Prolif good – War

AT No Preventative War

Historically rare nature of preventive war is irrelevant. It is likely in the future against nuclear prolif.

Goldstein addresses this debate with a survey of the most significant international confrontations involving nuclear and nonnuclear non·nu·cle·ar adj. 1. Not causing, involving, or operated by nuclear energy. 2. Not possessing nuclear weapons. states, exploring the incentives, perceptions, and judgments of nuclear-armed leaders as they contemplate the prospects and pitfalls of launching preventive war to disarm emerging nuclear powers. His comparative case studies span the entire nuclear age: from the U.S. reaction to the emergence of a Soviet nuclear weapons program, American and Soviet responses to the Chinese nuclear program, and the Israeli strike against Iraq's Osiraq reactor, to both U.S. counter-proliferation wars against Iraq. His case studies reveal that although the leaders in dominant states often contemplate preventive war, a host of issues conspires to prevent them from launching strikes to destroy emerging nuclear forces and infrastructures. Goldstein's finding that preventive counterproliferation strikes are rare is offset by several observations that are not at all reassuring. Counterproliferation attacks have been contemplated from the start of the nuclear age, but actual attacks are a relatively recent phenomenon. Goldstein's analysis suggests that the revolutions in conventional precision guidance and global reconnaissance capabilities have tipped the balance in favor of preventive war, although risks still remain. U.S. officers and officials, for instance, were deeply concerned about the prospect that Saddam Hussein might retaliate with chemical or biological weapons when it became clear that the regime in Baghdad itself was the target of coalition operations in 2003; nevertheless, members of the administration were ultimately undeterred by what they considered to be a credible threat. Goldstein concludes with an even more disturbing observation: that world politics might be entering a period of pronounced instability as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and associated delivery systems accelerates. More opportunities will soon present themselves to stop ambitious nascent nuclear states in their tracks.

Second, although preventive wars are hard to do and perhaps unlikely, they are not as remote as a possibility as neooptimists claim. On the other hand, as neooptimists remind us, there are some important dogs that have not barked. India did not launch a preventive war to prevent the final development of Pakistani nuclear capability, nor has the United States launched a war against North Korea. Both cases would have met the pessimist criteria of a likely case for preventive war. On the other hand, there are examples of attacks that approximate a preventive war. Israel engaged in something resembling a preventive strike against Iraq; the United States exploited Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to wage a preventive war against Hussein’s arsenal. Moreover, the more we learn about nuclear history, the more evidence we find that states took the planning for preventive war seriously. The jury is still out on a number of cases that also might meet the criteria for most-likely; what. For instance, would China’s reaction be to credible evidence that Taiwan or Japan were developing nuclear weapons?

Fourth, even if an enemy splendid first strike is a remote possibility, it can still have perverse effects on the command and control decisions of minor proliferators. Pessimists worry about preventive war for two reasons: (1) states might wage preventive war; (2) in an effort to counter the preventive war problem states may take command and control short-cuts that prove destabilizing. The fact that an outside analyst concludes that the arsenal is survivable does not dispose of the possibility that senior leaders will feel compelled to take steps to hedge against the danger. Moreover, some of those steps may be almost as bad as the risks of preventive war in the first place, such as placing the arsenal on higher states of alert and pre-delegating use authority to lower-echelon commanders.

AT Diplomacy Checks

Diplomacy doesn’t check war – countries will look to military actions before cooperation

Cimbala 5 – Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University, author of books and articles in professional journals on topics related to national security, he has served as a consultant on arms control to the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, US Department of State, and private defense contractors (Stephen J., The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, “East Wind Deadly: Nuclear Proliferation in Asia,” vol. 18, issue 4, 2005, http://dl2af5jf3e.search.serialssolutions.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=East+Wind+Deadly%3A+Nuclear+Proliferation+in+Asia&rft.jtitle=The+Journal+of+Slavic+Military+Studies&rft.au=Cimbala%2C+Stephen&rft.date=2005-12-01&rft.issn=1351-8046&rft.volume=18&rft.issue=4&rft.spage=535&rft.epage=558&rft_id=info:doi/10.1080%2F13518040500341809&rft.externalDBID=FSMS&rft.externalDocID=976978281 /mr)

We noted previously that decisions for war or nuclear blackmail will probably be driven by political variables more than military ones. Nevertheless, even in the case of nuclear forces which are intended more for coercion than for actual use, it can matter a great deal how they are deployed, and operated, short of war. The deployments and operational modes for nuclear forces may seem as if they are “hard” or “objective” facts, and to some extent they are: whether weapons are to be land or sea based, how many warheads or re-entry vehicles are carried by a particular missile, and so forth. On the other hand, nuclear force deployments and operational characteristics also have subjective properties. Weapons, launchers, and command-control protocols “communicate” intentions with respect to the probable or possible behaviors of states and their leaders: intentions that might not be correctly interpreted or understood by other states. During a crisis in which one or more states contemplate the possibility of nuclear attack, countries will not only listen to one another's diplomatic statements: they will also watch what the other fellow is doing, including his military capabilities and maneuvers, for clues about his future behavior.

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