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Nuclear Reactions: How Nuclear-Armed States Behave
Nuclear Reactions analyzes how nuclear weapons change the calculations states make in their foreign policies, why they do so, and why nuclear weapons have such different effects on the foreign policies of different countries.
Mark S. Bell argues that nuclear weapons are useful for more than deterrence. They are leveraged to pursue a wide range of goals in international politics, and the nations that acquire them significantly change their foreign policies as a result. Closely examining how these effects vary and what those variations have meant in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Bell shows that countries are not generically "emboldened"—they change their foreign policies in different ways based on their priorities. This has huge policy What would Iran do if it were to acquire nuclear weapons? Would Japanese policy toward the United States change if Japan were to obtain nuclear weapons? And what does the looming threat of nuclear weapons mean for the future of foreign policy? Far from being a relic of the Cold War, Bell argues, nuclear weapons are as important in international politics today as they ever were.
Thanks to generous funding from the University of Minnesota and its participation in TOME, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes, available from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Mark S. Bell argues that nuclear weapons are useful for more than deterrence. They are leveraged to pursue a wide range of goals in international politics, and the nations that acquire them significantly change their foreign policies as a result. Closely examining how these effects vary and what those variations have meant in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Bell shows that countries are not generically "emboldened"—they change their foreign policies in different ways based on their priorities. This has huge policy What would Iran do if it were to acquire nuclear weapons? Would Japanese policy toward the United States change if Japan were to obtain nuclear weapons? And what does the looming threat of nuclear weapons mean for the future of foreign policy? Far from being a relic of the Cold War, Bell argues, nuclear weapons are as important in international politics today as they ever were.
Thanks to generous funding from the University of Minnesota and its participation in TOME, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes, available from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
225 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 15, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 8, 2024
Currently reading it, and will be updating this review as I go along.
The theory chapter itself and the basic premise of the theory of nuclear opportunism are solid enough and make sense, if the goal is to boil down possible behaviours of nuclear weapons possession.
However, the second chapter, which focuses on the changes in UK foreign policy behaviour, is unconvincing insofar as its attribution of British behavioural changes in the Middle East to nuclear weapons possession. Dr Bell himself admits this, stating that 'evidence is correlational", but ultimately stating that other explanations are less plausible from his perspective. Personally, I found other explanations more convincing - the reason for UK policy in 1956 over Suez Canal are arguably more attributable to the fact that they had an alliance with France and Israel, rather than to genuine readiness to use nuclear bombs over Suez Canal. Additionally, Dr Bell proposes that UK behaving more independently of US is evidence of emboldening through nuclear weapons. The implication that I am reading into it, is that UK (at least at the time) seemed to be okay with potentially using nuclear weapons as a deterrent from a US involvement in its foreign and domestic policies - but there is no evidence that despite all disagreements between US and UK, that any forceful attempts at changing the British policy by the US were plausible.
The South Africa chapter was interesting, but left some questions regarding the methodology. Specifically, the 'macro-level patterns of conflict' that Dr Bell makes use of - he distinguishes between individual raids of South Africa into Angola to make his case that SA grew emboldened after getting nuclear weapons. However, the increase in the number of military operations against Angola is solely attributed to the nuclear weapons, rather than any kind of reforms and resupply of the South African military. Additionally, there is no distinction seemingly made between offensive and defensive conflict, which disregards the context. Finally, nuclear weapons are arguably most useful when other states believe in their potential use. But not even according to the interviews did SA policymakers seriously consider use of tactical nukes in any scenario, it seems. Also, the nuclear deterrence factor would be more powerful when there is either awareness of nuclear possession or at least 'ambiguity', as practiced by Israel. Dr Bell later discusses the shift in US-SA relationship and attributed its improvement to the presidential terms of Reagan, which placed less of an emphasis on human rights abuses, and overall greater sympathy towards the apartheid regime. This change in the relation ship led to a qualitative improvement of SA conventional forces which allowed them to be more forceful in their operations.
The US chapter discusses US strategic environment and posts that the deliverable nuclear capability was acquired inn the midst of the 2nd World War - I am not sure how correct this take is, since by the point that US got the delivery capability, Germany was already defeated, and Japan was on the verge of surrendering. The US chapter in perhaps the most interesting since it was the first state to have acquired nuclear weapons and therefor assessing its behaviour as part of a structured theory is especially challenging, given that the environment it had found itself is was so unique.
The last chapter briefly discusses a variety of states - India, Pakistan, France and Israel, as well as the potential for Japan and South Korea to gain nuclear weapons. Given the short nature of the chapter I feel it is not really possible for me to draw any specific comments on it. I would highly recommend anyone interested in the topic to read Avner Cohen on Israel's pursuit of the nuclear bomb, as well as Varughese, Basrur and Shampa Biswas on India.
The theory chapter itself and the basic premise of the theory of nuclear opportunism are solid enough and make sense, if the goal is to boil down possible behaviours of nuclear weapons possession.
However, the second chapter, which focuses on the changes in UK foreign policy behaviour, is unconvincing insofar as its attribution of British behavioural changes in the Middle East to nuclear weapons possession. Dr Bell himself admits this, stating that 'evidence is correlational", but ultimately stating that other explanations are less plausible from his perspective. Personally, I found other explanations more convincing - the reason for UK policy in 1956 over Suez Canal are arguably more attributable to the fact that they had an alliance with France and Israel, rather than to genuine readiness to use nuclear bombs over Suez Canal. Additionally, Dr Bell proposes that UK behaving more independently of US is evidence of emboldening through nuclear weapons. The implication that I am reading into it, is that UK (at least at the time) seemed to be okay with potentially using nuclear weapons as a deterrent from a US involvement in its foreign and domestic policies - but there is no evidence that despite all disagreements between US and UK, that any forceful attempts at changing the British policy by the US were plausible.
The South Africa chapter was interesting, but left some questions regarding the methodology. Specifically, the 'macro-level patterns of conflict' that Dr Bell makes use of - he distinguishes between individual raids of South Africa into Angola to make his case that SA grew emboldened after getting nuclear weapons. However, the increase in the number of military operations against Angola is solely attributed to the nuclear weapons, rather than any kind of reforms and resupply of the South African military. Additionally, there is no distinction seemingly made between offensive and defensive conflict, which disregards the context. Finally, nuclear weapons are arguably most useful when other states believe in their potential use. But not even according to the interviews did SA policymakers seriously consider use of tactical nukes in any scenario, it seems. Also, the nuclear deterrence factor would be more powerful when there is either awareness of nuclear possession or at least 'ambiguity', as practiced by Israel. Dr Bell later discusses the shift in US-SA relationship and attributed its improvement to the presidential terms of Reagan, which placed less of an emphasis on human rights abuses, and overall greater sympathy towards the apartheid regime. This change in the relation ship led to a qualitative improvement of SA conventional forces which allowed them to be more forceful in their operations.
The US chapter discusses US strategic environment and posts that the deliverable nuclear capability was acquired inn the midst of the 2nd World War - I am not sure how correct this take is, since by the point that US got the delivery capability, Germany was already defeated, and Japan was on the verge of surrendering. The US chapter in perhaps the most interesting since it was the first state to have acquired nuclear weapons and therefor assessing its behaviour as part of a structured theory is especially challenging, given that the environment it had found itself is was so unique.
The last chapter briefly discusses a variety of states - India, Pakistan, France and Israel, as well as the potential for Japan and South Korea to gain nuclear weapons. Given the short nature of the chapter I feel it is not really possible for me to draw any specific comments on it. I would highly recommend anyone interested in the topic to read Avner Cohen on Israel's pursuit of the nuclear bomb, as well as Varughese, Basrur and Shampa Biswas on India.
July 15, 2021
How does the acquisition of nuclear weapons affect a state’s behavior? This is the motivating question behind Bell’s book. To be sure, he is far from the first to attempt to provide an answer. There is a wide-ranging literature regarding the effects of nuclear acquisition, with some maintaining that it can increase aggression via mechanisms such as the stability-instability paradox and others contending that it dampens conflict by providing states with existential security. But despite the many books and articles written on the question, the debate is actually quite narrow and, in my view, boring. Bell’s main contribution is pushing the debate away from the tiresome fixation on aggression and instead considering a broader range of behavior and objectives that nuclear acquisition might support. In addition, Bell develops a very compelling theoretical explanation identifying the conditions that push states to pursue certain nuclear objectives versus others. Helpfully, the argument is encapsulated in a type of decision tree, making it easy to grasp. Bell argues that nuclear acquisition generates aggression if the proliferating country is facing a significant threat. If it isn’t and has a senior ally, it will instead use nukes to secure greater independence for itself. If it does not have a senior ally and is a rising power, nukes are instead employed to enable expansionism and the bolstering of partners. Conversely, if a state is not rising but also possesses no senior partner or serious threat, nuclear weapons are employed to bolster allies and secure the state’s status quo position. Bell tests this theory across several case studies, including the UK, US, and South Africa, which seem to generally support the argument. As with all books on this topic, it’s very difficult to know if the theory is actually true or simply a “just so” explanation for the particular countries included as cases. There are so few nuclear states, after all, that it’s always hard to generalize beyond a few stylized facts. This is particularly the case here because Bell’s argument is so complex and multifaceted, almost to the point that he has more variables than observations. Moreover, I found some of the terms (such as “bolstering” an ally) to be a bit vague and slippery, and to the degree Bell does demonstrate that states pursue these outcomes he often struggles to show conclusively that this is due to the state’s possession of nuclear weapons. But Bell is very upfront about the limitations of his approach, and I think he does an admirable job weighing the competing explanations and admitting when his model doesn’t quite fit. Quite honestly, I’m not entirely convinced by the book, but I think it is still very much worth reading for its rich case studies and its bold attempt to push the arguments around nuclear acquisition in a fresh and interesting direction.
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