Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Full download Leveraging Latency Tristan A. Volpe file pdf all chapter on 2024
Full download Leveraging Latency Tristan A. Volpe file pdf all chapter on 2024
Volpe
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/leveraging-latency-tristan-a-volpe/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
https://ebookmass.com/product/visual-complex-analysis-25th-
anniversary-edition-tristan-needham-2/
https://ebookmass.com/product/visual-complex-analysis-25th-
anniversary-edition-tristan-needham/
https://ebookmass.com/product/introducing-functional-programming-
using-c-leveraging-a-new-perspective-for-oop-developers-vaskaran-
sarcar/
https://ebookmass.com/product/liu-volpe-and-galettas-neuro-
ophthalmology-diagnosis-and-management-3rd-edition-grant-t-liu/
Real Estate Prospecting: Create a Million-Dollar Life
Through Relationships, Online Leads, Technology, and
Social Media Tristan Ahumada
https://ebookmass.com/product/real-estate-prospecting-create-a-
million-dollar-life-through-relationships-online-leads-
technology-and-social-media-tristan-ahumada/
https://ebookmass.com/product/introducing-functional-programming-
using-c-leveraging-a-new-perspective-for-oop-developers-1st-
edition-vaskaran-sarcar/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-power-of-scarcity-leveraging-
urgency-and-demand-to-influence-customer-decisions-mindy-
weinstein/
https://ebookmass.com/product/change-proof-leveraging-the-power-
of-uncertainty-to-build-long-term-resilience-adam-markel/
https://ebookmass.com/product/leveraging-financial-markets-for-
development-how-kfw-revolutionized-development-finance-1st-ed-
edition-peter-volberding/
Leveraging Latency
DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY
Series editors
BENJAMIN JENSEN
Marine Corps University and Center for Strategic and International Studies
JACQUELYN SCHNEIDER
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
BRANDON VALERIANO
Marine Corps University
Leveraging Latency
How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear
Technology
TRISTAN A. VOLPE
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under
terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Volpe, Tristan A., author.
Title: Leveraging latency : how the weak compel the strong with nuclear technology /
Tristan A. Volpe.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Series: Disruptive technology and international security series |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022040749 (print) | LCCN 2022040750 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197669532 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197669556 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Nuclear nonproliferation—Political aspects. |
Nuclear weapons. | Nuclear arms control. | International relations.
Classification: LCC JZ5675 .V65 2023 (print) | LCC JZ5675 (ebook) |
DDC 327.1/747—dc23/eng/20221021
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040749
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040750
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197669532.001.0001
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
2. A Theory of Compellence with Nuclear Latency
3. Japan
4. West Germany
5. North Korea
6. Iran
7. Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
This book is about how the weak coerce the strong in world politics.
Nations sometimes threaten to acquire atomic weapons as an
instrument of blackmail or coercion. I investigate when nuclear
latency—the technical capacity to build the bomb—enables states to
compel concessions from great powers.
Compellence with nuclear latency is an enduring feature of the
global landscape. In the past, select allies and partners used their
nuclear programs to put pressure on patrons for security
commitments or military assistance. During the halcyon era of
atomic energy in the 1960s, for example, Australia, Italy, Japan, and
West Germany all attempted to gain diplomatic leverage over the
United States by sowing suspicion about their civil nuclear
investments. In the early 1970s, South Korea tried to build up its
bomb-making capacity to stem American retrenchment. Some US
officials even believed Pakistan considered using its military nuclear
program as a “bargaining chip” to elicit greater support from
Washington in the late 1970s.1 More recently, Saudi Arabia promised
to match Iran’s nuclear capabilities in 2015 before demanding a
formal defense treaty and advanced weapons from the United
States.
Other nations leveraged latency against great power adversaries.
Amid the crisis over Berlin in the early Cold War, officials in Bonn
exploited Soviet and American fears of West German proliferation to
underwrite diplomatic demands from both superpowers. In the early
1990s, North Korea pioneered the playbook for wringing material
benefits out of the United States with more explicit proliferation
ultimatums. The North Koreans dusted off this strategy again in the
2000s after US officials exposed their covert quest for the bomb. In
2003, Libya traded away its blown uranium enrichment program for
sanctions relief from the West. The revelation of secret nuclear
facilities also led Iran toward diplomacy in 2003 to ward off
preventive military action. According to a member of Iran’s nuclear
negotiation team at the time (Mousavian 2012: 99–100), Iranian
leaders leveraged latency to “obtain maximum concessions from [the
West] in return for cooperation”—an approach Tehran continued to
pursue over the next fifteen years.
Yet this strategy yielded mixed results. As I document in the
book, some allies and adversaries successfully used their nuclear
programs to compel concessions from great powers such as the
United States. For many other countries, however, the gambit failed
to elicit any advantages and generated blowback from powerful
sheriffs of the nonproliferation regime. When does compellence with
nuclear latency work?
The conventional wisdom is that leveraging latency is most
effective when states are close to the bomb. This intuitive idea
enjoys a long intellectual lineage. At the dawn of the nuclear age,
the Acheson-Lilienthal (1946) report envisioned a world where the
distribution of atomic bomb-making materials would compel
countries to forgo actual weapons (Ford 2011: 131–34). The
subsequent spread of latent capabilities around the globe led the
Central Intelligence Agency to portend in 1975 that “future nuclear
politics will almost certainly include states which will exploit their
threshold positions, as much or more than their actual capabilities.”2
Indeed, Henry Kissinger (2012) warned decades later that once Iran
achieved “a military nuclear program at the very edge of going
operational,” other countries in the region would “be driven to
reorient their political alignment toward Tehran.” In a similar vein,
Michael Green and Katsuhisa Furukawa (2008: 364) found that
Japan’s massive nuclear energy enterprise provided Tokyo with a
“bomb in the basement” it used “to signal or increase its leverage
with both Washington and Beijing.” Once a country can build the
bomb quickly, it may be in a strong position to dial up coercive
pressure on great powers.
Contrary to this prevalent belief, I find that more nuclear latency
does not always translate into greater bargaining advantages. In a
merger of coercion theory with nuclear proliferation scholarship, this
book presents a new framework for explaining how states leverage
latency as an effective coercive instrument. Compellence creates a
sharp trade-off between making proliferation threats and
nonproliferation assurances credible. I identify a menu of bargaining
tactics states can employ to get off the horns of this dilemma.
However, states need just enough latency to make these tactics
effective. At low levels, proliferation threats are not credible.
Marching to the cusp of the bomb solves this problem. But it also
becomes increasingly costly and difficult for state leaders to offer
assurances as they face growing barriers to nuclear reversal. I
uncover a Goldilocks zone where it is easiest to make both threats
and assurances credible. Compellence with nuclear latency is most
likely to work when states are in this fissile material sweet spot.
The rest of the introduction sets up my framework and previews
the book’s main findings in six parts. The first makes explicit my
assumptions about compellence with nuclear latency. The second
part scopes out the main actors—great power sheriffs and potential
proliferators who pursue this strategy for different reasons. The third
part surveys the historical track record of latent nuclear compellence
outcomes over time. The fourth part summarizes my argument
about the sweet spot for bargaining with nuclear latency. The fifth
part reviews the research approach guiding the empirical chapters.
The final part summarizes the book’s contributions and lays out a
road map for the study.
The Targets
Who are the primary targets of compellence with nuclear latency?
Not all nations are equally susceptible to this strategy. I assume
challengers only go after states with robust nonproliferation interests
—one cannot exploit the fear of the future if the target stops
worrying about the bomb. This scope condition matters because
proliferation need not cast a dark shadow over international affairs.
Some nations may expect war to be less likely when adversaries
shield themselves from existential threats with atomic arsenals
(Waltz 2002).6 Selective proliferation to allies or partners can also
seem useful in some situations, such as strengthening external
balancing coalitions or undermining powerful rivals (Coe and
Vaynman 2015; Kroenig 2009). Challengers need to target nations
who see considerable downsides from nuclear proliferation.
Great powers are ideal targets for two reasons. First, they face
strong incentives to oppose proliferation. As the most dominant
states in the system, great powers enjoy the ability to project
military force and shape outcomes across the globe.7 Yet atomic
weapons neutralize many of these advantages, making it harder for
great powers to do what they want with less capable states (Gavin
2015: 23). Weaker adversaries can employ atomic weapons to deter
great powers from attacking them, thereby opening up space to
pursue more aggressive foreign policies (Bell 2019). Nuclear-armed
allies become difficult to control, as they depend less on their
patrons for security (Gavin 2015: 22). The spread of atomic
weapons leaves great powers worse off with less military capability
and political influence. As a result, proliferation is a sensitive
pressure point where great powers are vulnerable to threats from
latent nuclear challengers.
Second, opposition to the bomb leads great powers to act as
sheriffs who police the nuclear ambitions of potential proliferators.8
The stark power advantage enables sheriffs to wield three main
nonproliferation tools: (1) international institutions to monitor
nuclear programs and manage the spread of sensitive technology;
(2) coercive diplomacy to coax nuclear aspirants away from weapons
aspirations; and (3) preventive military strikes to stop proliferators
from acquiring the bomb (Brewer 2021; Gibbons 2022; Miller 2018).9
Sheriffs are susceptible to latent nuclear compellence because they
prefer to engage in coercive diplomacy before resorting to military
operations. This point seems to cut against the grain of power
transition theory, since marching toward the bomb creates
preventive motivations for war.10 Indeed, great powers possess the
military and intelligence capabilities to use force against weaker
proliferators. But bargaining with nuclear aspirants can offer a lower-
cost option to achieve nonproliferation goals.11
In essence, great power sheriffs are the prime targets because
they oppose proliferation yet often favor coercive diplomacy over
preventive war.12 They therefore create the market for proliferators
to trade away their weapons ambitions.
The Challengers
Who leverages latency against great powers? Nuclear aspirants are
likely to be selective about adopting this compellence strategy. Fissile
material production technology is expensive to develop and can
foment insecurity.13 States often launch nuclear projects to achieve
core national interests, such as making themselves more prosperous
with atomic energy or secure with nuclear weapons (Sagan 2011).
As a result, it makes little sense to accumulate latency for the sole
purpose of wresting concessions from great powers.14 Over the long
life span of a nuclear program, however, some states may face
incentives to turn this investment into a coercive instrument.
Drawing upon research about how states march toward the bomb, I
identify two general situations where compellence with nuclear
latency may be attractive.
First, some countries opt for compellence while building nuclear
infrastructure in plain sight. Hedgers develop latent capabilities for
ostensibly peaceful purposes. But they can sow doubt about their
future weapons intentions to put pressure on great powers. These
nuclear aspirants avoid telltale signs of military weaponization.
Instead, they often appear to be hedging their nuclear bets against
potential security risks, such as the rise of an adversary or ally
abandonment. Hedging can either be a deliberate strategy choice to
acquire—but not yet solve—all the technical pieces of the nuclear
jigsaw puzzle, as Ariel Levite (2003: 69) and Vipin Narang (2016:
117–20) find. Or it may just be the inadvertent byproduct of
developing dual-use nuclear technology with the potential to fulfill
both civilian and military ends, according to Itty Abraham (2006) and
Matthew Fuhrmann (2012).15
Both types of hedgers may find latent nuclear compellence to be
attractive. Keeping nuclear programs out in the open for great
powers to watch dampens the risk of preventive war (Bas and Coe
2016). The duality of nuclear technology helps hedgers protect
themselves under a veil of plausible deniability about civilian
applications (see also Hiim 2022). At the same time, the intrinsic
capacity of these nuclear programs to produce weapons often leads
sheriffs to worry about future proliferation aspirations. Hedgers can
prey upon this uncertainty to intimidate sheriffs with implicit
proliferation threats: “You know we have a nice peaceful nuclear
program here. It would be shame if someone happened to
weaponize it.” Alternatively, they can adopt a subtler coercive
approach via transactional diplomacy: “You seem worried about our
nuclear program. We can ease your concerns. But do us a favor,
though.” Hedgers offer to allay fears about possible weapons
intentions in exchange for concessions from great powers.
Second, other states leverage latency under duress after they are
caught in secret pursuit of nuclear weapons. The goal of hiding
nuclear activities, Narang (2016: 121) explains, “is to present the fait
accompli of a nuclear weapons capability before it is discovered or to
achieve at least sufficient progress to deter prevention.” But this
subterfuge often sparks an international crisis upon discovery. When
a hider is caught before the bomb, “Diplomatic or military
mobilization against it may be more likely because of the perceived
illegitimacy of hiding a nuclear capability,” Narang (2016: 121)
argues. Under mounting pressure from sheriffs, an exposed hider
faces incentives to transform its nuclear program from a liability into
a means of leverage. Compellence offers these states one way to
manage the consequences from exposure while extracting
concessions from sheriffs.16
The rub is that bargaining with nuclear latency is always a
second-best outcome for hiders who originally wanted the bomb.
Exposure marks an inflection point in the evolution of the nuclear
program where survival becomes the paramount goal. This shift
away from weapons acquisition matters because it shapes the
purpose of compellence. Hiders now want to protect themselves and
their nuclear assets from punishment while trying to get the best
deal possible with sheriffs. Their compellent demands tend to focus
on ending economic sanctions imposed over the hidden nuclear
program and making nonproliferation promises conditional on
material rewards. Some leaders may use diplomacy as a ruse to buy
time, holding out hope that they can resume the quest for the bomb
later after the crisis subsides. The outcome of negotiations can
shape whether they go back to the pursuit of weapons or abandon
the quest altogether.
The transition from hiding to leveraging latency also does not
happen overnight. It tends to be a messy multiyear process whereby
leaders muddle through various responses—notably deception and
resistance—before opting for compellence. In contrast to hedgers,
hiders must reconfigure the technical parameters of the nuclear
enterprise to support the new survival strategy. Some of the
investments made for pursuing actual weapons no longer make
sense when it comes to leveraging latency in a more calibrated
manner. Domestic politics can further complicate the process as elite
actors vie to retain influence over nuclear technology projects. In the
time period after nuclear exposure, compellence may not be the
immediate first choice for many hiders. But it can be a viable fallback
strategy once other options fail.
Beyond these pathways to compellence, the broader political
relationship between challengers and sheriffs shapes distinct uses of
the strategy. Allies and adversaries often want to extract different
political, economic, and military concessions from great powers
(Ford 2011: 145; Levite 2019: 26–27). For an ally protégé, the
capacity to “exit” the alliance with an independent nuclear force may
provide a useful means to shore up security commitments or wrest
other foreign policy concessions from the great power patron
(Castillo and Downes 2020; Lanoszka 2015: 138). Leveraging latency
can be a strategy for the protégé to resolve divergent interests
within an otherwise advantageous alliance system.17 By contrast,
adversaries tend to face more existential threats to their survival
from great powers, especially if they are caught hiding nuclear
programs. Negotiations help them ward off conflict, alleviate
economic sanctions, or protect the underlying nuclear infrastructure.
In sum, hiders and hedgers sometimes find compellence with
latency to be an alluring strategy as they develop nuclear programs,
albeit for different reasons. Allies and adversaries also leverage
latency in distinct strategic contexts to compel different types of
concessions from great powers. All challengers pursue the same
basic logic of compellence as they attempt to make threats and
assurances credible. But when does this form of compellence work?
XI luku.
TAISTELUTAVAT MUUTTUVAT.
XII luku.
XIII luku.
KUOLLEISTA NOUSSUT L'OLONAIS.
Kun ylhäinen virkamies oli hiukan tyyntynyt, älysi hän itsekin, että
tässä puheessa oli koko joukko perää; ja hän tunsi yleisen
turvallisuuden nimessä olevansa pakotettu luopumaan
yleiskostohankkeistaan.
LAAJAPERÄISTÄ RYÖSTELYÄ.