Matthew Fuhrmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 3821163 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew Fuhrmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew |
| FAMILY NAME | Fuhrmann |
| SIGNATURE | FUHRMANN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7316-0414 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 555 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Socialization, Self-Selection, and the Life Experiences of World Leaders: Why Business Experience Influences Defense Spending
Nuclear Weapons and Low-Level Military Conflict
Do nuclear weapons deter low-level military conflict? Although the political effects of nuclear weapons have been debated for more than seventy years, scholarship has yet to produce a clear answer. We design a study that reduces the risk of omitted variable bias relative to prior research. Our analysis compares the rates of conflict among eventual nuclear powers in the periods before and after they obtained an arsenal. We include two-way fixed ef…
Do Armed Drones Counter Terrorism, Or Are They Counterproductive? Evidence from Eighteen Countries
Do armed drone programs decrease or increase terrorism? Existing studies on this question produce conflicting arguments and evidence. Drone optimists contend that armed drones reduce a country's vulnerability to terrorism, while pessimists claim that this military technology provokes higher levels of terrorism. Prior research focuses almost exclusively on one particular context: the short-term effect of the US drone program in Pakistan. However, …
Estimating Alliance Costs: An Exchange
Budget Breaker? The Financial Cost of US Military Alliances
How do alliance commitments affect US military spending? This question is at the heart of debates about the value of alliances and the future of US grand strategy. One perspective, which we call the budget hawk view, asserts that alliances are exorbitantly expensive, as they require military investments to deter third-party adversaries and reassure allies, encourage free riding, and facilitate reckless allied behavior. A competing view, which we …
Who’s prone to drone? A global time-series analysis of armed uninhabited aerial vehicle proliferation
What determines whether countries pursue and obtain armed drones? Using an original time-series dataset, we conduct the first comprehensive analysis of armed drone proliferation from 1994 to 2019. We theorize and find evidence that security threats—like terrorism—are not the only factors driving proliferation. Regime type also has a significant effect, but it varies over time. From 1994 to 2010 regime type had no significant effect. However, non-…
When Do Leaders Free‐Ride? Business Experience and Contributions to Collective Defense
The logic of free‐riding expects that individuals will underinvest in public goods, but people often behave in ways that are inconsistent with this prediction. Why do we observe variation in free‐riding behavior? This study addresses this question by examining contributions to an important international public good—collective defense in military alliances. It develops a behavioral theory of free‐riding in which the beliefs of world leaders are im…
Reassessing the fulfillment of alliance commitments in war
Leeds et al. (2000) report that military alliance commitments are honored in war around 75% of the time. We update and extend data on alliance reliability from 1816 to 2003. Our analysis reveals a lower compliance rate overall: 50%. We find a sharp disparity in alliance reliability before and after World War II. States honored their alliance commitments 66% of the time prior to 1945 but the compliance rate drops to 22% from 1945 to 2003. Moreover…
On Extended Nuclear Deterrence
This analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s t…
When Preventive War Threats Work for Nuclear Nonproliferation
On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16 jets dropped bombs on an Iraqi nuclear reactor commonly known as Osiraq. The strike eliminated Iraq’s most critical nuclear facility before it was completed, the
Debating Drone Proliferation
In “Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation,” Michael Horowitz, Sarah Kreps, and Matthew Fuhrmann argue that the risks of drone proliferation are modest or low for use in crisis bargaining, deterrence, and coercive diplomacy.1 Although they correctly highlight the potentially stabilizing effects of drones and note that many popular accounts of the potential risks from drones succumb to unjustified hype, their analysis …
Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation
One of the central puzzles of nuclear politics is that only 10 countries have built nuclear weapons, despite the fact that many others have the technological capacity to do so. What accounts for the surprisingly slow pace of nuclear proliferation since 1945? Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro provide a novel explanation in their new book, which is essential reading for anyone interested in international security, peace, and conflict. Debs and Mo…
Studying Leaders and Military Conflict: Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda
This article introduces the special feature “Leaders, Crisis Behavior, and International Conflict.” Individual leaders play a central role in world politics. Yet, for the last several decades, international relations scholarship has downplayed or ignored leaders, focusing instead on system-wide variables and domestic political institutions. A new wave of research, however, has helped to reintroduce the leader-level back into models of internation…
Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more popularly known as “drones,” have become emblematic of twenty-first century military technologies but scholars have yet to convincingly explain the drivers of UAV proliferation. Using the first systematic data set of UAV proliferation, this research note examines the spread of UAVs in the context of scholarly debates about interests versus capacity in explaining policy adoption. The results yield important in…
The Consequences of Drone Proliferation: Separating Fact from Fiction
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation
What are the consequences of drone proliferation for international security? Despite extensive discussions in the policy world concerning drone strikes for counterterrorism purposes, myths about the capabilities and implications of current-generation drones often outstrip reality. Understanding the impact of drones requires separating fact from fiction by examining their effects in six different contexts—counterterrorism, interstate conflict, cri…
Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
How do international arms control treaties influence state policies? This article investigates this question by analyzing the efficacy of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Despite fierce debate over the last several decades, scholars still lack a full understanding of whether or not the treaty “works.” This debate persists, in part, because existing studies suffer from a key limitation: they are not designed to infer a causal connection …
Almost nuclear: Introducing the Nuclear Latency dataset
The capacity to build nuclear weapons—known as “nuclear latency”—is widely believed to be important in world politics. Yet scholarly research on this topic remains limited. This paper introduces a new dataset on nuclear latency from 1939 to 2012. It discusses coding procedures, describes global trends, and compares the dataset with earlier efforts to measure nuclear latency. We show that nuclear latency is far more common than nuclear proliferati…
When Leaders Matter: Rebel Experience and Nuclear Proliferation
This paper contributes to a growing literature on leaders in international politics by explaining why and how the background experiences of leaders influence nuclear proliferation. Given nuclear weapons' crucial role in world politics, examining the importance of leaders for nuclear proliferation represents a key development in research on leaders. We argue that leaders with a particular experience -- participation in an armed rebellion against t…
Promotions
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Nuclear Strategy, Nonproliferation, and the Causes of Foreign Nuclear Deployments
Why do countries deploy nuclear weapons abroad? Since 1945, more than twenty states have hosted foreign nuclear weapons on their territory, and five countries continue to do so today. These deployments have important consequences for international security, yet there is little systematic research about the factors that drive them. In this article, we develop three broad theoretical frameworks to explain why foreign nuclear deployments occur. Usin…
Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand‐Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence
How can states signal their alliance commitments? Although scholars have developed sophisticated theoretical models of costly signaling in international relations, we know little about which specific policies leaders can implement to signal their commitments. This article addresses this question with respect to the extended deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Can nuclear states deter attacks against their friends by simply announcing their defe…
Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail
Do nuclear weapons offer coercive advantages in international crisis bargaining? Almost seventy years into the nuclear age, we still lack a complete answer to this question. While scholars have devoted significant attention to questions about nuclear deterrence, we know comparatively little about whether nuclear weapons can help compel states to change their behavior. This study argues that, despite their extraordinary power, nuclear weapons are …
Atoms for Terror? Nuclear Programs and Non-Catastrophic Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism
Does the diffusion of nuclear programs encourage nuclear and radiological (NR) terrorism? It is argued that a country's vulnerability to NR terrorism grows as the size of its nuclear program increases. The presence of expansive nuclear infrastructure facilitates terrorists’ efforts to steal or acquire nuclear and radiological materials, increases the targets open to attack, and amplifies the potential economic and social-psychological consequence…
Splitting Atoms: Why Do Countries Build Nuclear Power Plants
Why do countries build nuclear power plants? This article develops a series of arguments for national reliance on nuclear power relating to economic development, energy security, nuclear proliferation, the “supply side,” norms, and nuclear accidents. Statistical tests of these arguments using a dataset on nuclear power plant construction in 129 countries from 1965 to 2000 yield two main conclusions. First, nuclear energy programs emerge and expan…
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 t…
Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand‐Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence
How can states signal their alliance commitments? Although scholars have developed sophisticated theoretical models of costly signaling in international relations, we know little about which specific policies leaders can implement to signal their commitments. This article addresses this question with respect to the extended deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Can nuclear states deter attacks against their friends by simply announcing their defe…
Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements
Peaceful nuclear cooperation—the transfer of nuclear technology, materials, or know-how from one state to another for peaceful purposes—leads to the spread of nuclear weapons. In particular, countries that receive peaceful nuclear assistance are more likely to initiate weapons programs and successfully develop the bomb, especially when they are also faced with security threats. Statistical analysis based on a new data set of more than 2,000 bilat…
Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more popularly known as “drones,” have become emblematic of twenty-first century military technologies but scholars have yet to convincingly explain the drivers of UAV proliferation. Using the first systematic data set of UAV proliferation, this research note examines the spread of UAVs in the context of scholarly debates about interests versus capacity in explaining policy adoption. The results yield important in…
When Do Leaders Free‐Ride? Business Experience and Contributions to Collective Defense
The logic of free‐riding expects that individuals will underinvest in public goods, but people often behave in ways that are inconsistent with this prediction. Why do we observe variation in free‐riding behavior? This study addresses this question by examining contributions to an important international public good—collective defense in military alliances. It develops a behavioral theory of free‐riding in which the beliefs of world leaders are im…
Almost nuclear: Introducing the Nuclear Latency dataset
The capacity to build nuclear weapons—known as “nuclear latency”—is widely believed to be important in world politics. Yet scholarly research on this topic remains limited. This paper introduces a new dataset on nuclear latency from 1939 to 2012. It discusses coding procedures, describes global trends, and compares the dataset with earlier efforts to measure nuclear latency. We show that nuclear latency is far more common than nuclear proliferati…
Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
How do international arms control treaties influence state policies? This article investigates this question by analyzing the efficacy of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Despite fierce debate over the last several decades, scholars still lack a full understanding of whether or not the treaty “works.” This debate persists, in part, because existing studies suffer from a key limitation: they are not designed to infer a causal connection …
Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail
Do nuclear weapons offer coercive advantages in international crisis bargaining? Almost seventy years into the nuclear age, we still lack a complete answer to this question. While scholars have devoted significant attention to questions about nuclear deterrence, we know comparatively little about whether nuclear weapons can help compel states to change their behavior. This study argues that, despite their extraordinary power, nuclear weapons are …
Studying Leaders and Military Conflict: Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda
This article introduces the special feature “Leaders, Crisis Behavior, and International Conflict.” Individual leaders play a central role in world politics. Yet, for the last several decades, international relations scholarship has downplayed or ignored leaders, focusing instead on system-wide variables and domestic political institutions. A new wave of research, however, has helped to reintroduce the leader-level back into models of internation…
When Leaders Matter: Rebel Experience and Nuclear Proliferation
This paper contributes to a growing literature on leaders in international politics by explaining why and how the background experiences of leaders influence nuclear proliferation. Given nuclear weapons' crucial role in world politics, examining the importance of leaders for nuclear proliferation represents a key development in research on leaders. We argue that leaders with a particular experience -- participation in an armed rebellion against t…
Targeting Nuclear Programs in War and Peace: A Quantitative Empirical Analysis, 1941-2000
When do states attack or consider attacking nuclear infrastructure in nonnuclear weapons states? Despite the importance of this question, relatively little scholarly research has considered when and why countries target nuclear programs. The authors argue that states are likely to attack or consider attacking nuclear facilities when they are highly threatened by a particular country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Three factors increase the sal…
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation
What are the consequences of drone proliferation for international security? Despite extensive discussions in the policy world concerning drone strikes for counterterrorism purposes, myths about the capabilities and implications of current-generation drones often outstrip reality. Understanding the impact of drones requires separating fact from fiction by examining their effects in six different contexts—counterterrorism, interstate conflict, cri…
Nuclear Strategy, Nonproliferation, and the Causes of Foreign Nuclear Deployments
Why do countries deploy nuclear weapons abroad? Since 1945, more than twenty states have hosted foreign nuclear weapons on their territory, and five countries continue to do so today. These deployments have important consequences for international security, yet there is little systematic research about the factors that drive them. In this article, we develop three broad theoretical frameworks to explain why foreign nuclear deployments occur. Usin…
Splitting Atoms: Why Do Countries Build Nuclear Power Plants
Why do countries build nuclear power plants? This article develops a series of arguments for national reliance on nuclear power relating to economic development, energy security, nuclear proliferation, the “supply side,” norms, and nuclear accidents. Statistical tests of these arguments using a dataset on nuclear power plant construction in 129 countries from 1965 to 2000 yield two main conclusions. First, nuclear energy programs emerge and expan…
Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation
What are the consequences of military strikes against nuclear facilities? In particular, do they ‘work’ by delaying the target states ability to build the bomb? This article addresses these questions by conducting an analysis of 16 attacks against nuclear facilities from 1942 to 2007. We analyze strikes that occurred during peacetime and raids that took place in the context of an ongoing interstate war. The findings indicate that strikes are neit…
Exporting Mass Destruction? The Determinants of Dual-Use Trade
This study applies well-known arguments on the effect of conflict, alliances, and democracy on international trade to identify the determinants of dual-use trade. Dual-use commodities are those that can be used in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs or in legitimate civilian applications. This article advances a theory suggesting that governments seeking to maximize the gains from dual-use trade will promote exports to countries where ther…
Territorial Dimensions of Enduring Internal Rivalries
This paper explores the territorial dimensions of enduring internal rivalries (EIRs), which are defined as protracted domestic violent conflicts between governments and insurgent groups. It argues that the nature of domestic-level territorial conflicts, such as tactical advantages facing the rebels, allow the fighting to continue.Three specific hypotheses flow from this argument including that territorial disputes are likely to evolve into EIRs a…
Disaggregating Noncompliance: Abstention versus Predation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Why do states make disingenuous treaty commitments? Under what conditions will countries refrain from entering cooperative agreements with which they do not expect to comply? This article addresses these questions by analyzing how states that are pursuing nuclear weapons treat the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The authors develop a distinction between two types of noncooperative behavior. The first is cheating while part of the NPT (pred…
A Tale of Two Social Capitals: Revolutionary Collective Action in Kyrgyzstan
A combination of social capital and more traditional activities helped demonstrators launch Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 Tulip Revolution
Do Armed Drones Counter Terrorism, Or Are They Counterproductive? Evidence from Eighteen Countries
Do armed drone programs decrease or increase terrorism? Existing studies on this question produce conflicting arguments and evidence. Drone optimists contend that armed drones reduce a country's vulnerability to terrorism, while pessimists claim that this military technology provokes higher levels of terrorism. Prior research focuses almost exclusively on one particular context: the short-term effect of the US drone program in Pakistan. However, …
On Extended Nuclear Deterrence
This analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s t…
Nuclear Weapons and Low-Level Military Conflict
Do nuclear weapons deter low-level military conflict? Although the political effects of nuclear weapons have been debated for more than seventy years, scholarship has yet to produce a clear answer. We design a study that reduces the risk of omitted variable bias relative to prior research. Our analysis compares the rates of conflict among eventual nuclear powers in the periods before and after they obtained an arsenal. We include two-way fixed ef…
Who’s prone to drone? A global time-series analysis of armed uninhabited aerial vehicle proliferation
What determines whether countries pursue and obtain armed drones? Using an original time-series dataset, we conduct the first comprehensive analysis of armed drone proliferation from 1994 to 2019. We theorize and find evidence that security threats—like terrorism—are not the only factors driving proliferation. Regime type also has a significant effect, but it varies over time. From 1994 to 2010 regime type had no significant effect. However, non-…
Reassessing the fulfillment of alliance commitments in war
Leeds et al. (2000) report that military alliance commitments are honored in war around 75% of the time. We update and extend data on alliance reliability from 1816 to 2003. Our analysis reveals a lower compliance rate overall: 50%. We find a sharp disparity in alliance reliability before and after World War II. States honored their alliance commitments 66% of the time prior to 1945 but the compliance rate drops to 22% from 1945 to 2003. Moreover…
Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
July 01 2010 Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Christoph Bluth, Christoph Bluth Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Studies at the University of Leeds. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Matthew Kroenig, Matthew Kroenig Matthew Kroenig is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Rensse…
A Tale of Two Social Capitals: Revolutionary Collective Action in Kyrgyzstan
A combination of social capital and more traditional activities helped demonstrators launch Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 Tulip Revolution
Following START: Risk Acceptance and the 1991–1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives
In September 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush launched the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs), which were unilateral measures that led to the largest reductions in the American and Soviet/Russian nuclear arsenals to date. Despite their eventual success, the United States took on significant risks in launching the PNIs. To uncover the best theoretical explanation for their onset, this article uses realism, neorealism, the bureaucratic po…
Exporting Mass Destruction? The Determinants of Dual-Use Trade
This study applies well-known arguments on the effect of conflict, alliances, and democracy on international trade to identify the determinants of dual-use trade. Dual-use commodities are those that can be used in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs or in legitimate civilian applications. This article advances a theory suggesting that governments seeking to maximize the gains from dual-use trade will promote exports to countries where ther…
Territorial Dimensions of Enduring Internal Rivalries
This paper explores the territorial dimensions of enduring internal rivalries (EIRs), which are defined as protracted domestic violent conflicts between governments and insurgent groups. It argues that the nature of domestic-level territorial conflicts, such as tactical advantages facing the rebels, allow the fighting to continue.Three specific hypotheses flow from this argument including that territorial disputes are likely to evolve into EIRs a…
Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements
Peaceful nuclear cooperation—the transfer of nuclear technology, materials, or know-how from one state to another for peaceful purposes—leads to the spread of nuclear weapons. In particular, countries that receive peaceful nuclear assistance are more likely to initiate weapons programs and successfully develop the bomb, especially when they are also faced with security threats. Statistical analysis based on a new data set of more than 2,000 bilat…
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 t…
Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
July 01 2010 Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Christoph Bluth, Christoph Bluth Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Studies at the University of Leeds. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Matthew Kroenig, Matthew Kroenig Matthew Kroenig is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Rensse…
Targeting Nuclear Programs in War and Peace: A Quantitative Empirical Analysis, 1941-2000
When do states attack or consider attacking nuclear infrastructure in nonnuclear weapons states? Despite the importance of this question, relatively little scholarly research has considered when and why countries target nuclear programs. The authors argue that states are likely to attack or consider attacking nuclear facilities when they are highly threatened by a particular country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Three factors increase the sal…
Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation
What are the consequences of military strikes against nuclear facilities? In particular, do they ‘work’ by delaying the target states ability to build the bomb? This article addresses these questions by conducting an analysis of 16 attacks against nuclear facilities from 1942 to 2007. We analyze strikes that occurred during peacetime and raids that took place in the context of an ongoing interstate war. The findings indicate that strikes are neit…
Splitting Atoms: Why Do Countries Build Nuclear Power Plants
Why do countries build nuclear power plants? This article develops a series of arguments for national reliance on nuclear power relating to economic development, energy security, nuclear proliferation, the “supply side,” norms, and nuclear accidents. Statistical tests of these arguments using a dataset on nuclear power plant construction in 129 countries from 1965 to 2000 yield two main conclusions. First, nuclear energy programs emerge and expan…
Disaggregating Noncompliance: Abstention versus Predation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Why do states make disingenuous treaty commitments? Under what conditions will countries refrain from entering cooperative agreements with which they do not expect to comply? This article addresses these questions by analyzing how states that are pursuing nuclear weapons treat the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The authors develop a distinction between two types of noncooperative behavior. The first is cheating while part of the NPT (pred…
Preferences, Knowledge, and Citizen Probability Assessments of the Terrorism Risk of Nuclear Power
How does the American public assess risk when it comes to national security issues? This paper addresses this question by analyzing variation in citizen probability assessments of the terrorism risk of nuclear power plants. Drawing on the literature on how motivated reasoning, selective information processing, and domain-specific knowledge influence public opinion, we argue that heterogeneous issue preferences and knowledge of nuclear energy and …
Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail
Do nuclear weapons offer coercive advantages in international crisis bargaining? Almost seventy years into the nuclear age, we still lack a complete answer to this question. While scholars have devoted significant attention to questions about nuclear deterrence, we know comparatively little about whether nuclear weapons can help compel states to change their behavior. This study argues that, despite their extraordinary power, nuclear weapons are …
Atoms for Terror? Nuclear Programs and Non-Catastrophic Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism
Does the diffusion of nuclear programs encourage nuclear and radiological (NR) terrorism? It is argued that a country's vulnerability to NR terrorism grows as the size of its nuclear program increases. The presence of expansive nuclear infrastructure facilitates terrorists’ efforts to steal or acquire nuclear and radiological materials, increases the targets open to attack, and amplifies the potential economic and social-psychological consequence…
Promotions
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Nuclear Strategy, Nonproliferation, and the Causes of Foreign Nuclear Deployments
Why do countries deploy nuclear weapons abroad? Since 1945, more than twenty states have hosted foreign nuclear weapons on their territory, and five countries continue to do so today. These deployments have important consequences for international security, yet there is little systematic research about the factors that drive them. In this article, we develop three broad theoretical frameworks to explain why foreign nuclear deployments occur. Usin…
Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand‐Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence
How can states signal their alliance commitments? Although scholars have developed sophisticated theoretical models of costly signaling in international relations, we know little about which specific policies leaders can implement to signal their commitments. This article addresses this question with respect to the extended deterrent effects of nuclear weapons. Can nuclear states deter attacks against their friends by simply announcing their defe…
Almost nuclear: Introducing the Nuclear Latency dataset
The capacity to build nuclear weapons—known as “nuclear latency”—is widely believed to be important in world politics. Yet scholarly research on this topic remains limited. This paper introduces a new dataset on nuclear latency from 1939 to 2012. It discusses coding procedures, describes global trends, and compares the dataset with earlier efforts to measure nuclear latency. We show that nuclear latency is far more common than nuclear proliferati…
When Leaders Matter: Rebel Experience and Nuclear Proliferation
This paper contributes to a growing literature on leaders in international politics by explaining why and how the background experiences of leaders influence nuclear proliferation. Given nuclear weapons' crucial role in world politics, examining the importance of leaders for nuclear proliferation represents a key development in research on leaders. We argue that leaders with a particular experience -- participation in an armed rebellion against t…
The Consequences of Drone Proliferation: Separating Fact from Fiction
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation
What are the consequences of drone proliferation for international security? Despite extensive discussions in the policy world concerning drone strikes for counterterrorism purposes, myths about the capabilities and implications of current-generation drones often outstrip reality. Understanding the impact of drones requires separating fact from fiction by examining their effects in six different contexts—counterterrorism, interstate conflict, cri…
Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
How do international arms control treaties influence state policies? This article investigates this question by analyzing the efficacy of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Despite fierce debate over the last several decades, scholars still lack a full understanding of whether or not the treaty “works.” This debate persists, in part, because existing studies suffer from a key limitation: they are not designed to infer a causal connection …
Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more popularly known as “drones,” have become emblematic of twenty-first century military technologies but scholars have yet to convincingly explain the drivers of UAV proliferation. Using the first systematic data set of UAV proliferation, this research note examines the spread of UAVs in the context of scholarly debates about interests versus capacity in explaining policy adoption. The results yield important in…
Reassessing the fulfillment of alliance commitments in war
Leeds et al. (2000) report that military alliance commitments are honored in war around 75% of the time. We update and extend data on alliance reliability from 1816 to 2003. Our analysis reveals a lower compliance rate overall: 50%. We find a sharp disparity in alliance reliability before and after World War II. States honored their alliance commitments 66% of the time prior to 1945 but the compliance rate drops to 22% from 1945 to 2003. Moreover…
On Extended Nuclear Deterrence
This analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s t…
Political science (34 works) · Law (30 works) · Law (28 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (21 works) · Economics (20 works) · Politics (19 works) · Nuclear weapon (18 works) · Political economy (18 works) · Business (16 works) · Computer Science (16 works)