Review Sheet One

POLI/INTL 361

Summer 2024

 

This is a take home exam.

Basic Requirements

·         Feel free to email me questions if you have them, but as usual, there are limits to how I can help you

 

The exam has two parts:

 

 

And, important:

·         Sharing this exam with anyone outside the class is a violation of the VCU Honor Code

·         Working with another student in the class or anyone else while you take this exam is a violation of the VCU Honor Code

·         As with any take home, the plagiarism rules that exist for research papers apply here.  Your exams must be your written work. I will run this through the standard plagiarism programs as I do with all research papers. 

 

This review looks big, but don't worry.  If you have come to class and done all the reading, nothing here should be new to you.  Also, though there are a lot of terms, obviously, not each one of them is the subject of an essay. These terms, in order, form an outline of everything we've done so far. A group of them might be the subject of an essay. Usually, you can't explain a single term without referring to the terms next to it. So, really, if you can say one or two things about each term and how it relates to the terms around it and fits into the larger scheme of nuclear weapons you're doing fine. Some terms, however, are filled with enough significance to be short answers/identifications on the test, but you'll be able to figure out which ones.

 

Terms with (*) in front of them may not have been included in the lectures, but were discussed, at length, in the readings.

 

List of Terms

 

Functions of Force (or why do nations have weapons anyway?)

To achieve political goals

1.       Defense

2.       Deterrence

o   *Goal

o   *Method

o   *Assumption of rationality

§  influencing an opponent’s decision process

§  Rational choice/cost-benefit analysis

o   *Credibility of threat

o   communicating the threat

§  capability and will

o   Two types of deterrence

§  deterrence by denial

§  deterrence by punishment

o   *Extended deterrence

o   Complications

§  Bounded Rationality

§  Irrationality?

§  *If deterrence fails?

3.       Compellence

a.       Goal

b.       Brute Force?

c.       Assumption of rationality

d.       Compellence is bargaining

e.       Entering the bargaining

4.       Swaggering

 

First Nuclear Age

General Characteristics

1.       Bipolarity

2.       Rationality

3.       Balance of Power

4.       Deterrence

5.       Arms Control

Conventional vs. nuclear

Atomic Bombs/Fission/A-Bombs

Manhattan Project

US arms race with Germany

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Radioactive Fallout

Nuclear Bomb/Thermonuclear Bomb/Hydrogen Bomb/Fusion Bomb/H-Bomb

Nuclear Triad

1.       Strategic Bombers

a.       B-52

b.       ALCMs

2.       ICBMs

a.       Advantages of ICBM over bombers

b.       Silos

c.       Minuteman III

d.       MIRVs

3.       SLBMs

a.       Advantages of SLBMs

b.       ” invulnerability” of subs

4.       Why create a Triad?

a.       *Deterrence

b.       Increasing the probability that one leg will survive a first strike by the opponent

c.       *First strike

d.       *Second strike

e.       *Counterforce targeting

Effects of nuclear war

 

Nuclear Strategy

*Bernard Brodie. The Absolute Weapon (book, 1946)

*Nuclear revolution/existential deterrence

*Wohlstetter argument: creating a credible deterrent is difficult

*Lieber and Press

*Key question on nuclear weapons: if there was a nuclear revolution, why do nations still compete? why do they have arms races? why have they developed strategies for fighting a nuclear war?

 

*Nuclear weapons have not ended geopolitical competition

 

*Maintaining a deterrent is difficult

 

*Credible second-strike capability is difficult to achieve

 

*Creating nuclear stalemate: no one can win a nuclear war, even winners

 

*The debate on nuclear stalemate:

 

            *Is it easy?

 

            *Is it irreversible

 

            *Does it deter conventional war?

 

 

*Massive Retaliation: 1950s nuclear strategy

*Nuclear weapons as first line of deterrence

*To deter any Soviet behavior US doesn’t like

A bluff?

*Warfighting: counterforce targeting

*Criticism of Massive Retaliation

*Limited Nuclear war

*Ending a nuclear war (war termination)

*Countervalue vs. Counterforce targeting

*Flexible Response

*Continued search for nuclear war options

*Assured Destruction

*Deterrence = Second strike capability

*Minimum deterrent

*The problem of making nuclear war less devastating – increases the probability of having a nuclear war

 

*Survivable weapons: the strategies for survivability (Lieber and Press)

*SLBMs

*ICBM vulnerability

*Damage Limitation and ABMs

 

 

Arms Control

Thousands of weapons but we don’t want to fight a nuclear war

Deterrence, but the security dilemma

Arms Races

action-reaction phenomenon

Secretary of defense Robert McNamara

Arms Control goals

managing the competition

By 1960s: Two Arms Races

offense-offense

offense-defense

ABMs

The impact of ABMs or missile defense on deterrence

how does it impact a second strike?

scenario for victory

the advantage of going first

Crisis stability

SALT 1972

Interim Agreement

launcher limits

essential equivalence

ABM Treaty

Ban on nationwide ABMs

Research allowed

Two test sites

National Technical Means of verification

Criticisms of SALT

End of the Cold War

START

Real reductions

 

Second Nuclear Age

First vs. Second Nuclear Age Big Picture Comparison

1.       Multipolarity

2.       Rationality?

3.       Asymmetry

4.       Deterrence

a.       BMD

5.       Arms Control

a.       Stability

b.       Non-Proliferation

 

*Narang and Sagan: Basics

 

*With new nations, will classic deterrence hold?

 

*The problem of regional rivalries

 

*Talmadge in Narang and Sagan

 

*Is multipolar deterrence different? (Talmadge)

 

*Deterrence in cold war: aligned with US and USSR

 

*Now multi-sided

 

*Confidence in 2nd strike against multiple opponents?

 

*Narang and Williams in Narang and Sagan

 

            *Twitter as a factor in crisis communications

 

            *Four ways social media can impact nuclear crises

 

*Zegart in Narang and Sagan

 

            *Public Technical Means (definition)

 

            *Five risks

 

*Lewis and Panda in Narang and Sagan

 

            *The concept of “enoughness

 

            *Enough for what?

 

*Clary in Narang and Sagan

 

            *New counterforce

 

            *Six responses to counterforce

 

*Arceneaux and Feaver

           

            *Command and control definition

 

*Types of control

 

*Variations in the way nations control their weapons (no need to know each nation, just that they differ)

 

*Bell and Miller in Narang and Sagan

 

            *Can states learn?

 

            *Their definition of learning

 

            *The difficulty of learning

 

 

 

US, Russia, China

 

US and Russia

What’s the same?

What’s different?

 

US strategy

Who the US deters?

Better warfighting capability

Modernization of the Triad

Arms Control with Russia

New START

The Big Change: National Missile Defense

Deterrence by Denial

 

Russia

Loss of empire: tragedy

Using nuclear weapons to compensate for conventional inferiority

Ending No First Use Policy

Escalate to De-escalate

National Missile Defense

Renewing New START

Then suspension of New START by Russia after Russia invasion of Ukraine

 

China

Return to Great Power Status

Sino-Soviet Split

China’s First Bomb

Minimum Deterrence

NFU

Create a Triad

China’s view of US NMD

            it is aimed at China, not North Korea

            Requires China to build its arsenal

            No arms control

            Offense-defense arms race

            Cyberattack to compensate for inferiority

 

 

Non-Proliferation Basics

Who has nuclear weapons?

“Nth Country Problem”

Nuclear haves’ decision: only we can have these weapons

            winners of WW II

            Perm 5 of UN Security Council

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Two Types of States

            Nuclear weapons states and their responsibilities

Non-nuclear weapons states and their responsibilities

Nuclear Energy

Reactors can be used to develop a weapon

IAEA

Verification of treaty options

            Safeguards Agreements with IAEA

Uranium enrichment (beyond energy reactor needs)

Problems

Those who never signed

            Israel case: secretive program ignored by its allies (US, UK, France)

Those who violated the treaty

Options for what can be done to end proliferation

Missile Technology Control Regime

Nuclear Suppliers Group

 

The Problem of Proliferation (in India-Pakistan PPT and Lecture)

Three Questions

1.       Why does a nation decide it wants nuclear weapons?

a.       Deterrence and assured retaliation

b.       Demonstrate power (swaggering)

c.       To bargain (compellence)

d.       asymmetric escalation – compensating for weakness

e.       catalytic – to ring in a third power

2.       What can be done about it?

3.       Does it matter?  Is that just decided by politics?

 

India and Pakistan

Did not sign the NPT

Non-proliferation failure

Partition, Rivalry, War

(You don’t need to know all the details; just that the two nations were born into rivalry)

Kashmir Division as a source of conflict

 

1960s shifts in balance of power

Sino-Indian War 1962

1964 Chinese A-bomb

China allies with Pakistan in two wars

1965 India v. Pakistan

1971 Indian v. Pakistan

            US sides with Pakistan

1968 NPT: “Atomic Collusion”

1974 Smiling Buddha test (Pokhran I)

 

Pakistan accelerates its program after 1971 loss to India

Chinese help

AQ Khan

Compensating for India conventional superiority

“Turn of a Screw Programs”

May 1998 Indian tests

May 1998 Pakistani tests

Indian Nuclear Doctrine

Triad

NFU

Minimum Deterrence

Deterring Pakistan and China

            The Triad so far?

US-India nuclear cooperation

 

Pakistani Nuclear Strategy

Triad?

No NFU

Minimum deterrence

Deterrence of nuclear and conventional war (compensation for inferiority)

Battlefield use during conventional war

The “Triad” so far?

The three questions in the context of India and Pakistan

 

Outliers

South Africa: Dismantling a program out of racism and pressure from allies

Taiwan: Dismantling a program as allies pressure them to end the program

            Geopolitical changes

            US opening to mainland China

Israel

Did not sign NPT

May have had capability in early to mid-1960s

Refuses to state whether it has nuclear weapons

Strategy: Deterrence of rivals in the region

Regional Triad

Ability to hit all its rivals in the region

Faces no sanctions from US and allies because it is an ally of the US

 

Iraq and Iran

Signed the NPT and violated it

Rivalries in the neighborhood

 

Iraq: The use of force

Iraq’s strategy

            deterrence of regional rival and global rivals

            involved in an arms race

            demonstrating power

            regime survival

Saddam Hussein determination to build a nuclear weapon

Iran-Iraq War

June 1981: Osiraq Reactor: Israel’s form of non-proliferation

1990-91 War

Iraqi surrender agreement

            Disarmament

IAEA inspections

Iraq doesn’t always cooperate

Operation Desert Fox

Aftermath

Iraq’s nuclear program destroyed, but no one knew that outside of Iraq

Saddam Hussein’s efforts to convince the world it was still close to nuclear weapons

                        to deter the US

Lies told to Saddam Hussein

Post-9/11

GW Bush administration targeted Iraq

Belief that Iraq has nuclear weapons and will use them

Undeterrable

Irrational

March 2003: Regime Change

 

Iran: Sanctions, Negotiations, and Force

Iranian strategy

Deterrence of neighbors

Asymmetric escalation

Regional power

Arms race

US overthrow of Iranian government 1953

Iranian Revolution

US hostages

Support for terrorism: Hezbollah

            Beirut 1983

Decision and Detection

HEU

E3 Negotiations

UNSC Sanctions

P5+1

The deal

Stuxnet/Olympic Games

JCPOA

US withdrawal from JCPOA

New Sanctions

12 Demands

Iranian response

Choices

            Deal that delinks nuclear weapons from other Iranian foreign policy issues

            OR

            Comprehensive change in Iranian foreign policy

 

*the problem of deterring personalistic regimes (McDermott in Narang and Sagan)

 

North Korea

Korea at the intersection of great power interests

 

Division of Korean Peninsula

 

Korean War

 

Cold War politics

 

Belief in reunification

 

The nature of the regimes

 

North Korean: Hermit Kingdom

 

            Family-rules Communist regime

 

            Kim Jong-un

 

South Korea: Authoritarian Capitalist, then democracy in 1980s

 

Why would North Korea build a bomb

 

       Regime Survival

 

       Demonstration of Power

 

       Deterrence of Rivals

 

       ROK, Japan, US

 

       Asymmetric Escalation

 

       Catalytic

 

Desire for US recognition as a path to survival

 

The North Korean nightmare

 

Why they began in the 1970s

 

The South Korean program: motivation and end of program

 

The tactical maneuver

 

North Korea has goals: nothing to bargain with except threat

 

*Agreed Framework: The Deal: 1994

 

Six Party Talks

 

*North Korea detonates a bomb

 

Hwasong 14: ICBM that can hit the US (Date of first test)

 

Ability to threaten US directly

 

ROK response

 

            THAAD

 

Japan response

 

China response

 

US: Trump policy: “Maximum Pressure” “Fire and Fury”

 

Then Concessions

 

Singapore and Hanoi Summits

 

Singapore Agreement: Denuclearization

 

Compared to JCPOA

 

North Korean Dyad

 

North Korean strategy (2013 Law)

 

Deterrence

 

Retaliation

 

NFU that really isn’t NFU

 

Has North Korea ever paid a price for provocative action?

 

Can proliferation be stopped?

 

ROK and Japan next steps

 

Deterrence