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The Next Fifty Years of Nuclear Proliferation

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The Next Fifty Years of Nuclear Proliferation INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY POLICY THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION Sharon Squassoni, Editor IISTP Occasional Papers, February 2021 A Publication Series Focusing on International Science and Technology Policy IISTP-WP-2021-10 / FEBRUARY 2021 Cover Photos: (From left to right) iStock, iStock, Jean-Marc Ferré, iStock, and screen capture from the video presentation from Russian state of the nation address in 2018 Table of Contents PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3 INTRODUCTION JENNIFER KNOX AND SHARON SQUASSONI 4 ESSAYS Toward an Assessment of Future Proliferation Risk MARK HIBBS 7 Nuclear Weapons Modernization and Future Proliferation Triggers HANS M. KRISTENSEN 21 The Outlook for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty REBECCA DAVIS GIBBONS 35 Has the NPT’s Future Run Out? HENRY SOKOLSKI 45 Nuclear Cooperation and Political Influence COREY HINDERSTEIN 52 Reducing Demand-Side Pressure on Proliferation JON B. WOLFSTHAL 60 Extended Deterrence and Nonproliferation WILLIAM TOBEY 71 Crossing the Nonproliferation-Disarmament Divide ADAM M. SCHEINMAN 83 Table of Contents Continued on Page 2 FEBRUARY 2021 1 The Next 50 Years of Missile Proliferation XU TIANRAN AND MELISSA HANHAM 94 Missile Defense and Nuclear Weapons: Charting A Course To Security LAURA GREGO 105 More to See and More to Hide: Forecasting the Effect of Space Technology on Nuclear-Weapon Issues ROBERT S. WILSON 117 Steep Hill Ahead: US-Russia-China Relations and Their Impact on Nonproliferation DAVID SANTORO 129 Knocking Nuclear Weapons Off Their Pedestal: Emerging Technologies and the Future of Proliferation ANKIT PANDA 142 BIOGRAPHIES 152 2 INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY Preface & Acknowledgements This collection of essays on the future of nuclear weapons proliferation is part of a broader project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation called the Nuclear Boundaries Initiative. The Nuclear Boundaries Initiative has aimed to identify areas of US and international nuclear policy and practice where equities overlap and yet are typically treated as separate, distinct issues. In the case of forecasts regarding nuclear weapons proliferation, analyses tend to focus on the strength of the Nucle- ar Nonproliferation Treaty, national export control and supplier control regimes and nuclear technology trends. This volume certainly covers those issues, but also speculates on how developments in other key areas — missiles, missile defenses, arms control, and emerging technologies – could affect nuclear weap- ons proliferation. In the world of US policy implementation, nonproliferation experts typically do not overlap with arms control specialists, and traditional analyses treat the problems and solutions as very different from each other. In countries with fewer resources, such stovepiping would be a luxury and, if we consider a trajectory of fewer and fewer nuclear weapons into the future, such stovepiping will be a detriment to a comprehensive solution to eliminating the risk of nuclear weapons. This publication would not have been possible without the assistance of many people inside and outside the Elliott School. An advisory board helped develop topics and identify key experts, who in turn were thoughtful, patient, and willing to engage in discussions despite the difficulty of working in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Jennifer Knox, research associate, helped conceptualize and implement this project from start to finish, with equal parts creative genius, patience and humor. Christine Gilbert ably guided us all through the administrative landscape, and Dan Horner provided expert, thoughtful, and timely editing. Final thanks are due to Simone Larson of Simone Larson Design who made this project as beautiful and readable as it deserved. Sharon Squassoni Research Professor of the Practice of International Affairs Elliott School of International Affairs FEBRUARY 2021 3 JENNIFER KNOX AND SHARON SQUASSONI Introduction: The Next 50 Years of Nuclear Proliferation Witnesses to the first detonation of a nuclear ident John Kennedy famously warned that as many weapon in the pre-dawn New Mexico desert in as twenty-five new states might join the nuclear club 1945 knew that the world had changed forever within the following decade, a fivefold increase at but could not have foretold how. They likely would the time. In a memo earlier that year, the US Defense have been surprised by the constancy of nuclear Department predicted eight proliferators (for a total weapons in the succeeding 75 years. To their ad- of twelve nuclear powers), judging that states might vocates, nuclear weapons have been a reassuring be deterred from developing weapons because of fixture of international security, sometimes waxing cost, lack of military need, legal restrictions, interna- and waning in their centrality. To their detractors, tional repercussions, moral pressures, and the hope nuclear weapons are an indelible stain on human- that nuclear weapons would not spread (US Depart- ity’s hands and continue to pose risks no matter ment of Defense 1963). DoD specifically considered how many or in whose hands they are. the impact of a test ban agreement on the spread of nuclear weapons. The spread of nuclear weapons has been a con- stant risk since that day, but predicting their spread Today, only nine countries possess nuclear weap- has never been easy or accurate. In 1963, US Pres- ons, although several more relinquished covert 4 INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY programs. One country – South Africa – disman- ons. With so many difficult problems in the pres- tled a half-dozen nuclear weapons. Most observ- ent, it is not surprising that the nonproliferation ers agree that the landmark 1968 Nuclear Non- field does not often solicit or reward speculation proliferation Treaty (NPT) played the pivotal role on a long time-scale. in halting the spread of nuclear weapons. At the end of 1970, 57 states had joined the NPT, which The aim of this collection of essays is to provoke today has 191 signatory parties. some long-term thinking within the nuclear nonproliferation community about the pressures, The success of the NPT is widely heralded and, in challenges, and opportunities in the coming de- some respects, taken for granted. The treaty itself cades as they may affect nuclear proliferation. In- has weathered a few failures (clandestine nuclear stitutions, laws, and regulations often lag behind programs in Iraq and Iran; unreported activities technological progress, and the nonproliferation in South Korea, Egypt and others) and suffered at regime will not be successful if it merely reacts least one defection (North Korea). On the other to new technologies and their applications. By hand, treaty parties successfully navigated the anticipating how new developments will change disintegration of the Soviet Union, which could the nonproliferation landscape, we can not only have resulted in three new nuclear states (Ukraine, prepare for but also shape what is coming. This Belarus and Kazakhstan), the nuclear disarmament kind of work requires the creativity to leap from of South Africa, and the treaty’s indefinite exten- the known to the unknown and a willingness – sion in 1995. The International Atomic Energy even an eagerness – to be proven wrong. Agency, which monitors compliance with obliga- tions under the NPT, has improved its capabilities The essays cover traditional nonproliferation to detect undeclared activities over time. Still, topics related to nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the role of treaties, but also missiles, missile for Iran to restrain its nuclear program and build defenses and space technology. Technological confidence in the peaceful use of nuclear energy intersections affect not just whether states might in Iran exceeded NPT obligations considerably, pursue nuclear weapons but also how states illuminating continued gaps in NPT restrictions. assess the role that nuclear weapons play in their national security. For example, the development In the fifty years since the NPT entered into force, of highly precise conventional munitions, paired technology has marched on and politics have with sophisticated targeting guidance, has the changed. Gone is the division of the world into potential to shift conventional force balances, East and West blocs, with non-aligned states in altering the risk/benefit calculus of acquiring or between. Pandemics, terrorism, and the space and using nuclear weapons. Missile proliferation has, cyber realms know no boundaries. The contri- arguably, become a much bigger problem. The bution of remote sensing, precision guidance, potential weaponization of space could have machine learning and additive manufacturing to far-ranging impact, either providing incentives for nuclear weapons proliferation is not, as yet, well states to seek nuclear weapons as an assurance understood. against new threats or making nuclear deterrence less appealing among other forms of deterrence. To be sure, the nuclear nonproliferation regime faces many immediate, pressing challenges, Mark Hibbs and Hans Kristensen start off the including the accelerating breakdown of bilateral collection with a survey of nuclear energy and nuclear arms control between the United States nuclear weapons capabilities. Hibbs considers a and Russia; the fate of states like North Korea, future in which Russia and China, not the United which withdrew from the NPT to pursue a nuclear
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