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Introduction
I subscribe to the same pessimistic view of nuclear weapons proliferation as Sagan.
More nuclear weapons in the hands of more states throughout the world will not make the world
safer by any means. The counterargument is a compelling one, that possession of nuclear
weapons changes the calculus of war through the addition of unacceptably high risk to both sides
of a conflict. This causes states to limit their violent interaction or avoid it entirely in favor of
diplomatic means. However, this is a fallacy.
The historical examples of conflicts involving nuclear states seem to demonstrate a
significant truth as to the security benefits of nuclear weapons. However, the hard reality is that
these benefits are not guaranteed and can only be attained through the immoral means of holding
populations hostage with fear. In addition, the security benefits gained from nuclear weapons
brings with it consequences that may turn out to be a net loss for a nuclear state, as is the case for
North Korea. History also demonstrates that we should be pessimists because mistakes and
miscalculations will happen due to system or human errors. The examples of risks inherent to
nuclear weapons are prevalent and are evidence of an uncertain future.
In addition, nuclear weapons are now entirely defensive in nature, primarily to achieve
deterrence and actual use of nuclear weapons is not possible for neither weaker nor stronger
states. Nuclear weapons are perilous tools of war that only serve to increase tension throughout
the world by holding populations hostage. The goals for proliferation should be as Sagan states
they should be, to significantly reduce stockpiles and prevent horizontal proliferation in the short
term and to abolish nuclear weapons in the long term (Sagan and Waltz 2003).
In order to solve the nuclear problem, nuclear powers and international organizations
need to continue to take steps to prevent proliferation. But, more importantly, nuclear powers

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need to take the most aggressive step of all, which is to eliminate their nuclear arsenals as an
example for aspiring nuclear states. Kazakhstan demonstrates that this is possible.
Waltz’s Argument
The center of Waltz’s argument is that nuclear states and their leadership will decide to
act rationally to limit violent conflict and establish safeguards due to the unavoidable fear of
nuclear war. “Fortunately, nuclear weapons make leaders behave sensibly even though under
other circumstances they might be brash and reckless (Sagan and Waltz 2003).” In his view, the
purpose for becoming a nuclear state is defensive in nature, stemming from a desire to deter an
enemy state. And this deterrent effect comes from the knowledge that both sides face massive
devastation from nuclear attacks, a fact which neither side can ignore, unlike the use of
conventional weapons. Simply stated, “nuclear weapons affect the deterrer as well as the
deterred (Sagan and Waltz 2003).” As a result, opposing nuclear states favor limited conflicts
and diplomatic resolutions over direct, violent conflict that could lead to the use of nuclear
weapons.
Sagan’s Argument
Sagan’s argument is the direct opposite of Waltz, that proliferation will not create a safer
world because new nuclear states will not act rationally to avoid nuclear war and will not be able
to establish safeguards to prevent miscalculations and accidents. Sagan states, “the actual
behavior of new proliferators will be strongly influenced by military organizations within those
states and that the common biases, rigid routines, and parochial interests of these military
organizations will lead to deterrence failures and accidental uses of nuclear weapons despite
national interests to the contrary (Sagan and Waltz 2003).”

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Security Benefits?
The situation in Korea demonstrates that nuclear weapons can provide security benefits,
but only at the cost of severe diplomatic consequences. Having continually returned to the
development of a nuclear weapons program, North Korea continues to remain steadfast against
South Korea and its allies, the most essential of which is the United States. North Korea and its
regime continue to survive in spite of itself and maintains the ability to be belligerent seemingly
without fear of South Korea and the United States deciding to open another armed conflict.
North Korea’s deterrence seems to be working to prevent violent action, limiting relations with
North Korea to diplomatic measures. Yet, with this security benefit comes the cost of straining
the relationship with North Korea’s most powerful ally, China, as well as continually harsher
sanctions, and predominantly negative international opinion.
North Korea has actually lost more that it has gained by pursuing nuclear weapons.
China has maintained and in some instances, strengthened economic and political ties with North
Korea out of interest in regional stability, but continues to keep North Korea at arms length by
ensuring no firm security ties (Pollack 2011). Meanwhile, the United Nations has continued to
approve additional sanctions to limit North Korea’s military and economic trade, the United
States has withdrawn aid, and South Korea uses the Kaesong Industrial Complex as an economic
bargaining tool against North Korea (Pollack 2011). Seeking to become a nuclear state has had
such a negative impact on North Korea’s political and economic relationships that it is an
isolated and poor country dependent upon aid not only from China, but those it seeks to deter,
South Korea and the United States. Without nuclear weapons, North Korea would be able to
maintain a strong relationship with China which would provide the deterrent effect it is seeking
against South Korea and the United States and it could potentially find some economic

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prosperity in the absence of sanctions that place unnecessary pressure on its trade and economy.
In addition, as long as North Korea continues to pursue nuclear weapons, it faces endangering
itself due to accidents in the short term and miscalculations in the long term.
Accidents Are Unavoidable
Accidents will happen with nuclear weapons. No matter what systems or procedures are
put in place to safeguard nuclear weapons and prevent accidents, no person or system is perfect.
Even long term nuclear powers continue to have accidents as experienced in the United States
when the US Air Force unknowingly transferred nuclear warheads from Minot Air Force Base,
North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana in 2007 (Raaburg 2007). In his book,
Command and Control, Eric Schlosser narrates a story of multiple accidents at a single Titan II
silo in Arkansas that happened as a result of poor training, technical failures, and plain bad luck
(Schlosser 2013). These types of accidents did not present danger of starting a nuclear war
unintentionally, but demonstrate the danger nuclear weapons pose to those that own them. These
accidents claimed the lives of US military personnel and had the potential to cause a detonation
on US soil. This does not bode well for new nuclear states as they will have to establish
safeguards with only some historical knowledge of mistakes made by the United States and the
Soviet Union, and lack experience; accidents are a certainty for new nuclear states. Further,
accidents are not limited to creating risk within the borders of nuclear states, but also can be
opportunities for miscalculation amongst military forces and decision makers toward nuclear
war.
Miscalculations Will Happen
Throughout the history of nuclear weapons, there have been many close calls where a

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miscalculation could have started the nuclear holocaust. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a prime
example from the Cold War, during which a number of mistakes led to moments when the
United States and Soviet Union were on the brink of all out war. The accidental overflight of the
Soviet Union by an American U2 spy plane resulted in both countries launching fighters.
Fortunately, the American planes were able to escape Soviet air space without an engagement
(Andrews 2013). The same day, an American destroyer dropped depth charges as warning shots
on a Soviet nuclear submarine which the Soviet captain mistook for an attack on his ship and
decided to launch his nuclear torpedo. But just as in the movie, Crimson Tide, the officer
second in command refused to agree to the launch, eventually convincing the captain to surface
for orders and ultimately preventing the beginning of a nuclear war (Andrews 2013). There are
other well known errors, the 1979 NORAD computer glitch, 1983 Nuclear false alarm on Soviet
satellite detection systems, and the 1983 NATO exercise, Able Archer, that caused the Soviet
Union to put its nuclear forces on alert for a counterstrike (Andrews 2013). We are fortunate
that somehow the Soviet Union and United States were able to avoid conflict and nuclear war
when there were so many opportunities for one wrong move to be the beginning of the end.
The fact that nuclear war has not happened as a result of accidents and miscalculations
does not mean that nuclear weapons make the world safer, it demonstrates that the future is
uncertain. Waltz points out that despite all the problems, checks and balances within
organizations and leadership of nuclear states has prevented the unintentional start of nuclear war
and in fact, has motivated nuclear state leadership to take active steps to avoid war. “Fear of
losing control propelled Kennedy and Khrushchev to end [the Cuban Missile Crisis] quickly
(Sagan and Waltz 2003).” However, this is illogical. The development of necessary checks and
balances and the urgent meetings between nuclear state leadership to resolve conflict are

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products of the risky situation created by nuclear arsenals and the ever present threat that they
may be used intentionally or through the failure of a system. There would be no need for checks
and balances on nuclear weapons if they did not exist, so this cannot be seen as a positive for
developing and maintaining nuclear arsenals. Sagan states it perfectly, “Nuclear weapons do not
produce perfect nuclear organizations; they only make their inevitable mistakes more deadly
(Sagan and Waltz 2003).” Nuclear weapons can erase populations and states in just a few
minutes, but there is no such thing as a perfect system or perfect human beings that can ensure
that all accidents and all miscalculations can be avoided and nuclear war prevented. Nuclear
weapons, however strictly safeguarded with protocols remain an ever present deadly threat that
can happen unintentionally. Yet, a nuclear arsenal can motivate a state to pursue violent means
to remove uncertainty by removing the opposing nuclear threat.
Brasstacks Crisis
The Brasstacks Crisis demonstrates that nuclear weapons do not guarantee stable
deterrence between opposing nuclear states. The Brasstacks Crisis resulted from an Indian plan
to provoke Pakistan into a war under the guise of conducting military exercises. “The objective
was to pulverize Pakistan before its nuclear capability matured and made it nearly impossible for
India to wage a massive conventional battle without risking an atomic war (Chari 1995).” The
Indian military intentionally neglected normal notification protocols to create a perception of
impending violent action against Pakistan in the hopes that Pakistan’s response would provide an
opportunity for a preemptive attack destroy Pakistan’s nuclear facilities (Sagan and Waltz 2003).
Even for a stronger state with a weaker neighboring state, the fear presented by nuclear arsenals
cannot be ignored. As a result, states look for ways to bait their enemy into taking actions that
would provide sufficient grounds for a justified response in order to achieve security goals. As

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long as states possess nuclear capability, other opposing states must live in fear of that capability
and will seek ways to eliminate it. This can also explain North Korea’s continued belligerence,
spouting inflammatory rhetoric and conducting provocations towards South Korea. If North
Korea is able to get South Korea to respond, then it can gain international support for to take
action towards achieving its security goals.
Hope For the Future
Kazakhstan stands as an example of what the future of nuclear weapons should be,
abolishment of arsenals and international controls to prevent states from using nuclear weapons
as instruments of policy while supporting the development and use of nuclear energy for
peaceful ends. As a major testing location under the former Soviet Union, Kazakhstan became a
nuclear power of its own upon the Soviet Union’s collapse (Idrissov 2014). However, instead of
maintaining an arsenal, Kazakhstan chose to get rid of the then 4th largest nuclear arsenal in the
world, handing them over to Russia (Idrissov 2014). This is an indeed lofty goal because of the
realist nature of international relations in which states have their own interests and security at
heart. It is hard to imagine the United States and Russia one day eliminating their nuclear
stockpiles down to zero and all other nuclear powers doing the same. But the fact that a state has
already done so demonstrates that it is possible and that it is the goal that we must pursue. It is
fallacy to think that the world is safer with nuclear weapons that without since the peace nuclear
weapons provide is based on fear, a critical element of nuclear deterrence that Waltz refers to
over and over again in his argument (Sagan and Waltz 2003). It is as this point where keeping
nuclear weapons for the purpose of defense creates a paradox.
The paradox of nuclear weapons is that no state can use a nuclear weapon even in self
defense. Aside from the initial development of nuclear weapons during World War II and the

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bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the development of nuclear weapons has been for the
purpose of deterrence against overwhelming conventional threats or nuclear threats. Weaker
countries continue to pursue nuclear weapons for this same reason today. Israel developed
nuclear weapons to deter the enemies that surround it, North Korea is developing nuclear
weapons to deal with the threat of the South Korea and the United States, and Pakistan
developed weapons to deter its much larger neighbor, India as a result of the Brasstacks Crisis
(Khalid 2012).
None of these states plans to use nuclear weapons offensively. For weaker states, that
can only lead to retaliation from a stronger state that would not result in mutually assured
destruction, but simply assured destruction of the weaker state. Stronger states have no incentive
to use nuclear weapons as they already have conventional superiority. But by maintaining
nuclear arsenals, stronger states create the necessity for weaker states to seek nuclear weapons in
the hope that by having them, weaker states can achieve asymmetric deterrence against stronger
states to allay fears of nuclear destruction. However, this problem can be solved by stronger
states eliminating their arsenals to remove the ever present risk of nuclear attack and weaker
states can use diplomatic measures to ensure their security by aligning with stronger states that
have similar ideology like North Korea has done with China. A world without nuclear weapons
will still have violent conflict, but without the looming possibility of destroying entire
populations or states in a matter of minutes, peace will actually feel like peace.
Conclusion
Nuclear weapons have never been and never will be safe. Allowing proliferation to take
place and abstaining from reducing current nuclear arsenals will only serve to increase the
danger of nuclear war throughout the world. While state leadership may be more hesitant and

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careful about pursuing violent actions due to the unacceptably high risks posed by nuclear
weapons, this does not result in a net positive benefit of stable deterrence.
History demonstrates that safeguards are no guarantee against accidents giving rise to
opportunities for miscalculation in no fail situations. With nuclear weapons, populations and
states are held in constant fear and uncertainty which negates the sense of security that
deterrence is intended to provide. While this may motivate states to take diplomatic actions, it
can also motivate states towards conventional violent actions to eliminate an opposing nuclear
threat as in the case of India and Pakistan.
Further, the pursuit of nuclear programs for defense of a state brings diplomatic
consequences in the form of strained relationships with friendly states and sanctions from the
international community. All this for a false sense of security with weapons that are intended
solely for defense and cannot be used. Nuclear weapons are a bane for the world and the only
goal should be to remove them as an ever present danger to humanity.
Nuclear states must resolve this state of affairs by pursuing the elimination of nuclear
arsenals to follow the example set by Kazakhstan. The elimination of arsenals and establishment
of international controls to support the use of nuclear energy for peaceful means will also
eliminate the need for non nuclear states to pursue nuclear programs for security concerns. This
will be difficult for nuclear powers to accept, but it is necessary so that the world may have a
more certain future with a peace that is not predicated upon fear.

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