Exploring the Heterogeneity of Nuclear Crises

• In Event: Making Nuclear Choices?

Abstract

How dangerous are nuclear crises? What dynamics underpin how they unfold? Recent tensions between North Korea and the United States have exposed disagreement among scholars and analysts. We reconcile these apparently contradictory views by showing the circumstances in which different models of nuclear crises should be expected to hold. Nuclear crises should be expected to have different dynamics depending on two variables: the incentives to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis, and the extent to which escalation is controllable by the leaders involved. Variation across these two dimensions generate four types of nuclear crises: “staircase,” “stability-instability,” “brinkmanship,” and “firestorm” crises. These models correspond to well-established ways of thinking about nuclear crises, but no one model of nuclear crises is “correct.” Different models should be expected to apply in different cases, and we should interpret nuclear crises differently according to which model is most appropriate. We demonstrate the utility of our framework using the cases of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, 1999 Kargil War, 2017 Doklam Crisis, and ongoing U.S.-North Korea tensions.

Author

• Mark S. Bell, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities