Prolif good – War



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AT Arms Race




Only small arsenals -- solves stability -- three reasons.


Seng 1998 [Jordan, PhD Candidate in Pol. Sci. – U. Chicago, Dissertation, “STRATEGY FOR PANDORA'S CHILDREN: STABLE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AMONG MINOR STATES”, p.53]

There are three main reasons that limited means nuclear deterrence is viable in the developing world. One target sets will be small for nuclear weapons states. In large part, this is because, nuclear states will face enemies with only very small numbers of population and industry centers. Developing state proliferators will only need very small numbers of weapons to provide overwhelming punishment capability and second strike assured destruction capability. Ample strategic deterrent threat will be possible without large arsenals and explicit declarations of capability, and crisis stability will be possible without advanced weapons survival technologies. Two, the nuclear arsenals of developing state proliferators will be very small numerically. The small size of developing state nuclear arsenals will be determined in part though not completely, by the small numbers of targets that developing states have to worry about hitting. Other reasons include the limited financial resources of developing states, the dangers of regional nuclear fallout from the detonation of large numbers of weapons, and the political rewards of small arsenals. The small size of arsenals will make it possible for developing states to achieve effective command and control without advanced communications and use-control technologies. Three, nuclear arsenals in the developing world are likely to be opaque. Contrary to the fears of many analysts, I will argue not only that opacity will not prove an insurmountable barrier to effective nuclear deterrence, but that it will be helpful in several ways. For instance conditions of opacity will further aid in keeping nuclear arsenals small in the developing world, which in tum will help facilitate easy command and control of nuclear forces. More importantly, opacity will provide optimal conditions for tacit, informal arms negotiations between nuclear adversaries. Like the superpowers' formal arms agreements, tacit agreements will aid in maintaining arms race stability. However. because developing state proliferators will need only very small numbers of weapons for assured destruction, and because there will be various pressures that will require developing states to keep their numbers of weapons very small, these arms negotiations are likely to be aimed at completely avoiding arms buildups rather than simply making arms races stable. There are three main reasons that limited means nuclear deterrence is viable in the developing world. One target sets will be small for nuclear weapons states. In large part, this is because, nuclear states will face enemies with only very small numbers of population and industry centers. Developing state proliferators will only need very small numbers of weapons to provide overwhelming punishment capability and second strike assured destruction capability. Ample strategic deterrent threat will be possible without large arsenals and explicit declarations of capability, and crisis stability will be possible without advanced weapons survival technologies. Two, the nuclear arsenals of developing state proliferators will be very small numerically. The small size of developing state nuclear arsenals will be determined in part though not completely, by the small numbers of targets that developing states have to worry about hitting. Other reasons include the limited financial resources of developing states, the dangers of regional nuclear fallout from the detonation of large numbers of weapons, and the political rewards of small arsenals. The small size of arsenals will make it possible for developing states to achieve effective command and control without advanced communications and use-control technologies. Three, nuclear arsenals in the developing world are likely to be opaque. Contrary to the fears of many analysts, I will argue not only that opacity will not prove an insurmountable barrier to effective nuclear deterrence, but that it will be helpful in several ways. For instance conditions of opacity will further aid in keeping nuclear arsenals small in the developing world, which in tum will help facilitate easy command and control of nuclear forces. More importantly, opacity will provide optimal conditions for tacit, informal arms negotiations between nuclear adversaries. Like the superpowers' formal arms agreements, tacit agreements will aid in maintaining arms race stability. However. because developing state proliferators will need only very small numbers of weapons for assured destruction, and because there will be various pressures that will require developing states to keep their numbers of weapons very small, these arms negotiations are likely to be aimed at completely avoiding arms buildups rather than simply making arms races stable. Arms race stability will obtain because there will be no arms races.
No arms race -- arsenals mean MAD theory.

Seng, 1998 [Jordan, PhD Candidate in Pol. Sci. – U. Chicago, Dissertation, “STRATEGY FOR PANDORA'S CHILDREN: STABLE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AMONG MINOR STATES”, p.8]

Between the states involved. Accordingly, arms race stability would be the condition in which arms races are not likely, and therefore war is less likely. Charles Glaser offers an alternative view of arms race stability using the concept he calls "robustness” of forces. "Robustness" is a measure of the difficulty (a state) would encounter in trying to reduce (another state's) security. Robust forces provide capacities for deterrence that are so decisive, so overwhelming, or so irresistible that the state that has them need not worry that its adversary's arms buildups or innovations will allow the adversary to escape nuclear punishment should it aggress. Analysis of robustness asks, how easy would it be for one state to develop a means of' compromising the other's current deterrent capabilities? If would be very hard, then arms races or unilateral arms developments would probably not be destabilizing. lf it would be easy, then arms races or unilateral developments might outstrip methods of deterrence and create instability. Glaser reasons that fretting about the likelihood of arms races is relatively unimportant if changes in arsenals are not likely to alter the essential deterrent capacities of states involved.



Nuclear capabilities make arms races irrelevant

Waltz 95


Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, 1995 p29-31 Ajones

First, nuclear weapons alter the dynamics of arms races. ln a competition of two or more parties, it may be hard to say who is pushing and who is being pushed, Who is leading and who is following. lf one party seeks to increase its capabilities, it may seem that others must too. The dynamic may be built into the competition and may unfold despite a mutual wish to resist it. But need this be the case in a strategic competition among nuclear C0untries? lt need not be if the conditions of competition make deterrent logic dominant. Deterrent logic domi- nates if the conditions of competition make it nearly impossible for any of the competing parties to achieve a first-strike capability. Early in the nuclear age, the implications of deterrent strategy were clearly seen. "When dealing with the absolute weapon," as William T. R. Fox put it, "arguments based on relative advantage lose their point." United States has sometimes designed its forces according to that logic. Donald A. Quarles, when he was President Eisenhower's secretary of the Air Force, argued that "sufficiency of air power" is determined by "the force required to accomplish the mission assigned." Avoidance of total war then does not depend on the "relative strength of the two opposed forces." Instead, it depends on the "absolute power in the hands of each, and in the substantial invulnerability of this power to interdiction/'31 To repeat: If no state can launch a disarming attack with high confidence, force comparisons are irrelevant. Strategic arms races are then pointless. Deterrent strategies offer this great advantage: Within wide ranges neither side need respond to increases in the other side's military capabilities. Those who foresee nuclear arms racing among new nuclear states fail to make the distinction between warfighting and war-deterring capabilities. War-fighting forces, because they threaten the forces of others, have to be compared. Superior forces may bring victory to one country; inferior forces may bring defeat to another. Force requirements vary with strategies and not just with the characteristics of weapons. With war-fighting strategies, arms races become hard to avoid. Forces designed for deterrence need not be compared. As Harold Brown said when he was secretary of Defense, purely deterrent forces "can be relatively modest, and their size can perhaps be made substantially, though not completely, insensitive to changes in the posture of an opponent/'32 With deterrent strategies, arms races make sense only if a first-strike capability is within reach. Because thwarting a first strike is easy, deterrent forces are quite cheap tobuild and maintain.



Deterrence disincentivizes arms racing

Waltz 95


Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, 1995 p29-31 Ajones

Second, deterrent balances are inherently stable. This is another reason for new nuclear states to decrease, rather than increase, their military spending. As Secretary Brown saw, within wide limits one state can be insensitive to changes in another state's forces. French leaders thought this way. France, as President Valery Giscard d'Estaing said, "fixes its security at the level required to maintain, regardless of the way the strategic situation develops in the world, the credibility-in other words, the effectiveness-of its deterrent force. With deterrent forces securely established, no military requirement presses one side to try to surpass the other. Human error and folly may lead some parties involved in deterrent balances to spend more on armaments than is needed, but other parties need not increase their armaments in response, because such excess spending does not threaten them. The logic of deterrence eliminates incentives for strategic-arms racing. This should be easier for lesser nuclear states to understand than it was for the United States and the Soviet Union. Because most of them are economically hard-pressed, they will not want to have more than enough. Allowing for their particular situations, the policies of nuclear states confirm these statements. Britain and France are relatively rich countries, and they have tended to overspend. Their strategic forces were never~ theless modest enough when one considers that they thought that to deter the Soviet Union would be more difficult than to deter states with capabilities comparable to their own. China of course faced the same task. These three countries however, have shown no inclination to engage in nuclear arms races. India was content to have nuclear military capability that may or may not have produced warheads, and Israel long maintained her ambiguous status. New nuclear states are likely to conform to these pattems and aim for a modest sufficiency rather than vie with one another for a meaningless superiority.)


No arms race -- no changes in arsenals to worry about.

Seng, 1998 [Jordan, PhD Candidate in Pol. Sci. – U. Chicago, Dissertation, “STRATEGY FOR PANDORA'S CHILDREN: STABLE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AMONG MINOR STATES”, p.37]

Again, arms race stability is the condition under which quantitative or qualitative improvements in nuclear arsenals do not compromise states' functioning deterrent capabilities. Significant improvements might include innovations in damage limitation capabilities that trigger crisis instability, or breakthroughs in defense technologies (e.g. missile defenses) that decrease levels of strategic deterrent threat. Arms race stability may obtain because there are no arms races (i.e., because there are no notable changes in arsenals to worry about) and/ or because deterrent capabilities are so robust-so devastating and irresistible--that changes in forces will not affect them significantly. Arms race stability is the 'guarantee' that methods of deterrence that serve well today will not be rendered obsolete tomorrow.


No arms race -- limited means.

Seng, 1998 [Jordan, PhD Candidate in Pol. Sci. – U. Chicago, Dissertation, “STRATEGY FOR PANDORA'S CHILDREN: STABLE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AMONG MINOR STATES”, p.47]

For command and control stability, the superpowers needed advanced and complex systems because they had extremely large and complex arsenals. The "˜limited means' proliferator will only need relatively rudimentary systems of command and control because its arsenals will be very small and simple. For arms race stability, the superpowers had highly robust forces and they employed enormous resources to keep their arms race stable. The nuclear forces of the ideal "˜limited means' proliferator need not be nearly so robust because it will not be arms racing.


Nope -- robustness, and agreements.

Seng, 1998

[Jordan, PhD Candidate in Pol. Sci. – U. Chicago, Dissertation, “STRATEGY FOR PANDORA'S CHILDREN: STABLE NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION AMONG MINOR STATES”,]

Fortunately, though this last version of arms race stability might not apply well to Third World settings. the first two forms apply quite well. Third World proliferators will be able to avoid competitive nuclear arms buildups for reasons associated with, one. the robustness of their force capabilities and, two. certain advantages they have in terms of negotiating arms agreements. That is, because it is unlikely that arms races will matter strategically. and because Third World proliferators will be in particularly good positions for negotiating pre-arms race security agreements, we are unlikely to see competitive arms buildups in the Third World beyond the small buildups required to achieve levels of limited nuclear proliferation.



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