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Nuclear Decisions.
Changing the
Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs
Lisa Langdon Koch
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Nuclear Decisions
Nuclear Decisions
Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons
Programs
L I S A L A N G D O N KO C H
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Koch, Lisa (Lisa Langdon), author.
Title: Nuclear decisions : changing the course of nuclear weapons programs / Lisa Langdon Koch.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022062279 (print) | LCCN 2022062280 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197679531 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780197679548 (epub) | ISBN 9780197679555 | ISBN 9780197679562
Subjects: LCSH: Nuclear nonproliferation—Government policy—Case studies. |
Military policy—Decision making—Case studies.
Classification: LCC JZ5675.K62 2023 (print) | LCC JZ5675 (ebook) |
DDC 327.1/747—dc23/eng/20230216
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022062279
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022062280
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197679531.001.0001
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction to Nuclear Decisions 1

2. Proliferation Curves 10
3. A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making 23
4. Changing Proliferation Environments across the Nuclear Age 54
5. The Permissive Period: The Soviet Union, Israel, and France 82
6. The Transition Period: Sweden, South Korea, and India 117
7. The Nonproliferation Regime Period: Pakistan, South Africa,
and Brazil 151
8. Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs 193
Appendix 203
Notes 213
Bibliography 247
Index 265
Acknowledgments
I began conducting the research that led to this book when I was a graduate
student at the University of Michigan. Allan Stam supported and encouraged
my work, helped me think about the big picture, and never failed to provide
wise counsel. James Morrow, Philip Potter, and Robert Franseze each taught
and advised me in important ways as I pursued this research in its early form
and in the years after I finished my graduate work. I remember in particular
the times I was lucky enough to be able to talk about the project with Al,
Jim, Phil, and Rob all together, and I thank them for their invaluable insights
and advice. I am also grateful for Charles Shipan’s scholarly guidance, and for
his continuing mentorship. Chuck’s graduate seminar on American political
institutions influenced the way I think about key institutional players and
the relationships among them. I thank Cameron Thies, Thorin Wright, and
many other generous scholars at the School of Politics and Global Studies
at Arizona State University for their support and assistance as I finished my
dissertation.
I am indebted to Scott Sagan, Vipin Narang, and Branislav Slantchev,
whose insights shaped my thinking about the manuscript. I reflected upon
our lively discussion many times when making the revisions that have led
to a better book. I thank Scott in particular for his mentorship, which began
several years ago when I introduced myself after a conference panel. Scott
invited me to sit down then and there to tell him about my work, and I have
benefited from his generous guidance and insightful critiques ever since.
My colleagues at Claremont McKenna College made the development and
completion of this book possible in many different ways. I thank Hilary Appel
and the Keck Center for Strategic and International Studies for supporting
the development of the manuscript at key moments. The Government
Department has enthusiastically supported my research since I arrived
at CMC, and I thank especially Hilary Appel, William Ascher, Mark Blitz,
Hicham Bou Nassif, Jordan Branch, Andrew Busch, Roderic Camp, Minxin
Pei, Jack Pitney, Shanna Rose, Jon Shields, Aseema Sinha, Jennifer Taw, and
George Thomas for their insights and advice. When I arrived at CMC, I had
the good fortune to be assigned the office next to the other assistant professor
viii Acknowledgments
in the department, Emily Pears. I thank Emily for her friendship, for many
conversations about the process of writing a book, and for helping me think
through theoretical tangles that arose as I wrote.
For generating and sustaining a faculty writing community, I am grateful in
particular to Peter Uvin, Adrienne Martin, Esther Chung-Kim, Ellen Rentz,
Sharda Umanath, Heather Ferguson, Emily Pears, and Janice Heitkamp.
I thank the outstanding students who provided excellent research assis-
tance, including Katrina Frei-Herrmann, Daniel Krasemann, Tallan Donine,
Marcia Yang, Alexander Li, Johnson Lin, Charles Warren, and my many nu-
clear politics seminar students, in particular Henrietta Toivanen and Stuart
Brown. Katrina deserves special recognition for working with me on various
projects over three years and for executing the first polished drawings of the
proliferation curves.
Alexander Lanoszka, Sarah Croco, Matthew Fuhrmann, and Leanne
Powner each offered valuable advice during the writing process. I thank
Matthew Wells for many discussions and conversations as the project
evolved, and most of all for many years of friendship. At the University of
Michigan, I relied on the professional knowledge and experience of political
science librarian Catherine Morse, and on Sofia Rosenberg, who volunteered
to translate Swedish writings into English so that I could puzzle out the char-
acteristics of Swedish nuclear institutions. I thank David McBride and two
anonymous reviewers for Oxford University Press for their valuable guid-
ance, and Sharon Langworthy for expert copyediting.
I am indebted to Donald Hafner, who taught me about nuclear weapons
strategy when I was an undergraduate student at Boston College. His
teaching and his ideals continue to inspire me, and I greatly value his on-
going mentorship. For their scholarly advice and their friendship, I thank
Katja Favretto, Vanessa Cruz-Nichols, and Ida Salusky. I thank Rebecca
Martinez for significantly influencing my approach to the process of research
and writing. I am grateful to my faith community at the Claremont Colleges,
in particular Steve Davis, Esther Chung-Kim, TJ Tsai, George Montanez, and
Dave Vosburg for steadfast support.
My family deserves the most thanks, starting with my mom and dad,
Janice and John Langdon, and my sister, Heather, each of whom has always
provided me with unconditional love and support. From the start, they have
been enthusiastic about this project and its development into a manuscript,
and I am deeply grateful for our many conversations and for their advice. My
mother-in-law and father-in-law, Paige and Joseph Koch, have also showered
Acknowledgments ix
me with love and support ever since I had the good fortune to join their
family. They have read my work, sent me articles related to my research, and
thoughtfully asked me about the manuscript’s progress.
My dad is professor emeritus of history at Le Moyne College, and I thank
him in particular for the many, many hours he has spent reading and
commenting on various drafts of this manuscript over the years. Everyone
should be so lucky as to have a world historian on call while conducting case
research, not least because the conversations are such great fun.
I completed much of this manuscript in 2020 and 2021, during the global
pandemic. My husband, Matt, and I worked hard to try to adapt to a time of
significant disruption, including the loss of in-person school for our three
children for more than a year. Writing during this time was tremendously
challenging, and I am truly fortunate to be part of a wonderful family of
five that sustains me. Thank you, Matt, for your love and support over many
years. You have been on the entire journey with me, start to finish. And fi-
nally, I thank our children, Audrey, Paul, and Timmy, who sometimes permit
me to sneak in a few more minutes to write, sometimes distract me, and al-
ways fill our lives with a special joy.
1
Introduction to Nuclear Decisions
The pursuit of nuclear weapons is rarely the story of a race to the bomb at
any cost. Even the five initial nuclear pursuers, each of which worked to ac-
quire nuclear weapons in the context of World War II, did not take uniform
paths. The United States devoted vast national resources to developing a fis-
sion bomb as quickly as possible, and the British government provided ex-
pert and material support to that project.1 The Soviet Union, Germany, and
Japan made different decisions, however, resulting in different approaches to
nuclear weapons development. Those nuclear decisions shaped not only the
outcome of the atomic programs but also, quite possibly, of the war itself.
Japan offers an interesting example. Japan’s uneven efforts to develop nu-
clear weapons were initiated by Army Minister Tōjō Hideki in 1940, well
before the United States launched the Manhattan Project. Most Japanese
officials remained unconvinced that atomic bomb research and development
should be prioritized, and the poorly funded program made slow and un-
steady progress.2 However, in October 1941 Tōjō ascended to the office of
prime minister. After Japan’s 1942 loss at Midway, Tōjō led the cabinet to ac-
celerate new weapons development, including the nuclear bomb projects.3
Despite the enormously high stakes for Japan, the effort, shaped by
leaders’ decisions, did not succeed. While the American nuclear weapons
project took the form of a single, focused effort, under Japan’s highly
militarized government, different service branches conducted separate,
fragmented nuclear programs.4 As Manhattan Project scientists made swift
progress toward a nuclear test in New Mexico, Japanese scientists advised
military officers that atomic weapons would take too long to build and
declared that American scientists surely faced the same constraints and
difficulties. Within one of the navy’s nuclear projects, the frustrated captain
in charge had first told the scientists to redouble their efforts. But eventu-
ally he too abandoned the nuclear project in favor of other, well-established
research and development programs that were making better progress.
Scientists’ pessimistic reports continued to inform decision-making, and in
Nuclear Decisions. Lisa Langdon Koch, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2023.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197679531.003.0001
2 Nuclear Decisions
June 1945—less than a month before the United States would successfully
test its first nuclear device—Army Minister Anami Korechika decided to
shut down the army’s nuclear program. The navy terminated a second nu-
clear project in July 1945.5
On August 6, 1945, the United States attacked the Japanese city of
Hiroshima with the first nuclear weapon used in war. In the immediate
aftermath, some leaders, including the emperor, recognized the likely
implications. But the failure of Japan’s nuclear weapons effort, and the
scientists’ belief that no other country could succeed where Japan had failed,
injected confusion and doubt into official discussions. The army rejected the
possibility of an American atomic bomb, branding as propaganda President
Harry S. Truman’s post-attack announcement to the world. And the few mil-
itary officers who were willing to accept that the United States had produced
one atomic bomb assumed the Americans lacked the capacity to quickly pro-
duce more. Japan’s military elected to proceed with existing plans to defend
Japan from invasion.6
In contrast, Soviet leaders already knew that the US atomic effort had
succeeded and correctly interpreted the news from Hiroshima.7 Having
previously agreed to attack Japan no later than August 15, and realizing
that the atomic bomb would change the course of the war’s conclusion, the
Soviet Union launched a million-soldier attack against Japanese troops in
Manchuria on August 9, broadcasting the declaration of war on Moscow
Radio a day earlier. The forceful denials and expressions of doubt from
Japan’s scientific and military experts, which arose from their frustrations
with the nuclear project and the decisions to abandon the work, had delayed
Japan’s response to the bombing of Hiroshima. Now, reeling from the addi-
tional shock of the Soviet attack, Japan’s Supreme War Council met in a bomb
shelter beneath the imperial palace and began at last to discuss surrender
with new urgency.8
Despite the common context of World War II, Japan’s nuclear devel-
opment looked very different from America’s, and different still from the
Soviet Union’s. As today’s nuclear hopefuls work toward acquiring nuclear
arsenals, their programs, too, have taken paths that have been difficult to
predict. Approximately two dozen states have decided, at some point, to
pursue the bomb. Yet throughout the nuclear age, the progress states have
made toward that goal has been neither linear nor consistent. Why does
the pursuit of nuclear weapons look so different across cases? How can we
make sense of the range of paths to and away from the bomb?
Introduction to Nuclear Decisions 3
Nuclear Decisions
Nuclear decisions offer the answer. State leaders make decisions within dif-
ferent information environments that affect their beliefs and preferences
about nuclear weapons. These decisions to accelerate or reverse progress
toward a nuclear weapons capability define each state’s course. Whether or
not a state ultimately acquires nuclear weapons depends to a large extent on
those nuclear decisions.
I argue that two crucial features of the political environment affect nuclear
decision-making. Leaders make decisions not in a vacuum but in changing
international and domestic contexts. First, in different proliferation eras,
changes to international political and structural conditions constrain or
free states to pursue nuclear weapons development. These conditions are
imposed from the top down. Second, across these eras, domestic scientific
and military organizations may intervene to bring about, or prevent, a nu-
clear decision that could redefine a state’s course to the bomb. The conditions
under which scientific and military experts are able to influence state leaders
from the bottom up are thus a critically important aspect of this story.
Nuclear Goals
The historical record demonstrates that states do not initiate nuclear weapons
programs and then uniformly follow linear paths to a singular goal. One pos-
sible explanation for erratic progression is political meddling in scientific
research and development. Jacques E. C. Hymans argues that leaders who
are unconstrained by state institutions often interfere in nuclear weapons
programs, unintentionally disrupting progress toward the bomb. Whether
scientists are free to pursue their work in ways that will advance good re-
search and development or instead face strong incentives to appease repres-
sive leaders through shortcuts and false reporting should affect a program’s
timeline.9
This compelling argument about time-to-outcome, however, cannot ex-
plain the form a nuclear weapons program takes. Implicit in Hymans’s ar-
gument are the assumptions that states have a common goal—to quickly
produce nuclear weapons—and take linear paths to the bomb. The obser-
vation that few states had obtained a speedy outcome led Hymans to con-
clude that something had gone wrong. However, while racing to the bomb
4 Nuclear Decisions
was more common during the early Cold War, for most of the nuclear age
the full-speed-ahead approach has been the exception, not the rule.10 Rather,
leaders have exhibited a range of preferences regarding the importance and
necessity of quickly acquiring a nuclear arsenal.
If these nonlinear pathways are not a deviation—if nuclear weapons de-
velopment is instead typically nonlinear—then interference with project
management cannot be a sufficient explanation. I argue that the paths to the
bomb are rarely linear because they are interrupted and reformed by nuclear
decisions. Leaders may allow a nuclear weapons program to maintain the
course it is on or even decide to slow or suspend its development. Domestic
organizations are a key source of expert information that shapes the leader’s
perception of the value and strategic purpose of the nuclear program.
Another possible explanation is that changes in the security environment
prompt a state to move toward or away from the bomb. Security concerns
are an important motivator for the initial decision to start a nuclear weapons
program.11 Yet the security explanation, too, is insufficient. States that do de-
cide to begin a program may exist in insecurity for years before choosing
the nuclear path. And once a nuclear weapons program is underway, many
leaders appear to make nuclear decisions that are not based on either stable
or changing external security environments. If security were the sole driver
of nuclear decisions, we would expect to see acceleration decisions during
times of high insecurity and reversal decisions during times of low insecurity.
The case studies I conduct in this book do not indicate the presence of such
a dynamic. For example, India’s program slowed significantly in the mid-to
late 1970s, despite nuclear weapons progress in its regional rivals, China and
Pakistan. South Korea did not accelerate its program when its security en-
vironment worsened. Brazil gave up its pursuit of nuclear weapons despite
little to no change in its security environment. South Africa sprinted toward
a nuclear arsenal despite its significant regional military superiority. Perhaps
deep concerns over Soviet interference in southern Africa, or even fears of
invasion, could explain South Africa’s proliferation curve instead—but then
why did Pretoria implement two different program reversals, well before the
fall of the Soviet Union?12
Within the context of an ongoing nuclear weapons program, the threat
environment is not the only important factor that affects leaders’ perceptions
of the costs and benefits of the nuclear weapons effort. A nuclear weapons
program is one of many options available to a government that faces serious
security concerns. A state could instead decide to arm conventionally, seek
military assistance from an ally, or enter into a defense pact. Or a leader may
decide to gain leverage over adversaries by hedging: pursuing nuclear devel-
opment to achieve a latent nuclear weapons capability without progressing
all the way to the weapons themselves. Fears of a preventive war aimed at
the nuclear program could prompt either a reversal decision to remove the
cause of the threat or an acceleration decision, in hopes of acquiring nuclear
weapons to deter future attack. A threatening security environment could
therefore lead to either type of decision or no decision at all. Security cannot
fully explain states’ proliferation pathways.
Because states consider different policy options in response to the stra-
tegic environment, and each option has its own potential benefits and
drawbacks, nuclear weapons programs are situated within a political con-
text. Leaders consider many possibilities beyond the simple binary outcomes
of acquisition or termination, and they do so within a complex information
environment that affects how the value of a nuclear weapons program is un-
derstood. They must weigh the benefits of state security against drawbacks
like domestic resource trade-offs, potential damage to strategic international
relationships, and the likelihood of program success.
Decisions Define Programs
My approach jettisons the assumption that leaders in nuclear weapons–

pursuing states share a common desire to acquire nuclear weapons as quickly
as possible. Instead, I hold that leaders make political decisions to accelerate,
slow, or end altogether the path of nuclear weapons development. I offer a
novel theory of nuclear decision-making that identifies two mechanisms
that shape leaders’ understandings of their nuclear pursuits. The external
mechanism—the proliferation constraints that emerge from the structure
and politics of the international system—has evolved across three distinct
time periods, which I define and describe in Chapter 4.
The internal mechanism is the intervention of domestic experts, which
I briefly introduce in the next section. Leaders make decisions in an infor-
mational environment that, under the right circumstances, experts may
be able to structure. I examine the conditions under which scientific and
military organizations are able to influence state leaders from the bottom
up. In conducting a systematic examination of proliferators extending be-
yond the United States, I obtain a broad range of evidence to support my
6 Nuclear Decisions
arguments. Through this approach to studying nuclear proliferation, I find

something very different than the conventional wisdom. Determined states
do not simply pursue a straight path to nuclear weapons acquisition. Nuclear
decisions define a state’s nuclear pursuits.
The Domestic Nuclear Decision-Making Environment
The internal mechanism of domestic expert influence has been present from
the start of the nuclear weapons age. There were many reasons that Japanese
and American leaders made such different nuclear decisions in the 1940s.
The practicalities of waging war and the outcomes of battles created different
constraints on each country’s national resources and capabilities. But from
the start American and Japanese leaders also operated in different informa-
tion environments. They made important decisions about whether, and how,
to continue along the path to the bomb, and each did so within a political
context that was shaped not only by the external security environment but
also by key domestic organizations that house nuclear experts.
I argue that the key domestic organizations that hold distinct preferences
about nuclear weapons are the domestic nuclear agency and the state mil-
itary. These organizations are important sources of information and
incentives that can, under certain conditions, influence a leader’s beliefs
about the value of a nuclear weapons program relative to the cost. They are
not the sole influencers of leaders’ strategic calculations, nor can they explain
every case of nuclear decision-making. But they are a crucial source of infor-
mation and influence in the nuclear context.
Further, nuclear agencies and militaries may take advantage of
opportunities to shape leaders’ knowledge and understanding of the do-
mestic and international factors that affect nuclear decision-making. An or-
ganization with greater access to and influence over the leader has greater
capacity to inform and persuade. Effective organizations can alter the leader’s
perceptions of the costs and benefits of pursuing nuclear weapons and may
work to constrain or expand the set of options the leader will choose among.
In addition, nuclear agencies and militaries have heightened abilities to in-
fluence leaders on nuclear weapons matters because leaders typically assume
office without a background in nuclear science or doctrine. The secretive
and technologically sophisticated nature of nuclear weapons development
renders these programs largely opaque to state leaders, who then rely on
these key organizations to signal the benefits and disadvantages of the nu-
clear weapons effort.
Within domestic nuclear agencies, nuclear scientists are profession-
ally invested in nuclear development and prefer to push programs forward.
Nuclear agencies also enjoy an informational advantage because states do not
employ rigorous oversight of the highly secret, expert processes of designing,
producing, and testing nuclear weapons. I argue that more independent nu-
clear agencies, with greater access to political leadership, are better able to
control the flow of information on nuclear benefits and to exert influence on
decision-makers both to accelerate programs and to prevent reversals.
Military organizations, on the other hand, may be less likely to advocate
for nuclear acceleration during development stages and more likely to al-
locate resources to conventional capabilities instead. Competing organiza-
tional interests may lead a military to prioritize spending on conventional
arms, which provide immediate utility, rather than on the long-term po-
tential of developing a future nuclear capability. While militaries value the
deterrent benefits of nuclear weapons, they also believe that future wars are
more likely to remain conventional. Many within the military will prefer to
invest organizational resources in the conventional weapons and equipment
most likely to be used in war fighting. When a military organization leads the
government, the leader will need to satisfy traditional military interests to re-
main in office and will be likely to seek to use conventional means to conduct
political repression and consolidate power.
Each of these organizations may—or may not—be able to shape the
country leader’s understanding of the domestic and international factors that
affect nuclear decision-making. An organization with greater access to and
influence over the leader has a greater opportunity to inform and persuade.
Effective organizations can alter the leader’s perceptions of the costs and
benefits of pursuing nuclear weapons and may work to constrain or expand
the set of options the leader will choose among. But organizations that lack
access to the leader, or that lack the capacity to advance their interests, are
unlikely to have a significant effect on nuclear decision-making.
Implications
This book joins the growing literature on nuclear proliferation and re-
versal, offering a systematic analysis of the process and politics of nuclear
8 Nuclear Decisions
decision-making. I approach this subject from a different conceptualization

of nuclear weapons programs: that they are defined by decisions to accel-
erate or reverse nuclear development. In doing so, I investigate the strategic
decisions that create the form of nuclear weapons programs rather than fo-
cusing on the time between program initiation and the outcome of a nuclear
bomb. Pursuing nuclear weapons, whether in Iran, North Korea, India, or
Pakistan, is a long process punctuated by political decisions that can change
the course of nuclear development. Rather than examining the conditions
present when a milestone program outcome is realized, I examine the
conditions present at the time the nuclear decision was made.
This analysis reveals that both international structural conditions and
domestic coalitions matter. Even in wartime, whose voices are heard from
within the state and what preferences they express can change how a leader
understands the international environment. Those domestic experts can
highlight or downplay the advantages and disadvantages of steps to change
the course of nuclear weapons development. The relative balance of power
among the key domestic organizations, which can change as they interact
with each other and their political environment, affects the ability each ex-
pert group has to influence the leader. These organizations may prefer to push
the state either toward or away from nuclear weapons. If we ignore the do-
mestic environment and instead assume that states pursue nuclear weapons
along uniform and consistent paths, we underestimate the importance of the
nuclear decisions that determine whether a state ultimately acquires nuclear
weapons.
Finally, a central argument of this book is that we should not study the
decision to start a nuclear weapons program as if the state’s ultimate goal is
to quickly produce the weapons. Not only do nuclear aspirants pursue dif-
ferent goals, but changing circumstances may also lead a state to later deviate
from the original goal. And because the end results of nuclear decisions are
realized months or years later, programs may reach milestones that are the
product of decisions made by leaders who were responding to conditions
that have since changed. Because a nuclear weapons program outcome will
occur at some period of time after a nuclear decision was made, examining
the conditions at the time of the outcome will be misleading. We should in-
stead seek to understand the conditions at the time of the decision that paved
the way to the outcome. This shift in focus could allow states to respond more
productively to changes in their adversaries’ or allies’ nuclear weapons devel-
opment and create better nonproliferation policy tools.
Plan of the Book
The book begins with the theoretical argument. Leaders are at the center of
nuclear decision-making, but they face serious constraints on their access to,
and understanding of, the range of possible nuclear choices and outcomes.
I present evidence of the different proliferation pathways and define nuclear
decision-making in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 I discuss how, and when, nuclear
agencies and military organizations influence leaders’ decision-making, as
well as why alternative explanations are insufficient. In Chapter 4 I describe
the features of each of the three historical eras I have defined, and I explain
why each era comprises a distinct decision-making context in which states
operate over time.
In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 I test my arguments through case studies of coun-
tries that have pursued nuclear weapons. The three chapters, each of which
contains three different country studies, correspond to the three histor-
ical eras. In organizing the cases by era, I am able to examine how nuclear
decision-making has been conducted within each international context.
The case study approach provides the benefit of adding context and depth
to broad theorizing. One could argue that certain decisions seem to have
been brought about by very specific causes, or that each decision may be
situated in a unique historical and cultural context. I do not claim that the
theory I present wholly explains every nuclear weapons program decision.
While it is true that some decisions may be exceptional, developing a theory
of decision-making is an exercise in seeking out common factors that sys-
tematically affect the likelihood of a decision being made. Case studies allow
me to explore these dynamics and attempt to illustrate common mechanisms
that underlie nuclear decision-making. Finally, in Chapter 8 I discuss nuclear
decision-making in the current case of Iran and explore the implications of
this study for nonproliferation policy.
2
Proliferation Curves
Much of the literature on the pursuit of nuclear weapons concerns the de-
cision to start a program or the conditions under which states succeed in
acquiring nuclear arsenals. While weapons acquisition is an outcome rather
than a decision, systematic studies typically blur the distinction between the
two events. Several studies first estimate a model of nuclear start decisions
and then re-estimate the model with a new dependent variable: the year of
nuclear weapons acquisition. But uneven findings across these studies warn
against conflating decisions (program start) and outcomes (weapons acqui-
sition).1 Considering the two different types of events—a decision and an
outcome—within one common framework has not generated a coherent
theoretical explanation. This should not be surprising given the concep-
tual muddling of a political decision and an end product that is many steps
removed from that initial decision.
In this chapter I demonstrate that nuclear proliferation should instead be
conceived of as a political process that hinges on decisions. I identify types
of nuclear decisions and then present empirical evidence of the proliferation
pathways—which I call proliferation curves—taken by six nuclear weapons
pursuers. The proliferation curves indicate that leaders do not pursue nu-
clear weapons in uniform ways. At first glance, nuclear decisions do not ap-
pear to be easily predictable.
The Path to the Bomb
From the start, nuclear decisions have been political decisions. In August
1939, as top scientists around the world conducted theoretical work on nu-
clear fission, then on the cutting edge of physics, Albert Einstein drafted a
letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many scientists already understood
that the enormous energy produced by splitting uranium nuclei could be
used in war. In his letter to Roosevelt, Einstein explained the potential for the
development of “extremely powerful bombs of a new type” and speculated
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197679531.003.0002
Proliferation Curves 11
that Germany’s capture of Czechoslovakian uranium mines indicated that

Hitler was already pursuing a fission bomb.2
Einstein’s letter established an informational context for Roosevelt that af-
fected how he interpreted new, related information. The United States did
not establish a nuclear weapons program until October 1941. But Richard
Rhodes explains how, when news of Britain’s successful progress toward a
fission bomb finally reached the president, Roosevelt understood that using
nuclear energy for military purposes had the potential to “change the polit-
ical organization of the world.”3 He had listened to his advisers describe the
decisive power expected from these astonishingly destructive weapons, and
he had considered the long-term, strategic impact of nuclear bombs.4
Roosevelt’s early intuition that nuclear weapons would reshape the world
order has been affirmed by the governments that have attempted, at great
expense, to develop their own nuclear arsenals. Acquiring nuclear weapons
is a feat that may redefine a state’s position in the international system, es-
tablish a new context for the state’s relationships with allies and adversaries,
and mark that state as an advanced technological and scientific power.
Unsurprisingly, then, because nuclear weapons are so strongly linked to state
interests, decisions about nuclear weapons program development are made
at the highest levels of government.
Nuclear Acceleration and Reversal Decisions
Once a government has begun a nuclear weapons program, subsequent

decisions may be made to accelerate or reverse the program. Because these
decisions are deeply political, involving entrenched and often competing
interests, they may be debated by political officials, military elites, and nu-
clear scientists at high levels of government. Ultimately, however, significant
decisions about the course of a nuclear weapons program are political ones
made by the country’s leader.5
I sort nuclear decisions into two broad categories: those that are intended
to accelerate a nuclear weapons program and those that are intended to re-
verse it. While little scholarly attention has been paid to systematically
examining acceleration across cases, country studies and a few cross-national
studies have contributed a great deal to our understanding of nuclear re-
versal. I follow Ariel Levite in defining nuclear reversal as a governmental
decision to significantly slow, or suspend, a nuclear weapons program. Rupal
12 Nuclear Decisions
Mehta also incorporates Levite’s definition in her study of nuclear reversal,

allowing for the possibility that a reversing state may later restart its program
after a freeze.6 A reversal decision may lead to a range of different outcomes
on various timelines that may only be observable years later.
Using the same logic, I define nuclear acceleration as a governmental de-
cision to significantly speed up an existing nuclear weapons program. In
Table 2.1 I provide a range of nuclear acceleration and reversal decisions
that leaders have made in the course of pursuing nuclear weapons. Each of
these decisions significantly contributes to a state’s progress toward or away
from nuclear development and represents another piece of the proliferation
puzzle.
A nuclear decision can bring about a temporary acceleration or decelera-
tion in program development, or it can have more permanent effects. States
making the decision to reverse may later decide to accelerate a slowed pro-
gram or revive a suspended program; this has happened, for instance, in Iran,
North Korea, India, Taiwan, the former Yugoslavia, and Pakistan. Other
states, after a reversal decision, may continue to make additional reversal
Table 2.1 Types of Nuclear Decisions
Acceleration Decisions Reversal Decisions

• Deciding to invest significant • Shifting military expenditures and priorities
resources in the nuclear weapons from nuclear to conventional weapons
program; for example, creating or programs
significantly expanding research • Suspending militarized nuclear research,
and education institutions including continuing the research
• Moving from research and program but limiting its scope to civilian
development to building nuclear energy
enrichment or reprocessing • Making significant budget or resource
facilities reductions to the nuclear weapons program
• Reviving a suspended program • Delaying or suspending work on enrichment
or restarting an enrichment or or reprocessing facilities
reprocessing facility • Delaying or suspending work on militarized
• Initiating a crash program to components of the nuclear program, such
acquire nuclear weapons on a short preparing a testing site
timetable • Moving from trying to build an indigenous
• Moving from trying to acquire off- capacity to acquiring off-the-shelf nuclear
the-shelf nuclear weapons to trying weapons
to build an indigenous capacity • Deciding not to proceed with building nuclear
• Deciding to move from latent weapons despite being capable of doing so
nuclear weapons capacity to • Suspending production of nuclear weapons
building a bomb or related materials
• Deciding to develop thermonuclear • Ending a militarized nuclear program by
(hydrogen) weapons giving up nuclear equipment/technology to a
• Deciding to develop deliverable foreign state
nuclear weapons • Dismantling an existing nuclear arsenal
decisions and may ultimately decide to end their nuclear weapons programs;
examples include Brazil, Australia, Sweden, South Africa, and Switzerland.7
Different types of nuclear decisions may be made for different strategic
reasons. A program may be suspended because the leader has come to ques-
tion the value of the nuclear weapons program, but suspension may also be a
tactical move made to gain concessions through an agreement with a foreign
partner. The reasons for a reversal decision are important but may not be
known or understood by outside observers, or even regime insiders, not only
at the time of the decision but also for many years afterward. But whether
the reversal decision was made because the government doubts that nuclear
weapons acquisition is still in the interests of the state, or because the gov-
ernment plans to extract side payments in the present and then restart the
program if it becomes advantageous in the future, that decision still affects
the state’s course of nuclear development. In either case, reversal slows the
momentum of the nuclear program and adds months or years to the acquisi-
tion timeline.
Both types of reversals could also later be reversed by nuclear accelera-
tion decisions.8 A reversal decision made to fulfill the terms of an interna-
tional agreement is vulnerable if the agreement fails or if there is a change in
the conditions that facilitated the parties’ willingness to negotiate. But a re-
versal decision made by a leader who is losing interest in the nuclear project
may also be impermanent. Either the same leader or a successor could be
persuaded to reinvest in a slowed or suspended program, as occurred twice
in the Indian case. Neither type of reversal is irreversible, and both types af-
fect the course, and future outcomes, of a nuclear weapons program.
Acceleration decision-making has gone virtually unanalyzed, other than
within individual country case studies. The study of nuclear reversal has ob-
vious policy implications, as a better understanding of the conditions under
which reversal occurs may aid states in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons.
However, understanding the conditions under which acceleration is likely
to occur also contributes to nonproliferation efforts. This is particularly true
because acceleration decisions, which initiate long-term, costly investments
and do not generate immediate, usable results, are not necessarily made in
direct response to external threats to a state’s security. When a leader decides
to accelerate a nuclear weapons program, the intended outcome of the accel-
eration may not be realized for months or years. As accelerating a program
constitutes a long-term investment rather than a rapid response, it is unlikely
that leaders would routinely react to sudden changes in the threat environ-
ment by making nuclear acceleration decisions.
Just as I classify reversals by the decision to reverse rather than by the even-
tual outcome, I examine acceleration by identifying decisions to speed up nu-
clear development rather than by the eventual outcome of nuclear weapons
acquisition. An acceleration decision may quickly result in the production of
nuclear weapons, or it may not.9 But if outcomes are the variable of interest,
a subsequent decision to reverse a nuclear program would hide the acceler-
ation decision from view. Studies that limit analysis to outcomes, or that de-
fine reversal only as termination, omit these program changes. Such analyses
are incomplete at best and biased at worst.
Proliferation Curves
If nuclear decisions shape states’ proliferation pathways, what do different

paths to and away from the bomb look like? In the following discussion I rep-
resent six states’ paths, or proliferation curves, with basic graphs. Along the
proliferation curve, nuclear decisions are represented by vertical lines, each
appearing during the year the decision was made. Dashed lines represent a
nuclear reversal decision, with double-dashed lines representing a perma-
nent reversal decision. A solid line indicates a nuclear acceleration decision.
Each graph measures time in years along the x-axis and nuclear development
milestones along the y-axis. The data I used to generate each proliferation
curve, and the sources I relied on, are reported in the appendix.
The milestones I have selected for these graphs indicate key stages of
nuclear development. As a state progresses toward, or away from, nuclear
weapons, the proliferation curve travels through these different stages. States
establish a research and development program, obtain uranium or pluto-
nium, build a nuclear reactor, operate the reactor, enrich fissile material so
it can be used in a bomb, test a bomb, and develop delivery systems. It is not
always obvious when a state moves from one milestone to the next, in part
because these accomplishments are often closely guarded secrets. The dates
and milestones I use in these graphs are accurate to the best of my knowledge
as of this writing. Furthermore, the progression along the path of nuclear
weapons development is not always linear. Different decisions made in the
course of a program have caused some states to skip over a milestone, such
as accumulating a stockpile of nuclear weapons and developing delivery sys-
tems before testing a prototype bomb. A black diamond marks the time and
level of each nuclear development milestone a state reaches.
The lowest stage of nuclear development is classified as “nascent,” meaning

the state does not yet have an operational nuclear reactor of any size. The pro-
liferation curve begins in the year the state government makes the political
decision to start a nuclear weapons program. Of the six proliferation curves
shown in this chapter, only one state—China—began its weapons program at
the lowest stage of nuclear development. Each of the other five states had ex-
isting nuclear infrastructure, at least at the reactor level, in place prior to the
start decision.10
Stages 2 through 5 indicate progressive levels of enrichment and
reprocessing capacity. The ability to produce fissile material to power nu-
clear weapons is a key hurdle to overcome in a nuclear weapons program.
Whether a state decides to produce uranium or plutonium weapons—and
in many cases both options are explored—this is the most difficult step in
producing nuclear bombs, as well as one of the most expensive.11 Most im-
portantly, a state cannot produce nuclear weapons without highly enriched
uranium or plutonium from a large reactor. For stages 2 and 3, I distinguish
between small and large reactors using the power output threshold of 1 meg-
awatt (MW).12 Reactors with design power greater than 1 MW have signif-
icant fuel requirements, and a large reactor is a necessary condition for the
production of nuclear weapons.13 Several states, including India and Israel,
produced the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons from large re-
search reactors rather than from industrial-scale reactors.14 For stages 4 and
5, I distinguish between small and large uranium enrichment or plutonium
reprocessing facilities. Large, industrial-scale facilities that use commercial
technologies can produce significantly more weapons-grade uranium or plu-
tonium than small, laboratory, or pilot facilities can.15
The last three stages indicate different levels of weaponization: a fission
test, followed by deployable nuclear weapons, and finally a fusion (thermo-
nuclear) test. These stages are separate from one another, as readers will note
from the graphs; a state may test an atomic bomb but not build a nuclear
arsenal, as India initially did, or a state may proceed directly to deployable
nuclear weapons without first testing a device, as South Africa did. If a state
reverses to the extent that the program regresses to an earlier stage of nuclear
development, that is indicated on the graph.
Finally, dark, medium, and light gray shadings indicate the status of the
program before and after each nuclear decision. Dark gray represents prog-
ress toward the bomb, while medium gray indicates that the program is
continuing but is holding steady at its current level or is progressing very
slowly due to reductions or a lack of interest from the government. Light

gray indicates the program has been suspended, either permanently or
temporarily.
I selected the six states represented here to provide a visual demonstration
of proliferation curves that exhibit variation in several dimensions: the his-
torical era of pursuit, whether the state ultimately acquired nuclear weapons,
and regime type. I divide the nuclear weapons age into three time periods: the
“permissive” decades prior to the 1964 shock of the Chinese nuclear fis-
sion test, when major world powers—and a few minor powers—sought the
bomb with few external constraints; the “transition period,” beginning with
the 1965 start of the negotiations that would culminate in the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT), during which a nuclear nonproliferation re-
gime was emerging; and the “nonproliferation regime period,” characterized
by the deepening of the nonproliferation regime, dating from the shock of
the 1974 Indian peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE). Each of these periods
constitutes a different global environment with different political and struc-
tural constraints on nuclear aspirants. I develop arguments for the signifi-
cance of each historical period in Chapter 4.
I display two proliferation curves from each period in Figure 2.1. France
and China were two of the original five countries to pursue nuclear weapons,
Figure 2.1 Proliferation curves by state

Figure 2.1 Continued



beginning their programs within ten years of the end of World War II. India
and South Korea were most active during the transition period between the
early nuclear weapons states’ pursuits and the consolidation of the nuclear
nonproliferation regime. India acquired nuclear weapons, while South Korea
abandoned its program. Brazil and South Africa pursued nuclear weapons
in the years after the Indian PNE, a shock that generated the political will to
deepen the emerging nonproliferation regime. Brazil terminated its program,
and South Africa acquired nuclear weapons and then later dismantled them.
Strikingly, each of these graphs is noticeably different from the others.
Progress to the bomb is neither uniform nor clearly predictable. Brazil, South
Korea, and South Africa chose to slow or suspend their programs, and those
programs eventually ended. But India made reversal decisions that were
themselves later reversed by acceleration decisions, and it ultimately ac-
quired and deployed a nuclear arsenal. In that successful case, the outcome—
a nuclear weapon—was not simply achieved after the initial decision to start
a weapons program. Several other nuclear decisions were part of the prolif-
eration process.
In each case, numerous decisions were made in order to achieve nuclear
weapons status. Limiting one’s attention to only one part of the proliferation
curve may thus lead to mistaken conclusions about nuclear development.
Leaders make decisions that change the shape of the curve. There is no one
set, linear path to the bomb, but rather multiple paths formed by nuclear
decisions.
While nuclear decisions occur throughout these proliferation curves, it
is also clear that they are relatively infrequent. This fact is unsurprising and
serves to underscore the importance of the decisions. State leaders do not
make dozens of nuclear reversal and acceleration decisions over the lifetime
of a program. Significant nuclear decisions require political will. Both accel-
eration and reversal decisions are made at high levels, not only because nu-
clear weapons are so strongly tied to national interests, but also because they
bring about policy changes, resource reallocations, and sometimes structural
shifts within or among state institutions.
The role of the NPT, which opened for signature in 1968 and entered
into force in 1970, is not obvious at first glance. These curves do not indi-
cate that either 1968 or 1970 was a watershed year for program development.
However, the proliferation curves in the second and third time periods do
stand in contrast to the French and Chinese curves in the first time period.
In those later periods, reversal decisions suspend or halt programs and are
sometimes followed by acceleration decisions. The paths appear bumpier

and less predictable. By the mid-to late 1970s nuclear development seems
to be proceeding in a substantively different way. In Chapter 4 I address how,
over time, the consolidation of the NPT and evolution of the broader non-
proliferation regime, as structuring features of the international environ-
ment, affected nuclear decision-making in these different time periods.
The graphs also clearly show that nuclear weapons development
milestones are achieved after nuclear decisions are made, and at what seem
to be irregular intervals. Further, each decision paves the way for future
decisions. States neither stumble into a nuclear weapons capability nor ac-
cidentally fall out of a nuclear weapons program. Even in states like India,
known for its powerful “enclave” of nuclear scientists, key stages of nuclear
development were neither reached nor abandoned unless governments
made political decisions.16 The formal decision in 1972 to begin working
toward a nuclear test, for example, was made by Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi, who had consulted with Indian nuclear scientists. The Atomic
Energy Commission formed a committee to manage that effort in response
to Gandhi’s order.17 That political decision, and the resulting preparations,
made the 1974 explosion possible. Nuclear decisions are what set the pro-
gram toward or away from the outcomes, and nuclear decisions are thus the
focus of this book.
The Political Process of Proliferation
In studying the full process of nuclear decision-making during the lifetime

of nuclear weapons programs, I address two key methodological weaknesses
that are broadly present within the nuclear reversal literature. First, cross-
national studies of nuclear reversal often only examine reversal decisions
that terminated a program.18 Reversal decisions sometimes appear to be
termination decisions at the time they are made but ultimately prove to be
suspensions or slowdowns instead. Only in hindsight can we determine
whether a reversal decision followed by several years of diminishing nuclear
activity was indeed a program termination or was instead a temporary de-
celeration. Reversal decisions may delay a state’s progress toward acquiring
nuclear weapons or building an arsenal but do not necessarily lead to the end
of a program.
Second, termination decisions rarely are made in isolation. States that

terminate a program have typically made more than one reversal decision
over periods of several years.19 Recent quantitative studies, which rely on
program termination data, thus do not capture the full range of reversal
decisions.20 Each reversal decision has the potential to affect the course of a
nuclear weapons program. Limiting the analysis to outcomes, rather than the
decisions that shape the proliferation process, leads scholars to overlook cru-
cial turning points along the path of nuclear development. By including all
nuclear decisions throughout the life of a program in my analysis, I capture
the entire proliferation process.
In Chapter 3 I offer a theory of nuclear decision-making. The different
proliferation paths indicate that not all leaders pursue nuclear weapons at
any cost. A state’s security environment is an insufficient explanation for
these different pursuits, in large part because a full nuclear weapons capa-
bility is not the only response available to a leader who faces a serious secu-
rity threat. I claim that leaders’ beliefs about the state security environment
and the value of a nuclear weapons program narrow the range of options they
consider. Their beliefs are shaped by both the international nonproliferation
environment and the relevant domestic organizations that house the state’s
nuclear experts.
3
A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making
Leaders’ nuclear decisions are critically important to understanding nu-

clear proliferation both historically and today. States do not initiate nuclear
weapons programs and then take linear paths to a singular goal. Their var-
ious proliferation curves indicate that not all leaders pursue nuclear weapons
at any cost, and a full nuclear weapons capability is not the only response
available to a leader who faces a serious security threat. Many possible pro-
liferation curves exist, moderated by nuclear acceleration and reversal
decisions. Whether a state reaches the outcome of a nuclear weapon depends
on those decisions. I thus examine nuclear weapons programs in terms of the
decisions that shape the path of program development.
Nuclear Decision-Making
I offer two theoretical mechanisms to explain why leaders make nuclear

decisions. They make decisions within different information environments
that affect their beliefs and preferences about nuclear weapons. In different
proliferation eras, from the top down changes to international political and
structural conditions constrain or free states to pursue nuclear weapons de-
velopment. Within and across these eras, from the bottom up domestic or-
ganizations may intervene to bring about, or prevent, a nuclear decision that
has the potential to reshape the curve.
The first mechanism, which I discuss in this chapter, comes from the
bottom up. The domestic organizations that house a nation’s nuclear experts
can, under certain conditions, influence a leader’s beliefs about the costs and
benefits of a nuclear weapons program. The state’s security environment
alone cannot explain leaders’ preferences regarding nuclear weapons, be-
cause the pursuit of nuclear weapons is far from the only option available
to an insecure state. Leaders can respond to security conditions by selecting
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197679531.003.0003
from a range of policy responses. I argue that military and nuclear scientific
organizations may intervene to shape how leaders understand and interpret
the security environment. Under certain conditions, these expert organiza-
tions may work together or compete with each other to limit or expand the
set of available policy options presented to the leader.
Second, the political context in which leaders make decisions is shaped
from the top down by the external proliferation environment. Over time the
structure and politics of the international system have created permissive or
constraining environments in which states might pursue nuclear weapons.
I argue that the benefits and costs of pursuing nuclear weapons have been un-
derstood differently within each of three distinct proliferation environments,
bookended by systemic shocks. In each proliferation environment, leaders
are faced with different sets of available options.
Therefore, my investigation of how domestic organizations attempt to in-
tervene in a state’s nuclear pursuits must include the limits imposed from
above by the different proliferation environments. The story of Japan’s early
pursuit of nuclear weapons, which I briefly related in the opening pages of
this book, helps illuminate why these changing proliferation contexts are
so important. While Japan’s scientific and military experts fumbled in the
terrible darkness and confusion of August 1945, trying to determine what
had happened at Hiroshima, it would not be long before states would never
again have reason to question the existence or power of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons hopefuls now understood that the ultimate goal could be
achieved. Whether states faced external constraints and costs in pursuing
nuclear weapons, however, was a different matter. Those constraints and
costs, shaped by changing international political interests, have created dif-
ferent proliferation conditions across three distinct time periods. I discuss
this top-down mechanism further, and define and describe the three prolif-
eration environments, in Chapter 4.
Alternative Explanations
I offer a novel explanation as one way to understand why leaders might make
these decisions, and especially why they might make puzzling decisions.
However, I do not claim that these theoretical mechanisms determine every
nuclear decision. Other factors will also affect the path of a state’s nuclear
weapons program. I examine several possible alternative explanations for
A Theory of Nuclear Decision-Making 25
proliferation pathways and discuss why each is insufficient, before turning to

my theory of nuclear decision-making.
Security
Many states choose not to pursue nuclear weapons, despite possessing the
requisite knowledge and resources. A state must also be willing to proceed
down the costly and controversial path to the bomb. Over the past two
decades, multiple studies have demonstrated the importance of the threat
environment in prompting states to start a nuclear weapons program, al-
though some measures of threat are less predictive across these studies than
others.1 Scott D. Sagan identifies three different theoretical motivators that
may drive states to start a nuclear weapons program: security, domestic polit-
ical interests, and norms.2 As the case histories of nuclear weapons–seeking
states indicate that one or more of these motivators can be identified as
contributing to each state leader’s decision to start a program, a rich litera-
ture has emerged that investigates the wide range of possible explanations.
But the security-based approach to understanding proliferation has been,
and continues to be, dominant in the field.
If the international system is anarchic, neorealist scholars have argued, then
states will seek to help themselves by pursuing nuclear weapons.3 Whether
balancing against nuclear rivals or responding to emerging threats, insecure
states should seek the deterrent benefits conferred by these extraordinarily
powerful weapons. As Sagan notes, the security explanation has the benefit of
appearing to be the most obvious: states pursue nuclear weapons in response to
insecurity. Yet in practice this parsimonious approach has overpredicted pro-
liferation. Insecure states do not necessarily address a security threat—even
a nuclear threat—by pursuing nuclear weapons. And states that do decide to
begin a program may exist in insecurity for many years prior to starting down
a proliferation pathway. Early in the nuclear weapons age, many predicted that
countries with sufficient technological capacity and material wealth would
likely tumble into proliferation, one after another. But a world in which coun-
tries fell like metaphorical nuclear dominoes has not come to pass.
One of the most important reasons we do not observe capable states reg-
ularly responding to threats with nuclear acceleration decisions is that those
decisions do not bring about immediate, useful results. Nuclear acceleration
decisions incur very high costs and are implemented within bureaucratic
structures that require time to adapt to altered circumstances. A program de-

cision may require building new facilities, hiring new personnel, expanding
a partnership with a foreign government, or finding new sources of mate-
rial or equipment. Deciding to increase work on an existing project to move
up the timeline, for example, or to open the plutonium path to the bomb,
would be long-term, highly secret initiatives that would take months or
years to come to fruition. In fact, I argue in the case studies that security
concerns could also prompt reversal decisions, as leaders may decide to meet
emerging threats by reducing the state’s investment in nuclear weapons and
reallocating resources to conventional arming.
Despite its limitations, the security approach continues to be a starting
point for much of the nonproliferation literature. This has three broad
implications for the study of nuclear weapons. First, the security approach
generates explanations at the state level. States are conceptualized as unitary
actors that will respond to threats in predictable ways within the structure of
the international system. Domestic-level factors rarely enter into the analysis.
In a notable exception, Vipin Narang’s security-based model of how states
pursue proliferation gives a nod to the domestic environment. He writes:
The inconsistency with which domestic actors accurately assess and re-
spond to the external security environment means, however, that vari-
ation in unit-level consensus can exert independent influence on a state’s
strategy.4
However, within the model, Narang’s investigation of the domestic polit-

ical environment focuses only on whether there is consensus or not among
various relevant domestic actors. This makes sense within the context of a
security-based model striving for parsimony but limits the explanatory
power of the domestic environment. What preferences do different actors
hold? Will some be better able to influence leaders than others? How relevant
domestic actors influence decision-making is left unexamined.
Second, if states seek to acquire nuclear weapons to maximize security
benefits, as the security approach assumes, then states respond to emerging
nuclear threats in kind and will strive to quickly achieve nuclear weapons
status. Typically, implicit in these studies is the assumption that states that
initiate nuclear weapons programs will pursue the bomb at the same speed
and on trajectories headed toward the same goal: acquisition.5 The prolif-
eration curves (see Chapter 2) demonstrated that this assumption does not
hold up to an empirical investigation. Third, the security approach focuses

on proliferation outcomes, which can lead scholars to miss the significance,
or even occurrence, of decisions and changes that arise earlier in the life of
the program.
As a result, the security approach can often explain some aspects of prolif-
eration fairly well, such as a state’s motivation to start a program, but falls short
when applied to nuclear decision-making. One recent example is Alexandre
Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro’s theory of nuclear proliferation, situated in the
security model. The authors seek to explain whether nuclear development
ends in one of two outcomes: acquisition or forbearance.6 Focusing explic-
itly on this binary state, which “changes only with nuclear acquisition,” Debs
and Monteiro approach nuclear weapons development as if all states set out to
accomplish the same goal.7 In setting their sights exclusively on the final out-
come, they lose essential components of the proliferation and reversal process.
For example, in the early 1960s Swedish leaders came to believe that the
growing US and Soviet nuclear arsenals meant that limited nuclear exchanges
were no longer a significant threat to Swedish territory, which could conceiv-
ably have been caught in the middle of such an exchange. Debs and Monteiro
use that change in the security environment to explain Sweden’s final deci-
sion to terminate its nuclear program.8 But in doing so, they miss an early
reversal decision that was made during the 1950s, when they claim the secu-
rity environment promoted nuclear weapons pursuit. That reversal decision
involved Swedish investment in conventional force modernization—which
was in large part a response to the security environment informed by mili-
tary organizational preferences—and the government’s reluctance to make
simultaneous investments in a nuclear program.
The security explanation also cannot account for the path Sweden took
toward the bomb. If Swedish leaders were motivated to pursue nuclear
weapons because they believed a nuclear deterrent would be the only way to
protect the Swedish homeland from a US-Soviet exchange, then we would
expect the government to initiate a crash program to acquire a deterrent as
quickly as possible. But that was not the government’s approach. Instead,
the program sputtered along during the dangerous, vulnerable years of the
1950s with limited financial resources and without strong political support,
as the state elected to arm conventionally (see Chapter 6). Taking a state-level
approach that focuses mainly on foreign adversaries and allies, assuming
that nuclear-pursuing states share outcome goals, and focusing on the ac-
quisition/reversal outcomes alone all lead Debs and Monteiro toward broad
theoretical claims about the security environment’s top-down impact on nu-

clear weapons programs and away from explaining the real-world hetero-
geneity of responses to the security environment that emerge from within a
state’s domestic political context.9
The role of security in understanding nuclear weapons pursuit is certainly
important, particularly in motivating the initial decision to begin a program.
But the benefits a nuclear weapons program provides and the costs it incurs
can change over time. Decisions that come later in a program’s timeline may
be based on different factors than the initial decision to start the program.
Many leaders appear to make nuclear decisions that are not based on either
stable or changing external security environments. And whether a leader
responds to a change in the threat environment with a nuclear decision
depends in part on the influence of nuclear or military organizations. These
organizations may attempt to use security events to affect nuclear decision-
making in service of their own agendas.
Security on its own is an insufficient explanator for nuclear decision-
making. It is certainly not unimportant, however, and I show in the empir-
ical chapters to follow how strategic rivalries lead governments to be more
hesitant to abandon their nuclear programs. Broadly, though, states have a
number of possible responses to insecurity, and those responses are shaped
by the domestic information environment. And as states have different
objectives in mind when pursuing nuclear weapons development, security
concerns will not point every government toward the same end goal.
Government Interference in Nuclear Weapons Programs
Could different proliferation curves be explained by the competence or in-

competence of state officials and program managers? Jacques E. C. Hymans
makes the argument that leaders who are relatively unconstrained by state
institutions are likely to interfere with the management of nuclear weapons
programs, undermining the productivity, autonomy, and professional ethos
of science workers. Program progress suffers as a result. Hymans is certainly
correct that nonexpert interference in program management can damage a
program’s ability to achieve nuclear development milestones. However, this
argument has less to offer for an explanation of leaders’ nuclear decision-
making, and more broadly, it falls prey to the assumption that states have
common goals and take linear paths to the bomb.
First, Hymans asks a different question. In seeking to explain differences

in the length of time to nuclear weapons acquisition, he explores the impact
of relatively unconstrained, neopatrimonial leaders on the behavior of nu-
clear science and technology workers. This focus on how nuclear develop-
ment progresses inside the nuclear agency examines, for instance, whether
scientists are free to pursue their work in ways that will advance good re-
search and development or feel compelled to take shortcuts that will mo-
mentarily please powerful, repressive leaders, but that will ultimately harm
program development. This explanation is ultimately about top-down effects
on the outcome: Will political interference extend the time it takes to acquire
nuclear weapons? I offer a theory that explains the other side of the coin: how
organizations affect leaders’ decisions to invest in, or back away from, a pro-
gram. I am concerned not with the scientists’ professional autonomy and
ability to perform good science, but rather with the nuclear agency’s organi-
zational autonomy, which affects the scientists’ ability to influence the leader
regarding the course and survival of the program itself.
Second, underlying Hymans’s theory is one of the same assumptions that
also plagues the security approach: that leaders share a common desire to
acquire nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. I have discussed previously
that the historical record of nuclear pursuit indicates that the majority of
states do not pursue the bomb with great haste. Often, leaders choose to
allow a nuclear weapons program to maintain the course it is on or decide to
slow down or suspend its development. As I argue, organizations are a key
source of influence that frame the leader’s perception of the value of the nu-
clear program and affect the leader’s preference whether or not to accelerate
that program. Leaders do not hold universal preferences for speeding the
program along.
Why is this assumption a problem? Hymans’s focus on outcomes, in com-
bination with the assumption that the path to the bomb should be linear,
leads him to draw the conclusion that states that stray from the ideal prolif-
eration curve are deviating from the norm. In other words, if the outcome
has not been realized in an efficient, timely way, something has gone wrong.
This conclusion motivates a search for an explanation: that neopatrimonial
regimes disrupt nuclear weapons program management.
However, if these nonlinear pathways are not a deviation—if states’ pro-
liferation curves are in fact typically nonlinear, interrupted and shaped by
nuclear decisions—then neopatrimonialism provides an insufficient ex-
planation. Indeed, across neopatrimonial regimes, militaries and nuclear
agencies have varying levels of access to, and influence over, leaders and the
nuclear project. In other words, it is not only the type of bureaucracy that
matters within a state, but also the form that bureaucracy takes. And I argue
that a domestic institutions–based explanation that omits the role of the
military will not be able to sufficiently explain decision-making regarding
weapons research and development across the universe of cases.
Further, my approach to understanding nuclear decision-making offers an
explanation for cases that do not fit neatly into Hymans’s theoretical frame-
work, such as China. Hymans notes that China is an exception, writing that
“military and party heavyweights” protected the program from state interfer-
ence.10 But when China transitioned from Mao Zedong’s leadership to Deng
Xiaoping’s, military and party heavyweights were unsuccessful in protecting
the nuclear weapons program from Deng’s reversal decisions. Why? The
domestic organizations mechanism offers an explanation. China’s nuclear
agencies had been frequently reorganized by leaders at various levels and
lacked direct access to the executive, reporting instead to the Central Military
Commission, the Chinese Communist Party, or an array of ministers.11
Because the Chinese nuclear bureaucracy was never given independent ac-
cess to state resources, its continued operation was reliant on patrons like the
military and party leaders who protected it during Mao’s regime. When Deng
decided to divert resources away from nuclear weapons development and to-
ward conventional weapons programs, those patrons had lost the power and
access they needed to persuade Deng otherwise, and the program itself had
no access to Deng.12 This structure stands in stark contrast to observations of
other neopatrimonial regimes. For example, under Stalin’s neopatrimonial
regime, the Russian nuclear agency had direct access to Stalin and was able
to influence decision-making (see Chapter 5). But agencies that lack an in-
dependent source of power or access to the leader have little ability to shape
leaders’ preferences and influence decision outcomes.
Adversity: Economic Constraints, Sanctions, and

Military Strikes
Nuclear weapons programs require a state to invest massive financial and

material resources. Yet most studies have found that state wealth has no in-
dependent impact on a state’s decision to start a nuclear program.13 Indeed,
states that have tried and failed to build the bomb actually have, on average,
a higher per capita GDP than those states that succeed.14 Since nuclear
weapons programs are extremely expensive, why would state wealth matter
so little? Governments may decide to endure significant sacrifices in order to
divert money to accelerate a nuclear program. A state may prioritize a nuclear
weapons program to the extent that leaders disregard economic constraints.
Because nuclear weapons are so highly valued, we should actually expect to
find that states at various levels of wealth decide to pursue them. If states de-
sire nuclear weapons strongly enough, their leaders will find a way to pay for
them.15
China pursued nuclear weapons despite its limited resources at the time.
China’s scientific and industrial foundations were not sufficient to support
an indigenous nuclear weapons program, and thus the leadership turned
to the Soviet Union for assistance with both materials and scientific knowl-
edge. Despite suffering by the population, particularly in the aftermath of the
Great Leap Forward (1958–60), when China endured “three hard years” of
rationing, meat shortages, and malnutrition, Marshal Nie Rongzhen, a key
figure in the Chinese nuclear weapons effort, persuaded the leadership that
developing nuclear weapons would also help develop the Chinese economy.16
Premier Zhou Enlai proclaimed that China would attempt to produce an
atomic bomb within eight years.17 Funding was diverted to the nuclear pro-
gram, providing personnel with more food than the general public could
procure and more comfortable living conditions.18
China is not the only state that found a way to fund a program it could
not comfortably afford. Although Pakistan’s low level of economic develop-
ment in the 1970s could have precluded investment in a nuclear program,
Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Bhutto famously declared in October
1965 that the Pakistani population would “eat grass” if that was what was
necessary to fund a nuclear weapons program. In Libya, Mu’ammer Gaddafi
leveraged the country’s oil wealth to support his nuclear weapons dream.19
North Korea has invested in its nuclear weapons program at the expense of
its people, who have suffered from periodic famines and energy shortages
for decades. Even democratic India spent so much on its nuclear program
that its swollen defense budget contributed to the development of a food
shortage.20 Even in a time of scarcity, a motivated government can find ways
to reallocate resources to support a nuclear program.
Beyond domestic resource scarcity, external mechanisms of economic
sanctions and the withholding of economic assistance may pose a particular
resource constraint for states with nuclear ambitions. However, states that
have decided to pursue nuclear weapons have considered the risks of nonpro-
liferation measures like sanctions and have already accepted those possible
harms.21 Leaders may not be prompted to reverse if the risk is realized, ex-
cept in specific circumstances.22 Sanctions that are particularly well-crafted
and are imposed by a significant economic partner are more likely to be suc-
cessful, but those conditions are rarely met.23 Most scholars agree that eco-
nomic sanctions are generally ineffective at bringing about policy change24
and have rarely caused leaders to make nuclear reversal decisions within
the context of an existing nuclear weapons program.25 Note that three of the
states I mentioned as pursuing programs despite economic constraints—
Pakistan, Libya, and North Korea—operated their nuclear programs under
various rounds of economic sanctions.
A state pursuing nuclear weapons also risks becoming the target of militarized
nonproliferation measures, such as the suspension of military aid or a military
strike against program facilities. But strikes on foreign nuclear facilities, which
are rare, may lead to program reversal or may prompt a leader to double down
on investment in the nuclear weapons program.26 And strikes on a program be-
come less likely as the program reaches more advanced levels of capacity, such
as when enrichment or reprocessing facilities begin operating.27
Leader Characteristics
Leaders’ personal characteristics and experiences, such as their beliefs about

national identity28 or their past experiences with rebellion against the state,29
may affect their attitudes about nuclear weapons. A fine-grained approach
to leader psychology contributes to our understanding of why leaders might
trust certain allies more than others, or why they might particularly value a
nuclear arsenal. And bringing the leader back into the study of proliferation
is necessary because nuclear decision-making authority is concentrated in
the political executive.30
However, treating leader beliefs as fixed does not account for the relation-
ship between leaders and domestic experts or for the influence those do-
mestic experts can, under certain circumstances, exert on leaders. Nor can it
account for the proliferation environment leaders find themselves operating
in, an environment structured by the freedoms or constraints associated with
different international proliferation regimes. Leader traits cannot directly
explain why an individual might change his or her mind about the value of
a nuclear weapons program or might make different nuclear decisions at
different times. Personality traits and past experiences are clearly an impor-
tant part of how people make decisions, but a person who comes to political
power as a state executive encounters a new decision-making environment.
And as leaders rarely know much about their nuclear weapons programs,
organizations that frame the leader’s understanding of the program’s value
become particularly important. The assumption that leader preferences pri-
marily emerge from fixed personal traits limits our ability to explain nuclear
decisions made during the life of an ongoing program.
A change in leadership may also explain the timing of a nuclear decision.
Sometimes a nuclear decision is made when a new president or prime min-
ister enters office. Some new executives bring to office strong attitudes re-
garding nuclear weapons, and they may seize their new opportunity to change
state policy. But although a change in leadership has at times preceded a de-
cision to start a program or change course within a program, it is neither a
common nor widespread factor leading to either type of decision. If my argu-
ment is correct, the case studies will show that nuclear decision-making varies
within certain categories of leaders or types of regimes. The mechanisms con-
cern the information environment that shapes any leader’s preferences about
nuclear pursuits, and the theory is thus agnostic as to leader type.
Cases in which a leader had a strong personal stake in the nuclear weapons
program are particularly interesting and thus well-known, but it is more typ-
ical for the leader to rely upon advisers, agencies, and other organizations to
suggest a set of policy choices and then to advocate their preferred policies
within that set. Most leaders are not familiar with nuclear science and tech-
nology; neither are most, especially at the beginning of their time in office,
well-versed in nuclear secrets. Indeed, even those leaders who had excep-
tionally high levels of personal involvement in nuclear affairs still did not
operate alone, but rather in the context of their environments. Even though
individual leaders have unique personalities, life histories, and leadership
styles, there are common situations and conditions across the domestic and
international environments that tend to make leaders more or less likely to
make certain kinds of nuclear decisions.
Nuclear Goals
The goals and interests of nuclear pursuers vary; therefore the desired
outcomes of a nuclear weapons program will also vary. Leaders make nuclear
decisions for a variety of strategic reasons, and not every state with a nuclear
weapons program necessarily plans to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Recall the

proliferation curves from Chapter 2. Sprinting toward weaponization is a rel-
atively rare approach, situated largely in the post–World War II years and
taken by fewer than 20 percent of nuclear weapons pursuers.31 Rather than
investigating the time to acquisition, then, I argue that we should investigate
the form the nuclear pursuit takes.
If the majority of states do not pursue a quick, linear path toward the bomb,
what other nuclear goals might they have? States pursuing a nuclear weapons
program might choose to hedge, planning to achieve a high level of nuclear
technological development but not to build a nuclear arsenal. Hedging can
result in a latent nuclear weapons capability, meaning that a leader would be
able to reserve the option to build nuclear bombs, and those bombs could be
built within a relatively short timeframe. A latent capability may be perceived
by the state leader as a source of power or to generate a “virtual” nuclear de-
terrent without crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. Leaders could also
decide to hedge in order to generate prestige or to satisfy domestic political
coalitions.32
Nuclear goals can also change. A government that initially pursues nuclear
weapons development with an eye on completing the path to the bomb could
change course and decide to engage in hedging behavior, slowing down or
suspending a program while maintaining the option to rapidly restart it later.
Over the course of a program, leaders may come to believe that pursuing a
nuclear weapons capability will risk preventive war, making a bad security
environment even worse.33 Or a state might seek to leverage an advanced nu-
clear development capacity to compel a powerful ally to maintain its security
commitments to the state.34 Even a state facing significant threats may decide
to treat the program as a bargaining chip in negotiations with adversaries.
North Korea used its plutonium reprocessing plant at the Yongbyon nuclear
complex as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States. Freezing
operations at Yongbyon as part of the Agreed Framework allowed the re-
gime to maintain the option to restart the nuclear program if circumstances
changed; soon after the agreement began to falter in 2002, North Korea
brought the plant back online.35 And after years of investment in nuclear
programs with little progress, Brazil, Argentina, and Libya planned to use
their nuclear capabilities as leverage in future nonproliferation talks with for-
eign powers.36
The state leaders themselves may not have a clear sense of their nuclear
goals or may leave the preferred outcomes deliberately vague in order to
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Nuclear Decisions.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

1. Introduction to Nuclear Decisions  1

Decisions Define Programs

My approach jettisons the assumption that leaders in nuclear weapons–​

arguments. Through this approach to studying nuclear proliferation, I find

The Domestic Nuclear Decision-​Making Environment

decision-​making. I approach this subject from a different conceptualization

Plan of the Book

The Path to the Bomb

that Germany’s capture of Czechoslovakian uranium mines indicated that

Nuclear Acceleration and Reversal Decisions

Once a government has begun a nuclear weapons program, subsequent

Mehta also incorporates Levite’s definition in her study of nuclear reversal,

Table 2.1 Types of Nuclear Decisions

Acceleration Decisions Reversal Decisions

If nuclear decisions shape states’ proliferation pathways, what do different

The lowest stage of nuclear development is classified as “nascent,” meaning

slowly due to reductions or a lack of interest from the government. Light

Figure 2.1 Proliferation curves by state

Figure 2.1 Continued

Figure 2.1 Continued

Figure 2.1 Continued

sometimes followed by acceleration decisions. The paths appear bumpier

The Political Process of Proliferation

In studying the full process of nuclear decision-​making during the lifetime

Second, termination decisions rarely are made in isolation. States that

Leaders’ nuclear decisions are critically important to understanding nu-

I offer two theoretical mechanisms to explain why leaders make nuclear

proliferation pathways and discuss why each is insufficient, before turning to

structures that require time to adapt to altered circumstances. A program de-

However, within the model, Narang’s investigation of the domestic polit-

hold up to an empirical investigation. Third, the security approach focuses

theoretical claims about the security environment’s top-​down impact on nu-

Government Interference in Nuclear Weapons Programs

Could different proliferation curves be explained by the competence or in-

First, Hymans asks a different question. In seeking to explain differences

Adversity: Economic Constraints, Sanctions, and

Nuclear weapons programs require a state to invest massive financial and

Leaders’ personal characteristics and experiences, such as their beliefs about

weapons program necessarily plans to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Recall the

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

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• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

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1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

1. Introduction to Nuclear Decisions 1

My approach jettisons the assumption that leaders in nuclear weapons–

The Domestic Nuclear Decision-Making Environment

decision-making. I approach this subject from a different conceptualization

In studying the full process of nuclear decision-making during the lifetime

theoretical claims about the security environment’s top-down impact on nu-