While the U.S. military’s strikes on Iran on June 21 are believed to have damaged the country’s critical nuclear infrastructure, no evidence has yet emerged showing the program to have been completely destroyed.
As a scholar of nuclear nonproliferation, my research indicates that military strikes, such as the U.S. one against Iran, tend not to work. Diplomacy — involving broad and resolute international efforts — offers a more strategically effective way to preempt a country from obtaining a nuclear arsenal.
The strategy of a country using airstrikes to attempt to eliminate a rival nation’s nuclear program has precedent, including Israel’s 1981 airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor and its 2007 air assault on Syria’s Kibar nuclear complex.
Yet neither military operation reliably or completely terminated the targeted program. Many experts of nuclear strategy believe that while the Israeli strike destroyed the Osirak complex, it likely accelerated former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s commitment to pursue a nuclear weapon, and while Israeli airstrikes destroyed Syria’s nascent nuclear facility, evidence soon emerged that nuclear activities may have continued elsewhere.
The tactics involved in nuclear diplomacy include bilateral and multilateral engagement, comprehensive economic and social sanctions — trade and financial penalties, exclusion from global sporting and cultural events — and transformative aid incentives.
How countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America were denuclearized
I’ve found that since 1970, when most of the world signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, obligating nonnuclear weapons states to forgo them and existing nuclear powers to share civilian nuclear technology and eventually relinquish their nuclear weapons, diplomacy played a pivotal role in convincing nuclear-seeking nations to entirely and permanently abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons. The military strategy cannot claim a single clear denuclearization success. Denuclearization through diplomacy succeeded in Argentina, Brazil, Libya, South Africa, South Korea and Taiwan.
Credit: Darnell Wilburn | Kennesaw State University
Credit: Darnell Wilburn | Kennesaw State University
In the cases of U.S. allies Argentina, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan, the military option was off the table for Washington, which instead successfully used diplomatic pressure to induce these countries to discontinue their nuclear programs.
South Africa represents one of the most compelling cases in support of diplomatic measures to reverse a country’s nuclear path.
In 1991, the country decided to relinquish that arsenal, due in large part to the high economic, technological and cultural costs of sanctions and the belief that its nuclear program would prevent its reintegration into the international community following years of apartheid.
Completing the denuclearization of Africa, diplomatic pressure applied by the U.S. was the primary factor in Libya’s decision to shutter its nuclear program in 2003.
In the 11 countries in which diplomacy was used to reverse nuclear proliferation, only in the cases of India and Pakistan, did it fail to induce any nuclear reversal.
In the case of North Korea, while Pyongyang did for a time join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, it later left the accord and subsequently built an arsenal now estimated at several dozen nuclear weapons. The decades-long efforts at diplomacy with the country cannot, therefore, be coded a success. Still, these efforts did result in notable moves in 1994 and 2007 by North Korea to curtail its nuclear facilities.
Iran nuclear deal offered security and a new one could go a long way
Meanwhile, analysts debate whether diplomacy would have been more successful at containing North Korea’s nuclear program if President George W. Bush’s administration had not shifted toward a more confrontational policy.
Trump signaled quickly after the recent attack on Iran a willingness to engage in direct talks with Tehran. However, Iran may rebuff any agreement that effectively contains its nuclear program, opting instead for the intensified underground approach Iraq took after the 1981 Osirak attack.
Indeed, my research shows that combining military threats with diplomacy reduces the prospects of successfully reaching a disarmament agreement. Nations will be more reluctant to disarm when their negotiating counterpart adopts a threatening and combative posture, as it heightens their fear that disarmament will make it more vulnerable to future aggression from the opposing country.
But by signing the JCPOA, the nuclear deal constructed by the Obama Administration, and complying with it, as verified by the IAEA, Iran has demonstrated a willingness to cooperate on the nuclear issue in the past. Under the agreement, Iran accepted a highly limited and low-proliferation-risk nuclear program subject to intrusive inspections by the international community.
That arrangement was beneficial for regional stability and for buttressing the global norm against nuclear proliferation. A return to a JCPOA-type agreement would reinforce a diplomatic approach to relations with Iran and create an opening for progress with the country on other areas of concern.
Stephen Collins is a professor of government and international affairs at Kennesaw State University. A version of this article first appeared on The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing the knowledge of academic researchers and scientists.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
