the early 1960s, marking the waning years of the permissive period. In 1963 the Kennedy administration in the United States attempted to pressure the new Eshkol government to sign the PTBT. Recall from Chapter 4 that PTBT negotiations had been recurring for nearly a decade, finally coming to fruition due to a Soviet compromise on the inspections needed to verify treaty compliance. Eshkol, realizing that not signing the treaty could reveal Israel’s hand, kept quiet about Israel’s progress—​the Dimona facility was nearing completion at the time—​and his government announced that Israel would sign.62 Israel signed the PTBT on August 8, using it as cover for its clandestine parallel program. Dimona’s reactor went critical on December 26. Just a few years later, when the United States began advancing more serious nonproliferation efforts, such as the NPT, it was too late.63 Israel was already an undeclared nuclear weapons state.

Conclusion The Israeli pursuit of nuclear weapons was marked by neither nuclear acceleration decisions nor reversal decisions. Once Ben-​Gurion had made the decision to start down the path to the bomb, Israeli secrecy, extraordinary even within the rarefied world of top-​secret nuclear weapons programs, and tight, top-​down control allowed the nuclear program to proceed but allowed for little debate. With the military organization sidelined and the scientific community both divided and lacking influence, Israel’s leaders faced minimal pressure from below. With most nuclear development taking place during the permissive period, Israel was free to use French nuclear assistance—​although not American nuclear assistance—​to support the militarized nuclear effort. This was a crucial factor enabling the program to progress steadily toward a nuclear weapons capability. But even with an enthusiastic leader and the presence of significant external threats, there were no further nuclear acceleration decisions made at the executive level. As the program continued, the prime minister’s authority to make decisions alone declined. Israeli leaders did not respond to external security events, such as Egypt’s missile program development,

102  Nuclear Decisions by making nuclear decisions, but rather by carefully considering arguments from different quarters and maintaining a balance between investing in conventional and nuclear capabilities. Israel’s precarious position in the world contributed to this cautious approach, as leaders sought to advance the clandestine program as far as possible before its inevitable discovery.

France The French nuclear program was established by Chairman of the Provisional Government Charles de Gaulle in 1945 with the creation of the CEA. But although de Gaulle intended the program to encompass not only the scientific study of atomic energy but also its possible military and industrial applications, the agency would not pursue any weapons-​oriented research until the 1950s. I code the French nuclear organization as having mixed preferences regarding a French nuclear weapons capability, although the balance tended to tip slightly more toward support, and low capacity to inform and influence. Even when the French leader was personally interested in a nuclear weapons capacity, the CEA was rarely able to successfully promote its agenda and experienced delays in receiving needed authorizations and funds. I code the military organization as having little capacity to inform and influence leaders at first, but that capacity increased after Charles de Gaulle initiated policies regarding the French occupation of Algeria that some factions of the military strongly opposed. As the internal threat to his political survival grew, de Gaulle increasingly accommodated the preferences of the military. While some within the French military supported the nuclear weapons effort, opposition was stronger, particularly within the army. These organizational preferences help explain the lack of nuclear acceleration decisions along the proliferation curve (see Figure 5.3). The proliferation environment was permissive; external constraints did not factor into France’s nuclear pursuits. Finally, France’s security environment was interpreted by the military as requiring conventional, not nuclear, weapons.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions An early orientation away from nuclear weapons was due chiefly to France’s first high commissioner for atomic energy, Frédéric Joliot-​Curie. Joliot-​Curie

The Permissive Period  103 Figure 5.3  Proliferation curve: France

was a devoted Communist personally opposed to war, particularly against the Soviet Union. He refused to conduct scientific research toward the development of nuclear weapons, and the scientists under him either shared or abided by his views. In these first years of France’s nuclear research program, scientists directed policy, both because of Joliot-​Curie’s strong personality and because most high-​ranking French government officials were uninterested. The program was shaped by the scientists, who made expert decisions about research priorities and the materials needed. As Lawrence Scheinman put it, government officials, unable to understand or oversee such highly

104  Nuclear Decisions technical and sophisticated decisions, “deferred to the judgment and superior knowledge of [the scientists].”64 Joliot-​Curie was removed from his post in 1950, after the potential security risk posed by his loud and militant professions of loyalty to the Communist Party finally became impossible to ignore.65 In 1951 two CEA commissioners, both in favor of pursuing military applications for scientific nuclear research, reorganized the institution so that scientific authority became subordinate to administrative authority.66 The CEA was also enlarged to include officials from industry and from other government agencies, increasing the number of stakeholders directly involved in French nuclear pursuits.67 At the same time, scientific representation decreased; after the reorganization, only three scientists held leadership positions, and one of those three was open to a nuclear weapons option.68 The high commissioner, now subordinate to the CEA’s administrator general, would no longer hold the power Joliot-​Curie had wielded. While this event occurred prior to the official French decision to pursue nuclear weapons, it illustrates how organizations can be shaped and preferences reinforced. While dissenting opinions can be expected to exist within any organization, and not all members of an agency share the same preferences, agency preferences are consolidated when those with strong dissenting opinions leave or are marginalized. The CEA typically reported to the prime minister through a cabinet-​level minister during these years and thus had limited ability to directly influence the leader’s nuclear decision-​making. At this stage the organization’s influence depended more on whether the man inhabiting the office of the prime minister—​and under the Fourth Republic (1946–​1958) there were twenty-​five prime ministers in twelve years—​was interested in atomic energy. When de Gaulle had created the CEA, he had not done so informally but had orchestrated parliamentary approval of the new agency. Statutes passed by the Assemblée Nationale (the lower house of the French parliament) granted the CEA unusual autonomy for a government agency, protecting it by law from the financial controls that would typically be imposed and insulating it from political meddling. After de Gaulle left power in 1946, French prime ministers generally left the CEA to its own devices, as they directed the bulk of their attention to rebuilding postwar France. This situation of general neglect and indecisiveness at the executive level, and legal autonomy but little direct influence at the nuclear organization level, persisted until the late 1950s.69 The new administrator general, Pierre Guillaumat, favored arming France with nuclear weapons. The CEA’s autonomy from ministerial control allowed

The Permissive Period  105 Guillaumat to direct research toward a possible future nuclear weapons program; for example, he led engineers working on a reactor project to design reactors that would be able to produce weapons-​grade plutonium.70 More scientists were becoming interested in producing fissionable material as well, and key positions were filled with scientists who were open to that prospect.71 Guillaumat seeded advisory committees with those who shared his views, influencing the nature of the messages that would reach government leaders.72 In addition, Guillaumat enjoyed a good relationship with Félix Gaillard, who served as secretary of state for atomic energy under Prime Minister René Pleven, who held office for five months in 1951–​1952.73 Gaillard later became prime minister himself for approximately six months in 1957–​1958. The government would make no formal decision regarding the pursuit of nuclear weapons for several years, but the CEA’s programs were headed in a direction that would allow such a pursuit to be undertaken quickly and easily when the decision came. The first decision, made by Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France in 1954, was informal. The second, made by Gaillard in 1958, was formal and was followed later that year by a third decision, made by de Gaulle. Each of these decisions pushed France closer to the bomb. The context for these decisions can be understood by examining not only the dominant organizational preferences but also the security environment and the French desire for prestige and independence. France’s postliberation prime ministers believed that France would need nuclear weapons in order to regain its status as a major world power, but they also faced serious budget constraints and society-​wide economic needs.74 There was little political will to return France to its rightful place on the world stage in the short term. In addition, French leaders well understood that both the United States and Soviet Union wanted to hold onto their nuclear monopolies, with the United States considering Great Britain, not France, its favored ally. But while many in the French military were content to access nuclear weapons through NATO, the Fourth Republic’s civilian prime ministers, and several key government officials who remained active in various roles throughout this period, believed France could not trust the United States and United Kingdom for its security and would eventually need to gain an independent arsenal.75 Mendès France shared this view of France’s security and also wanted France to regain its status as an important world power.76 The United Kingdom had become a nuclear weapons state in 1952, and many French officials believed that France needed to catch up.77 Further, Mendès France believed a French

106  Nuclear Decisions nuclear weapons capability would both counter any German threat and distinguish France from Germany.78 And the prime minister felt some pressure from both members of the CEA and a few voices in the military to pursue nuclear weapons. But Mendès France was unfamiliar with the status and details of French nuclear development. He called a meeting on December 26, 1954, to discuss what should, or should not, be done. At the meeting, military officers expressed their opposition to a nuclear weapons program, as did a number of others, including Francis Perrin, who had succeeded Joliot-​Curie as CEA high commissioner.79 Within both the nuclear and military organizations, competing preferences muddied both pro-​and antinuclear messages. However, the CEA’s generally pro-​nuclear weapons influence over the preceding several years, combined with the support of pro-​nuclear weapons officials serving within the French government, tipped the scales in the CEA’s favor. By the end of the meeting, with no consensus having emerged, Mendès France indicated that research into military applications, were it to happen, would take place under the authority of the CEA. While he made no formal declaration, the CEA members understood that they would now be allowed to proceed with a research agenda related to nuclear weapons.80 The CEA had lacked the type of influence that would have driven a program forward more quickly and with a formal authorization. But its autonomy, coupled with the pro-​nuclear orientation of its administrators (and growing numbers of its scientists), helped facilitate Mendès France’s tacit granting of permission. A small number of military officers supported the French pursuit of nuclear weapons. Some, for example, believed that if the CEA were to one day produce plutonium, as called for in the 1952 Five-​Year Plan, then the military should have authority over its own, separate nuclear program, apart from those scientists who harbored antimilitary views. (The CEA successfully opposed this proposition.)81 But most of the French military was opposed. CEA official Bertrand Goldschmidt described the situation this way: “The strongest force against the bomb was in the army itself.”82 This opposition was driven mainly by organizational preferences, and it constrained nuclear decision-​making throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The French military, particularly the army, had deep concerns about the utility of nuclear weapons in actual combat situations and thus opposed the allocation of resources away from conventional weapons programs. The French army viewed nuclear weapons as ill-​suited for its needs during the colonial conflicts of the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly, even serious

The Permissive Period  107 military defeats did not lead the French military organization to turn to nuclear weapons as the solution. The French military’s humbling losses to Vietnamese fighters at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 exemplified both the military’s past-​oriented planning and its limited ability to adapt to new types of war fighting. Scheinman describes military officers in the 1950s as “seeking truth in the old books of the Napoleonic campaigns”—​in other words, always fighting the last war.83 And Dien Bien Phu showed French officers that the United States would not come to France’s rescue. Yet the majority of the military leadership did not believe that investing in an expensive, full-​scale nuclear weapons program would best prepare the French military for future conflict.84 One lesson of Dien Bien Phu—​that France could not count on the United States—​was reinforced after the Suez crisis of 1956, in which France and Britain had to back down in the absence of American support. While key civilian leaders in the government responded to the French loss at Suez by turning their attention to the nuclear program, and some military officers began considering nuclear weapons pursuit more seriously, a pro-​nuclear weapons position still did not gain traction within the broader military organization.85 Officers feared that allocating resources to a nuclear weapons program would lead to the neglect of conventional weapons systems and equipment, and that neglect would ultimately render obsolete the military’s conventional means.86 The military was in great need of conventional weapons in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Algeria, among other places, during those decades. This was not just an army view; air force leadership was “openly hostile” to the idea of a nuclear arsenal.87 Guerrilla warfare remained a primary concern of the French military, and atomic weapons were not the right systems to support the mission. Instead, the military believed mobile conventional forces should be prioritized.88 The civilian-​run Defense Ministry was more interested in nuclear weapons than was the military, as was the French Senate. A majority of Senate officials disagreed with the military’s view that guerrilla wars were the most likely future wars and approved the creation of a military division within the CEA in 1956.89 But throughout the 1950s the military’s attitude largely centered on the belief that conventional systems not only were what was needed to meet existing French commitments but would also be sufficient to protect France from Soviet atomic weapons. This attitude began to shift in the late 1950s, after Soviet nuclear weapons capabilities advanced to the extent that growing numbers of French officers felt a conventional approach no longer seemed sufficient.90

108  Nuclear Decisions Throughout the mid-​1950s, despite a general lack of support from the military and with limited political support, the CEA leveraged its political autonomy and independent budget to continue research and development within the weapons-​oriented component of the nuclear program. Mendès France’s 1954 nuclear decision, while far short of a formal order, was enough to provide CEA administrator general Pierre Guillaumat with the authority to establish the militarized program and to direct research as he pleased. In addition, domestic politics helped send a positive signal to the scientists. Most of the political support for atomic weapons had come from Gaullists, while the Left remained opposed. Once Mendès France, a leftist, indicated that he would allow military applications of nuclear research, this persuaded some scientists to adopt his view and provided political cover. Importantly, CEA high commissioner Francis Perrin was one of those scientists who were persuaded.91 Soon after Mendès France’s decision, the CEA and the military agreed to combine some of their resources and created a small bureau, staffed by a military general, a CEA administrator, and a pro-​nuclear scientist. This bureau reported directly to the office of the prime minister and facilitated collaboration between the military and the CEA, satisfying some military officers’ prior interest in a separate, military-​controlled program. By now Edgar Faure had become prime minister. He was ambivalent about the atom but did not reverse Mendès France’s decision, and in fact he authorized more funding.92 The bureau received financial support for the pro-​nuclear Ministry of National Defense and grew rapidly, becoming a department by the 1956.93 At the end of 1957 the pro-​nuclear Gaillard came into office as prime minister, and in April 1958, with more military support than in the past years and with support from politicians in his government, he signed the order authorizing preparation for France’s first nuclear test.94 The CEA had prevailed. A second nuclear decision came within just a few months. Charles de Gaulle returned as the head of the French government in 1958, amid a political crisis. Frustrated with what they saw as an ineffective French government that had lost sight of its mission in Algeria, the French military in Algeria, with the support of Gaullist allies, had launched a coup. President René Coty stepped aside and named de Gaulle as prime minister. Two of the first official actions de Gaulle took were establishing tight civilian control of the military and naming Guillaumat as his defense minister. Within a few days de Gaulle then made the decision to accelerate the French pursuit of nuclear weapons, ordering the development of a full-​scale military nuclear

The Permissive Period  109 program. In doing so, de Gaulle further established civilian authority over the nuclear program.95 De Gaulle, ushering in the French Fifth Republic with a new constitution, ascended to the newly powerful presidency on January 8, 1959. A celebrated army general and national hero, de Gaulle believed that postwar France needed nuclear weapons, and he was committed to moving program development forward.96 But the nuclear weapons program had become salient and was controversial in ways it had not been during the 1950s, when the program had been ambiguous. The military, rather than adopting de Gaulle’s vision of a nuclear-​armed France, not only remained split along competing organizational interests but also posed a threat to de Gaulle’s regime. De Gaulle had come to power due to in large part to the support of the military. However, he began efforts to end the French occupation of Algeria, something French forces in Algeria fervently opposed, and in doing so placed himself in a precarious situation. De Gaulle was targeted in multiple assassination attempts by the Organisation Armée Secrète, a paramilitary group founded by former French military officers. And in April 1961 the French Algerian military launched its next coup attempt, this time aimed at de Gaulle. During the army’s struggle to maintain power amid increasing levels of violence in the Algerian War of Independence, French general Edmond Jouhaud commented in 1958 on the impracticality of a nuclear weapons program with this pointed question: “How is the atom bomb going to help us pacify Algeria?”97 Jouhaud would become one of the leaders of the coup attempt that took place in Algeria in April 1961. De Gaulle put down the military putsch, but a key reason he succeeded was that most military officers hedged, waiting to gauge how successful de Gaulle’s response was likely to be before choosing sides. Throughout his time in office, de Gaulle thus had to seriously consider military interests, and the organization proved to be a source of constraint that helps explain why it took France so long to both develop its nuclear weapons program and incorporate a nuclear capability into the armed forces once France had tested its first nuclear fission device.98 That test was conducted on schedule in 1960. After de Gaulle accelerated nuclear development in 1958, the CEA scientists threw themselves into intense work, energized by the tangible results that were finally being obtained from the many years of research work. Former CEA official Marc de Lacoste Lareymondie recalled that, excited by the thrill of scientific discovery, CEA scientists thought little about how nuclear explosives might be used by the

110  Nuclear Decisions military, focusing instead on advancing knowledge and developing prowess in this cutting-​edge field.99 But de Gaulle’s military balancing act had become more precarious, and he could not push too hard to rapidly develop a French nuclear force and risk losing military support in the process. Once a state has already acquired a nuclear weapons capability, a nuclear decision can take on different forms. A leader may decide to open a second route to the bomb, to build additional or more sophisticated facilities to produce weapons more quickly, or to develop much more powerful thermonuclear weapons, among other decisions. When considering the cost and timelines involved with accelerating a nuclear weapons program, military officers may prefer to use budgetary and program resources to build larger arsenals rather than to invest in developments that may or may not succeed in producing future capabilities. There is an important distinction to draw here between a nuclear weapons program and a military’s nuclear posture.100 Posture decisions concern the deployment of the nuclear weapons themselves and may be implemented quickly, within hours or days. Operational decisions, like mobilizing pilots to wait for orders while they sit inside fueled bombers loaded with nuclear warheads, involve plans that can be executed in the short term. Program decisions, on the other hand, involve long-​ term plans about nuclear weapons development that require substantial state resources and may be implemented over a period of years. A decision to begin a crash program to produce a hydrogen bomb, to begin an indigenous uranium enrichment program, or to work with a nuclear supplier country to build a new reprocessing plant to supply plutonium for nuclear warheads is a program decision. While an organizational bias toward the offensive use of force increases the likelihood that a military will implement an offensively oriented nuclear posture, that bias also lowers the likelihood that the military officers will agree on whether to prioritize investment in further program development. Organizational preferences for conventional arms compete with preferences for innovation. Typically, officers with traditional interests promote investment in conventional weapons that can be used in war, while officers involved in nuclear-​related programs within the military will be likely to advocate allocating resources toward either nuclear stockpiling or nuclear program development. As a result, the attention of the military organization is likely to be divided. This dynamic was present in the French system after the 1960 Gerboise Bleue test in the Algerian desert. There was a clear distinction in the French

The Permissive Period  111 bureaucracy between how civilian and military decision-​makers weighed investing in building an arsenal against investing in nuclear research and development. This had implications for both decision-​making and implementation; the French military dragged its feet even when de Gaulle authorized program acceleration. After France’s successful test, the next step for scientists in the CEA’s Department of Military Applications (DAM) was to follow the path of other nuclear weapons powers and begin work on developing a hydrogen bomb. However, the French armed forces were concerned that a hydrogen bomb program would divert funds from “needed conventional weapons.”101 The Ministry of Defense refused to fund the program. Instead, military authorities prioritized the existing generation of atomic weapons that were already part of military plans.102 Rather than developing more powerful nuclear weapons, the military preferred to focus on the near term, planning to increase nuclear capabilities by producing more of the fission weapons that could be built in the present. But de Gaulle wanted France to continue with the next generation of nuclear weapons development. In December 1960 the Assemblée Nationale, with minimal political support besides that of de Gaulle, passed a bill to fund thermonuclear research.103 Interestingly, while the resulting program was slow, plodding, and mainly devoted to theoretical work, de Gaulle was unconcerned. Alain Peyrefitte, a high-​ranking French official at the time, recalled speaking with de Gaulle in July 1962 after a Council of Ministers meeting. In that meeting Gaston Palewski, then a minister with a portfolio including atomic energy, had mentioned 1970 as a possible year for “an eventual thermonuclear experiment.” Peyrefitte had asked de Gaulle whether that eight-​year timeline seemed too long, but de Gaulle’s response had been that, essentially, while sooner might be nice, these things take time. He made no effort to speed up the program.104 Why would de Gaulle decide to start a hydrogen bomb program and then allow it to plod along? And why did he not accelerate the development of a deployable nuclear force? France would not deploy nuclear warheads until 1964, several years after the successful Gerboise Bleue test. If Suez had shown the French they had to provide for their own security, and furthermore, if de Gaulle wanted France to regain prestige and influence as a global power, why wouldn’t he have acted quickly after the test by funneling resources into building a nuclear arsenal that would allow France to achieve both goals? Divisions within the French military, and the limited nature of the CEA’s

112  Nuclear Decisions relationship with de Gaulle, can again provide some context for this puzzling lack of nuclear acceleration decisions. The organizational concern within the military that a nuclear weapons program would divert resources from conventional systems and jeopardize existing programs was realized during the 1960s. By the middle of the decade, nuclear weapons–​related programs and systems had grown to make up approximately 25 percent of total military spending.105 Powerful Gaullist Alexandre Sanguinetti complained that French officers were uninterested in developing a military doctrine for the force de frappe, the French term for its nuclear weapons capability. The traditional interests of the military posed an obstacle to adopting new ways of thinking. But once the new mission took hold, parochial military interests did as well, as Sanguinetti described: As soon as the doctrine of nuclear dissuasion was adopted, the various branches engaged in a merciless struggle regarding now limited funds, in order to retain as much as possible of their traditional structures, presenting these, by ingenious arguments, as being integral parts of deterrence, thus as having the same priority.106

Indeed, after the army left Algeria, interservice conflict only increased. In 1964, looking for a new mission, the army argued that it could become part of the force de frappe, particularly in the realm of tactical nuclear weapons. However, the air force successfully kept the army out of the nuclear domain for the next decade. Sanguinetti was frustrated that the service branches, in competing with each other for scarce resources, were focused on protecting turf rather than on what he and de Gaulle believed was in the French national interest: developing a nuclear arsenal. The impact of the increasingly large portion of the budget allocation to the nuclear program was exacerbated by the fact that defense spending overall was decreasing. Personnel cuts were made across the military, but the army, with no role in the force de frappe, suffered the worst losses, with a reduction of 57 percent of its personnel between 1961 and 1969.107 De Gaulle was attempting to fund a nuclear program and modernize the conventional military, all while pouring money into French industry and technology to revive the national economy. He also believed it was time for French soldiers to come home and defend the nation rather than continue old colonial struggles abroad.108 De Gaulle was by no means abandoning the conventional military, and needed to satisfy the army to stay in power, but he perceived a clear

The Permissive Period  113 strategic distinction between the utility of the conventional army and of a nuclear arsenal. They would both be valuable, but for different purposes. And because of the French war in Algeria, the army constituted by far the largest service branch of the French armed forces. After that war ended and the troops returned to France, the army no longer needed such a massive fighting force and was the logical place for reductions.109 The nuclear program was thus not the only cause of the weakening of French conventional forces, and both nuclear and conventional projects suffered from a lack of funding, but spending on nuclear at least imposed a ceiling of sorts on conventional spending.110 Having achieved nuclear weapons status for France, de Gaulle’s priorities appeared to align more with the military than with the scientists. Although he had approved the thermonuclear weapons program, he did not keep a close eye on it as it moved slowly forward. In the 1950s the Defense Ministry had helped facilitate progress in weapons-​related nuclear development. But now in the early 1960s Pierre Messmer, a Gaullist and trusted loyalist, served as minister of the armed forces and focused the ministry’s resources on Algeria. The key leaders in the French armed forces still believed that nuclear weapons development was too expensive, and Messmer would have been concerned about de Gaulle’s political survival. Much of the budget devoted to nuclear resources went not to the future-​oriented hydrogen bomb research program but to the near-​term development and deployment of fission bombs. The military preferred to allocate resources to developing a warhead small enough for Mirage IV bombers to deliver and to developing a warhead for submarine-​launched ballistic missiles.111 The CEA’s DAM, on the other hand, had difficulties obtaining Defense Ministry funding for the hydrogen bomb program. In 1961 the DAM again tried to secure approval for accelerating the program toward designing a hydrogen bomb to be developed and deployed, but it was refused by the army, which requested more and higher-​yield fission weapons instead. This situation continued over the next several years. During a Defense Council meeting in May 1963 de Gaulle followed the army’s preferences, electing to invest in new fission weapons with a 500 kiloton yield rather than in the thermonuclear program.112 Only when de Gaulle realized in 1965 that China was progressing toward thermonuclear weapons, and that France, while not in any danger from China, would be the only one of the five original powers without the hydrogen bomb, did he finally make the decision to accelerate. Even then

114  Nuclear Decisions this decision was not immediately executed. Due to vague directives, poor communication with the scientists, and a lack of appropriate funding from a Ministry of Defense that opposed the project, progress was slow. By 1966 CEA scientists had still not received the needed funding.113 Pierre Billaud, who directed the French nuclear weapons design center at Limeil from 1962 to 1966, recalls with frustration: “Every time a choice had to be made, the reflex of the [defense] ministry was to select the less innovative solution.”114 When scientists offered the military new weapons technology, superior in design and function to the old, the tendency of the military was to reject the new in favor of proven, reliable capabilities. Billaud’s account betrays some of his surprise and disappointment that the elegant new weapons were so underappreciated by the end users. Nuclear weapons scientists have strong professional preferences for discovery and innovation, while military officers have strong professional preferences for the familiar. And despite de Gaulle’s interest in the program, the CEA lacked the ability to successfully promote its agenda.

Conclusion Ultimately, the French army came to support the force de frappe, embracing the prestige that came along with the arsenal. But the military organizational tendency to prefer the conventional side of the conventional-​nuclear resource trade-​off, particularly during program development stages, is widely observable in the French case. In addition, the French community of nuclear scientists was initially anti-​bomb. While this changed over time, due both to administrative efforts to promote pro-​bomb scientists and to a gradual shift in mindset, the scientific community was not as influential as it could have been had critical subagencies within the CEA organization, such as the DAM, had more access to leadership and funding. These events illustrate not only the conditions under which military organizational preferences affect nuclear decision-​making but also how a nuclear agency that lacks access to the country leader has little ability to influence nuclear decisions. De Gaulle generally set defense policies as he pleased, and he personally believed a nuclear weapons capability was crucial for the future of France. But army politics, and the secrecy and technical opacity that separated the nuclear program from the rest of the government, impacted de Gaulle’s nuclear decision-​making. The nuclear organization

The Permissive Period  115 lacked the influence to expand de Gaulle’s understanding of those choices, and the competing preferences of the military organization constrained those choices.

Conclusion: Nuclear Decisions during the Permissive Period During the permissive period, nuclear reversal decisions were rare, and they were entirely absent in these three case studies.115 Across these three cases, nuclear acceleration decisions did not simply follow leaders’ interests in acquiring nuclear weapons or mirror the state’s security environment. Organizational interests and politics also played a role in shaping the course of the nuclear weapons program. The scientific communities in the three countries were all at least partially divided over the desirability of pursuing nuclear weapons programs instead of theoretical research. In all three cases, however, the preferences of the nuclear agencies consolidated over time. Gradually, pro-​nuclear weapons scientists self-​selected into or were placed in these programs, including in positions of leadership. Nuclear agencies with greater organizational independence and access to the leader had a greater ability to shape the leader’s policy choices and impose their own preferences; Stalin’s Soviet Union is the most obvious example. Military organizational preferences for investing in conventional weapons and traditional missions often won out over military voices calling for a nuclear weapons program. Even Soviet military officers, facing a nuclear-​ armed United States, advocated for conventional counterstrategies to meet that threat. In France the military actively constrained de Gaulle, a nuclear weapons champion who had to maintain the army’s support to stay in power. Israel continued to strike a balance between allocating state resources to both conventional and nuclear weapons development. In the face of existential threats, the prevailing view within the Israeli military was to invest in the IDF to defend the country, thus rendering a nuclear weapons capability unnecessary. The lack of international consensus regarding nuclear proliferation during this period meant that nuclear weapons pursuers faced few normative or policy constraints. The Soviet Union and France considered nuclear weapons acquisition to be a defining feature of a major world power and anticipated reputational benefits. As the permissive period ended, and

116  Nuclear Decisions nuclear nonproliferation norms began to emerge, Israel faced increased pressure from the United States to forgo its suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. Even so, Israeli leaders decided to proceed with the program, benefiting from French nuclear assistance and operating at high levels of secrecy to hide the program’s true purpose from Washington for as long as possible. Several years into the transition period, Nonproliferation Treaty negotiations were in their last stages, and Washington was considering how and whether to exert more pressure on Jerusalem, but Israel had already achieved a nuclear weapons capability. In the next chapter I examine nuclear decision-​making during the transition period in three countries: Sweden, South Korea, and India.

6 The Transition Period Sweden, South Korea, and India

Opening with the start of the negotiations that would culminate in the NPT and ending with India’s PNE, the transition period (1965–​1974) spans the years in which an international nuclear nonproliferation regime began. After China’s first nuclear test in the fall of 1964, the United States and the Soviet Union shared concerns that more states would soon follow, disrupting the balance of power. Ongoing disagreements between the two rivals delayed progress toward establishing common ground on how to prevent proliferation, but by the fall of 1966 Soviet concern over continued Chinese testing and the US abandonment of a plan for nuclear weapons sharing with West Germany facilitated the successful negotiation of an early draft of Article I of the NPT. The international negotiations process that followed and the early nonproliferation regime that formed as a result shaped the environment in which states pursued nuclear weapons during these years. The nonproliferation regime, however, was only in its initial stages during this period. What we now think of as the watershed of the NPT was still forming. Several non–​nuclear weapons states believed the treaty would permanently divide the world into the nuclear haves and have-​nots, despite a clause pledging disarmament for the existing nuclear weapons powers. The treaty had called for IAEA safeguards on nuclear exports to non-​ nuclear states, but due to the growing, lucrative, and highly competitive market, safeguards on exported nuclear materials were often only partially implemented, if at all. And key nuclear suppliers did not sign the treaty until after the end of the transition period. When India tested its nuclear device in 1974, using unsafeguarded nuclear equipment and material from foreign suppliers, the nascent nonproliferation regime was thrown into shock. In this chapter I examine nuclear decisions in three states: Sweden, South Korea, and India. In each case significant program development and decision-​making took place during the transition period. While India succeeded in acquiring nuclear weapons, both Sweden and South Korea Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0006

118  Nuclear Decisions abandoned their programs. Indeed, whether Sweden’s program should be considered a true nuclear weapons program or only an exploration into the possibility of a future program is not entirely clear. South Korea’s program was conducted during military rule. India and Sweden both maintained strict civilian control of the military, but Sweden’s military was influential, while India’s military had extremely limited access to the decision-​making process. India’s nuclear organization enjoyed periods of high influence, particularly during the first decade of the nuclear program, while the military was excluded from program planning. Sweden’s military and nuclear organizations worked together for years to promote nuclear weapons research and development, until a forced consensus fractured and the military stopped championing a nuclear program. In all three cases the increased difficulty of procuring unsafeguarded nuclear materials, equipment, and technology delayed progress and raised the costs of nuclear weapons pursuit, which affected decision-​making.

Sweden Sweden’s nuclear weapons effort is difficult to define using the standard categories. Was Sweden a case of nuclear “exploration,” meaning there was serious consideration of nuclear weapons but that no decision was made to pursue?1 Or was it a case of nuclear pursuit that was terminated before the weapons were built? I include Sweden as a case study in this book partly because of the gray area into which the program falls. Sweden’s weapons-​ oriented nuclear research program progressed all the way to a latent nuclear weapons capability, even in the absence of a political decision to formally authorize a national nuclear weapons program. The Swedish case allows me to examine how decision-​making in a more ambiguous case of nuclear weapons pursuit may be affected by the domestic information environment and the international proliferation environment. I code the nuclear organization as holding strong preferences for nuclear weapons development and as having low capacity to inform and influence the leader. The agency enjoyed independence from the executive during its early years, but that independence was somewhat curtailed by Parliament in the early 1950s and then again in the late 1950s. Ultimately, because the nuclear agency lacked direct access to the leader, but instead reported to the military command, and later to the Ministry of Defence as well, the agency’s

The Transition Period  119 fortunes rested in large part on whether the military supported the nuclear effort. I code the military as having a midlevel capacity to inform and influence the leader and as holding preferences that generally supported nuclear weapons development but varied in terms of strength. Whether the military leaders in influential positions of power were strong or weak supporters affected how willing they were to devote their political capital to lobbying the leader and political elite for nuclear program support. The military played a significant role in interpreting the security environment and assessing whether acquiring nuclear weapons would advance Sweden’s security interests. The proliferation environment in which Sweden’s nuclear pursuit took place was permissive at first, but as nascent nonproliferation norms and proliferation constraints emerged and evolved, nuclear weapons supporters faced new hurdles. As the permissive period gave way to the transition period, some domestic audiences took note of international disarmament movements and nonproliferation policies. International safeguards on nuclear exports grew more stringent, and experts anticipated future program costs and delays.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions The key nuclear weapons–​ oriented agency in Sweden was the Swedish National Defense Research Institute, or FOA (Försvarets Forskningsanstalt). FOA was established on April 1, 1945, as a center for the research and development of military technology. While FOA was not commanded by the military, the agency’s board, which had the authority to direct what research the agency would conduct, included the supreme commander of the Swedish armed forces, among others. Further, the agency’s budget was funded mainly by the Swedish defense budget.2 The supreme commander could thus play a leading role in assigning research tasks. In August 1945, within two weeks of the first use of nuclear weapons in war, Supreme Commander Helge Jung asked FOA to investigate what was known about the atomic bombs used to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see Figure 6.1).3 This request, which Swedish historian Thomas Jonter refers to as the “starting gun” for Swedish nuclear weapons research, concerned the effects of the bombs, but FOA’s scientists quickly developed an interest in pursuing research beyond this aspect of nuclear weapons.4

120  Nuclear Decisions Figure 6.1  Proliferation curve: Sweden

A few months later, FOA asked the supreme commander for funding to pursue additional research, related this time to nuclear weapons development. Jung agreed, and scientific work progressed rapidly and enthusiastically. Within a year FOA scientists had begun conducting research with direct military applications, such as initiating nuclear fission in a nuclear explosive device, and methods of producing heavy water (which would be used to enrich uranium).5 The program was proceeding quickly, but no political

The Transition Period  121 decision to pursue nuclear weapons had been made by civilian government leaders. In 1947 the public-​private company AB Atomenergi (AE) was created by the Swedish government and private Swedish firms to pursue the development of civilian nuclear energy. Two years later FOA and AE entered into an agreement in which FOA was responsible for nuclear weapons research, while AE would pursue a civilian nuclear program in collaboration with FOA. This collaboration would support the development of a civilian program that would also be suitable for manufacturing nuclear weapons.6 Thus, in these early years the Swedish government allowed both FOA and AE to proceed down a military-​oriented nuclear path, even without an explicit political mandate. That same year, the Swedish military drafted a planning report, ÖB-​47, to set organizational priorities for the next several years of force development. While the Soviet Union was not yet a nuclear weapons state, it still presented a threat to Sweden. In the report, the Swedish military presented several possible advantages of a Swedish nuclear weapons capability. Concerns regarding the likelihood of a future conflict with the Soviet Union were heightened by the position of Soviet forces in the Baltic Sea region. However, at this point the Swedish military still believed that nuclear weapons were mainly equivalent to large quantities of conventional weapons in terms of destructive power. The psychological effect of the fear invoked by the weapons was viewed as their main benefit. The report argued that nuclear weapons could have strategic value in a war; one of the suggestions was that nuclear bombs could be used against cities to force a surrender. But the Swedish air force was uninterested in procuring nuclear bombs, and options like tactical nuclear weapons were dismissed as not being cost-​effective, when existing conventional forces would suffice.7 By 1948 many within the Swedish military and civilian leadership perceived a growing threat from the Soviet Union, and the military pursued the nuclear weapons option with renewed energy. Security guarantees from the United States would not satisfy the Swedish government; Sweden would seek security in neutrality and self-​sufficiency.8 Elected officials who had initially opposed the military’s 1947 proposal for defense spending now began to support the military’s requests. Nuclear weapons advocates within the military saw an opportunity. The chief of the defense staff, General Nils Swedlund, gave FOA an assignment: compile a report on how the Swedish military could utilize nuclear energy, including timelines and

122  Nuclear Decisions projected costs for nuclear weapons production.9 The young and enthusiastic scientists populating FOA, who were eager to shape state decisions and promote nuclear research, were thus given a great deal of influence by the military.10 However, FOA was more limited in its ability to influence civilian decision-​makers.11 The high level of freedom FOA scientists enjoyed in these early years began to be curtailed once the Swedish government started to understand that a program had expanded beyond what had been intended during its creation, and that program was operating with little oversight and with tacit political approval but no formal mandate. Between 1951 and 1953 FOA’s requests for significant additional funds were denied.12 Even though Sweden’s security environment was of great concern during these years, nuclear weapons were seen neither by the military nor by the civilian government as the obvious solution. But FOA continued to pursue nuclear weapons research, bringing Sweden closer to a latent nuclear weapons capability. In 1953, for example, the head of the nuclear chemistry section of FOA proposed an idea: advances in the scientific understanding of nuclear energy would make it possible for Sweden to develop tactical nuclear weapons light enough for field use by the Swedish army. The scientist received approval, and FOA carried out the study.13 In the absence of any type of nuclear decision from the government, the program proceeded, and it continued to be shaped by the nuclear organization. A more significant challenge to FOA’s freedom arose in 1954. Sweden was now operating a research reactor, using uranium from France and heavy water from Norway.14 During Sweden’s first parliamentary debate on nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Tage Erlander argued that international nonproliferation and disarmament efforts had made no progress. The prime minister explained that he believed the future use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict was likely. Although he discussed some of Sweden’s nuclear weapons research with the Parliament, he stopped short of explaining the extent to which FOA was progressing toward the bomb, phrasing FOA’s efforts in more theoretical terms.15 Most in Parliament did not realize what the implications of this research would likely be, and so parliamentary debate on the matter did not grow contentious until after the Swedish military released ÖB-​54, its first planning document since ÖB-​47 in 1947. General Swedlund, the former chief of the defense staff and now the supreme commander, asked FOA for a briefing on the status of nuclear weapons research. In April 1954 FOA presented the results of its rapid progress,

The Transition Period  123 discussed future costs, and advocated that an official nuclear weapons program be authorized so that FOA and AE could receive the personnel, funds, and facilities necessary to prepare for weapons production.16 Released in October, ÖB-​54 called for a Swedish nuclear weapons capability for the purpose of deterring a Soviet attack and argued that nuclear weapons would likely be used in the early stages of a major war. In concert with a strong conventional force, a Swedish nuclear capability would, the report claimed, force the Soviet Union to fight on multiple fronts and slow an attack long enough for the United States to join the war.17 A few months later FOA issued a report detailing how Sweden could move toward nuclear weapons production. By this point in 1955, Sweden had completed the necessary research and planning for nuclear weapons production and essentially possessed a latent nuclear weapons capability.18 After ÖB-​54 was released, the public political debate intensified. Prime Minister Erlander was initially in favor of the program; he had studied physics at Lund University and had an intellectual interest in nuclear fission.19 However, he was also a critical thinker who enjoyed debating different points of view to help him make up his mind on complex issues. As opponents of a Swedish nuclear weapons capability began speaking out, including some members of Erlander’s own Social Democratic Party, the prime minister sought information from every quarter. Soliciting opinions from both pro-​ and anti-​nuclear weapons groups from within his party and outside, and from Swedish and international researchers—​including the Danish physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr, who advised against a nuclear weapons option—​ Erlander took extraordinary steps to shape the information environment in which he would make decisions.20 No other state leader has a record of having sought out such a variety of competing views on nuclear development. By the end of 1957, after much deliberation, Erlander had changed his mind. Sweden’s security situation had not improved, and the military was becoming more vocal about the need for nuclear weapons. But after learning about the Soviet Union’s work on long-​range missiles, Erlander came to believe that a small arsenal of Swedish tactical nuclear weapons would be at best insignificant and at worst a catalyst for a Soviet preemptive nuclear attack.21 The threat from the USSR was not diminishing, and new Soviet capabilities were on the horizon, but Erlander did not believe a nuclear acceleration decision was the best response. He elected to allow FOA research to continue, keeping Sweden’s options open and delaying the need for a decision in either direction.

124  Nuclear Decisions Key Swedish military leaders, however, continued to champion the program, generating greater political controversy. With the program ready to transition to manufacturing, the military needed political approval to go forward. But in 1958 the Swedish Parliament declined to give that approval. Parliament was already embroiled in a contentious debate over defense, and Erlander, among others, believed pushing for a nuclear arsenal would jeopardize the entire military budget, including conventional programs. Instead, the government worked only to secure continued funding for FOA, allowing Sweden to once more postpone a final, yes-​or-​no decision. (Key members of Parliament who opposed a Swedish nuclear weapons program asked the minister of defense whether FOA was conducting weapons-​related research. The minister offered a response that placated the members but obscured the true extent of FOA’s militarized nuclear research.) FOA faced a new constraint, however: Parliament approved FOA’s continued research but decided that FOA could only conduct nuclear weapons “protection” research—​research that would help Sweden defend itself from enemy nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons development research was now prohibited.22 Within the context of a program that existed in a gray area between a nuclear weapons program and the study of nuclear weapons–​related science, the 1958 decision by the Swedish government was a nuclear reversal decision. The government clearly prohibited FOA from transitioning to nuclear weapons manufacturing. In addition, although the legality of its other activities was somewhat open to interpretation, for the first time the government led FOA one step away from nuclear weapons development. The 1958 decision effectively started Sweden down the “postponement path,” as Jonter terms it.23 In practice, what exactly constituted protection research as opposed to weapons development research was unclear, and FOA struggled with working within undefined boundaries. At one point the supreme commander asked the minister of defense if weapons design research would be permitted and was told no; he then asked the prime minister, who answered with a yes.24 This ambiguity both hamstrung FOA, delaying research progress, and allowed Sweden to hedge. The public debate launched in Sweden during this time incorporated nascent nonproliferation norms.25 The Swedish public was becoming more aware of the debate, and by the end of 1959, for the first time, a majority of Swedish survey respondents opposed nuclear weapons acquisition. The issue was not salient enough to matter in domestic politics, including the 1960 national elections.26 But General Swedlund, the supreme commander, realized

The Transition Period  125 the public opinion trend was not in his favor, and he attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Swedish public to support acquisition. Worried that the postponement path would ultimately lead to a termination decision, Swedlund decided to step down when his term as supreme commander expired in 1961. As a result, the nuclear weapons research program lost a key organizational champion.27 The new supreme commander, Air Force general Torsten Rapp, believed that nuclear weapons could be a useful addition to Sweden’s military, but that they were not essential. His focus was on building up conventional forces.28 The changes that had begun in the late 1950s came to fruition now in the early 1960s as Sweden’s defense priorities shifted away from deterrence. Several factors account for this shift. Swedish elites were considering whether Sweden should play a role in international disarmament efforts, and disarmament entrepreneurs gained permission from the prime minister to participate in PTBT negotiations.29 However, the support existed only in certain camps; Social Democratic Party leaders preferred working toward disarmament, but even after PTBT negotiations succeeded in 1963, the Swedish Conservative Party and military still favored nuclear weapons acquisition.30 Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro argue from a security standpoint that decreasing tensions between the United States and Soviet Union were a key factor leading Sweden to forgo nuclear weapons.31 T. V. Paul argues that Sweden wanted only to deter war and remain neutral, leading the government away from nuclear weapons and toward conventional forces.32 These security-​based rationales seem reasonable in hindsight; each of these authors explains why it would have been logical for leaders to perceive that the costs of a Swedish nuclear weapons capability would likely outweigh the benefits. But I argue that Debs and Monteiro overclaim when they state that Swedish decision-​makers believed, in the early 1960s, that nuclear weapons would undermine Swedish security. Some certainly did. That discussion, however, had begun in 1954, not in the 1960s, as Paul also notes.33 If the government had already established in the mid-​1950s that nuclear weapons would not benefit Sweden, the security explanation alone cannot explain why Sweden so seriously considered a nuclear weapons capability over the following decade and continued to keep the option open during most of the 1960s. The actual debate within the Swedish military complicates the security explanation and demonstrates the importance of organizational preferences. Rising tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1961 (such as the Berlin crisis) and 1962 (such as the Cuban missile crisis) were

126  Nuclear Decisions interpreted differently by different Swedish domestic actors. While disarmament entrepreneurs saw these events as indicators that disarmament was the only solution, Conservative Party members supported nuclear weapons development, and various interests within the Swedish military believed that Sweden should either shore up conventional defenses or pursue a nuclear arsenal.34 Considering the Swedish government as a single actor obscures the competing preferences that shaped the course of the nuclear weapons research program. In the early 1960s the Swedish military was considering not only the external security environment and the risk to Sweden posed by US-​Soviet tensions but also its own organizational objectives. Interservice disagreement over how to allocate the defense budget affected how the military, as an organization, formed its plans to defend Sweden. Jonter describes that intra-​ organizational conflict in 1961, as the Swedish military command conducted planning sessions: The army and the navy feared that they would lose out to the air force in the struggle for budget appropriations, since the nuclear weapons were primarily to be mounted on aircraft. Even within the air force, there were growing doubts about the advantages of possessing nuclear weapons. The air force had other costly projects to defend, among them the development of a new fighter aircraft. If the nuclear weapons plans were to be realized, one consequence might be the shelving of these other important future projects.35

Without Swedlund as supreme commander, there was no longer a single, strong voice in favor of nuclear weapons acquisition shouting over the dissenters within the Swedish military. Many within the military also believed that the long timeline and high costs of acquisition tipped the scales in favor of investing in conventional weapons instead.36 In addition, Swedish military leaders were learning, from observing the international community, that the military would not ultimately be able to determine when nuclear weapons could be used. The authority for these command decisions within nuclear weapons powers seemed to be held by state leaders rather than by military generals.37 This further diminished the appeal of any nuclear-​conventional budget trade-​off. FOA researchers tried to find ways to continue making progress with nuclear weapons research so that they could quickly transition to production if the political decision were made. Lacking a direct line to Swedish leadership,

The Transition Period  127 FOA presented a report to the defense ministry and military in 1961 that made a case for nuclear weapons acquisition on a small scale and proposed several options for how Sweden could proceed. But when military officers discussed the study, there was no consensus. The air force chief of staff, for example, pushed back against acquisition, arguing that the enormous costs would trade off with plans to strengthen conventional forces, and that the resulting small numbers of nuclear weapons still might not be sufficient to deter.38 Because of the level of internal disagreement—​ and not because of any new strategic doctrine regarding how best to respond to the security environment—​the military command decided to omit specific references to the nuclear weapons program in the 1962 planning report. Instead, to avoid further internal dispute, the military asked the recently formed and highly secret Nuclear Device Group to work with FOA to produce a study on the future of nuclear weapons in Sweden. That study concluded that nuclear weapons would be useful to Sweden in small quantities, but that future conflicts would likely be conventional.39 When the supreme commander released the planning report, ÖB-​62, rather than deeming nuclear weapons essential to Swedish defense, as ÖB-​57 had done, the emphasis was now on strengthening conventional forces to be able to defend Sweden against invasion. Nuclear weapons were still discussed as beneficial to the Swedish military, but in a lesser role in comparison to conventional capabilities. The report provided a rationale for the diminished importance of nuclear weapons: limited nuclear war was not likely to be conducted against Sweden, as an attacker would fear escalation. This justification, presented along with the mixed message that nuclear weapons could still be useful in some way, indicated that the Swedish military was divided, and that at the command level the organization was no longer strongly interested in a nuclear arsenal.40 The delay and cost involved in creating an indigenous Swedish program also affected the military’s assessment of whether nuclear weapons production was worth seriously pursuing. Debs and Monteiro argue that the costs would have been minimal, but the Swedish military believed otherwise.41 Sweden had procured the heavy water for its Ågesta reactor from the United States but had only purchased a relatively small quantity so as not to be subject to inspections.42 Sweden’s planned Marviken reactor would also require heavy water. Building a new reactor would entail high costs and time delays. If Sweden were to start weapons production with its current reactors, it would need to build a reprocessing plant of its own and purchase unsafeguarded

128  Nuclear Decisions heavy water from Norway, all of which would also add both cost and time—​ approximately four years for the reprocessing plant. By 1963 Sweden was considering purchasing enriched uranium directly from the United States, but as that material would come with safeguards agreements attached, a weapons program would be no further ahead.43 Some factions within the military had already been concerned that sinking large amounts of the defense budget into a long-​term and uncertain nuclear weapons project would be harmful to Sweden’s armed forces.44 The high cost and expanding timeline associated with an indigenous program did not kill the program on its own, but they did deepen existing concerns within the military organization.45 Many FOA scientists could read the writing on the wall; anticipating future funding cuts, some began looking for other positions within or outside FOA.46 A big push in 1962 or 1963 to invest in the infrastructure needed to pursue weapons could have resulted in a de facto nuclear weapons capacity before Swedish parliamentarians and ministers could generate the consensus needed to terminate the program. Without the support of the military, however, plans for an indigenous production capability would remain unexecuted. And FOA, sensing that the government might ultimately end the program, made no significant attempt to redefine the program’s mission or expand its scope. As the transition period began, the Swedish nuclear research program continued. FOA’s research into nuclear explosive devices, justified as the study of the different types of weapons that could one day be used against Sweden, included producing and testing conventional explosive charges (which are needed to start a nuclear chain reaction in the fissile core of an implosion-​type nuclear weapon).47 However, the program was profoundly affected by the reversal decision that had been made, and the military organizational divisions that had sharpened, during the last years of the permissive period. In addition, changes in the proliferation environment facilitated Sweden’s future nuclear reversals. The supreme commander’s 1965 planning report, ÖB-​65, reemphasized the low likelihood of a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union and made no mention of Swedish nuclear weapons production, but instead called for the continuation of the nuclear weapons research program in its current form. But the program could not continue indefinitely without a political decision in favor of the transition to production; the civilian nuclear program, which up until this point had proceeded with a military option in mind, was now forging a separate path. Plans for the purchase

The Transition Period  129 of enriched uranium via a thirty-​year contract with the United States meant that all Swedish reactors would fall under international safeguards.48 Military leaders realized that keeping a Swedish nuclear weapons option open would now require a parallel nuclear infrastructure, and they asked FOA to come up with a plan to take what they called a phased approach to procurement. However, in 1966 the Swedish government rejected FOA’s plan, and with the backing of Parliament effectively made the decision to stop maintaining an option for Swedish nuclear weapons acquisition.49 In the spring of 1967 FOA reorganized its weapons-​related work away from production.50 By 1968 a large majority of the Swedish population opposed acquiring nuclear weapons, and Sweden’s competing political parties had reached common ground on a nuclear nonproliferation stance.51 Since 1965 the Swedish government had been a vocal participant in the negotiations that would ultimately culminate in the NPT. As the United States and the Soviet Union built astonishingly vast nuclear arsenals, the now-​outdated plans for a small Swedish arsenal seemed almost quaint. In this nuclear landscape, Sweden believed its best course of action was to secure a stronger moratorium on nuclear testing than the PTBT provided and to write language into the NPT that would commit the nuclear weapons states to future disarmament.52 Now that a meaningful international nonproliferation regime was emerging, it was not only the few disarmament entrepreneurs, but also the broader Swedish political elite, who elected to shape that regime rather than pursue nuclear weapons. The Swedish government made the decision to terminate the nuclear weapons effort in 1968, ending the hedging policy that had constituted the government’s acceptance of the military components of the program. Parliament affirmed that acquiring nuclear weapons was counter to Swedish interests.53 Over the next several years, both before and after Sweden ratified the NPT in 1970, FOA gradually dismantled the relevant programs, phasing out research on nuclear weapons design and shutting down experimental work using plutonium. By 1972 scientists working on nuclear weapons research had received new assignments in new or transformed departments.54

Conclusion Why did the government finally abandon the nuclear hedging policy it had pursued for so many years? Maria Rost Rublee posits that Sweden’s

130  Nuclear Decisions participation in international nonproliferation negotiations strengthened antinuclear sentiment within the public and political parties. I have previously discussed how disarmament entrepreneurs made some political gains in the last years of the permissive period with the success of the PTBT and then finally enjoyed the broad support of the Swedish government later, during the transition period’s NPT negotiations. Through this process, Rublee argues, Sweden adopted nonproliferation norms that led to the 1968 signing and 1970 ratification of the NPT.55 However, it is difficult to apply this argument to explain why opposition party members, along with some groups within the Swedish military, were still interested in keeping Sweden’s options open in the 1960s for a future nuclear weapons capability. And Rublee glosses over the role of the Swedish military, noting that its position on nuclear weapons acquisition changed, but leaving the question open as to what brought about that change.56 I argue, on the other hand, that the loss of the nuclear weapons option’s one constant champion was instrumental in starting the process of nuclear reversal, and I offer an explanation. The military organization’s shifting focus away from nuclear and toward conventional capabilities was shaped by competing organizational preferences that grew more salient in the post-​ 1950s security climate and after the departure of General Swedlund from his post as supreme commander. The domestic political climate contributed to this shift as well; recall that Swedlund had opted not to continue in his position due to his frustration with the lack of support for nuclear weapons acquisition within the Swedish government. Domestic politics, international norms, and the security environment all played important parts in the evolution of Sweden’s nuclear weapons plans, but without strong, unified, and influential organizational support, no political mechanism remained by which the program could make the transition to production. Indeed, Jonter refers to the loss of military consensus as a more serious problem for the program than technical or political difficulties.57 Second, while it is true that Sweden’s involvement in shaping the emerging nonproliferation regime coincided with antinuclear sentiment at home, it is impossible to definitively determine which of those came first, or if they developed together. The Swedish public and government had many reasons to oppose Swedish nuclear weapons, including security risks, defense priorities and military resource allocation, concerns over the harmful effects of radiation, and moral opposition.58 All were part of public or internal discourse during the 1950s and 1960s; only some aligned with the norms that would emerge in the mid-​1960s as the proliferation environment shifted from the

The Transition Period  131 permissive to the transition period. Indeed, Swedish historian Wilhelm Agrell argues that the NPT was not the reason Sweden abandoned its nuclear weapons option, but that it was used by the government as a politically expedient rationale to explain why Sweden had reversed course.59 Sweden’s security environment was interpreted differently by different domestic organizations and officials. Even during the particularly dangerous, vulnerable postwar years, the Swedish military and FOA, rather than the Swedish political elite, were the main actors pushing the nuclear weapons agenda. Political leaders in favor of nuclear weapons decided to hedge, allowing nuclear research to proceed along lines that would allow for a transition to weapons manufacturing. The nuclear decisions made during the permissive and transition periods thus took place within a nuclear weapons effort that never received authorization to progress to a full acquisition program. Yet even in a program oriented toward nuclear hedging, organizational preferences were key factors in shaping the context for Swedish nuclear decision-​making.

South Korea South Korea’s nuclear weapons program (1971–​1979) took place entirely within the context of the military regime led by General Park Chung-​hee (1961–​1979). I code the nuclear agency, which lacked both autonomy and access to leadership, as having low capacity to transmit information. I code the military, which governed the state, as high capacity. I code military organizational preferences as generally opposed to the nuclear weapons program, despite Park’s interest in a nuclear weapons capability. From a security perspective, the external environment was threatening and uncertain. The balance of proliferation freedom and constraint was tipped more toward freedom at first and then shifted after the Indian nuclear test. As the transition period ended and the nonproliferation regime period began, restrictions on nuclear exports increased, and existing nuclear assistance agreements were rescinded or renegotiated.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions Park Chung-​hee’s regime took seriously the external threats to the South Korean homeland, particularly the string of provocations from the regime’s conventionally superior strategic rival, North Korea.60 After the end of active

132  Nuclear Decisions fighting in the Korean War, the United States had signed a Mutual Defense Treaty with South Korea in 1954, committing to bolstering South Korean security. The United States provided both conventional military aid and a nuclear extended deterrent to South Korea and facilitated the country’s initial civilian nuclear research through the Atoms for Peace program.61 American security assurances, however, were not enough to ease South Korea’s concerns, particularly after the Nixon administration began to pursue diplomatic relations with China. During the early 1970s the United States reduced its military presence in East Asia, due to both the new Sino-​ American relationship and America’s ongoing war in Vietnam—​a war in which South Korea had provided military assistance to the United States.62 Park was dismayed when Washington announced that a significant troop withdrawal from the Korean peninsula would take place in June 1971. The loss in strength of the American conventional deterrent raised great alarm within the regime, despite the fact that the United States was not planning to remove a single American nuclear weapon from South Korea. As Alexander Lanoszka argues, the Park regime was unwilling to rely on the presence of the extended nuclear deterrent alone.63 In 1968 South Korea had signed the NPT. However, this commitment did not prevent the Park regime from starting a nuclear weapons program (see Figure 6.2). Scholars place the start of the program in the early 1970s, with some disagreement over the exact year. In an interview with Park’s former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Selig Harrison was told that the decision was made in secret in 1970.64 Others find 1971 to be a more likely date, placing Park’s establishment of the Weapons Exploitation Committee, a covert committee responsible for the nuclear weapons program, in 1971.65 This timeline aligns with the argument that the regime was prompted to begin the program after learning of Washington’s reduced security commitment. However, the military regime does not appear to have highly prioritized the new nuclear weapons program. Seung-​Young Kim notes that nuclear agency insiders even had difficulty obtaining funding for the program: In fact, the economic planning board was not very supportive when the fuel research branch of [the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute] requested a budget for the reprocessing-​related research. When the fuel research branch brought the budget plan, the economic planning board frequently questioned why the research projects required such an enormous budget.

The Transition Period  133 Figure 6.2  Proliferation curve: South Korea

For this reason, some scientists doubted whether President Park really had a serious resolve to pursue a secret nuclear weapons programme.66

Further, no crash program was ever initiated; the process was instead gradual and careful. Even at times of great potential danger, it does not appear that Park turned to the nuclear weapons program as the solution. Kim describes a frantic environment after the fall of Saigon in 1975: as the United States abandoned South Vietnam, Park held daily national security meetings out of fear that a regional war was imminent. But instead of investing in nuclear

134  Nuclear Decisions weapons development, Park committed $5 billion to a five-​year conventional force improvement program.67 The Park regime also faced domestic political threats. I argue in Chapter 3 that military regimes choose to invest in conventional arms, equipment, and personnel not only to maintain the state military’s capabilities to defend against or counter external threats but also to counter internal threats to the regime. South Korea’s military regime followed this pattern of behavior, starting with an internal security apparatus Park established to protect the regime from domestic enemies. This security organization was kept separate from the military, both to serve as a check against the potential for a coup and to protect the integrity and purpose of the state military. The regime’s primary objective for the military organization, once Park had removed his main rivals, was to maintain strength and readiness. Park demanded a professional military that would protect the homeland. Soldiers were expected to eschew political and business ventures, and military personnel, including elites, were promoted based on merit rather than personal loyalty or in-​ group ties.68 Park prioritized conventional means for the state military. When the Nixon administration issued its decision in 1970 to withdraw American forces from South Korea by 1971—​and there was some early confusion both within Washington and Seoul as to whether this would be a partial or a full withdrawal—​Park could have responded by asking the United States to bolster extended deterrence by deploying more, or higher-​yield, nuclear weapons in or near South Korea. Instead, he focused his efforts on persuading Washington to follow through on promises to modernize South Korean conventional forces.69 This happened again in 1977, during the nonproliferation regime period. The Carter administration announced that it would completely withdraw all remaining US troops—​about forty thousand in all—​from South Korea. Park once more asked for help with conventional means, not for a buildup in US nuclear deployments or technology. His response is particularly interesting the second time, because Park was highly alarmed that a US withdrawal would leave South Korea at the mercy of a militarily superior North Korea. In a meeting with US officials, including military generals, the ambassador to South Korea, and an undersecretary of state, Park focused on how the United States could help improve South Korea’s capabilities to “meet [the North Korean] ground force threat.”70 He emphasized his desire for South Korea to receive special status for US arms transfers and asked specific questions about US military operations and planning in the event of a North

The Transition Period  135 Korean attack. And he argued that in ten years South Korea would have superiority over North Korea, ending the direct threat, but that in the meantime South Korea was conventionally vulnerable.71 All of this indicates that Park remained focused on conventional military capabilities and responses and did not believe that the US nuclear deterrent provided sufficient protection. Once Park realized that the United States was going to withdraw a significant number of troops and was also unlikely to lend conventional military modernization assistance to the regime, what was his response? Lanoszka speculates that Park may have then turned to nuclear weapons as “some sort of military cure-​all.”72 The connection between alliance credibility and Park’s initial nuclear pursuit is convincingly demonstrated. But as far as we know, over the lifespan of the program the regime chose to prioritize conventional means rather than responding to new security concerns with nuclear acceleration. And even a crash program could not have produced a nuclear weapons capability in the time frame Park was facing had the United States fulfilled its pledge to remove all American troops from South Korean soil. If military organizational preferences impacted the regime’s thinking, it is possible that Park did not think that the long-​term prospect of nuclear weapons would cure what ailed South Korea, but that he could use an ambiguous, latent nuclear status as leverage to improve conventional capabilities in the short term. This strategy would be logical for the Park regime to pursue during these later years of the transition period and early years of the nonproliferation regime period, as the United States strengthened its commitment to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Park appears to have conceived of the program as a backup, in the event that one day the United States would finally abandon South Korea. As Etel Solingen has argued, it also seems likely that he used the program as a bargaining chip with Washington. As South Korea’s nuclear efforts became more apparent to outside observers, Washington applied pressure to Seoul to end the program, while offering the regime verbal reassurances—​as well as sophisticated conventional military hardware to use in negotiating with Washington for conventional arms and equipment in the meantime.73 What we know from the evidence available is consistent with a military regime’s preference for traditional, conventional arming over nuclear weapons development. The regime depended on Washington both economically and for key nuclear energy–​related imports and hoped to receive conventional military arms and technology as well.74 The presence of a small, covert program would be unlikely to collapse the US-​South Korean alliance but could be enough to use for leverage.

136  Nuclear Decisions Park’s push for more advanced conventional weapons and US investment in the South Korean military would also have been politically useful to him as a military leader. Solingen argues that Park wanted to “[satisfy] his home-​ grown military advocates of conventional deterrence.”75 Recall that militaries prefer conventional means because of organizational preferences for tried-​ and-​true methods and the organizational belief that conventional weapons are what will most likely be needed to fight the next war. Military leaders within the regime held a range of views; some supported the nuclear project. But most officers believed that the regime’s priority should be strengthening South Korea’s conventional military capability in order to catch up to, and eventually surpass, North Korea.76 Park’s focus on conventional solutions was also good politics. Finally, early international attempts to control the spread of nuclear technology and materials during the transition period and nonproliferation regime period affected the South Korean program. In 1972 South Korea had begun a serious effort to procure nuclear technology from abroad, and in 1973 it negotiated the purchase of a 600 megawatt CANDU reactor from Canada. The agreement included IAEA monitoring only related to the facility itself. In addition, Seoul began discussions with Ottawa regarding the purchase of an NRX type research reactor. However, the Indian PNE and resulting changes in export control measures led Canada to change course. India had produced the plutonium for its PNE from a Canadian-​supplied research reactor based on the NRX design. In December 1974 Ottawa decided to terminate the NRX negotiations with Seoul and to reopen the CANDU agreement to begin negotiating new, stringent safeguards and end-​user conditions.77 Ottawa also threatened to cancel the CANDU contract entirely unless Seoul stopped pursuing the purchase of a French pilot reprocessing plant, which would enable South Korea to produce plutonium. Washington increased pressure on Seoul to back away from the deal, explicitly invoking the NSG and informing Seoul that the nuclear suppliers would work in concert with Washington to block sensitive nuclear imports.78 Belgium canceled its preexisting contract with South Korea for plutonium reprocessing technology.79 Paris slowed down negotiations, and Seoul ultimately ended the talks.80 The emergence of the export control regime in 1974 thus effectively shut down the path South Korea had been attempting to take to nuclear weapons. In November 1976 the program pivoted to attempt an indigenous effort at developing reprocessing techniques. Some scholars call this the suspension or end of the program and attribute this action to South Korea ratifying the

The Transition Period  137 NPT in 1975.81 However, the evidence indicates that this was in fact a type of reversal decision made in response to South Korea’s newfound inability to procure technology from abroad. The program was not suspended, but continued on a new path, with a dual-​use focus instead of solely a weapons focus.82 The resulting lack of progress and significant delay in the weapons-​ related aspects of program development led to the gradual fizzling out of South Korea’s nuclear weapons program after Park Chung-​hee’s assassination in 1979.83

Conclusion The threats South Korea faced during the 1970s could have served as justification for a serious nuclear weapons effort. Park’s military regime never undertook that kind of effort, preferring instead to use the nascent program as a bargaining chip to obtain more advanced conventional arms and military technology. Concerns about the credibility of the US security commitment to South Korea were an important factor, particularly in Park’s decision to initiate a nuclear weapons program. But once the program began, military organizational preferences for conventional capabilities to counter a superior conventional threat from North Korea significantly affected the regime’s thinking and decision-​making regarding the state’s investment in the nuclear program. The proliferation environment also played a role. The Park regime chose a path toward a South Korean nuclear weapons capability that involved outside contracts with multiple foreign nuclear suppliers. During the transition period, the regime was able to obtain safeguard agreements that involved only partial monitoring. But after the shock of the Indian PNE, South Korea lost access to the nuclear marketplace as foreign suppliers canceled existing contracts and delayed new negotiations. The United States helped coordinate these efforts and placed significant pressure on the Park regime to forgo its nuclear weapons effort. The program pivoted to a dual-​use effort and then appears to have died with Park.

India India’s nuclear energy program began in 1948 under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He believed that a nuclear energy program, which held the promise of increasing electrical power in India, would improve the national

138  Nuclear Decisions economy and the standard of living for India’s citizens. Nuclear weapons, however, ran counter to Nehru’s idealistic vision of the Indian state and citizenry. He labeled the development of nuclear weapons a “horrendous revolution” and called for India to pursue only the peaceful use of nuclear energy. But Nehru also believed that despite his personal feelings, India might one day need nuclear weapons of its own in a nuclearized world. Further, he well understood that a nuclear energy program served an inherently dual purpose and could become a nuclear weapons program by way of a political decision. Starting with Nehru, India’s prime ministers kept their options open, even as most embraced a moral position against nuclear weapons.84 I code the nuclear organization as holding strong preferences in favor of nuclear weapons and possessing a high capacity to inform and influence. The organization is characterized by high autonomy, low oversight, and direct access to the prime minister. I code the military as possessing a low capacity to inform and influence. By design, the Indian military has been institutionally excluded from national security decision-​making, including the nuclear arena. I code the military organization’s preferences as anti-​nuclear weapons; military leaders believed conventional weapons would continue to dominate war fighting and worried about scarce resources being allocated away from conventional weapons and toward nuclear weapons. India’s security environment during the course of the nuclear effort was characterized by rivalries with China and Pakistan, both of which involved periodic armed conflict. I discuss changes in India’s security environment, for both worse and better, throughout the nuclear program. As the Indian program took place during all three proliferation periods, I examine whether changing nuclear market constraints and evolving norms affected decision-​making.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions The Indian pursuit of nuclear weapons emerged in the strategic context of a rivalry with nuclear-​armed China and a rivalry with Pakistan, which began pursuing nuclear weapons in 1972. Throughout the state’s approximately thirty-​year-​long nuclear weapons effort, India was periodically involved in armed conflicts with both China and Pakistan. Yet if the Indian government had strongly and consistently believed nuclear weapons were the answer to India’s strategic problems, then leaders would likely have made a nuclear decision to pursue a crash nuclear weapons program in the 1960s, 1970s, or

The Transition Period  139 1980s. Security was one important factor that India’s leaders considered in pursuing a nuclear program, but many of India’s nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions do not simply align with periods of high or low insecurity (see Figure 6.3). Instead, India’s nuclear history indicates that other factors, like whether the nuclear organization was trusted and influential and whether the nuclear effort appeared to be successful, were also important to nuclear decision-​making.85 The Sino-​ Indian rivalry was fraught with militarized disputes, from threats to actual conflicts, in the years preceding India’s nuclear weapons program, most notably the 1962 border war that ended in the loss of disputed territory to China. That loss did not immediately cause India to pursue nuclear weapons, despite the well-​known fact that China was working to develop a nuclear weapons capability.86 Instead, India’s response was to double the defense budget, allocating significant resources to conventional military spending. Reflecting on China’s handy victory over Indian forces, Prime Minister Nehru stated, “We were getting out of touch with reality in the modern world.”87 Nehru turned not to nuclear weapons but to building up and modernizing India’s conventional armaments and armed forces. Even after China tested its first nuclear bomb on October 16, 1964, neither the Indian military nor Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri believed that India should respond by starting a nuclear weapons program.88 However, nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha, the head of India’s nuclear organization, saw the Chinese test as a window of opportunity and used both his scientific and institutional authority to shape the debate. The Indian government had granted the nuclear organization significant autonomy. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), created in 1948 as a three-​member body to develop Indian nuclear policies, reported directly to the prime minister. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was established in 1954 and was tasked with executing AEC policies. The secretary of the DAE also served as the chair of the AEC, which later expanded into a nine-​member body.89 Bhabha, who sought to position India on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, served in this dual role from 1954 until his death in a plane crash in 1966. As head of an organization that was insulated from independent oversight and cloaked in extreme secrecy, Bhabha could speak from a position of virtually unquestioned authority. Taking advantage of the national conversation in the fall of 1964 about China’s strategic intentions toward India, Bhabha successfully sold the nuclear project as a cost-​ effective, efficient use of state resources. He

140  Nuclear Decisions Figure 6.3  Proliferation curve: India

disingenuously claimed, for example, that India would need only $350,000 to develop and produce its first bomb.90 Political leaders did not have the knowledge needed to dispute his assertions. Bhabha and the AEC also had the advantage of secrecy. India’s 1948 Atomic Energy Act, when compared to atomic energy legislation in countries like the United States and United Kingdom, had imbued the AEC with an unusually high level of secrecy.91 In this information environment, what Bhabha said carried enormous weight and was difficult to dispute (although Shastri and other bomb opponents did try). Shastri preferred to respond to China’s nuclear weapons

The Transition Period  141 capability with global disarmament efforts, which he hoped might also prevent Pakistani proliferation. He, like Nehru before him, was opposed to the idea of an Indian nuclear arsenal.92 Yet he made the initial nuclear decision that started India on its long path to the bomb. Ultimately, despite the security threat generated by the emergence of China as a nuclear weapons power, and despite the fact that India had lost to China in their most recent conflict, the nuclear program was settled on only as a compromise: an ambiguous, quasi-​peaceful program, not a dedicated weapons program.93 But in deciding to authorize the early stages of work on what would be required to develop an Indian nuclear explosive capability, Shastri, in George Perkovich’s words, “conceded to Bhabha’s pressure.”94 Narang argues that pressure from political opponents of the ruling Congress Party also led Shastri to his nuclear decision. It is true that political pressure in favor of the bomb was beginning to take shape. But that pressure was fueled by Bhabha’s promise that India could quickly and easily develop nuclear weapons; again and again, in parliamentary debates, supporters referred to Bhabha’s figures and invoked his expertise.95 In addition, recall from Chapter 3 that Shastri’s nuclear decision was not clearly communicated to either his political supporters or detractors, which allowed the prime minister to maintain an ambiguous position on nuclear weapons in public politics.96 More important than the political opposition was the reality that many of Shastri’s own party members—​some of them in influential positions within Congress Party leadership—​were convinced by Bhabha.97 The government did not respond to the Chinese test with the decision to start down the path toward nuclear weapons until Bhabha, through the nuclear agency, framed the debate in a way that promoted nuclear weapons development by exploiting the strategic concerns over China. During the permissive period, India had secured nuclear assistance from the United States, Canada, France, and Britain. In particular, the United States and Canada had worked together to win a lucrative contract to supply India with a Canadian research reactor along with American heavy water needed for it. In the competitive and unregulated nuclear market of the 1950s, India, as the buyer, had the advantage over a host of willing nuclear suppliers eager for a contract. India could thus negotiate a favorable agreement; while Ottawa pressed for safeguards, Bhabha successfully pushed back.98 The research reactor, named CIRUS (Canada-​India-​Reactor-​United States), went critical in 1960; it ultimately produced the plutonium used in India’s PNE in 1974. By 1964 India had produced plutonium for the first time, reprocessing

142  Nuclear Decisions fuel from CIRUS in a plant built using modified designs from an American firm and imported components and materials.99 During the last two years of the permissive period, obtaining safeguard-​ free technology and materials from foreign suppliers became more challenging for India. In 1963 the government of Canada signed the PTBT. Some officials became more resolute about safeguarding nuclear exports, believing Canadian nuclear assistance should align with the government’s deepening stance on nuclear nonproliferation. Others within the Canadian government, however, were still willing to broker deals with few safeguards and then look the other way. This led to agreements with more safeguards than before but that were still insufficient to prevent weaponization. During Indian negotiations to purchase a CANDU reactor (RAPP-​1) from Canada, Bhabha relented, agreeing to some safeguards on the facility and the Canadian fuel that would be used.100 Once the transition period began, tensions between the two countries regarding safeguards increased, but Canadian officials understood that if they pushed too hard, India could replace Canada with another, eager nuclear supplier such as France.101 In 1966 negotiations for a second CANDU reactor (RAPP-​2) took place in the context of a nuclear-​armed China that periodically conducted fission tests and ongoing international negotiations regarding what would become the NPT. This time, Canada asked India to agree to full IAEA safeguards. India accepted most safeguards Canada proposed, with the exception of safeguards on future, Indian-​produced fissionable material from the CANDU reactors. Canada succeeded in securing more robust monitoring, but India’s freedom to use later generations of fissionable material as it pleased posed a significant weaponization risk.102 During this period, then, the safeguarding of nuclear exports was becoming more of a barrier to nuclear weapons production, but even suppliers that held principled concerns about proliferation continued to place their short-​term economic interests above long-​term security concerns. Similarly, the ongoing NPT negotiations, and the nonproliferation norms emerging during the transition period, cannot explain India’s nuclear reversal decision in 1966. After Shastri’s death, Indira Gandhi became India’s prime minister. Despite the continuing security concerns generated by China’s growing nuclear weapons capabilities—​China would cross the thermonuclear threshold before the end of the year and would perform a full, 3.3 megaton hydrogen bomb test in 1967—​Gandhi decided to reverse Shastri’s authorization and suspend most nuclear weapons development

The Transition Period  143 activities. The result of this decision was not a shutdown of the program, as India continued both nuclear research and the construction of new facilities. But the focus of the program was now heavily on energy production, while maintaining the option of pivoting to a weapons orientation.103 Why did the new prime minister make this change? India’s security environment was still a concern, and the United States had demonstrated the year before, during conflict between India and Pakistan, that it would not come to India’s aid in a crisis. Yet Gandhi and her minister of defense, among others, believed a nuclear weapons program would do more harm than good to Indian security.104 Further, some within the government continued to call for India to address its security concerns by advocating global disarmament. Indeed, most Indian prime ministers continued to hold out hope for the success of the nuclear disarmament movement for the next two decades.105 The significant interest many Indian political elites maintained in disarmament was not due to a sudden, principled adoption of emerging norms; recall that Nehru and Shastri had both already held conflicted views about the moral implications of producing nuclear weapons. Disarmament held both security and economic value to states like India (and, as explained earlier, Sweden). India framed the draft treaty’s division of the world into the nuclear haves and have-​nots as establishing an “atomic apartheid” that would permanently reduce the ability of the non–​nuclear weapons states to pursue the economic benefits of nuclear development.106 Even after leaders had come to the internal decision that India would not sign the treaty, Indian negotiators continued working to shape the treaty in ways that would link the disarmament of the nuclear weapons states with the prevention of the further spread of nuclear weapons.107 Bhabha died in a plane crash as Gandhi was beginning her term as prime minister. The nuclear organization had lost its charismatic and influential leader, but the scientists who would follow Bhabha as AEC chair were also people with strong personalities who would work to convince Gandhi of the value of transitioning the program toward the production of a nuclear explosive device. Over the next several years Gandhi allowed the nuclear program to continue in a way that would leave the weapons option open. By the early 1970s the program had advanced to the point where testing a nuclear explosive device would be possible. AEC chair Homi Sethna permitted scientists to begin working on such a device, but the scientists needed Gandhi’s authorization to move from research and design work to production.108

144  Nuclear Decisions Soviet-​Indian relations had improved to the extent that, during the December 1971 war between Pakistan and India, the Soviet Union deployed military forces in support of India, while the United States backed Pakistan. India defeated Pakistan, and Gandhi was hailed as a hero in the aftermath of the war.109 Despite India’s improved security environment, however, in the spring of 1972 parliamentarians began arguing in favor of developing Indian nuclear weapons. Some said that a nuclear weapons capability would deter future Pakistani military incursions; others brought out Bhabha’s old arguments that the cost would be relatively small. After some debate, Parliament moved on to other issues, and it is not clear whether the discussion had an impact on Gandhi prior to her decision to authorize a nuclear test, which apparently took place in September or October 1972 and would ultimately lead to the 1974 PNE.110 This illuminates one problem with a security explanation for nuclear decisions: if insecurity were the key driver of decision-​making, an improvement in security should not precede a program acceleration decision. Instead, political actors interpret security through the domestic information environment and may come to different conclusions. India suffered a drought in 1972, and the food shortages, inflation, and rising unemployment and poverty that followed caused significant domestic unrest and political trouble for Gandhi. It may be that Gandhi decided to authorize a nuclear test in order to distract the population, although she, and officials who were close to her, later disputed such an account. It would also be a strange way to try to quell ongoing popular unrest, as the decision was made in secret, and the preparations that followed were not undertaken in great haste.111 Further, the new Pakistani nuclear weapons effort was unrelated to Gandhi’s decision, as India was not yet aware of that program.112 Perkovich writes: Whatever Mrs. Gandhi’s calculus, the fact remained that conducting the PNE was not her idea. She disposed what others proposed. . . . [I]‌t was the weaponeers who went to the prime minister seeking sanction.113

The nuclear organization had failed to produce civilian power as quickly and inexpensively as it had promised, and the nuclear budget was facing cuts. A political decision to proceed toward a test would revitalize the program and further scientific progress and discovery. The nuclear organization was able to influence Gandhi in part because Gandhi herself sought out the advice of director Raja Ramanna, whom she highly trusted.114

The Transition Period  145 India’s military, on the other hand, played no role in shaping Gandhi’s perceptions about the value of nuclear testing. Indeed, the military had been kept out of the nuclear program from the start. When India had achieved independence from Great Britain and established national domestic institutions, the military had been deliberately excluded from national security decision-​making. Nehru had feared that the rise of a powerful Indian military would pose a threat to governance and made sure the military organization would be politically disempowered, even during armed conflicts. Civilians made decisions about defense policy and military strategy, and the military was given no political or institutional avenue by which to attempt to influence state decision-​making.115 And the AEC had no reason to invite the military in, preferring to maintain sole control over the nuclear program.116 If the military had been able to offer advice, what would it have been? First, at the time the Indian military was generally skeptical of the nuclear scientists’ ability to develop nuclear weapons.117 Second, Stephen Cohen argued that the Indian military of the 1970s saw the nuclear weapons program as “institutionally disruptive.”118 Officers worried about the impact the introduction of a nuclear arsenal would have on conventional war strategy and targeting. Both the army and the air force were concerned that a nuclear weapons program would be funded at the expense of conventional weapons systems, which they saw as more important to Indian security.119 Yogesh Joshi confirms this, citing a document showing that even in the immediate wake of India’s PNE, military advisers, in assessing the threat to India, still argued that conventional missiles, not nuclear weapons, would dominate the future battlefield.120 The Indian military was more concerned with planning for the likely scenario of conventional conflict with Pakistan rather than the unlikely possibility of nuclear conflict with, or a surprise invasion from, China.121 India’s precarious security environment led the military not to prefer investing in nuclear weapons but to prefer stability and continuity as the best way to see India through a dangerous time. However, Gandhi did not seek out the military’s preferences and had no discussion with her Ministry of Foreign Affairs about security or diplomatic concerns. In 1974 Gandhi and the scientists made the decision to proceed with the test.122 In the aftermath of the PNE, Gandhi enjoyed a brief boost in popularity at home but faced strong international backlash. The PNE constituted a shock to the emerging nonproliferation regime and demonstrated the importance of international safeguards; recall that the plutonium for the PNE had come from

146  Nuclear Decisions unsafeguarded Canadian reactor technology supplied with unsafeguarded American heavy water. The United States and Canada cut off all nuclear cooperation with India. Canada attempted to salvage the relationship and spent the next two years attempting to negotiate stricter safeguards, but without success. The loss of Canadian nuclear cooperation significantly delayed the construction of the Canadian-​supplied RAPP-​2 reactor, and the delays and burgeoning costs that followed damaged the nuclear organization’s reputation within government circles.123 Gandhi was horrified by the explosion and felt misled by the nuclear scientists. Whether she had not fully considered the concrete reality of the destructive power of the explosion and the danger of the radiation or had not anticipated the level of international condemnation that followed the test is unclear. But Gandhi turned away from both the nuclear program and the scientists who had convinced her to conduct the test.124 Even evidence that Pakistan was accelerating its own nuclear weapons program was not enough to prompt a decision from Gandhi to invest further in the Indian program.125 And despite the Indian government’s belief that the threat from China—​ including achievements in missile technology—​ was increasing during the mid-​to late 1970s, neither Indira Gandhi’s nor Morarji Desai’s governments responded by accelerating nuclear weapons development.126 Security mattered tremendously to India and affected conventional military spending,127 but security was simply not at the forefront of these nuclear decisions. In 1975 Pakistan was known to be pursuing nuclear weapons–​related research and development activities.128 However, India decided not to proceed with nuclear weapons development. While the nuclear scientists had assumed they would be able to conduct a series of tests, as other states had done, Indira Gandhi would not authorize further testing. The program stalled.129 Rupal N. Mehta argues that Gandhi changed course because of US pressure, including the threat of further sanctions.130 Perkovich, however, argues that Washington elected to take a “low-​pressure” approach toward India from 1975 to 1976. (I note that this coincides with the end of the transition period and start of the nonproliferation regime period.) Instead, Perkovich attributes Gandhi’s decision not only to her reaction to the test itself and the international response that followed but also to the failure of the nuclear organization to build support for a nuclear weapons program.131 The scientists had not been interested in seeking allies within the military organization and had instead prioritized their own strict control of the program,

The Transition Period  147 leaving them with no institutional or political backup when they fell out of favor with the leader. During the nonproliferation regime period, at the system level the international response to the PNE would have a lasting effect not only on new and potential nuclear pursuers but also on existing programs like India’s. Gandhi would not allow further testing, but she did not end the program, which was allowed to continue research activities. The formation of the NSG and the US passage of the Symington amendment (1976) and NNPA (1978) would ultimately have a significant, detrimental impact on India’s ability to proceed with nuclear weapons development.132 By 1977 the Soviet Union was demanding safeguards on its nuclear exports to India.133 A global regime was coming into effect. But while the nuclear suppliers could slow Indian proliferation, which depended to a large extent on foreign imports, it was too late to prevent India from progressing to the bomb. Program development was too advanced, and India already had the key components it would need. In 1979 the Indian government received intelligence from the United States detailing Pakistan’s progress toward a nuclear weapons capability, and concern grew.134 Indira Gandhi, returning to the office of prime minister several months after Morarji Desai resigned, made a decision in 1980 to revive the nuclear weapons program and permit the preparation of a test site. Gandhi was hedging: she did not authorize further testing, but she was readying the program in case testing, and weaponization, would be needed in the future.135 Scientists within the growing nuclear bureaucracy in the 1980s lacked a formal, institutionalized planning body that would allow them to more effectively coordinate their messaging. Some scientists had direct access to the prime minister, while others were sidelined. Gaurav Kampani argues that scientists, interested in scientific discovery but unable to coordinate with the military organization, could only get so far with their technical funding requests for research and development activities.136 The Indian military, while concerned about the prospect of a nuclear-​armed Pakistan, still had no real role in strategy and policy planning. Defense spending increased and was allocated mainly to expensive new conventional weapons systems. The nuclear program had no military champion who was in a position to pressure the government to accelerate development.137 After Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, her son Rajiv Gandhi took her place. In 1985 he gave what amounted to tacit approval for the nuclear program to proceed with experimental testing. Rajiv Gandhi was suspicious

148  Nuclear Decisions of the nuclear scientists, as he believed they had led his mother astray by pushing for the PNE, but he trusted the military even less and carefully excluded it from nuclear decision-​making.138 Even after learning in 1988 that Pakistan had produced at least three nuclear devices, Rajiv Gandhi continued to work toward global disarmament rather than make the decision to produce an Indian nuclear arsenal. But by March 1989 it had become clear to him that disarmament measures were not succeeding. He gave the order to proceed toward weaponization.139 Vipin Narang points out that this decision was made despite this period’s norms. Indeed, India viewed the global nonproliferation norms established by the NPT, which allowed the existing nuclear weapons states to maintain their nuclear monopoly while denying the rest of the world access to nuclear weapons, as a discriminatory product of colonialist thinking.140

Conclusion India achieved a nuclear weapons capability around 1994 or perhaps 1995, although the decision to test was not made until 1998.141 Pakistan followed with its own test. The security environment had played an important role both at the start and in the development of the Indian nuclear weapons program. But security is not a sufficient explanation for India’s nuclear decisions. Indian prime ministers tended not to view an overt nuclear weapons capability as the best solution to Indian security problems, and security was not at the forefront of nuclear decision-​making. Concerned that nuclear weapons might do more harm than good to India, the government instead invested in building up conventional forces and adopted a foreign policy approach that favored global disarmament efforts. Indian leaders never closed the door on the nuclear option, however, and engaged in nuclear hedging for nearly two decades, with an eye on Pakistan in particular during the 1980s and 1990s. The nuclear organization, particularly during its most influential periods, was largely responsible for pushing the program forward. Bhabha’s early success in persuading legislators of the benefits of a nuclear program is attributable in part to the nuclear organization’s independence and secrecy, which helped clothe the nuclear scientific establishment with a mantle of unquestioned authority. Later program heads also benefited from the trust of Indian leaders, who sought out the scientists for their expert advice. Bhabha and other scientist-​leaders had broad authority to negotiate the terms of nuclear

The Transition Period  149 assistance agreements with suppliers like Canada, and they succeeded in minimizing the safeguarding of equipment, technology, and material during the permissive period and, although to a lesser extent, the transition period as well. The downside to the organization’s stranglehold on nuclear policy was that when the program or its scientists faltered, there was no like-​minded agency that could step in to credibly promote nuclear weapons development. Key nuclear scientists had presented plans to Prime Minister Gandhi for her authorization, and she had generally followed their recommendations during the transition period. After the PNE, however, the nuclear scientists lost some of their political capital. International backlash against India and concerted efforts by the majority of the nuclear suppliers to establish a meaningful export control regime raised the costs of India’s nuclear development and extended the timeline. The nuclear program continued, but the nuclear organization’s ability to shape the domestic information environment suffered.

Conclusion: Nuclear Decisions during the Transition Period The three case studies in this chapter present a mixed record of nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions. Each state examined in this chapter faced serious threats to state security but did not wholly turn to nuclear weapons to counter those threats. The Swedish government never fully committed to a nuclear weapons program, even in the context of security concerns regarding possible wars between the Soviet Union and European or North American states. For years, despite serious threats to security, Indian leaders mainly thought about the nuclear program as providing an option for weaponization. And in South Korea, Park Chung-​hee appears to have thought of a nuclear weapons program as a backup in case of US abandonment and as leverage in negotiations with Washington. Domestic organizations that were able to exert influence on leaders attempted to portray the security environment in ways that would promote their nuclear program preferences, but they were not always successful. The negotiation of the NPT and its opening for signature in 1968 do not appear to have had a significant impact on nuclear decision-​making during the transition period. India and Sweden both tried to influence the language of the NPT, advocating disarmament, but after the NPT entered into force in

150  Nuclear Decisions 1970, nuclear weapons states continued to arm. And a lack of political will to implement NPT language regarding international safeguards on nuclear exports meant that the nuclear suppliers’ economic interests usually won out over their treaty commitments. Even nuclear suppliers that equated trade controls with norms-​based opposition to nuclear proliferation faltered when pushing for safeguards jeopardized contract negotiations. India’s 1974 PNE generated the political will to specify and implement meaningful trade controls, ending the transition period. Sweden had already made the decision to terminate its program by that point, but South Korea’s and India’s nuclear programs were both affected by the obstacles to procurement that were imposed after the shift to a robust export control regime. Within a few years of the start of the nonproliferation regime period, the costs of pursuing nuclear weapons increased again, due to new US nonproliferation policies. As the global regime both expanded and deepened, nuclear weapons states increasingly risked economic sanctions, military strikes, and reputational harm. In the next chapter I examine nuclear decision-​making during the nonproliferation regime period in three countries: Pakistan, South Africa, and Brazil.

7 The Nonproliferation Regime Period Pakistan, South Africa, and Brazil

The transition period concluded with the shock of India’s nuclear fission test. The research reactor that produced the plutonium for that PNE had been built with assistance from Canada and supplied with heavy water from the United States—​all unsafeguarded. The response from the international community led to the deepening, and later expansion, of the nonproliferation regime, starting with the creation and implementation of the key nuclear suppliers’ Trigger List. The list, which identified the nuclear material and equipment that would be subject to IAEA safeguards, became active before the end of 1974, and the participating governments formed the NSG in 1975. By the early 1980s, IAEA safeguards had expanded to cover the majority of nuclear plants in nonnuclear weapons states. The United States played a significant leadership role not only in forming the NSG but also in defining, via domestic legislation, the state actions that would lead to the imposition of nonproliferation sanctions. Nonproliferation norms continued to evolve, and acceptance of IAEA safeguards became a threshold criterion for legitimacy in the international system. The discovery in 1991 of Iraq’s clandestine nuclear weapons program, and the severe sanctions and military strikes that followed over the course of the next decade, culminated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, justified in large part by allegations that Iraq was continuing to pursue nuclear weapons. Since then, potential proliferators have had to weigh the risk of regime change. In this chapter I examine nuclear decisions in three states: Pakistan, Brazil, and South Africa. Of these, both Pakistan and South Africa succeeded in producing a nuclear arsenal, while Brazil’s leaders never made the decision to weaponize. South Africa dismantled its six completed nuclear weapons and destroyed all program documents as the regime prepared to transition to a postapartheid government. All three countries pursued nuclear programs with military applications primarily during the nonproliferation regime period. Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0007

152  Nuclear Decisions

Pakistan Since the 1947 partition of Pakistan and India, Pakistan has undergone periods of both direct military rule and civilian leadership. As the state organization with the most experience in governance and administration, the Pakistani military has exercised significant influence, and at times control, over decision-​ making in civilian regimes as well. The nuclear weapons program began under civilian leadership, and the military was kept out of nuclear decision-​making for the first five years. Starting with the 1977 military coup, however, most nuclear weapons program development took place during military rule.1 I code the military as having high capacity to inform and influence the leader, with the exception of the civilian regime of 1971–​1977, when the military organization neither participated in nor influenced state policy making. I code military organizational preferences as opposed to nuclear weapons during the 1960s. At the time, Pakistan’s military leaders were focused on competing with India as a conventional military power. Officers were worried that a nuclear weapons effort would be discovered, and the consequence would be the loss of the foreign economic and military aid that was so crucial to improving Pakistan’s conventional military capabilities. By the mid-​to late 1970s, the balance of preferences had shifted, and I code the military as supporting a nuclear weapons effort. I code the nuclear organization as having high capacity to inform and influence the leader beginning in 1959, when the nuclear agency’s chair drafted the Atomic Energy Law, which gave the agency statutory authority, financial autonomy, and direct access to the leader. Starting in 1993, I code the nuclear organization as having medium informational capacity, when Pakistan’s president transferred control of the nuclear program to the army. I code the preferences of the nuclear organization as opposed to nuclear weapons until 1971 and supportive afterward. Pakistan’s rivalry with India, punctuated by periods of armed conflict that began soon after the 1947 partition, continues today. Of the two, Pakistan has been the conventionally weaker military power. Pakistan’s nuclear development spans all three periods, although the nuclear weapons program did not begin until the transition period, and most of the program took place during the nonproliferation regime period (see Figure 7.1). As the program was beginning, nonproliferation norms were emerging and then consolidating. By the third year of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons effort, the NSG had created the Trigger List, and nuclear suppliers began reneging on existing contracts and

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  153 Figure 7.1  Proliferation curve: Pakistan

delaying or halting contract negotiations. Most of Pakistan’s program took place in a period that was characterized by uncertainty regarding access to foreign nuclear assistance.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions Pakistan’s nuclear energy program began in the mid-​1950s and benefited from nuclear assistance through the Atoms for Peace program. The United

154  Nuclear Decisions States supplied Pakistan with a five megawatt research reactor and highly enriched uranium. Pakistani scientists received training in US national nuclear laboratories. However, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) faced bureaucratic obstacles to pursuing nuclear development. PAEC scientists wanted to purchase a heavy water reactor from Canada, but Islamabad balked at the large price tag.2 As president (and then prime minister, after the 1973 Constitution granted executive power to that office), the civilian leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto started Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program in 1972. Bhutto had held several ministries from the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s that had enabled him to supervise parts of, or at times the entirety of, the nuclear energy program. He had long been a firm believer in the necessity of a Pakistani nuclear weapons program, but he had been unable to persuade General Ayub Khan, who came to power in the 1958 military coup and led Pakistan for more than a decade.3 The rivalry between Pakistan and India has fueled periods of armed conflict since independence; the first such conflict between the two states began in Kashmir soon after partition.4 In 1965, war with India in Kashmir led to a general defeat for Pakistan and the termination of military and economic aid from the United States. Bhutto made his famous statement that if India became a nuclear weapons power, Pakistan would “feed on grass and leaves” if necessary to produce its own atomic bomb.5 Yet during the 1960s few in the Pakistani government supported nuclear weapons pursuit.6 The Pakistani military used the perception of an Indian threat to win funding to expand conventional capabilities instead.7 General Ayub Khan largely agreed with those who took a more limited approach to nuclear development. Many Pakistani elites at the time feared that if a Pakistani nuclear weapons effort were to be discovered, the potential loss of economic and military aid from abroad could jeopardize Pakistan’s conventional military capabilities and tip the balance in India’s favor. Taking such a risk seemed particularly foolhardy because India’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapons capability was deemed unlikely. Further, the general believed that nuclear weapons could bring about “doomsday” and destroy human civilization.8 Bhutto’s unceasing and increasingly public nuclear weapons advocacy finally led Ayub Khan to remove Bhutto from government and send him abroad in 1966.9 Bhutto’s ascent to the presidency in December 1971 finally gave him the power to alter the direction of the civilian program, as he had long advocated.

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  155 Pakistan’s defeat in the Indo-​Pakistani War in 1971 provided a useful justification for a nuclear weapons program, but it was not the proximate cause of Bhutto’s decision to begin. All indications point to the likelihood that he would have set Pakistan on the nuclear weapons path regardless of specific security conditions. At the same time, he proposed the creation of a South Asia nuclear weapons free zone, dropping Pakistan’s main objections to the NPT, in what was likely an effort to establish cover for the clandestine weapons program.10 In May 1974 India conducted its first nuclear test. In response, many nuclear suppliers began to slow or halt transfers of nuclear technology, material, and equipment. Bhutto did not respond to this news by accelerating Pakistan’s nuclear program, but the PAEC quickly realized that the international community’s response would hinder Pakistan’s nuclear projects.11 The PAEC now enjoyed institutional independence and statutory financial autonomy, due to the Atomic Energy Law of 1959, which had been written by then-​PAEC chair I. H. Usmani.12 Bhutto replaced Usmani, who opposed direct nuclear weapons research, with Munir Ahmed Khan, a personal friend. Years later Khan, who reported directly to Bhutto, emphasized how important financial autonomy and access to the country leader had been for the PAEC, even under a leader who was himself interested in nuclear weapons development. The PAEC leveraged its advantages to pursue its preferences regarding nuclear development, which in this case meant cutting through the proverbial red tape to quickly get on Bhutto’s schedule.13 The agency appealed to Bhutto, who accepted its advice and decided to accelerate the nuclear weapons program in June 1974.14 The nascent export control regime, which already included most nuclear suppliers, had brought about two very different effects in a very short period of time.15 First, it had begun to negatively impact nuclear weapons efforts—​ tightening the screws of the nonproliferation regime, as former Pakistani Strategic Plans Division director Feroz Khan put it. Second, however, it had also generated the perverse effect of spurring the Pakistani program forward. The PAEC had predicted what the new regime would mean for Pakistani nuclear development and had used its high informational capacity to obtain a political decision to accelerate the program. And Khan argues that the feeling that nonnuclear weapons states were being unfairly punished for India’s crime helped motivate Pakistan’s continued investment in the nuclear program.16

156  Nuclear Decisions However, Bhutto’s 1974 nuclear acceleration decision could not overcome the serious development delays the nuclear export control regime would cause over the next several decades. During the transition period, the PAEC’s ability to obtain nuclear equipment and technology from abroad had been somewhat impacted by informal restrictions on nuclear assistance. Even so, prior to the PNE, Pakistan was under contract with West Germany for a heavy water plant; with France for a large-​scale plutonium reprocessing plant; and with Canada for nuclear fuel, heavy water, and parts for the Canadian-​ supplied CANDU reactor at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant. After the formation of the NSG, however, all of these nuclear suppliers reneged on their contracts. France still tried to salvage the deal for several years. But in the end a combination of US pressure, which included persuasive intelligence reports on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons ambitions, and the national adoption of NSG guidelines by the French government, led France to abandon the deal.17 Not only the loss of nuclear assistance, but also the years wasted in attempting to recover the French contract, delayed Pakistan’s progress. Moreover, the nuclear weapons program was thrown into a state of uncertainty as it became clear that the strengthening nonproliferation regime, driven in part by US pressure, threatened Pakistan’s future ability to import nuclear equipment and technology. Feroz Khan, in reflecting upon the restrictions imposed by the nuclear suppliers in the immediate aftermath of the Indian test, described the PNE as a “death knell” for Pakistan’s program.18 It took Pakistan fifteen more years to achieve de facto nuclear weapons status. The loss of the West German contract delayed Pakistan’s ability to produce enough heavy water for the Khushab reactor until 1998.19 And the nuclear export control regime continues to affect Pakistan’s nuclear weapons production today. After losing the French contract, Pakistan could not find a new supplier for a large-​scale plutonium reprocessing plant and suspended the project. A small-​scale plant eventually replaced it, but it could not be operated until 2000—​eighteen years after construction of the plant was completed—​due to Pakistan’s inability to produce enough spent fuel for reprocessing.20 Of course the loss of the French plant and other foreign nuclear assistance did not end Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The program turned toward indigenous fuel production instead and also devised resource-​and time-​intensive workarounds to procure some equipment and technology.21 These innovations, including A. Q. Khan’s infamous network, allowed the program to continue, but within a significantly longer timeline. The losses caused an approximately forty-​year

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  157 delay and reduction of weapons-​grade fissile material that profoundly impacted the potential size of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.22 It does not appear that Bhutto consulted the military prior to making the nuclear acceleration decision in 1974. Evidence indicates that Bhutto thought Pakistan’s military leaders would be uninterested in developing a nuclear weapons capability. Feroz Khan speculates that Bhutto believed that his chief of army staff, four-​star general Mohammad Zia-​ul-​Haq (who would later depose and then execute Bhutto), was cut from the same cloth as Ayub and Yahya Khan, the military leaders who had preceded Bhutto as Pakistan’s leaders. Ayub had not been interested in pursuing nuclear weapons, and Yahya had focused his attention on staying in power in the midst of domestic crises. After Zia’s successful coup, Bhutto penned his memoirs from prison while he awaited execution, writing that Zia possessed neither the competence nor the desire to continue the nuclear weapons program. Feroz Khan argues that Bhutto feared that Zia would “barter away the nuclear weapons [in exchange for] conventional weapons to expand the army or simply get some financial aid to support the ailing economy.”23 Bhutto’s decades-​long experience with military regime leaders had taught him that the organizational preferences of the army held sway when generals came to power. The history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons effort after Bhutto’s removal from power provides mixed evidence that both supports and undercuts Bhutto’s intuition. C. Christine Fair writes that the army “sets and prosecutes major domestic and foreign policies of the Pakistani state. . . . it seeks to maximize as many of its own corporate interests as possible, even if it must do so at the expense of the state’s interest. . . . the army’s preferred policies have had enormous costs for the institution itself and for the state.”24 Rather than being security focused, Fair argues, the army’s organizational interests and its religious foundation, which Zia worked to establish both prior to and during his regime, shape the military’s preferences. Bhutto was right to be wary of the organizational interests of the military, and he was right in that Zia wanted both conventional weaponry and money to prop up his regime. But he was wrong in his assessment that Zia had neither the desire nor the will to continue the nuclear weapons program. Zia believed that a nuclear arsenal would benefit Pakistan, and in the early 1980s he found himself in an enviable situation in which he did not have to choose between conventional and nuclear weapons development, as I discuss later. Up until Bhutto was removed from power in Zia’s military coup, the Pakistani military remained uninvolved in the nuclear weapons program.

158  Nuclear Decisions Military personnel assisted with security or with building new sites needed for the program, but the military neither participated in nor influenced policy making.25 The period from 1972 to 1977 was characterized by complete civilian control over the nuclear weapons program.26 This changed when Zia installed his military regime. The nuclear weapons program’s centrifuge project had been given to A. Q. Khan in 1976 and named the Engineering Research Laboratories (which would later be renamed Khan Research Laboratories to honor Khan’s work). Zia decided to accelerate the program, separating Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) from PAEC and starting Pakistan on a concerted effort to attain uranium enrichment.27 From this point forward, the military became involved in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. At first much of Zia’s attention was focused not on any threat from neighboring rival India or on domestic policies, but on maintaining power, as one would expect when a military regime comes to power.28 He invested in modernizing military capabilities and used the military for political repression.29 Zia had overthrown a popular prime minister and lacked legitimacy among the Pakistani people. Bhutto, having been released by the military, began holding anti-​Zia political rallies that drew large crowds.30 Zia arranged for Bhutto’s imprisonment, and then, in April 1979, his execution. The nuclear weapons program, however, was popular with both Pakistani military and civilian leaders, and that general consensus allowed Zia to proceed. He understood both the benefits that would come from a nuclear arsenal and the possible costs, and thus he moved forward discreetly to avoid unwanted attention from the international community—​ India and the United States in particular.31 However, the United States had noticed with alarm Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation activity—​its uranium enrichment technology imports in particular. In the same month in which Bhutto was executed, the United States decided to enforce the Symington amendment, imposing sanctions on Pakistan for nuclear proliferation activity, despite concerns within the Carter administration that this would provoke Zia into accelerating the nuclear weapons program. Zia was angered by the US decision but did not respond by accelerating—​or reversing—​Pakistan’s nuclear program.32 Pakistan had established an assertive, forward posture toward neighboring Afghanistan in the early 1970s. Throughout 1979 tensions between Pakistan and the Soviet Union rose as insurgents, funded and supplied from inside Pakistan, launched attacks across the border into Afghanistan. After

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  159 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, the Pakistani military perceived Pakistan as encircled by both India and the Soviet Union. The threat of a possible Soviet intervention, either in Pakistan or its neighbors, led Zia to intensify and expand Pakistan’s forward policy in Afghanistan. The regime ramped up its support of Afghan resistance groups, using Pakistani troops and arms to provide them training, material support, and the territory from which to operate.33 Zia does not appear to have believed that the new threat along the Afghan-​ Pakistani border—​which emanated from the nuclear-​armed Soviet Union—​ would have been better addressed by accelerating Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program to bring nuclear balance to the regional threat. He understood that the constraints placed by the nonproliferation regime meant the Pakistani program could not quickly acquire nuclear weapons, stating in a 1980 interview: “It takes particularly long when you have to acquire [nuclear] technology through backdoor, clandestine methods.”34 Nor, however, did he make a decision to reverse. The ongoing and unsuccessful American efforts to persuade Zia to freeze the nuclear program were about to end, and Zia would soon be the fortunate recipient of a significant amount of aid from the United States. The nonproliferation norms that were strengthening during this period were not sufficient to dictate the course of US action over the next several years. After the Soviet invasion, the United States made the strategic decision to ignore Pakistan’s continuing nuclear weapons effort; countering the Soviet threat was more important. The Carter administration offered an aid package to Pakistan to shore up Pakistani defenses and facilitate covert efforts in Afghanistan. After Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter as president in 1981, the United States significantly increased its support, waiving nonproliferation sanctions against Pakistan and providing an aid package that would ultimately total nearly $7 billion in 2021 dollars, of which $4.3 billion was military aid.35 Zia now had the opportunity to take Pakistan further along its path to nuclear weapons development without risking the US-​ Pakistani relationship.36 In addition, the influx of aid allowed Zia to increase domestic political repression.37 Zia could have his cake and eat it too; both his regime and the country were secure from domestic and foreign enemies. Pakistan’s increased security and warming relations with the United States did not lead Zia to reverse the pursuit of nuclear weapons. On the contrary, he seized the opportunity to continue the program. Feroz Khan describes these years as a time when the nuclear organization felt a sense of urgency to bring Pakistan as close to a nuclear weapons capability as possible before the

160  Nuclear Decisions window of opportunity closed. As the work continued, consensus regarding the importance of the nuclear weapons effort grew between Pakistan’s nuclear scientific and military organizations.38 By 1984 it was clear to the United States that Pakistan was receiving Chinese nuclear assistance and was working on nuclear weapons design. The US Congress passed the Pressler amendment in 1985, which called for the imposition of sanctions on Pakistan unless the president went on record to certify Pakistan had only peaceful nuclear intentions. Reagan issued the certification. By the end of the decade, however, Soviet forces were in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan, and a new regime governed Pakistan. Following the assassination of General Zia, three leaders shared power: President Ghulam Ishaq Khan (commonly referred to as GIK), Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (Zulifkar Ali Bhutto’s daughter), and Chief of the Army Staff Mirza Aslam Beg. Their power-​sharing arrangement was inequitable; GIK and Beg cut Bhutto out of security policy making, including the nuclear weapons program. The military suppressed information about the nuclear weapons effort, even refusing to brief Bhutto on the program. During her June 1989 visit to Washington, Central Intelligence Agency officials showed her intelligence on Pakistan’s nuclear program, providing her with information that they believed Bhutto did not herself know.39 Prior to Bhutto’s visit, the three Pakistani leaders decided to adopt a policy of nuclear restraint. Research and development would continue, but Pakistan would not cross certain lines, such as producing a weapon core, conducting hot tests, or enriching uranium beyond 5 percent. General Beg claimed that they had determined Pakistan had a sufficient nuclear weapons capability by then and saw no benefit to stockpiling. Bhutto could discuss the policy of restraint when she arrived in Washington, and Pakistan would still possess a nascent nuclear deterrent. However, Bhutto herself later claimed the reversal decision was the result of a compromise she had reached with Washington in the lead-​up to her visit.40 Either way, the leaders made this decision once Pakistan had reached the program milestone of a deployable fission weapon. Pakistan still had not conducted a nuclear test. In 1990 the United States imposed sanctions on Pakistan via the Pressler amendment, halting military and economic assistance. The Pakistani program continued; the sanctions and loss of aid, which the government had anticipated, were not severe enough to force a nuclear reversal decision.41 President GIK and General Beg conducted the nuclear program alongside the heads of the nuclear agencies. The military was satisfied with the arrangement. Shuja Nawaz writes:

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  161 The army . . . while profiting from the nuclear program and its leveraging potential in terms of acquiring additional weapons systems from other countries, was, for the time being, content to let [President GIK] manage the program.42

On August 6, 1990, President GIK dissolved Bhutto’s government, and Nawaz Sharif became Pakistan’s new prime minister. Until the end of the decade, the office of prime minister passed between Sharif and Bhutto, with each holding the office twice. In 1993, however, GIK complicated nuclear decision-​making, transferring control of the nuclear program to the army. Future nuclear decisions would need to be acceptable to Army General Headquarters.43 Pakistan continued to rely on nuclear ambiguity and refrain from testing, as leaders believed a test would have serious strategic and political ramifications. However, in 1995 Pakistan’s intelligence services reported evidence that India was preparing for a nuclear test. If India tested, and Pakistan wanted to respond in kind, readying the test site in the Ras Koh Hills would take several months. In early 1996 Pakistan’s new army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, decided to order the immediate preparation of Pakistan’s test site.44 Because the army now managed nuclear weapons program policy, Karamat did not need political approval for that order. The PAEC and Pakistani military were able to prepare the test site by June 1996. But India did not test, and Pakistan held off as well. When India finally conducted the Pokhran-​II nuclear tests in May 1998, Pakistan was ready, matching India with its own test two weeks later on the authority of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.45 Nuclear decision-​making had required a military and political consensus. Bhutto and Sharif had both supported nuclear weapons development throughout the 1990s. It is unlikely, however, that any prime minister who strongly opposed the nuclear weapons program could have held onto power for very long. The program was too popular with the public, the military, and the political elite, and the military held too much power in Pakistani governance, for any nuclear opponent to have had much success.

Conclusion Pakistan pursued a nuclear weapons capability as a defense against the serious conventional military threat posed by India. While a civilian leader

162  Nuclear Decisions initiated the program, once General Zia came to power, the military played a dominant role in the nuclear weapons program. However, Pakistan also serves as a reminder that the presence of a strong conventional threat does not necessarily cause the weaker state to turn to nuclear weapons. During the first fifteen years of Pakistan’s nuclear development, the three successive state leaders, all of them army generals, chose to respond to Indian conventional superiority by investing in conventional weapons development and did not start a nuclear weapons program. How did the nonproliferation regime period affect nuclear decision-​ making in Pakistan? Nonproliferation policy tools were inconsistently applied during a key time in Pakistan’s nuclear development. The export control regime slowed Pakistan’s progress toward the bomb, even after Bhutto accelerated the program at the PAEC’s request. Pakistan responded to the controls by building a complex, illicit procurement network to aid in the production of indigenous technology, costly endeavors that delayed the program. The delay might have bought time for the United States and its allies to try to reverse Pakistan’s program, but Jimmy Carter, who embraced nonproliferation norms, was unwilling to place even weak pressure on Pakistan. He and many others in his administration were more concerned about maintaining the US-​Pakistan relationship at a time of regional instability that included regime change in Iran and Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. The short-​lived round of sanctions, which the Carter administration felt forced to impose via the Symington amendment, had little impact on Pakistan, which was not economically dependent on the United States. When the Reagan administration funneled economic and military aid to Pakistan in the context of joint efforts against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Zia understood Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program could proceed with impunity and seized that opportunity. By the time the United States was ready to impose a new round of sanctions on Pakistan, at the end of the 1980s, it was too late; Pakistan already had developed a nascent nuclear weapons capability.

South Africa The starting point for the South African nuclear weapons program is often identified as 1977, when Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes (also known as John or B. J.) Vorster authorized the production of nuclear weapons. The

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  163 Figure 7.2  Proliferation curve: South Africa

proliferation curve shown in Figure 7.2, however, presents an image that challenges that characterization. The curve marks 1977 as the year when the final push to a nuclear weapon began after many years of program development. How much of that program was explicitly directed toward nuclear weapons, and exactly when the political leadership decided to give the program that direction, is still a matter of some debate. Much of the confusion is due to the program’s extreme level of secrecy and the destruction of internal documents that followed the decision to terminate the program and dismantle the arsenal. Interviews with former officials are especially important

164  Nuclear Decisions in such a case, and I am particularly indebted to Peter Liberman’s defining work on the South African program.46 I date the start of the program to 1974, when the first nuclear decision was made. While many in the South African nuclear and military organizations have argued that the program lacked a military dimension until 1977, this is more an issue of semantics and of secrecy. The compartmentalized nuclear program was kept so secret that the military was excluded from almost the entire proliferation process. The scientists who were working on nuclear research and development were participants in what was termed a peaceful program, and many did not consider the weaponization aspect of their work until the time came for production. The political decisions made by the prime minister, however, point toward an intention to hedge—​to bring South Africa to the point where nuclear weapons could be produced within a relatively short timespan, while hiding the program from the South African people and the world. I code the nuclear organization as having a medium-​level capacity to inform. The nuclear agency held a monopoly on nuclear expertise and enjoyed access to the leader but shared some authority with the Ministry of Mines and was funded through Parliament (rather than having an independent source of funding). I code the nuclear agency’s preferences as weakly supportive. The agency was strongly pro-​nuclear development, but many within the agency were interested only in peaceful applications of the research and technology. Leadership remained interested in weapons development, but dissent within the agency increased in the early 1980s. South Africa’s security environment was marked by conventional warfare in multiple southern African countries, in which the South African military participated. How South African leaders interpreted that regional security environment, as well as the potential of a Soviet threat, is disputed, and I discuss it at length. South Africa’s nuclear program began toward the end of the transition period and mainly took place during the nonproliferation regime period. Restrictions on nuclear assistance and consolidating nuclear norms coincided with international condemnation of South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Program Development and Nuclear Decisions In the decade and a half leading up to the 1974 decision, South African nuclear scientists steadily advanced a nuclear enrichment program before

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  165 politicians formally defined the program’s purpose. Motivated by a desire to achieve success and make new discoveries in the prestigious field of nuclear research and development, members of the nuclear scientific community shared common goals and worked closely together.47 The nuclear research facilities, the nuclear agency’s headquarters, and the main research university were all located in the same geographic area, facilitating close collaboration that enhanced the community’s ability to coordinate their messaging to political leadership. South Africa’s nuclear agency, the Atomic Energy Board (AEB), championed uranium enrichment during the 1960s. AEB head Ampie Roux persuaded first Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, and then Prime Minister John Vorster, to fund an enrichment program. Through the Atoms for Peace program, South Africa obtained a safeguarded research reactor (SAFARI-​1) from the United States. The reactor went critical in 1965 with US-​supplied uranium and with both the equipment and the uranium under safeguards. Vorster, who had been hesitant before talking to Roux and AEB nuclear scientist Wally Grant, decided to authorize the funds to build a pilot enrichment plant (the Y Plant) near the SAFARI-​1 reactor in 1968.48 The nuclear scientists during this time period had a significant information advantage over the prime ministers, neither of whom had a plan for a nuclear program but essentially approved what Roux and Grant proposed. In 1969, after the cancellation of a nuclear reactor program, the AEB began studying PNEs. AEB leadership believed a PNE program would both generate international prestige and solve the practical problem of finding a place for the nuclear scientists who had been working on the reactor project.49 Work progressed, but South Africa lacked the enriched uranium needed to transition to a full program. Once the uranium enrichment pathway was established, with construction beginning on the Y Plant, the minister of mines authorized a PNE research and development program in 1971.50 Recall that these events occurred during the transition period, when the NPT had opened for signature and then entered into force, and as nonproliferation norms were beginning to consolidate. Nonproliferation norms did not stop South Africa’s progress but instead affected how it proceeded: carefully, and with extreme secrecy, so as not to arouse international suspicions. The first nuclear decision that could be interpreted as starting a nuclear weapons program, or at least as starting a program that would allow Pretoria to hedge, was made by Prime Minister Vorster in 1974. Vorster gave approval both for PNE development and for a test site, permitting the program

166  Nuclear Decisions to transition from research and development to a production pathway.51 South African nuclear officials continued to represent the program to foreign journalists as purely peaceful. Vorster’s intentions remain an open question, in part because most documents were destroyed when South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons program. However, it is more likely that Vorster’s decision, which decisively changed the course of the research program toward weaponization, was intended to send South Africa down the path to the bomb.52 Why did Vorster make the decision to set South Africa on a course for PNE development and testing when he did? The two most likely reasons come from events that occurred almost simultaneously, making it difficult to discern which was the proximate cause—​or whether they intertwined. First, the April 1974 “Revolution of the Carnations” in Portugal succeeded in overthrowing President Marcello Caetano. Over the next twelve months, Portugal recalled its military and administrative personnel in Angola and Mozambique. After Mozambique and Angola gained independence from Portuguese colonial rule, which occurred in June and November 1975, respectively, Pretoria lost its perceived cordon sanitaire: a buffer keeping instability and anticolonial violence from reaching South Africa’s borders. It is possible that the 1974 nuclear decision was a response to South African elites’ anticipation of Mozambique’s and Angola’s independence.53 However, we know that within the military organization, South African generals did not turn to nuclear weapons as the solution.54 And while South Africa and Mozambique share a border, Namibia separates South Africa from Angola. The South African military had been involved in fighting the Namibian independence movement, South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), since the mid-​1960s, and would have been likely to have favored continued investment in traditional counterinsurgency operations. Vorster chose to invest heavily in the (conventional) defense budget and to pursue a policy termed “détente,” in which he tried, and largely failed, to recruit allies on the African continent.55 It may be the case that the political leadership also viewed nuclear weapons as providing a hedge against Soviet interference, but the timing is not quite right, as I discuss later. The second reason is the influence of the nuclear organization. Vorster made the 1974 decision nine years after SAFARI-​1 went critical and six years after AEB scientists had persuaded him to authorize the uranium enrichment program. The scientists’ advice on technical matters during these years

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  167 has been described by AEB officials and scientists, and by a former minister of minerals and energy, as unquestioned—​and unquestionable. Former AEB vice president Laurence Alberts used the language of religion and the priesthood to describe the faith that South Africa’s politicians placed in the nuclear scientists in the 1960s and 1970s.56 The nuclear program thus far had been driven almost entirely by the scientists but could not proceed toward weaponization without political decisions to authorize the scientists’ proposals. The AEB successfully tested a scale model of a gun-​type nuclear device, without fissile material, in May 1974. The team was now ready to proceed with building a nuclear explosive device and requested approval from Vorster, who granted it.57 It is certainly possible that the AEB was able to capitalize on a window of opportunity. Perhaps the AEB’s report of the successful scale model test and the collapse of the cordon sanitaire were the factors that tipped the scales and led to the decision. However, most accounts that attribute South Africa’s nuclear weapons program primarily to security concerns, particularly concerning Soviet intervention, date those concerns to 1975, when the USSR began shipping arms to Mozambique and sending Cuban troops and equipment to Angola—​a year after the nuclear decision.58 Whether one dates the start of an official nuclear weapons program to Vorster’s 1974 decision or to the next nuclear decision in 1977, will affect whether one places more weight on scientific interests and influence or on security. Reasonable people can disagree about which constituted the official “start,” and there are different likely explanations for each decision, both of which changed the course of South Africa’s nuclear weapons effort. Recent work on nuclear South Africa situates the 1977 nuclear decision firmly within the context of an increasingly paranoid South African apartheid regime. During the permissive period, South Africa had joined the IAEA as a founding member (1957). But by 1964, when NPT negotiations began, the apartheid government perceived itself as under siege. South Africa faced condemnation and isolation from the international community, as more states publicly rejected the political repression and brutal violence of Pretoria’s white minority apartheid rule. Some were concerned that Egypt, which had a Soviet-​supplied nuclear reactor, might be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the African continent, and that a treaty would prevent South Africa from responding with its own nuclear weapons program. In addition, the regime believed Africa was being infiltrated by communists, and that South Africa had to defend itself against that threat.59 South Africa

168  Nuclear Decisions turned inward, did not participate in NPT negotiations, and did not sign the NPT when it opened for ratification in 1968. Why are the apartheid government’s isolation and embattled mindset important for understanding nuclear decision-​ making after the Soviet Union began to intervene in southern Africa in 1975? South Africa’s nuclear weapons program has presented something of a puzzle for scholars: Pretoria pursued and acquired nuclear weapons despite being a conventionally superior regional power and in the absence of an existential threat. The Soviet Union had limited interests in southern Africa and believed that while Moscow should provide assistance to existing regional movements, true change would happen in the long term and would need to emerge without significant Soviet help.60 However, the apartheid regime was unaware of Soviet intentions and did perceive a threat, particularly in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Pretoria was highly focused on two potential external threats: liberation movements in Africa and the Soviet Union’s involvement in Angola and Mozambique, which some government officials believed presaged a Soviet attempt to end apartheid in South Africa. Noel Anderson and Mark S. Bell argue that Pretoria feared the conventional balance of power could change quickly if the Soviet Union continued to arm and equip rebel movements. In the fall of 1975 South Africa began a covert invasion of Angola that targeted a Marxist rebel movement and was encouraged and supported by the United States. Once South Africa’s role in the invasion was made public, the US Congress shut down aid to the South African forces, and Washington denounced the apartheid regime. Without US support, Pretoria had to withdraw its forces from Angola and became almost entirely isolated from the international community.61 South African elites understood that the South African Defense Forces (SADF) remained superior in southern Africa but feared a future Soviet buildup, even into the mid-​1980s. Some even believed this possible future scenario constituted a present existential crisis, as Anderson and Bell’s interviews with several former military and civilian officials indicate. However, the reported interviews suggest that these officials believed the threat was to the apartheid system rather than to the South African homeland. Their concerns appear to have been grounded in fears that the Soviet Union would work to “expand their influence” and “wanted the SACP [South African Communist Party] to take over.”62 As of this writing, there are no records indicating that Pretoria believed there was any risk of a Soviet

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  169 invasion. Later, South Africa developed its Total Strategy (also referred to as the Total Onslaught Strategy): the defense and advancement of the besieged apartheid state using all possible resources. P.W. Botha’s adoption and implementation of the Total Strategy had a profound impact on the state, redefining South African national priorities and reshaping national institutions.63 Again, however, the timing is important. Anderson and Bell’s insightful work has a shortcoming: the timeline is muddled, and the regime’s attitudes toward security are presented as uniform throughout the 1970s and 1980s. But Angolan and Mozambiquan independence, and the Soviet interventions, did not begin until 1975. The next year, both Namibia and Zimbabwe grew increasingly unstable.64 Further, there was little consensus at this stage on defining and addressing the threat. In a March 1975 memo known as the Armstrong Memorandum, the SADF chief of staff, Lieutenant General Raymond Fullarton Armstrong, argued that the main threat was from Black nationalist terrorist or liberation groups that could acquire nuclear weapons from China in the future and then use them against South Africa. He did not cite a Soviet threat; Soviet arms transfers to Angola were just beginning to arrive that month, and Cuban troops would not be sent until later in the year.65 Armstrong’s perception of a threat from China appears to have been an outlying view that would not have been widely supported within the SADF. Rather, the memo indicates both that the military was unaware of an existing PNE program and that there was a lack of agreement over whether and how the collapse of the cordon sanitaire would affect South African security. Widespread international sanctions and embargoes imposed during the mid-​1970s did not do significant economic harm to the regime, but they did add to the regime’s aggrieved and embattled mindset. Even nuclear-​related sanctions, like the 1975 US suspension of shipments of HEU for the SAFARI-​ 1 reactor, were perceived by Pretoria as being linked more to international disapproval of the apartheid regime than to the emergence of a nonproliferation regime (and in fact, the sanctions were imposed due to both concerns).66 And the bloody and shocking Soweto uprising of 1976, during which white South African police fired upon hundreds of Black schoolchildren, reinvigorated the anti-​apartheid movement and shook the apartheid regime to its core. From the start of Soviet intervention and Pretoria’s fear of a future shift in the conventional balance of forces, to nearly universal global opprobrium, to the tragic turning point of Soweto that significantly increased the domestic threat to the regime, 1975 and 1976 were crucial years for South Africa. These

170  Nuclear Decisions events established a very different decision-​making context for late 1970s South Africa. The Defense Department proposed, among other policies, a vast expansion of domestic arms production, which Vorster approved; by 1977, the defense budget had ballooned to more than three times the size of the 1974–​1975 defense budget.67 In July 1977 the Soviet Union detected South Africa’s ongoing preparations to construct a nuclear test site in the Kalahari Desert and informed the United States. The Carter administration confronted Pretoria in August, and international pressure on South Africa increased once more.68 That same year, South Africa endured the dual insults of being voted off the board of governors of the IAEA—​an organization South Africa had helped establish—​and of international calls for its suspension from the agency. India, however, was permitted to remain on the board of governors, despite that country’s 1974 PNE. Once again, this confirmed to many in Pretoria that South Africa was not being held accountable for its nuclear pursuits but was being persecuted due to apartheid.69 In late 1977 Vorster made the decision to shut down the PNE program and test site and redirected the nuclear effort toward developing a deterrent. P.W. Botha, who was still defense minister at the time, asked his close associate and advisor, the SADF chief of staff for planning, to come up with a set of options for a deterrent force. By April 1978 Botha and Vorster had reviewed the options, and Vorster approved a clandestine, phased nuclear deterrent strategy that would aim to produce seven deliverable nuclear weapons.70 Because the PNE program had already advanced to its final stages, the AEB was able to transition quickly to production. The first nuclear device was completed in 1978, and the second in 1979, but neither was deliverable by aircraft. In September 1978 Botha became prime minister and formed an executive-​level committee on nuclear weapons policy. The committee moved the program from AEB to Armscor, South Africa’s arms procurement and production agency, in 1979. The engineers working at Armscor were better equipped than the AEB’s civilian scientists to complete the transition away from nuclear explosive devices and toward deliverable nuclear weapons. Armscor produced South Africa’s first deliverable nuclear weapon in 1982.71 The 1977–​1982 nuclear program was not so much a sprint, then, as the outcome of the decision to pivot from a robust nuclear hedging program to arms production. Indeed, had Armscor been handed the task at the outset, South Africa would have had deliverable nuclear weapons sooner than 1982. Armscor considered the AEB’s work to be purely civilian because its bomb

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  171 could not be delivered.72 But that definition is too narrow. The AEB’s work was aimed at nuclear explosives, and the agency was preparing to test a nuclear device when Vorster made his 1977 decision to change course. While it is true the AEB did not have the weapons engineers on staff needed to design devices that could be dropped from a bomb bay, the 1974 and 1977 decisions together were what led to the 1982 outcome. The 1977 decision thus initiated not a program but a course change and acceleration. In fact, Vorster had not been inclined to make any nuclear decision at all, but preferred to “let the program develop at its own pace,” which would have allowed South Africa to continue to hedge.73 Botha, however, had a strong preference for a nuclear arsenal, and AEB chairman Ampie Roux agreed (perhaps after Botha encouraged him to adopt that position; the reason remains unknown, although it would have been in the AEB’s interests to replace the terminated PNE program with the nuclear deterrent program).74 And while the Total Strategy concept was introduced in 1977, via a Department of Defense white paper, it was not adopted until after Botha became prime minister in September 1978.75 Without Botha’s lobbying and the backing of the AEB, Vorster may not have made the nuclear acceleration decision in 1977. The military organization, on the other hand, had been uninvolved in the decision-​making process. The SADF intelligence chief did not learn about the program until 1977, when he was asked to provide security for the planned, later canceled, PNE test. The army chief of staff in the 1980s was not told about the program until he became SADF chief in 1985.76 Had the military been invited into the small, extremely secret discussions, most officers, consumed with ongoing regional air-​and ground-​based counterinsurgency operations, would have been uninterested in pursuing a nuclear arsenal. Military leadership during this time was debating whether to aim for a decisive victory against SWAPO in Namibia. The South African Air Force was lobbying for state resources to be prioritized for more fighter aircraft to combat the influx of Soviet fighters in Angola.77 The SADF, however, did not assess these threats as existential. Former high-​level military officials from the 1970s and 1980s, including the military intelligence chief, recall a consensus within the SADF that there was very little threat of invasion from South Africa’s northern neighbors (Mozambique, Namibia, and Angola); nuclear weapons were never discussed.78 The military organization was focused on containing or defeating regional liberation movements, not on protecting the South African homeland against a Soviet invasion.

172  Nuclear Decisions Last, the nonproliferation regime’s main effect on the South African nuclear program during the late 1970s was not to prompt leaders to reverse course but to drive the already highly secret program further underground. After South Africa’s troubles with the IAEA came to a head in 1977, Pretoria participated in talks with the agency for several years but essentially engaged in stalling behavior, refusing to come to any formal or informal agreements and holding fast against pressure to accede to the NPT.79 Neither sanctions aimed at the nuclear program nor the strengthening export control regime harmed the South African program, which already possessed an indigenous enrichment capability. In response to increased sanctions, South Africa built new enrichment plants to support the growing program.80 These nonproliferation regime tools had emerged too late to slow or halt South Africa’s program, which had reached this key level of self-​sufficiency during the transition period. With P. W. Botha as prime minister and later president, nuclear weapons production continued—​but slowly, despite Botha’s keen interest in an arsenal. Armscor’s prioritization of time-​intensive design work to address safety and reliability concerns led to a five-​year lag; the second deliverable weapon would not be produced until 1987. Botha was not only content to allow production to proceed so slowly but also decided to limit the scope of the program in September 1985, after Armscor proposed expanding the program to include thermonuclear weapons.81 Botha made this nuclear reversal decision in the context of high regional tensions, with approximately forty thousand Cuban troops in Angola and increasing levels of Soviet aid. Did Botha, who for years had been a leading champion of South Africa’s nuclear weapons program, change his view on the value of a nuclear arsenal? Or did he believe that the two devices and single deliverable weapon provided South Africa with a sufficient deterrent? Support within the nuclear organization was beginning to wane in the early 1980s. Further, the nuclear organization had no bureaucratic ally, as the military was still excluded from the nuclear weapons program (and even if consulted, it may not have supported Armscor’s desire to invest in new development projects). Some nuclear scientists worried how their work, which had transitioned to actual weapons, might be used, especially during a crisis, when emotions would run high and time would be short.82 Within Armscor, there was disagreement over what South African nuclear strategy should ideally be, with some arguing that South Africa should never use nuclear weapons, even as a last resort in the event of a Soviet invasion, because

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  173 Soviet retaliation would be too devastating.83 Those concerns from below may or may not have reached or influenced Botha, as the leadership of the nuclear organization remained interested in continuing nuclear weapons research and development. One Atomic Energy Corporation official (the AEB was incorporated into the AEC in 1982) attributes Botha’s decision to his realization that the costs associated with the nuclear weapons program would escalate as the program continued. Botha himself reportedly claimed that budget constraints were part of the reason for his decisions, arguing that South Africa should not continue to pour resources into producing weapons that had no offensive value.84 Both the security environment and the lack of strong organizational support beyond the weapons agency can therefore help explain Botha’s reversal decision in 1985. Leaders may respond to perceived external threats in different ways. When Armscor proposed developing a second type of fission weapon and expanding the scope of the program to thermonuclear weapons, Botha not only rejected the proposal but also reduced program funding and rolled back several associated projects underway, such as work related to plutonium devices.85 He explicitly limited the nuclear weapons program to seven gun-​type weapons—​seven deliverable weapons had been the goal Vorster and Botha had originally set in 1978—​ and told AEC chair J. W. de Villiers that South Africa would never use nuclear weapons offensively.86 Only theoretical work on implosion weapons and thermonuclear weapons continued as before. Botha did not make the reversal decision because he believed South Africa was now secure, but because he did not believe thermonuclear weapons would improve South Africa’s security. Rising regional tensions in 1987 and 1988 led Botha not to reinvest in the nuclear weapons program with a new nuclear decision, but rather to initiate preparations at the Kalahari test site. The Soviet presence in southern Africa was growing. Cuban leader Fidel Castro increased troop deployments in Angola, and after ordering troops farther southward, where they engaged in battle with SADF forces, warned South Africa that he might expand the conflict into northern Namibia. It appears that Botha intended to send a signal to the Soviet Union and United States, either in the form of an actual test or with the observable test site preparation alone. It appears the gambit was successful; this time, neither state revealed Botha’s preparations to the outside world, and the United States brokered peace talks that resulted in the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola.87 This outcome

174  Nuclear Decisions likely reinforced Botha’s belief that South Africa already possessed a sufficient nuclear weapons capacity to meet its needs. Nonproliferation regime period norms did not prompt the reversal decision, nor did norms lead South Africa to forswear nuclear weapons. The Reagan administration had tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Pretoria to join the NPT in the mid-​1980s, but it could not promise broad sanctions relief in return, as that step would have required the support of the strongly anti-​ apartheid US Congress.88 In 1987 the IAEA had taken further steps to suspend South Africa from the agency, which Botha had succeeded in delaying by pledging to sign the NPT. He had not delivered on this promise. Instead, Pretoria had renewed negotiations with the IAEA over safeguards, dredging up an old argument from the 1960s: that international monitoring would pose too great a risk of commercial espionage.89 In late 1989, with the winding down of hostilities, South Africa once again shut down the Kalahari test site. F. W. de Klerk ascended to the presidency in September and began implementing sweeping reforms that, over the next two years, dismantled the legal framework of the apartheid system. De Klerk also came into office prepared to end South Africa’s nuclear weapons program, and in 1989 he made the decision to end the program and dismantle the nuclear weapons that had been built to date (a total of six; work on the seventh was ongoing). In a meeting with key officials from the nuclear and military organizations, de Klerk argued that South Africa had to disarm in order to fully rejoin the international community.90 However, his reasons went beyond the benefits of abiding by nonproliferation norms. From a security standpoint, de Klerk reasoned that the Soviet threat was diminishing, and that the end of South Africa’s pariah status would allow Pretoria to develop alliances again, ending the state’s isolation and eliminating another argument in favor of keeping the nuclear arsenal. In addition, the domestic political environment was rapidly changing. The knowledge that the Black political opposition, in the form of the African National Congress (ANC), would come to power in the next several years weighed heavily on the minds of white leaders in the last days of apartheid; de Klerk, for example, was concerned about establishing protected minority rights.91 Though many in the regime have denied it, de Klerk and other regime leaders also feared a nuclear-​armed ANC, a group many of them considered to be a terrorist organization.92 De Klerk made the nuclear decision in secret, knowing that many in the defense community would oppose it, as would conservative nationalists, who

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  175 viewed the nuclear arsenal as a “pillar of white power,” as Peter Liberman describes it.93 But the AEC and Armscor were part of the process. Why were they not working harder to keep the program intact? I argue that these agencies changed their positions on the future of the nuclear weapons program in order to pivot to new programs that would allow the agencies to remain relevant and well-​funded. A declassified memo discussing a lunch meeting held in November 1989, just over a month after de Klerk’s decision, indicates that the nuclear agencies had found new ways to pursue their preferences. The author of the memo, foreign affairs officer Richard Carter, wrote that both the AEC and Armscor were not only ready to end the nuclear weapons program but also had suggestions for new programs to take its place. Armscor proposed a pivot to other military technology programs, such as satellite and missile technology, and argued that such a switch would be cost-​effective. The AEC expressed interest in entering the politically sensitive arena of exporting enrichment technology and material and mentioned that Taiwan had already demonstrated interest in South African nuclear exports.94 The AEC offered suggestions regarding what South Africa should do about the NPT and how the program should be terminated. Carter emphasized that the AEC had strenuously contended that the coming “ANC takeover” meant that Pretoria should accede to the treaty “NOW.” Compared to the year before, the corporation’s stance on the arsenal and the NPT had flipped. But whether South Africa should “come clean,” or attempt to completely decontaminate facilities and destroy records in order to prevent the world from learning the truth about the nuclear arsenal, was still under discussion. The decontamination process was unattractive to the AEC, which argued from an organizational perspective that such an endeavor would be too time-​ intensive and would, understandably, lower morale.95 Armscor and the AEC succeeded in carving out new roles in post–​nuclear weapons South Africa, but the AEC did not get all it had lobbied for, as de Klerk opted for full dismantling and decontamination.96 Both agencies must have read the proverbial writing on the wall in deciding so swiftly and completely to back de Klerk’s nuclear decision rather than to attempt to slow or block the reversal. Prior to the November meeting, the AEC had already discussed the rise of the ANC and what it would mean for the program and had come up with new plans. De Klerk was already dismantling apartheid and within three months of the November lunch meeting had lifted the ban on the ANC and released political prisoner Nelson Mandela. It is almost

176  Nuclear Decisions certain that AEC leaders, who were well-​connected to de Klerk and other high-​level officials, had been part of conversations at high levels in which officials had expressed alarm at the idea that South Africa’s nuclear weapons would fall into the hands of the ANC. Dismantling the arsenal and decontaminating nuclear facilities took place during 1990 and 1991. Pretoria waited to accede to the NPT until after this process was complete and in 1991 agreed to sign the NPT in return for the lifting of sanctions and after a period of time to make “constitutional and administrative arrangements”—​a period that allowed enough time to finish the dismantling and decontamination processes and destroy all program documents before IAEA inspections would begin.97 By September 1991 the termination of the program was complete, and South Africa acceded to the NPT. In 1993 de Klerk at last announced to the world that South Africa had once possessed nuclear weapons.98

Conclusion The South African program was built on a foundation of more than a decade of nuclear research and development, shaped by the nuclear organization and approved of by political leadership, that was geared toward a possible weapons capability. That trajectory allowed South Africa to hedge up until the government made the decision to acquire a nuclear deterrent. The security environment played a role in that decision, but South African leaders interpreted that environment in different ways that pointed them both toward and away from investment in the nuclear program. As the nuclear weapons program developed, the nuclear organization enjoyed access to the state leader, and those who opposed nuclear weapons development were generally sidelined. The state military, which was focused on conventional warfare in southern Africa, was kept out of program decision-​making. The global nonproliferation regime contributed to South Africa’s isolation and drove the program underground but could not prevent program development, which was already too advanced to be significantly affected by sanctions or export controls. The program’s end is attributable to significant changes in political and strategic conditions. But it is also important to recognize that de Klerk’s nuclear decision was easier to make and execute as a result of Botha’s 1985 nuclear decision, which had already limited the scope and scale of the weapons

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  177 program. De Klerk ordered the dismantling of a small arsenal that comprised a relatively small portion of the state budget, as well as the end of theoretical work on nuclear weapons development. Had Botha instead agreed to proceed with the development of implosion weapons and thermonuclear weapons, de Klerk may have found himself in the more difficult position of working to terminate a resource-​rich program with broader and more entrenched interests.

Brazil Brazil’s involvement in atomic projects began in the 1940s with the mining of domestic reserves of uranium for the Manhattan Project in the United States. In the late 1940s, as Brazilian nuclear scientists made technical and scientific advances, navy admiral Álvaro Alberto, an explosives expert, championed a centralized national nuclear effort. Alberto was installed as chairman of the National Research Council (CNPq) upon its creation in 1951. Under his direction, Brazil embarked upon a broad-​ranging and ambitious nuclear program that sought foreign assistance in the form of knowledge, technology, and material transfers. In 1953, with the support of all key actors—​scientists, the military, and national politicians—​President Getúlio Vargas approved a plan to develop an indigenous program that would include the entire fuel cycle.99 I code the nuclear organization as initially preferring to pursue peaceful nuclear development. By the early 1980s, after Brazil’s parallel, militarized nuclear program began, the key nuclear agency’s leadership was in favor of pursuing both civilian and military projects. I code the nuclear agency as having high capacity to inform and influence the leader. The highly independent agency, which operated with little oversight, was established by presidential decree as the chief nuclear agency, was codified into law in 1962, and was strengthened by subsequent legislation. I code the military organization as being highly influential throughout Brazilian nuclear development, much of which occurred during military rule. Even after the transition to civilian rule, the military organization remained highly influential and politically powerful. The juntas that led the military regime were characterized by high levels of interservice competition for resources. I code the military organization’s preferences as neutral toward a Brazilian nuclear weapons capability. Many in the military remained

178  Nuclear Decisions unenthusiastic about nuclear weapons, preferring to focus on regional threats that required conventional equipment, technology, and weaponry. Those who promoted a nuclear effort generally discussed their nuclear goals in terms of hedging, providing Brazil with an option to rapidly build nuclear explosives if that decision needed to be made in the future. While nuclear development was underway during the transition period, most of Brazil’s effort took place during the nonproliferation regime period, characterized by increasingly stringent restrictions that included international safeguards on nuclear equipment, technology, and material (see Figure 7.3). Brazil’s security environment is often thought of in this period as defined by the Brazilian-​Argentine rivalry. However, relations between the two countries improved significantly beginning in the late 1970s, in part due to a shared hope that they could cooperate on nuclear issues, standing together against the norms and market restrictions generated by the nonproliferation regime. The program that Vargas began in 1953 may not have been entirely directed toward peaceful research. Some members of the National Security Council discussed the potential for the nuclear program to take on military aspects to serve Brazil in “future wars.”100 Carlo Patti has written an account of a secret CNPq document from December 25, 1953, titled Sobre as reações termo-​nucleares na bomba de implosão (About thermonuclear reactions in the implosion bomb) and addressed to Admiral Alberto, the CNPq chairman who supported Brazilian nuclear development. Patti states that the document reveals a collaboration between nuclear scientists and the army that had led to the successful 1953 test of an implosion bomb, which can be used either as a fission weapon alone or as the primary in a thermonuclear weapon. In the document, CNPq identified the next steps for a thermonuclear research and development program, which would involve producing either plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and proposed obtaining enrichment technology from West Germany as one possible pathway. Patti argues that this event was not the result of a weapons program, but rather an “irregular” event that was part of an exploratory phase.101 He does not go on to explain where this bomb came from, nor where it was tested. According to everything we currently know about the state of nuclear development at the time, Brazil could not have produced the fissile material for an implosion bomb and did not have a weapons design program to construct such a bomb. This aspect of the program thus remains shrouded in mystery. Whatever the state of nuclear research was in Brazil at this point, had President Vargas continued to lead Brazil, Alberto and other supporters

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  179 Figure 7.3  Proliferation curve: Brazil

of military applications for nuclear research may have sought approval for a weapons program. However, Alberto’s efforts to develop an indigenous uranium enrichment capacity with imported ultracentrifuges encountered delays, as both West Germany and the United States blocked the exports. In the midst of this delay, the politically embattled Vargas died by suicide. His successor appointed a military general, Juarez Távora, to head the nuclear effort. General Távora, who was uninterested in the prospect of a Brazilian nuclear arsenal and favored closer relations with the United States,

180  Nuclear Decisions restructured the program and forced Alberto to resign from his position as CNPq chairman.102 The Brazilian nuclear endeavor was now entirely focused on peaceful applications. Brazil’s first research reactor, provided by the United States through the Atoms for Peace program, started operating in 1957. That same year, Brazil’s president established by decree the National Commission of Nuclear Energy (CNEN) as Brazil’s chief nuclear agency.103 CNEN was placed under the authority of the presidency and was later codified into law in 1962 by an act of parliament. By 1965 Brazil had built its own research reactor, with assistance from the United States.104 A twenty-​one-​year period of military rule began in 1964, when several Brazilian Army generals led a successful coup. Three years later the second president of the military regime, Marshal Artur da Costa e Silva, decided Brazil should pursue an indigenous and independent program aimed at developing a full nuclear fuel cycle.105 His plan led Brazil to once again seek out foreign partners. Costa e Silva sought to purchase nuclear plants outright, planning to construct those facilities in Brazil outside of the restrictions soon to be imposed by the international nonproliferation regime. At the time he was developing his vision of the course of nuclear development in Brazil, negotiations regarding the NPT were in their later stages. Costa e Silva was staunchly opposed to the proposed treaty language that aimed to prevent states from engaging in activities that could lead to the development of nuclear weapons. The Brazilian military perceived the emerging nonproliferation norms of the transition period as a threat to Brazil’s independence and an obstacle to scientific achievement and national prestige.106 Costa e Silva stated that Brazil should be able to pursue the development of “devices that can explode. We don’t have to call it a bomb, but a device that can explode.”107 Matias Spektor argues that Costa e Silva was referring to PNEs rather than nuclear weapons. But building an indigenous nuclear capacity would insulate Brazil from foreign interference in any sensitive nuclear endeavor. In the early 1960s Brasilia had supported efforts to create a nuclear weapons–​free zone in Latin America. But by 1967 the military junta had committed to pursuing a nuclear program that would lay a foundation for Brazil to rapidly develop PNEs in the future, if that decision were ever made. After the NPT opened for signature, Brazil refused to sign it.108

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  181 It took several years for Costa e Silva’s plans to come to fruition. In 1971 CNEN entered into a contract with Westinghouse, a US firm, to build a nuclear power plant, with fuel provided by the US Atomic Energy Commission. The oil crisis of 1973 led to skyrocketing prices for crude oil and provided added impetus for Brazil, which imported most of its oil, to pursue a domestic nuclear energy program. Indeed, physicist and former secretary of state of science and technology José Goldemberg has claimed that the government used the oil crisis as cover, justifying the acquisition of nuclear technology for domestic energy consumption in order to conceal an interest in nuclear weaponry.109 However, after the Indian PNE in 1974, the United States put new export controls into place that threatened the contract. Then, separately and in the context of the energy crisis and rising global demand for enriched uranium, the US Atomic Energy Commission reneged on a commitment to provide Brazil with enriched uranium for the future power plants. The government of Brazil responded by turning to France, and ultimately West Germany, signing an agreement with Bonn in 1975 to obtain two nuclear reactors, a uranium enrichment plant, and a reprocessing plant. This would move Brazil closer to nuclear independence, promising national control of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from exploration and mining all the way to waste disposal.110 What might this significant nuclear assistance agreement reveal about Brazil’s nuclear ambitions? During the negotiations, West Germany had sent documents to Brazil indicating that the jet-​nozzle enrichment technology Brazil was purchasing had the potential to enrich uranium to weapons grade. Brazil’s leaders did not make the political decision to proceed with a nuclear weapons program in 1975, but they did believe Brazil would now have a serious option to pursue weapons in the future.111 Both the nuclear scientific community and the military were excluded from the official state nuclear program, which was run by the state firm Nuclebrás and a few high-​ level political officials. Neither the nuclear scientists nor the military had been consulted during the secret negotiations with West Germany. When the news was revealed, the scientists opposed such wide-​ranging nuclear cooperation, believing it to be a proliferation risk, and the military was unenthusiastic, remaining, as Michael Barletta put it, “uncommitted.”112 The decision to bypass these key organizational actors would contribute to the creation of a covert, parallel nuclear program in 1978. The US government worked throughout the late 1970s, and particularly during the Carter administration, to try to disrupt and discourage West

182  Nuclear Decisions German nuclear assistance. NUCLEN, the Brazilian firm managing the design, construction, and commissioning of Brazil’s nuclear power plants, was frustrated by its inability to purchase the ultracentrifuges needed to enrich uranium for Brazil’s light water reactor, as ultracentrifuge technology from the Netherlands was blocked by US pressure through the emerging NSG export control regime.113 West Germany also refused to provide the technology without safeguards, and the Brazilian program was left with no clear path to overcoming significant challenges in technology and industrial capacity. Further, Brazil lost access to fuel for its Angra I reactor when the US Congress imposed new nonproliferation conditions on enriched uranium in 1978.114 Enriched uranium was monopolized by the United States until the end of the decade, when European suppliers began to enter the market. Due in part to the export control regime, states like Brazil and Argentina lost access to enriched uranium, an unanticipated event that threatened their future progress in nuclear development.115 Concerned by the rising threat to Brazil’s ability to import the technology and material it needed to develop a full nuclear capacity, the Brazilian National Security Council discussed how to proceed.116 Barletta describes the organizational interests that helped shape the government’s response: Brazilian military officers proposed an alternative effort that won support from government leaders and civilian technicians who objected to the dependence of the official program on foreign suppliers and expertise. Military officers involved in the “parallel” effort concluded that Nuclebrás had accepted an unpromising enrichment technology [the jet nozzle] to secure agency jobs . . . [and believed leaders were] naïve in expecting that West Germany would in practice transfer sensitive technology.117

The impact of the nonproliferation regime’s export controls and international safeguards on Brazil’s ability to continue its nuclear development, the Brazilian military’s frustration with what it perceived as Nuclebrás’s mishandling of the nuclear program, and the continuing desire within the Brazilian government to acquire an independent nuclear capability are all clearly linked to the decision to establish a secret, unsafeguarded nuclear program. By 1978 the Brazilian government was preparing to take the next step forward.118 In March 1979 President João Batista de Oliveira Figueiredo gave documented, formal authorization of an autonomous nuclear project, free from international safeguards and coordinated by CNEN.119

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  183 This clandestine project, the Brazilian Autonomous Program of Nuclear Technology (PATN), was deemed the “parallel program,” as it paralleled the civilian program at Nuclebrás. Whether the parallel program included a nuclear weapons effort is still debated. According to a National Security Council explanatory memorandum, one of Brazil’s objectives in establishing the parallel program was “to create the necessary conditions to assure for the Nation the complete and independent mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle and all its forms of application” (emphasis added).120 As governments that are secretly pursuing nuclear weapons do not explicitly record their plans to do so in writing, this type of phrasing is often used to refer to militarized nuclear projects in coded language. I neither take this statement at face value nor consider it confirmation of the presence of a weapons program. The parallel program’s resources were divided, providing opportunities for each service branch to pursue its own projects. The air force project (Solimões) included developing uranium enrichment technology, reprocessing, research reactors, and a capability to allow for the future development of nuclear explosives. The army project (Atlantic) focused on graphite reactors for uranium enrichment and for plutonium production, and the navy projects included a centrifuge program for uranium enrichment (Ciclone) and the development of naval propulsion for submarines (Remo).121 Of all of these, the air force program was most directly linked to a possible nuclear weapons ambition, with some within the service advocating weaponization or at least a PNE program. It appears no decision was ever made, however, to proceed with an explosives program. The navy’s projects, which were unrelated to bombs, were the most ambitious and secretive; full program knowledge was limited to four-​star admirals.122 These components of the parallel program, along with several civilian-​led components, were directed by CNEN. In addition to overseeing the various military projects, CNEN pursued its own work with uranium compounds, uranium reprocessing, and related technologies.123 CNEN’s high level of independence created circumstances that allowed CNEN leadership to exercise power, protecting the program during times of economic crisis—​and even regime change, which I discuss later. In legislation passed in 1974, CNEN had been granted the authority to, among other things, conduct policy planning and control nuclear installations. The act also clarified that Nuclebrás would implement CNEN policies. When Rex Nazaré Alves, a physicist with close ties to the military, became the head of CNEN in 1982, he “energized” the parallel program, working with his military partners to advance the

184  Nuclear Decisions program.124 Together, CNEN and the military operated with little oversight and a great deal of independence. Given these circumstances, why did the program not turn toward a focused nuclear weapons effort? The Brazilian military regime appears to have generally lacked interest in progressing toward nuclear weapons development. There is wide agreement that Brazil did not have strong external security motivations to acquire nuclear weapons during the 1970s and 1980s. The Brazilian military regime, in evaluating the threat posed by rival Argentina, concluded that acquiring nuclear weapons was unnecessary. If anything, Brazil’s security was improving in 1979. Argentina and Brazil resolved a long-​standing dispute over the use of the rivers of the Rio de la Plata Basin for hydroelectricity, signing the Tripartite Agreement, along with Paraguay, in October. Although Brazilian intelligence was aware of Argentina’s nuclear program, the two countries were not embroiled in an arms race, and neither country saw the other as a serious military threat.125 Instead, the regime pursued a nuclear dialogue with Argentina’s military regime, and Brazil came to view Argentina as a potential partner in combating the efforts of the nuclear suppliers to prevent the emergence of new nuclear powers. After the West German–​Brazilian agreement of 1975 raised proliferation concerns around the world, both civilian and military Argentine officials quietly defended Brazil’s sovereign right to obtain fuel cycle technology. Argentina and Brazil both fervently opposed international nuclear technology and fuel restrictions, and this shared stance promoted cooperation between the two governments on nuclear affairs, smoothing the way to future nuclear collaboration and openness.126 The military believed that a threat from the sea, however, was very serious. Tongzhan Kassenova attributes this to the lessons Brazil learned from observing the 1982 Falklands/​Malvinas war. On May 2 a British nuclear submarine sank the General Belgrano, Argentina’s second-​largest ship, off the southeastern coast of Argentina. The attack killed more than three hundred Argentine sailors. Many in the Brazilian military believed that this was the crucial event that determined Argentina’s defeat.127 Developing a Brazilian nuclear-​powered submarine became highly valued by the military regime. The military organizational tendencies to plan for the future by thinking about the last war and to prioritize traditional methods of war fighting would also have served to push the regime to prefer the navy’s submarine program—​ which was making good progress—​over some air force officers’ hopes of a future bomb. And the navy used the Falklands/​Malvinas war to justify its use

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  185 of parallel program resources, reminding the regime that Brazil needed its own national capabilities; after all, the United States had chosen to support not Argentina but the United Kingdom.128 It seems likely that CNEN and the military were able to pursue their parochial interests by leveraging concern about Argentina into the advancement of the parallel program. The lack of serious interest from regime leadership becomes even less surprising when considered through an organizational framework. Military interests in Brazil were more parochial than national. The internal politics of the military regime meant that leadership allowed each service branch to create its own distinct program—​each with its own stream of funding—​ rather than establishing one unified program to efficiently use resources in pursuit of a common national goal. Conflict among the service branches and the lack of political consensus at the leadership level led to a hands-​off approach.129 Decision-​making authority was diffuse and unclear, a situation that permitted military leaders to keep their distance from the muddled effort and ignore what lower-​level officers were doing within the program.130 This was bad program management but good politics, allowing the military regime to please nuclear supporters within the various services, each of which held different preferences regarding the utility of nuclear energy for the military. The navy’s program enjoyed the greatest success. The navy had designed its centrifuge program so that it could also be used to enrich weapons-​grade uranium,131 but its main interest appears to have been submarine propulsion. The program grew quickly but ran into difficulties; twice the navy produced centrifuge rotors from inappropriate materials, having to start over each time. When the program finally moved to rotors made of maraging steel, international nonproliferation controls on exports of the material meant that Brazil had to develop the capacity to produce maraging steel domestically.132 While the uranium enrichment effort eventually succeeded, the nonproliferation regime had delayed the program by at least three years.133 Brazil also used the strategy of reverse engineering safeguarded technology to build separate, unsafeguarded technology. That method of working around the nonproliferation regime further extended the timeline to enrichment. In 1980 Brazil purchased a conversion plant to produce uranium hexafluoride, a compound Brazil had long needed to obtain for the uranium enrichment process. However, the nuclear supplier state, France, required the plant to submit to safeguards. Brazil decided to develop a separate, indigenous conversion plant at the São Paulo Energy and Nuclear Research

186  Nuclear Decisions Institute (IPEN).134 Both the time and the sophisticated knowledge and experience required to complete this additional project delayed Brazil’s progress yet again. By 1984 the navy had been able to achieve the construction and operation of a mini-​cascade of nine centrifuges. That success led the regime to abandon any further consideration of a 1982 proposal by the National Security Council to enrich uranium to weapons grade using the official program’s West German pilot plant. The navy was given increased resources. Figueiredo kept the PATN on its existing course, permitting the air force to proceed with a PNE development program but rejecting its request to test a PNE in 1984.135 Brazil kept the navy’s triumph a secret. PATN officials believed that if the achievement were made public, the NSG would respond by adding crucial centrifuge technology to the Trigger List, which would restrict the export of those items. Because of this concern, program officials decided to conceal their achievement until the transfer of key items from West Germany was complete. Only after the navy had received the last of the items, including essential machinery like a special West German lathe, did Brasilia make the announcement—​three years later, in 1987.136 Soon after the navy’s accomplishment, in January 1985, Brazil took an important step toward democratization when the electoral college voted for Tancredo Neves, a civilian representing the opposition party group Brazilian Democratic Movement. Neves was to take office in March, but he became terminally ill the night before his inauguration, and his running mate, José Sarney, was sworn in in his place. In February, as the military regime prepared for the transition, President Figueiredo’s adviser and general secretary of the National Security Council, General Danilo Venturini, sent a memo to the president “strongly advising” him to allow the activities in the parallel program to remain operative.137 Venturini’s list of ongoing activities included developing nuclear capabilities that would allow for “a wide-​ranging use of nuclear energy, [including] naval propulsion and the production of nuclear explosives for peaceful purposes.”138 The timing of the memo, during a transition period from the military regime to a civilian regime, is suggestive. The council may have been seeking authorization from the president so that the PATN could maintain continuity as the new administration took power. Venturini’s memo indicates that regime leaders wanted neither to forego the option of nuclear weapons nor to accelerate into the pursuit of a nuclear arsenal, but rather to hedge. Staying the

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  187 course and pursuing a capacity to conduct a PNE would allow Brazil to quickly pivot to an explosives program or deliverable weapons program in the future. This would fit with Venturini’s preference to continue with the parallel program without moving toward acquisition. Barletta describes Venturini’s personal views as consistent with those of most high-​level officers in the Brazilian military: that nuclear weapons were political rather than military tools, useful for generating prestige and inspiring awe but not for war fighting.139 Sarney, after becoming president, established a commission to conduct a review of the official nuclear program, and a struggle over the future of Brazilian nuclear policy began. The commission was directed to review the official program but also reported in favor of continuing the enrichment activities being conducted within the PATN. The commission proposed the division of CNEN into two new agencies, which would be placed under the control of the Ministry of Mines and Energy. But the military was still politically powerful in the new, civilian-​led regime. Nazaré Alves used his military ties and support to obstruct the plan. In fact, he managed to strengthen CNEN in the process, gaining more power for the agency and transferring its jurisdiction to the presidency.140 By reporting directly to the president, CNEN had secured a greater opportunity to shape the flow of information on nuclear issues to the president. Sarney generally supported the work of the PATN. However, while the military was able to protect the navy’s program, the administration was losing interest in the struggling official program and the army and air force programs. The official program in particular had incurred ballooning costs and significant construction delays but had relatively little to show for it, especially compared to the navy’s success. The Angra I reactor that was part of the official program experienced many problems and outages, becoming something of a national joke. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, coupled with Brazil’s Goiana radiological accident in 1987, which led to multiple fatalities, contributed to the Brazilian public’s growing loss of faith in the nuclear energy program.141 As Brazil’s economy foundered during the “lost decade” of the 1980s, the struggling official and PATN programs all fell victim to budget cuts, while the navy’s PATN program continued to receive funding, although the funding levels did fluctuate over the next several years.142 The National Security Council, CNEN, and the branches of the Brazilian military provided the funding for the parallel program. When resources became scarce, funds were withdrawn from secret bank accounts kept hidden from congressional oversight.143

188  Nuclear Decisions In 1987 President José Sarney privately informed Argentina that the Brazilian Navy had enriched uranium, then announced it to the world.144 The public announcement of this achievement enabled Brazil to take its place among the world’s masters of the nuclear fuel cycle. But it was the last significant accomplishment of the parallel program. On the heels of the downturn in public opinion regarding Brazil’s nuclear pursuits, the Brazilian Physics Society, which opposed the military’s parallel program, successfully lobbied for the inclusion of an article in Brazil’s democratic 1988 constitution. The article defined the nuclear program as being for peaceful purposes only and placed Congress in an official oversight role. CNEN and the military had managed to soften the article, which as originally written would have prohibited PNEs as well.145 And in practice, the Congress had little ability to exercise civilian control over the PATN.146 But by this point in the transition to civilian rule, CNEN’s influence was being used to play defense, not offense: Nazaré Alves was no longer working to take great steps to move the program forward but instead used his power to ensure the continuity of CNEN and the parallel program and to protect it from those who wanted to tear it down. In March 1990 newly elected president Fernando Collor de Melo made the decision to terminate the military’s parallel program, establishing strict civilian control over all nuclear activities. He removed CNEN’s independent status, placing it under executive control and firing Nazaré Alves.147 Collor disclosed the existence of the parallel program to the public and informed the army, navy, and air force that the PATN was being dismantled. He renounced Brazil’s right to conduct PNEs and agreed to accept all IAEA safeguards at nuclear facilities. The military had not been shut out of nuclear development and had succeeded in maintaining a central role in Brazilian nuclear pursuits. Indeed, Collor had wanted to place CNEN under the Ministry of Science and Technology, which was now headed by Jose Goldemberg, the former head of the Brazilian Physics Society. The military’s opposition to Collor’s plan was too strong, and the president had to compromise.148 Despite the military’s continued political strength and significant role in nuclear pursuits, however, the secret program was officially at an end. Military nuclear projects would be subject to international inspections and would have to abide by Collor’s move to end nuclear hedging and abandon a nuclear weapons option. The navy’s nuclear submarine program survived but lost a significant amount of its financial resources and moved to a new executive agency, the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs, which was subordinate to the president. The nuclear submarine program would be revitalized in 2003.149

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  189 That summer, Collor staged a photo opportunity to provide the Brazilian public, and the world, with a striking image of the end of the program: photographers captured the president, crisp and clean in a starched white dress shirt and gleaming black shoes, shoveling material into the holes at a purported air force nuclear test site.150 The holes had been drilled by the air force in the 1980s, perhaps for the purpose of testing nuclear devices or storing nuclear waste—​or for show, to present the illusion of progress toward a nuclear weapons capability.151 Ambassador Luiz Augusto de Castro Neves recalls that the air force wanted to have a field for tests and won the drilling as a concession, but the location turned out to be unsuitable, as the water table was too high, and equipment was “swallowed” by the water. The holes were thus abandoned.152 Brazilian military generals, positioned around Collor, looked on awkwardly. The physical act of burying the holes (although Collor himself did not finish the task) symbolized the death of the nuclear weapons program and the civilian government’s power over the military. Collor had benefited from the foundation Sarney had already laid; while Sarney had supported the PATN, he had also begun to exert civilian control over the nuclear program. This, combined with Brazil’s financial struggles, the failures and delays that had plagued the official program, and the open debate over nuclear energy that accompanied the transition to democratic governance, aided Collor in bringing an end to the parallel program. The nonproliferation regime had also had a significant impact. A robust IAEA inspections regime and significant US nonproliferation policies had driven Brazil’s program underground. In the eyes of the Brazilian public, emerging from years of military rule, this secrecy rendered the entire program suspect. Further, by reducing access to needed equipment, the NSG’s export control regime had slowed Brazil’s progress and imposed obstacles that frustrated the official path to nuclear development. When domestic opposition formed in the late 1980s, the nuclear program had not been able to make sufficient progress to be able to survive intact. Interestingly, Collor does not appear to have attempted to use the program as a bargaining chip (recall the discussions within the South African government over whether to negotiate for side payments in exchange for forswearing nuclear weapons and acceding to the NPT). Washington had stipulated that both Brazil and Argentina would have to accept international safeguards in order to resume a full political and economic relationship with the United States.153 It is likely that Collor was unwilling to risk asserting civilian control over the program and reaping these promised benefits by

190  Nuclear Decisions involving the military in discussions regarding whether to use the program as leverage in negotiations with Washington.

Conclusion The history of the Brazilian parallel program demonstrates that nonproliferation policies can have perverse effects. A driving goal of the Brazilian government was to acquire the entire nuclear fuel cycle and gain independence from foreign nuclear suppliers and their discriminatory, restrictive policies on less advanced states. The work of the United States to prevent Brazil from achieving this goal only confirmed Brazil’s rationale for pursuing it. The case also illustrates how institutional influence is affected by organizational structure and executive control. Both CNEN and the military had the political ability to influence the various presidents who presided during the time the parallel program was in existence and to impede unpalatable plans. President Collor recognized this, as is evidenced by the structural bureaucratic control he asserted over CNEN when bringing the parallel program to a close. The Brazilian military pursued its own interests during the course of the parallel program, with each branch charting its own particular pathway to nuclear development. Instead of focusing national resources on a series of objectives to be met in order to accomplish a single national goal, the military embarked on a diffuse series of parochial programs, some redundant, intended to develop nuclear power for various military applications. It made political sense for leaders during this period to satisfy the service branches with funding for individual programs. The military’s failure to rally around a single plan for the good of the country was also due to the organization-​ wide lack of enthusiasm for progressing further than a national capacity that would keep the option open for a future explosives capability. The absence of nuclear decisions is also particularly interesting. Brazil’s leaders were content with the progress made within the PATN, especially the navy’s success with enrichment, and were not pressured by the military organization to change the course of the program. Up until 1990, when reversal decisions were made they concerned the official program, not the PATN. Yet while there was no official decision to proceed toward a weapons program, the PATN cannot be defined as peaceful, either. The realization that Brazil would not acquire full control of the fuel cycle with German assistance alone had prompted the National Security Council to discuss military options, but

The Nonproliferation Regime Period  191 there would have been other possible courses of action to take that would not have necessitated military involvement. If the Brazilian government had been interested only in a civilian nuclear energy program, simply accepting safeguards on imported technology would have solved the problem.

Conclusion: Nuclear Decisions during the Nonproliferation Regime Period Each of the programs examined in these three cases was affected by the international nonproliferation regime. In each case, the anticipation of the regime and opposition to what country elites viewed as discrimination by the nuclear weapons states affected state behavior. South Africa’s development of a nuclear arsenal was unencumbered by the nonproliferation regime, as the nuclear program had achieved the key milestone of uranium enrichment prior to the start of the NSG’s export control efforts. South Africa’s progress was delayed instead by weapons design difficulties but ultimately resulted in a small nuclear arsenal. The nonproliferation regime significantly delayed and frustrated Brazil and Pakistan, and both states turned to reverse engineering, among other time-​and resource-​intensive methods. Pakistan took advantage of key opportunities—​US willingness to look the other way and A. Q. Khan’s connections—​to move the nuclear weapons program forward. Brazil, which maintained an ambiguous program that operated without a formal decision to develop a nuclear explosives capability, made gradual progress, but program plans were continually thwarted by export controls and Carter administration nonproliferation policies. Lacking a clear direction and significant development after a tremendous outlay of resources, portions of Brazil’s program were shuttered, and only the navy’s uranium enrichment and nuclear submarine projects were allowed to continue. The security environment was a crucially important driver of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. However, during the 1950s and 1960s Pakistan’s military leaders chose not to weaponize Pakistan’s nuclear program but to invest in conventional weapons to defend against the powerful Indian military; it was a civilian regime that fired the starting gun. Once General Zia took power, however, the military became the dominant force in Pakistan’s nuclear pursuits. In South Africa the military, which prioritized conventional war fighting and regional security, was kept out of the nuclear program, whereas the nuclear organization enjoyed access to the leader and proposed

192  Nuclear Decisions program goals from below. Although weapons production was eventually handed over to the arms industry, the nuclear organization had shepherded the program all the way to that point without military input. Brazil’s military leaders initiated and supported the parallel nuclear program, which was conducted by the military and led by a civilian agency with military ties. The strong agency, aided by pro-​nuclear voices within the military, protected the parallel program through long periods of economic turmoil, as well as the transition to democratic rule. Brazil’s security environment provided little reason to pursue nuclear weapons, and leaders made no course-​changing nuclear decisions until President Collor terminated explosives-​related research. Finally, when compared to decision-​making during the permissive period (Chapter 5), decision-​making during the transition period and nonproliferation regime period (Chapters 6 and 7) offers a strikingly different view of nuclear program development. In each of the six cases discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, how far a program had progressed by May 1974, when the Indian PNE test occurred, appears to have been an important factor affecting post-​1974 nuclear decision-​making. Of the six cases studied, with the exception of Pakistan, only states with an enrichment or reprocessing capacity predating the Indian PNE succeeded in weaponizing after 1974. While the negotiation of the NPT and the construction of the nonproliferation regime had perverse effects, driving some states toward oppositional nuclear programs, the regime still appears to have succeeded in preventing proliferation by making it significantly more costly. In the concluding chapter I discuss nuclear decision-​making in Iran and explore the implications of this study for nonproliferation policy.

8 Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs The nuclear decisions I examine in this book are decisions to either accelerate or reverse nuclear weapons programs. These decisions shape states’ proliferation pathways. A rich body of research has examined the conditions under which states begin their nuclear weapons programs and factors that may contribute either to the acquisition of nuclear weapons or to a program’s termination. Much of this literature is concerned with time to acquisition. What makes my inquiry different is a focus not on time but on the form of proliferation. There is no one set, linear path to the bomb, but multiple paths formed by nuclear decisions. Whether a state reaches the outcome of nuclear weapons acquisition depends on these nuclear decisions. This conceptualization of nuclear weapons programs is a key contribution of this book. The variation exhibited by the different proliferation curves across the nuclear age cannot be explained solely by regime or leader types, nor by security environments. The case evidence clearly demonstrates that states do not initiate nuclear weapons programs and then take linear paths to a singular goal. Indeed, some states do not initiate official weapons programs until nuclear development has progressed almost to the point of a nuclear weapons capability. And leaders may consider different possible outcomes, only one of which is a nuclear arsenal. A nuclear weapons capability is one of a series of options available to states that face serious security threats, and few leaders pursue nuclear weapons at all costs. Within three different time periods across the atomic age, international political and structural conditions have constrained or freed states to pursue nuclear weapons development. In the permissive period (1941–​1964), major world powers pursued the bomb with few external constraints. The transition period (1965–​1974), which began with the shock of China’s nuclear test, was defined by a growing international effort to create a nonproliferation regime.

Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197679531.003.0008

194  Nuclear Decisions India’s nuclear test highlighted the limitations of the emerging regime and brought about the swift end of this formative period. The nonproliferation regime period that followed (1975–​present) is defined by the strengthening, and later expansion, of the nonproliferation regime. Nonproliferation norms deepened, and states that violated those norms faced reputational harm and the risk of economic sanctions or military strikes. The different conditions within each period shape a leader’s information environment from the top down. From the bottom up, within the state, key domestic organizations with relevant expertise hold distinct preferences about nuclear weapons. Those expert organizations, the domestic nuclear agency and the state military, contribute to a leader’s understanding of the costs and benefits of the state nuclear weapons program. Across the three time periods, domestic organizations may have opportunities to intervene to bring about, or prevent, a nuclear decision that has the potential to change the course of the state’s nuclear pursuit. Effective domestic organizations can filter and frame information from the external environment, altering a leader’s perceptions of the costs and benefits of pursuing nuclear weapons. And organizations can not only shape the context in which the leader approaches the subject of nuclear weapons development but also create the set of policy options among which the leader will choose. Nuclear scientific organizations and military organizations may hold competing preferences, as the case studies have demonstrated. When that happens, not only are fewer voices attempting to influence the leader in favor of nuclear weapons pursuit, but there also is no bureaucratic ally to sustain nuclear weapons pursuit if state leaders begin to consider nuclear reversal. This balance of preferences can also help us understand what happens inside long-​established nuclear weapons states. Consider nuclear weapons modernization efforts in the United States. The W76, which is the two-​stage thermonuclear warhead used to arm submarine-​launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), began production in 1978. In 2000, nuclear weapons scientists began work on a life extension program for W76 warheads, which were nearing the end of their thirty-​year service life.1 The scientists were tasked with rebuilding the warheads for extended future use. But one of the key materials needed for the two-​stage design had not been produced at the Y-​12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for two decades. Y-​12 restarted the production line, but it was unable to achieve the needed level of purity for the material. Weapons designers at Los Alamos National Laboratory looked to alternative materials to serve as a substitute for the original. Over the course of

Changing Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs  195 approximately a year, the nuclear scientists at Los Alamos not only tested and analyzed various alternatives but also improved the code for the warheads in the process of analyzing the different reactions and explosions. After identifying an alternate material that could be successfully used in the W76 and improving the functionality of the warhead in other advantageous ways, the redesign was presented to the US Navy. However, despite the improvements to the warhead, the naval officer responsible for this aspect of the SLBM program told the scientists in the design lab that he didn’t want to use the new version of the W76. The navy didn’t want to hold two different types of W76 warheads in the arsenal, and the one they wanted wasn’t the new, improved version, but the old, familiar version. One of the navy’s concerns was that the original W76 had been tested underground, while US compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty meant that the new version could not be tested in the same way.2 The officer told the design lab that he believed their assurances that their methods of testing and analysis were sound, and that the new version of the weapon was superior in several ways, but the navy still preferred to stick with what it knew. Finally, significant nuclear decisions require political will, not only because nuclear weapons are so strongly tied to national interests, but also because nuclear decisions bring about policy changes, resource reallocations, and sometimes structural shifts within or among state institutions. The outcomes that are the products of nuclear decisions may take months or years to materialize. The lag between decision and outcome means that programs may reach milestones that are the product of decisions made by past leaders who were responding to different conditions. States may create nonproliferation policies based on observed outcomes, when a better approach would consider the circumstances that contributed to the underlying decision that occurred months or years earlier. With that in mind, I discuss the implications of a decisions-​based approach for understanding proliferation activities in Iran, a major case of interest as this book is being written.

Future Nuclear Decisions: Iran For decades, nuclear hopefuls like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Libya made progress toward acquiring nuclear arsenals. While Iraq and Libya both reversed course and ultimately terminated their programs, North Korea

196  Nuclear Decisions succeeded in making deliverable nuclear weapons, and Iran’s leaders may decide to move from nuclear hedging toward nuclear weapons production. No country that has produced a nuclear arsenal has ever disarmed, with the exception of South Africa’s declining apartheid regime. North Korea’s fears of an existential threat, lack of trust in international agreements, and desire for international prestige through the pinnacle achievements of nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles also reduce any likelihood of disarmament. Iran, however, has not yet produced a nuclear arsenal. What factors might increase the likelihood that Iran’s leaders would decide to change the course of its nuclear program? Iran’s leaders have made both nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions over the course of their nuclear effort. In the 1950s Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, began a nuclear program with US assistance. The shah created the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) through an act of parliament brought into force by the shah’s Royal Decree of July 11, 1974. The act gave the AEOI legal personality and an independent source of funding, and the head of the AEOI, physicist Akbar Etemad, was granted an enormous amount of autonomy.3 Etemad had the power to make all decisions involving budget and hiring, and he enjoyed direct access to and support from the shah. The program was kept ambiguous, and the shah, intending to pursue a strategy of nuclear hedging, directed the AEOI to pursue research on all aspects of nuclear energy.4 The autonomy of the nuclear organization was used for very different purposes in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. The new Iranian regime felt enormous political pressure to roll back a “Western” program that was perceived as a drain on state coffers. A well-​connected geologist who had taken part in the revolutionary movement, Fereydun Sahabi, was appointed as the new head of the AEOI. Dedicated to the ideals of the Revolution and disappointed that many of the AEOI staff were uninvolved in politics, he was strongly opposed to the nuclear program. Almost all nuclear activities were shut down, leaving only the nuclear facility at Bushehr operational (and only because Sahabi could not find another use for the specialized plant and equipment). Foreign nuclear contracts were suspended for review by the new regime or canceled outright.5 The AEOI, although left in a state of suspended activity, survived largely intact. Its formal structure and powers, codified into law, remained in place. By 1980 and 1981 influential people within Iran’s government had begun pressing for the revival of the nuclear program. The program quickly started

Changing Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs  197 back up again once Sahabi was removed from his post and replaced by a nuclear scientist, Reza Amrollahi.6 As a legal entity, the AEOI had never been dissolved, and the decision to advance the program again was able to take place within a short time frame. Around 1984 or 1985, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, decided it would be appropriate for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons for self-​defense, and the regime made the political decision to pursue an indigenous uranium enrichment capability through a gas centrifuge program.7 Around the time of the end of the Iran-​Iraq War, in 1988 or just after, the government initiated a covert nuclear weapons program called Project Amad, the details of which are still not clear to project outsiders.8 After some discussion, regime leaders decided Iran would remain in the NPT while pursuing the bomb.9 Since then, Iran’s proliferation pathway has been shaped by still more nuclear decisions.10 Most recently, a series of nuclear reversal decisions that began in 2003 had preceded the 2015 decision to accept the commitments of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That agreement, reached by Iran, the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, placed serious constraints on Iran’s nuclear development, along with the most comprehensive monitoring and verification regime ever negotiated, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on Iran. The United States withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions in May 2018, claiming dissatisfaction with aspects of the agreement (but not citing any specific Iranian violations of the agreement). In May 2019 Iran made the nuclear acceleration decision to begin violating the agreement by restarting nuclear development activities, citing the reimposition of sanctions.11 What does this mean for the future of Iran’s nuclear program? First, the reversal decisions that took place between 2003 and 2015 took place within a changing external environment. The October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, followed by the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by a US-​led coalition, resulted in Iran’s encirclement. After the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, the United States effectively became an occupying force on Iran’s west border (Iraq) and a warfighting force on Iran’s east border (Afghanistan). Second, the Iranian nuclear weapons effort was revealed to the international community in 2002, and the IAEA investigated Iranian nuclear facilities in the fall of 2003, later issuing a report indicating that Iran had indeed been pursuing a weapons capability. The decision to slow work on Project Amad and change course to conduct studies, rather than pursue a capacity to produce nuclear

198  Nuclear Decisions weapons, was made in the context of ensuing international negotiations, as Iran’s government worked to avoid UN Security Council action, increased sanctions, and potential military strikes.12 Second, the NSG’s export control regime created a situation in which high costs and unreliable access to equipment interfered with Iran’s nuclear development. This interference contributed to Iran’s reversal decisions. The Iranian program turned to using an illegal proliferation supply network as a workaround, but delays due to manufacturing errors and the receipt of unreliable parts also impeded progress. Caveat emptor has particular meaning for a program purchasing goods from an illegal network; there is no recourse when the goods received are faulty. In addition, commissions paid to the network’s agents and middlemen, and the practice of inflating prices to earn “a fat profit,” meant that these costs were passed along to the Iranian program.13 After Iran’s costly war with Iraq ended in 1988, the Iranian government could not afford to rely on these black market networks. The program instead had to invest great time and effort in establishing its own procurement networks, further delaying progress.14 The years-​long diplomatic efforts that brought about the suspension of the Iranian nuclear weapons program in 2015—​albeit a suspension that has since been reversed—​would likely not have been possible without the delays incurred via the export control regime.15 However, now that Iran has accelerated its nuclear program and continues to draw closer to a full nuclear weapons capability, what domestic organizational factors might promote or obstruct a future reversal decision? The security environment continues to pose a threat to Iran, which remains isolated. How key organizations and actors within the Iranian government perceive that threat is less clear. First, what is the role of the AEOI today in Iranian nuclear decision-​ making, and what preferences do AEOI scientists hold about the nuclear program? Over the last decade, multiple Iranian nuclear scientists have been targeted and killed, including Moshen Fakhrizadeh-​Mahabadi, the scientist believed to have been the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.16 Have these attacks had any impact on the attitudes of Iran’s nuclear scientists, by either spurring them forward toward the bomb or dissuading them from continuing weapons-​related work? The history of the AEOI demonstrates that the agency can wield significant influence, and the organization is still a powerful domestic actor today. Hassan Rouhani, who led Iran’s nuclear negotiations team before serving as Iran’s president from 2013 to 2021, has spoken several times about the strong influence of the AEOI in determining Iran’s position in nuclear talks.17

Changing Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs  199 Yet the role of the AEOI related to nuclear weapons development is uncertain. It is possible, and some believe likely, that the AEOI is responsible for the peaceful aspects of nuclear development in Iran, and that another entity is responsible for activities related to weaponization. On the other hand, the AEOI has direct access to both Iran’s president and the supreme leader, and it conducts key nuclear activities that are crucial to a weapons program, such as Iran’s enrichment program.18 The organization has been portrayed by insiders19 as being driven by a desire for scientific discovery and technological achievement, which matches the expectations I described in Chapter 3. But nuclear achievement could be defined by mastery of the fuel cycle and achieving a known nuclear weapons capacity, without actually having to produce the bombs. Whether AEOI scientists are pro-​or anti-​ nuclear weapons production, and what the balance of those preferences is within the organization’s leadership, is highly relevant to understanding the information environment in which Iranian nuclear decisions are made today. Second, how are Iranian military organizations advising the government on countering threats that might be posed by the United States and its allies? Both the Iranian military (the Artesh) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are involved, along with key intelligence agencies, in top-​level national security policy discussions. Ariane Tabatabai describes the difference between these two organizations in this way: While the Artesh holds its roots in Imperial Iran, the IRGC was a bottom-​ up creation by the revolutionaries. The Artesh was seen as beholden to the nation and not the nascent regime. . . . [T]‌hese two arms of Iran’s forces have distinct subcultures, which, in turn, shape their beliefs and attitudes on security issues.20

The Artesh is the traditional military organization in Iran, and the officer corps is more likely to hold the traditional military preferences I described in Chapter 3, while the IRGC operates separately, has a strong domestic political role, and works particularly closely with the supreme leader’s office. The IRGC’s activities include both direct and indirect involvement in external conflicts, from sponsoring armed nonstate actors in West Asia and the Levant to deploying its Quds Force to Syria during the civil war of the 2010s. As a military organization that holds significant political and economic power in Iran, the IRGC has gained power and influence in Iranian politics over the last three decades.

200  Nuclear Decisions After the former commander of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, was targeted and killed in a US strike in January 2020, there have been reports of threats to the IRGC’s power as domestic rivals attempt to displace the organization.21 It is likely, however, that the IRGC is institutionally strong enough, and has enough formal, legal autonomy, to weather the loss of its leader.22 Tabatabai argues that the IRGC’s strategic thinking and outlook has been defined by Iran’s experience in the Iran-​Iraq War (1980–​1988). IRGC leaders view the war, which wound down in a stalemate, as ongoing. For example, the IRGC views US actions today as a continuation of the war, believing that the United States couldn’t defeat Iran by supporting Iraq in the 1980s and is still trying to defeat Iran today. The wartime experience of Iran’s isolation, viewed as abandonment, contributes to IRGC leaders’ distrust of international agreements and preference for self-​sufficiency.23 What might this mean for the organization’s views regarding nuclear weapons? The IRGC is unlikely to be persuaded to trust the United States and its allies to uphold their promises (and indeed, the United States acted according to those expectations in 2018), and it will continue to view those states as an ongoing threat to Iran. Whether that means IRGC leaders believe investment in a nuclear arsenal, rather than a nuclear hedging capability, is in Iran’s interests is a different matter. As an organization, the IRGC’s involvement in foreign conflicts centers around asymmetric warfare, which requires conventional arms, explosives, troops, and money. Founded to safeguard the Iranian revolutionary regime, the IRGC also requires conventional arms and troops, rather than nuclear weapons, to carry out its domestic mission. Further, it is unclear what Iranian organization would command and control a nuclear arsenal. The IRGC controls Iran’s missile program, but that does not necessarily mean it would also win custody of nuclear weapons. If future custody is presently undetermined, the Artesh and IRGC may vie for custody. But if one of the two military organizations believes the other will gain possession of any future nuclear warheads, the one that will be left without may lobby against nuclear weapons development, fearing a future possessor’s rise in domestic power. If the IRGC continues to be a major player in Iranian decision-​making, as it likely will, then we would want to know whether an intraorganizational debate surrounding nuclear weapons exists, as well as what the balance of preferences is among top IRGC commanders. We would also want to know whether the Artesh and IRGC hold competing preferences, due to different organizational interests. Understanding whether some in the IRGC

Changing Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs  201 leadership hold antinuclear weapons preferences, and whether those voices are influential, would help outside policy makers understand the nuclear information environment within Tehran. As this study of nuclear decisions demonstrates, that environment can influence how leaders assess the costs and benefits of a nuclear weapons program and the value of proceeding further along a proliferation pathway. A one-​ size-​ fits-​ all policy, like the “maximum pressure” campaign undertaken by the United States during the Trump administration, may have unintended consequences for the nuclear decision-​making environment in Iran. The new rounds of sanctions the United States imposed, for example, have allowed the IRGC to strengthen its domestic hold on power.24 That outcome runs counter to US interests in West Asia and the Levant, given the IRGC’s actions, but whether it is also harming US nonproliferation efforts depends on whether the IRGC is a nuclear weapons promoter. Iran’s acceleration appears on the one hand to be a strategic response to the US withdrawal from the JCPOA: a way to increase Iran’s bargaining power. On the other hand, voices within the AEOI, IRGC, or Artesh could seize the opportunity to push for weapons production: organizational behavior that would surprise no one who has read the case studies in this book. If policy makers think about nuclear proliferation in terms of decisions, then they would likely forgo a one-​size-​fits-​all approach that assumes all states proceed toward the bomb along a linear path. Instead, in addition to policies that impose costs on a nuclear weapons pursuer, policy makers would also favor nonproliferation policies that help shape the domestic information environment in potential proliferators. Policies that make reversal decisions look more attractive to influential domestic organizations will help affect how leaders perceive the costs and benefits of nuclear weapons.

Conclusion The interests, capacity, and actions of nuclear and military organizations deserve further attention and research. These expert organizations may shape other decisions, too. In Chapter 1 I briefly discussed the fragmented nuclear projects pursued by the Japanese military in the 1940s. Japanese scientists played a part in convincing military officers that in the context of the ongoing war, nuclear weapons would take too long to acquire. This advice also influenced decision-​making regarding war fighting. Some in the Japanese

202  Nuclear Decisions military had been so persuaded by the Japanese nuclear scientists’ argument that nuclear weapons could not be built quickly enough to be used during the war that when they received news of the US attack on Hiroshima, they did not initially believe an atomic bomb could have been used. Army minister Anami Korechika took advantage of this skepticism to push for his preferred action: a last-​ditch defense of the Japanese homeland rather than surrender. Ultimately, Anami was unsuccessful. But the interplay among experts—​ nuclear scientists and military leaders—​mattered for decision-​making in wartime. Scientific expertise can be highly persuasive, and military officers are typically highly trusted. How experts influence not only leaders, but also each other, is an important part of understanding state policy making. Those who can shape a leader’s beliefs about the value of a nuclear weapons program to the state can catalyze the nuclear decisions that determine the course of nuclear programs.

Appendix Nuclear Decisions by State Australia: In 1945 Prime Minister Joseph Benedict (“Ben”) Chifley’s government decides to pursue cooperation with the British nuclear weapons effort and begins planning the steps Australia will take toward a nuclear weapons capability.1 In 1964 the government decides to shift away from trying to acquire nuclear weapons from Britain and toward developing an indigenous nuclear capability.2 Prime Minister William McMahon’s government suspends the Jervis Bay nuclear reactor project in 1971.3 The government ends the program in 1972.4 Belarus: Belarus inherits Soviet nuclear weapons (but not operational control) on its soil from independence in 1991. The decision is made in 1992 to give Russia jurisdiction over inherited Russian strategic nuclear weapons.5 Brazil: The secret parallel program may have begun as early as 19756 or as late as 1979.7 By 1978 the Brazilian government is preparing to initiate that program.8 In March 1979 President João Batista de Oliveira Figueiredo authorizes a parallel, clandestine nuclear project, named the Brazilian Autonomous Program of Nuclear Technology, which is free from international safeguards.9 The civilian regime that comes to power in 1985 after military rule is supportive of the parallel nuclear program but indefinitely postpones the construction of the Resende reprocessing plant after long delays and ballooning costs10 and stops work at the Cachimbo Air Force base and testing site in 1986.11 President Fernando Collor ends the parallel program in 1990.12 See Chapter 7 for the full case study. China: Chairman Mao Zedong initiates the nuclear weapons program in 1955.13 In 1960 the Soviet Union ends its nuclear weapons cooperation with China, and China decides to invest heavily in a crash program to acquire nuclear weapons without Soviet assistance.14 Several weeks after China’s successful 1964 test of a nuclear fission device, the Second Ministry sets a goal of 1968 for the first test of a hydrogen bomb. The successful test takes place in 1967.15 After nuclear weapons acquisition in 1977, the Central Military Commission and State Council overturn China’s focus on nuclear weapons-​ based force modernization, deciding to refocus efforts on conventional weapons instead. Deng Xiaoping’s demilitarization policy, which prioritizes civilian industry over military industry, including in the nuclear sector, is formally initiated soon after.16 France: Late in 1954 a meeting of Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-​France and cabinet officials leads to the establishment of a secret program; the prime minister does not formally declare a nuclear weapons program, but authorizes a program that nuclear agency officials classify to him as “indistinguishable” between civilian and military. This date is generally viewed as the best one to choose for the start of the official French program.17 In April 1958 Prime Minister Félix Gaillard signs an order authorizing the first nuclear test, to be conducted in 1960.18 Later in 1958 Charles de Gaulle returns as the head of the French government and accelerates the French pursuit of nuclear weapons, ordering the development of a full-​scale military nuclear program.19 France successfully tests its first nuclear fission device in 1960. Later that year President de Gaulle ensures that the Assemblée

204 Appendix Nationale passes a law that will fund research on thermonuclear weapons.20 That research plods along. In 1965–​1966, President de Gaulle decides to accelerate hydrogen bomb development. He first instructs his ministers to move the program forward. After learning the scientists have received vague direction and lack needed resources, de Gaulle directly authorizes the hydrogen bomb program.21 After acquisition: Alongside the coming end of the Cold War, France scales down materials production; some programs are canceled, others are “stretched out or reduced,” and the government “revised downwards its production goals for nuclear materials.”22 The major reorganization plan canceling, retiring, or limiting various nuclear forces is made in early and mid-​1989 and is implemented in September 1991.23 The end of the Cold War does not prompt France to reverse; the defense minister cites potential threats from new nuclear powers, as well as the continuing existence of both Russia and the Russian nuclear arsenal, as reasons.24 See Chapter 5 for the full case study. Germany: In late 1941 the German government moves from investigating nuclear energy with the potential for military use to a concerted, serious effort to pursue nuclear weapons. The German nuclear weapons program ends with the defeat of Germany in World War II.25 India: Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri authorizes Dr. Homi Bhabha in 1964 to develop technology for a nuclear device to reduce the time needed to build a nuclear weapon.26 In 1966 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspends most nuclear weapons development activities, and a “nuclear option” strategy is developed.27 The program is revitalized around 1972, with Gandhi’s decision to authorize work on a nuclear test,28 and in 1974 India produces its PNE (successful nuclear fission device test). In 1975 Prime Minister Gandhi decides to slow nuclear development, telling Indian nuclear scientists she does not want another device.29 The Indian program is renewed again in the 1980s, starting in 1980, when Indira Gandhi begins her second term and moves the Indian program away from the previous prime minister’s antinuclear stance.30 Around 1984–​1985, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi approves experimental testing;31 then in 1989, he initiates a “dramatic change in pace” in the nuclear weapons program intended to “take India’s nuclear program over the finish line” to full weaponization.32 See Chapter 6 for the full case study. Iran: In 1974 Mohammad Reza Shah initiates a nuclear program, creates the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to administer it, and within a year’s time significantly increases state resources going to the program. It appears that the shah, at this point, may not have officially started a nuclear weapons program, but he issues directions in 1975 that the nuclear program should include everything related to nuclear energy. At the end of 1975 the AEOI thus begins the research necessary to lead to a bomb.33 In 1979 the Islamic Revolution established under Ayatollah Khomeini sets itself in opposition to the shah’s nuclear program and suspends the nuclear effort.34 The nuclear program is started anew around 1982, and the revolution’s antinuclear head of the AEOI, Fereydun Sahabi, is removed and replaced by nuclear scientist Reza Amrollahi. Whether the program is directed at weapons development remains ambiguous.35 Around 1984–​1985 the regime makes the political decision to pursue an indigenous uranium enrichment capability through a gas centrifuge program. The Ayatollah Khomeini changes his thinking about the appropriateness of nuclear weapons, deciding it is acceptable for Iran to pursue the weapons for self-​defense.36 Around the end of the Iran-​Iraq War, in 1988 or just after, Iran begins a covert nuclear weapons program called Project Amad.37 In 1997 the regime accelerates the program and the AEOI director authorizes work to begin on heavy water

Appendix  205 reactors in Arak, a project that had been proposed but not yet authorized.38 A series of reversals begins in 2003 after Iran’s covert program is revealed to the world. In 2003 the decision is made to reverse, moving away from active nuclear weapons program work and shifting instead to “feasibility studies.”39 In 2005, days after failed negotiations with the United States—​the Bush administration had stipulated Iran must cease all uranium enrichment at any level—​the Ahmadinejad regime comes to power and restarts uranium enrichment activities.40 In 2009 the “development activities” needed to pursue and acquire nuclear weapons are halted.41 In 2015 Iran makes the reversal decision to commit to limits on enrichment and other nuclear weapons–​relevant activities that will be monitored and verified per the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement. In 2019, a year after the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran begins taking gradual steps in violation of the JCPOA, making the nuclear acceleration decision to begin activities such as exceeding uranium enrichment caps and restarting research and development on advanced centrifuges.42 In 2021 Iran may have made a nuclear acceleration decision regarding uranium enrichment in response to a cyberattack on nuclear facilities, but this has not been confirmed as of this writing. See Chapter 8 for a discussion of Iran’s nuclear efforts. Iraq: Iraq’s nuclear research and development accelerates in July 1968 after the Baathist coup; the purpose of the program is kept ambiguous.43 Iraq signs the NPT in 1969. In the early 1970s the political decision is made to direct some of Iraq’s nuclear scientists to pursue a nuclear weapons option,44 with the most likely year being 197145 or 1972.46 Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq’s nuclear organization (IAEC) in 1973; later that year he accelerates the nuclear program.47 Hussein orders nuclear scientists to work to build a nuclear weapon in 1979,48 but Braut-​Hegghammer argues that while Hussein’s wishes are conveyed in 1979 in so many words to scientists, his actions that same year—​ a purge of key officials that has a secondary effect of slowing progress toward nuclear weapons—​demonstrates Hussein’s lack of urgency regarding the program.49 After the 1981 Israeli attack on Osiraq, a nuclear reactor facility Iraq had purchased from France, Hussein accelerates the existing nuclear weapons program.50 In 1990, after Iraq invades Kuwait and the international community condemns the invasion, Saddam Hussein launches a crash program to quickly develop a crude nuclear weapon.51 The nuclear weapons program ends in 1991 after Iraq accepts UN Security Council Resolution 687.52 Israel: Prime Minister Ben-​Gurion’s government begins pursuit of a nuclear capability in 1955 or 1956, although the project does not take shape until late in 1956, after the onset of the Suez crisis and with a nuclear reactor deal with the French government.53 The nuclear weapons program proceeds on its own timeline until Israel produces its first nuclear weapons, which likely occurs in 1967.54 See Chapter 5 for the full case study. Japan: In April 1941 Lt. Gen. Yasuda Takeo, chief of the Army Aeronautics Department’s Technical Research Institute, acts on Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki’s order to study and start a nuclear weapons program in Japan. By July 1941 the Riken research institute receives army funding and begins the program.55 Scholars note that the Japanese defeat at Midway in 1942 leads the Japanese government to more highly prioritize the nuclear effort, including initiating a program at the Naval Technical Research Institute. Some argue that the program officially begins at that point because the work becomes more urgent,56 but the decision to start had already been made the previous year, as noted. In 1943, after a series of frustrating reports and meetings that culminate in a consensus that Japan cannot produce an atomic bomb in enough time to change the course of the war, the navy ends its nuclear weapons research program.57 All aspects of the nuclear weapons program end with the defeat of Japan in World War II.58

206 Appendix Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan inherits Soviet nuclear weapons (but not operational control) on Kazakh soil from independence in 1991. It agrees to return tactical nuclear weapons to Russia in 1991 and decides to give up all nuclear weapons in 1992.59 Libya: Muammar Gaddafi seizes power in 1969 and begins pursuing a nuclear weapons program.60 In 1989 the decision is made to limit the program’s scope and thus the risk of discovery; the Libyan program moves away from indigenous research and development and turns to the black market AQ Khan network. Around the same time, Gaddafi instructs three senior officials to approach the United States, France, and other European governments to negotiate to improve relations and end sanctions. He authorizes the officials to offer up the Libyan nuclear weapons program in negotiations. These efforts continue for the next few years.61 Some argue that Libya decides to accelerate the nuclear program in 1995,62 but Braut-​Hegghammer argues there was no political acceleration decision made at that time. In May 1999 Gaddafi authorizes Libyan officials to make an offer to the United States: Libya will dismantle its nuclear weapons program.63 The regime ultimately dismantles the program in December 2003.64 North Korea: The North Korean program starts in the late 1960s or early 1970s; the precise year is unknown. A likely start date, based on a South Korean source who works for the IAEA, is 1968, or according to a North Korean defector, 1966–​67.65 Scholars note Kim Il-​Sung’s serious interest in nuclear weapons dating from the early 1960s, particularly the regime’s request for Chinese assistance after China’s successful nuclear test in 1964.66 However, the decision had not yet been made in those earlier years. Pollack, who explains the lack of documentation means he cannot identify a start date for the program, notes that Kim Il-​Sung’s decision would most likely have been delivered “cryptically” to a small circle of insiders and would not have been formally documented. He reminds readers that Kim never conceded that North Korea was pursuing nuclear weapons at all.67 In 1974 the government passes the Atomic Energy Act, creating a larger policy and research infrastructure for nuclear activities despite economic difficulties.68 Mansourov calls this the most important development in a slow-​moving program.69 In 1980 the WPK Sixth Party Congress decides to strongly recommend a major expansion of the nuclear industry, and Kim Jong Il visits the Yongyon facility for the first time in 1981, giving the program “a tremendous boost.”70 Construction begins in 1981 on a nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon.71 Further evidence that a nuclear acceleration decision is made around 1981 is provided by Bermudez, who describes a major program expansion, noting two facilities at P’yongsong established in 1982 and a uranium refinement facility there that is completed in 1984 and operational in 1986.72 North Korea signs the NPT in 1985. The program slows in 1994; the plutonium program remains frozen for about a decade before restarting. The government elects to pursue a uranium route to the bomb after what Hecker deems a “hiatus.”73 Beginning in 1996, North Korea begins acquiring P-​1 and P-​2 centrifuges and special material from the AQ Khan network and attempts to acquire large amounts of maraging steel needed for centrifuges.74 This may indicate that the acceleration decision to pursue a uranium route is made in 1995 or 1996. North Korea conducts its first nuclear weapons test in 2006. Pakistan: Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto starts the nuclear weapons program in 1972.75 After the Indian PNE in May 1974 and lobbying by the Pakistani nuclear organization, Bhutto decides to accelerate the nuclear weapons program in June 1974.76 After taking power in a military coup, General Zia continues Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. After Zia’s death, Pakistan is governed by three leaders: the prime minister, president, and chief of army staff. A nuclear reversal decision is made to limit the nuclear

Appendix  207 program; the details are disputed, as described in Chapter 7. In 1993 the president transfers control of the nuclear program to the army.77 In 1995 Pakistan’s intelligence services report evidence that India is preparing for a nuclear test; in response, Pakistan’s army chief orders, on his own authority, the immediate preparation of Pakistan’s nuclear test site.78 Pakistan conducts its first nuclear test in 1998 in response to India’s nuclear test of the same year. See Chapter 7 for the full case study. Romania: Romania is categorized as an “aspiring hedger,” meaning that the government sought to build a latent nuclear capacity but was unable to.79 As of this writing, no political decision to start a nuclear weapons program has been identified. Sometime around 1955, Nicolae Ceauşescu starts a nuclear program with assistance from the Soviet Union. The purpose of the program is ambiguous, and Romania later refuses to sign the NPT, leaving its options open in case a future nuclear weapons capacity becomes desirable.80 During the first two years of the nonproliferation regime period, Romanian attempts to acquire nuclear technology that will allow Romania to hedge are delayed by US and NSG demands for monitoring and verification. Romania ultimately purchases safeguarded reprocessing technology from France but halts all other efforts to negotiate foreign contracts, which increasingly require full-​scope safeguards.81 Ceauşescu makes the decision to “move forward” in 1983, directing nuclear scientists to extract plutonium using the French hot cells.82 The Romanian program accomplishes this task in 1985. Romania’s aspirational hedging ends in 1989 after Ceauşescu’s removal from office.83 Soviet Union: After many attempts by Soviet scientists and members of the State Defense Committee to persuade Stalin to begin a nuclear weapons program, Joseph Stalin in 1942 finally decides the Soviet Union will pursue nuclear weapons.84 In July 1945 the United States succeeds in testing its first plutonium device, and in August 1945 the United States conducts the first nuclear weapons strikes, against Japanese cities. Sometime during that summer, Stalin accelerates the Soviet nuclear weapons program.85 The USSR tests its first nuclear bomb in 1949. In 1951 Stalin approves the nuclear organization’s request to begin production work on thermonuclear weapons.86 The first Soviet thermonuclear test is conducted in 1953. See the case study in Chapter 5 for a discussion of the time between the start of thermonuclear research, the scientists’ request, and L. P. Beria’s gatekeeping that withheld the request from Stalin. South Africa: The nuclear energy program starts in 1974 after years of secret scientific research on uranium enrichment has been conducted without a formal political decision to pursue nuclear weapon.87 When the nuclear agency (AEC) reports to Prime Minister Balthazar John Vorster in 1974 that they can build a nuclear explosive device, Vorster authorizes the project, starting South Africa on the path to nuclear weapons.88 In 1977 Vorster shuts down the PNE effort and redirects the program toward developing a nuclear deterrent. After reviewing the option presented to him in 1978, Vorster approves a program objective of producing seven nuclear weapons.89 In September 1985 the South African government, led by P. W. Botha, decides to limit the scope of the nuclear weapons program to the seven weapons. All work on plutonium and tritium production, and plutonium devices, is halted, although research and development work continues on other aspects of the program.90 In 1989 President F. W. de Klerk decides to end the nuclear weapons program and to dismantle and destroy the weapons.91 See Chapter 7 for the full case study. South Korea: South Korea begins its nuclear weapons program within a few years of having signed the NPT. Scholars place the start of the South Korean nuclear weapons program in the early 1970s. In an interview with the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

208 Appendix Staff and adviser to President Park Chung Hee, one scholar was told that the decision was made in secret in 1970.92 Others make the case for 1971, when after several years of exploring the option of starting a nuclear weapons program, President Park establishes the Weapons Exploitation Committee, a covert committee responsible for the nuclear weapons program.93 Park gives an order in February 1972 to “mobilize all scientific resources in the military, industry and academia for weapons development,” but this may be in the context of an already-​established weapons program.94 However, whether the 1972 order or the 1971 committee creation is the official start of the program is a reasonable question to ask. In 1976 President Park shifts the nuclear weapons program from focusing on pursuing nuclear weapons directly to pursuing dual-​use technology for civilian use that can also be leveraged for weaponization. Some scholars call this the suspension/​ end of the program and date it to South Korea joining the NPT in 1975.95 Others note, with more compelling evidence, that Park ordered that the program should continue, but quietly and with a dual-​use focus, in 1976.96 Kim notes that this decision was a response to the new export control regime; as Seoul could no longer obtain reprocessing technology and equipment from abroad, the regime continued the program along a new path, attempting to develop the technology domestically. Kim places the end of the program in 1979 after the assassination of President Park. It is possible the program continued, in a greatly reduced form, for a few more years in the early 1980s.97 Sweden: In August 1945 the supreme commander of the Swedish armed forces asks the Swedish nuclear agency (FOA) to conduct nuclear weapons research, beginning with the effects of the atomic bombs used to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Within a few months, FOA scientists ask the supreme commander for funding to pursue research related to nuclear weapons development; the request is approved.98 By 1955 FOA has completed the research and planning needed to achieve latent nuclear weapons status; with the support of the supreme commander, FOA advocates the creation of an official nuclear weapons program so that the agency can make preparations for weapons production. After prolonged and contentious debate, parliament in 1958 limits FOA’s work to nuclear “protection” research only and prohibits nuclear weapons development research.99 This reversal delays research and development but does not end it, allowing Sweden to hedge and buying more time for Swedish leaders to determine whether Sweden should pursue nuclear weapons production. As international safeguards become stricter during the transition period, Swedish military leaders and FOA come up with a plan to build a parallel nuclear infrastructure that will be indigenous and unsafeguarded. The Swedish government rejects this plan in 1966, deciding to end the policy of maintaining an option for nuclear weapons production.100 The next, and final, reversal decision is made in 1968, when the Swedish government decides to terminate all aspects of the nuclear weapons effort; FOA dismantles its related programs over the next four years.101 See Chapter 6 for the full case study. Switzerland: Swiss military historian Jürg Stüssi-​ Lauterberg locates the decision to pursue nuclear weapons in 1946. The Swiss government directs the SKA (Study Commission for Nuclear Energy), by a secret order, to study nuclear weapons in order to start a militarized program. Starting in 1955, nuclear weapons research activity is likely to have slowed, as Swiss civilian and military leaders discuss whether Switzerland should proceed toward a full nuclear weapons program. In 1958 the Federal Council of Ministers directs the Federal Military Department to draft a report on both manufacturing and purchasing nuclear arms; in 1960 the council adopts the position that Switzerland should continue its nuclear research program to keep the option open of acquiring nuclear

Appendix  209 weapons in the future. In 1962 parliament rejects an initiative that would have prohibited any future Swiss acquisition of nuclear arms. Despite Switzerland’s accession to the PTBT, planning for the potential purchase or development of nuclear weapons is revitalized in 1963. But as the NPT takes shape in the late 1960s, the Federal Council of Ministers moves the nuclear program away from weaponization planning and toward a permanent freedom of action policy: that Switzerland will develop a latent nuclear capability as a hedge in case the NPT were to later fail. In 1969 the government establishes a new committee and council, tasked with maintaining nuclear knowledge in the absence of a nuclear weapons program.102 Syria: Very little is known about the Syrian nuclear weapons program, with some sources estimating the start of the program in the 1970s when the military became involved in Syria’s nuclear development, and others not until 2000. Syria has sought outside assistance for its nuclear efforts since the early 1980s, although it found few states willing to provide that assistance. A reasonable start date for the Syrian program is 1997, based on information gathered by, among others, the IAEA103 and the United States, after Israel’s 2007 bombing of Syria’s covert nuclear reactor.104 The secret reactor, constructed with cooperation from North Korea, is estimated to have been planned by Syria and North Korea since 1997, which would make 1997 a conservative estimate for a start date. Whether Syria has continued to pursue nuclear weapons is unclear, at least according to open-​source literature. Taiwan: Scholars believe Taiwan was exploring the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program during the 1960s. A decision to start a program is likely to have been made later in the decade and after China’s 1964 nuclear test. A good estimate is 1967, when Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council was formed after the defense ministry’s Chungshan Institute made a $140 million proposal for nuclear weapons research.105 During the late 1960s, Taiwan makes several attempts to develop a plutonium separation capability, weapons-​ related activities that would not have been needed for a civilian nuclear energy program. These activities may actually have been authorized by the president’s son, Chiang Ching-​ kuo (who would become president in 1978), and not by Chiang Kai-​shek himself.106 After IAEA inspectors in the 1970s, and particularly in 1976–​1977, discover a series of activities that are likely related to nuclear weapons, international pressure on Taiwan grows, and in particular pressure from the United States. In 1977 Taiwan dismantles its hot lab and most reprocessing facilities and permits US scientists to verify its reactor shutdown.107 This does not permanently end the program; President Chiang Ching-​kuo decides to change course in 1987, and Taiwan secretly starts building a small-​scale plutonium extraction unit. However, in 1988 the United States learns of the restarted effort. Taiwan ends the program, agreeing to stop construction and dismantling a research reactor purchased from Canada in 1969.108 Ukraine: Ukraine inherits Soviet nuclear weapons and facilities from independence in 1991 (but not operational control of those weapons).109 It commits in 1991 to removing Soviet tactical nuclear weapons from Ukrainian soil but in 1992 halts the transfer to Russia of the tactical nuclear weapons after a series of military incidents that arise between the two states. Leaders make no decision to invest in national nuclear weapons development or production. In 1993, after concluding feasibility studies of continuing the nuclear program, the Ukrainian government decides to return all tactical and strategic nuclear weapons to Russia.110 United Kingdom: Prime Minister Winston Churchill initiates the nuclear weapons program in 1941. Churchill limits knowledge of the program to a small number of people

210 Appendix and signs the Quebec Agreement to begin cooperation on nuclear weapons research with the United States in August 1943; British scientists begin arriving at Los Alamos National Laboratory by the end of the year.111 In 1946 the US Congress passes the McMahon Act, which ends collaboration on nuclear weapons between the United States and United Kingdom. In 1947 a small, secret committee of ministers makes the decision to transition the program to work toward production of an atomic bomb. The nuclear effort accelerates, and the United Kingdom invests in building the needed infrastructure for production. Parliament is not informed until May 1948, when the defense minister refers, in vague terms, to the ongoing work.112 Prime Minister Churchill and a small subcommittee of the cabinet decide to pursue the hydrogen bomb in June 1954; in July, Parliament passes the UK Atomic Energy Authority Act, which creates a separate nuclear agency.113 From 1957 to 1958 the United Kingdom conducts thermonuclear tests. In 1958 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan initiates talks with the United States that result in nuclear weapons cooperation between the two states. Macmillan decides to pursue only a minimal indigenous nuclear arsenal, relying in part on US nuclear weapons sharing.114 Major nuclear arsenal–​related decisions made by London over the next several decades concern the procurement of delivery systems from the United States (such as Polaris and Trident) and indigenous development of anti–​missile defense measures (Chevaline). By 2008 US nuclear weapons are no longer being stored on British soil.115 In 2001 Prime Minister Boris Johnson reverses the United Kingdom’s policy of gradually decreasing the nuclear stockpile, announcing plans to increase the stockpile. The increase is likely to come from returning retired warheads to the stockpile.116 United States: In October 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt is briefed on the MAUD report. The president authorizes Vannevar Bush to “expedite in every possible way” an atomic bomb research program, with the understanding that, if weapons production was determined to be possible, Roosevelt himself would have to give that authorization. Roosevelt establishes a small group of high-​level officials to lead the program.117 In July 1945 the United States conducts the first fission test at the Trinity site in New Mexico, and in August it conducts the horrific atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1949 the Soviet Union tests its first fission bomb, and US plans to expand the fission weapons program are put on hold. For months, scientists and high-​level civilian and military officials debate whether the United States should instead invest resources in pursuing thermonuclear weapons. Ultimately, in January 1950, President Harry S. Truman decides to develop the Super, the term used at the time to refer to the hydrogen bomb.118 The United States conducts the first thermonuclear test in 1952. Yugoslavia: Few examinations of the Yugoslav nuclear program exist to date; the most detailed study is by Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus,119 who determine from interviews, documents, and the personal experiences of Miljanic and Slaus in the Yugoslav civilian and military programs, that President Josip Broz Tito decided to pursue a nuclear weapons capability in the late 1940s, at least by 1948. They also discuss evidence of the program’s orientation toward the production of fission weapons in the early 1950s. The first major nuclear institute was founded at Vinca in 1948, and a reasonable start year for an official program would be 1947 or 1948.120 In the early 1960s, Tito deactivates the nuclear weapons program and shifts the full focus of Yugoslavia’s nuclear effort to nuclear energy. 1961 is a likely year for Tito’s reversal decision, as he orders a halt to ongoing discussions regarding a bomb-​grade plutonium-​producing reactor, and because Yugoslavia decides to withdraw from CERN that same year.121 Hymans locates the start of the nuclear weapons program with Tito’s order to “top nuclear scientists and administrators” in 1974,122 but

Appendix  211 Potter et al. classify this direction from Tito, which occurs on May 18, as a restarting of the earlier nuclear weapons program. The military instructs the scientists and administrators at the meeting to use the civilian power program as a cover for the parallel weapons program, “Program A.”123 Note that Yugoslavia had joined the NPT in 1970. After Tito’s death, the government continues with the program, but the 1986 Chernobyl accident leads to a moratorium by the Slovenian Parliament and then by the Federal Council that ends all nuclear power–​related research in Yugoslavia. The program officially ends on July 7, 1987.124

Notes Chapter 1 1. I note, however, that there were bumps in the path even for the United States. See especially Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb. I discuss the Soviet case at length in Chapter 5. 2. Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima.’ ” 3. Grunow also notes that Japan (incorrectly) believed, in 1940, that the United States had already initiated a nuclear weapons program. 4. Grunow, 157–​62; Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan,” 115–​22. 5. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan,” 118; and Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima.’ ” 6. Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima’ ”; and Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy, ch. 5. Hasegawa offers a fascinating and authoritative account of Japanese deliberations during this period. 7. Through intelligence reports, Joseph Stalin had been informed of the secret American plans to conduct a nuclear test. He was thus not taken by surprise in late July 1945 when at the Potsdam conference, Harry Truman told him that the United States had developed a new and highly destructive weapon. Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy, 154. David Holloway argues that Stalin and other top Soviet officials remained skeptical, however, as Soviet scientists had been divided over whether any country could yet have produced an atomic bomb. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 115. 8. Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy, 196–​214. 9. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions. 10. Narang, Seeking the Bomb. 11. Schelling, Arms and Influence; Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons”; Paul, Power versus Prudence; Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation”; Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation”; Gartzke and Jo, “Bargaining, Nuclear Proliferation, and Interstate Disputes.”; Gartzke and Kroenig, “Strategic Approach to Nuclear Proliferation”; Monteiro and Debs, “Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation”; and Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era. 12. Each of these cases is discussed in later chapters.

Chapter 2 1. Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation”; Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation”; Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation”; and Bleek and Lorber, “Security Guarantees and Allied Nuclear Proliferation.”

214 Notes 2. Einstein, “Letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.” 3. Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, 379. 4. Rhodes, 314–​15, 405. 5. Born, Gill, and Hänggi, Governing the Bomb; McLean, How Nuclear Weapons Decisions Are Made; and Miall, Nuclear Weapons. 6. Mehta, Delaying Doomsday, 10–​11; and Levite, “Never Say Never Again.” 7. Only one state that developed a nuclear arsenal, South Africa, has disarmed. The former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan also gave up nuclear arsenals, but these states “inherited” their facilities and weapons from the USSR. 8. Paul discusses this in his study of nuclear forbearance. He defines forbearance as an impermanent condition, in which states could later decide to pursue nuclear weapons. Paul, Power versus Prudence, 11. 9. For example, Hymans, in Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, finds that poor management is an intervening factor that delays progress to the bomb. Hymans assumes, however, that all nuclear pursuers try to achieve nuclear weapons status as quickly as possible, an assumption not borne out by case studies. 10. The other five states began nuclear development in the context of preexisting civilian nuclear energy programs. Whether or not a state started a civilian nuclear energy program with the deliberate intention to maintain the option to militarize later, any civilian nuclear energy program is inherently dual use. 11. Consider the Manhattan Project: approximately 63 percent of the total funding for the project was allocated to Oak Ridge, the “secret city” in Tennessee that produced the highly enriched uranium for Little Boy, the first American nuclear bomb. Another 20 percent was spent at the Hanford complex in Benton County, Washington, which produced the plutonium for the Trinity test and for Fat Man, the second bomb. Even with advances in uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology, the cost of producing weapons-​grade uranium or plutonium still dominates a nuclear program’s budget. Schwartz, Atomic Audit, 60. 12. This is different from the nuclear latency measure constructed by Fuhrmann and Tkach, “Almost Nuclear.” Fuhrmann and Tkach use research reactors as a baseline for including countries in their study but do not distinguish between small and large research reactors. However, research reactors have historically been used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, even in the absence of the enrichment and reprocessing facilities Fuhrmann and Tkach base their latency measure upon. The more important milestone is energy output, which indicates whether a reactor, regardless of its “research” designation, will be sufficiently large to produce fuel for nuclear bombs. 13. Sagan, “Nuclear Latency and Nuclear Proliferation,” 87. Of course as Sagan also points out, a large reactor is not a sufficient condition; reactors, as well as enrichment and reprocessing facilities, may be used exclusively for civilian nuclear energy programs. 14. As energy output is the key reactor feature of concern, it can also distinguish between true research reactors and research reactors that are likely intended for fissile material production, like India’s CIRUS reactor or Israel’s Dimona reactor. Feiveson et al., Unmaking the Bomb; see also Sagan, “Nuclear Latency and Nuclear Proliferation.”

Notes  215 15. Fuhrmann and Tkach, “Almost Nuclear,” 448. This milestone is important but is not a requirement for the production of nuclear weapons. Fuhrmann and Tkach note on page 450 that states like Israel and North Korea produced nuclear weapons without enrichment and reprocessing facilities. 16. Itty Abraham uses the term strategic enclave; see Abraham, “India’s ‘Strategic Enclave.’ ” 17. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 171–​72; and Chakma, “Toward Pokhran II,” 213–​14. The Indian case study appears in Chapter 6. 18. Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics; Mattiacci and Jones, “(Nuclear) Change of Plans”; Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation”; and Paul, Power versus Prudence. A recent exception is Spaniel, Bargaining over the Bomb, which considers different levels of nuclear reversal in specifying a formal model; see especially Chapter 7. 19. Levite, “Never Say Never Again.” 20. Mattiacci and Jones, “(Nuclear) Change of Plans”; and Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation.” Although Mehta acknowledges the wider range of reversal decisions, particularly in her case study of the Indian nuclear program, she uses program termination as her dependent variable when estimating her models. Mehta, Delaying Doomsday, 69.

Chapter 3 1. Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation”; Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation”; Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation”; Kroenig, “Importing the Bomb”; Bleek and Lorber, “Security Guarantees and Allied Nuclear Proliferation”; and Fuhrmann and Horowitz, “When Leaders Matter.” 2. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons.” 3. Key neorealist works on the topic include May, “Nuclear Weapons Supply and Demand”; Thayer, “Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Nonproliferation Regime”; Frankel, “Brooding Shadow”; and Waltz, “More Will Be Better.” 4. Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 129. Narang discusses this argument in greater detail in Seeking the Bomb. 5. Narang’s model is an important exception here as well. 6. Paul defines nuclear forbearance as the state a country enters when the government decides to forgo nuclear weapons pursuit. Paul, Power versus Prudence, 11. 7. Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics, 40. 8. Debs and Monteiro, 179–​90. 9. Paul’s work on nuclear forbearance also uses the security approach, and his case study of Sweden also paints a broad picture of the Swedish military’s final response to changes in the security environment but misses the domestic organizational features that contributed to shaping Sweden’s proliferation curve. See Paul, Power versus Prudence, 85–​91. 10. Hymans, “Assessing North Korean Nuclear Intentions and Capacities,” 276.

216 Notes 11. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb; Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-​Warriors; and Gill and Medeiros, “China.” 12. See Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-​Warriors, 74–​83. 13. Quantitative models of nuclear weapons programs have found occasional support for the hypothesis that wealth makes a state more likely to pursue nuclear weapons. However, in almost every instance where GDP was shown to have a statistically significant effect, the substantive effect has been near zero. See Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation”; Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation”; and Way and Weeks, “Making It Personal.” I note that Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation” find that GDP matters at low GDP levels—​states will be more likely to explore—​but at higher levels the effect levels off and then reverses, as high levels are associated with falling hazard rate. 14. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions, 20–​21. 15. But see Spaniel, Bargaining over the Bomb, who argues that the high cost of nuclear weapons pursuit and the risk of preventive war open up potential zones of agreement between nuclear-​seeking states and their adversaries. Parties may be able to reach a negotiated settlement wherein the would-​be proliferator trades the nuclear program for concessions. While cost has indeed featured in some leaders’ program decisions, Spaniel’s formal models both assume that states proceed toward the bomb at the same speed and trajectory and assume away the role of domestic organizations, which I argue can influence and intervene in decision-​making. 16. Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-​Warriors, 25–​30; and Gill and Medeiros, “China,” 139. 17. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 121. 18. Lewis and Xue, 123. 19. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation. 20. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 69–​70. 21. Miller, Stopping the Bomb; and Monteiro and Debs, “Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation.” 22. See Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance; see also Mehta, Delaying Doomsday for an analysis of the effect of economic sanctions when used by the United States in concert with positive inducements. 23. See Solingen, Nuclear Logics; Mehta, Delaying Doomsday; Montgomery, “Ringing in Proliferation”; and Braun and Chyba, “Proliferation Rings” for examples of successes. 24. Lacy and Niou, “Theory of Economic Sanctions and Issue Linkage”; Drezner, Sanctions Paradox; and Pape, “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work.” 25. Miller, Stopping the Bomb; Ninic, “Positive Incentives, Positive Results?”; and Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation.” For an opposing view, see Mehta, Delaying Doomsday. 26. Kreps and Fuhrmann, “Attacking the Atom”; and Reiter, “Preventive Attacks against Nuclear Programs and the ‘Success’ at Osiraq.” 27. Fuhrmann and Tkach, “Almost Nuclear”; Montgomery, “Stop Helping Me”; Levite, “Never Say Never Again”; and Paul, Power versus Prudence.

Notes  217 28. Hymans, Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation. 29. Fuhrmann and Horowitz, “When Leaders Matter.” 30. I note that there are exceptions to this general rule. In Chapter 7 I discuss the Pakistani military’s ability to usurp nuclear authority from Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. 31. Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 113. 32. Narang discusses several different types of hedging in which states will progress to different stages of nuclear weapons development. Narang, Seeking the Bomb; and see Volpe, “Atomic Leverage”; Mehta and Whitlark, “Benefits and Burdens of Nuclear Latency”; and Levite, “Never Say Never Again.” 33. Paul, Power versus Prudence; and Kreps and Fuhrmann, “Attacking the Atom?” 34. See Gerzhoy, “Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint.” This is not to say that security guarantees then succeed in reassuring the nonnuclear state. See Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance; Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics; and Paul, Power versus Prudence. 35. Hecker, “Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises”; and Volpe, “Atomic Leverage.” 36. On Brazil and Argentina, see Coutto, “International History of the Brazilian-​ Argentine Rapprochement”; on Libya, see Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics, 199–​200. 37. Abraham, “Ambivalence of Nuclear Histories”; and Abraham, “ ‘Who’s Next?’ ” 38. Of course the classic text is Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Recent studies of leaders’ beliefs and national security decision-​making include Schneider, “Study of Leaders in Nuclear Proliferation and How to Reinvigorate It”; Saunders, “Transformative Choices”; Yarhi-​Milo, “In the Eye of the Beholder”; Debs and Goemans, “Regime Type, the Fate of Leaders, and War”; Croco, “Decider’s Dilemma”; and Stam, Horowitz, and Ellis, Why Leaders Fight. Most recently, Whitlark investigates leaders’ beliefs about not their own nuclear weapons programs but their adversaries’ programs. Whitlark, All Options on the Table. 39. Druckman and Lupia, “Preference Formation,” 16–​17. The authors identify many more source characteristics, beyond those mentioned here, that can affect whether the recipient of the message finds it credible. 40. Krishna and Morgan, “Model of Expertise”; and Li, “Advice from Multiple Experts.” For another model of experts with opposing biases, in which the experts send simultaneous advice to an uninformed decision-​maker, see Gilligan and Krehbiel, “Asymmetric Information and Legislative Rules with a Heterogeneous Committee.” 41. DellaVigna, “Psychology and Economics.” 42. Büthe and Mattli, New Global Rulers, 45. 43. Weber, From Max Weber, 233–​34; Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, 74–​75; and Schaar, “Legitimacy in the Modern State,” 120. 44. Barnett and Finnemore, “Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations,” 707–​10. 45. Sagan, “Perils of Proliferation,” 71. 46. For classic texts on these organizational decision-​making processes, see for example Simon, Administrative Behavior; March and Simon, Organizations; Perrow, Reiss, and

218 Notes Wilensky, Complex Organizations; Moe, “Politics and the Theory of Organization”; and Wilson, Bureaucracy. 47. In his study of the type of information advisers provided US presidents during Cold War conflicts and the level of certainty those advisers expressed, Robert Schub also discusses the issue of access to the leader, arguing that leaders who sideline or ignore an organization will limit their exposure to a wider range of possible policy options and outcomes. Schub, “Informing the Leader.” 48. Halperin and Clapp, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, ch. 9. 49. Saunders, “Domestic Politics of Nuclear Choices—​A Review Essay.” 50. India is the clearest example of military exclusion from the nuclear project. 51. I also note that Saunders discusses many different types of nuclear policy choices, such as arms control; nuclear posture decisions like separating nuclear from conventional forces; and bureaucratic decisions, such as which agency should have custody of nuclear material. These decisions require political support from a broader circle of actors. My argument concerns decisions that are primarily made in secret by the country leader and that shape the course of nuclear weapons development within the state. Saunders, “Domestic Politics of Nuclear Choices—​A Review Essay.” 52. Howell and Lewis, “Agencies by Presidential Design”; and Wood and Bohte, “Political Transaction Costs and the Politics of Administrative Design” examine factors that promote agency independence within the US political system. Maggetti, “De Facto Independence after Delegation”; Gilardi, Delegation in the Regulatory State; and Huber and Shipan, Deliberate Discretion conduct comparative analyses of regulatory agency independence. 53. Weber, From Max Weber, 299. 54. Jennergren, Schwarz, and Alvfeldt, Trends in Planning; Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995; Jonter, “Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–​1968”; Reiss, Bridled Ambition; Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb”; and Atomic Energy Act of 1948. 55. Atomic Energy Act of 1946; and Cohen, Israel and the Bomb. 56. Although parliament’s act was largely a rubber stamp approving the shah’s decree, the outcome, that the AEOI was codified into law and thus further insulated from executive control, is what is matters here. For an account of the suspension and revival of the nuclear program after the Revolution, see Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, 21, 95–​103. 57. This case is discussed in Chapter 6. 58. Jafar, al-​Niaimi, and Sunnana, Oppdraget, 103. 59. Cohen in Born, Gill, and Hänggi, Governing the Bomb, 156. 60. Cohen, Worst-​Kept Secret, 92. 61. Elworthy, “Nuclear Weapons Decision-​Making and Authority,” 165–​76. 62. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 32. 63. Perkovich, 83. 64. Perkovich, 77. 65. For an introduction to the study of awe, see Valdesolo, Shtulman, and Baron, “Science Is Awe-​Some”; Gordon et al., “The Dark Side of the Sublime”; Valdesolo, Park, and

Notes  219 Gottlieb, “Awe and Scientific Explanation”; and Piff et al., “Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior.” 66. Moyal, “Australian Atomic Energy Commission,” 370. 67. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 38. 68. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, n. 353. 69. Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons,” 64. While Sagan is discussing the behavior of a coalition of organizational interests, individual organizations also undertake this behavior separately. 70. For example, Tarter, American Lab. Paul, in Power versus Prudence, discusses the US scientists in the 1940s and 1950s as a mixed lot. The national laboratories were filled with atomic scientists, as they were then called, working to develop more and more deadly nuclear weapons. Those who were alarmed by the actual and potential military uses of their work left their positions and publicly spoke out on the catastrophic dangers of nuclear weapons. They chose to no longer be a part of the US nuclear program. 71. Blake Wood (American nuclear weapons designer), interview with author, April 2, 2018. 72. Flank, “Exploding the Black Box,” 270–​72. 73. Flank, 278–​80. 74. Albright and Stricker, Taiwan’s Former Nuclear Weapons Program, 15–​20. 75. Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, 72–​76. 76. Hecht, Radiance of France. 77. Although Nehru never made the formal decision to begin a militarized nuclear program, he worked closely and on a personal level with Dr. Homi Bhabha, the head of India’s civilian and later weaponized nuclear programs, to ensure India developed the means to be able to pursue nuclear weapons. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 18, 21. 78. Halperin and Clapp, in examining foreign policy making in the United States, argue that officials who have special relationships with the president will be more likely to influence the president on policy decisions. The president may feel that he should defer to such a member of the bureaucracy when it comes to policy in their area of expertise. Indeed, a president can come to feel that he owes that person his support and should not disagree with their policy recommendations. Halperin and Clapp, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy. 79. Born, Gill, and Hänggi, Governing the Bomb, 229. 80. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 81. For key readings on this topic, see Sagan, “Perils of Proliferation”; Sagan, Limits of Safety; Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine; Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive; and Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises. 82. For example, the Pakistani Army became emboldened to pursue a change to the status quo in disputed Kashmir that resulted in the 1999 Kargil War. See Kapur, “Nuclear Proliferation, the Kargil Conflict, and South Asian Security,” 96–​97. 83. For an example of this type of military thinking in Russia, see Arbatov, “Understanding the US-​Russia Nuclear Schism,” 47–​48; for evidence of an offensive change to US

220 Notes nuclear doctrine as penned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2019, see Axe, “Oops.” As I discuss later, military thinking is not monolithic, and parochial concerns do not lie behind all decision-​making. For a careful study of military and civilian thinking about the possible use of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, see Green, Revolution That Failed. 84. See Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine on military doctrine; and Halperin and Clapp, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy for a broad look at competing organizational interests among a range of foreign policy issues. Most importantly here, for work on military organizations and nuclear weapons, see Sagan, Limits of Safety on prioritizing the safety of nuclear arsenals; and Sagan, “Perils of Proliferation” on military organizations and the deployment and possible use of nuclear weapons. 85. I note just a few examples here, with more to follow in the case chapters. For evidence of this thinking in the French military, see Cohen, La Monarchie Nucléaire; for the Indian military, see Joshi, “Imagined Arsenal,” and Cohen, “Security Issues in South Asia”; and for the Israeli military, see Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy.” These cases are discussed in detail in the chapters ahead. See also Sagan, “Perils of Proliferation,” 86–​87 on how militaries perceive a trade-​off between spending on the systems needed to secure nuclear arsenals or on existing military systems and programs. 86. Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, 28. 87. Corera, Shopping for Bombs, 74. 88. Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 79. 89. Sood and Sawhney, Operation Parakram, 143. I note that there is an ongoing debate over whether or not the Pakistani military was preparing to use nuclear weapons as the conflict continued. 90. Russia offers another example: because the Russian military command believed nuclear war was unlikely, the General Staff in 2001 advocated reducing funding for the strategic nuclear forces by half and reallocating those funds to conventional forces. Arbatov, “Russia,” 62–​64. 91. Sagan, “Perils of Proliferation,” 73. 92. Barnett and Finnemore note that subunits within an organization may develop different frameworks that lead them to value different means and ends. These frameworks are both “consistent with but still distinct from the larger organization.” See Barnett and Finnemore, “Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations,” 719. 93. Professional pride may also affect service branch preferences; many in the army would not have wanted to be relegated to the sidelines while the air force won the war with nuclear weapons, and vice versa. 94. Wenger, Living with Peril, 52–​63. For evidence of the difference in opinion between the US Army and US Air Force, see NSC 5422, “Tentative Guidelines under NSC 162/​2 for Fiscal Year 1956,” June 14, 1954 (FRUS, 1952–​1954), 2:656–​57. See also Hammond, “Super Carriers and B-​36 Bombers,” 516–​27 and 539–​40 for a discussion of how the US Navy made a similar argument on the dangers of overreliance on nuclear weapons in an attempt to persuade Congress not to fully fund the air force’s strategic nuclear weapons procurement plan.

Notes  221 95. I discuss the implications of interservice rivalry during military regimes in Chapters 6 and 7. 96. Kim, “Are Military Regimes Really Belligerent?,” 1156; and Gibler, Territorial Peace. For studies of how authoritarian leaders organize and utilize their militaries and the implications of those choices, see Talmadge, Dictator’s Army; and Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police. 97. For example, Fair, Fighting to the End, 6–​7 makes this argument about Pakistan’s army.

Chapter 4 1. Einstein to Roosevelt, August 2, 1939. 2. Frisch and Peierls, “Memorandum on the Properties of a Radioactive Super-​Bomb.” 3. Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, 372–​77. 4. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan”; and Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima.’ ” 5. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 73, 84–​85. 6. Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, 379. 7. Rhodes, 405. 8. See Cawte, Atomic Australia, 1944–​ 1990; Moyal, “Australian Atomic Energy Commission”; Reynolds, Australia’s Bid for the Atomic Bomb; Stüssi-​Lauterberg, Historical Outline on the Question of Swiss Nuclear Armament; and Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy.” 9. Scheinman, International Atomic Energy Agency and World Nuclear Order, 15. 10. Spanier and Nogee, Politics of Disarmament. 11. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 12. Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation.” 13. Fuhrmann, “Taking a Walk on the Supply Side”; and Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation.” 14. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb; and Touhey, “Troubled from the Beginning.” 15. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 21–​22; and Walker, “Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation,” 216–​17. 16. The treaty was far from a panacea, however; it permitted the pursuit and use of peaceful nuclear explosives. Even still, while Brazil, Argentina, and Chile signed the treaty in 1967, these three states did not bring the treaty into force until 1994, nearly three decades later. 17. Touhey, “Troubled from the Beginning.” 18. Wolfe, “Soviet Commentary on the French ‘Force de Frappe.’ ” 19. For a description of the break between Mao and Khrushchev during these years, see Zubok, Failed Empire. 20. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 249. 21. Fischer, 250–​52. 22. Boureston and Ferguson, “Strengthening Nuclear Safeguards.”

222 Notes 23. Goodby, “Limited Test Ban Negotiations, 1954–​63”; and Pietrobon, “Role of Norman Cousins and Track II Diplomacy in the Breakthrough to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.” 24. Touhey, “Troubled from the Beginning.” 25. Goodby, “Limited Test Ban Negotiations, 1954–​63”; and Pietrobon, “Role of Norman Cousins and Track II Diplomacy in the Breakthrough to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.” 26. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 48–​72; and Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, 327–​32. 27. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 60–​61. 28. Lewis and Xue, 121. 29. Lewis and Xue, 192–​95. 30. China’s nuclear test was a surprise to the United States in some ways, however. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson received conflicting intelligence reports assessing China’s progress, and the intelligence community failed to predict the timing of the nuclear test. Whitlark, All Options on the Table. 31. Brands, “Non-​Proliferation and the Dynamics of the Middle Cold War,” 402–​7. 32. The program was canceled in 1977 after deepening concerns regarding nuclear proliferation broadly and the environmental effects of nuclear explosions specifically. 33. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 90–​92. 34. Report to the President by the Committee on Nuclear Proliferation. 35. Gavin, “Blasts from the Past,” 130. 36. Brands, “Non-​Proliferation and the Dynamics of the Middle Cold War,” 405–​7; and Gavin, “Blasts from the Past,” 106. 37. Neither Kennedy nor Johnson was willing to fully share the weapons with the FRG, however. See Gerzhoy, “Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint,” 111–​12. 38. Gavin, “Blasts from the Past”; and Brands, “Rethinking Nonproliferation.” 39. Brands, “Non-​Proliferation and the Dynamics of the Middle Cold War,” 389–​90. 40. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 134–​38. 41. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 94–​95; and Goldschmidt, “Negotiation of the Non-​Proliferation Treaty.” 42. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 138. 43. Goldschmidt, “Negotiation of the Non-​Proliferation Treaty,” 74–​75. 44. Brands, “Non-​Proliferation and the Dynamics of the Middle Cold War,” 390; and Goldschmidt, “Negotiation of the Non-​Proliferation Treaty.” 45. The non–​nuclear weapons states’ dissatisfaction with the nuclear weapons states’ adherence to Article VI has led to new diplomatic efforts like the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 46. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1–​2. 47. For more on India’s thinking regarding the obligations in these bilateral agreements, see Touhey, “Troubled from the Beginning.” 48. Scheinman, International Atomic Energy Agency and World Nuclear Order, 26. 49. Australia seems to have done just this. See Walsh, “Surprise Down Under”; and Cawte, Atomic Australia, 1944–​1990.

Notes  223 50. Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms. 51. Goldschmidt, “Negotiation of the Non-​Proliferation Treaty,” 79–​80. 52. North Korea acceded to the NPT in 1985 but announced its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003. 53. I discuss these competing interests in the case studies; see also Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms. 54. Hymans, “Of Gauchos and Gringos,” 164–​66. 55. This was true in some cases, but many countries, the United States included, took different routes. (The United States ultimately decided to invest in a strategic oil reserve instead.) Examples of countries that were prompted to invest in nuclear programs include Iraq (see Braut-​Hegghammer, “Revisiting Osirak”) and Brazil (see Reiss, Bridled Ambition). 56. Schmidt, “Zangger Committee”; and Anstey, “Negotiating Nuclear Control.” 57. COCOM first formed in 1949 but was directed at only the Soviet Union and the half dozen members of the Warsaw Pact. 58. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 96–​97. 59. Strulak, “Nuclear Suppliers Group,” 2; and “INFCIRC/​209 Memorandum B.” 60. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 244–​59. 61. Anthony, Ahlstrom, and Fedchenko, Reforming Nuclear Export Controls. 62. Strulak, “Nuclear Suppliers Group.” 63. Burr, “Scheme of ‘Control.’ ” 64. Hymans, “Of Gauchos and Gringos,” 164–​67. 65. For recent studies on the importance of the NSG in the nonproliferation regime of this time period, see Koch, “Frustration and Delay”; and Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market”; for a quantitative study of the effect of the NSG on nuclear weapons development over time, see Koch, “Holding All the Cards.” 66. Burr, “Scheme of ‘Control.’ ” 67. Scheinman, International Atomic Energy Agency and World Nuclear Order, 183–​84. 68. Reiss, Bridled Ambition; and see, for example, Schultz, “Secretary of State George Schultz to President Reagan” and related documents discussed in Burr, New Documents Spotlight Reagan-​Era Tensions over Pakistani Nuclear Program. 69. Miller, “Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions.” 70. Okimoto, “Japan’s Non-​Nuclear Policy.” 71. Endicott, “1975–​76 Debate over Ratification of the NPT in Japan,” 291. 72. Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 244–​59. 73. Scheinman, International Atomic Energy Agency and World Nuclear Order, 150. Scheinman notes that 86 percent of nuclear plants were safeguarded under NPT arrangements and 11 percent under non-​NPT arrangements. 74. Goldschmidt notes that the NPT “would have lost all its political value” without the French government’s promise; see “Negotiation of the Non-​Proliferation Treaty,” 80. 75. For a detailed discussion, see Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, 226–​46 France joined the nonproliferation regime more formally post-​1991, moving away from Russia and toward the United States, but did not reverse its nuclear weapons program.

224 Notes 76. Budjeryn, “Power of the NPT”; and Harahan, With Courage and Persistence. For the history of Kazakhstan’s experience, see Kassenova, Atomic Steppe. 77. Sinovets and Budjeryn, “Interpreting the Bomb”; and Budjeryn, “Power of the NPT.” 78. Budjeryn, “Power of the NPT.” 79. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight. 80. Budjeryn, “Power of the NPT.” 81. Gaddafi wanted to both join the nonproliferation regime and pursue nuclear weapons; he saw this as a way to leave his options open and decide later. Braut-​ Hegghammer, Unclear Physics, 198. 82. Braut-​Hegghammer, 192. Not everyone in the Libyan regime agreed with Gaddafi’s conviction, and debates within the government over the necessity and prudence of a nuclear weapons capability continued. In addition, it became nearly impossible for the regime to find an international partner who would be willing to sell Libya nuclear technology or equipment. The regime turned to the black market, a decision that ultimately harmed progress toward the bomb. See Koch, “Frustration and Delay,” 794–​99. 83. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics, 199–​200. 84. The 2003 agreement to end Libya’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was hailed internationally as a model for nuclear reversal. Gaddafi, however, quickly became dissatisfied when the United States and United Kingdom did not deliver the hoped-​for security guarantees or weapons. His fears of losing his hold on power were violently realized in 2011. 85. “UN Security Council Resolution 1194.” 86. Clinton, “Remarks of the President on Iraq.” 87. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics. 88. Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq Resolution of 2002. 89. Woods, Lacey, and Murray, “Saddam’s Delusions.” 90. This confidence was not misplaced; see Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics, 287–​91. 91. I note that, as a supplement to the export control regime, the 1996 Wassenaar Arrangement was created to gather and exchange information on transfers of conventional weapons and dual-​use items. The Arrangement facilitates the identification of destabilizing or dangerous stockpiling of weapons or dual-​use technology. The Arrangement was formed after the dissolution of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), a group of Western states that planned to coordinate a strategic embargo that would restrict exports to the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc. Disagreement over what technology to control and whether the committee should restrict its work to information sharing limited the effectiveness of the group. Unlike the NSG, COCOM rarely, if ever, updated its list of controlled items in response to new technologies or violations. Karp, “Controlling Weapons Proliferation”; Richard T. Cupitt, “Future of COCOM,” in Bertsch and Elliott-​ Gower, Export Controls in Transition, 234; and Smith and Udis, “New Challenges to Arms Export Control.” 92. Anthony, Ahlstrom, and Fedchenko, Reforming Nuclear Export Controls, 22–​24. The IAEA also responded to the Iraqi program, improving its methods of information collection and developing the Model Additional Protocol, which was approved

Notes  225 by the board of governors in 1997. States with IAEA safeguards agreements could adopt an additional protocol to strengthen and expand existing safeguards. However, adoption is voluntary, and James Acton notes that the states that reneged on safeguards (Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea) did not adopt an additional protocol, either. Acton, “Strengthening Safeguards and Nuclear Disarmament,” 525–​35. 93. Some examples from the North Korean case include Braun et al., “North Korean Nuclear Facilities after the Agreed Framework,” 43; Braun and Chyba, “Proliferation Rings,” 13; and Park and Walsh, “Stopping North Korea, Inc.,” 57. 94. Koch, “Frustration and Delay.” 95. Dhanapala and Rydell, Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT. 96. Scott D. Sagan, in conversation with the author, October 2019. I thank an anonymous reviewer for the additional insight that the lead-​up to the 1995 renewal had also contributed to the pressure on Ukraine to give up its inherited nuclear weapons. 97. Dhanapala and Rydell, Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT. 98. There are several instances of governments intentionally misleading domestic and international audiences in this way. One example is Pakistan’s proposal for a South Asian nuclear weapons free zone in November 1972, just months after having made the decision to pursue a nuclear weapons program. 99. For one of the most recent compilations, see Bleek, “When Did (and Didn’t) States Proliferate?”; Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation”; and Meyer, Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation for differing accounts. 100. Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation.” 101. See Bleek, “When Did (and Didn’t) States Proliferate?,” n170 for what can only be described as a frustrated account of the irresponsible use of non-​credible sources in Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation.” 102. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan.” Original German documents are also referenced in the portions of the article that detail the German nuclear effort. I also note that Grunden and Masakatsu have each authored other works on this topic as well. 103. Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima’ ”; and Shapley, “Nuclear Weapons History.” The arguably less credible report by Wilcox is in harmony with this particular account. See Wilcox, Japan’s Secret War, 56–​69. 104. See, for example, Jo and Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation.” 105. Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima,’ ” 158. 106. Grunow; and Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan.”

Chapter 5 1. Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, 330. 2. Stalin had a tendency not to accept bad news both before and during the war; for example, he had also been unwilling to believe reports predicting the German invasion. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb.

226 Notes 3. This direct access was due to the fact that Stalin chaired the State Defense Committee. Holloway, 73. 4. For an example of Leipunskii’s beliefs, see Holloway, 54; Green also notes that the Soviet military organization was “inculcated with conventional-​ war thinking.” Green, Revolution That Failed, 63. 5. Pollock, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars, 75. 6. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 84–​85. 7. Holloway, 114–​15. 8. Holloway, 116–​33. 9. Holloway, 134–​35; and McLean, How Nuclear Weapons Decisions Are Made. 10. Tsukerman et al., Arzamas-​16, 116. 11. Beria’s gatekeeping is infamous and well-​documented. See Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb; Khariton and Smirnov, “Khariton Version”; McLean, How Nuclear Weapons Decisions Are Made; and Kassenova, Atomic Steppe, 22. 12. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 135. 13. Holloway, 172, 193. 14. Holloway, 205. A well-​known example of a scientist leaving the program is that of Peter Kapitsa, although he did not ask to leave for moral reasons. A prominent Soviet physicist, Kapitsa was placed on the powerful Special Committee but frequently clashed with Beria, who refused to defer to Kapitsa’s expertise. Eventually Kapitsa asked to resign from the committee, and he was dismissed from his job as head of the Institute of Physical Problems a few months later. See Rothstein, “Kapitsa on Beria.” 15. The decision to pursue nuclear fusion weapons, known as hydrogen bombs, thermonuclear bombs, or in the parlance of the time, “the super,” is another type of nuclear acceleration decision. Fusion weapons are many orders of magnitude more destructive than fission weapons—​mind-​bogglingly so—​and have a different, extremely sophisticated, design that represents a significant milestone in scientific achievement. These weapons, in the enormity of their potential impact, also achieved another milestone: they raised the threat posed by nuclear weapons from danger to the targeted population to danger to the global population. 16. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 299. 17. Holloway, 359. 18. Holloway, 359. 19. Podvig and Bukharin, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, 73–​74. 20. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 264–​65. 21. Holloway, 240–​42. 22. Holloway, 237–​41, 264–​65. 23. Because of this, the Soviet military organization is entirely absent from most histories of the Soviet nuclear weapons program during the 1940s and 1950s; see, for example, Cochran, Norris, and Bukharin, Making the Russian Bomb; Tsukerman et al., Arzamas-​16; and Narang, Seeking the Bomb. 24. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 135. 25. Holloway, 202. 26. Holloway, 137.

Notes  227 27. Holloway, 182. 28. Holloway, 244–​45. 29. Holloway, 200–​201. 30. For more on Ben-​Gurion, see Zweig, David Ben-​Gurion; Segev, State at Any Cost; and Kedar and Watzman, David Ben-​Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy. 31. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 34. 32. Cohen, 34. 33. Cohen, ch. 2. Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon was a hawk but believed that Israel wasn’t ready for a reactor program and should invest in other military programs instead. 34. Cohen, 44. 35. Cohen, 52–​55. 36. Goldschmidt, Pionniers de l’atome; and Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 52–​55. 37. Cohen in Born, Gill, and Hänggi, Governing the Bomb, 156. 38. Cohen, Worst-​Kept Secret, 92. 39. Cohen and Burr, “Israel Crosses the Threshold,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; and Cohen and Burr, “Israel Crosses the Threshold,” April 28, 2006. 40. Cohen and Burr, “Israel Crosses the Threshold,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 24. 41. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 59–​60. 42. Cohen, 268–​70. 43. See, for example, Polakow-​Suransky, Unspoken Alliance, 47–​49; and Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 251–​55. 44. Disagreement regarding the value of the nuclear weapons program persisted within elite political and defense circles, such as between Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, who was then a high-​ranking officer in, and by 1964 chief of staff of, the IDF. Rabin argued strenuously that Israel should spend its scarce resources on conventional, not nuclear, deterrence. Ultimately, however, he came to support the nuclear project in the face of the combined conventional weaponry of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Rabinovich, Yitzhak Rabin, 43; and Inbar, “Yitzhak Rabin and Israel’s National Security.” 45. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 69–​70; and Cohen, Worst-​Kept Secret, 92. 46. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 77. 47. Cohen, 20. 48. Cohen, 71. 49. Strong opposition came from the high ranks during this time; see Rabinovich, Yitzhak Rabin, 43. 50. Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy,” 106–​7. 51. Cohen, 106–​7. 52. Polakow-​Suransky, Unspoken Alliance, 44. 53. Karpin, Bomb in the Basement, 125. 54. Karpin, 125. 55. Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy,” 116. 56. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 64. 57. Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy,” 106–​8. 58. Cohen, 111–​12.

228 Notes 59. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, ch. 12. 60. Cohen, 236. 61. Cohen, 238–​40. 62. Cohen, 159–​61. 63. Cohen and Burr, “Israel Crosses the Threshold,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 24. For example, the United States tried, in 1968, to persuade Israel to sign the NPT by using the F-​4 Phantom fighter bombers Israel wanted as leverage. What Washington did not understand was that Israel had already been a de facto nuclear weapons state for over a year. 64. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 29–​30. 65. Scheinman, 40–​45. 66. Hecht, Radiance of France. 67. Weart, Scientists in Power, 263. 68. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 54–​57. 69. Hecht, Radiance of France, 58–​59; and Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 95. 70. Hecht, Radiance of France, 74. 71. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 64–​65. 72. Scheinman, 102. 73. See, for example, Jules Gueron’s characterization of conversations between the two men. Gueron, interview. 74. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic; and Tertrais, “France.” 75. Tertrais, “ ‘Destruction Assurée’.” See also Chatriot, Pierre Mendès France; and Crémieux-​Brilhac, La Politique Scientifique de Pierre Mendès France. 76. Tertrais, “ ‘Destruction Assurée’.” 77. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 95. 78. Hymans, Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation. 79. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 112–​13. 80. Scheinman, 113–​14. 81. Scheinman, 100–​101. 82. Bertrand Goldschmidt, interview by Dominique France, January 13, 1998, Institut Pierre Mendès-​France, Paris, in Hymans, Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation. 83. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 168. 84. Scheinman, 148. 85. Scheinman, 105–​6; and Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine, 34–​36. 86. Cohen, La Monarchie Nucléaire, 163; and Tertrais, “France,” 107. 87. Cohen, La Monarchie Nucléaire, n30. 88. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 126, 169. 89. Scheinman, 97–​98. 90. Scheinman, 98–​99, 188. 91. Hymans, Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, 109. 92. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic, 126–​27.

Notes  229 93. Scheinman, 121–​24, 170. 94. Scheinman, 190. 95. Tertrais, “France,” 106–​9. 96. Gordon, Certain Idea of France, 40–​42. 97. Cohen, La Monarchie Nucléaire, n27, from “L’heure d’un choix,” L’Air, December 15, 1958. 98. See Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine. De Gaulle’s policy is assessed in Lacouture, O’Brian, and Sheridan, De Gaulle; and Jackson, De Gaulle. 99. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy, 84. 100. Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era. 101. Billaud and Journé, “Real Story Behind the Making of the French Hydrogen Bomb,” 356. 102. Billaud and Journé, 355–​56. 103. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy, 114–​19, 179. 104. Billaud and Journé, “Real Story Behind the Making of the French Hydrogen Bomb,” 357. 105. Gordon, Certain Idea of France, 36. 106. Sanguinetti, “Une Autocritique de l’institution Militaire.” 107. Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine, 52. Compare this figure with 9 percent (navy) and 23 percent (air force). 108. Gordon, Certain Idea of France, 38. 109. Rynning, Changing Military Doctrine, 59. 110. Gordon, Certain Idea of France, 36–​38. 111. Billaud and Journé, “Real Story Behind the Making of the French Hydrogen Bomb,” 356. 112. Billaud and Journé, 356. 113. Billaud and Journé, 359–​60. 114. Billaud and Journé, 356. 115. The key nuclear reversals during this period occurred either during World War II, within the Axis powers of Japan and Germany as resources grew scarce, and then as a result of defeat; or in the case of Yugoslavia. Tito made a reversal decision in the early 1960s that suspended the Yugoslav nuclear weapons program for approximately twelve years. The reasons for this reversal remain unknown. Around the time of Tito’s reversal decision, Yugoslavia had already received nuclear assistance from the USSR and Norway, and, with Norway, was planning a plutonium reprocessing plant. What is known is that the nuclear organization, shrouded in compartmentalized secrecy, had little ability to shape policy choices from below; the Soviet threat to Yugoslavia had lessened; and progress in the program had been slow. Tito had also been hypocritically advocating for nuclear disarmament; it is possible he decided not to jeopardize Yugoslavia’s reputation as a leader in the nonaligned movement by risking discovery of the clandestine program. At present, we can only speculate. See Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy.”

230 Notes

Chapter 6 1. Singh and Way, for example, classify Sweden as an explorer but not a pursuer. Singh and Way, “Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation,” 866–​67. 2. Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995, 8; and Jennergren, Schwarz, and Alvfeldt, Trends in Planning. 3. Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995, 162; and Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 41. 4. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 41. 5. Jonter, 42–​45. 6. Jonter, 30. 7. Jonter, 51–​52. 8. Despite this official position of neutrality, Sweden received American military assistance and exchanged classified military information. Swedish military chiefs crossed the Atlantic numerous times to meet with US diplomats and military chiefs. It was in the interest of both countries for Sweden to remain officially neutral but to be oriented toward the United States and NATO. This informal orientation was known only to a select few in each country. Moores, “ ‘Neutral on Our Side.’ ” However, American support extended only so far. Sweden obtained Falcon air-​to-​air missiles from the United States (see Gribbe and Nilsson, “Foreign Domestic”) but was denied Bomarc missiles, which Washington viewed as posing too great a proliferation risk. I thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this detail. 9. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 52–​57. 10. Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995, 176. 11. Indeed, the scientists also had to face a key professional limitation: they wanted to share their research results with the broader scientific community. The military, irritated by the scientists’ lack of appreciation for national security, classified their research to prevent the release of state secrets. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 42–​45. 12. Jonter, 61. 13. Jonter, 62. 14. Jonter, 66. 15. Jonter, 131–​32. 16. Jonter, “ ‘Sweden and the Bomb,’ ” 67–​68. 17. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 70. 18. Jonter, 72–​74. The latent capability at this point was most likely a tactical nuclear weapons capability. 19. Jonter, 39–​40. 20. Jonter, 142–​45. 21. Jonter, 156–​60. 22. Jonter, 163–​66, Chapters 3 and 5. 23. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint. 24. Jonter, 87–​88, Chapters 3 and 5. 25. See Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms.

Notes  231 26. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 193. 27. Jonter, 186–​88. 28. Agrell, “Bomb That Never Was,” 166–​67. 29. Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms; and Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 205–​24. 30. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 223–​24. 31. Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics; and Paul, Power versus Prudence. 32. Paul, Power versus Prudence, 84–​91. 33. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 125–​93; and Paul, Power versus Prudence, 84–​91. 34. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 209–​10, 231. 35. Jonter, 231; and see Agrell, “Bomb That Never Was,” 281–​87. 36. Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995, 164. 37. Littke and Sundström, 164. 38. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 227, 232–​33. 39. Jonter, 233–​34. 40. Jonter, 238; and Agrell, “Bomb That Never Was,” 226–​38. Paul also notes that the Swedish rethinking regarding the value of nuclear weapons may have been due to the internal debate over the conventional–​nuclear trade-​off. Paul, Power versus Prudence, 88. 41. Debs and Monteiro, Nuclear Politics, 195. 42. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 111. 43. Jonter, 239–​41. 44. Jonter, 185. 45. Jonter, 232–​38. 46. Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995, 166. 47. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 241. 48. Jonter, 241–​43, 248. 49. Jonter, “Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–​1968,” 80; and Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 243. 50. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 244. 51. Jonter, 248–​50. 52. Goldschmidt, “Negotiation of the Non-​Proliferation Treaty,” 74–​75. 53. Jonter, “Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–​1968,” 80. 54. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 253–​54. 55. Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms, 173–​75, 179–​81. 56. Rublee, 179. 57. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 213. 58. Littke and Sundström, Försvarets forskningsanstalt 1945–​1995, 165. 59. Agrell, “Bomb That Never Was,” 169. 60. Reiss, Without the Bomb, 82–​83. 61. Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance, 112–​13; and Solingen, Nuclear Logics, 82. 62. Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance, 116–​17. 63. Lanoszka, 116–​20. 64. Harrison, “Yen for the Bomb?”

232 Notes 65. Jang, “Evolution of U.S. Extended Deterrence and South Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions”; Snyder, “South Korean Nuclear Decision Making”; Mazarr, North Korea and the Bomb; and Hayes, Pacific Powderkeg. 66. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles,” 60. 67. Kim, 64. 68. Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police, 149–​66. Ultimately, Park would face threats to his hold on power from within his own security services. He was right to be concerned about his personal safety: First Lady Yuk was assassinated in 1974, and Park himself was assassinated in 1979. 69. Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance, 116–​18. 70. “Telegram 04379 from American Embassy Seoul to Department of State.” 71. “Telegram 04379 from American Embassy Seoul to Department of State.” 72. Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance, 120. 73. Solingen, Nuclear Logics, 91; and Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance, 123–​24. 74. Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance, 123–​24. 75. Solingen, Nuclear Logics, 91. 76. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles,” 60–​ 61. Most officers also prioritized maintaining the alliance with the United States. 77. Bratt, Politics of CANDU Exports, 114–​16, 128–​31. In the spring of 1974, South Korean scientists had also visited France and China to discuss purchasing the NRX experimental reactor. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles.” 78. Colby, “Memorandum from Director of Central Intelligence Colby to Secretary of State Kissinger.” 79. Burr, “Scheme of ‘Control,’ ” 269; and Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles,” 66. 80. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles,” 59, 63–​64; and Bratt, Politics of CANDU Exports, 129. 81. For example, see Hayes, “Republic of Korea and the Nuclear Issue.” 82. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles,” 66–​ 67; and Snyder, “South Korean Nuclear Decision Making.” 83. The year 1979 is the likely date of the end of the program. See Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles”; and Taliaferro, Defending Frenemies. However, it is possible that the program sputtered along for a few more years. See Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance; and Solingen, Nuclear Logics. 84. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 14–​59, 449; and Ganguly, “India’s Pathway to Pokhran II,” 150–​51. 85. Key studies of the Indian nuclear weapons program include Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb; Ganguly, “India’s Pathway to Pokhran II”; Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb; Kampani, “New Delhi’s Long Nuclear Journey”; and Chengappa, Weapons of Peace. 86. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 43. 87. Perkovich, 46.

Notes  233 88. Perkovich, 66–​77. 89. Sidhu, “India.” 90. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 69, 66–​77. 91. Perkovich, 18, 21. 92. Perkovich, 74; and Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 138–​39. 93. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 64–​85. 94. Perkovich, 70. 95. Perkovich, 68, 77–​83. 96. Perkovich, 83. 97. Perkovich, 68, 70, 74. 98. Touhey, “Troubled from the Beginning,” 15. 99. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 28, 64; and Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market,” 107–​10. 100. Touhey, “Troubled from the Beginning,” 15–​17. 101. Touhey, 20–​21. 102. Touhey, 25–​27. 103. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 126. 104. Perkovich, 128–​30. 105. Abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb, 127. 106. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 138. 107. Perkovich, 134–​ 38; and Goldschmidt, “Negotiation of the Non-​ Proliferation Treaty,” 74–​75. 108. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 171. 109. Perkovich, 165–​66. 110. Perkovich, 169–​70. 111. Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation”; and Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 172–​76. 112. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 168. 113. Perkovich, 176. 114. Perkovich, 176–​77. 115. Mukherjee, Absent Dialogue; and Cohen, “Security Issues in South Asia.” In addition, in India’s jati (caste) system, scientists are almost always Brahmins, while military personnel, including officers, come from the lower social classes. Some officers believe this further quiets the voice the Indian military has in nuclear matters. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 450. 116. Perkovich, 275. 117. Perkovich, 71. 118. Cohen, “Security Issues in South Asia,” 209. 119. Quester, “India Contemplates the Bomb,” 16. 120. Chiefs of Staff Committee threat assessment in May–​June 1974, Document 3, in Joshi, “Imagined Arsenal.” 121. Joshi, “Imagined Arsenal,” 6. 122. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 177; and Sidhu, “India,” 176–​79.

234 Notes 123. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 197. 124. Perkovich, 188. 125. Perkovich, 183–​87, 192; and Sidhu, “India,” 177. 126. Sidhu, “India,” 176–​79. 127. For example, see Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 46–​47. 128. Perkovich, 192. 129. Perkovich, 188, 192. 130. Mehta, Delaying Doomsday, 142. 131. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 193–​94, 188. 132. Ganguly, “India’s Pathway to Pokhran II,” 160–​61. 133. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 201. 134. Perkovich, 216–​20. 135. Perkovich, 227–​28. 136. Kampani, “New Delhi’s Long Nuclear Journey.” 137. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 227–​32. 138. Perkovich, 261–​76; and Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 142. 139. Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 143–​44. 140. Narang. 141. Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 145; Chengappa, Weapons of Peace, 382–​84; and Kampani, “New Delhi’s Long Nuclear Journey.”

Chapter 7 1. Important works on Pakistan’s nuclear program include Khan, Eating Grass; Ahmed, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program”; Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development; Cheema, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Use Doctrine and Command and Control”; Narang, “Posturing for Peace?”; and Craig, America, Britain and Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Programme, 1974–​1980. 2. Khan, Eating Grass, 29. 3. Cheema, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Use Doctrine and Command and Control,” 161. Cheema also notes that the PAEC’s head at the time, I. H. Usmani, disagreed with Bhutto and had General Khan’s ear. Ultimately, Bhutto removed Usmani from his position to install Munir Ahmed Khan, who supported Bhutto’s weaponization plans. 4. For an account of this conflict, see Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 42–​73. 5. Khan, Eating Grass, 7. 6. Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development, 19. Khan describes Pakistan’s defeat in the 1965 Kashmir War as a catalyst for increasing support for a nuclear program within Pakistan, but there was still no consensus, and the military regime still did not pursue the bomb. Khan, Eating Grass. 7. Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development, 43–​48. 8. Khan, Eating Grass, 63–​66. 9. Khan, 66. 10. Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development, 155, 164.

Notes  235 11. International Institute for Strategic Studies, Nuclear Black Markets. 12. Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development, 50. 13. Khan, Changhi Medal Award Ceremony Speech. 14. Khan, Eating Grass, 121. 15. These suppliers—​Canada, France, West Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—​would begin meeting formally in 1975 as the NSG. 16. Khan, Eating Grass, 100, 162. 17. Koch, “Frustration and Delay,” 801–​2; and Rabinowitz and Sarkar, “ ‘It Isn’t Over until the Fuel Cell Sings,’ ” 287. 18. Khan, “Political Transitions and Nuclear Management in Pakistan,” 96. 19. Khan, Eating Grass, 201; and Hibbs, “Bhutto May Finish Plutonium Reactor without Agreement on Fissile Stocks.” 20. Global Fissile Material Report 2010, 126–​33. 21. Khan, Eating Grass, 106–​7. 22. Koch, “Frustration and Delay,” 802–​3. 23. Khan, “Political Transitions and Nuclear Management in Pakistan,” 157. 24. Fair, Fighting to the End, 6–​7. 25. Khan, Eating Grass, 79–​80. 26. Cheema, “Pakistan,” 211. 27. Khan, Eating Grass, ch. 7. 28. Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 361–​62. 29. Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development, 190. Zia, who was deeply religious, also embarked on a program of Islamicization, which is detailed in C. Christine Fair’s fascinating book Fighting to the End. 30. Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 364. 31. Burr, “Carter Administration’s ‘Damnable Dilemma,’ ” 12–​13. 32. Burr, 34–​36. 33. Burr; and Shah, Army and Democracy, 156–​57. 34. Nayar, “Learn a Lesson from History,” quoted in Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 222. 35. Fair, “U.S.-​Pakistan F-​16 Fiasco.” 36. Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development, 191. 37. Ahmed, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” 186. 38. Khan, Eating Grass, 214–​17, 323. 39. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, 303; Corera, Shopping for Bomb, 49–​51; and Khan, Eating Grass, chs. 11 and 13. 40. Khan, Eating Grass, 254–​55. 41. Ahmed, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program,” 190. 42. Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 475. 43. Khan, Eating Grass, 255–​58. 44. Khan, 260–​61. 45. Khan, 278. 46. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb”; see also Liberman, “Israel and the South African Bomb.”

236 Notes 47. Flank, “Exploding the Black Box,” 278–​80. 48. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club,” 37–​38; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 29. 49. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 64; and Flank, “Exploding the Black Box,” 287–​280. 50. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club”; Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb”; Stumpf, Birth and Death of the South African Nuclear Weapons Programme; Reiss, Bridled Ambition; Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb”; and International Atomic Energy Agency, Director General, Denuclearization of Africa. 51. Stumpf, Birth and Death of the South African Nuclear Weapons Programme; Reiss, Bridled Ambition; Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb”; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb.” 52. The case could be made that the program started even earlier. The uranium enrichment plant was not designed for commercial purposes. And from early stages, the government classified all work as secret. Vorster would have understood that the PNE production would essentially give South Africa a de facto nuclear weapons capability. See Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 50–​51. 53. Anderson and Bell argue that national security explains the decision, but they imply this happened “suddenly,” when the new Portuguese regime took power, incorrectly conflating the end of the Portuguese regime in April 1974 with the end of Portuguese colonialism in June–​ November 1975. Anderson and Bell, “Limits of Regional Power,” 8. 54. Liberman, “Israel and the South African Bomb,” 68. 55. Frankel, Pretoria’s Praetorians, 155; Davies and O’Meara, “Total Strategy in Southern Africa,” 188; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 63. 56. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 65. 57. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 41. 58. See, for example, Anderson and Bell, “Limits of Regional Power”; and Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club.” 59. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club,” 34–​37; and Polakow-​Suransky, Unspoken Alliance. 60. Nolutshungu, “Soviet Involvement in Southern Africa.” 61. Anderson and Bell, “Limits of Regional Power.” Polakow-​Suransky describes in detail how South Africa relied instead on Israel for nuclear cooperation. Polakow-​Suransky, Unspoken Alliance. 62. Anderson and Bell, “Limits of Regional Power,” 10–​11. 63. The Total Strategy was first described and presented in a 1977 Department of Defense white paper. See Davies and O’Meara, “Total Strategy in Southern Africa,” 189. 64. Davies and O’Meara, 188. 65. Liberman, “Israel and the South African Bomb,” 47, 60–​61; and Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club,” 39–​40. I also note that Liberman makes a compelling case in this 2004 article for why the Armstrong Memorandum supports the argument that South Africa had demonstrated an interest

Notes  237 in nuclear weapons prior to 1975 that was serious enough for Israel to have responded by offering to sell South Africa nuclear-​capable Jericho missiles. This lends further support to the likelihood that Vorster’s 1974 nuclear decision had a military component to it despite the “peaceful” moniker associated with the program at the time. 66. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 68–​69; and Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 39. 67. Davies and O’Meara, “Total Strategy in Southern Africa,” 188. 68. “Message Conveyed to Minister of Foreign Affairs by US Ambassador William G. Bowdler”; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 68. 69. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​ Proliferation Club,” 40–​41. 70. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 53; and Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club,” 40. 71. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 53; and Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 43–​44. 72. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 43. 73. Hibbs, “South Africa’s Secret Nuclear Program,” 5. 74. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 64. 75. Davies and O’Meara, “Total Strategy in Southern Africa,” 189. 76. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 65–​66. 77. Frankel, Pretoria’s Praetorians, 155; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 66–​67. 78. Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 28; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 59. 79. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​ Proliferation Club,” 40–​41. 80. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 69. 81. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 44–​45; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 54. 82. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 55. 83. Liberman, 66–​67. 84. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 45; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 73. 85. South Africa had been producing only gun-​type weapons up to that point, and Armscor now sought to develop implosion weapons as well. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 45. 86. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 57; Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 45; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 16. 87. Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 14; Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 60–​61; and Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 213. 88. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 79. 89. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​ Proliferation Club,” 40–​42.

238 Notes 90. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 74; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 91. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 75, 80. 92. Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 20–​22. 93. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 81; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 22. 94. “Memorandum: Richard Carter to Herbert Beukes, ‘Main Points Arising from Luncheon on 14 November 1989.’ ” 95. “Memorandum: Richard Carter to Herbert Beukes.’ ” 96. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club,” 43. 97. Van Wyk and Van Wyk, 44–​45. 98. Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 19. For the reasons de Klerk waited until 1993 to make this announcement, see 22–​24. 99. Patti, “Origins of the Brazilian Nuclear Programme, 1951–​1955,” 354–​56, 361–​62; for a discussion of the significant scientific cooperation between Brazil and Italy during this time, see Patti, “Unusual Partnership.” 100. Patti, “Origins of the Brazilian Nuclear Programme, 1951–​1955,” 363. 101. Patti, 362. The bomb was known as the Bomba Marambaia. 102. Patti, 364–​68. 103. “Cria a Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear, e Dá Outras Providência.” 104. Act No. 6,189 of 1974; Patti, Origins and Evolution of the Brazilian Nuclear Program (1947–​2011); Maiorino, Utilization and Operational Experience of IEA-​R1 Brazilian Research Reactor; Leventhal and Tanzer, Averting a Latin American Nuclear Arms Race; and Solingen, “Brazil.” 105. Spektor, “Evolution of Brazil’s Nuclear Intentions,” 638; and Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope, 18. 106. Patti and Spektor, “ ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency,’ ” 64–​65. 107. Spektor, “Evolution of Brazil’s Nuclear Intentions,” 638–​39. 108. Spektor, 638–​39; Patti and Spektor, “ ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency,’ ” 64–​ 65; and “Minutes of the Fortieth Session of the Brazilian National Security Council.” 109. Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope, 18. 110. Patti and Spektor, “ ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency,’ ” 63–​72. 111. Patti, “Forbidden Cooperation.” 112. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 4–​5. 113. Patti, “Forbidden Cooperation”; and Patti and Spektor, “  ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency.’ ” Dutch antinuclear activism also played a part in preventing Amsterdam’s technology export to Brazil. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 4. 114. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 23; Patti and Spektor, “ ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency’ ”; Patti, “Forbidden Cooperation”; and Henning in Leventhal and Tanzer, Averting a Latin American Nuclear Arms Race, 85. 115. This was also due to the American decisions not to expand production capacity and to require payment in advance. Bodde, Quasebarth, and Thomasian, “Economics of Strategic Choice,” 96–​97. 116. Patti, Origins and Evolution of the Brazilian Nuclear Program (1947–​2011).

Notes  239 117. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 1997, 5. 118. Patti and Spektor, “ ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency,’ ” 92. 119. General Secretariat of the Brazilian National Security Council, “Notice No. 135/​ 79.” Until recently, the precise timing of the government’s decision to authorize Brazil’s parallel program was unclear, and estimates had ranged from 1974 to 1979. Declassified Brazilian documents obtained by Carlo Patti at the Getulio Vargas Foundation and made available in English through the Woodrow Wilson Center refer to the parallel program. An aviso (notice) from the General Secretariat of the National Security Council indicates that the authorization for the parallel program came from the president in 1979. 120. Brazilian National Security Council, “Exposição de Motivos No. 011/​85.” 121. General Secretariat of the Brazilian National Security Council, “Memorandum, Information for the President of Brazil, No. 011/​85.” 122. Ambassador Luiz Augusto de Castro Neves in Origins of Nuclear Cooperation, 132; and Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope, 23–​24. 123. Act No. 6,189 of 1974; Patti, Origins and Evolution of the Brazilian Nuclear Program (1947–​2011); Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 6; and Leventhal and Tanzer, Averting a Latin American Nuclear Arms Race. 124. Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 51. 125. Gardini, “Making Sense of Rapprochement between Argentina and Brazil, 1979–​ 1982”; and Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope, 22. 126. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil; Mallea, “Brazilian Proposal to Renounce Peaceful Nuclear Explosions and the Argentine Response (1983–​1985)”; Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope; Spektor, “Evolution of Brazil’s Nuclear Intentions”; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 47–​54. 127. Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope, 32. 128. Silva and Moura, “Brazilian Navy’s Nuclear-​Powered Submarine Program,” 623. 129. For a discussion of the “only sporadic application of policy to the development of domestic technology and industry” that characterized the regime’s approach, see Adler, Power of Ideology, 317–​18. 130. This view is attributed to Brazilian nuclear insider Jose Goldemberg in Albright and Marzo, Argentine-​Brazilian Nuclear Rapprochement. 131. Kemp, “Nonproliferation Emperor Has No Clothes,” 60–​61. 132. Maraging steel is an aged, hardened, low-​carbon steel. Centrifuge rotors are best made out of materials with a high strength-​to-​weight ratio, and maraging steel not only is materially strong but also stands up well to the corrosive properties of uranium hexafluoride gas (carbon steel is more susceptible to corrosion). For an accessible explanation, see Federation of American Scientists, “Engineering Considerations for Gas Centrifuges.” 133. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 6. 134. Adler, Power of Ideology, 305. 135. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 9, 11, 19; and Patti, “Forbidden Cooperation.” 136. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 6–​7, 13. 137. The phrase used, visando deixar assinalada, is a polite, formal way to advise firmly. I thank historian Sarah Sarzynski for this perspective.

240 Notes 138. General Secretariat of the Brazilian National Security Council, “Memorandum, Information for the President of Brazil, No. 011/​85.” 139. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 16–​17. 140. Barletta, 10, 22–​23. This was formalized in a presidential decree on August 7, 1986. 141. Albright and Marzo, Argentine-​Brazilian Nuclear Rapprochement. 142. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 9, 11, 22–​23; Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope, 27; Kroenig, “Importing the Bomb,” 198; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 56. 143. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 11–​12. 144. Patti, Origins and Evolution of the Brazilian Nuclear Program (1947–​2011); Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 145. Albright and Marzo, Argentine-​Brazilian Nuclear Rapprochement; and Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 24. 146. Solingen, “Growth and Decline of the Military-​Industrial Complex.” 147. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 27. Collor placed CNEN under the new civilian-​staffed Strategic Affairs Secretariat, which replaced the military-​dominated state security service. 148. Barletta, 27; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 149. Silva and Moura, “Brazilian Navy’s Nuclear-​Powered Submarine Program,” 623–​24; Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope; and Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil, 28. 150. Reported by, among others, James Brooke, “Brazil Uncovers Plan by Military to Build Atom Bomb and Stops It,” New York Times, October 9, 1990. There is some dispute over whether Collor shoveled concrete or lime into the holes, and whether the holes had been drilled for nuclear testing, but the intent of producing such a powerful visual image is clear regardless of those details. 151. Hibbs, Looking Back at Brazil’s Boreholes. 152. Origins of Nuclear Cooperation, 131. 153. Reiss, Bridled Ambition, 58–​60.

Chapter 8 1. The following discussion of the W76 life extension program is based on my interview with a Los Alamos National Laboratory weapons designer who worked on this project. Blake Wood, interview by author, April 19, 2019. 2. Biello, “Special Report.” 3. NEA Nuclear Law Bulletin; and Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, 21–​22. The shah’s manner in dealing with those who stood in Etemad’s way is characterized as “angry,” and top ministers expressed envy at Etemad’s power to use state resources. 4. Tabatabai, “Negotiating the ‘Iran Talks’ in Tehran,” 227; see Spector, Nuclear Ambitions, 204; and Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran. 5. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, 95–​101. 6. Patrikarakos, 103.

Notes  241 7. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran, 14; and Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, 123. 8. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran, 14–​15. Further, what may be known from the “nuclear archive”—​100,000 documents stolen from a facility in Tehran by Mossad operatives—​has not been reported fully in open-​source literature. 9. Tabatabai, 14. 10. Interested readers may refer to the appendix for details. 11. Tabatabai, “Negotiating the ‘Iran Talks’ in Tehran”; Landler, “Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal He Long Scorned”; Davenport and Kimball, “Iran Announces Countermoves on Nuclear Deal”; and IAEA, “IAEA and Iran.” 12. For a brief explanation of this time period and a lengthy analysis of the conditions under which Iran agreed to the terms of the JCPOA, see Tabatabai, “Negotiating the ‘Iran Talks’ in Tehran.” 13. Albright, Peddling Peril, 22. 14. Albright, 80–​81. Further, Seyed Hossein Mousavian has written: “When China joined the NSG in 1992, it ceased nuclear cooperation with Iran under American pressure.” Mousavian points to two outcomes brought about in Iran by the export control regime: nuclear program delay and a belief that there was no option left other than an indigenous program. Iran’s entire nuclear weapons–​related program has been conducted during the nonproliferation regime period, including pre-​Revolution plans to pursue a hedging strategy. See Chapter 7 for other examples of states that responded to the expanding nonproliferation regime by pursuing covert nuclear programs, with varying success. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 53, 179. 15. For multiple examples of how the export control regime has delayed Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapons capability, see Koch, “Frustration and Delay,” 788, 791, 793, 795–​96. 16. Sanger et al., “Gunmen Assassinate Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist in Ambush, Provoking New Crisis.” 17. Kerr, “Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.” 18. For a chart displaying nuclear-​relevant organizations in the Iranian bureaucracy, see Tabatabai, “Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran,” 24. 19. Mousavian, Iran and the United States, 70–​71. 20. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran, 22–​23. 21. Dagher, “Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from an Iraqi View.” 22. Tabatabai, “After Soleimani.” 23. Tabatabai and Samuel, “What the Iran-​Iraq War Tells Us about the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal.” 24. Batmanghelidgj, “Tougher U.S. Sanctions Will Enrich Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.”

Appendix 1. Reynolds, Australia’s Bid for the Atomic Bomb. 2. Walsh, “Surprise Down Under.” 3. Moyal, “Australian Atomic Energy Commission.”

242 Notes 4. Walsh, “Surprise Down Under.” 5. Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 6. Redick, “Nuclear Illusions.” 7. Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope. 8. Patti and Spektor, “ ‘We Are Not a Nonproliferation Agency,’ ” 92. 9. General Secretariat of the Brazilian National Security Council, “Notice No. 135/​ 79.” Until recently, the precise timing of the government’s decision to authorize Brazil’s parallel program was unclear, and estimates had ranged from 1974 to 1979. Declassified Brazilian documents obtained by Carlo Patti at the Getulio Vargas Foundation and made available in English through the Woodrow Wilson Center refer to the parallel program. An aviso (notice) from the General Secretariat of the National Security Council indicates that the authorization for the parallel program came from the president in 1979. 10. Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb. 11. Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil. 12. Reiss, Bridled Ambition; Kassenova, Brazil’s Nuclear Kaleidoscope; and Barletta, Military Nuclear Program in Brazil. 13. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb; and Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 14. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb. 15. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 16. Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-​Warriors. 17. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic; and Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 18. Scheinman, Atomic Energy Policy in France under the Fourth Republic; and Hecht, Radiance of France. 19. Tertrais, “France.” 20. Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy. 21. Billaud and Journé, “Real Story behind the Making of the French Hydrogen Bomb.” 22. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, 5:200. 23. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 24. Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, 231. 25. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan.” 26. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb. 27. Perkovich. 28. Perkovich, 169–​70. 29. Perkovich. 30. Perkovich. 31. Perkovich, 261–​76; Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 142; and Sidhu, “India.” 32. Narang, “Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation,” 143–​44. 33. Spector, Nuclear Ambitions; Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran; and Tabatabai, “Negotiating the ‘Iran Talks’ in Tehran.”

Notes  243 34. Corera, Shopping for Bombs; and Tabatabai and Samuel, “What the Iran-​Iraq War Tells Us about the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal.” 35. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran. 36. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran; and Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran. 37. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran. 38. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran. 39. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran. 40. Tabatabai, “Negotiating the ‘Iran Talks’ in Tehran.” 41. Tabatabai, Nuclear Decision-​Making in Iran. 42. Davenport, “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance.” 43. Braut-​Hegghammer, “Revisiting Osirak.” 44. Braut-​Hegghammer. 45. Reiter, “Preventive Attacks against Nuclear Programs and the ‘Success’ at Osiraq.” 46. Albright, Gay, and Hamza, “Development of the Al-​Tuwaitha Site.” 47. Braut-​Hegghammer, “Revisiting Osirak.” 48. Reiter, “Preventive Attacks against Nuclear Programs and the ‘Success’ at Osiraq.” 49. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics. 50. Reiter, “Preventive Attacks against Nuclear Programs and the ‘Success’ at Osiraq”; and Solingen, Nuclear Logics. Braut-​Hegghammer argues this decision may constitute the actual start of a formal program. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics; and Braut-​ Hegghammer, “Revisiting Osirak.” 51. Reiter, “Preventive Attacks against Nuclear Programs and the ‘Success’ at Osiraq”; and Braut-​Hegghammer, “Revisiting Osirak.” 52. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics; and Reiter, “Preventive Attacks against Nuclear Programs and the ‘Success’ at Osiraq.” 53. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb. 54. Cohen and Burr, “Israel Crosses the Threshold.” 55. Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima’ ”; Wilcox, Japan’s Secret War, 56–​69; and Shapley, “Nuclear Weapons History.” 56. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki, “Wartime Nuclear Weapons Research in Germany and Japan.” 57. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki. 58. Grunden, Walker, and Yamazaki; and Grunow, “Reexamination of the ‘Shock of Hiroshima.’ ” 59. Sinovets and Budjeryn, “Interpreting the Bomb”; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 60. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation. 61. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics. 62. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation; and Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.” 63. Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics; and Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms. 64. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation; and Braut-​Hegghammer, Unclear Physics. 65. Byeong-​gu, “North Korean Nuclear Issues and the LWR Project Vol.1”; and James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, “North Korea Nuclear Chronology.” 66. Mazarr, North Korea and the Bomb; and Pollack, No Exit.

244 Notes 67. Pollack, No Exit, 81. 68. Pollack. 69. Mansourov, “North Korea’s Road to the Atomic Bomb,” 43. 70. Mansourov, 47. 71. Mansourov. 72. Bermudez, “North Korea’s Nuclear Programme.” 73. Hecker, “Lessons Learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crises”; Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 74. Heinonen, “North Korea’s Nuclear Enrichment.” 75. Khan, Eating Grass; Spector, Nuclear Ambitions; and Kapur, Pakistan’s Nuclear Development. 76. Khan, Eating Grass. 77. Khan. 78. Khan. 79. Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market.” 80. Gheorghe, “Atomic Maverick.” 81. Gheorghe, “Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market,” 117–​22. 82. Gheorghe, 121. 83. Gheorghe, 121–​22. 84. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb. 85. Holloway. 86. Holloway; and Podvig and Bukharin, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. 87. Stumpf, Birth and Death of the South African Nuclear Weapons Programme; Reiss, Bridled Ambition; Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb”; and Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb.” 88. Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” 41; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 89. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb,” 53; and Van Wyk and Van Wyk, “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-​Proliferation Club,” 40. 90. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb”; Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb”; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 91. Liberman, “Rise and Fall of the South African Bomb”; and Reiss, Bridled Ambition. 92. Harrison, “Yen for the Bomb?” 93. Jang, “Evolution of U.S. Extended Deterrence and South Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions”; Snyder, “South Korean Nuclear Decision Making”; Mazarr, North Korea and the Bomb; and Hayes, Pacific Powderkeg. 94. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles.” 95. Hayes, “Republic of Korea and the Nuclear Issue.” 96. Kim, “Security, Nationalism and the Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles”; and Snyder, “South Korean Nuclear Decision Making.” 97. Lanoszka, Atomic Assurance; and Solingen, Nuclear Logics. 98. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 41. 99. Jonter, 163–​66, Chapters 3 and 5.

Notes  245 100. Jonter, “Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–​1968,” 80; and Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 243. 101. Jonter, Key to Nuclear Restraint, 253–​54; and Jonter, “Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–​1968,” 80. 102. Stüssi-​Lauterberg, Historical Outline on the Question of Swiss Nuclear Armament. 103. Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic.” 104. Office of Director of National Intelligence, “Background Briefing with Senior U.S. Officials on Syria’s Covert Nuclear Reactor and North Korea’s Involvement.” 105. Mitchell, “Taiwan’s Hsin Chu Program: Deterrence, Abandonment, and Honor,” 296. 106. Albright and Gay, “Taiwan.” 107. Albright and Gay, 58–​59. 108. Mitchell, “Taiwan’s Hsin Chu Program”; Albright and Gay, “Taiwan”; and Hersman and Peters, “Nuclear U-​Turns,” 545. 109. Reiss, Bridled Ambition; and Sinovets and Budjeryn, “Interpreting the Bomb.” 110. Reiss, Bridled Ambition; and Sinovets and Budjeryn, “Interpreting the Bomb.” 111. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons. 112. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, 5:20–​22; and Pontin, “Defense Decision-​Making and Public Opinion.” 113. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons; and Arnold and Smith, Britain, Australia and the Bomb. 114. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons; and Walker, British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban 1954–​1973. 115. Simpson and Nielsen, “United Kingdom.” 116. Kristensen and Korda, “United Kingdom Nuclear Weapons, 2021.” 117. Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, 377–​79. 118. Rhodes, 768; and Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–​1950, 301–​5. 119. Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy” 120. Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy”; and Potter and Mukhatzhanova, The Role of Theory. 121. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions. 122. Hymans. 123. Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus, “Tito’s Nuclear Legacy.” 124. Potter, Miljanic, and Slaus.

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Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Tables and figures are indicated by t and f following the page number acceleration decisions costs and timeline constraints of, 25–​26 by country and time period, 14–​21, 16f, 203 defined, 12 examples of, 12t of France, 108–​10, 113–​14 of India, 143–​34, 147–​48 of Iran, 197, 201 management of, 214n.9 nonproliferation and, 13 nuclear agencies and, 7, 52 of Pakistan, 155–​56, 157–​58 proliferation curves and, 11–​14, 12t security environments and, 4–​5, 13, 25–​26, 27–​28 of South Africa, 165–​68, 170–​71 of Soviet Union, 85–​86, 87 of Sweden, 27–​28, 215n.9 Acton, James, 224–​25n.92 Afghanistan Pakistan relations, 158–​59 Soviet invasion of, 71–​72, 158–​59 US invasion of, 197–​98 Agrell, Wilhelm, 130–​31 Alberto, Álvaro, 177, 178–​80 Alberts, Laurence, 166–​67 Algeria, French relations, 95, 108–​9 Alves, Rex Nazaré, 183–​84, 187, 188 Amrollahi, Reza, 196–​97 Anami Korechika, 1–​2 Anderson, Noel, 168–​69, 236n.53 Angola, South African invasion of, 168 Argentina Brazilian relations, 178, 184 Canada, nuclear assistance from, 70

Falklands/​Malvinas war and, 184–​85 Armstrong, Raymond Fullarton, 169, 236–​37n.65 Atoms for Peace program Brazil and, 180 creation of, 58 Israel and, 93–​94 Pakistan and, 153–​54 permissive period and, 59 South Africa and, 165 South Korea and, 131–​32 Australia, nuclear weapons program of, 203 Barletta, Michael, 181, 182 Barnett, Michael, 220n.92 Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954), 106–​7 Beg, Mirza Aslam, 50, 160 Belarus, Soviet nuclear program in, 73, 203 Bell, Mark S., 168–​69, 236n.53 Ben-​Gurion, David, 45, 48, 91–​102 Bergman, Ernst, 93–​94 Beria, L. P., 85, 86, 87, 89, 226n.14 Bhabha, Homi, 139–​42, 143, 148–​49, 219n.77 Bhutto, Benazir, 160, 161 Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 31, 48, 154–​55, 157, 158, 162, 234n.3 Billaud, Pierre, 114 Bohr, Niels, 123 Botha, P. W., 168–​69, 170, 171, 172–​74, 176–​77 Brazil Argentinian relations, 178, 184 costs of nuclear program for, 187 end of nuclear program in, 188–​89, 240n.150

266 Index Brazil (cont.) Germany, nuclear equipment from, 181–​82, 186 military influence on nuclear program, 177–​78, 181, 183, 184–​86, 190 NPT and, 180 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 177, 181 nuclear weapons program of, 177–​91, 179f, 203 proliferation curve of, 16–​20, 16f reversal decisions of, 188 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 178, 182–​83, 188, 239n.119 security environment and, 4, 178, 184–​ 85, 191–​92 United States, nuclear assistance from, 180, 181 United States blocking nuclear assistance for, 181–​82 budgets. See nuclear program budgets and costs Büthe, Tim, 37 Canada Argentina, nuclear assistance for, 70 India, nuclear assistance for, 59–​60, 66, 68, 141–​42, 145–​46 nonproliferation policy and, 61 nuclear weapons program of, 59 Partial Test Ban Treaty and, 142 South Korea, nuclear assistance for, 136 Caribbean, nuclear weapons free zone in, 65–​66, 180 Carter, Jimmy, 134–​35, 158, 159, 162, 169–​ 70, 181–​82 Carter, Richard, 175 Castro Neves, Luiz Augusto de, 189 Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1986), 187 Chiang Kai-​shek, 47 China economic constraints on nuclear program and, 31 Indian relations, 138–​39 Iran, nuclear assistance for, 241n.14 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197 nuclear agencies and scientists in, 47

nuclear testing by, 61–​63, 142–​43, 222n.30 nuclear weapons program of, 203 Pakistan, nuclear assistance for, 160 proliferation curve of, 16–​20, 16f reversal decisions of, 30 Soviet Union, nuclear assistance from, 31, 59, 60, 61–​62 Clapp, Priscilla A., 219n.78 Clinton, Bill, 75 COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls), 224n.91 Cohen, Avner, 43, 91–​92, 95, 98, 99 Cohen, Stephen, 145 Cold War Cuban missile crisis and, 60 end of, 73 nonproliferation policy and, 56, 60–​61 Swedish nuclear program during, 27–​ 28, 215n.9 Collor de Melo, Fernando, 188–​90 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (1996), 195 conventional weapons French military and, 107, 112–​13, 115 Indian military and, 139, 145 Israeli military and, 97–​100, 115 military preference for, 7, 49–​51 Pakistani military and, 154 South African military and, 166 South Korean military and, 134–​36 Soviet military and, 88, 115, 220n.90 Swedish military and, 127, 130, 231n.40 US military and, 50–​51, 50–51nn.92–94 Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), 224n.91 Costa e Silva, Artur da, 180–​81 costs. See nuclear program budgets and costs Cuban missile crisis (1962), 60 Dayan, Moshe, 97 Debs, Alexandre, 27–​28, 125, 127–​28 decision-​making. See acceleration decisions; nuclear decision-​making theory; reversal decisions de Gaulle, Charles, 48, 102, 104, 108–​10

Index  267 de Klerk, F. W., 174–​77 Deng Xiaoping, 30 Desai, Morarji, 146 deterrence Israeli nuclear weapons program and, 93, 97 latent nuclear capabilities and, 34 military emboldenment and, 49, 219n.82 Pakistan-​India relations and, 50 security environments and, 25 South African nuclear weapons program and, 170 Soviet nuclear weapons program and, 87–​88 Swedish nuclear weapons program and, 125 Dien Bien Phu, Battle of (1954), 106–​7 disarmament. See nuclear disarmament economic constraints. See nuclear program budgets and costs Egypt ballistic missile tests of, 97 Six Day War and, 96 Suez crisis and, 95 Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC), 63–​65 Einstein, Albert, 10–​11, 56–​57 Eisenhower, Dwight, 58 Emelyanov, Vassily, 60 Erlander, Tage, 122, 123–​24 Eshkol, Levi, 100–​1 Etemad, Akbar, 196, 240n.3 expert organizations. See military organizations; nuclear agencies, domestic Fair, C. Christine, 157, 235n.29 Fakhrizadeh-​Mahabadi, Moshen, 198 Faure, Edgar, 108 Figueiredo, João Batista de Oliveira, 182 Finnemore, Martha, 220n.92 Fischer, David, 68 France acceleration decisions of, 108–​10, 113–​14 Algerian relations, 95, 108–​9

Battle of Dien Bien Phu and, 106–​7 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 107, 112–​13, 115 costs of nuclear program for, 105, 112–​14 de Gaulle’s involvement in nuclear program, 48 Israel, nuclear assistance for, 95 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197 military influence on nuclear program, 102–​4, 105–​7, 110–​11, 113, 114 NPT and, 67, 72–​73, 223n.74 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 47–​48, 102–​4, 105–​6, 108, 109–​10, 111, 113–​14 nuclear testing by, 60, 110–​11 nuclear weapons program of, 59, 103f, 102–​15 proliferation curve of, 16–​20, 16f security environment and, 105 South Korea, nuclear assistance for, 136, 232n.77 Suez crisis and, 95 US relations, 93, 106–​7 Frisch, Otto, 56–​57 Fuhrmann, Matthew, 214n.12, 215n.15 Gaddafi, Muammar, 31, 74, 74nn.81–82, 224n.84 Gaillard, Félix, 104–​5, 108 Gandhi, Indira, 21, 142–​44, 145–​47, 149 Gandhi, Rajiv, 147–​48 Germany Brazil, nuclear equipment for, 181–​82, 186 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197 NPT and, 67, 72 nuclear sharing with US and, 64 nuclear weapons program of, 1, 10–​11, 56–​57, 84–​85, 204 Gilpatric, Roswell, 63 Goiana radiological accident (Brazil 1987), 187 Goldemberg, José, 181, 188 Goldschmidt, Bertrand, 106 Grant, Wally, 165

268 Index Grunden, Walter E., 79, 80 Grunow, Tristan, 79, 80 Guillaumat, Pierre, 104–​5 Halperin, Morton H., 219n.78 Harrison, Selig, 132 hedging India and, 147, 148 Iran and, 196 latent nuclear weapons capabilities and, 34 South Africa and, 164, 166, 171 Sweden and, 129–​30, 131 Hiroshima, Japan, US nuclear attack on, 2, 45 historical eras. See nonproliferation regime period; permissive period; transition period Holloway, David, 83, 87–​88, 90, 213n.7 Hussein, Saddam, 41, 73, 75 Hymans, Jacques E. C., 3–​4, 28–​30, 214n.9 IAEA. See International Atomic Energy Agency India acceleration decisions of, 143–​34, 147–​48 Canada, nuclear assistance from, 59–​60, 66, 68, 141–​42, 145–​46 Chinese relations, 138–​39 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 139, 145 costs of nuclear program for, 31, 139–​41 disarmament advocacy of, 140–​41, 143, 147–​48 Kargil War and, 50, 219n.82, 220n.89 legal formality of nuclear agency in, 41 military influence on nuclear program, 138, 145–​46, 147–​48, 233n.115 Nehru’s involvement in nuclear program, 48, 219n.77 NPT and, 67 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 47, 138, 139, 143–​44, 146–​49 nuclear decision-​making in, 44 nuclear testing by, 59, 66, 68, 117, 144, 145–​47, 150

nuclear weapons program of, 137–​49, 140f, 204 Pakistani relations, 138–​39, 143, 152–​53, 154–​55 proliferation curve of, 16f, 16–​20, 21 reversal decisions of, 142–​43 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 139–​40 security environment and, 4, 138–​41, 143, 144, 145–​46, 148, 149 Soviet Union relations, 143 United States, nuclear assistance from, 59, 63, 66, 68, 141–​42, 145–​46 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) creation of, 59 Model Additional Protocol, 224–​25n.92 nonproliferation role of, 67 safeguards system of, 60, 66, 69–​70, 72, 76, 117, 151 international inspections in Iran, 197 in Iraq, 75 Partial Test Ban Treaty and, 60–​61 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and, 65, 69–​70 Iran China, nuclear assistance from, 241n.14 costs of nuclear program in, 198 future nuclear decisions in, 195–​201 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197, 201 military influence on nuclear program, 199–​201 NPT and, 196–​97 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 40–​41, 196–​97, 198–​99, 218n.56, 240n.3 nuclear weapons program of, 204–​5 reversal decisions of, 197–​98 sanctions against, 197, 201 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 196–​97, 198, 241n.8, 241n.14 security environment and, 197–​98, 199–​200 United States, nuclear assistance from, 196 Iran-​Iraq War, 200 Iraq lack of legal formality of nuclear agency in, 41

Index  269 NSG’s expansion of export controls and, 76 nuclear weapons program of, 73, 75, 151, 205 sanctions against, 75 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 75, 151 US invasion of, 73, 75, 151, 197–​98 Israel Ben-​Gurion’s involvement in nuclear program, 48 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 97–​100, 115 costs of nuclear program for, 99 deterrence of nuclear weapons and, 93, 97 France, nuclear assistance from, 95 lack of legal formality of nuclear agency in, 40–​41 military influence on nuclear program, 91–​93, 96–​100, 227n.44 NPT and, 67, 228n.63 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 91–​94, 96, 97, 100 nuclear weapons program of, 91–​102, 92f, 205 Partial Test Ban Treaty and, 93, 101 secrecy of nuclear agency in, 43, 93, 94–​97, 100 security environment and, 91–​92, 93, 95, 97 Six Day War and, 96 Suez crisis and, 95 United States, nuclear assistance from, 59, 93–​95 US relations, 93, 101, 228n.63 Italy, NPT and, 67, 72 Japan conflicting scholarly research on nuclear program of, 79–​80 NPT and, 67, 72 nuclear decision-​making environment for, 6 nuclear weapons program of, 1–​2, 24, 56–​57, 201–​2, 205, 213n.3 reversal decisions of, 80 Soviet Union WWII attack on, 2 US nuclear attack on, 2, 45

Johnson, Lyndon, 63–​64 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 197, 201 Joliot-​Curie, Frédéric, 47–​48, 102–​4 Jonter, Thomas, 119, 124, 130 Joshi, Yogesh, 145 Jouhaud, Edmond, 109 Jung, Helge, 119–​21 Kaftanov, Sergey, 56–​57, 83–​85 Kamel, Hussain, 41 Kampani, Gaurav, 147 Kapitsa, Peter, 226n.14 Karamat, Jehangir, 161 Karpin, Michael, 98 Kassenova, Tongzhan, 184 Kazakhstan, Soviet nuclear program in, 73, 206 Kennedy, John F., 101 Khan, A. Q., 156–​58 Khan, Ayub, 154, 157, 234n.3, 234n.6 Khan, Feroz, 155, 156–​57, 159–​60 Khan, Ghulam Ishaq, 160–​61 Khariton, Iulii, 89, 90 Khomeini, Ruhollah, 196–​97 Khrushchev, Nikita, 60–​61 Kim, Seung-​Young, 132–​34 Kurchatov, Igor, 86, 87, 89, 90 Lacoste Lareymondie, Marc de, 109–​10 Lanoszka, Alexander, 132, 135 latent nuclear weapons capability, 34 Latin America and the Caribbean, nuclear weapons free zone in, 65–​66, 180 leaders involvement in nuclear programs, 28–​29, 48, 48nn.77–78, 123 military organizations informing, 36–​42, 218n.51, 218n.57 nuclear agencies informing, 36–​43, 115, 218n.51, 218n.57 nuclear goals of, 33–​35 nuclear information environment and, 5–​7, 23–​24, 35–​42, 194 personality traits and nuclear decisions, 32–​33 Leipunskii, Aleksander, 84–​85 Levite, Ariel, 11–​12

270 Index Liberman, Peter, 162–​64, 174–​75, 236–​37n.65 Libya costs of nuclear program for, 31 NPT and, 74, 224n.81 nuclear weapons program of, 74, 74nn.81–82, 206, 224n.84 sanctions against, 74 Macmillan, Harold, 43–​44 The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Rhodes), 57–​58 Malik, V. P., 50 Mandela, Nelson, 175–​76 Manhattan Project, 1–​2, 177, 214n.11 Mao Zedong, 30, 45 Mattli, Walter, 37 Mehta, Rupal, 11–​12, 146–​47, 215n.20 Mendès France, Pierre, 105–​6, 108 Messmer, Pierre, 113 military organizations. See also conventional weapons bias and preferences of, 37–​38, 48–​52 Brazil nuclear weapons program and, 177–​78, 181, 183, 184–​86, 190 deterrence and emboldenment of, 49, 219n.82 French nuclear weapons program and, 102–​4, 105–​7, 110–​11, 113, 114 Indian nuclear weapons program and, 138, 145–​46, 147–​48, 233n.115 informational advantages of, 42–​46 Iranian nuclear weapons program and, 199–​201 Israeli nuclear weapons program and, 91–​93, 96–​100, 227n.44 leaders, capacity to inform, 36–​42, 218n.51, 218n.57 nonproliferation enforcement and, 32, 57, 74–​76 nuclear decision-​making environment and, 5–​7, 23–​24, 42–​52, 194 Pakistan nuclear weapons program and, 152, 157–​58, 160, 161–​62, 191–​92 South African nuclear weapons program and, 164, 166, 171 South Korean nuclear weapons program and, 131, 132–​33, 137

Soviet nuclear weapons program and, 87–​88, 226n.23 Swedish nuclear weapons program and, 119, 121–​22, 124, 125, 126–​28, 130 Miller, Nicholas L., 71–​72 Monteiro, Nuno P., 27–​28, 125, 127–​28 Mousavian, Seyed Hossein, 241n.14 Nagasaki, Japan, US nuclear attack on, 45 Narang, Vipin, 26, 141, 147–​48 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 95 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 60, 64, 93 Nawaz, Shuja, 160–​61 Ne’eman, Yuval, 100 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 48, 137–​38, 139, 145, 219n.77 neopatrimonialism, 29–​30 Neves, Tancredo, 186 Nie Rongzhen, 31 Nixon, Richard, 134 non-​nuclear weapons states. See also reversal decisions lack of nuclear development access and, 143 NPT and, 64–​65, 77, 147–​48, 222n.45 NSG safeguards and, 70 nuclear forbearance and, 214n.8, 215n.6, 215n.9 nonproliferation policy, 9, 193–​202. See also nonproliferation regime period; Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons acceleration and reversal decisions and, 13, 31–​32 Cold War and, 56, 60–​61 military intervention and, 32, 57, 74–​76 nuclear development programs as leverage in agreements, 34, 135 nuclear sharing and, 63–​64 during permissive period, 57, 58, 60–​61, 82, 115–​16 sanctions and, 31–​32, 71, 151 during transition period, 62–​66, 117 in United States, 58, 63–​64, 71–​72 nonproliferation regime period, 9, 151–​92 Brazil nuclear program during, 177–​91, 179f

Index  271 defined, 55–​56 nuclear decision-​making during, 191–​92 overview, 69–​77 Pakistan nuclear program during, 152–​ 62, 153f proliferation curves and, 16–​20, 16f South African nuclear program during, 162–​77, 163f North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 60, 64, 93 North Korea costs of nuclear program for, 31 NPT and, 223n.52 nuclear weapons program of, 195–​96, 206 security environment for, 75–​76 Soviet Union, nuclear assistance from, 59 US relations, 34 NPT. See Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons NSG. See Nuclear Suppliers Group nuclear agencies, domestic. See also secrecy of nuclear programs acceleration of nuclear programs and, 7, 52 bias and preferences of, 36–​38, 46–​48, 219n.70 Brazil nuclear weapons program and, 177, 181 French nuclear weapons program and, 47–​48, 102–​4, 105–​6, 108, 109–​10, 111, 113–​14 Indian nuclear weapons program and, 47, 138, 139, 143–​44, 146–​49 informational advantages of, 42–​46 Iranian nuclear weapons program and, 40–​41, 196–​97, 198–​99, 218n.56, 240n.3 Israeli nuclear weapons program and, 91–​94, 96, 97, 100 leaders, capacity to inform, 36–​43, 115, 218n.51, 218n.57 legal formality of, 40–​41, 218n.56 nuclear decision-​making environment and, 6–​7, 23–​24, 29, 42–​52, 194 Pakistani nuclear weapons program and, 152, 155–​56, 157–​58

political interference in, 3–​4, 28–​30, 118–​19 South African nuclear weapons program and, 164–​65, 166–​67, 170–​71, 172–​73, 176–​77, 191–​92 South Korean nuclear weapons program and, 131 Soviet nuclear weapons program and, 83–​87, 88–​91 Swedish nuclear weapons program and, 118–​23, 128, 230n.11 US nuclear weapons program and, 194–​95 nuclear decision-​making theory, 9, 23–​53 acceleration decisions (see acceleration decisions) adversity and, 30–​32 alternative explanations for proliferation, 24–​33 economic constraints and, 30–​32 government influence in nuclear programs, 28–​30 implications, 52–​53 information environment and, 35–​42 information transfer from experts to leaders, 36–​42 leader characteristics and, 32–​33 military organizations and, 42–​52 military strikes and, 32 nuclear agencies and, 42–​48 nuclear goals and, 33–​35 overview, 23–​24 proliferation curves and, 22 proliferation environments and, 55–​56, 77 reversal decisions (see reversal decisions) sanctions and, 30–​32 security environment and, 25–​28 nuclear disarmament following reversal decisions, 12–​13, 214n.7 India and, 140–​41, 143, 147–​48 NPT and, 10, 63–​66, 76–​77, 117 South Africa and, 174, 195–​96, 214n.7 Sweden and, 65, 125–​26 nuclear energy programs, 34–​35, 121, 137–​38, 153–​54, 181, 214n.10. See also nuclear reactors

272 Index nuclear forbearance, 214n.8, 215n.6, 215n.9 nuclear-​powered submarines, 184–​85, 188, 239n.132 nuclear program budgets and costs in Brazil, 187 economic sanctions and, 31–​32 foreign assistance and, 59 in France, 105, 112–​14 high costs and timeline constraints of, 25–​26, 49–​51 in India, 31, 139–​41 in Iran, 198 in Israel, 99 in Libya, 31 in North Korea, 31 in Pakistan, 31 prohibitive costs for Ukraine retention of Soviet nuclear program, 74 recruitment of scientists and, 46–​47 in South Korea, 132–​33 state wealth and, 30–​31, 216n.13, 216n.15 in Sweden, 119–​21, 124, 126 uranium and plutonium enrichment and, 214n.11 nuclear reactors in Brazil, 180 in France, 104–​5 in India, 59–​60, 141–​42 in Israel, 93–​95 permissive period and, 59–​60 proliferation curves and, 14–​15, 214n.10, 214n.12, 214–15nn.14–15 safeguards for, 72, 223n.73 in South Africa, 165 in South Korea, 136 in Sweden, 127–​29 nuclear suppliers enriched uranium trade and, 181–​82, 238n.115 illegal proliferation and, 198 nonproliferation regime period and, 155–​57, 162 NPT on import and export of nuclear items, 69–​70, 72–​73, 117 resistance to NPT, 67 safeguards for, 67–​68, 76, 117, 142, 223n.55, 223n.57

transition period and, 136–​37, 142 Trigger List for safeguards, 151, 152–​53, 186 Wassenaar Arrangement and, 224n.91 Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) benefits of, 70 blocking nuclear equipment for Brazil, 181–​82, 186 compliance issues, 70 creation of, 69, 151 expansion of export controls, 76, 224n.91 Indian nuclear weapons program and, 147 Iranian nuclear weapons program and, 198 Pakistani nuclear weapons program and, 156–​57 on safeguards for non-​nuclear weapons states, 70 South Korean nuclear weapons program and, 136–​37 nuclear testing by China, 61–​63, 142–​43, 222n.30 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 195 by France, 60, 110–​11 by India, 59, 66, 68, 117, 144, 145–​47, 150 modernization and lack of testing, 195 by Pakistan, 161 Partial Test Ban Treaty, 60–​61, 93, 101, 142 proliferation curves and, 15 by South Africa, 165–​66 by United States, 85–​86 nuclear weapons conventional weapons vs. (see conventional weapons) decisions to obtain, 10–​22 (see also nuclear decision-​making theory; proliferation curves) deterrence and (see deterrence) modernization of, 194–​95 moral opposition to, 86, 137–​38, 143 political organization of world and, 10–​22, 57–​58 prestige of, 34, 49, 50–​51, 186–​87 public opposition to, 124–​25, 129, 130–​ 31, 187

Index  273 Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty (2017), 77, 222n.45 oil crisis of 1973, 181 Oliphant, Mark, 56–​57 Operation Desert Fox (1998), 75 Padmanabhan, Sundararajan, 50 Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza, 196 Pakistan acceleration decisions of, 155–​56, 157–​58 Afghanistan relations, 158–​59 Bhutto’s involvement in nuclear program, 48 China, nuclear assistance from, 160 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 154 costs of nuclear program for, 31 deterrence of nuclear weapons and, 50 Indian relations, 138–​39, 143, 152–​53, 154–​55 Kargil War and, 50, 219n.82, 220n.89 military influence on nuclear program, 152, 157–​58, 160, 161–​62, 191–​92 NPT and, 67 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 152, 155–​56, 157–​58 nuclear testing by, 161 nuclear weapons program of, 146–​47, 152–​62, 153f, 206–​7, 225n.98 reversal decisions of, 160 sanctions against, 158, 160, 162 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 154–​55, 162 security environment and, 154–​55, 158–​59, 161–​62, 191–​92, 234n.6 supplier issues for, 155–​57 United States, nuclear assistance from, 153–​54 US relations, 71–​72, 159, 162 Palewski, Gaston, 111 Park Chung-​hee, 131–​37, 232n.68 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT, 1963), 60–​ 61, 93, 101, 142 Patti, Carlo, 178, 239n.119 Paul, T. V., 125, 214n.8, 215n.6, 215n.9, 219n.70, 231n.40

Peierls, Rudolf, 56–​57 Peres, Shimon, 45, 97, 98, 100, 227n.44 Perkovich, George, 44, 140–​41, 144, 146–​47 permissive period, 9, 82–​116 defined, 55–​56 French nuclear program during, 102–3, 103f, 104–15 Israeli nuclear program during, 91–​2, 92f, 93–102 nonproliferation policy during, 57, 58, 60–​61, 82, 115–​16 nuclear decision-​making during, 115–16 overview, 56–​62 proliferation curves and, 16–​20, 16f Soviet nuclear program during, 84f, 84–91 Perrin, Francis, 106 Peyrefitte, Alain, 111 Plowshare Program, 63 Pokrovskii, G. I., 84–​85 Polakow-​Suransky, Sasha, 98 political context interference in scientific research, 3–​4, 28–​30, 118–​19 nuclear decisions based on, 5, 24 proliferation curves and, 21–​22 preventive wars, nuclear development and risks of, 4–​5, 34, 98, 216n.15 proliferation curves, 9, 10–​22. See also nuclear decision-​making theory acceleration and reversal decisions, 11–​14, 12t defining programs, 5–​6 domestic environment and, 6–​7 nuclear goals and, 3–​5 overview, 3–​6 political organization of world and, 10–​22 political process and, 21–​22 sample representations of, 14–​21, 16f stages and milestones of, 14–​15, 21 proliferation environments, 9, 54–​81 effects on nuclear decisions, 24, 55–​56 empirical strategy based on, 77–​81 nonproliferation regime period, 69–​77 (see also nonproliferation regime period)

274 Index proliferation environments (cont.) permissive period, 56–​62 (see also permissive period) transition period, 62–​68 (see also transition period) PTBT (Partial Test Ban Treaty, 1963), 60–​61, 93, 101, 142 public opposition to nuclear programs in Brazil, 187 in Sweden, 124–​25, 129, 130–​31 Rabin, Yitzhak, 227n.44 Ramanna, Raja, 144 Rapp, Torsten, 125 Reagan, Ronald, 71–​72, 159, 162, 174 reversal decisions. See also nuclear forbearance of Brazil, 188 of China, 30 by country and time period, 14–​21, 16f, 203 defined, 11–​12 examples of, 12t of India, 142–​43 international agreements and, 13, 216n.15 of Iran, 197–​98 of Japan, 80 latent nuclear weapons capability and, 34 nonproliferation and, 13, 31–​32 nuclear disarmament following, 12–​13, 214n.7 of Pakistan, 160 during permissive period, 115, 229n.115 proliferation curves and, 11–​14, 12t security environments and, 4–​5, 13, 25–​26 of South Africa, 172–​75, 176–​77 of South Korea, 136–​37 of Sweden, 27, 124, 127–​28, 129, 130 terminations vs. suspensions, 21–​22, 215n.20 of Yugoslavia, 229n.115 Rhodes, Richard, 11, 57–​58 Ridgway, Matthew B., 50–​51 Romania, nuclear weapons program of, 207

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 10–​11, 56–​58 Rouhani, Hassan, 198 Roux, Ampie, 165, 171 Rublee, Maria Rost, 129–​30 Russia. See also Soviet Union Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197 Ukraine nuclear program, retention of, 73–​74 Saddam Hussein, 41, 73, 75 Sagan, Scott D., 25, 38 Saha, Meghnad, 47 Sahabi, Fereydun, 196–​97 Sambursky, Shmuel, 93–​94 sanctions on Iran, 197, 201 on Iraq, 75 on Libya, 74 nonproliferation and, 31–​32, 71, 151 on Pakistan, 158, 160, 162 on South Africa, 169, 172, 174, 176 Sanguinetti, Alexandre, 112 Sarney, José, 186, 187–​88, 189 Saunders, Elizabeth, 39, 218n.51 Scheinman, Lawrence, 102–​4, 106–​7 Schub, Robert, 218n.57 scientific research awe of nuclear weapons and, 44–​46 influence on nuclear decisions, 5–​6 (see also nuclear agencies, domestic) Manhattan Project, 1–​2, 177, 214n.11 nuclear fission and, 10–​11, 43–​44, 56–​57, 83 political interference in, 3–​4, 28–​30, 118–​19 secrecy of nuclear programs in Brazil, 178, 182–​83, 188, 239n.119 in India, 139–​40 in Iran, 196–​9 7, 198, 241n.8, 241n.14 in Iraq, 75, 151 in Israel, 43, 93, 94–​97, 100 in Pakistan, 154–​55, 162 in South Africa, 162–​64, 170, 172, 174–​75, 236n.52 in South Korea, 132 in Soviet Union, 88–​89

Index  275 security environments acceleration and reversal decisions and, 4–​5, 13, 25–​26, 27–​28 Brazil nuclear weapons program and, 4, 178, 184–​85, 191–​92 French nuclear weapons program and, 105 Indian nuclear weapons program and, 4, 138–​41, 143, 144, 145–​46, 148, 149 Iranian nuclear weapons program and, 197–​98, 199–​200 Israeli nuclear weapons program and, 91–​92, 93, 95, 97 nuclear agencies shaping leaders’ understanding of, 42–​43 nuclear decision-​making theory and, 25–​28, 52 nuclear development motivation and, 4–​5, 23–​24, 193 Pakistan nuclear weapons program and, 154–​55, 158–​59, 161–​62, 191–​92, 234n.6 South African nuclear weapons program and, 4, 164, 166–​70, 171, 172–​74, 236n.53 South Korean nuclear weapons development and, 4, 131–​32, 133–​34, 137, 149 Soviet nuclear weapons program and, 83, 87–​88 Swedish nuclear weapons program and, 27–​28, 121–​22, 123, 125–​26, 131, 149, 230n.8 security guarantees of United States for France, 105 for Israel, 93 for South Korea, 131–​32, 134–​35 for Sweden, 121–​22, 230n.8 Sethna, Homi, 143 Sharett, Moshe, 93–​95 Sharif, Nawaz, 161 Shastri, Lal Bahadur, 139, 140–​41, 143 SLBMs (submarine-​launched ballistic missiles), 194–​95 Soleimani, Qasem, 200 Solingen, Etel, 135–​36 South Africa acceleration decisions of, 165–​68, 170–​71

Angola, invasion of, 168 apartheid rule in, 167–​69, 174 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 166 deterrence of nuclear weapons and, 170 disarmament of, 214n.7 legal formality of nuclear agency in, 40–​41 military influence on nuclear program, 164, 166, 171 NPT and, 167–​68, 172, 174, 175, 176 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 47, 164–​65, 166–​67, 170–​ 71, 172–​73, 176–​77, 191–​92 nuclear disarmament and, 174, 195–​96 nuclear testing by, 165–​66 nuclear weapons program of, 162–​77, 163f, 207 proliferation curve of, 16–​20, 16f reversal decisions of, 172–​77 sanctions against, 169, 172, 174, 176 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 162–​64, 170, 172, 174–​75, 236n.52 security environment and, 4, 164, 166–​ 70, 171, 172–​74, 236n.53 United States, nuclear assistance from, 59, 165 US relations, 168, 169–​70, 174 South Korea Canada, nuclear assistance from, 136 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 134–​36 costs of nuclear program for, 132–​33 France, nuclear assistance from, 136, 232n.77 military influence on nuclear program, 131, 132–​33, 137 NPT and, 132, 136–​37 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 131 nuclear weapons program of, 131–​37, 133f, 207–​8 proliferation curve of, 16–​20, 16f reversal decisions of, 136–​37 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 132 security environment and, 4, 131–​32, 133–​34, 137, 149 supplier issues for, 136–​37 US relations, 131–​32, 134–​35

276 Index Soviet Union. See also Cold War acceleration decisions of, 85–​86, 87 Afghanistan, invasion of, 71–​72, 158–​59 China, assistance for nuclear program, 31, 59, 60, 61–​62 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 88, 115, 220n.90 deterrence of nuclear weapons and, 87–​88 end of, 73 Indian relations, 143 military influence on nuclear program, 87–​88, 226n.23 nonproliferation efforts of, 64 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 83–​87, 88–​91 nuclear assistance for other nations, 59 nuclear programs in republics of, 73–​74 nuclear weapons program of, 1, 30, 56–​57, 58, 84f, 84–​91, 207 secrecy of nuclear programs in, 88–​89 security environment and, 83, 87–​88 South African perceptions of threat from, 167–​70, 173–​74 Suez crisis and, 95 Swedish perceptions of threat from, 121–​22, 123, 230n.8 US development of nuclear bomb, knowledge of, 2, 213n.7 US nuclear sharing with Europe, opposition to, 64 WWII attack against Japan, 2 Yugoslavia, nuclear assistance for, 59, 229n.115 Spaniel, William, 216n.15 Spektor, Matias, 180 Stalin, Joseph, 30, 56–​57, 83, 84–​91, 213n.7, 225n.2 Stalin and the Bomb (Holloway), 83 submarines nuclear-​powered, 184–​85, 188, 239n.132 submarine-​launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), 194–​95 Suez crisis (1956), 95, 107 Sweden acceleration decision of, 27–​28, 215n.9

conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 127, 130, 231n.40 costs of nuclear program for, 119–​21, 124, 126 deterrence of nuclear weapons and, 125 disarmament advocacy of, 65, 125–​26 legal formality of nuclear agency in, 40–​41 military influence on nuclear program, 119, 121–​22, 124, 125, 126–​28, 130 NPT and, 129–​30 nuclear agencies’ influence on nuclear program, 118–​23, 128, 230n.11 nuclear weapons program of, 118–​31, 120f, 208 reversal decisions of, 27, 124, 127–​28, 129, 130 security environment and, 27–​28, 121–​ 22, 123, 125–​26, 131, 149, 230n.8 US relations, 121–​22, 230n.8 Swedlund, Nils, 121–​23, 124–​25 Switzerland, nuclear weapons program of, 208–​9 Syria, nuclear weapons program of, 209 Szilárd, Leó, 56–​57 Tabatabai, Ariane, 199–​200 Taiwan nuclear agencies and scientists in, 47 nuclear weapons program of, 209 Tamir, Avrahaml, 100 Távora, Juarez, 178–​80 terminations of nuclear programs. See reversal decisions threat environments. See security environments Tizard, Henry, 56–​57 Tkach, Benjamin, 214n.12, 215n.15 Tōjō Hideki, 1, 79–​80 transition period, 9, 117–​50 defined, 55–​56 Indian nuclear program during, 137–​ 49, 140f nonproliferation policy during, 62–​66, 117 nuclear decision-​making during, 149–​50 overview, 62–​68

Index  277 proliferation curves and, 16f, 16–​20 South Korean nuclear program during, 131–​37, 133f Swedish nuclear program during, 118–​ 31, 120f Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967), 59, 65–​66, 221n.16 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT, 1968) Brazil and, 180 codifying nonproliferation norms, 65–​66 disarmament clause of, 77 France and, 67, 72–​73, 223n.74 Germany and, 67, 72 on import and export of nuclear items, 69–​70, 72–​73 indefinite extension of, 76–​77 India and, 67 Iran and, 196–​97 Israel and, 67, 228n.63 Italy and, 67, 72 Japan and, 67, 72 Libya and, 74, 224n.81 negotiation of, 63–​65, 117 non-​nuclear weapons states and, 64–​65, 77, 147–​48, 222n.45 North Korea and, 223n.52 Pakistan and, 67 proliferation curves, role in, 20–​21 ratification, resistance to, 67, 72, 223n.52 South Africa and, 167–​68, 172, 174, 175, 176 South Korea and, 132, 136–​37 Sweden and, 129–​30 transition period and, 16, 142–​43, 149–​50 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017), 77, 222n.45 Trivedi, V. C., 65 Truman, Harry S., 2, 85–​86, 213n.7 Trump, Donald, 201 Tupolev, Andrei Nikolaevich, 90 Ukraine Chernobyl nuclear disaster in, 187 Soviet nuclear program, retention of, 73–​74, 209

United Kingdom Falklands/​Malvinas war and, 184–​85 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197 nuclear weapons program of, 1, 48, 56–​ 57, 105–​6, 209–​10 Suez crisis and, 95, 107 United Nations Disarmament Commission, 63–​64 United Nations Security Council, 197–​98 United States. See also Atoms for Peace program; Cold War; sanctions; security guarantees of United States Afghanistan, invasion of, 197–​98 Brazil, blocking nuclear assistance for, 181–​82 Brazil, nuclear assistance for, 180, 181 conventional vs. nuclear weapons development, 50–​51, 50–51nn. 92–94 French relations, 93, 106–​7 India, nuclear assistance for, 59, 63, 66, 68, 141–​42, 145–​46 Iran, nuclear assistance for, 196 Iraq, invasion of, 73, 75, 151, 197–​98 Israel, nuclear assistance for, 59, 93–​95 Israeli relations, 93, 101, 228n.63 Japan, nuclear attack on, 2, 45 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and, 197, 201 legal formality of nuclear agency in, 40–​41 modernization of nuclear weapons in, 194–​95 nonproliferation efforts of, 58, 63–​64, 71–​72 North Korean relations, 34 NSG formation and, 151 nuclear agencies and scientists in, 46, 219n.70, 219n.78 nuclear decision-​making environment for, 6 nuclear testing by, 85–​86 nuclear weapons program of, 1–​2, 56–​58, 177, 210, 213n.7, 214n.11 Pakistan, nuclear assistance for, 153–​54 Pakistani relations, 71–​72, 159, 162 South Africa, nuclear assistance for, 59, 165

278 Index United States (cont.) South African relations, 168, 169–​70, 174 South Korean relations, 131–​32, 134–​35 Suez crisis and, 95, 107 Swedish relations, 121–​22, 230n.8 transition period and, 63–​64 Usmani, I. H., 155, 234n.3

Wilcox, Robert, 79 Wood, Blake, 46, 240n.1 World War II development of nuclear weapons and, 1 Japan, Soviet Union attack on, 2 Japan, US nuclear attack on, 2, 45 Wu Ta-​you, 47

Vannikov, Boris, 89 Vargas, Getúlio, 177, 178–​80 Venturini, Danilo, 186–​87 Verwoerd, H. F., 165 Vietnam War, 106–​7 Vorster, Balthazar Johannes, 162–​64, 165–​ 67, 169–​71, 236n.52

Yamazaki, Masakatsu, 79 Yasuda Takeo, 79–​80 Yugoslavia nuclear weapons program of, 210–​11 reversal decisions of, 229n.115 Soviet Union, nuclear assistance from, 59, 229n.115

Walker, Mark, 79 Wassenaar Arrangement (1996), 224n.91 Weber, Max, 40

Zhou Enlai, 31 Zia-​ul-​Haq, Mohammad, 157–​60, 161–​62, 191–​92, 235n.29