Nuclear Politics in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Mis- and disinformation conveyed by a state regarding its intention to use or acquire nuclear weapons has significant implications for international security. For instance, a nuclear state’s misrepresentation of its resolve can lead to arms races and conflicts among adversaries. In addition, a nuclear patron state’s inability to represent its intended commitment to providing a nuclear security guarantee to its client state can potentially lead to nuclear proliferation by the client state. A non-nuclear state’s intention, too, when misrepresented, can have unintended consequences. For instance, a non-nuclear state’s nuclear ambition out of its pursuit of national pride and prestige can misinform the patron state about its disengagement from the security alliance, driving edges between patron states and client states.

In this panel, we introduce recent advancements in the research on nuclear politics theoretically, empirically, and methodologically. While each of the five papers makes a unique, individual contribution to the field of nuclear politics, the role of mis- and disinformation is vital in all five papers.

In the first paper, "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Lethal Debut of Atomic Weaponry," Joshua Byun and Austin Carson address a new question, “why do states sometimes disclose new military capabilities to their enemies in exceptionally deadly ways, even when tamer alternatives seem feasible?” and propose a new theory, the theory of lethal capability disclosures, that they illustrate by examining American deliberations on the proposal to conduct a noncombat demonstration of the atomic bomb vis-à-vis Japan during World War II.

Then, methodological and empirical advancements in the study of nuclear politics are presented in the four related studies that use public opinion and survey experiment research to study the public perception of nuclear proliferation in a nuclear-threshold country such as South Korea.

In the second paper, "Extended Deterrence and Horizontal Nuclear Proliferation in South Korea," Hye-Sung Kim, Jeheung Ryu, and Taehee Whang show that in a non-nuclear client state like South Korea, where the political salience of nuclear issues has consistently formed strong public support for nuclear proliferation, the credibility of extended deterrence provided by the patron state has limited effect on the public nuclear ambition. They do this by conducting an innovative survey experiment that uses hypothetical yet realistic news videos as a tool of a conjoint experiment. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that assumes a constant, negative relationship or substitutability between the credibility of extended deterrence and nuclear proliferation, the study shows a non-linear relationship exists.

In the third paper, "How Credible Security Guarantees Backfire," Lauren Sukin draws from survey experiments and case studies of U.S. alliances in East Asia and Europe and demonstrates that credible nuclear security guarantees can backfire as these guarantees can cause clients to fear that their guarantors will drag them into a precipitous nuclear conflict, driving clients to distance themselves from their alliance or seek stronger independent nuclear capabilities. This new finding contrasts the conventional wisdom predicting a constant negative relationship between credible security guarantees and nuclear proliferation.

In the fourth paper, "Nuclear Weapons and National Prestige," Sunggun Park, Todd S. Sechser, and Sowon Park demonstrate that the South Korean public associates nuclear acquisition with national prestige, drawing from a series of opinion and survey experiment research. The finding from this study complements other papers in the panel by providing an explanation for why the baseline public support for nuclearization has been consistently high in South Korea.

In the fifth paper, "Reassuring Ally: the Source of Credibility of Extended Nuclear Deterrence," Jiyoung Ko argues that the public perception of the patron state’s credibility of extended nuclear deterrence in a client state is not solely shaped by the patron state’s signaling behaviors but also by contextual factors such as a patron’s domestic situation and its general alliance/nuclear policy position. Using survey research conducted in South Korea, Ko demonstrates that the quality of democracy in the United States and the U.S. nuclear posture have a strong boosting effect on the perceived credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella among the South Korean public.

Sub Unit

• Division 19: International Security 

Individual Presentations

• Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Lethal Debut of Atomic Weaponry - Joshua Byun, Boston College; Austin Carson, University of Chicago

• Extended Deterrence and Horizontal Nuclear Proliferation in South Korea - Hye-Sung Kim, Appalachian State University; Jeheung Ryu, Ewha Womans University; Taehee Whang, Yonsei University

• Nuclear Weapons and National Prestige - Sunggun Park, George Washington University; Todd S. Sechser, University of Virginia; Sowon Park, University of Virginia

• How Credible Security Guarantees Backfire - Lauren Sukin, University of Oxford

• Reassuring Ally: The Source of Credibility of Extended Nuclear Deterrence - Jiyoung Ko, Korea University

Chair

• Kongdan Katy Oh Korea Economic Institute of America

Discussants

• Todd S. Sechser University of Virginia

• Matthew Fuhrmann Texas A&M University