Prolif Bad – Preventative Strikes

Prolif Bad – Preventative Strikes

Prolif increases preventive attempts

At the exploration stage, conventional force usage does not make much sense when an opponent’s primary objective is destructive preemption; most notably, there are likely very few or no “hard targets” to strike at this stage. If, however, conventional force is employed as a general bargaining tool whose utility is not confined to mere destruction, then the precision of destructive efforts is not the only conventional targeting concern for opponents. Instead, given that the mere act of exploring 6 Similar views have been expressed by Geller (1990) and Miller (1993). acquisition feasibility credibly signals a potential proliferator’s intention to solidify its own future bargaining position, forceful efforts by opposing states to try to resolve the issue before acquisition are likely more attractive than if no proliferation efforts had been undertaken. These considerations lead us to our first general hypothesis. Hypothesis 1a: States that are exploring nuclear weapons are more at risk of being targeted in a conventional militarized dispute than non-proliferating states.

Contextualized in this way, proliferation efforts serve as a warning to opposing states that the terms of bargaining over the disputed issue(s) will change in an unfavorable way at some future point. Specifically, if and when the proliferator achieves nuclear possession, opposing states’ capacities to uphold or change the status quo within acceptable levels of cost are likely to evaporate. It would thus seem that the physical destruction of nascent nuclear programs is not the only incentive for opponents to engage in conventional conflict with a proliferator; physical force can also be a useful means by which to achieve a favorable outcome to the disputed issue underlying the proliferators’ efforts before nuclear acquisition drastically shifts the balance of power between the two sides.

In this paper, we use this set of interacting incentives as a point of departure in delineating a theory of the relationship between the nuclear proliferation process and the frequency with which proliferators are targeted in conventional militarized conflicts. Though much previous scholarship has been devoted to this question, we believe that extant views have focused too narrowly on one subset of that relationship: the preemptive employment of conventional capabilities by status quo powers in order to physically disable or destroy proliferators’ nascent nuclear programs. In developing a broader treatment of the strategic interaction between states, we posit that the various stages of deterrent nuclear proliferation are best conceived of as sequential steps in a bargaining process over preexisting disputes that were instrumental in spurring proliferators to consider nuclear options. As such, we contend that the primary rationale for status quo states’ conventional targeting of proliferators should derive not from the desire to physically disrupt nuclear development (which is, at best, a difficult task), but from the desire to reach favorable conclusions to underlying disputes before the deployment of nuclear weapons drastically complicates the issue. The effect of nuclear proliferation on conventional targeting is empirically tested by looking at states in four different stages of the proliferation process: no program, exploration, pursuit, and acquisition (Singh and Way, 2004). In general, the results of our analyses show that as states move from no program to exploration and then to pursuit, the odds that that they become the target of a militarized interstate dispute (or MID; Jones, Bremer, and Singer,1996) increase rather steadily. Once actual acquisition is achieved, however, the risk of being targeted decreases. These results are most robust when looking at disputes over territory (which arguably represent conflicts over the most salient interest of states) and territorial disputes that lead to at least one fatality.

Prolif Bad – Preemption/Preventative Strikes

Prolif causes preventive and preemptive strikes -- empirical proof.

Russell ‘3  (Richard, Prof. Nat’l. Sec. Affairs – National Defense U. Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and Adjunct Prof. Security Studies in Center for Peace and Security Studies – Georgetown U. Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Journal of Strategic Studies, “The Nuclear Peace Fallacy: How Deterrence Can Fail”, 26:1, March, InformaWorld)

Waltz's analysis seeks to answer the question, why have nuclear-armed nation-states not fought a major war? Perhaps the best way to critique his analysis is to pose the opposite question, why or under what circumstances might nuclear-armed nation-states fight a major war? This line of questioning opens a wide vista of potential scenarios, all within the realm of possibility in the Middle East and South Asia. Nuclear weapons infrastructure and inventories might present attractive targets for preventive or pre-emptive strikes. The Middle East has experienced several historical examples of preventative and pre-emptive strikes. The Israelis in 1981, for example, preventively attacked Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osiraq, a key facility for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. The strike was an effective measure to stem Baghdad's development of nuclear weapons, particularly in light of the post-1991 Gulf War revelations about the scope of Iraq's ambitions. According to respected Israeli security expert Ze'ev Schiff, Israel under Prime Minister Menachem Begin established and publicly proclaimed 'the determination to destroy the nuclear stockpile of any Arab country at war with Israel if there are grounds to believe that the country is manufacturing nuclear weapons'.43 The fact that Israel was willing to develop a policy of preventive war suggests that other countries might also see grounds for such a policy within their own strategic circumstances. As Scott Sagan recalls, in 1969 Moscow contemplated launching a preventive strike on Chinese nuclear facilities; the Minister of Defense reportedly favored a preventive strike 'despite the existence of a small Chinese nuclear arsenal at that time', but the Politburo did not approve of the attack.* The United States' war against Iraq in 1991 had overtones of being a preventive war in that US policy-makers in the run up to the ground campaign were concerned about Iraq's potential to develop nuclear weapons; it provided an auxiliary justification, in addition to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, for going to war against Baghdad. A vulnerable command, control, communication, computer and intelligence (C4I) system might induce an adversary to launch a pre- emptive nuclear strike, perhaps in a long simmering crisis, to 'decapitate' an adversary's leadership. Major C41 nodes invariably lie in the capitals of nation-states, which would be vulnerable to nuclear weapons. Nuclear nation-states today in the Middle East and South Asia probably have less robust C41 systems than the United States and the Soviet Union had during the Cold War.4sRedundant Soviet command and control systems, however, did not stop some Western observers from speculating about the prospects for holding the Soviet leadership at risk in a nuclear conflict." Similar arguments in the heated political circumstances of major regional rivalries today, particularly in the midst of a political-military crisis, might find a more receptive audience for such a strategy than they did in the United States during the Cold War. A nation-state might calculate that a first strike would catch the C41 infrastructure of an adversary unawares to maximize the destruction and minimize the adversary's ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons. Indeed, the C41 systems of nation-states might remain vulnerable despite a heightened crisis and warnings of war. In a survey of twentieth century conflict Betts has found that: All major sudden attacks occurred in situations of prolonged tension, during which the victim state's leaders recognized that war might be on the horizon. Surprise succeeded despite ample political warning and, paradoxically, in some cases because of it. Conscious of the possibility of war and faced with evidence of developing enemy readiness to strike, leaders nevertheless often do not authorize effective counterpreparations."'

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