Interventions

Dans le cadre du séminaire de Nuclear Knowledges - Chaire d’excellence en études de sécurité.

"The Courtroom of World Opinion": Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises

Speaker:
Debak Das, PhD candidate, Cornell University

Abstract:
What role does the international audience play in moderating nuclear crises? Scholars of nuclear crises and deterrence have treated nuclear crises as dyadic interactions between two sides. However, states do not only interact with each other during a nuclear crisis. They also signal to a third actor – the international audience. Two related reasons explain this. First, states care about their international reputation and want to be perceived as a ‘good community member’. Second, there are material benefits to states maintaining a good reputation with the international audience, which possesses the leverage to condemn and sanction. States thus attempt to leverage this power of the international audience to apply diplomatic pressure on their adversary during nuclear crises. They also engage in costly signaling and strategic restraint to ensure that the international audience considers its actions legitimate during the crisis. Empirical evidence from the Kargil war (the only instance of a war fought between two nuclear states), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the 1969 Ussuri Crisis between the Soviet Union and China support this conclusion. Incorporating the international audience as a critical third actor during nuclear crises has important academic and policy implications for the study of nuclear crises and their management.

Discussants:
Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI, Nuclear Knowledges
Thomas Lindemann, Université de Versailles St-Quentin-en-Yvelines et Ecole Polytechnique

Les présentations seront données en anglais, cependant les questions en français seront également les bienvenues.

Responsable scientifique : Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI.
Retrouvez les actualités de la Chaire sur Twitter : @NKnowledges

Voir le programme

Benoît Pelopidas, Nuclear Knowledges : « Introduction »

Fabricio Mendes Fialho, postdoctoral research fellow, Nuclear Knowledges

Brian Rathbun (University of Southern California): « Greater Good, Lesser Evil?: Morality and Attitudes Towards the Use of Nuclear Weapons. »

Michal Smetana, Assistant professor, Peace Research Center, Prague (with Marek Vranka, on skype) « Moral Foundations of Nuclear and Chemical Weapons “Taboo” - Evidence from an Experimental Survey »

Fabricio Mendes Fialho, postdoctoral research fellow, Nuclear Knowledges : comments on the two papers and authors’ response

Benoît Pelopidas, Nuclear Knowledges : brief comments on the two papers

Brian Rathbun and Michal Smetana : replies to the discussants and Q&A

Dans le cadre du séminaire de Nuclear Knowledges - Chaire d’excellence en études de sécurité.

Why states choose nuclear restraint? An analysis of Sweden´s nuclear weapons plans during the cold war based on primary sources.

Why did Sweden choose, in the late 1960s, to abolish its long-standing nuclear weapons plans? A number of historical investigations have analyzed some aspects of this issue, particularly as it related to the public political debate in Sweden and the formulation of the Swedish defense doctrine in the postwar years. Taken together, these studies provide a far-from-complete picture of Sweden’s historical nuclear weapons plans. The main reason for this lack of a comprehensive picture has been the paucity of primary sources. Today, however, the end of the cold war and the declassification of large parts of the relevant documentary record, especially concerning the technical preparations for nuclear weapons production, have created the prerequisites for a more penetrating analysis.The purpose of this presentation is to summarize this research on Sweden’s plans to acquire nuclear weapons and discuss its bearing on theories of proliferation and non-proliferation.

The Key to Nuclear Restraint: The Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War
Thomas Jonter, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016
For more information

Thomas Jonter is Director of Stockholm University Graduate School of International Studies, Sweden, and Professor of International Relations at the Department of Economic History. He has been visiting scholar at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Stanford University, and Cornell University. Professor Jonter is also chair of Swedish Pugwash and served as advisor to the Swedish delegation to the 2015 Review Conference to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, at the United Nations in New York.

Discutants:

Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI, titulaire de la chaire d'excellence en études de sécurité, Sciences Po.

Les présentations seront données en anglais, cependant les questions en français seront également les bienvenues.

Responsable scientifique : Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI. 

Dans le cadre du séminaire de la Chaire d’excellence en études de sécurité

How to Think about Nuclear Crises
Mark Bell, University of Minnesota, and Julia Macdonald, University of Denver

Abstract: How dangerous are nuclear crises? What dynamics underpin how they unfold? Recent tensions between North Korea and the United States have exposed profound disagreement among scholars and analysts.We reconcile these apparently contradictory views by showing the circumstances in which different models of nuclear crises should be expected to hold. Nuclear crises should be expected to have very different dynamics depending on two variables: the incentives to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis, and the extent to which escalation is controllable by the leaders involved. Variation across these two dimensions generate four distinct models of nuclear crises, which we label as the “staircase” model; the “stability-instability” model; the “brinkmanship” model; and the “firestorm” model. These models correspond to well-established ways of thinking about nuclear weapons, but no one model of nuclear crises is “correct.” Different models should be expected to apply in different cases, and we should interpret nuclear crises very differently according to which model is most appropriate. We demonstrate the utility of our framework using the cases of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, 1999 Kargil War, and ongoing U.S.-North Korea tensions.

Strategic Stability in Two Nuclear Posture Reviews
Professor Sharon K. Weiner, American University, Washington D.C. member of the advisory board of the chair of excellence in security studies.

Abstract: Deterrence is an ambiguous guide for translating presidential guidance into nuclear force structure and strategy. Although claims are made that these choices are linked to national security needs and threats, I bring in the context of bureaucratic structure. Using the 2010 Obama Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the 2018 Trump NPR as case studies, I show how both NPRs claim to justify essentially the same nuclear modernization plan, but this plan has significantly different consequences for strategic stability when seen within the bureaucratic and organizational contexts that will implement it under Trump.

Discutants: The two discussants will discuss each other's papers

Responsable scientifique : Benoît Pelopidas, Sciences Po-CERI.