Stephen M. Walt’s most recent argument for folding the US nuclear umbrella is interesting and troubling at the same time. Interesting, because it admits that extended nuclear deterrence is not only costly but lacks credibility even inside the nuclear logic. “Or, as people used to wonder back in the Cold War,” Walt says, “would a U.S. president really risk Washington or Chicago to save Paris or Berlin?” Probably not. Then what good is extended nuclear deterrence in the first place? That’s an important question to ask.
But now comes the troubling part. Instead of laying out alternatives to nuclear deterrence, the only idea Walt presents is accepting that proliferation of nuclear capabilities to US allies—most evidently to Germany and Japan—might not be a bad thing “from a purely U.S. perspective.” This is even more troubling when considering what such a move would do to the global NPT regime and that Walt does not mention the possibility of strengthening this most successful multilateral agreement. Nor does he mention the possibility of giving other military assurances to allies or the option of using the phasing-out of US extended nuclear deterrence as a bargaining chip for another multilateral arms control agreement with China and Russia.
Even worse, despite just explaining that this envisioned proliferation might be in US interests and would be taken in response to closing the US umbrella, Walt already lays the groundwork to blame China and Russia for it. “[I]t would remind Beijing and Moscow,” he says, “that their own behavior will affect the strategic calculations that their neighbors make in the near future, including decisions about nuclear arms.” With this, he already shifts the blame for the hypothetical nuclear proliferation to US adversaries. To top this off, Walt seems to have no concerns at all that nuclear proliferation to US allies might drastically increase threat perception in China and Russia and, in turn, lead to increased qualitative and quantitative nuclear arming on their sides—which might just lead to more arming again in Europe and Asia. The security dilemma seems not to worry Walt at all.
How is it, that even moderate realists in the US fail to perceive their actions (and those of their allies) in any way other than legitimate self-defense while being extremely sensitive that every action of powers that they dislike are framed as an attack against their values, interests, and security—even when those are mostly of economic nature like the Russian Nord-Stream 2, or the Chinese Belt-and-Road-Initiative. How can Walt fail to see that nuclear proliferation will necessarily and automatically lead to more insecurity and less stability in the places where this becomes an option?
I agree that closing the US nuclear umbrella should be considered and might be a good thing. But the vision to do this needs certainly to be bigger than simply killing the NPT and root for nuclear proliferation among US allies. International law, multilateral negotiations, and enforceable and verifiable security guarantees—other than nuclear ones—are by far more realistic and less dangerous than throwing half a century of nonproliferation efforts out of the window.
Dr. Pascal Lottaz is assistant professor for neutrality studies at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study in Tokyo. His research focus is neutrality in world history and Japan’s relations with neutral countries during the Second World War. He received his PhD from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (Tokyo) and lectures on international relations at Waseda University and Contemporary European Politics at Temple University, Japan Campus. Lottaz serves as Secretary of the Diplomatic Studies Section (2019–2021) of the International Studies Association and he is an editor of Notions of Neutralities and Permanent Neutrality (Lexington Books).