Michael D. Cohen (2017), When Proliferation Causes Peace: The Psychology of Nuclear Crises, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Byungchan Kang
Since the US first developed nuclear weapons, the destructive power of a nuclear weapon provided other states the incentive to develop nuclear weapons because it could deter the aggression of other states. However, at the same time, it also made people worried about the outcome of nuclear proliferation because nuclear weapons can be used as a tool for nuclear powers to achieve their goal by making a nuclear threat to others. The nuclear threat made by Putin during the war between Russia and Ukraine and North Korea’s assertive foreign policy toward neighboring states can be examples of this idea. Therefore, whether nuclear proliferation can cause peace is repeatedly questioned, and even international relations scholars have different ideas. Regarding this, Michael D. Cohen, the author of When Proliferation Causes Peace: The Psychology of Nuclear Crises, argues that nuclear proliferation tends to be dangerous when leaders learn that nuclear assertion is safe, and proliferation tends to be safe when leaders learn that nuclear assertion is dangerous. The author makes the argument by focusing on the psychology of state leaders. According to Michael D. Cohen, the availability heuristic drives state leaders to authorize assertive foreign policy. However, once the state leaders experience the fear of imminent nuclear war by the foreign policy assertion of the opponent in response, they authorize restrained foreign policies and avoid the escalatory risks associated with assertion. Therefore, the author argues that the ‘fear,’ “which refers to the situation when a leader stumbles into a nuclear crisis and genuinely expects nuclear escalation and massive destruction within hours or days,” makes nuclear proliferation safe.
This book has six chapters. The first two chapters cover the overview of the book and provide the theoretical framework. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the argument of the author and provides the outline and introduces the debate on nuclear proliferation and covers the ideas of both positive and negative views regarding nuclear proliferation. Michael D. Cohen argues that the existing explanations of nuclear proliferation are incomplete and suggests the argument based on the psychology of state leaders. Chapter 2 covers the theoretical framework by introducing the ALF (availability, learning, and fear) model and compares it to two rational learning models: The Waltzian model and the rational-signaling model. According to the ALF model, the availability heuristic drives the nuclear state leaders to authorize assertive foreign policy, but once state leaders experience the fear of imminent nuclear war, they are likely to authorize the foreign policy restraint. The rational learning model based on Kenneth Waltz’s idea assumes that state leaders will learn from previous cases of other nuclear powers and authorize restrained foreign policies. On the other hand, the rational-signaling model assumes that state leaders authorize nuclear assertion to show their resolve to other states but authorize a restrained foreign policy if the opponent sends them a costly signal in response. The author analyses selected nuclear crisis cases from Chapter 3 to Chapter 5. Chapter 3 analyses the nuclear crisis between the US and the Soviet Union (1956-1962), and Chapter 4 analyses the conflict between India and Pakistan (1998-2002). And Chapter 5 analyses the cases of John Kennedy (1960s), Atal Vajpayee (1999-2003), Richard Nixon (1969-1974), and Mao Zedong (1969-1970). In these cases, the Waltzian model cannot explain the authorization of assertive foreign policies made by state leaders. The rational-signaling model can explain the assertive choices, but it cannot explain the state leaders’ persistence in assertive foreign policy even after the opponent sent costly signals. Therefore, the ALF model outperforms the others because it can explain what other models cannot. The author concludes the book in Chapter 6 by summarizing the arguments, dealing with counterarguments, and suggesting future research. The author also forecasts the future of North Korea and Iran, the potential new nuclear powers which can cause a nuclear crisis in the future in the last chapter.
There are some strengths and weaknesses of the book. The first strength of this book is that it suggested a new theoretical framework to explain the foreign policy of nuclear powers by focusing on the psychology of state leaders. The author explained the states’ foreign policy by focusing on the availability heuristic and fear, and the case studies showed that the ALF model is better than other models in explaining the foreign policies authorized by the state leaders of the US, Soviet Union, China, Pakistan, and India. The second strength of the book is that it helps the readers to clearly know the difference between the ALF model and two rational learning models and recognize the strength of the ALF model by comparing the explanation of selected cases based on these three models. Readers can easily figure out which theory provides the best explanation for each case. The third strength of this book is that the author has tried to explain each selected nuclear crisis case in detail by dividing each case into several stages. The book did not explain the overview of states’ foreign policies by considering each case as a whole but divided each case into several stages and analyzed the states’ foreign policies at each stage. Therefore, the book can explain not only the states’ foreign policy assertion or foreign policy restraint but also the states’ foreign policy changes from assertion to restraint or vice versa. In addition, the book can even explain why there were no foreign policy changes at a certain point, but there was a foreign policy change later.
However, there are some weaknesses in the book. The first weakness is that it might be problematic to generalize the findings because of the short history of nuclear weapons and the small number of states that possess them. It might be wrong to consider that the findings from just a few cases can represent the foreign policy of entire states in the world. The second weakness of the book is that it does not explain how nuclear assertion by the opponent causes state leaders to experience fear of imminent nuclear war. Although the book explains the mechanism of fear making state leaders choose foreign policy restraint, it does not provide the causal mechanism of assertion by the opponent causing state leaders to experience the fear of imminent nuclear war. In this book, ‘fear’ means “the situation when a leader stumbles into a nuclear crisis and genuinely expects nuclear escalation and massive destruction within hours or days.” In other words, the state leader must realize the situation to experience the fear of imminent nuclear war. However, this book does not explain how the opponent’s foreign policy assertion caused state leaders to realize the nuclear crisis. Although there is a correlation between the opponent’s assertion and the fear of imminent war, there is no guarantee that the former causes the latter. And this problem is related to the third weakness of the book: it undermines the importance of other factors in the foreign policy decision-making process. Although the author focused on the state leaders, these factors still play an important role because they help them feel the fear of imminent nuclear war. For example, media, intelligence, and military sectors provide information to make state leaders realize that the state is in a crisis and expect imminent nuclear war. The attitudes of the state’s allies and international organizations play similar roles. However, the book did not consider these factors in explaining states’ nuclear foreign policy.
In conclusion, When Proliferation Causes Peace: The Psychology of Nuclear Crises is a book explaining the foreign policies of nuclear powers by focusing on the state leaders’ psychology. The author of the book, Michael D. Cohen, argues that nuclear proliferation tends to be dangerous when leaders learn that nuclear assertion is safe, and proliferation tends to be safe when leaders learn that nuclear assertion is dangerous. Although this book needs some weaknesses which need further complementary research, the proposal of a new theoretical framework to analyze and explain the foreign policies of nuclear powers should be appreciated.
Byungchan Kang is a Research Intern at NIICE.
