All Options on the Table? Nuclear Proliferation, Preventive War, and a Leader’s Decision to Intervene By Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark B.A. in International Affairs, May 2003, The George Washington University M.A. in International Policy Studies, June 2005, Stanford University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 31, 2014 Dissertation Directed by Charles Louis Glaser Professor of Political Science and International Affairs The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of June 19, 2014. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. All Options on the Table? Nuclear Proliferation, Preventive War, and a Leader’s Decision to Intervene Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark Dissertation Research Committee: Charles Louis Glaser, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Dissertation Director James L. Goldgeier, Dean, School of International Service, American University, Committee Member Elizabeth N. Saunders, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2014 by Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark. All rights reserved iii Acknowledgements I wish to extend tremendous gratitude to the countless individuals who offered advice, mentoring, and support over these last seven years. First, I wish to thank my dissertation committee: Charles Glaser, my chair; James Goldgeier; and Elizabeth Saunders. I consider myself incredibly lucky that their paths intersected with my own. I am grateful for their endless patience and sage advice and shudder to think what this process would have been like without them. I am also grateful to the other members of the George Washington University’s Department of Political Science for their support, community, and expertise. This project would not have been possible without the generous financial support of various institutions. A Nuclear Security Fellowship from the Stanton Foundation brought me from Washington, DC, to Boston, Massachusetts and specifically to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. I could not have asked for a better adoptive academic community and am especially grateful for the generosity and support of Barry Posen, Cindy Williams, Owen Coté, Vipin Narang, and Frank Gavin. I would also like to thank the members of the International Relations Work- in-Progress workshop and Strategic Forces Working Group for the opportunity to present my work and explore the work of others. Their working environments are both rigorous and intellectually challenging, but simultaneously productive, supportive, and stimulating. I am especially lucky to have learned from and alongside Noel Anderson, Lena Andrews, Marc Bell, Fiona Cunningham, Brian Haggerty, Marika Landau-Wells, Nick Miller, Amanda Rothschild, Alec Worsnop, Ketian Zhang, and Catherine Zweig. iv A research fellowship with Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs allowed me to extend my stay in Cambridge and continue focusing exclusively on completing the manuscript. I am grateful for the support of both the International Security Program and the Managing the Atom Project. I am thrilled to continue my tenure at the Belfer Center as a post-doctoral fellow for the coming academic year. I would especially like to thank the members of the Great Powers Working Group who provided a rich intellectual environment as we each strove to complete our projects. To Gene Gerzhoy especially – who journeyed with me from MIT to Harvard – I could not have asked for a better partner in crime as we completed this adventure. The archival research for this project was made possible by the generosity of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, the Stanton Foundation, and The George Washington University Department of Political Science. I also benefited tremendously from the Summer Institute on Conducting Archival Research, also at George Washington. I would like to thank the fantastic individuals at the various Presidential Libraries and the National Security Archive, whose patience and expertise were extremely important to this endeavor. I am especially grateful for the guidance of: William Burr at the National Security Archive; Charlaine Hester at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library; Jason Kaplan, Rob Seibert, and Lisa Sutton at the Clinton Presidential Library; and Rachael Altman at the George Bush Presidential Library. v Throughout this endeavor many people helped me to envision, create, and complete this manuscript. A select few have revealed themselves to be life-long friends, capable both of offering shrewd commentary and suggestions on academic writing, but perhaps equally importantly offering advice and serving as sounding-boards for navigating the complexities of graduate school, professional development, and life in general. Here in Cambridge, the members of Women in International Politics and Security have offered wisdom, friendship, and participation in a vibrant community. For the leadership and friendship of Jennifer Ericson, Miranda Priebe, and Annie Tracy Samuel, I consider myself especially lucky. My comrades in the Bridging the Gap community and New Era Foreign Policy network have guided me along the way, serving as patient mentors and brilliant co-authors. To Naazneen Barma, Brent Durbin, and Ely Ratner, I owe tremendous appreciation. For friendship that goes beyond New Era, graduate school, and travels to conferences both near and far: Eric Lorber; Julia Macdonald; and Michael Weintraub. And finally, for the Yentes, Shannon Powers and Amir Stepak, without whom I surely would have quit repeatedly along this journey. Lastly, I am most grateful for my friends and family who have supported me on this roller coaster – accepting my frequently hermetic behavior, offering brief distractions and inducements to step away from the computer when needed, and tolerating my forgetfulness when life took a backseat to the manuscript. I am lucky to be surrounded by family who encouraged this endeavor and humored my fascination with the curiosities of international history. I dedicate this project to them, with heartfelt thanks. vi Abstract of Dissertation All Options on the Table? Nuclear Proliferation, Preventive War, and a Leader’s Decision to Intervene Under what conditions do states use preventive military force to forestall or destroy an adversary’s nuclear weapons program? If nuclear weapons are so dangerous, why do leaders disagree about the magnitude of the threat posed by specific nuclear programs? Despite the fact that nuclear proliferation has been a growing source of concern, counter- proliferation decision-making remains poorly understood. In addition, though the logic of preventive war pervades the international relations literature as one state response to a relative decline in power, even after five decades of scholarship it remains unclear when this leads to war and when it does not. This manuscript demonstrates that the decision to consider and use preventive force rests not only on structural factors, such as power differentials and military feasibility, but critically on a leader’s prior beliefs about the consequences of proliferation and threat posed by a specific adversary, generally and once armed with nuclear weapons. Conducting comparative and historical analysis using archival research and process tracing, this manuscript examines American decision- making against the Chinese, Iraqi, and North Korean nuclear programs. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................................................iv Abstract of Dissertation...........................................................................................................................................vii List of Figures..............................................................................................................................................................ix List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................................ x Chapter 1: Introduction..............................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Theory..................................................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 3: Kennedy and Johnson Confront China’s Nuclear Program.................................................. 81 Chapter 4: George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and North Korea’s Nuclear Program............166 Chapter 5: George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Iraq’s Nuclear Program......................................................................................................................................................................235 Chapter 6: Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................293 Bibliography.............................................................................................................................................................301