Kenneth Waltz's on nuclear weapons

Résumé du document

Do you agree with Waltz's recommendation to spread nuclear weapons? On Sunday, April 9, 2006, the Washington Post announced that 'the Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program'. That shows perfectly that the question of the nuclear proliferation is one of the burning issues of the day. Nuclear proliferation means the spread of nuclear weapons to states that for the moment are known as non nuclear weapon states. Only five states are acknowledged by the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty, as possessing nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, United-Kingdom and United-States, yet several others have the capability to construct nuclear devices at short notice and deliver them, if necessary, by increasingly sophisticated means. A traditional view states that further nuclear proliferation is likely to increase instability and the potential for conflict between states. This contrasts with the 'more may be better' thesis advanced by Kenneth N. Waltz in the early 1980s, and restated in the mid 1990s, to account for changes brought about by the end of the cold war.

Extraits

[...] Ricks, 2006/04/09 is studying military strike options on Iran', Washington post. Darryl Howlett, ‘Nuclear Proliferation', in John Baylis and Steve Smith ed., The Globalization of World Politics, pp. 415-439. Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed New York: Norton, 2003. [...]

[...] This organisational approach challenges three requirements for stable nuclear deterrence stated by Waltz. Thus, concerning the likelihood of preventive wars an organisational perspective leads to a more pessimistic assessment than Waltz's. In fact, organisational perspective draws attention to military biases that could encourage such attacks. This argument was dismissed by Waltz since he believes that military leaders are not more likely than civilians to recommend the use of military force during crises. Yet, military officers because of self-selection inside the profession and socialisation afterwards are more inclined than the rest of the population to see war as likely in the short term and inevitable in the long run. [...]

[...] The upshot is that states will therefore seek nuclear weapons. Indeed, for having peace states have to dissuade the other from attacking and the best means is to build retaliatory forces able to raise unacceptable punishment upon a would-be aggressor. That is the principal of deterrence, stopping people from doing something by frightening them (Sagan and Waltz, 2003: 5). Nuclear weapons do fit in with deterrent role. In fact, nuclear weapons belong to the category of weapons of mass destruction; they produce blast, heat, nuclear radiation, electro-magnetic pulse and above all extensive damage to human population as shown in 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Howlett, 2001: 418). [...]

[...] With all these arguments Waltz intends to prove that the more nuclear weapons will be the better. However, one can highlight some weaknesses in his demonstration. First, Waltz's thesis is based on the assumption that states behave in a basically rational manner. Yet if one considers states through an organisational perspective, as Sagan does, the idea of rationality is challenged by the idea of limited rationality. Indeed, organisations develop routines to co-ordinate actions among different units, rather than searching for the policy that maximises their utility they often accept the first option that is minimally satisfying. [...]

[...] Kenneth Waltz's on nuclear weapons Do you agree with Waltz's recommendation to spread nuclear weapons? On Sunday, April the Washington Post announced that Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program” (Washington post, 9/04/2006). That shows perfectly that the question of the nuclear proliferation is one of the burning issues of the day. Nuclear proliferation means the spread of nuclear weapons to states that for the moment are known as non nuclear weapon states. [...]