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When do states acquire nuclear weapons? Overturning a decade of scholarship focusing on other factors, Debs and Monteiro show in Nuclear Politics that proliferation is driven by security concerns. Proliferation occurs only when a state has both the willingness and opportunity to build the bomb. A state has the willingness to nuclearize when it faces a serious security threat without the support of a reliable ally. It has the opportunity when its conventional forces or allied protection are sufficient to deter preventive attacks. This explains why so few countries have developed nuclear weapons. Unthreatened or protected states do not want them; weak and unprotected ones cannot get them. This powerful theory combined with extensive historical research on the nuclear trajectory of sixteen countries will make Nuclear Politics a standard reference in international security studies, informing scholarly and policy debates on nuclear proliferation - and US non-proliferation efforts - for decades to come.

Nuclear nonproliferation. --- Nuclear weapons --- Strategic culture. --- Culture --- Military policy --- National security --- Atomic weapons --- Fusion weapons --- Thermonuclear weapons --- Weapons of mass destruction --- No first use (Nuclear strategy) --- Nuclear arms control --- Nuclear disarmament --- Nuclear warfare --- Export of nuclear materials --- Export of nuclear technology --- International control of nuclear energy --- Nonproliferation, Nuclear --- Nuclear energy --- Nuclear exports --- Nuclear proliferation --- Proliferation, Nuclear --- Nuclear-weapon-free zones --- Government policy. --- International control

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Are nuclear weapons useful for coercive diplomacy? Since 1945, most strategic thinking about nuclear weapons has focused on deterrence - using nuclear threats to prevent attacks against the nation's territory and interests. But an often overlooked question is whether nuclear threats can also coerce adversaries to relinquish possessions or change their behavior. Can nuclear weapons be used to blackmail other countries? The prevailing wisdom is that nuclear weapons are useful for coercion, but this book shows that this view is badly misguided. Nuclear weapons are useful mainly for deterrence and self-defense, not for coercion. The authors evaluate the role of nuclear weapons in several foreign policy contexts and present a trove of new quantitative and historical evidence that nuclear weapons do not help countries achieve better results in coercive diplomacy. The evidence is clear: the benefits of possessing nuclear weapons are almost exclusively defensive, not offensive.

Nuclear arms control. --- Nuclear nonproliferation. --- Diplomacy. --- International relations. --- Coexistence --- Foreign affairs --- Foreign policy --- Foreign relations --- Global governance --- Interdependence of nations --- International affairs --- Peaceful coexistence --- World order --- National security --- Sovereignty --- World politics --- History --- International relations --- Export of nuclear materials --- Export of nuclear technology --- International control of nuclear energy --- Nonproliferation, Nuclear --- Nuclear energy --- Nuclear exports --- Nuclear proliferation --- Proliferation, Nuclear --- Nuclear arms control --- Nuclear-weapon-free zones --- Nuclear weapons control --- Arms control --- Nuclear weapons --- International control