Matthew Fuhrmann

Taking a Walk on the Supply Side The Determinants of Civilian Nuclear Cooperation

When and why do states transfer nuclear technology, materials, and knowledge to other states for peaceful purposes? This question is important given the recent finding that countries receiving nuclear aid are more likely to pursue and acquire nuclear weapons. I argue that countries provide civil nuclear assistance for three strategic reasons: to strengthen their allies and alliances, to strengthen their relationship with enemies of enemies, and to strengthen existing democracies and bilateral relationships with these countries (if the supplier is also a democracy). I test these arguments using statistical analysis and a new data set on more than 2,000 bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreements signed between 1950 and 2000. The findings offer robust empirical support for my argument and very little support for the competing explanation rooted in norms and nonproliferation. This article enhances scholarly understanding of how and why nuclear weapons spread and encourages further research on the supply side of nuclear proliferation. It also has broad implications for the literatures on norms and international cooperation.

Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

In his article, Matthew Fuhrmann challenges the conventional wisdom about the relationship between civilian nuclear cooperation and nuclear weapons proliferation.1 The literature on nuclear proliferation focuses on the demand side and explains decisions to acquire nuclear weapons on the basis of security threats, hegemonic ambitions, national identity, or related factors.2 The role of civilian technical nuclear cooperation is generally discounted as a motivating factor in the acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities. Fuhrmann argues that there is a causal connection between peaceful nuclear cooperation and proliferation and that civilian nuclear assistance over time increases the likelihood that states will initiate nuclear weapons programs. The implications of the notion that civilian nuclear technology promotes nuclear proliferation are disturbing, because they lead to the conclusion that the central bargain of the nuclear nonproliferation regime—namely, access to civilian nuclear technology in return for the renunciation of nuclear weapons—is not viable and that instead the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) might be a vector for the spread of nuclear weapons technology. The central thesis of Fuhrmann’s article seems implausible. Nuclear proliferation is exceedingly rare. One hundred eighty-nine states are members of the NPT, including ave nuclear states. There are only four states that are not members of the NPT and that have nuclear weapons. Of the four, the last one to make the decision to go nuclear and that received civilian nuclear assistance started its nuclear program in 1972. North Korea went nuclear in the absence of civilian nuclear assistance.3 Belarus, Kazakhstan, Correspondence: Nuclear Cooperation and Proliferation