International Relations
Online ISSN : 1883-9916
Print ISSN : 0454-2215
ISSN-L : 0454-2215
Volume 2021, Issue 203
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
Nuclear Weapons and International Relations
  • Chikako UEKI (Kawakatsu)
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_1-203_16
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This special issue explores the impact of nuclear weapons on international relations. This problem is particularly important because several changes are underway that may alter our understanding of nuclear weapons and how they might shape and be shaped by international relations. What is the situation surrounding nuclear weapons today and have the changes increased or decreased the likelihood of war?

    The changes we observe are threefold. First is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We are now in what some call the “second nuclear age.” There has been an emergence of new and potential nuclear powers, such as India, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran. Second, we see the development of lower yield nuclear weapons. Third, there is a growing and strong support in the world community for the ban on nuclear weapons.

    Then, what are the impact of these changes? And how will we be able to reach the answers? I offer several hypotheses about nuclear weapons and war. How does the acquisition of nuclear weapons change the behavior of the state that has acquired them? Secondly, will smaller nuclear weapons decrease or increase the chances of war? What are the arguments in favor of and against lower yield nuclear weapons? And thirdly, how do norms help deter the first use of nuclear weapons?

    The articles in this issue share this understanding of these changes and seek to offer insights into overcoming the problems. They analyze the current situation and seek to find answers from past cases of success and failure. Several articles focus on the future of nuclear disarmament and arms control. They seek to identify causes for success from past agreements and analyze possible problems in the future. One article tests competing hypotheses on nuclear stability and bipolar stability and finds that nuclear hypothesis offers a stronger explanation. Still another looks at the strength of norms on nuclear weapons. Others explore the policies of Russia, Japan and the United States.

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  • Sukeyuki ICHIMASA
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_17-203_32
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    It has been a long time since the international security dealing with nuclear weapons started to be called the “second nuclear age.” The second nuclear age has lasted more than 30 years since the end of the Cold War. There is considerable diversity in established studies on this era, which need to be assessed and analyzed. Based on those studies, this paper examines how international security related to nuclear weapons in the second nuclear age have changed since the “first nuclear age.” It also discusses whether the international community in the second nuclear age is safer or more in danger than it was in the first nuclear age.

    The international environment of nuclear weapons has changed dramatically during the second nuclear age, and the horizontal nuclear proliferation has resulted in the birth of three regional substantial nuclear powers. There are other concerns about proliferation, especially among Asian countries. India and Pakistan, which have possessed nuclear weapons during the second nuclear age, have yet to dispel the risk of nuclear warfare. Although two countries are working to establish hotlines and implement measures to improve their relations, India has set a nuclear triad to improve its second-strike ability, and Pakistan is rushing to develop tactical nuclear forces to realize an immediate reactive nuclear posture. As for the “third nuclear crisis of the Korean Peninsula,” North Korea has repeatedly done provocative acts, which have been increasingly alarming its neighboring countries and the United States and destabilizing the region’s security. The blitz summit meetings between the U.S. and North Korea seemed to open the way to denuclearization talks. Still, no concrete results have yet been achieved. While the number of nuclear weapons in the world is reducing, nuclear-weapon states and substantial nuclear powers strive to modernize their nuclear forces. Among nuclear weapon states, the number of countries adopting the no first use (NFU) policy does not increase. The norm of “the sole purpose of nuclear weapons” has not been adopted, and counties seek more advanced transporting means of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, nuclear arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation efforts still significantly influence international security and its strategic stability.

    In conclusion, security policies related to nuclear weapons has been changing, depending on whether the object of safety is a state or the entire human race. Therefore, multilateral nuclear non-proliferation will be more required in international politics in the future.

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  • Nobumasa AKIYAMA
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_33-203_46
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Arms control policy is aimed at achieving objectives such as (1) disarmament, (2) stability, and (3) the pursuit of superiority. These objectives can be understood as three aspects of arms control policy that are simultaneously in place, rather than mutually exclusive. Under stability, there was at the same time a technological and political competition between the great powers for superiority within a framework set by the arms control regime. Which of these aspects is emphasized in the negotiation and policy pursuits of arms control and which of these aspects comes into play in reaching an agreement between the parties will depend on (1) the international political environment, particularly the distribution of power, (2) domestic political dynamics, and (3) innovations in weapons technology.

    This paper discusses how the multi-polarization of the international political structure due to the rise of China and changes in military strategy due to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, hypersonic gliding and precision warheads, missile defense, and cyber offense will affect the designing of deterrence architecture and the modality of nuclear arms control regime that defines the framework for strategic competition between the major powers.

    The nuclear arms control regime encompasses the conflicting objectives of ensuring stability and pursuing superiority. As the United States, Russia, and China have different strategic visions and different prospects for power distribution in the future, which increase uncertainty in the prospect nature and modality of mutual relationships among them, as emerging technologies assign a strategic role to conventional and cyber technologies, and as non-strategic uses of nuclear weapons are incorporated into national nuclear policies, a concept of strategic stability will require extensive work to re-define. Institutionalizing nuclear deterrence at the strategic level based on mutual vulnerability is not enough to ensure stability among states, and the potential for intense security competition to unfold across the borders of nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional domains is increasing. As a result, different nuclear weapons employment policies make it difficult to find a point of equilibrium in the institutional design of an arms control regime that ensures the establishment of stability among the three countries, including the United States, Russia and China. In addition, as a result of the convergence of competition at the global level of the great powers and regional security that includes non-nuclear allies, a new challenge has also arisen: how can arms control bridge the stability at the strategic level between the great powers and security at the regional level?

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  • Hirofumi TOSAKI
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_47-203_62
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The basic structure of nuclear arms control during and after the Cold War was shaped mainly by the structure of the international system and its balance of power. Particularly for the great powers, nuclear arms control was one of the key tools for maintaining the international order they led.

    Since the U.S.-Russian New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed in 2010, nuclear arms control has been at a standstill for a decade. This can be mainly seen as a consequence of power transition in the international system, which has affected the trend of nuclear weapons issues at the unit level as well. The narrowing of the power/nuclear disparity in the post post-Cold War era has brought about dual multipolarity of nuclear arms control among the great powers and between the great and other major countries, suggesting a possibility that the framework as well as regime of nuclear arms control would also be transformed considerably. Especially in multilateral nuclear arms control, difficulties of achieving agreements—through coordination of national and security interests and convergence of objectives among countries involved—increase exponentially.

    In addition, the implications for nuclear arms control of the modernization of nuclear forces, and the technological development and proliferation of both nuclear and conventional forces have also being becoming apparent. On the one hand, the development of highly capable conventional forces which could compliment nuclear forces could reduce the role of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, a country facing a threat of its adversary’s advanced conventional weapons would increase its reliance on nuclear weapons in order to offset its inferiority, and thus increase its reluctance to engage in nuclear arms control by which its nuclear activities are bound. Besides that, since conventional weapons do not have equivalent psychological and strategic impact as nuclear weapons, the incentives for promoting conventional arms control are not as high as those for nuclear arms control, which would also impede a progress of nuclear arms control.

    The possible transformation of nuclear arms control is complicated due to the dual multiporality of countries involved and diversification of nuclear and conventional forces, making it difficult to predict the future of nuclear arms control. Furthermore, as great power/geopolitical competitions have intensified, countries involved are re-emphasizing the importance of nuclear deterrents in their security policies. However, this is also the moment when nuclear arms control is most needed. It is necessary to renovate framework and discourse on nuclear arms control that takes into account the complexities surrounding nuclear weapons issues.

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  • Wakana MUKAI
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_63-203_79
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    There seems to be a tendency that nuclear disarmament and nuclear deterrence have been treated as contradictory concepts. Those who have advocated nuclear disarmament, and ultimately the elimination of nuclear weapons, have claimed that the idea of nuclear deterrence has long been an obstacle for the further progress of nuclear disarmament. Likewise, promoters of nuclear deterrence consider the concept itself as an important mechanism to enhance international peace and security, and thus tend to neglect the idea of nuclear disarmament. In other words, the two concepts are on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

    At the same time, it is also possible to point out that the concept of deterrence and disarmament have long been inseparable, and that the two have progressed in parallel with each other. In other words, the promotion of nuclear disarmament has, in some cases, reinforced the concept of nuclear deterrence.

    In the early ages of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union experienced a period in which the two countries were contemplating the idea of a General and Complete Disarmament (GCD) with specific proposals for a treaty to initiate the concept. Both the United States and the Soviet Union craved for international support to let the world know that they were seriously thinking of how to ultimately avoid war. On the other hand, the two countries recognized from an early stage that it was nearly impossible to reach an agreement on GCD, and the two moved in the direction of a search for multilateral arms control agreements, resulting in the creation of the Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (PTBT) and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

    Both the PTBT and the NPT contributed in securing the nuclear status of the already-nuclear possessing states at that time. The two treaties were attempts by the already-nuclear possessing states to dominate nuclear weapons, which were considered as signs that nuclear deterrence does matter in international politics. This prompted discontent among the nuclear threshold states, which eventually led them to acquire their own nuclear weapons.

    The indefinite extension of the NPT, the creation of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) were cases in which the importance of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence were more explicitly and implicitly advocated by countries that do not possess nuclear weapons. The TPNW which stigmatizes nuclear weapons made the gap between the so-called “deterrers” and “disarmers” even more solid. Moreover, it reminded the international community that not only countries that possess nuclear weapons but also countries that are under the nuclear umbrella regard nuclear deterrence too important to let go, even being accused of not being faithful to the promotion of nuclear disarmament.

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  • Kazuhiko NOGUCHI
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_80-203_93
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Although the United States and the Soviet Union seriously competed with each other through nuclear arms racing, they never fought each other directly. This is a puzzle because the more severe the conflict is, the higher the incentives become for the conflicting parties to fight. To tackle this issue, I pick up two classical hypotheses explaining the surprising stability of the international system. H1 is the theory of nuclear revolution developed by Robert Jervis. H2 is the stability of bipolar world constructed by Kenneth N. Waltz. The Cuban Missile Crisis is used here to test these hypotheses. This case study is timely because we now know the details of this important political event. As a result of testing these two hypotheses, H1 passed and H2 failed: U.S. decisionmakers, especially John F. Kennedy, first got angry about the Soviet’s sudden installation of nuclear missiles’ sites on Cuba, but he gradually come to favor a quarantine because he was afraid of nuclear retaliation if the U.S. military attacked Cuba. This evidence confirms that H1 is valid. As for H2, this assumes that superpowers do not have to care about alliance politics in the bipolar world because their security is ultimately threated only by the other power, so it should only balance against the other superpower internally. Nevertheless, the United States and the Soviet Union both did worry about how their allies reacted, the US even endangered the missile deal with the Soviets for the sake of its relatively minor ally, Turkey. This evidence of superpower behavior is inconsistent with H2. In sum, the stability of the international system was maintained by the nuclear revolution, at least during the Cold War.

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  • Kenki ADACHI
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_94-203_109
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    The nuclear non-proliferation norm is one of the most important norms in international security to date. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was created to implement this norm and took effect in 1970. Since then, the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapons states has been curbed to a considerable extent. However, after the end of the Cold War, a couple of countries clearly violated the norm. Sanctions against such misconduct have not been strong enough to enforce compliance. The nuclear non-proliferation norm has been shaken from many angles and severely damaged. Will this lead to the degeneration and disappearance of the nuclear non-proliferation norm and the collapse of nuclear non-proliferation governance?

    One of the few existing studies on norm disappearance was conducted by Diana Panke and Ulrich Petersohn. They emphasize the importance of imposing appropriate sanctions on actors who violate an internalized norm. They say that when a lack of appropriate sanctions triggers a cascade of norm violation, the norm will degenerate and disappear or be replaced by another norm. They also argue that a norm will weaken rapidly if it is highly precise, if the environment changes rapidly, and if compliance is not enforced by others. Considering the preciseness of the nuclear non-proliferation norm, the rapidly changing international environment after the end of the Cold War, and the weak sanctions for enforcing compliance when the norm has been violated, will the nuclear non-proliferation norm degenerate?

    By examining the results of public polls, behaviors and discourses of states which violated the nuclear non-proliferation norm, and the reactions of other states to the norm violations, this paper demonstrates that the norm is still robust. One reason for its robustness is because there is no alternative norm that can supersede it. In addition, this paper shows that the nuclear non-proliferation norm’s high level of institutionalization as well as the high density of the web of norms related to it have increased the norm’s viscosity. This viscosity is the key to understanding why the nuclear non-proliferation norm has so far not regressed and hence why nuclear non-proliferation governance will not likely collapse in the near future despite all the challenges the norm has faced.

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  • Hiroshi YAMAZOE
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_110-203_125
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Russia, perceiving the U.S. political actions in Eastern Europe as threats to its vital interests there, developed the concept of ‘Strategic Deterrence.’ According to Russia’s ‘Military Doctrine’ of 2014, this concept means countering non-military and military threats to Russia’s interests by non-military, conventional, and nuclear means. Nuclear weapons can serve three purposes within this concept: ultimate means, conflict localization means, and narrative offensive means. Russia officially shows its readiness to use strategic nuclear forces as ultimate means to counter conventional threats to the existence of the state, and to develop conventional forces for local conflicts. When Russian officials mention the use of nuclear weapons, it serves as a narrative offensive means, which they expect will incite fear among the adversaries’ populations and weaken their united will to confront Russia, and thus fulfill the role of a non-military means of the ‘Strategic Deterrence’ framework. Russian military might think of what I call ‘conflict localization means’ in this paper, popularly known as an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ doctrine, a posture of using nuclear weapons to persuade adversaries to cease further military actions in a local conflict. ‘Military Doctrine’ of 2014 and other factors show little evidence of the existence of such a posture, but do not necessarily exclude the possibility. Partly to enhance a nuclear ‘narrative offensive,’ the possibility of use of nuclear weapons as a conflict localization means is made deliberately ambiguous. The Russian military did officially seek to realize the conflict localization means in the 2003 reform document, and debates on this matter continue. The ‘Grom-2019’ military exercise in October 2019 showed a possibility of forming a unified command and control not only of strategic nuclear forces but also of local-level weapons such as Kalibr and Iskander cruise missile systems with nuclear warheads. The issues of the nuclear threshold and strategic stability will depend on further development of forces and doctrines of Russia and the United States.

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  • Takafumi ARAI
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_126-203_141
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper explores why the Sato Eisaku administration (from 1964 to 1972) feared the development of nuclear weapons by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The existing literature argues that the Sato administration worried about the possibility of a nuclear attack by the PRC because this administration considered the political leaders of PRC as very aggressive and irrational. In contrast, by using newly declassified documents, this paper shows that the Sato administration feared the possibility of a political disturbance in Japan resulting from a nuclear blackmail by the PRC.

    During this period, the Japanese government recognized that it was not likely for the PRC and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to invade Japanese soil, including by a nuclear attack, because they realized that the US had military supremacy in Asia in terms of naval, air, and nuclear force. On the other hand, the Japanese government feared nuclear blackmail by the PRC or the USSR because it could lead to a large political movement against the US-Japan Security Treaty. In this period, the Japanese political leaders felt uneasiness about the duration of the US-Japan Security Treaty because this treaty would expire in 1970, and the number of supporters of this treaty was as much as that of the non-alignment policy. Therefore, the Japanese government suspected that if the PRC or the USSR inflamed public anxiety for Japanese security by nuclear blackmail, Japanese people would be attracted by a non-alignment policy in order to inhibit nuclear attacks. To avoid such a situation, the Japanese government asked the US to assure their defense commitment to Japan to eradicate public anxiety that the US government would not fulfill the commitment to defend Japan when the PRC or the USSR attacked Japanese soil by nuclear weapons. Therefore, this paper concludes that the Sato administration feared political disturbance against the US-Japan Security Treaty caused by nuclear blackmail of the PRC or the USSR.

    This paper may contribute to a rethinking of the role of extended nuclear deterrence. Generally, nuclear weapons are known to be deterrent to a nuclear attack by other states, and few researchers have paid attention to nuclear blackmail and domestic politics. However, this paper illustrates that extended deterrence has also played an important role in preventing domestic disturbance caused by nuclear blackmail. This paper discovers new aspects of extended nuclear deterrence.

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  • Masakatsu OTA
    2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_142-203_158
    Published: March 30, 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2022
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Since the Crimea crisis in 2014, the international nuclear order bed-rocked on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has become severely distressed due to lack of cooperation among nuclear stakeholders. Especially, stalling disarmament dialogue between the United States and Russia amplifies such a negative atmosphere. To be worse, the competitive nuclear-weapon powers have been beefing up their nuclear capability and sharpening their nuclear doctrines in recent years.

    The demise of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and the expiration of the Intermediate-Range Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019 have undermined the “strategic stability” which was established and maintained by the US and the Soviet Union, later Russia, through a series of nuclear arms-control negotiations during the Cold War.

    Behind these destabilizing scenes played by the former super-powers, China, another nuclear rising power, has steadily increased her strategic capability through deployment of new nuclear missiles and hypersonic weapons for the past decade. North Korea is another big nuclear challenge against regional stakeholders like Japan, South Korea and the U.S. that promises to provide strategic deterrence in East Asia.

    Giving a rough overview of the recent nuclear landscape shaped by these strategic trends, this paper mainly analyzes evolutions of the U.S.-Japan alliance influenced by U.S. nuclear policy, especially represented by each administrations’ Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), and deteriorating security situation in East Asia.

    For example, the Trump administration announced its own NPR in 2018 and broadened nuclear retaliation option against “non-nuclear strategic attack” which may include adversary’s cyber-attack on the U.S. nuclear command and control system. At almost the same timing of an announcement of Trump NPR, the Japanese Abe administration expressed a high evaluation of the NPR, because Japan strongly desired to strengthen the U.S. extended nuclear deterrence against the backdrop of on-going military crisis provoked by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.

    Based on exclusive interviews with current and former officials of the U.S. and Japan, the paper focuses on diplomatic process of the two allies for solidifying the nature of “nuclear alliance” through the Extended Deterrence Dialogue that started under the Obama administration in 2010. Differently from NATO, the U.S.-Japan alliance has not ever formalized any mechanism to share and operate U.S. nuclear weapons at the time of contingency. However, the paper sheds a light on how the U.S. and Japan have evolved their nuclear bond particularly for the past decade.

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