Avey 2015

Security Studies
ISSN: 0963-6412 (Print) 1556-1852 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fsst20
Who's Afraid of the Bomb? The Role of Nuclear

Non-Use Norms in Confrontations between
Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Opponents
Paul C. Avey
To cite this article: Paul C. Avey (2015) Who's Afraid of the Bomb? The Role of Nuclear Non-Use
Norms in Confrontations between Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Opponents, Security Studies, 24:4,
563-596, DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2015.1103128
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2015.1103128
Published online: 20 Nov 2015.
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Security Studies, 24:563–596, 2015
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0963-6412 print / 1556-1852 online
DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2015.1103128
Who’s Afraid of the Bomb?

The Role of Nuclear Non-Use Norms in
Confrontations between Nuclear and
Non-Nuclear Opponents
Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 04:22 12 February 2016
PAUL C. AVEY
This article examines the role that nuclear non-use norms play
in non-nuclear state decision making during confrontations with
nuclear opponents. The claim that norms constrain nuclear use is
one of the most important examples of norms influencing state
security decisions. Many extend the claim to argue that non-
nuclear weapon states realize norms constrain the nuclear op-
ponent and therefore discount the possibility of nuclear strikes. To
date there has been little effort to examine this extended claim.
This article outlines the normative claims and an alternative
strategic logic. It assesses the positions by examining two cases
that the normative literature highlights: Egypt in 1973 and Iraq
in 1990. The article finds little evidence that the non-use norm
played a significant role in non-nuclear state decision making.
Rather, non-nuclear state leaders took their opponents’ nuclear
arsenals very seriously and sought to reduce the risks of nuclear
strikes.
There is growing acceptance that normative restraints on nuclear use explain

why states without nuclear weapons do not fear nuclear strikes when con-
fronting nuclear-armed opponents. The argument proceeds in two steps.
First, states do not use nuclear weapons because there is a norm that
arose over time proscribing nuclear use.1 Second, non-nuclear weapon states
Paul C. Avey is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech.

1 The literature on the nuclear non-use norm is large and growing. See George Ball, “The Cosmic
Bluff,” New York Review of Books, 21 July 1983; John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the
563
564 P. Avey
realize that non-use norms prevent nuclear weapon states from using their
nuclear capabilities.2 Thus, Nina Tannenwald concludes: “Because of the
taboo, a nuclear threat against a non-nuclear state is no longer credible.”3
Nearly two decades earlier, former U.S. National Security Advisor McGeorge
Bundy made a similar point when he noted that as a result of the tradition
of non-use, “no government without [nuclear] weapons needs to be easily
coerced by nuclear threats from others, because both history and logic make
History of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), chap. 5; Paul Huth and Bruce Russett,
“Deterrence Failure and Crisis Escalation,” International Studies Quarterly 32, no. 1 (March 1988): 29–46;
Lewis A. Dunn, Containing Nuclear Proliferation, Adelphi Paper 263 (London: International Institute for
Strategic Studies (IISS), 1991), 29–45; T. V. Paul, “Nuclear Taboo and War Initiation in Regional Conflicts,”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 39, no. 4 (December 1995): 696–717; T. V. Paul, The Tradition of Non-Use
of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009); T. V. Paul, “Taboo or Tradition?:
The Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons in World Politics,” Review of International Studies 36, no. 4 (October
2010): 853–63; Peter Gizewski, “From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds: The Nuclear Taboo in
International Politics,” International Journal 51, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 397–419; Richard Price and Nina
Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos,” in The Culture of
National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996), 114–52; Tannenwald, “The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative
Basis of Nuclear Non-Use,” International Organization 53, no. 3 (Summer 1999): 433–68; Tannenwald,
“Stigmatizing the Bomb: Origins of the Nuclear Taboo,” International Security 29, no. 4 (Spring 2005):
5–49; Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Avner Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy:
Israel and the Lessons of the 1967 and 1973 Wars,” in Planning the Unthinkable: How New Nuclear
Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons, ed. Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and
James J. Wirtz (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 104–24; George H. Quester, Nuclear First
Strike: Consequences of a Broken Taboo (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); George
Perkovich, Do Unto Others: Toward a Defensible Nuclear Doctrine (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, 2013). For counterarguments, see Sagan, “Realist Perspectives on Ethical Norms
and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular
Perspectives, ed. Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
73–95; Daryl G. Press, Scott D. Sagan, and Benjamin A. Valentino, “Atomic Aversion: Experimental
Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons,” American Political Science
Review 107, no. 1 (February 2013): 188–206.
2 Hereafter non-nuclear states and nuclear states, respectively.
3 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 372; see also ibid., 3; Paul, “Nuclear Taboo and War Initiation in
Regional Conflicts”; T. V. Paul, “Power, Influence, and Nuclear Weapons: A Reassessment,” in The Absolute
Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order, ed. Paul, Richard J. Harknett,
and James J. Wirtz (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press), 19–46; Paul, Tradition of Non-Use
of Nuclear Weapons, esp. chap. 7; Huth and Russett, “Deterrence Failure and Crisis Escalation”; Bruce
Martin Russett, “Extended Deterrence with Nuclear Weapons: How Necessary, How Acceptable?” Review
of Politics 50, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 290; Gizewski, “From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,”
418–19; Robert Farley, “The Long Shadow of the Falklands War,” National Interest, 8 September 2014, http:
//nationalinterest.org/feature/the-long-shadow-the-falklands-war-11224. For others, the norm of non-use
provides an important part of the explanation. See, for example, Todd S. Sechser and Matthew Fuhrmann,
“Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail,” International Organization 67 no. 1 (Winter 2013): 177–78;
Michael S. Gerson, “No First Use: The Next Step for U.S. Nuclear Policy,” International Security 35, no.
1 (Fall 2010): 34–35; Daniel S. Geller, “Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Crisis Escalation,” Journal of
Conflict Resolution 34, no. 2 (June 1990): 295–296, 305, 307; Tom Sauer, Nuclear Inertia: U.S. Nuclear
Weapons Policy After the Cold War (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 44; Paul K. Huth, “Extended Deterrence
and the Outbreak of War,” American Political Science Review 82, no. 2 (June 1988): 428. For a related
argument see Thomas M. Nichols, No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security, (Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 149–57.
Who’s Afraid of the Bomb? 565
it clear that no government will resort to nuclear weapons over a less than
mortal question.”4
To date, however, there has been little effort to clearly articulate and
assess the claim that norms cause non-nuclear states to discount nuclear
weapons. The bulk of the literature focuses on whether the norm adequately
explains why nuclear states do not use these weapons in conflict. It then
asserts that this influences non-nuclear state decision making.5 Similarly,
critics of the normative arguments focus their attention on whether those
arguments explain nuclear state behavior.6 Quantitative work on nuclear
weapons and conflict either sidesteps the normative issue7 or incorporates
part of the normative logic into the explanation.8
To be sure, many note that nuclear weapons appear to have limited po-
litical effects in a variety of situations. The United States began walking back
its reliance on nuclear weapons as a blunt instrument even when the Dwight
Eisenhower administration still officially adhered to the doctrine of massive
retaliation.9 Today, as Stephen M. Walt points out, nuclear weapons appear
to have such modest effects on international politics that “nobody in power
seems to think that a nuclear deterrent is sufficient to protect the country,
or even to significantly reduce other defense or security requirements.”10
Such observations do not explain why this is the case and in particular do
not address the widespread belief that the reason is that non-nuclear states
accept that norms constrain the nuclear opponent.
This article takes a first step to fill this gap in the literature by examining
non-nuclear state decision making prior to confronting nuclear opponents.
A careful examination of two cases that the normative literature cites to
support its claims—Egypt in 1973 and Iraq in 1990—reveals that there is
little evidence that the non-use norm played a significant role in non-nuclear
state decision making. Rather, my examination finds that in these cases non-
nuclear state leaders focused on the potential military and strategic obstacles
their opponents faced in using nuclear weapons and took various steps to
4 McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival (New York: Random House, 1988), 588. Bundy did not
further develop the tradition concept but it contained a normative component; see ibid., 586–88.
5 T. V. Paul offers the most systematic discussion, but his case analyses do not provide direct evidence
for the claim. See Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, chap. 7.
6 Sagan, “Realist Perspectives on Ethical Norms and Weapons of Mass Destruction”; Press, Sagan,
and Valentino, “Atomic Aversion.”

7 See, for example, Robert Rauchhaus, Matthew Kroenig, and Erik Gartzke, eds., Causes and Conse-
quences of Nuclear Proliferation (London: Routledge, 2011); Vipin Narang, “What Does it Take to Deter?
Regional Power Nuclear Postures and International Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 57, no. 3
(June 2013): 478–508; Mark S. Bell and Nicholas L. Miller, “Questioning the Effects of Nuclear Weapons
on Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 1 (February 2015): 74–92.
8 Sechser and Fuhrmann, “Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail,” 177–78; Geller, “Nuclear
Weapons, Deterrence, and Crisis Escalation”; Huth, “Extended Deterrence and the Outbreak of War.”
9 For a succinct history of U.S. nuclear thinking, see Nichols, No Use, chaps. 1–2.
10 Stephen M. Walt, “Rethinking the ‘Nuclear Revolution,”’ ForeignPolicy.com, 3 August 2010, http:
//foreignpolicy.com/2010/08/03/rethinking-the-nuclear-revolution/.
566 P. Avey
enhance these obstacles. Thus there were hopes a strategic logic of non-
use would operate rather than a normative logic of non-use. In 1973, Egypt
sought to communicate its limited intentions against Israel to the United
States. Egyptian leaders hoped that by doing so, U.S. strategic interests would
compel Israeli restraint. In 1990, the Iraqis posed no direct threat to the U.S.
homeland. Even so, they undertook serious preparations to minimize the
impact of a nuclear strike and hoped their chemical arsenal could dissuade
the United States from using nuclear weapons.
To be clear, I am not arguing that there are not norms surrounding nu-
clear weapons. The mere classification of nuclear weapons as separate from
“conventional” weapons demonstrates the utility of ideational insights. In-
deed, actors in both cases examined in this article classified nuclear weapons
as separate from conventional weapons. In addition, I am not challenging
the claim that norms constrain states from using nuclear weapons. If nu-
clear norms only inhibited states from using nuclear weapons that would
still represent a profound effect on international politics. My claim is more
reserved: in two important cases nuclear non-use norms have limited effects
on non-nuclear state decision making during confrontations with nuclear-
armed opponents. In the conclusion I suggest future research questions that
can build from these findings.
Assessing the strength of the normative arguments in explaining non-
nuclear state decision making is important for four reasons. First, as noted
above, there has been little systematic investigation of this issue. Proponents
and critics alike have focused on its impact on nuclear state decision making
while positing that it has broader effects for non-nuclear states. Addressing
non-nuclear state decision making fills a significant gap in the literature.
Second, if leaders in states facing nuclear-armed opponents do discount
nuclear weapons for normative reasons this would qualify claims that nuclear
weapons provide states with important political leverage.11
Third, from a theoretical standpoint, this issue speaks to the ongoing
debate on the power of norms in international politics. Realists maintain
that norms are generally epiphenomenal to great power behavior. Many
liberals and constructivists, by contrast, argue that norms often have powerful
11 Though there is disagreement on the political effects of nuclear weapons, numerous studies have
found that nuclear advantages convey political leverage. See, for example, Marc Trachtenberg, “The
Influence of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” International Security 10, no. 1 (Summer
1985): 137–63; Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, DC: Brookings
Institution Press, 1987); Daryl G. Press, Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), chaps. 3–4; Keir A. Lieber, War and the Engineers: The
Primacy of Politics over Technology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), chap. 5; Kyle Beardsley
and Victor Asal, “Winning with the Bomb,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 2 (April 2009): 278–301;
Eric Gartzke and Dong-Joon Jo, “Bargaining, Nuclear Proliferation, and Interstate Disputes,” Journal of
Conflict Resolution 53, no. 2 (April 2009): 209–33; Matthew Kroenig, “Nuclear Superiority and the Balance
of Resolve: Explaining Nuclear Crisis Outcomes,” International Organization 67, no. 1 (January 2013):
141–71.
independent effects on state behavior and, for constructivists, can even come
to constitute state identities.12 If nuclear norms embolden non-nuclear states
then this is important evidence that norms shape behavior. Nuclear state
leaders may have incentives to claim that nuclear norms constrain their
decision making even if they did not. Presumably, non-nuclear state leaders
facing a nuclear opponent have fewer such incentives. If non-nuclear state
leaders nevertheless cited the norm as influencing their decision making, this
would be powerful evidence for the normative arguments.13
Finally, answering this question has important practical implications.
If the normative arguments are correct, then a nuclear state faces an up-
hill battle convincing opponents that it might use nuclear weapons in a
given situation. This can lead nuclear state leaders to undertake dangerous
policies to demonstrate credibility. Alternatively, a nuclear force rendered
non-credible for normative reasons might cause adversaries to misinterpret
red lines for actual nuclear use. In addition, if the only political utility nu-
clear weapons provide is to deter a nuclear strike, then this is a strong
endorsement for global zero arguments.14 After all, what is the point of
countries keeping a weapon that everyone knows that no state will use?
Ridding the world of nuclear weapons would achieve the same effect as
mutual deterrence—preventing someone from striking you with a nuclear
bomb—without the risks of nuclear accidents.
The rest of this article proceeds in three parts. First, I outline the basic
normative and military/strategic arguments including the extensions that ex-
plain non-nuclear state decision making. In doing so I discuss what evidence
will support the claims as well as the cases selected to examine. Second, I
assess each explanation against the historical record. Finally, I summarize
the findings and suggest further research.
12 For discussions on theoretical approaches to norms and the related concept of institutions, see
Vaughn P. Shannon, “Norms are What States Make of Them: The Political Psychology of Norm Violation,”
International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 2 (June 2000): 295–97; Peter J. Katzenstein, “Introduction,” in
The Culture of National Security, chap. 1; Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm
Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (Autumn, 1998): 887–917; Alastair
Iain Johnston, “Treating International Institutions as Social Environments,” International Organization 45,
no. 4 (December 2001): 487–515; Maria Post Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear
Restraint (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), chaps. 1–2; Brian Greenhill, “The Company
You Keep: International Socialization and the Diffusion of Human Rights Norms,” International Studies
Quarterly 54, no. 1 (March 2010): 127–45; Marianne Hanson, “The Advocacy States: Their Normative Role
Before and After the U.S. Call for Nuclear Zero,” Nonproliferation Review 17, no. 1 (March 2010): 71–93;
John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security 19, no. 3
(Winter 1994/95): 5–49; Michael C. Desch, “Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security
Studies,” International Security 23, no. 1 (Summer 1998): 141–70.
13 Desch, “Culture Clash,” 158–60.
14 David Cortright and Raimo Vayrynen, Toward Nuclear Zero (New York: Routledge, 2010),
esp. 91.
568 P. Avey
CONSTRAINTS ON NUCLEAR USE
In this section I first discuss the normative non-use arguments regarding

nuclear states. This is necessary both because scholarship focuses almost
exclusively on non-use norms in nuclear states and to establish that varia-
tions of the normative arguments can be discussed together. I then present
the extensions to the arguments that account for non-nuclear state decision
making. Next, I discuss the alternative military and strategic logic and its po-
tential impact on non-nuclear state behavior. Using this discussion I outline
predictions for examining the competing claims. I conclude this section by
discussing the case-selection criteria.
Normative Constraints on Nuclear Use

Normative non-use arguments start with the straightforward observation
that people view nuclear weapons as unique. This view arose from both
the highly destructive nature of the bomb and the discourse that devel-
oped around it by various state and non-state actors.15 “What makes atomic
weapons different,” in Thomas C. Schelling’s words, “is a powerful tradition
that they are different.”16 Indeed, nuclear weapons helped to create a spe-
cial category of weapons: weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and they fit
that characterization better than other WMD candidates.17 This categorization
created a special norm governing nuclear weapon use.
Norms are shared implicit or explicit rules that prescribe and proscribe
appropriate behavior for a given actor or set of actors. In some cases ad-
herence to the norm constitutes an identity and can act to distinguish actors
from outsiders. Note that norms need not be universally understood or ac-
cepted and may have weak constraints on actual behavior. Norms simply
outline appropriate behavior within a specific identity.18
15Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, esp. 22–36; Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 56–69.
16Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
[1960] 1980), 260, emphasis in original. See also Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 9; Gizewski, “From Winning
Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 400, 403, 410.
17 Susan B. Martin, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Brief Overview,” in Ethics and Weapons of Mass
Destruction, ed. Hashmi and Lee, esp. 16–18, 32–33; Tannenwald, “Stigmatizing the Bomb,” 18–20. For
the claim that biological and chemical weapons belong in a separate category, see John Mueller, Atomic
Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 11–15.
18 This discussion draws on Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security, 5; Finnemore and
Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” 891–93; David L. Rousseau, Identifying
Threats and Threatening Identities: The Social Construction of Realism and Liberalism (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2006), 11–12; Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 22; Gary Goertz and Paul F. Diehl, “Toward a Theory of
International Norms: Some Conceptual and Measurement Issues,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 36, no.
4 (December 1992): 636–39; Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 10; Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear
Weapons, 1, 9–10.
Scholars disagree on the exact terminology and strength of the nuclear

non-use norm. Some label it a “tradition . . . an informal social norm,” while
others claim it is a taboo that is “a de facto non-use norm with a strong moral
component.”19 The difference is primarily one of degree rather than kind.
As T. V. Paul writes, “traditions and taboos are socially driven patterns of
behavior and expectations” with the main distinction being that “traditions
like the non-use norm are not so strong that humans accept them blindly to
the degree they do taboos.”20
The non-use norm operates to constrain decision making in two ways:
a regulative mechanism that follows the logic of consequences and a consti-
tutive mechanism that follows the logic of appropriateness.21 I address each
mechanism in turn.
The regulative mechanism highlights the negative reputational conse-
quences for states from violating the norm for non-use by using nuclear
weapons. The claim is straightforward: leaders will refrain from using nu-
clear weapons because they fear the consequences at the international, do-
mestic, and individual levels.22 In particular, leaders fear reputational losses
for violating the shared expectation of non-use. Thus Paul argues that lead-
ers will fear that “the reactions of third parties would impose costs for the
state that outweigh the benefits of nuclear use . . . losing power or pub-
lic confidence if there is a public opinion backlash against nuclear use . . .
worries about the opinions of others, the judgment of history, [their] legacy,
and [their] desire to maintain a self-image as a morally good person.”23 It is
important to highlight that the regulative effects are consistent with rational,
self-interested accounts for the role of norms. After all, a norm created for
instrumental reasons can come back to constrain the creator.
The second mechanism by which the norm shapes decision making
is through its constitutive effects. The claim is that leaders come to view
the non-use of nuclear weapons as part of their identity. The identity then
conditions their behavior; indeed, that behavior acts to affirm their identity.
Even in the absence of outside sanctions, leaders will refrain from action
because they view it as inappropriate.24
19 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 9 (“tradition”); Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 59
(“de facto”).
20 Paul, “Taboo or Tradition?,” 856, 854.
21 On these logics, see James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, “The Institutional Dynamics of Interna-
tional Political Orders,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (September 1998): esp. 949–54.
22 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, esp. chap. 2; Paul, “Taboo or Tradition?” 853–63;
Paul, “Nuclear Taboo and War Initiation in Regional Conflicts,” 701–2, 704–5; Tannenwald, “Nuclear
Taboo,” 437–38; Gizewski “From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 412, 414–15; Cohen, “Nuclear
Arms in Crisis under Secrecy: Israel and the Lessons of the 1967 and 1973 Wars,” in Planning the
Unthinkable, ed. Lavoy, Sagan, and Wirtz, 123.
23 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 27; see also ibid., 1–2, 20–37; Gizewski, “From
Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 412; Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 51.

24 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 18–19, 45–47, 50–51, 373–74; Gizewski, “From Winning Weapon to
Destroyer of Worlds,” 414.

570 P. Avey
Regardless of the specific mechanism, scholars agree that the norm has
become more powerful over time. “Norms,” as Tannenwald puts it, “have a
recursive quality—they are strengthened each time they exert influence.” In-
dividuals, transnational groups, nations, and intergovernmental organizations
all worked to develop the non-use norm and leaders gradually responded.
Consolidation and widespread acceptance occurred sometime in the 1960s.25
Most also agree that the United States played a leading role in developing
the norm, though it is less clear what role democracy plays more generally.26
This was in large part because the United States was the earliest possessor
of nuclear weapons and refrained from nuclear use at several important
points. Contributions from other states paralleled or followed the American
development. It is in the United States then that the normative constraint

should be most apparent.
In sum, the non-use norm is a shared rule that proscribes using nuclear
weapons. Decision makers adhere to the norm for one or both of two rea-
sons. First, they fear the reputational consequences that would follow should
they violate the norm. Second, they believe that the norm is appropriate, it
is wrong for someone in their position to violate the norm, and adhering
to the norm affirms their identity as a “good” actor in international politics.
Sometime in the 1960s it began to be a major factor in constraining nuclear
state behavior, and it probably exerts its greatest impact on U.S. behavior.
Extending the Argument: Implications for Non-Nuclear States

The norm for non-use has implications beyond nuclear-state behavior.
Specifically, it can embolden non-nuclear states to challenge or resist a nu-
clear opponent. The reason is simple: non-nuclear state leaders recognize the
norm and believe nuclear states will be unlikely to use nuclear weapons as
a result. Knowledge of the norm “strengthened expectations of non-nuclear
states that nuclear weapons would not be used against them,” Tannenwald
argues.27 Paul contends that the norm explains the “apparent boldness” of
non-nuclear states confronting nuclear-armed opponents; non-nuclear states
calculate that “the nuclear state would be reluctant to use nuclear weapons,
as it would be breaking the global tradition against nuclear use.”28 Peter
25 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 64, see also ibid., 63–69, 241, 363; Quester, Nuclear First Strike,
13–14; Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 2–3, 26, 32–36, 64, 199; Gizewski, “From Winning
Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 398, 401–12, 415–17.
26 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 22–23, 366; John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold
War History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 111; Gaddis, Long Peace, chap. 5; Gizewski, “From
Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 415, 418; Price and Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence,” in
The Culture of National Security, 115, 144; Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 20, 38–123;
Paul, “Taboo or Tradition?,” 862.
27 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 3. See also ibid., 372.
28 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 144. See also ibid., 203–7; Paul, “Nuclear Taboo
and War Initiation in Regional Conflicts,” 700–701, 708, 710–14.

Gizewski agrees: “Evidence indicates that confidence in the efficacy of the

taboo was a significant factor in the decisions by non-nuclear nations to pur-
sue military action in disputes involving nuclear adversaries.”29 Paul Huth
and Bruce Russett contend that most of the time non-nuclear states do not
think nuclear use is credible because “normative inhibitions associated with
this disproportion [of nuclear destruction] made it absurd to consider nuclear
use a real possibility.”30
The argument applies to cases when the non-nuclear state resists a
challenge and to most cases when the nuclear state initiates a challenge.
Thus the norm will embolden non-nuclear states to discount the threat of
nuclear weapons in both offensive and defensive actions. As such, both types
of conflict can usefully shed light on the normative argument.31 The norm
should be particularly emboldening for a non-nuclear state contemplating

defensive action or resisting a compellent threat. The absence of a direct
threat to the nuclear state raises the threshold needed to justify violating
the norm for non-use. Non-nuclear states contemplating action face one
limitation: nuclear states may use nuclear weapons if their survival is at
stake.32 In these cases states will be less concerned about reputation costs.
In addition, states faced with an existential threat may justify behavior that
does not typically accord with their identity.
Military and Strategic Constraints on Nuclear Use

The main alternative explanation to why states refrain from using nuclear
weapons focuses on the consequences of nuclear use. In this sense it is
similar to the regulative mechanism in the normative argument. In con-
trast to that mechanism, though, the argument here highlights the mili-
tary and non-reputational strategic costs and benefits to utilizing nuclear
weapons. When the former outweigh the latter, states are less likely to
use nuclear weapons.33 There are several notable costs to using nuclear
weapons even when they might have short-term utility against enemy
targets.
First, the physical characteristics of nuclear weapons—in terms of both
yield and accuracy—deployed by most states throughout history make it
29 Gizewski, “From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 418–19.

30 Huth and Russett, “Deterrence Failure and Crisis Escalation,” 38. See also ibid., 34–35; Russett,
“Extended Deterrence with Nuclear Weapons,” 290.
31 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 143.
32 Ibid., chaps. 2, 7, 10; Huth and Russett, “Deterrence Failure and Crisis Escalation,” 34–35, 38;
Russett, “Extended Deterrence with Nuclear Weapons,” 290. For the distinction between compellence
and deterrence, see Schelling, Arms and Influence, 69–91.
33 Press, Sagan, and Valentino, “Atomic Aversion,” 191–92.
572 P. Avey
difficult to limit collateral damage.34 Nuclear use can end up destroying or ir-
radiating valuable territory, resources, and populations.35 Third parties—both
potential allies and adversaries—will almost certainly sanction states or inter-
vene directly if nuclear use harmed their territory, military, or citizens. This
is not for any concern about violating shared expectations for non-use but
simply material self-interest. Intervention could also come if other states had
strategic interests in the nuclear target state’s survival or role in the region.
Anticipating such outcomes, international or domestic actors may sanction
leaders that use or contemplate using nuclear weapons because they fear
enlarging a confrontation for which they are not prepared.
Second, nuclear use would almost always expand the level of violence
in the conflict.36 This encourages the opponent to expand the geographic
scope of the conflict and weapon systems deployed. For example, non-
nuclear opponents that possessed chemical or biological weapons might
decide it is now worthwhile to use those capabilities. The expanded level of
violence also introduces uncertainty onto the battlefield, which leaders often
seek to avoid.37
Third, and finally, state leaders may fear the longer-term negative conse-
quences from using nuclear weapons. This can manifest itself in two forms.
Some states may fear nuclear weapons will prove ineffective. This would
demonstrate the weakness of their ultimate deterrent and encourage future
aggression by the opponent or other states. For example, historian John
Lewis Gaddis notes that during the Korean War one of the American con-
cerns was that following nuclear use “the enemy might keep coming, and so
obvious a demonstration of the bomb’s ineffectiveness could impair its cred-
ibility elsewhere.”38 Alternatively, leaders may fear that nuclear weapons will
succeed all too well and encourage other states to develop nuclear capabil-
ities. Those states may one day use those capabilities against their interests.
At the least, more nuclear actors will reduce the nuclear state’s freedom of
action.39 This latter mechanism is similar to but distinct from arguments that
nuclear use would set a negative precedent by violating a shared expectation
34 This may be changing in the United States; see Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “The Nukes We
Need: Preserving the American Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 6 (November/December 2009): 39–51.
35 Sechser and Fuhrmann, “Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail,” 177; Press, Sagan, and
Valentino, “Atomic Aversion,” 191; Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 23–24; Mueller,
Atomic Obsession, 14–15, 61–63.
36 One notable exception was World War II. U.S. conventional bombing against Japan throughout
1945 killed more than the two nuclear bombs. The use of atomic bombs was therefore not an escalation
in the level of violence. For speculation that earlier American use might have caused Japan to expand
its level of violence, see Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War, 3rd ed. (London: Macmillan Press, [1973]
1988), 267–68.
37 Kenneth N. Waltz, “Waltz Responds to Sagan,” in The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate
Renewed, ed. Scott D. Sagan and Waltz (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 141.
38 Gaddis, We Now Know, 105–6.
39 Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), 3; Blainey, Causes of War, 280; Peter D. Feaver, “Optimists,
for non-use.40 The argument here is simply one of emulation: states in an

anarchic system will see the utility of nuclear weapons and seek to acquire
them either to deter nuclear use or, if deterrence fails, to use the weapons.41
In sum, the military and strategic argument focuses on the material costs
and benefits from using nuclear weapons. States are less likely to use nuclear
weapons when the costs outweigh the benefits. These include immediate
costs (such as destruction of desired territory or third parties intervening in
the conflict) as well as more diffuse costs (such as new proliferation after
nuclear use that reduces the nuclear state’s freedom of action).
Extending the Argument: Implications for Non-Nuclear States

The “military and strategic constraints” argument suggests an alternative pro-
cess for the non-nuclear state decision makers. Non-nuclear state leaders will
discuss the likelihood that the opponent utilizes nuclear weapons in the up-
coming conflict given the perceived costs and benefits for the nuclear state.
To the extent they are able, they will seek to increase the negative conse-
quences for the nuclear state to deploy these weapons. They will discount
the chances for nuclear strikes when they believe the strategic and material
costs of nuclear use to the nuclear state outweigh the benefits. They cannot
fully rule out nuclear use even then. As a result, one expects that they will
continue to make preparations to endure nuclear strikes should nuclear use
occur. This process should occur in decisions to both challenge and resist
nuclear-armed opponents.
Making preparations to endure and retaliate after nuclear strikes may
seem irrational. After all, if one cannot rule out nuclear use then why enter
the competition at all? However, it has a long history in international politics.
The United States and Soviet Union undertook various civil defense measures
and made extensive preparations to use nuclear weapons if deterrence failed.
This was done in part to enhance the deterrent by highlighting the negative
consequences of nuclear use to the opponent. Yet leaders understood that
they could not completely rule out nuclear use and such planning also served
as a hedge in the event deterrence failed. It should not be surprising that
non-nuclear states engage in similar processes.
Pessimists, and Theories of Nuclear Proliferation Management: Debate,” Security Studies 4, no. 4 (Summer
1995): 771.
40 Press, Sagan, and Valentino, “Atomic Aversion,” 191–92; Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 55.
41 On emulation, see Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Boston: McGraw Hill, 1979),
127–28; Barry R. Posen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power,” International Relations 18,
no. 2 (Fall 1993): 80–124.
574 P. Avey
Assessing Alternative Predictions

The discussion above outlined the normative and strategic non-use argu-
ments and extended those arguments to expectations for non-nuclear state
decision making. Tannenwald provides the clearest criteria for assessing the
relative role that the factors identified by the two arguments play in nuclear
state decision making. I therefore adopt that basic framework when assess-
ing the normative and strategic logics in non-nuclear state decision making.
First, what are the factors that the leadership identifies when discounting
nuclear use? Second, if multiple factors are present, which factors are most
important? Third, how should one interpret a lack of discussion?
For this type of analysis process evidence provides the most direct as-
sessment. Both arguments expect non-nuclear states to occasionally confront

nuclear-armed opponents. The decision-making processes will be very differ-
ent depending on whether the non-nuclear state is relying on the normative
or strategic logic. In other words, the reason that non-nuclear states discount
nuclear use is the main point of contention.
The first criteria is to assess what factors the non-nuclear state leadership
identified when contemplating and discounting nuclear use by the nuclear
opponent. In assessing the power of the norm to constrain nuclear states,
Tannenwald looks for evidence of “taboo talk” which “refers to explicit
reference to a perceived taboo or normative inhibition” against using nuclear
weapons.42 One should therefore look for similar “norm-talk” in non-nuclear
state decision making. The non-nuclear state leaders might reference the
norm directly or how normative considerations, such as public opinion, the
identity of the opponent, etc., prevent the opponent from using nuclear
weapons.
The military and strategic logic makes alternative predictions. It expects
non-nuclear state leaders to more actively incorporate the possibility of nu-
clear use into their thinking and subsequent behavior. For example, leaders
should explicitly discuss the conditions under which nuclear weapons might
be used and what military and strategic actions they can take to minimize
such an outcome. This discussion should take place at multiple meetings.
Next, to guard against the possibility of cheap talk, there should be evidence
that the non-nuclear state engages in costly behaviors that reflect leader dis-
cussions. This can include deliberate steps to minimize the risks for nuclear
retaliation and in some situations preparations to endure nuclear strikes. In
these cases the non-nuclear state appears to find little comfort in the belief
that the nuclear state’s identity considerations will keep it from using nuclear
weapons. It also undercuts the regulative mechanism by ignoring the norma-
tive reputation constraints—such as domestic and world opinion—that raise
42 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 51.

the costs for the nuclear state. Instead, it focuses on military and strategic
rationale for or against nuclear use.
The second criteria in evaluating the arguments is to determine whether
normative or strategic factors were more important than the other if non-
nuclear state leaders discussed both prior to acting. As Robert Jervis points
out, people often “adduce more beliefs than are necessary to produce the be-
havior.” Assessing the causal significance of a particular belief then requires
examining which beliefs were “most compatible with what the person be-
lieved over a prolonged period as well as fitting with other actions.”43 For
example, if the preponderance of statements highlighted normative consid-
erations over military factors then it is more likely that the norm played a
decisive role in decision making.44
The third, and final, criteria is to assess what the absence of discussion
on the nuclear issue might mean. How should one judge a lack of evi-
dence? There are many possibilities. For example, there could be a widely
shared understanding among non-nuclear state decision makers that in the
upcoming conflict nuclear weapons use would be militarily and strategically
counterproductive for the nuclear state. That would support the strategic
logic. Lack of evidence might also not mean there was lack of discussion;
the conversations may simply have not been recorded or remain classified.
To provide the strongest test I interpret the lack of discussion as support
for the normative proposition. Counting no discussion as evidence for the
normative claims therefore enhances the odds of finding evidence to support
the normative explanations. The basic normative claim is that the norm of
nuclear non-use may reach a level where it is simply taken for granted that
nuclear weapons will not be used.45 According to this argument, non-nuclear
state leaders do not discuss nuclear use because it is universally understood
that the norm constrains nuclear state decision making.
One final point is worth making. The non-nuclear state leaders’ percep-
tions of the internal deliberations on nuclear use in the nuclear state may or
may not be accurate. The inherent uncertainty in international politics and
cognitive biases in individuals means that there is no necessary reason why
perceptions must be correct. For example, a nuclear state may decide not
to violate a norm for non-use, but the non-nuclear state may base their es-
timates on the military and strategic logic. Conversely, the non-nuclear state
may erroneously believe that norms inhibit nuclear use when in fact the
nuclear state based their decision making on military considerations. I there-
fore focus on the non-nuclear state perceptions rather than the underlying
rationale for why the nuclear state did or did not utilize nuclear weapons.
43 Robert Jervis, “Understanding Beliefs,” Political Psychology 27, no. 5 (October 2006): 649.
44 This is similar to Tannenwald’s “burden of proof” method of analysis. Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo,
52–53, 69.
45 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 52.
576 P. Avey
TABLE 1 List of Wars between Nuclear and Non-Nuclear States, 1945–2007
Year War Nuclear State(s) Non-Nuclear State(s) Initiator
1950 Korean War United States North Korea, China North Korea
1956 Suez War United Kingdom Egypt Israel∗
1956 Soviet Invasion of Soviet Union Hungary Soviet Union
Hungary
1965 Vietnam War United States North Vietnam United States
1967 Six-Day War Israel Egypt, Jordan, Syria Israel
1968 Second Laotian United States North Vietnam North Vietnam
1969 War of Attrition Israel Egypt Egypt
1970 Communist United States North Vietnam North Vietnam
Coalition
1973 October War Israel Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Syria
Saudi Arabia, Syria

1979 Sino-Vietnamese China Vietnam China
Punitive
1982 Falklands War United Kingdom Argentina Argentina
1982 War over Lebanon Israel Syria Israel
1987 Sino-Vietnamese China Vietnam China
Border War
1990 Gulf War France, United Iraq Iraq
Kingdom, United
States∗∗
1999 Kosovo France, United Serbia France, United
Kingdom, United Kingdom, United
States States
2001 Afghanistan France, United Afghanistan United Kingdom,
Kingdom, United United States
States
2003 Iraq United Kingdom, Iraq United Kingdom,
United States United States
Source: Correlates of War List of Interstate Wars, v4.0, at http://www.correlatesofwar.org/
Notes: ∗ The United Kingdom coordinated with Israel prior to the assault.
∗∗ The starting date for the Gulf War for the three nuclear powers is 16 January 1991.
Case Selection
I focus the analysis on wars because it allows a clear test of whether the norm
emboldened non-nuclear states. It is difficult to assess the norm’s causal role
if states backed down; in those cases nuclear coercion may have worked.46
Similarly, the focus on situations where one state possessed nuclear weapons
and the other did not allows for an assessment of the role that the norm plays
independent of mutual nuclear deterrence. It also follows the case restrictions
made by the normative arguments.47 Table 1 presents the complete list of
46 Coercion refers to both compellence and deterrence; see Schelling, Arms and Influence, 71.
47 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, chap. 7.
wars between nuclear and non-nuclear states from 1945–2007 based on the
most recent version of the Correlates of War list of Interstate Wars.48
I further confine the analysis to wars that occurred after the 1960s when
the normative arguments assert the non-use norm began exerting strong in-
fluence on state behavior. It would not be surprising if there is little evidence
that non-nuclear states factored norms into their decision making before this
time period. This temporal limit provides a fairer test of such claims. I also
only examine cases in which the non-nuclear state had a clear choice to
avoid conflict. That is, the non-nuclear state’s homeland was not simply
attacked by the nuclear opponent.
Based on these criteria I examine two cases in detail: the Egyptian
decision to attack Israel in 1973 and the Iraqi decision to resist U.S. demands
in 1990–91. The Iraq case is particularly important to examine as it represents
a “critical case” for the norms arguments.49 If there is little evidence for the
norm in this case, it is unclear where the norm will embolden non-nuclear
state decision makers. This is due to four factors. First, there was no direct
threat to the United States. As noted above, normative arguments predict
that the norm will be more likely to constrain states—and that non-nuclear
states will believe it more likely to constrain nuclear states—when survival
is not at stake for the nuclear state. Second, scholars point to U.S. behavior
as an especially powerful example of the norm constraining nuclear use. If
non-nuclear states believe that the norm will constrain any nuclear state, it
should be the United States.50 Third, by 1990 the Iraqis would have had ample
opportunity to observe the norm through years of non-use. Finally, scholars
also explicitly identify the Iraq case as one where the norm influenced the
non-nuclear state’s decision making.51
The Egyptian decision to attack Israel provides one of the few instances
of a non-nuclear state deciding to attack territory adjacent to or part of the
nuclear state’s homeland.52 It offers a moderate test for norms arguments.
On the one hand, one expects to find less evidence of the norm mattering
because major threats to the nuclear state are the most likely cases where
48 Meredith Reid Sarkees and Frank Whelon Wayman, Resort to War, 1816–2007 (Washington, DC:
CQ Press, 2010); Correlates of War List of Interstate Wars, v4.0, at http://www.correlatesofwar.org/.
49 Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Handbook of Political Science:
Scope and Theory, ed. Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975); Alexan-
der L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 120–23.
50 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 23, 366; Gizewski, “From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,”
415, 418; Price and Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence,” in The Culture of National Security, ed.
Katzenstein, 115, 144; Gaddis, Long Peace, 146; Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 38, 92;
in contrast, see also ibid., 91.
51 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 154.
52 Argentina’s assault on the Falklands Island in 1982 constitutes another potential example. In that
case, though, Argentina did not expect the United Kingdom to fight at all. See Amy Oakes, Diversionary
War: Domestic Unrest and International Conflict (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), chap. 4.
578 P. Avey
nuclear states would violate a norm for restraint. On the other hand, the
Israeli atomic monopoly and obvious Israeli interest in defending its territory
(including that captured during the 1967 War) makes the assault all the more
surprising for deterrence explanations. Scholars suggest that some nonstrate-
gic factor or factors were at work in Egyptian decision making and point
to the norm as emboldening the Egyptians to discount the Israeli nuclear
arsenal.53
To be sure, the cases are not perfectly comparable. This provides some
benefit: if the norm can explain two such diverse cases, we gain greater
confidence it has broader impact. In addition, if idiosyncratic factors coun-
teract the norm in one case there remains the potential to explain the second
case. Finally, given the small number of potential cases, any further reduc-
tion in the pool to find perfectly comparable cases would leave it unclear
what instances the normative argument can potentially explain. In the end
the evidence presented here is a useful first cut; it cannot be said to be
dispositive.
ASSESSING THE EVIDENCE
In this section I assess the competing arguments by examining the historical

record. I discuss the Iraqi decision to fight the United States first as it is the
more important case. I then turn to the Egyptian decision to attack Israel in
1973.
Iraq, 1991
The evidence indicates that the Iraqis factored the American nuclear arsenal
into their decision making in a manner consistent with the military and
strategic rather than the normative argument. They frequently referenced
U.S. nuclear capabilities and undertook costly preparations in response. They
hoped that they could fight conventionally, were determined not to use
their own unconventional weapons first, and gambled that by holding those
unconventional weapons in reserve they could deter nuclear strikes. If that
failed, they implemented various civil and military measures to minimize the
impact of nuclear strikes. In the rest of this section I briefly outline the history
of the Gulf War before expanding on Iraqi beliefs and behavior regarding
the American nuclear arsenal.
Iraq invaded Kuwait during the early morning hours of 2 August 1990.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein tasked the elite Republican Guard with the
53 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, chap. 7. Avner Cohen argues that Israel’s reluctance
to explore the nuclear option stems from the non-use norm; Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under
Secrecy,” in Planning the Unthinkable, ed. Lavoy, Sagan, and Wirtz, 120–23.
operation. They did not disappoint. Within twenty-four hours they reached
the Kuwaiti capital, causing the royal family to flee. Within forty-eight hours
Iraq effectively controlled the country.
Iraq expected that the United States would react in some way. For exam-
ple, on 25 July—the same day that U.S. ambassador April Glaspie allegedly
gave Hussein a “green light” to invade Kuwait—the Iraqi General Military In-
telligence Directorate (GMID) reported that “the United States declared that
it would intervene to help Kuwait if there was any serious threat.”54
The focus in this article is on the role norms and strategic factors play
in non-nuclear state perceptions of opponents’ nuclear capabilities. It is nev-
ertheless important to briefly comment on why Iraq would fight in such an
unfavorable strategic environment. Emerging evidence suggests Iraqi leaders

believed they faced a dire situation in which, in Saddam Hussein’s words,
Iraq had to “defend by attacking.”55 Iraqi leaders had concluded, as Kevin
Woods notes in his detailed study on the Gulf War, that “time was not on
their side.”56 As Hussein remarked, Iraq’s situation was “like an army stand-
ing before a landmine, when they stop, the artillery will finish them. [T]o
overcome the landmines, they must pass it as quickly as possible and not
stand before it. It is the same thing with the International [community], if we
were to stop, we could be exposed to the death of our regime.”57 In other
words, faced with a deteriorating political situation Iraqi elites believed they
had to act before they lost the ability to act at all.58 In addition, as I dis-
cuss below, Iraq identified various strategic factors that would minimize the
chance for U.S. nuclear use in the upcoming conflict and, should that fail,
hedged by making preparations to endure nuclear strikes.
54 Quoted in Hal Brands and David Palkki, “‘Conspiring Bastards’: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic View
of the United States,” Diplomatic History 36, no. 3 (June 2012): 657n135. On the lack of a “green light,”
see ibid., 655–57.
55 Interview Session 9 with Saddam Hussein by Federal Bureau of Investigation, 24 February 2004,
5, at http://www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/10.pdf. See also “Oral History: Tariq Aziz,”

Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/aziz/1.html, originally broadcast 9 January
1996.
56 Kevin M. Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf
War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008), 48.

57 Quoted in Woods, Mother of All Battles, 48, brackets in original. See also F. Gregory Gause, “Iraq’s
Decision to go to War, 1980 and 1990,” Middle East Journal 56, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 56; “Saddam and
Members of the Ba’ath Party Discuss the Letter that Tariq Aziz Will Send to the Secretary of the Arab
League Laying Out Iraq’s Grievances toward Kuwait,” SH-SHTP-A-000-894, undated [shortly before 15
July 1990], Saddam Hussein Collection, Conflict Records Research Center (CRRC), in Kevin M. Woods,
David D. Palkki, and Mark E. Stout, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime,
1978–2001 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 169–71; Brands and Palkki, “‘Conspiring
Bastards,”’ 654–56.
58 This is consistent with both a windows logic in which states must jump through windows of
opportunity before they close and prospect theory in which individuals are willing to take greater risks
when they believe the situation is likely to get worse in the future. See, for example, Stephen Van Evera,
Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), chap. 4; Rose
McDermott, “Prospect Theory in Political Science: Gains and Losses From the First Decade,” Political
Psychology 25, no. 2 (2004): 289–312.
580 P. Avey
After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the United States quickly deployed
forces to the region and attained various UN resolutions to pressure Iraq,
culminating in UN Security Council Resolution 678 on 29 November 1990,
which authorized the growing American-led Coalition to “use all necessary
means” to force Iraqi withdrawal if the latter did not leave Kuwait by 15
January 1991. Iraq remained obstinate, with Hussein explaining to represen-
tatives from the Soviet Union that even if he withdrew the United States
would continue its campaign against Iraq.59
On 17 January 1991, Operation Desert Storm began with massive air
attacks on Iraqi forces and infrastructure. The punishing air campaign con-
tinued for over a month. Iraq attempted one brief offensive operation into
Saudi Arabia on 29 January, but the Coalition quickly routed the Iraqi forces.
On 24 February the main ground offensive began.60 After one hundred hours
President George H. W. Bush declared a unilateral cease-fire. Kuwait had
been liberated; the Iraqi army had been decimated.
The Iraqi elites discussed the American nuclear arsenal frequently
throughout the crisis period. It was not the case that the norm had been
internalized to make nuclear use unthinkable. Hussein privately informed
the Yemeni president in August 1990 that “we considered that America and
Israel . . . may attack us by the atomic bombs . . . we are ready for that.”61
During a January 1991 confidential meeting with Yasser Arafat the Iraqi pres-
ident boasted to his guest that they had carefully considered confronting the
United States including the “case of [America] bombarding Baghdad with
atomic bombs.”62
These statements often explicitly took American cost-benefit considera-
tions on nuclear use into account, consistent with the military and strategic
logic. “I know if the going gets hard, then the Americans or the British will
use the atomic weapons against me, and so will Israel,” Hussein told his
military advisors.63 At a Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) meeting on
11 October 1990, Iraqi leaders considered the likelihood and timing of an
American attack. During the meeting Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a member of
the RCC and Hussein’s inner circle, argued: “We must also expect that the
59“Meeting between Saddam Hussein and the Soviet Delegation,” SH-PDWN-D-000-533, 6 October
to 10 October 1990, CRRC, 18–20. See also Gause, “Iraq’s Decision to go to War, 1980 and 1990,” 60. I use
the CRRC pagination whenever citing directly from their collection. To examine these archival records I
obtained approval from the MIT Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects (Protocol
ID: 13090005901).
60 Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1996), chap. 7.

61 Quoted in Woods, Mother of All Battles, 95.
62 “Meeting between Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat,” SH-SHTP-D-000-611, circa January 1991,
CRRC, 5–6.
63 Quoted in Benjamin Buch and Scott D. Sagan, “Our Red Lines and Theirs,” ForeignPolicy.Com, 13
December 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/13/our_red_lines_and_theirs_hussein_

chemical_weapons, accessed 1 May 2014.
United States could hit us with a nuclear bomb, because the United States . . .
cannot imagine our situation, cannot fathom how a little country stands in
defiance in front of the United States and dares to challenge it and to win.”
He then added that “it is possible that if the United States hits us and after
six or seven months did not get the result and saw that the war is going to
start tearing the [American] people apart, it is possible that it will use nuclear
bombs to strike two or three cities.”64 That is, the Americans might escalate
to nuclear use if their conventional option failed and they did not withdraw
after enduring casualties as Iraqi leaders hoped.
This was not simply Hussein and his lieutenants blustering in private; the
Iraqis also instituted costly military and civil defense procedures to hedge
against American nuclear use. For example, Lieutenant General Ayad Fu-
tayyih Khalifa al-Rawi, the commander of the Republican Guard, recalled
that they “called in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Commander and
requested that he give us a plan to defend against a nuclear and biological at-
tack. [A]s it turned out, the American forces had within their arsenal [in Saudi
Arabia] Pershing missiles which have nuclear warheads. We studied these
missiles and their effects carefully and decided on a wide deployment.”65 It is
unlikely the United States actually had any nuclear-armed Pershing missiles
in the area.
The Iraqi regime also undertook extensive civil defense preparations
to deal with a nuclear attack.66 For instance, the Ministry of the Interior
tasked the High Committee for the Evacuation of Baghdad with “preparing an
evacuation plan for the city of Baghdad in the event that nuclear weapons are
used suddenly.” During a series of meetings from 17 October to 20 October
1990 the committee explicitly considered “the impact of a 20-kiloton nuclear
bomb on the city of Baghdad.”67 On 21 December there was a large-scale
evacuation drill conducted in Saddam City (Sadr City), a suburb of Baghdad.68
This was not done to enhance Iraqi morale. Indeed, top officials began
to worry the information was damaging the Iraqi will to resist making the
64 Quoted in Woods, Mother of All Battles, 159–60. For the full text of the meeting, see “Meeting
between Saddam Hussein and the Revolutionary Command Council,” SH-SHTP-A-000-670, 11 October
1990, CRRC.
65 Quoted in Woods, Mother of All Battles, 154, brackets in original. See also Woods, Pallki, and Stout,
eds., Saddam Tapes, 252–53n82; “Daily statements regarding the Iraq War in 1991,” SH-MISC-D-000-298,
entry for 7 February 1991, CRRC, 16.
66 CRRC has over one hundred pages of internal Iraqi documents discussing civil defense plans in
the event of a nuclear attack in the collection, “Correspondence between the Presidential Diwan and
several other Iraqi authorities discussing an emergency evacuation plan of different Iraqi cities in the case
of a nuclear attack,” SH-IDGS-D-001-431, 29 December 1990, CCRC. I identify the specific documents
when citing from this collection.
67 “The Evacuation Plan of the City of Baghdad upon the Sudden Use of Nuclear
Weapons—Attachment in Ministry of Interior to Baghdad Municipality,” SH-IDGS-D-001-431, circa 24

October 1990, CRRC, 83–85.
68 “Evaluation of the Evacuation Drill of Saddam City,” SH-IDGS-D-001-431, 29 December 1990,
CRRC, 1–2.
582 P. Avey
preparations costly. The issue was not that norms made such strikes unlikely
and thus the Iraqi campaign was not necessary. Iraqi leaders continued to
discuss the necessity of preventive measures in the event of nuclear strikes.
For instance, at a RCC meeting on 29 December, Ali Hassan al-Majid reported
to Hussein that “there is an explanation about the effects of atomic, nuclear
bombs, its efficacy, what does it do, how many people will it kill and how
many people will it decimate. All of this awareness is frightening people
and instilling fear. . . . We do not have to do that; we only have to provide
awareness about preventive measures of such bombs.”69 Al-Duri agreed:
“We do not have to explain what the bomb will do . . . we can explain only
the preventative measures.”70 Hussein acknowledged that such campaigns
negatively affected morale and pushed for a simpler option: “We should
decide on the evacuation plan and tell them that every citizen should befriend
a rural citizen, just in case the war expands and we are forced to evacuate.
We should not explain to the citizen what the atomic bomb will do.”71
The Iraqis had not simply resigned themselves to nuclear strikes, though.
A speech draft for Saddam Hussein, dated 12 August 1990, focused specifi-
cally on comments by “Samuel Nan” (likely U.S. Senator Samuel Nunn, D-GA)
that the United States would not rule out using “tactical atomic weapons”
in response to Iraqi chemical attacks.72 Though the focus was on tactical
nuclear weapons the document contains insight into Iraqi beliefs on what
might constrain U.S. nuclear use more broadly.
The notes raised three possible reasons the Americans might not use
nuclear weapons. The first highlighted the normative regulative mechanism,
while the second and third identified military and strategic constraints. First,
“if America was the one to start using such weapons, they will be dragged
down” and lose “international influence.” Second, any fighting would “be
inside the operation field of one of the biggest oil fields in the world. The
pollution would harm the world’s economy and ultimately it would cause
America an enormous horrifying crisis.” Third, the draft concluded that “what
is more important than these two factors, is that America knows or at least
can realize, that Iraq has weapons that could match their tactical weapons
and that Iraq is able to respond . . . by retaliating against their [American]
forces or retaliating against Israel. . . . Iraq will not hesitate to use whatever
he has in regards to weapons in order to slam the attack back.”73 The final
69 “The Revolutionary Command Council Discusses Civil Defense Measures and Iraqi Morale in the
Face of Potential Nuclear Strikes,” SH-SHTP-A-001-042, 29 December 1990, CRCC, in Woods, Pallki,
and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 243. All subsequent references to this document rely on the full version,
“Saddam Hussein and the Revolutionary Command Council Discussing the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait and
the Expected U.S. Attack,” CCRC, http://crrc.dodlive.mil/files/2013/06/SH-SHTP-A-001-042.pdf, accessed
1 May 2014.
70 SH-SHTP-A-001-042, CRRC, 8.
71 Ibid., 16.
72 “Saddam Hussein Speech Drafts,” SH-MISC-D-000-783, 12 August 1990, CRRC, 10.
73 Ibid., 10–13.
mechanism indicates a belief that a nuclear opponent will hesitate to raise the
level of violence with nuclear weapons if it invites a larger military response.
There are several reasons to take seriously the Iraqi claim that their own
threat of unconventional weapon retaliation was a particularly important fac-
tor. As Benjamin Buch and Scott D. Sagan report, “Saddam viewed chemical
weapons as a final trump card, to be held in reserve to deter American
or Israeli use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and to prevent
coalition forces from marching on Baghdad.”74 At the RCC meeting on 29
December 1990, Dr. Sa’doun Hammadi counseled that the Iraqi leadership
should attempt to calm nuclear anxiety by informing “our citizens that we
are not fighting the enemy with empty hands but with weapons.”75 Indeed,
throughout the fall of 1990 the Iraqi leadership asserted publicly and privately
that Iraq would utilize every weapon in their arsenal in an apparent attempt
at deterrence. The targets included Saudi Arabia, Israel, and American forces
in the region. To be sure, Hussein recognized that chemical weapons were
not fully equivalent to nuclear weapons.76 Yet when discussing the American
nuclear threat with his military advisors Hussein noted that “the only things
I have are chemical and biological weapons, and I shall have to use them. I
have no alternative.”77
This is not to say that the Iraqis would use the weapons first. They
sought to impose casualties on the Americans but were hesitant to use every
weapon in their arsenal to do so. At a meeting in mid-November 1990
longtime Hussein confidant and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz cautioned
that using chemical weapons “would give them [the Coalition] an excuse for
a nuclear attack.”78 During the second week of January 1991, Hussein stated
that Iraq would use chemical weapons “only in case we are obliged and
there is a great necessity to put them into action.”79 After the war, Iraq told
the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission that
“these weapons were only to be used in response to a nuclear attack on
Baghdad.”80
Iraqi behavior matched their planning. In mid-January 1991, Hussein
informed his advisors that Iraq would soon strike Israel with “conventional
74 Quoted in Buch and Sagan, “Our Red Lines and Theirs.”

75 SH-SHTP-A-001-042, CRRC, 11.
76 “Meeting between Saddam Hussein and the delegation of Jordanian Arab Democratic Youth,”
SH-SHTP-A-000-810, 25 December 1990, CRRC.

78 “Saddam and His Inner Circle Discuss Iraq’s WMD Capabilities and Deterrent Threats,” undated
[circa mid-November, 1990], in Woods, Pallki, and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 239. The precise country Aziz
was referring to is unclear, though the bulk of the discussion in the meeting centered on the United States.
See also Amatzia Baram, “Deterrence Lessons from Iraq: Rationality Is Not the Only Key to Containment,”
Foreign Affairs 91, no. 4 (July/August 2012): 76–90.
79 “Saddam’s Personal Involvement in WMD Planning,” undated [circa second week of January 1991],
in Charles Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, vol. 1, 2005,
99.
80 Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, 33.
584 P. Avey
missiles.” He added: “I mean we will use the other warheads, you know, in
return for the warheads they use.”81 On 8 January the commander of Iraq’s
surface-to-surface missiles Lt. Gen. Hazim Abd al-Razzaq al-Ayyubi received
instructions to use biological and chemical weapons “the moment a pertinent
order is given, or in the event of a massive strike against Iraq.”82 Woods
notes that Hussein “personally made clear to al-Ayyubi that conventional
weapons would be the first response option in case of a Coalition attack.
In case this last piece of guidance changed, Saddam dedicated a trusted
bodyguard to manage a special code word communication system with its
own dedicated radio and phone network to ensure communication with the
missile commander.”83
The conceptualization of the chemical arsenal as a deterrent force be-

comes more apparent when compared to Hussein’s decision to delegate
authority for burning the Kuwaiti oil fields. The Iraqi leadership viewed the
smoke as a valuable ally on the battlefield, capable of disrupting Coalition
air operations.84 It was thus not a strategic deterrent. On 13 January an aide
sought confirmation from Hussein that he had delegated the authority for
such operations:
Male 1: Sir, concerning the oil installations being prepared to be de-

stroyed, there is an order from Your Excellency to blow up these in-
stallations in case of a certain degree of danger, or we can wait for
an order from Your Excellency. However, Sir, because al-Wafra is near
the [Kuwait/Saudi Arabian] borders, Your Excellency has given the local
commander the authority to blow it up whenever he believes there is
danger. Now, Al-Burgan and the navy remain. Would they be included
according to the situation, or—
Saddam: According to the situation, according to the situation.
Male 1: That is to say, whenever we see it in danger—
Saddam: You could decide this according to the situation in the field of
operations—
Male 1: That is to say, it should not be spared, blow it up whenever the
situation becomes dangerous.
Saddam: God willing.85
81“Saddam and His Advisers Discuss Iraqi Missile Attacks on Targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia,”
undated [circa 17 or 18 January 1991], in Woods, Pallki, and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 251. See also Duelfer,
Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, 33–34.
82 Quoted in Woods, Mother of All Battles, 150.
83 Woods, Mother of All Battles, 150, 155; “Saddam’s Personal Involvement in WMD Planning,” second
week of January 1991, in Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD,
97–100.
84 “Saddam Hussein Meeting with Advisors Regarding the American Ground Attack during First Gulf
War,” SH-SHTP-A-000-931, 24 February 1991, 12; “Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Officials Discussing a US-led
Attack on Faylakah Island and the Condition of the Iraqi Army,” SH-SHTP-A-000-666, 24 February 1991,
14; Woods, Mother of All Battles, 132, 136, 179, 210–11.
85 “Iraq Considers How to Counteract the Coalition Air Assault,” 13 January 1991, in Woods, Pallki,
and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 181.

During the war the oil fields burned; the chemical weapons remained un-
used.
The Iraqi claim that nuclear weapons had political utility and that their
unconventional arsenal could deter nuclear use also matched longer-term
thinking and behavior. Throughout the 1980s Iraq pursued chemical, bio-
logical, and nuclear capabilities. In March 1979 Hussein explained that in
a hypothetical war with Israel “we will hear the Americans threatening that
if we don’t stop our advance, they will throw an atomic bomb at us. Then
we can tell them, ‘Yes, thank you, we will stop. What do you want?’ ‘Stop
and don’t move, not even one meter, otherwise we will throw an atomic
bomb on you,’ they reply. We will state that we have stopped, but we have
not given up.”86 In addition, Iraq recognized the value of an unconventional
deterrent against nuclear-armed states. “According to our technical, scien-

tific, and military calculations, [Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons are]
a sufficient deterrent to confront the Israeli nuclear weapon,” Hussein said
in July 1990.87
Finally, it is worth pointing out that Iraqi elites were not alone in thinking
the United States was capable of nuclear attacks. After one particularly large
explosion on 28 January 1991, both the Soviet and the Israeli governments
contacted the United States to ask if the latter had detonated a nuclear
weapon. A few days later another large explosion prompted a British soldier
to announce on open radio that “the blokes [Americans] have just nuked
Kuwait.”88
That the Iraqis and other international actors did not consider the Amer-
icans normatively constrained is particularly noteworthy because the United
States never seriously considered nuclear use. Colin Powell, then chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled he brushed off a call for nuclear planning:
“Let’s not even think about nukes. You know we’re not going to let that ge-
nie loose.”89 Former U.S. national security advisor Brent Scowcroft wrote that
at a meeting of top U.S. officials on 24 December 1990, “No one advanced
the notion of using nuclear weapons, and the President rejected it even in
retaliation for chemical or biological attacks. We deliberately avoided spo-
ken or unspoken threats to use them on the grounds that it is bad practice
to threaten something you have no intention of carrying out.”90 This was
not a closely guarded secret. Various media outlets made the U.S. aversion
to nuclear use public very early in the crisis. For instance, the Los Angeles
Times wrote on 2 October 1990, that U.S. military officials stated that the
86 “Saddam Predicts the Effects Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Would Have on Conventional Warfare with
Israel,” 27 March 1979, in Woods, Pallki, and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 224.
88 Scott D. Sagan, “More Will Be Worse,” in Sagan and Waltz, Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 80–81.
89 Quoted in Tannenwald, “Nuclear Taboo,” 459.
90 George W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Vintage Books, 1998),
463.
586 P. Avey
“United States has placed no nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia or surround-

ing countries and has no plans to use them even in response to an Iraqi
attack using chemical or biological weapons.”91 Moreover, Iraqi discussions
of American nuclear use preceded Secretary of State James Baker’s 9 January
1991 implicit warnings that the United States would use nuclear weapons
should Iraq cross various “red-lines.”92 Iraq had already set its own red-lines.
Despite the mixed-signals, then, Iraq very early on decided that the
United States might use nuclear weapons if it was in the American strategic
interest to do so. They hoped inflicting some casualties would force the
United States to withdraw but, failing that, they held their chemical arsenal
in reserve to alter the American strategic calculus to minimize the chances
for nuclear use. In the event that failed they would be forced to fall back on
their civil and military defense preparations.
Egypt, 1973
The evidence is more ambiguous in the Egyptian case than the Iraqi case.
This is due in large part to the lack of access to Egyptian government records.
As a result the conclusions must remain tentative. Yet the available evidence
does suggest that the Egyptians took the Israeli nuclear threat seriously. They
hoped that the superpowers would constrain Israeli nuclear retaliation in a
limited conflict. During the 1973 war they communicated their limited aims
to the Americans and thus indirectly to the Israelis. Similar to Iraq, there
was also some hope that their chemical weapons might act as a deterrent
to nuclear use. In the rest of this section I first outline the history of the
October War. I then establish that the Egyptians were well aware of Israeli
nuclear capabilities. Next, I discuss Egyptian beliefs on Israeli nuclear use
and Egyptian efforts to minimize the odds of a nuclear strike.
Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat decided to initiate a limited offen-
sive against Israel in 1973. The purpose was to arrest what Sadat perceived
as a deteriorating international situation that made recapture of the Sinai
Peninsula more difficult and force the United States and Soviet Union to
pressure Israel to return the Sinai that Israel captured during the 1967 Six-
Day War.93 Egyptian war plans recognized Egypt’s conventional inferiority
and therefore centered on crossing the Suez Canal and then digging in for the
inevitable Israeli counterattack. During a meeting with the Egyptian Armed
Forces Supreme Council on 24 October 1972, the military pressed Sadat on
91“U.S. Forces Have No Nuclear Arms in Gulf States, No Plans to Use Them,” Los Angeles Times,
2 October 1990, A6, http//:articles.latimes.com/1990-10-02/news/mn-1732_1_tactical-nuclear-weapons,
accessed 1 May 2014.
92 On Secretary James Baker’s warning, see Woods, Pallki, and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 221–22.
93 Craig A. Daigle, The Limits of Détente: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Arab-Israeli
Conflict, 1969–1973 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 294–331.
the strategic goal: “Is the object the liberation of the occupied territories or is
it merely a resumption of military activities so as to give you a better chance
of a political solution?” Sadat replied: “Breaking the ceasefire.”94 True, Sadat
told Syria’s president Hafez al-Assad in 1973 that Egypt would go further to
seize the strategic Giddi and Mitla Passes and from there retake the entire
Sinai. Privately, though, Sadat ordered the military to only focus on taking six
to nine miles on the east side of the Suez Canal. Further plans were merely a
ruse to maintain Syrian support.95 After all, as Sadat explained to two senior
Soviet military officials in March 1971, “I have to shake up the world and
draw its attention to this problem. I need to gain only ten centimeters of
land east of Suez. That is all.”96 Importantly, improved civil-military relations
and training in Egypt gave Sadat the confidence his military would execute
the orders for a limited, rather than expansive, attack.97
Egypt launched the assault on Israel at 2 p.m. on 6 October 1973.
Under cover of artillery barrage and their surface-to-air missile shield the
Egyptians managed to place 90,000 men and 850 tanks across the Suez
Canal by the next morning. Egyptian commando teams operated in the Israeli
rear to disrupt reinforcements. At the same time, the main body of troops
moved to eliminate the series of Israeli forts along the Israeli Bar-Lev line
and set up defensive positions. They beat back hasty Israeli counterattacks
on 6 and 8 October, inflicting heavy losses on the Israeli armor and air
forces. The Egyptians advanced steadily, hoping to reach their six-to-nine-
mile penetration goal. Sadat and Ahmad Ismail Ali, the commander in chief
and war minister, refused to press the attack forward to the Giddi and Mitla
Passes deeper in the Sinai for several days despite pressure from Egyptian
generals. On 14 October the Egyptians made another assault, this time aiming
to capture the passes. Israeli armor and air superiority quickly defeated the
new Egyptian attack.98 As the Egyptian situation deteriorated Sadat agreed to
94 Quoted in Saad el Shazly, The Crossing of the Suez (San Francisco, CA: American Mideast Research,
1980), 179–80. See also Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs of Field Marshal el-Gamasy
of Egypt, trans. Gillian Potter, Nadra Morcos, and Rosette Frances (Cairo: American University in Cairo
Press, 1993), 149–50.
95 Avraham Sela, “The 1973 Arab War Coalition: Aims, Coherence, and Gain-Distribution,” Israel
Affairs 6, no. 1 (Autumn 1999): 55–56; Yoram Meital, Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change,
1967–1977 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1997), 115; Daigle, Limits of Détente, 285–86; Amr
Youssef, “Sadat as Supreme Commander,” Journal of Strategic Studies 37, no. 4 (August 2014): 543.
96 Quoted in Victor Israelyan, Inside the Kremlin during the Yom Kippur War (University Park:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 72. See also Meital, Egypt’s Struggle for Peace, 114; Youssef,
“Sadat as Supreme Commander,” 542.
97 Risa Brooks, “An Autocracy at War: Explaining Egypt’s Military Effectiveness, 1967 and 1973,”
Security Studies 15, no. 3 (July 2006): 419–27.

98 Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (Lincoln: University of Ne-
braska Press, 2002), 108–17; Donald Neff, Warriors Against Israel (Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1988),
141–46, 163–66, 173–85, 198, 204–5, 226–31; George W. Gawrych, The Albatross of Decisive Victory: War
and Policy between Egypt and Israel in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 2000), 170–79, 184–94, 205–10.
588 P. Avey
accept a joint U.S.-Soviet cease-fire. After Israel completed the encirclement

of the Egyptian Third Army the two sides began negotiations. The stage was
set for six years of diplomacy that would lead to Israeli withdrawals across
the Sinai followed by Egyptian-Israeli peace.99
Egyptian leaders recognized the Israeli nuclear arsenal despite the lat-
ter’s refusal to admit its possession of nuclear weapons (a refusal that con-
tinues to this day). Sadat and his predecessor as Egyptian president, Gamal
Abdel Nasser, both publicly acknowledged the existence of Israeli nuclear
weapons.100 Mohamed Heikal, the influential editor of the newspaper -Al-
Ahram and confidant to Nasser, wrote that in 1969 Nasser told Libya’s Muam-
mar Gaddafi that Israel likely possessed nuclear weapons.101 In any event, it
was not a well-kept secret. In January 1970 the New York Times reported that
“for at least two years the United States Government has been conducting its
Middle East policy on the assumption that Israel either possesses an atomic
bomb or has component parts available for quick assembly.”102
The Egyptians had long raised concerns over Israeli nuclear capabili-
ties. It was not the case, then, that Egyptian leaders had internalized—or had
confidence that Israel internalized—a belief that norms would inhibit Israeli
nuclear use. To be sure, Egyptian activity was in part to press other actors,
particularly the United States, to reign in the Israeli nuclear program. Yet it
also reveals an underlying anxiety with the Israeli nuclear program that sug-
gests Egypt did not discount Israel’s willingness to utilize nuclear weapons
if it was in the latter’s interest to do so. For example, when U.S. secretary of
state Dean Rusk raised the possibility of an Israeli nuclear bomb with Sadat,
then president of the Egyptian National Assembly, the latter remarked that
Egypt “felt equal concern and would be forced [to] launch [a] preventive war
if Israel acquired [a nuclear] bomb.”103 Egypt did not launch such a war but
the unease remained. After 1968, Egypt sought to leverage the nuclear non-
proliferation treaty to force Israel to give up its nuclear program.104 Unable to
utilize nonproliferation norms to reign in the Israeli nuclear program Egypt
hedged with its own weapons programs. Indeed, at least part of the rea-
son Egypt sought and then maintained a chemical weapon capability was to
offset the Israeli nuclear advantage. As one former Egyptian military official
99 Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security and Foreign Policy
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 420–36.

100 Elbridge Colby et al,, “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973: Deterrence and Signaling in Crisis,” CNA
Analysis and Solutions, 30 April 2013, 10.

101 Mohamed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Quadrangle, 1975), 76–77.
102 Quoted in Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 337.
103 Telegram from Department of State to Embassy in the United Arab Republic, 28 February 1966,
Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 1964–68, vol. 18, doc. 277 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office [GPO]). See also Ariel E. Levite and Emily B. Landau, “Arab Perceptions of Israel’s Nuclear
Posture, 1960–1967,” Israel Studies 1, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 34–59.
104 Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms, chap. 4.
explained, “Egypt worked in two tracks: we tried to get rid of Israel’s nu-
clear weapons through diplomatic efforts, and we sought military alternatives
such as strong conventional forces, surface-to-surface missiles, and chemi-
cal weapons options.”105 As in the Iraqi case, the Egyptian elites recognized
chemical weapons were not fully equivalent to nuclear weapons. Yet, as
Maria Post Rublee notes, the Egyptian chemical weapons “may have helped
assuage both security concerns and psychological needs: Egypt would not
be left without any defense against a WMD attack and in fact could launch
one of its own.”106
The Egyptians kept up a steady stream of pressure on the United States
over the Israeli nuclear arsenal. In a meeting with President Richard Nixon in
February 1973, Hafiz Ismail, the Egyptian national security adviser, “pointed
out the development of long-range missiles and atomic weapon research
going on in Israel. He asked rhetorically if Egypt could rest in peace when
a sick member of the Middle East club across the river was doing such
things.”107 At a separate meeting a few days later with U.S. national security
advisor Henry Kissinger, Dr. Hafiz Ghanim, a member of the Central Com-
mittee of the Arab Socialist Union, raised the possibility of at least limiting
Israeli nuclear arms.108 In May 1973 Ismail again raised the issue of nuclear
delivery capabilities with Kissinger, highlighting the “enormous data about
political and technical aspects of the employment of atomic weapons [that]
are being forwarded to Israel.” Kissinger asked where Ismail believed such
information originated. Ismail replied simply: “From the United States.”109
There is evidence that both Egypt and Syria believed that U.S. and
Soviet interests would constrain Israel from utilizing nuclear weapons.110 For
instance, officials in Damascus at the time did not take Israel’s nuclear option
“seriously because the Soviet Union and the United States would not have
permitted such an event to happen.”111 Egypt shared this viewpoint. Nasser
reportedly said that it was impossible to destroy Israel because “neither the
Russians nor the Americans would permit a situation that might lead to
105 Quoted in Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms, 138. See also Gawdat Bahgat, “Nuclear Proliferation:
Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies 43, no. 3 (March 2007): 113–33, 410.
106 Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms, 138.
107 Nixon and Ismail, memorandum of communication (memcom), 23 Feb. 1973, FRUS, 1969–76,
vol. 25, 76. See also Secret Talks with Hafiz Ismail in New York, 25 Feb. 1973, Digital National Security
Archive (DNSA), Kissinger Transcripts (KT), Item KT00681.
108 Secret Meeting with Hafiz Ismail in New York, 26 Feb. 1973, DNSA, KT, Item KT00682, 28.
Interestingly, Ismail immediately interrupted Dr. Muhammad Hafiz Ghanim, stating “We are not discussing
this.”
109 Secret conversation with Hafiz Ismail in France, 20 May 1973, DNSA, KT, Item KT00732, 17. See
also Memorandum, Kissinger to Nixon, 20 May 1973, FRUS, 1969–76, vol. 25, 189.
110 Israel’s nuclear force posture may have encouraged such thinking; see Narang, “What Does it
Take to Deter?”
111 Quoted in Richard B. Parker, ed., The October War: A Retrospective (Gainesville: University of
Florida Press 2001), 119.

590 P. Avey
nuclear war.”112 The focus on the general U.S. restraining influence on Israel
continued into the Sadat years.113 The Egyptian general staff concluded in
1972–73 that the “superpowers would not allow a complete victory by either
side,” writes Donald Neff.114 One former Egyptian military official noted that
“there was some gambling that Israel would not go nuclear unless we crossed
their borders.”115 Though it is unclear exactly what borders the official was
referring to, the sentiment fits the other evidence that Egypt set its own red-
lines for an attack, gambling that the superpowers could be counted on to
restrain Israel unless Egypt threatened Israeli destruction.
Egyptian behavior during the 1973 War was consistent with these under-
lying beliefs. As noted above, Egypt never planned to threaten the pre-1967
Israeli borders or even advance deep into the Sinai. Early in the war Sadat
used backchannels to communicate this to Kissinger, stating that Egypt did
“not intend to deepen the engagements or widen the confrontation.”116 The
new secretary of state took the pledge seriously and replied that “the United
States will use its maximum influence to prevent any [Israeli] attack on [Egyp-
tian] civilian targets. Strong representations to that effect have been made to
the Israeli Government.”117 True, the Egyptians advanced their forces on 14
October in response to Syrian pleas.118 Importantly, the Soviet ambassador
to Egypt, Vladimir Vinogradov, had informed Sadat shortly before the offen-
sive that the Soviet command approved of an Egyptian operation to take the
passes.119
112 Heikal, Road to Ramadan, 76.

113 See, for example, Meeting with Mahmoud Fawzi on 10 April 1969, [document dated 29 May 1969],
DNSA, KT, Item KT00023, 2; Memorandum of conversation between Richard Nixon and Hafiz Ismail, 23
Feb. 1973, FRUS, 1969–76, vol. 25, 72–78; Secret Meeting with Hafiz Ismail in New York, 25 Feb. 1973,
DNSA, KT, Item KT00681, 31–32; Secret Meeting with Hafiz Ismail in New York, 26 Feb. 1973, DNSA, KT,
Item KT00682, 2; Secret conversation with Hafiz Ismail in France, 20 May 1973, DNSA, KT, Item KT00732,
10, 16–17; Youssef, “Sadat as Supreme Commander,” 538–39.
114 Neff, Warriors against Israel, 119.
115 Quoted in Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms, 117.
116 Backchannel message from the Egyptian Presidential Adviser for National Security Affairs (Ismail)
to Secretary of State Kissinger, 7 October 1973, FRUS, 1969–76, vol. 25, 347. See also Colby et al., “The
Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973,” 13n20.
117 Backchannel message from Secretary of State Kissinger to the Egyptian Presidential Advisor for
National Security Affairs (Ismail), undated [12 Oct. 1973], FRUS, 1969–76, vol. 25, 447. See also Minutes
of Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG) Meeting, 7 Oct. 1973, ibid., 355.
118 Neff, Warriors Against Israel, 213–14; Pollack, Arabs at War, 114–16; Meital, Egypt’s Struggle
for Peace, 122; Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, 157–58; Gawrych, Albatross of Decisive Victory, 202–6;
Brooks, “An Autocracy at War,” 423.
119 Israelyan, Inside the Kremlin during the Yom Kippur War, 71–72. On various Soviet extended
deterrence overtures in the 1960s and 1970s, see Shlomo Aronson and Oded Brosh, The Politics and
Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Teality (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1992), 99, 135; Michael Karpin, The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear
and What That Means for the World (New York: Simon and Shuster, 2006), 274; Cohen, Israel and the
Bomb, 275–76; Isabella Ginor, “‘Under the Yellow Arab Helmet Gleamed Blue Russian Eyes’: Operation
Kavkaz and the War of Attrition, 1969–70,” Cold War History 3, no. 1 (October 2002): 129; Minutes of
Bipartisan Leadership Meeting, 27 Nov. 1973, FRUS, 1969–76, vol. 25, 993.
Thus, as long as the Egyptians did not advance deep into the Sinai the
superpowers could be expected to restrain the Israelis. Faced with a more
determined assault, though, the Israelis would likely act to preserve their
state and worry about superpower sanctions later. This is consistent with the
basic military/strategic logic. Specifically, a non-nuclear state can discount
nuclear weapons if it believes that its opponent—in this case Israel—would
fear using the weapons would result in sanctions or direct intervention by
outside actors.
One might argue that this is also consistent with normative arguments
in two ways. The first way in which normative claims would be supported
is if Egyptian leaders recognized that Israeli leaders would not use nuclear
weapons short of an existential threat either because Israeli leaders consid-

ered use incompatible with their self-image or feared reputational sanctions
for norm violation.
Though the available evidence cannot eliminate this possibility it does
suggest that it is unlikely Egypt expected norms to constrain Israeli decision
making in this way. First, while there is direct evidence that Egypt discussed
the Israeli nuclear arsenal (and thus there is not a total absence of discus-
sion) I found no direct evidence that Egypt believed a norm for non-use
constrained Israel. This is hardly dispositive, so additional evidence is nec-
essary to try to complete the puzzle.120 The second reason to doubt norms
were more important than strategic factors focuses on the mechanism of
constraint. The Egyptians did not focus on the normative mechanism of rep-
utational consequences to Israel after nuclear use. Rather, they focused on
the physical capability of the United States, and to a lesser extent the Soviet
Union, to constrain the Israelis. Third, Egypt was long concerned with Israeli
nuclear capabilities and sought to offset partially the Israeli advantage with
superpower support and development of chemical weapons. It is unlikely
Egyptian elites fundamentally transformed their thinking for a brief period in
1973. Finally, the fact that Egypt felt compelled to convey the limited nature
of the assault to Israel suggests an Egyptian concern that Israel might panic
and use nuclear weapons while Egyptian forces were holding positions in
the Sinai, that is, well before there was an actual existential threat to Israel.
The second way that normative arguments would be supported is if the
norm operated indirectly, that is, if the United States acted primarily out of
a desire to uphold the norm for non-use. The evidence allows a more thor-
ough treatment of this claim and does not support the normative arguments.
Rather, the United States acted because it hoped to prevent an expansion
of the war that could lead to several undesirable strategic outcomes. First,
the Soviets might intervene directly against Israel. “Should Israel brandish
nuclear weapons, the Soviets would counter it and it would be very danger-
ous for Israel,” Kissinger explained to congressional leaders shortly after the
120 On the following points, see pages 588–590, above.

592 P. Avey
conflict.121 Second, a larger Egyptian-Israeli conflict threatened to lead to a

direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed,
the mere suggestion by the Soviets on 24 October that they might intervene
to prevent the Israeli destruction of the Egyptian Third Army prompted the
infamous 1973 U.S. nuclear alert.122 Third, even if the Soviets did not in-
tervene directly in the fighting, an expansion of the conflict that inflicted a
major defeat on the Arab forces would provide the Soviets an opportunity
to regain influence in the region. This would undermine the long-term U.S.
foreign policy goal to reduce the Soviet role in the Middle East.123
Two final points are worth making. First, American officials seemed to
share the basic Egyptian assessment of the situation. If Israel’s closest ally
after 1967 believed it might use nuclear weapons if it were in its interest
to do so it would be surprising that adversaries did not. “We must at least
contemplate the possibility that, faced with a massive Arab attack, Israel
might launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” the assistant secretary of defense
for International Affairs argued in 1968. Such use would present the United
States with few palatable options.124 At the height of the October War a
National Security Council (NSC) memorandum noted that “the Israelis will
probably use an atomic bomb before they concede the 1967 borders.”125 In
1991 William Quandt, an American NSC official at the time, wrote that Israel
might make “a nuclear threat . . . if Egyptian troops broke through at the
passes [that is, deeper in the Sinai and thus closer to Israel proper]. None of
this had to be spelled out in so many words by the Israelis.”126
Second, as in the Iraqi confrontation with the United States in 1990,
there was little active discussion in Israel to resort to nuclear weapons.127
To be sure, there is evidence that Israel undertook some sort of operational
check of its Jericho missiles and perhaps its nuclear warheads. There is little
to suggest, though, that Israel’s top leaders—with the possible exception
of Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan—seriously contemplated using a
nuclear weapon. This was true of both a nuclear demonstration over an
121 Minutes of Bipartisan Leadership Meeting, 27 Nov. 1973, FRUS, 1973, vol. 25, 993.
122 For the Soviet note, see Message from Brezhnev to Nixon, 24 October 1973, National Secu-
rity Archive, The October War and U.S. Policy, available at http://www2.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/
NSAEBB98/index.htm#doc71, accessed 1 May 2014. On the U.S. reaction see Memorandum for the record,
24/25 Oct. 1973, FRUS, 1973, vol. 25, 737–42; Minutes of Bipartisan Leadership Meeting, 27 Nov. 1973,
FRUS, 1973, vol. 25, 990. Nixon raised this fear as early as 1970, see Richard B. Parker, The Politics of
Miscalculation in the Middle East ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 134–35.
123 On the U.S. desire to remove the Soviet presence, see Daigle, Limits of Détente, esp. 122–23, 171,
180–88, 344–45.
124 Memorandum from Warnke to Clifford, 29 Oct. 1968, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. 20, doc. 295. See also
Rusk to Johnson, 10 May 1965, FRUS, 1964–68, vol. 18, doc. 214.
125 Memorandum from Helmut Sonnenfeldt [NSC] to Kissinger, 13 Oct. 1973, FRUS, 1969–73, vol. 25,
478.
126 Quoted in Colby et al., “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973,” 27.
127 See Colby et al., “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973”; Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under
Secrecy,” in Lavoy, Sagan, and Wirtz, eds., Planning the Unthinkable, 117–22.
uninhabited area to gain American attention as well as any thought of striking

Egyptian forces or territory directly.
IMPLICATIONS AND AREAS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
There has been a proliferation of research on the role of norms in con-

straining nuclear use in recent years. Many argue that these norms provide
an important part, if not the most important part, in explaining why non-
nuclear states confront nuclear states: everyone knows that nuclear weapons
are off the table. To date, however, there have been few efforts to assess this
important claim. This article takes a first step at addressing the gap in the
literature. It found little evidence that Egyptian and Iraqi leaders discounted
the credibility of nuclear use due to normative considerations. Rather, in
these cases the non-nuclear state considered nuclear use a real possibility if
it was in the nuclear state’s interests to execute such a strike. Importantly,
non-nuclear states have factored nuclear weapons into their decision mak-
ing even when fighting for issues not directly related to Bundy’s “mortal”
questions such as the nuclear state’s territory or survival. To combat nuclear
use Iraq and Egypt set their own red-lines for conduct and sought diverse
solutions to minimize the strategic incentives for the nuclear state to utilize
its weapons. In doing so, they gambled that strategic, rather than normative,
factors would minimize the odds for nuclear use.
This analysis also highlights the importance of looking at underlying
decision-making processes.128 For instance, one could argue that deterrence
both did and did not work; the coercive effects of nuclear weapons were
subtle. Nuclear weapons were not the only factor influencing non-nuclear
state behavior, but they did affect how the non-nuclear state pursued its
goals. This type of analysis can also help advance debates on “how much is
enough.”129 Egyptian leaders faced an Israeli arsenal that likely possessed no
more than fifteen low-yield atomic bombs.130 From the evidence available it
appears that the Iraqis ignored the size and scope of the U.S. arsenal. Rather,
Iraqi leaders spoke of the destruction of two or three cities and twenty-
kiloton yields. At least in these cases the possibility of a few nuclear strikes
seemed sufficient to influence behavior.
This article suggests several additional questions future research should
address. First, in both cases the non-nuclear state acted to minimize the odds
128 For an ongoing debate on this issue in nuclear studies, see the exchanges in “What We Talk about
When We Talk about Nuclear Weapons,” H-Diplo|ISSF Forum, no. 2, 15 June 2014, http://issforum.org/
ISSF/PDF/ISSF-Forum-2.pdf, accessed 12 January 2014.
129 For a comprehensive review and discussion, see Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, The Limits of
the Nuclear Revolution (unpublished book manuscript, 2015), chap. 3.

130 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945–2013,”
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 69, no. 5 (2013).

594 P. Avey
for nuclear use despite the fact that the nuclear opponent gave little serious
consideration to actual nuclear use. Whether normative or strategic factors
explain this forbearance in the nuclear state is beyond the scope of this
article. Regarding Iraq, a debate already exists as to whether U.S. restraint
was primarily due to normative considerations or fears that nuclear use would
lead to additional proliferation in a situation when there was little military
necessity to use nuclear weapons.131 Some argue that the norm of non-use
was responsible for Israeli decision making in 1973. Yet a strategic argument
is also possible to construct. The details of the tacit agreement between Israeli
prime minister Golda Meir and Nixon are still unclear, but it seems likely that
the United States sought to keep the Israeli nuclear arsenal as unobtrusive
as possible.132 Meir may have been unwilling to antagonize Israel’s patron
until the military situation absolutely necessitated such behavior.

Regardless of what factors mattered most in the nuclear state decision
making, the source of the disconnect is worth investigating in more detail.
Three possibilities present themselves. First, it could be that the non-nuclear
state’s intelligence reported nuclear activity that was not actually present.
There is some evidence that Iraq mistakenly believed the United States had
deployed nuclear-armed Pershing missiles. Yet Iraqi thinking seemed to fo-
cus more on the potential for nuclear strikes regardless of the particular
delivery platform. Second, it could be misperception by the non-nuclear
state leaders. Yet again the thinking by Sadat and Hussein seemed more
general than this: the opponent had nuclear weapons and might use them.
This leads to a third and perhaps most likely source: hedging. In an anarchic
international environment it makes some sense to prepare for the worst pos-
sible outcome and make efforts to reduce the likelihood of that outcome.
The general human tendency to distrust members of an “out-group” rein-
forces this logic.133 In the two cases examined here, both states believed
they faced a deteriorating international situation and took steps to lever-
age the military/strategic factors that might constrain the nuclear opponent.
Future research should investigate these possibilities in more detail.
A second avenue future research can usefully explore is when norms
and strategic factors are most likely to influence non-nuclear state decision
making. This article suggests two particularly important features. First, con-
sistent with normative claims, when there is a potential existential threat to
131Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo; Sagan, “Realist Perspectives on Ethical Norms and Weapons of
Mass Destruction.”
132 See the discussion and documents edited by William Burr and Avner Cohen, “Israel Crosses
the Threshold II: The Nixon Administration Debates the Emergence of the Israeli Nuclear Program,” 12
September 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb485/, accessed 12 January 2015.
133 Marilyn B. Brewer, “The Psychology of Prejudice: Ingroup Love or Outgroup Hate?” Journal of
Social Issues 55, no. 3 (1999): 432, 435, 442; Omar Shahabudin McDoom, “The Psychology of Threat
in Intergroup Conflict: Emotions, Rationality, and Opportunity in the Rwandan Genocide,” International
Security 37, no. 2 (Fall 2012): 122, 130–31; J. M. Goldgeier and P. E. Tetlock, “Psychology and International
Relations Theory,” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (June 2001): 74–75.
the nuclear state, the norm will likely matter less. As a result, the non-nuclear
state will rely more heavily on strategic factors.
Second, future research can examine the role that regime-type plays
in determining whether strategic or normative factors loom larger. Rely-
ing on ideal types of democracy and autocracy, there are theoretically four
types of non-nuclear versus nuclear interactions: autocracy versus democ-
racy, democracy versus autocracy, autocracy versus autocracy, and democ-
racy versus democracy. A test of all four types was beyond the scope of
this article, yet some hypotheses can be identified. Theory suggests that au-
tocracies are less likely to internalize and externalize nonviolent normative
inhibitions than democracies.134 This is not to argue autocracies do not adopt
various norms, merely that they are less likely to do so than their democratic
counterparts. Thus, one expects the nuclear non-use norm to matter more
in confrontations when both sides are democratic than when both sides
are autocratic. The former cases are likely to be rare, as ample research
shows democracies are unlikely to fight in the first place.135 In mixed-regime
interactions one expects strategic factors to loom larger than norms when
non-nuclear democracies confront nuclear autocracies. The reason is the
same as outlined above: leaders are unlikely to believe autocratic opponents
will observe nuclear non-use norms.136 For instance, it is hard to image U.S.
leaders unilaterally getting rid of the nuclear arsenal and trusting to Russian
or Chinese adherence to the norm of nuclear non-use.137 The analysis in this
paper focused on the final and potentially most interesting cases: when non-
nuclear autocracies confront nuclear democracies. In Iraq, where Hussein
adhered to few norms, leadership did not put much faith in nuclear non-use
norms restraining others. Though Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is typically
regarded as a more “normal” statesman than Hussein, the evidence from the
Egyptian case showed similar distrust in the non-use norm.
Beyond the question of when strategic and normative factors are likely
to matter most, the cases presented here point to the need for a broader
theory that explains when and how non-nuclear states will act against nu-
clear opponents.138 In both the Iraq and Egypt cases leaders faced what
they perceived to be a deteriorating international environment necessitating
some sort of action. More research is needed to determine if this generalizes
134 See, for example, Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War
World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 30–38; Goldgeier and Tetlock, “Psychology and
International Relations Theory,” 81.
135 See, for example, Charles Lipson, Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate
Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), chap. 2.

136 Michael R. Tomz and Jessica L. P. Weeks, “Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace,” American
Political Science Review 107, no. 4 (November 2013): 849–65, find that citizens in the United States and
Great Britain view nuclear programs in non-democratic states as more threatening than nuclear programs
in democratic states.
137 U.S. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010.
138 For a recent effort see Narang, “What Does it Take to Deter?”
596 P. Avey
to other cases. In addition, it remains unclear what role, if any, the size of
the nuclear state’s arsenal plays in these situations. It is also important to
understand when and what types of strategic factors non-nuclear states will
rely on to minimize the risks of nuclear strikes and how non-nuclear states
set various red-lines for their behavior. This analysis highlighted how ex-
pectations of external constraints and chemical weapons served non-nuclear
states. On the former, recent research suggests extended deterrence guaran-
tees are effective but, as this article shows, they are not the only pathway
for external constraints to operate.139 On the latter, leaders in both Iraq and
Egypt understood chemical weapons were not nuclear equivalents. Yet they
partially relied on them to offset the opponent’s nuclear advantage. Future
research can examine how generalizable this thinking is; indeed, scholars are
beginning to explore the complex relationship between nuclear, chemical,
and biological programs.140
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Michael Desch, Barry Posen, and the editors and two anony-
mous reviewers at Security Studies for their careful reading and advice. For
helpful comments and support I would also like to thank Mark Bell, Fotini
Christia, Rebecca Davis-Gibbons, Gene Gerzhoy, Christine Leah, Nicholas
Miller, Vipin Narang, Sebastian Rosato, Todd Sechser, Rachel Whitlark, and
Zachary Zwald, as well as participants at the MIT Nuclear Weapons Working
Group and the Belfer Center Managing the Atom Seminar. Chris Alkhoury
provided excellent guidance at the Conflict Records Research Center at the
National Defense University. Finally, I thank the Stanton Foundation for pro-
viding a yearlong fellowship during which I conducted part of the research
for this article.
139 Matthew Fuhrmann and Todd S. Sechser, “Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand-Tying and
Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 4 (October
2014): 919–35.
140 Michael Horowitz and Neil Narang, “Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb? Exploring the Relationship be-
tween Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 3 (April 2014): 509–35.

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Security Studies

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Who's Afraid of the Bomb? The Role of Nuclear

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Who’s Afraid of the Bomb?

There is growing acceptance that normative restraints on nuclear use explain

Paul C. Avey is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech.

and Valentino, “Atomic Aversion.”

CONSTRAINTS ON NUCLEAR USE

In this section I first discuss the normative non-use arguments regarding

Normative Constraints on Nuclear Use

Scholars disagree on the exact terminology and strength of the nuclear

19 Paul, Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons, 9 (“tradition”); Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 59

Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 412; Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 51.

Destroyer of Worlds,” 414.

development. It is in the United States then that the normative constraint

Extending the Argument: Implications for Non-Nuclear States

and War Initiation in Regional Conflicts,” 700–701, 708, 710–14.

Gizewski agrees: “Evidence indicates that confidence in the efficacy of the

should be particularly emboldening for a non-nuclear state contemplating

Military and Strategic Constraints on Nuclear Use

29 Gizewski, “From Winning Weapon to Destroyer of Worlds,” 418–19.

for non-use.40 The argument here is simply one of emulation: states in an

Extending the Argument: Implications for Non-Nuclear States

Assessing Alternative Predictions

sessment. Both arguments expect non-nuclear states to occasionally confront

42 Tannenwald, Nuclear Taboo, 51.

TABLE 1 List of Wars between Nuclear and Non-Nuclear States, 1945–2007

Year War Nuclear State(s) Non-Nuclear State(s) Initiator

Saudi Arabia, Syria

ASSESSING THE EVIDENCE

In this section I assess the competing arguments by examining the historical

unfavorable strategic environment. Emerging evidence suggests Iraqi leaders

5, at http://www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/10.pdf. See also “Oral History: Tariq Aziz,”

War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008), 48.

Press, 1996), chap. 7.

December 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/13/our_red_lines_and_theirs_hussein_

Weapons—Attachment in Ministry of Interior to Baghdad Municipality,” SH-IDGS-D-001-431, circa 24

74 Quoted in Buch and Sagan, “Our Red Lines and Theirs.”

SH-SHTP-A-000-810, 25 December 1990, CRRC.

The conceptualization of the chemical arsenal as a deterrent force be-

Male 1: Sir, concerning the oil installations being prepared to be de-

and Stout, Saddam Tapes, 181.

deterrent against nuclear-armed states. “According to our technical, scien-

“United States has placed no nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia or surround-

Security Studies 15, no. 3 (July 2006): 419–27.

accept a joint U.S.-Soviet cease-fire. After Israel completed the encirclement

(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 420–36.

Analysis and Solutions, 30 April 2013, 10.

Florida Press 2001), 119.

112 Heikal, Road to Ramadan, 76.

weapons short of an existential threat either because Israeli leaders consid-