Nuclear Proliferation

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Kenneth Waltz and Scott Sagan look through two completely different lenses when looking at the realities of the world, where Waltz's theory is neo-realist structural theory and Sagan's is organization theory. It looks at how their two theories regarding nuclear proliferation have led us to emphasize different aspects of nuclear history and to predict very different nuclear futures.

From the Paper:

"Waltz does not think that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing, as he says many times "Nuclear weapons make wars hard to start." (Sagan and Waltz p.45) He believes that deterrence will continue to work; although he is not promoting proliferation he is just realistic by saying proliferation will continue and then he has an optimistic proliferation outlook for what this means to the world. Waltz believes that, "the behavior of new nuclear states will reflect their interest in avoiding nuclear war. New nuclear powers will avoid preventive nuclear wars, develop survivable nuclear arsenals, and prevent nuclear weapons accidents because it is in their obvious national interests to do so." (Sagan and Waltz p. 83) "

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