No prolif impact

The proliferation of nuclear weapons has been far slower than predicted, and this seems to be because the weapons do not generally convey much advantage to their possessor. Dozens of technologically capable countries have considered obtaining nuclear arsenals, but very few have done so. A key reason for this is that the possession of such expensive armaments actually conveys in almost all cases rather little advantage to the possessor. In the main, they are difficult to obtain, militarily useless, a spectacular waste of time, money, and scientific talent, distasteful, and likely to rile the neighbors. Moreover, the weapons have also been exceedingly difficult to obtain for administratively dysfunctional countries.9

Moreover, the consequences of what little proliferation has taken place have been substantially benign. Those who have acquired the weapons have “used” them simply to stoke their egos or to deter real or imagined threats. For the most part, they have quietly kept the weapons in storage and haven’t even found much benefit in rattling them from time to time.

Nor have the weapons proven to be crucial status—or virility—symbols, although Pakistan and Russia do probably garner more attention that they would if they did not have nuclear weapons. But how much more status would Japan have if it possessed nuclear weapons? Would anybody pay a great deal more attention to Britain or France if their arsenals held 5,000 nuclear weapons, or would anybody pay much less if they had none? Did China need nuclear weapons to impress the world with its economic growth? Or with its Olympics?

Proliferation alarmists may occasionally grant that countries principally obtain a nuclear arsenal to counter real or perceived threats, but many go on to argue that the newly nuclear country will then use its nuclear weapons to “dominate” the area. That argument was repeatedly trotted out with dramatic urgency before 2003 for the dangers supposedly posed by Saddam Hussein, and it is now being applied to Iran. Exactly how that domination business is to be carried out is never made clear.10 But the notion, apparently, is that should an atomic country rattle the occasional rocket, other countries in the area, suitably intimidated, would supinely bow to its demands. Far more likely, any threatened states will make common cause with each other and with other concerned countries against the threatening neighbor—rather in the way they coalesced into an alliance of convenience to oppose Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.