Deterrence and New Nuclear States

Building on the Academy’s long history of studies on arms control, Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age is a two-phase project that seeks to articulate a new framework for governing relations among the existing nine nuclear weapons states.

• Phase One, chaired by Robert Legvold and Christopher Chyba, explores security dynamics emerging from nuclear relations among three main players: the United States, Russia, and China.
• The project’s second phase, Deterrence and New Nuclear States, focuses on regional and sub-regional nuclear dynamics that could further destabilize a precarious nuclear order.

The second phase produced an edited volume of innovative and policy-relevant essays on challenges created by the emergence of “new” nuclear weapons states such as North Korea, and potential proliferators, such as Iran. The volume - The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the Nuclear Age - explores de facto nuclear weapons states, including India, Pakistan, and Israel, that operate outside of any established multilateral nuclear frameworks such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Chapters commissioned for the edited volume explore a range of themes, including emerging technologies and crisis stability; social media and crisis dynamics; multipolar nuclear interactions; and how we should define when a state “becomes” a nuclear weapons state.

Project leaders Scott D. Sagan and Vipin Narang edited the volume and contributed to it. The other authors are Giles David Arceneaux, Mark S. Bell, Christopher Clary, Peter D. Feaver, Jeffrey Lewis, Rose McDermott, Nicholas L. Miller, Ankit Panda, Caitlin Talmadge, Heather Williams, and Amy Zegart. The book is available online and in print.

Events accompanying the release of The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the Nuclear Age help the book reach nuclear policymakers (primarily in the United States) and academic centers and think tanks with a specific focus on nuclear studies.