Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence Stability in Asia

This chapter considers the present and prospective threat environment relative to nuclear weapons proliferation in Asia, and explores the problematical aspects of more nuclear armed states in Asia, even if additional nuclear weapons are not immediately followed by blowouts of deterrence and crisis stability. Russia’s remnant nuclear force from the Cold War, assuming eventual modernization, guarantees Moscow military respect in Europe and makes its neighbours in Asia more circumspect. The states of North America and Western Europe, pacified or at least debellicized by an expanded North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a downsized Russia, regard nuclear weapons as dated remnants of the age of mass destruction. Iran’s future nuclear weapons could presumably be held under the political control of its supreme religious council and/or its government-with its military, intelligence and other security organs mostly controlled by the former. Analysis of nuclear threats and deterrence stability in Asia requires both quantitative and qualitative data, and is fraught with many complexities and ambiguities.