Nuclear Weapons and Existential Threats: Insights from a Comparative Analysis of Nuclear-Armed States
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Our findings related to Iran going nuclear explain the relative passivity of some NWSs at allowing Iran to march ever closer to obtaining nuclear weapons and Israel’s vociferous resistance to the possibility. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would pose only mild existential threats to the rest of the nuclear club, while it would make Israel the second most existentially vulnerable NWS in the world. These findings illustrate why President Obama’s administration might be willing to gamble on striking a grand bargain with Iran with respect to its nuclear program even if the potential exists for Iran to cheat and secretly acquire nuclear weapons. Iran’s acquisition of a small nuclear arsenal would not pose a major existential threat to the United States, even though it would to Israel. This suggests that Israel might be willing to take large risks and endure significant costs in preventing Iran from going nuclear.
Our findings also indicate, though, that Iran would become the world’s most existen- tially vulnerable NWS were it to go nuclear. This might still be viewed as an improvement over existing conditions for Iranian leaders, as Iran currently lacks the capability to pose reciprocal existential threats to those countries that threaten its existence. Yet, the relatively weak existential threats their nuclear arsenal would pose to most other NWSs besides Israel suggests that there would be limits to how emboldened the regime could become. Our analysis suggests that Iran likely would not obtain nearly as much security by going nuclear as it leaders may think. For the United States, one potential implication of our analysis is that traditional nuclear deterrence policies should work against Iran given its significant existential vulnerability.
Our findings also indicate, though, that Iran would become the world’s most existentially vulnerable NWS were it to go nuclear. This might still be viewed as an improvement over existing conditions for Iranian leaders, as Iran currently lacks the capability to pose reciprocal existential threats to those countries that threaten its existence. Yet, the relatively weak existential threats their nuclear arsenal would pose to most other NWSs besides Israel suggests that there would be limits to how emboldened the regime could become. Our analysis suggests that Iran likely would not obtain nearly as much security by going nuclear as it leaders may think. For the United States, one potential implication of our analysis is that traditional nuclear deterrence policies should work against Iran given its significant existential vulnerability.
In this article, we have argued that the popular misconceptions about the threat posed by current and potential nuclear-armed states arise from the lack of a systemic method of evaluating the security threats they pose. We theorized that nuclear weapons are unique in that they are capable of posing existential threats to states and their citizens, but that significant variation often exists in the ability of NWSs to pose those threats to other countries and, in turn, their vulnerabilities to them. The NAT Index we developed offers one of the first relational metrics developed in the academic literature that can be used to comparatively assess the existential threats posed by and faced by NWSs. In comparing the scores yielded by our metric, we uncovered a number of novel insights about the NWSs that appear to pose the greatest (i.e., Pakistan) and smallest (i.e., North Korea) existential threats. We also found that if Iran does eventually go nuclear, it will be incredibly vulnerable when it does and will have little capacity to retaliate except against Israel. Whereas the United States and most other NWSs have little to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel’s concerns appear warranted. Israel’s discontent over the United States’ willingness to entertain negotiations for a grand bargain with Iran over its nuclear program stems from the fact that, if Iran ever cheats and acquires a small secret arsenal, it could threaten Israel’s continued existence. Israel’s reticence to endorse negotiations with Iran must be understood within this light. Taken together, our findings suggest that systematically evaluating the existential threats associated with nuclear weapons presents a useful approach for understanding the potential effects that nuclear weapons have on state behavior.
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