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The U.S. and Soviet Stakes in Nuclear Nonproliferation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Joseph S. Nye
Joseph S. Nye*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

In the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan and the advent of the Reagan Administration, cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union seems to have diminished, particularly in the area of arms control. Nuclear non-proliferation is the oldest area of Soviet-American cooperation in arms control, dating back to the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the 1950s. But the fact that the two countries have a common interest does not mean that there is necessarily an equal interest or that it can survive the current tension.

Some analysts argue that the Soviet Union has more at risk from proliferation than does the United States. For example, many of the potential new entrants to nuclear weapons status–India, Pakistan, Korea, Taiwan, Iraq–are countries geographically close to the Soviet Union and distant from the United States. Thus, it could be argued that the Soviet Union has more to fear than we do, and from the zero-sum perspective of U.S.-Soviet hostility, further proliferation may hurt the Soviet Union more than the United States. To judge whether this is a sensible basis for policy, or whether cooperative action is a better basis requires a closer look at the skeptical arguments.

Type
Four Perspectives on World Affairs
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , Winter 1982 , pp. 32 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1982

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Footnotes

1

Originally prepared for the Security Panel of the UNA-USA Parallel Studies Program with the Soviet Union.

References

2 See, for example, Waltz, Kenneth, “What Will the Spread of Nuclear Weapons Do to the World,” in King, John Kerry, ed., International Political Effects of the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, G.P.O., 1979)Google Scholar; also, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better (London, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981)Google Scholar.

3 Zinner, Paul E., “The Soviet Union in a Proliferated World,” in King, J. (ed.), cited, p. 122 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 113.

5 See Scheinman, Lawrence, “The International Atomic Energy Agency,” in Cox, Robert and Jacobson, Harold, eds., The Anatomy of Influence (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

6 PresidentReagan, , “Nuclear Non-Proliferation,” July 16, 1981 (Washington, Department of State, Current Policy No. 303)Google Scholar.

7 See Duffy, Gloria, “Soviet Nuclear Exports,” International Security, Vol. 3 (Summer 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See Robles, Alfonso Garcia, The Latin American Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (muscatine, Stanley Foundation Occasional Paper 19, 1979)Google Scholar.

9 For elaboration, see Nye, J. S., “Maintaining a Non-Proliferation Regime,” in Quester, George, ed., Nuclear Proliferation (Madison, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1981)Google Scholar.