Stability instability paradox pdf

North korea, nuclear weapons, and the stabilityinstability paradox1 terence roehrig2 u. Naval war college, newport, rhode island, usa as the chances wane of north korea relinquishing its. The stability instability paradox, misperception, and escalation control in south asia michael krepon he united states and the soviet union managed to avoid nuclear and conventional warfare during the cold war, while jockeying for advantage in a myriad of ways, including proxy wars and a succession of crises that became. Oct 25, 2015 however, regardless of the approach that the united states chooses, it is most important for both statesmen and the general public to thoroughly understand north koreas perspective, its singular desire for regime survival, and its current strategy under the stabilityinstability paradox. Increasingly, scholars are using the cold war concept of a stability instability paradox to describe the. Empirical tests of the stability instability paradox are vulnerable to a number of problems that might greatly reduce their validity, including endogeneity and extrapolation to irrelevant cases. Pdf north korea, nuclear weapons, and the stability. Download pdf pakistan s stability paradox free online new. The stabilityinstability paradox and the effect of an. North korea, nuclear weapons, and the stabilityinstability. Nov 02, 2010 the stability instability paradox has now hit the road and traveled to south asia. Sundarji, and abdul sattar, believed that going public with nuclear capabilities would serve as a stabilizing factor. The stabilityinstability paradox has now hit the road and traveled to south asia. In its prototypical version, the \ stability instability paradox considers rival states possessing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

North korean weapons tests and nasty rhetoric do a great deal to rattle nerves and elevate security concerns, but it is largely an. The rst word,\ stability, refers to the likelihood of a nuclear war between them, and the next, \ instability is the probability of conventional con ict. Low energy is associated with stability, and when a physical system reaches its lowest energy state equilibrium, no further change takes place. Conventional wisdom states that the stability instability paradox does not explain the effect of nuclear proliferation on the conflict propensity of south asia, and that nuclear weapons have had a different and more dangerous impact in south asia than cold war europe. The rationality of north korea and the stabilityinstability. It is an ally of the united states in the global war on terror but is also regarded as a major bastion of some of the most active jihadist organisations. Liddell hart, one of the first to note the phenomenon, argued that to the extent that the hbomb reduces the likelihood of fullscale war, it increases the possibilities of limited war pursued by widespread local aggression. The instability of stability paradox is the greatest threat facing the fed. Military modernization and technological maturation, an indian perspective. Jun 29, 2016 dynamic stability solving the paradox. They are dependent of everyone acting rationally and no one pushing the big red button. Prepared for kelly greenhill and peter krause, eds.

The most obvious application of this argument is that if nato lacks. The case of the kargil war anuj panday, emory university this paper examines the role of nuclear weapons in the kargil war in 1999 and finds that india and pakistan both acted in ways consistent with the stabilityinstability paradox. Now, let us advance towards a clearer picture of the connection between stability and unstable balance, and try to find the solution to the paradox we presented in the beginning. Initially, some very distinguished observers from the region, led by k. I have tried to shed light on stability and its role in the movement of humans in space. As the chances wane of north korea relinquishing its nuclear weapons, how will this capability affect its behavior and tolerance of risk. Pdf pakistan s stability paradox download read online free. Clarifying the stability instability paradox there is a significant amount of conceptual sloppiness when referring to the socalled stability instability paradox, a term first coined by glenn snyder in 1965, and further unpacked by scholars such as robert jervis and, in the south asian context, paul kapur. It then explores policy challenges that the stability instability paradox has created for nucleararmed states. North korea, nuclear weapons, and the stabilityinstability paradox article pdf available in korean journal of defense analysis 282.

What is the relationship between the stability of the nuclear balance among nucleararmed states and the incidence of conventional warfare. Nuclear weapons are supposed to make war so costly that it ceases to exist. The stability instability paradox is an international relations theory regarding the effect of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction. Might nuclear weapons lead to more conflict takeaway points. The stability instability paradox will continue to pose difficulties for nucleararmed states in the future, regardless of their efforts to avoid it. Despite its ubiquity, there is a confusion in the literature as to the precise causal mechanism underpinning such conflicts. The stabilityinstability paradox, misperception, and. North korea, nuclear weapons, and the stability instability paradox 1 terence roehrig2 u. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. States may seek to acquire nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons. This article discusses the logic of the stability instability paradox in detail, explaining its central role in nuclear deterrence. Another perspective 25 remains an abstract concept, interpreted mainly by states on the basis of their own threat perceptions as well as the adversary. The catastrophic danger of nuclear weapons makes threats to use them incredible, increasing nuclear stability and lowering the likelihood of nuclear conflict.

Having nuclear weapons acts as an insurance policyeven if you lose a war militarily, the nuclear weapons protect you from invasion. Pdf nuclear stability and conventional conflict robert. Military modernization and technological maturation, an. This came to be theorized as the stabilityinstability paradox, and helped international relations scholars and nations fathom the deterring quality of possessing nuclear weapons. The south asia program produces policy analysis and academic research on regional strategic trends and geopolitical dynamics in order to inform both policy debates and scholarly work. The stabilityinstability paradox is a wellestablished concept in the nuclearsecurity literature, which scholars use to explain substrategic militarized conflicts between mutually deterred, nucleararmed adversaries. Apr 07, 2017 other apparently relevant dyads such as china and india have not received as much attention.

The stabilityinstability paradox is an international relations theory regarding the effect of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction. Pakistan s stability paradox download pakistan s stability paradox ebook pdf or read online books in pdf, epub, and mobi format. Mar 08, 2018 this stability, in turn, gave rise to instability on the lower level, because of which the united states and soviet union fought proxy wars in korea, vietnam etc. Testing the nuclear stabilityinstability paradox using. Click download or read online button to pakistan s stability paradox book pdf for free now. For example, they may covet the international prestige that they believe comes with. Mutually assured destruction may have restrained the superpowers from engaging in direct confrontations during the cold war, but nuclear threats could not credibly prevent the exercise of proxy wars throughout the third world. The stability instability paradox and the effect of an iranian nuclear weapon on pakistans domestic stability mehreen ahmed university of colorado at boulder program in international affairs iafs 4800001 honors in international affairs april 10, 20 committee members vicki hunter. Competing interpretations of the stabilityinstability.

Narang is an assistant professor at the massachusetts institute of technology in cambridge, massachusetts. Much of the literature on the operation of the stability instability paradox in south asia assumes. A few japanese participants felt strongly that while some degree of u. India and pakistans unstable peace 129 if continuing indopakistani conflict runs counter to the expectations of the stability instability paradox, then the relationship between strategic and tactical stability, and its resulting dangers, may be different for future proliferants than it was for the united states and the soviet union. China mutual vulnerability might be unavoidable, if it rose to a level of thoroughly deterring u. Efforts to restore strategic stability by one actor could thus be perceived as. Pakistan, with the second largest muslim population in the world, is a crucial country in the international system. The stability instability paradox revisited, authorjon r. Much of the literature on the operation of the stability instability paradox in south asia assumes, mistakenly, that the stability instability hypothesis refers to the relationship. It states that when two countries each have nuclear weapons, the probability of a direct war between them greatly decreases, but the probability of minor or indirect conflicts between them increases. The case of the kargil war anuj panday, emory university this paper examines the role of nuclear weapons in the kargil war in 1999 and finds that india and pakistan both acted in ways consistent with the stability instability paradox. We believe this dispassionate, reasoned approach is vital to generating highquality strategic thinking that will advance regional and global stability.