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It appears probable that the next few decades will see the emergence of many new nuclear weapons powers, especially in the third world. The recent Israeli attack against Iraq’s nuclear reactor demonstrated dramatically the importance of attempting to manage an increasinglyproliferated world. Systematicanalysis of the implicationsof this regime for the stability of the central balance, and for stability in regional conflict situations, has begun. What is required now is an assessment of the scopefor armscontrol measures designed to minimize the likelihood that such a process will result in the weapon’s being used. Without ceasing to think in terms of measures to discourage and retard decisions to acquire nuclear weapons and to minimize the spread of capabilities to do so, we must think about managing the effects of that measure of nuclear spread which it would be imprudent to assume we can prevent. The lnevifableSpread of Nuclear Weapons Why should we believe that nuclear proliferation is probable? What general effects should we expect this process to have?’ The significant spread of nuclear weaponsis probable over the next few decades because technological and economicconstraintsagainst their acquisitionhave declined, and because political and strategic incentives favoring the acquisitionof nuclear weapons have increased. There is furthermore little reason to expect that either of these trends will not continue. The spread of the civil atomic power industry means the spread of capabilities and expertise necessary (but not sufficient) to the construction of An early version of this essay was prepared while the author was a guest of the Department of Political Science, The Colorado College. He is grateful to the members and staff of the Department , and for their support and generous hospitality. Special thanks are due to Robert D. Loevy, Timothy Fuller, William Stivers, and Helen Lynch. John1. Weltman is Senior Research Fellow in International Relations, Institute of Advanced Studies, the Australian National University. 1. I have examined these questionsat length elsewhereand here shall only deal with them i n summary form. See the author’s “Nuclear Devolution and World Order,” World Politics, Vol. XXXII, No. 2 (January1980), pp. 169-193. [nternntional Security, Winter 1981/82(Vol. 6, No. 3) 0162-2889/82/030182-12$02.50/0 01982 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 182 Managing Multipolarity I 183 nuclear weapons. Sincea good deal of the process of producing these weapons can be carried on as a by-product of civil programs, the marginal additional cost of the weapons declines as the civil industry expands. But diversion of materials from a civil program is not the only route to a weapons capability. There exists also a "direct" route, through the construction of facilitiesdesigned expressly for a weapons program. New techniques for the fabrication of weapons-grade material have made even this considerably cheaper than in the decades immediately following the Second World War. Recent reports concerninga weapons program in Pakistanwhich has reached an advanced stage suggestthat the "direct" route to the acquisition of nuclear weapons no longer is beyond the economic capabilitiesof many states in the third world. Political trends in the contemporary world have implications parallel to these technological and economic ones. One cannot but observe a relative decline in the last few decades of the influence of superpower alliances as determinantsof the foreign policies of small states, as well as the emergence of many new international actors in the wake of the post-war demise of European colonial systems. It follows that, to an extent considerablygreater than in the immediate post-war years, foreign and defense policy in smaller states is largely influenced by the idiosyncracies of their local or regional situation. Decisions about the acquisition of weapons of any type are no differentfrom other defense policy decisions. There is little reason to assume that a "nuclear allergy" will be any more prevalent in the third world than it has been among the governments of industrialized states. To be sure, it is simplistic to merely divide states into those which are nuclear weapons powers, and those which are not. To be useful in a military sense, a nuclear device must be produced in some quantity; it must be so constructed as...

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