key: cord-0060036-ynr87xju authors: Chappell, Brian K. title: Literature Review date: 2021-01-08 journal: State Responses to Nuclear Proliferation DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-59801-3_2 sha: c8665a44ecb83f7e9f77ff57023ddc18ef314ebc doc_id: 60036 cord_uid: ynr87xju To answer the central question of this study, “When and why do states that have the military capability to use force to disrupt or destroy a proliferating state’s nuclear facilities choose to take no action, use military force, or pursue coercive diplomacy?” the research first discusses the contributions and shortcomings of the existing proliferation literature. This critique contextualizes the foundation of nuclear proliferation literature before transitioning from the study of the aggregate to the individual effects of proliferation by discussing Matthew Kroenig’s power-based Differential Effects of Nuclear Proliferation Theory, which argues nuclear proliferation has varying effects on differently situated power-projecting states and these differing effects account for the variations in their proliferation responses. This is of particular importance as Mintz and DeRouen argue that no crisis or war can be understood fully "without direct reference to the decision making" of a state's national leaders. 1 These psychological influences will be explained through a survey of the political psychology literature, to include examining briefly why a weaker state may choose to proliferate. This survey highlights the importance of psychological motivations on foreign policy decision-makers and lays the foundation for the study's theoretical approach to determining how threat perceptions contribute to a compelling state's proliferation response. In 1938, Nazi Germany chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman were experimenting with bombarding uranium atoms with neutrons and discovered the neutrons caused the nucleus to undergo fission by breaking apart, emitting large amounts of energy and additional neutrons in a chain reaction. Hahn and Strassman's experiments demonstrated the energy produced by fission could produce an immensely powerful weapon if neutrons bombarded the right amount of uranium. 2 The consequences of the Nazi's atomic experiments were apparent to American physicists, who felt it critical to notify President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) of Nazi Germany's atomic advances. The scientists approached Albert Einstein and asked him to warn President Roosevelt. Einstein had fled Nazi Germany and settled in the United States, where he worked at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study. Having fled the Nazis, Einstein was well aware of the dangers posed by Adolf Hitler if he possessed an atomic bomb. 3 In 1939, Einstein and Leo Szilard warned FDR of the Nazi's atomic weapons program and urged him to initiate an American atomic program. 4 Consequently, the United States established the Manhattan Project two years later, and tasked its director, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, to develop an atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945, the United States tested its first nuclear device, known as "the gadget," at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. When Dr. Oppenheimer witnessed the detonation he quoted Hindu scripture from the Bhagavad-Gita, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." 5 In early 1945, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, Commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces asked Major General Curtis LeMay when he thought the war would end because Imperial Japan continued to fight even after Nazi Germany surrendered to Allied forces. LeMay estimated the war would be over by the beginning of September Background 29 1945 because Japan would have no more targets for the Americans to hit by that time. 6 Facing the prospect of a costly and bloody invasion, President Harry S. Truman gave the approval to drop America's last two remaining atomic bombs on Japan. Three weeks after its first atomic test, America operationalized and deployed its two atomic bombs to the Pacific Theater. On the morning of August 6, 1945, seven B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers departed the South Pacific island of Tinian and vectored north toward Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima, home to roughly 290,000 civilians, 43,000 Japanese soldiers, and a number of American prisoners of war (POWs), was the first target city of America's newly developed atomic bomb. At approximately 8:15 a.m., the "Enola Gay," released "Little Boy" from its bomb bay, nearly 31,000 feet above the city. Little Boy, a 13 kiloton uranium-235 bomb, fell for 43s before detonating 1900 feet above ground zero. 7 The blinding flash released radiation and an intense heat with a surface temperature of 13,892 degrees Fahrenheit (7700 degrees Celsius). Within seconds, much of Hiroshima was obliterated, along with 70,000 Japanese citizens and 20 American POWs, with those near the hypocenter incinerated immediately by temperatures that reached upwards of 7232 degrees Fahrenheit (4000 degrees Celsius). 8 The Harry S. Truman National Historic Site provides a graphic firsthand narrative of what happened that morning in Hiroshima. The temperature near the blast site reached 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The sky seemed to explode. Birds ignited in midair; asphalt boiled. People over two miles away burst into crumbling cinders. Others with raw skin hanging in flaps around their hips leaped shrieking into waterways to escape the heat. Men without feet stumbled about on the charred stumps of their ankles. Women without jaws screamed incoherently for help. Bodies described as "boiled octopuses" littered the destroyed streets. Children, tongues swollen with thirst, pushed floating corpses aside to soothe their scalded throats with bloody river water. 9 Three days later, on August 9, six more B-29s took off from Tinian Island and vectored toward the target city of Kokura, which housed one of Japan's largest munitions plants. Due to extensive cloud cover, the bombers diverted to their secondary target, Nagasaki. At 10:58 a.m., the B-29 nicknamed "Bockscar" dropped "Fat Man," a 21 kiloton plutonium-239 bomb over the city. As five-year-old Shigemitsu Tanaka played outside, he heard a tremendous explosion and witnessed the sky turn completely white as Fat Man detonated 1650 feet above the city's Urakami Valley. 10 An estimated 40,000-75,000 people were killed immediately, and thousands of others later died from radiation and burns. 11 Still others, like Shigemitsu's father, died years later from cancer and other illnesses brought on by the bomb's radiation. 12 The atomic bombings and their aftermath have had a lasting psychological impact on Japanese society, as stories recounted by the hibakusha-survivors of the bombings-are used to highlight the dangers of nuclear weapons, and by others to shape a doomsday mindset of a dark future. According to research detailed in a RAND report, "Japanese historical memory of nuclear devastation during WWII, especially Hiroshima, had a major psychological impact on postwar Japan and its consciousness. Survivor stories and apocalyptic fears penetrated Japanese popular culture after WWII and persisted." 13 The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revolutionized warfare by demonstrating nuclear weapons can efficiently kill tens of thousands of people in a matter of seconds. To provide context to this efficiency, the destruction of Tokyo was achieved by 334 B-29 bombers dropping nearly 8000 bombs and killing 84,000 residents, while Hiroshima was obliterated by one plane carrying a single bomb that killed 70,000 residents. 14 Since the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scholars have debated the utility of nuclear weapons, the consequences of their possession, and whether they contributed to the "long peace" and stability of the Cold War. Initial debates centered on whether the United States should use force to maintain its nuclear monopoly to balance against the Soviet Union's massive number of ground forces in the wake of the United States' large-scale post-World War II demobilization. This monopoly later devolved into a nuclear duopoly after the Soviets crossed the nuclear threshold in 1949. Consequently, the debate shifted to nuclear deterrence theory and the impact of nuclear weapons on world peace and stability. Although early proliferation debates focused on whether nuclear weapons contributed to international peace, there was no escaping the fact that their efficient and annihilative power revolutionized the face of war by introducing the possibility of complete destruction. President Truman echoed this concern, "You have got to understand, that this isn't a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannons and ordinary things like that." 15 As military strategist Bernard Brodie noted, prior to World War II the chief purpose of the United States' military was to win wars. After World War II, due to the destructive nature of nuclear weapons, he argued this purpose transitioned to averting wars. 16 Brodie also argued that suspicion of one's rival was healthy and that deterrence was best achieved through preparing for war. 17 Thus, the dawn of the nuclear age produced a strategy that heralded a willingness to make credible threats to go up to or over the brink of nuclear war in order to achieve one's goals. This logic eventually fielded the classical deterrence theory, which suggested the United States and the Soviet Union maintained peace and stability based on nuclear weapons and a delicately maintained strategic balance. 18 The Cold War signaled the beginning of a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, as both sides increased their nuclear arsenals to ensure they maintained a viable deterrent to prevent war, while simultaneously preparing for it. As Kenneth Waltz stated in Man, the State and War, "with no system of law enforceable among them, with each state judging its grievances and ambitions according to the dictates of its own reason or desire-conflict, sometimes leading to war, is bound to occur. To achieve a favorable outcome from such a conflict a state has to rely on its own devices." 19 In this instance, the devices were the tremendous power of nuclear weapons. The Soviets and the Warsaw Pact gained a quantitative conventional force advantage in Europe and pursued a strategic nuclear superiority over the United States and NATO. Consequently, the United States designed its national security strategy around mutually assured destruction, and deterring a Soviet and Warsaw Pact attack on Western Europe. The intent was to provide U.S. allies with an American nuclear umbrella to dissuade them from pursuing their own nuclear weapons, while the United States also sought to maintain strategic stability, reduce existing nuclear arsenals, and limit further proliferation. 20 As discussions raged over the utility of nuclear weapons scholars focused primarily on the "usability paradox" in what Scott Sagan labeled the twin goals of secure deterrence and accidental war prevention. 21 During the Cold War, the former emphasized the role of nuclear weapons in deterring a Soviet attack against the United States and its allies. The latter entailed preventing an accidental war; while at the same time, ensuring the weapon remained "usable enough" to convince the Soviets the United States would have a nuclear response to an attack on it or its vital interests. 22 These two goals arguably contributed to stability and the "uneasy peace" which existed between the United States and the Soviet Union for nearly fifty years. They also shaped the central tenets of nuclear proliferation literature for the next half-century. In keeping with the deterrence rubric, Albert Wohlstetter espoused the "balance of terror" in which the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had the ability to inflict unimaginable destruction on one another, a destructive capability later enhanced by the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and thermonuclear weapons. Wohlstetter argued deterrence in the 1960s was the product of "sustained intelligent effort" and would not be the result of the United States maintaining a qualitative technological edge over the Soviets. For Wohlstetter, strategic deterrence had limitations in that it was not very effective in preventing limited wars, preventing the accidental outbreak of war, or protecting major population centers. 23 Instead, he argued although deterrence was difficult to maintain it could be bolstered by a reliable second-strike capability, which he also believed to be one of strategic deterrence's greatest weaknesses because it relied on having enough nuclear weapons survive a first strike to have a credible and deterring second-strike capability. In describing the importance of deterrence, Wohlstetter posited two concepts: Extended Deterrence and Strategic Deterrence. The former relied on the threat of a first strike while the latter relied on a second-strike capability. With Extended Deterrence, he warned that being perceived as vulnerable could solicit an adversarial first strike. Wohlstetter also highlighted the many difficulties of Strategic Deterrence and emphasized it should only be part of a country's military and foreign policy, and that foreign policy reorientation was required. 24 This was embodied in the nuclear age's elevation of bargaining, the superpowers' manipulation of shared risk, and the use of threats-the diplomacy of violence. As the two superpowers achieved a degree of nuclear parity and relative stability, they proposed putting nuclear weapons under international control while at the same time, some might argue hypocritically, retaining their own vast nuclear arsenals. 25 Accordingly, Perry and Schlesinger stated in their 1967 report America's Strategic Posture, the U.S. nuclear arsenal peaked at 32,000 weapons and the Soviets possessed over 45,000 nuclear weapons. 26 Consequently, early proliferation literature continued to focus on the efficacy of nuclear deterrence theories and policies-Assured Destruction, Damage Limitation, Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), 22 Massive Retaliation, and Flexible Response-to prevent a large-scale war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Concurrently, literature during this period also focused on what Peter Feaver asserted were the associated measures of arsenal size, state foreign policies, and assessments of the regional balances of power. 27 This scholarly debate continued the trend of focusing on the international and regional effects of proliferation. Jim Mueller challenged the assumption that nuclear weapons contributed to world stability when he argued major war among developed nations was unlikely and posited there would have been no war between the superpowers irrespective of nuclear weapons. He based his argument on the belief that both powers were content with the status quo because neither forgot World War II's devastation and both feared the costs of escalation. 28 Robert Jervis welcomed the view that nuclear weapons played a role in keeping what he labeled a "nuclear peace." Jervis argued nuclear weapons gave states pause with regard to executing the nuclear option; however, he notes they did not prevent nuclear and non-nuclear states from engaging in lower levels of violence (Russia-China and Israel-Syria). Jervis concluded large nuclear stockpiles influenced superpower politics in three ways; (1) they convinced nuclear powers that the devastation from all-out war is unimaginable, (2) neither side could avoid this devastation, and (3) this devastation could come quickly, in most cases within 30 minutes of a ballistic missile launch. 29 No other weapon possesses the sheer annihilative power and speed of delivery as found in nuclear weapons, and it is because of this destructive power that two major tenets of U.S. foreign policy have been to curb the spread of nuclear weapons technology and to prevent the emergence of additional nuclear states. 30 Coinciding with this national strategy, early scholarship initially focused on deterrence theory and the possible consequences of proliferation beyond the initial cadre of nuclear weapons states. During the Cold War, it was believed nuclear proliferation would eventually expand beyond the original "Club of Five"-China, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States-and this new charge would be led by European countries-Germany, Italy, and Sweden. 31 This assumption was based on the belief that 27 32 Despite this conventional wisdom, after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was established in the late 1960s, international concern over European proliferation migrated to concerns over proliferation in the developing world. 33 This proliferation by states that operate largely outside the political control of the United States and Russia reinvigorated the nuclear proliferation debate and forced scholars to analyze the potential consequences of further nuclear proliferation ( safeguards with ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 34 The NPT envisioned a world free of nuclear weapons and provided that states not in possession of nuclear weapons, as of 1967, agree to not acquire them. It also stipulated that states in possession of nuclear weapons agree to dispense of them over time. Though the United States and other nuclear powers backed the NPT, some nonnuclear states grew skeptical of the nuclear states. 35 The NPT's emphasis on halting horizontal proliferation-the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states-led some to view it as a way to manage hypocrisy because the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) claimed to be committed to nuclear disarmament under NPT Article VI, while retaining their own nuclear arsenals and encouraging non-nuclear weapons states to accept a "second-class" status by relegating them to civil nuclear programs. Noted African studies scholar Ali Mazrui highlighted the politics of race in discussions about proliferation by non-white nations by pointing out that after China's successful nuclear test in 1964, Indonesian President Sukarno famously stated, "Now, one of us [non-white nations] has an atomic bomb." 36 In the late 1970s, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto discussed the idea of an "Islamic Bomb," which raised concerns Pakistan might share nuclear technology with other Muslim countries. 37 Years later, members of F.W. DeKlerk's government denied persistent rumors that one of the major reasons for South Africa's denuclearization was to prevent a "Black Bomb" from falling into the hands of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC)-led government in post-apartheid South Africa. 38 The end of the Cold War and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union heralded the proliferation literature's further shift from deterrence theory to an increased concentration on the perceived dangers of the spread of nuclear weapons and the need to secure nuclear material. In this post-Cold War era, a "new international urgency to rein in the number of nuclear weapons on the planet" took root as the bipolar world's fears of nuclear Armageddon were supplanted by fears of rogue state proliferation and nuclear terrorism. 39 As the United States and Russia strengthened their strategic relationship and reiterated their intention to reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons, the nuclear parity and stability that once resided within the Cold War era "uneasy peace" gave way to securing existing nuclear material and countering the spread of nuclear weapons and technology. 40 These fears gained traction due to several events: the discovery of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program following the 1991 Gulf War, fears of nuclear terrorism generated by the September 11th attacks, revelations of the A.Q. Khan Network's nuclear black market, the pace of North Korea's nuclear program, and fears of Iran's nuclear ambitions. 41 Stephen Peter Rosen affirmed the seriousness of Khan's transgressions when he asserted the progress of North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs pushed nuclear proliferation to the top of the U.S. national security agenda. 42 The international nuclear nonproliferation regime was a product of this desire to rein in the spread of nuclear weapons in an attempt to promote international stability and reduce the likelihood of nuclear war; and the 1967 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the bedrock of this global regime. The Nuclear Threat Initiative defines the nonproliferation regime as a "broad international framework of agreements and organizations aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and contributing to arms control and disarmament." 43 The regime comprises the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA safeguards system, Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), UN Security Council resolutions, Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements between supplier and purchasing states. 44 In his study, Strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime, Paul Lettow argues the nonproliferation regime has been integral in slowing the spread of nuclear weapons and reinforcing the idea that "the further spread of nuclear weapons harms the security of all nations." 45 Luttow also notes the nonproliferation regime is stressed by states such as Iran, North Korea, and Syria because their nuclear programs exploited and bypassed structural weaknesses designed to detect, determine, and enforce violations of safeguard obligations. 46 Feaver and Niou argue these post-NPT events highlight the weaknesses of the current international nonproliferation regime because it focuses primarily on halting the further spread of nuclear weapons, but not on coping with the consequences of this spread. 47 40 Matthew Bunn. "Nuclear Terrorism: A Strategy for Prevention," The United States' nonproliferation regime took on increased urgency in the wake of the September 11th attacks, as concerns heightened over terrorist groups and rogue states acquiring a nuclear weapon and being more inclined to use these weapons than other members of the established nuclear club. Accordingly, President Barack Obama affirmed his concern when he stated, "For the first time, preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism are now at the top of America's nuclear agenda." 48 Former Director of Central Intelligence, John Deutch then proposed the United States' nuclear security schema include preventing rogue state proliferation, halting unauthorized transfer of nuclear technology to terrorist groups, and protecting existing nuclear stockpiles. 49 Matthew Kroenig echoed Deutch's concern about nuclear states providing supply-side nuclear assistance to other states or terrorist networks in his book Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons. 50 Despite recent attention, concerns over terrorists possessing nuclear weapons is not a new phenomenon, as Thomas Schelling discussed this possibility in his 1976 study, "Who Will Have the Bomb?" 51 Similarly, Kroenig stressed the fear of further proliferation with his pronouncement, "Nuclear proliferation poses a grave threat to international peace and security." 52 Most recently, four high-profile career politicians collectively known as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, joined together to seek global support to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, prevent their spread to dangerous persons, and to end them as a threat to the world. 53 Similarly, Barry Schneider stated this transference of national security priorities to rogue state proliferation highlights concerns about the stability of the current nonproliferation regime. 54 Despite nuclear proliferation's elevation to the top-tier of U.S. foreign policy, proliferation literature continued to focus on the aggregate effects rather than deconstructing and examining its individual impacts on particular types of states. Consequently, in the post-9/11 world, the crux of nuclear proliferation literature shifted further from comparisons of nuclear strategies and capabilities to discussions of why states develop nuclear weapons, and the concept of proliferation management. 48 A state's decision to pursue nuclear weapons is often multifaceted and proliferation rationales include combinations of fear and insecurity, deterrence, national pride, technological imperative, regime survival, coercive diplomacy, and internal political pressures. The means by which a country pursues nuclear weapons is often covert, as is alleged in Iran's case where it is speculated the Iranians used the cover of pursuing civilian-use nuclear energy to cloak a clandestine nuclear weapons program. 55 Although many countries may aspire to achieve nuclear status and from their perspective have a justifiable rationale to do so, the difficulty lies in the economic and political costs as well as the technical capacity required of this enormous undertaking. Despite these formidable barriers, Stephen Meyer argues the nuclear weapons process was made easier by programs such as the United States' Atoms for Peace program because these programs removed many "unconventional" technical hurdles and gave many states a latent capacity to produce nuclear weapons. 56 Ironically, the United States provided Iran with its first 5-megawatt nuclear reactor during the 1960s, under the Atoms for Peace program. 57 Jacques Hymans critiqued two traditional assumptions used to explain the slowdown in new nuclear states. These assumptions are that states resist urges to seek a nuclear weapon until an external event forces them to pursue the weapon, and that many states opt for a latent nuclear breakout capability rather than openly test and declare their nuclear arsenal. Hymans instead argues recent proliferant states in the developing world started and failed to attain a nuclear weapon because of program mismanagement that was not respectful of scientific and technical (S&T) workers' autonomy. Hymans argues developed nation nuclear programs tend to be more successful because they have "legal-rational institutions" with strong institutional barriers against political micromanagement, while developing nations tend to have "neopatrimonial institutions," in which political leaders interfere with technical decision-making and micromanage the nuclear program, thus slowing down and impeding weapons development. 58 Historically, political leaders and regimes viewed nuclear weapons as the maximization of the pursuit of power. Thus, the realist belief of self-help in an anarchic world had a profound effect on proliferation literature and influenced its focus on the international and regional systems. Early realists such as Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes held pessimistic views of life and emphasized man was motivated by 55 self-interests and the pursuit of power in a world characterized by a constant state of anarchy. Hans Morgenthau echoed this sentiment when he asserted international politics is a struggle for power and the aim of states and political leaders is the striving for power while in pursuit of their goals. 59 Within this realist rubric, John Mearsheimer posited five key assumptions of life in the international system which greatly influenced realist proliferation literature. First, the international system is anarchic and states recognize no central authority above themselves. Second, great powers inherently possess an offensive military capability and this capability gives them the ability to hurt or destroy one another. The third assumption is states can never be certain about another state's intention and if it will use its offensive military capability to attack. Fourth, survival is the ultimate goal of great powers and these powers seek to maintain their territorial integrity and autonomous domestic political order. The fifth assumption is that great powers are rational actors who think strategically about how to survive in the international system. 60 This realist view depicts a world in constant conflict and this contributes to the international and regional focus as well as the incessant fear within proliferation literature due to a belief that states always seek power, and nuclear weapons are the ultimate symbols of power and the guarantors of survival. In her landmark study, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, Etel Solingen examined why some states pursued nuclear weapons while others eschew them. The study focused primarily on why Middle Eastern countries tended to pursue nuclearization while East Asian countries trended toward denuclearization since the 1970s. Solingen's research has increased relevance since this study uses four cases of Middle Eastern proliferation as the central component of its research. In addressing the proliferation divergence, Solingen utilizes both the neorealist and neoliberal schools to explain state nuclearization and denuclearization. She asserts neorealists trace nuclear decisions to the balance of power (Waltz), selfhelp and the security dilemma (Mearsheimer), and that nuclearization is expected to induce similar responses from the state's neighbors. She, in turn, argues neoliberals stress the importance of international nonproliferation regimes such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enforce compliance despite there being no evidence the NPT has prevented Middle East nuclearization. 61 Consequently, Solingen argues systematic differences among nuclear aspirants is explained by whether the country's rulers seek integration into the global economy or whether they reject it, and in turn rely on self-sufficiency. For Solingen, states that seek integration into the global economy have incentives to avoid the political, economic, reputational, and opportunity costs associated with nuclearization because these costs impair a domestic agenda favoring internationalization. While states that reject global economic integration incur fewer costs and seek political gain by using nuclear weapons to exploit nationalism in order to retain power. 62 This theory provides a rationale for the Asian and Middle Eastern states' divergence on nuclearization, as majorities of Asian states sought economic integration into the global economy while many Middle Eastern states sought to retain power and increase their strategic position, which Ferial Saeed rightly argues is the case for Iran. 63 Similarly, Bahman Baktiari, argues some states seek a nuclear capability not so much for purely security reasons, but to gain international legitimacy. He rightly argues this is the case of Iran and asserts the clerics have used the West's opposition to Iran's nuclear program to generate national unity based on upholding Iranian prestige and national honor, a concept known in Farsi as ezzat-e melli. 64 Baktiari's paper makes several crucial arguments. First, Iran's leaders are preoccupied with international legitimacy. Second, Iranian society has a vision of defending Iran's rights and its national sovereignty. Third, the struggle for international recognition as an independent and sovereign state has been a central tenet of Iranian politics for more than a century. Baktiari argues many Iranians question the government's stance that its nuclear program is peaceful, yet they do not question Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology and all gained from it. 65 President Khatami, whom Khan asserts was the most moderate leader in Iran, did not halt the progress of Iran's nuclear program during his administration. Instead, Khatami argued in support of Iran's pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy. If there is concern over [a] nuclear bomb, why we, who have not yet achieved the peaceful nuclear technology, i.e. production of uranium with 3.5 percent enrichment -that serves as fuel for nuclear plants -are not trusted and put under pressure, while the powers that have hundreds of nuclear warheads in the region and are capable of producing tens of nuclear bombs a year, are not only put under pressure but are also supported? What is observed in the world is this double-standard logic; and we should in fact move into the world wherein we will be able to meet our needs by relying on our own power and on God. 66 Hassan Abbas asserts political theorists note four contributing and competing factors that explain why states seek nuclear weapons: (1) security challenges, (2) prestige and power, (3) technological imperatives, and (4) domestic factors. First, Abbas argues a state that is located in a dangerous region where it feels threatened by an aggressive enemy is likely to seek the means to protect itself and to also project military power. In this scenario, nuclear weapons provide a sense of security and are a guarantor of a state's sovereignty. Second, attaining nuclear status promotes national pride, demonstrates a state's technical prowess, and bestows upon it international recognition as an advanced nation. Third, a state's decision to weaponize may result from "technological momentum" derived from its civilian nuclear programs because of a desire to further explore nuclear weapons programs. Fourth, domestic politics and politicians may compel the state to pursue a nuclear weapon due to personal preferences and motivations. 67 Abbas argues all four components were applicable to Pakistan's nuclear program, with the ultimate goal of providing it a deterrent against India and preventing New Delhi from "threatening the territorial integrity of Pakistan." 68 These four components are also applicable to the present case of Iran. First, Iran faces military threats from the United States and Israel, both of whom alternately call for regime change and have threatened to attack. Second, despite the current state of its economy and international isolation, Iran sees itself as a technologically advanced nation with a rich history dating back to the Persian Empire. For many Iranians, the richness of their culture, greatness of their historical empire, and highly educated population are drivers for international recognition as an advanced state. Third, Iran's nuclear ambitions date back to the Shah, when Iran received its first nuclear reactor as part of the U.S. Atoms for Peace program. Fourth, many hardline politicians have voiced support for a nuclear program, particularly former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad who used it to promote nationalism and rail against the West and Israel. However, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has stated repeatedly that nuclear weapons are forbidden. In the case of the key and very beneficial nuclear science… when it was paired with a thirst for more power, it resulted in the creation of the nuclear weapons and turned into a major threat to the world and humanity. Although we have always had the ability to tread this path, we declared it haram [forbidden by religion] according to the verdict of the beloved Islam, and therefore there is no reason for us to expend our resources on developing and stockpiling a weapon that is absolutely prohibited [by Islam] to use. 69 John Weltman challenges this approach by arguing middle states may proliferate if they sense a breakdown or change in the pattern of alignments within the international system. He argues this is the position of middle powers such as Germany, whose present security is assured via guarantees and treaty. 70 focusing solely on national security considerations as the cause of proliferation is dangerously inadequate because nuclear weapons programs are more than tools of national security, they are political objects in domestic debates and internal bureaucratic struggles, and can serve as international symbols of modernity and identity. 71 Waltz disputes this sentiment by arguing, "nuclear weapons do not equalize the power of nations because they do not change the economic basis of a nation's power." 72 Waltz concludes great powers are strong because, in addition to nuclear weapons, they also have immense resources that allow them to generate and maintain other mechanisms of power projection. The levers of power and resources available to a great power are represented in the DIMEFIL concept, which consists of diplomatic, informational, military, economic, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement instruments of power (IOPs). Waltz's view is supported by neorealists who assert power is more than just military power, it is the combined capabilities of a state, and this power gives a state a place in the world order and shapes its behavior within the international system. 73 Returning to his argument that nuclear weapons are political objects and can serve as symobls of modernity and identity, Sagan constructs three models of why states decide to build or refrain from building nuclear weapons. First, the Security Model is when states build nuclear weapons to increase national security against foreign threats in the absence of credible security guarantees from a nuclear power. Second, in the Domestic Politics Model, states use nuclear weapons as political tools to advance parochial domestic and bureaucratic interests. Security threats are not the central cause of weapons decisions, they are merely windows of opportunity through which parochial interests enter. Third, the Norms Model argues nuclear weapons acquisition provides an important symbol of a state's modernity and identity. Sagan asserts these three models exist in current literature, but have not been adequately analyzed or properly evaluated against empirical evidence, nor have they been placed in a comparative political framework. 74 Sagan's Three Model approach is compelling; however, its primary weakness lies in its compartmentalization of proliferation rationales. His approach bypasses the crosscutting cleavages, which incorporate portions of each of his models, particularly over a period of time, as different influences affect a state's nuclear ambitions. In the current Iranian case, the Norms Model applied during the nascent stages of Iran's nuclear program begun under the Shah. Though Iran was on friendly terms with Israel, the Shah sought a "full-fledged nuclear power industry" designed to symbolize Iranian progress and power through utilizing the United States-supplied research reactor. 75 nuclear program because he believed it to be un-Islamic. This suspension was shortlived due to Iraq's use of chemical weapons during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, in which Iran witnessed Western technology and intelligence assets support Iraq's better-equipped forces. 76 To the Iranians, a nuclear deterrent would prevent this type of warfare from reoccurring, thus in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War the Iranian model incorporated the Security Model to increase its security. This effort soon took on additional urgency after the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and in effect, surrounded Iran with U.S. combat forces on its eastern and western borders. The Iranian case also incorporates the Domestic Politics Model because President Ahmadinejad often used Iran's future nuclear capability as a rally cry to incite nationalism and to deflect negative attention away from his government by pitting it against the West. Notably, on April 15, 2009, Ahmadinejad observed: Four and a half years ago, those who went to negotiate said to their interlocutors, after they agreed to freeze all [uranium enrichment], "We want [nuclear energy for the purposes of] science and technology. Give us permission to operate 20 centrifuges." But the other side answered insolently… But today, with the grace of God, and thanks to Iran's national unity… nearly 7,000 centrifuges are spinning today at Natanz, mocking them. 77 Although Sagan's Three Model approach is persuasive, it is not comprehensive because it does not fully take into account that over a period of time, a state's rationale for proliferation often adjusts to its changing perceptions and realities. Similarly, Robert F. Goheen argues states have three motivations for acquiring nuclear weapons-aggressive intention, concern about security, and the pursuit of status or prestige. 78 He asserts aggressive intention is the least likely objective for proliferation because of the responses that may occur from the immediate adversary or major nuclear powers. 79 Goheen suggests a state may have a concern about security due to the superiority of a neighbor's conventional arms or by its actual or imminent nuclear weapons capability. Using this premise, Goheen discusses Saddam Hussein's response to Israel's attack on its reactor at Osirak. He states Saddam appealed to his fellow Arabs to help him, acquire atomic bombs to confront the Israelis, not to champion the Arabs and not to fuel war, but to safeguard and achieve peace. 80 Goheen argues a nuclear capability can also enhance the prestige and status of differing segments of society-national pride, scientific community, military, individual leaders, and the regime. This can serve a country well as it deals with a regional rival. He cites India's example that nuclear weapons provide a country with enhanced influence in world affairs and signals it has arrived in the modern world by demonstrating its scientific and technological capabilities. This argument has similarities with one of the arguments made for Iran's nuclear ambitions, in that Iran sees itself as a technologically advanced state, and the premiere symbol of an advanced state is a nuclear weapon. In The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation, Jacques E. C. Hymans introduced the idea of leaders' conceptions of their nation's identities, a concept he calls their "national identity conceptions" or NICs, which are the leaders' sense of what the nation stands for and how high it naturally stands, to explain their desire to abstain from or to pursue a nuclear weapon. 81 Hymans argues we should view leaders at the individual level of analysis and look at his or her specific beliefs on national identity and how the leader interprets collective symbols and memories that are common to the nation to gain insight into their international perceptions. This reference back to collective memories is often used by leaders determined to prevent a repeat of a national tragedy, such as Pakistan's loss of East Pakistan (Bangladesh), the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the reinstatement of Mohammad Reza Shah in Iran, Syria's military defeats and loss of the Golan Heights to Israel, the United States seeking to prevent another 9/11, or Israel wanting to prevent a second Holocaust. The argument for collective symbols can be used to argue for a national identity and how high it stands in comparison to competitors through the use of concepts such as American Exceptionalism. Hymans rightfully argues the vertical dimension of self-other comparisons is often ignored in the international relations literature. The view of self and the other are essential to understanding leader motivations and nationalistic undertones and messaging. For Hymans, these stimuli activate a leader's NIC, which drives them to make decisions to ensure national survival due to emotional memories that affect cognitive and emotional pathways. 82 The subsequent activation of fear and/or pride in the decision-maker affects their behavior, particularly as it relates to the level of perceived threat, the level of cognitive complexity, the felt urgency to act, and the ultimate goal sought by this action. Hymans rightly points out that on the cognitive level, fear creates a disposition toward higher threat perception which can result in the leader having a myopic view and disregarding contradictory data and intelligence about the perceived threat, thus the cognitive complexity is impaired because the leader is unable to adjust to new information. Abbas Maleki and John Tirman point to this when discussing critics' reactions to the interim Iran nuclear agreement reached in November 2013. Maleki and Tirman assert that within days of the initial agreement, old misperceptions about Iran emerged, and critics charged Iran was untrustworthy, devious, fixated on regional dominance, and dedicated to Israel's destruction. 83 Fear directly contributes to lower levels of cognitive complexity and often results in further threat inflation. This increased threat perception contributes to a greater urgency to act on the perceived threat, with the ultimate goal of mitigating that fear by attacking the perceived threat created by a proliferating country's nuclear program. More recently, Kelly P. O'Reilly sought to understand why states proliferate by examining how a leader's beliefs and perceptions about the international system influence a state's decision to pursue a nuclear capability. O'Reilly argues that understanding basic psychological motivations, such as the role of power, and perceptions of self and others forms a strategic context which provides answers about a leader's willingness to proliferate. The author asserts proliferation willingness is a critical and overlooked component of the proliferation equation. Ultimately, it is the combination of willingness and opportunity-technical and scientific capabilities-that determines whether a country will pursue a nuclear weapon. 84 O'Reilly presents the best case for determining why a state decides to go nuclear by examining the case at the individual-level of analysis and highlighting how the leader's beliefs and perceptions influence a state's decision to proliferate. The strength of O'Reilly's study is the use of political psychology in calculating a state's decisions since leaders, rather than the state as a whole, generally make the case for solutions to situations that pose a threat to a state's national security. These leaders then seek public support for their desired outcome. The book's limitation is that it explores only the proliferating state's motivations, and does not contain a rigorous study of the powerful state's motivations for limiting proliferation. Nicholas Miller takes a unique look at the motivations of states seeking a nuclear weapon, as well as of states seeking to limit proliferation. He examined how the U.S. nonproliferation regime has evolved over time and assesses its effectiveness in both unilateral and multilateral implementation. In his work, Stopping the Bomb, Miller argues U.S. nonproliferation policies have been critical in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons by deterring states from beginning a program and compelling others to halt their weapons development through the credible threat of economic sanctions. 85 Miller suggests current literature accounts for four reasons why states seek to acquire a nuclear weapon independent of U.S. nonproliferation efforts: the nature of the security environment, domestic regime characteristics, normative commitments, and the supply of nuclear technology. 86 In addressing current literature, Miller strikes down the argument of past predictions of nuclear cascades and a nuclear domino effect, and disputes studies that argue large-scale proliferation did not materialize due to the role of leader identity conception, norms embodied in the NPT, regional security environments, domestic regime type, and threats of force by adversaries. He instead posits that as the global hegemon, the United States can credibly threaten to cut off or weaken economic and military support to states that seek nuclear weapons thereby fending off nuclear programs by U.S. allies and partners. Miller rightly contends "rogue states" are now the primary proliferating concerns due to their lack of dependency on U.S. aid and assistance. In these cases, unilateral U.S. sanctions have often failed because these countries had a low dependence on the United States. 87 Miller continues that multilateral economic sanctions have proven helpful at halting or deterring outlier nations, such as with Iran and Iraq. 88 Miller's research is extremely relevant to this study, particularly since it illustrates the critical nature of sanctions, which is one of the study's three proliferation responses available to powerful states to halt or curtail nuclear proliferation. The reliance on economic sanctions as a primary diplomatic instrument has found scattered success when applied to adversarial states. The weakness of the sanctions regime is witnessed by North Korea's continued nuclear intransigence, and Iran's expansion of its uranium enrichment activities and its continued economic resilience despite the United States imposing economic sanctions as part of the Maximum Pressure campaign. The campaign was designed to inflict economic pain on Iran to force its leaders to renegotiate the U.S.-abandoned Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, curtail its ballistic missile program, and end its malign activities in the region. The Maximum Pressure campaign has been largely unsuccessful in recalibrating Iran's activities, and has primarily affected its civilian population by choking the economy and cutting off access to critical medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the reimposition of economic sanctions, Iran's regional behavior has shown little signs of change as it continues to support allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. In their study, Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation, Debs and Monteiro examine why states develop nuclear weapons and how the security environment shapes a state's decision to seek a nuclear weapon. The authors assert nuclear proliferation affects the security and strategic interaction of the state acquiring the nuclear weapon, as well as the security interests of its adversaries and allies who may attempt to halt this acquisition. 89 This is a central tenet of Kroenig's power-based theory and this author's research, both of which argue nuclear proliferation's differing effects are rooted in the prior balance of power. The authors argue a state will attempt to proliferate when it believes a nuclear deterrent will produce a security benefit to address a high-level threat, and this benefit must outweigh the costs of proliferation because the state could be subjected to an adversary's preventive counterproliferation efforts. The study posits that a preventive strike against the proliferating state will be costly, so an adversary will likely weigh the costs of a strike vis-à-vis the cost of the proliferating state acquiring a nuclear weapon, which would result in a changed balance of power between the two states. 90 Debs and Monteiro rightly argue the balance of conventional power between the proliferating state and the powerful state prior to nuclear acquisition influences whether the weaker state will pursue the nuclear option. If the proliferating state has a high degree of conventional military power prior to proliferation there is a smaller security benefit of nuclear acquisition. Whereas, if there is a large disparity between the two states' conventional military power, there is more incentive for the weaker state to seek a nuclear weapon to address the high-level threat. 91 From the nonproliferation perspective, the authors' theory includes a sticks and carrots approach to proliferation in which there are incentives and disincentives to proliferation. A stickbased approach includes coercive diplomatic actions, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)-imposed nuclear facility inspections, limits to the nuclear supply chain, and economic sanctions, all of which were applied to Iran and Iraq. A carrot-based approach includes policies to boost the potential proliferator's security through increased foreign military sales, security cooperation, joint military exercises, and security commitments. 92 The Obama administration implemented a sticks and carrots approach to Iran as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, by easing economic sanctions while also reserving the right to impose "snapback" sanctions if Tehran violated the agreement. As this section focused on the possible motivations for nuclear proliferation, the next section examines the arguments on how to best manage this proliferation. The study of the causes of war has traditionally been dominated by realist theories, which assume sovereign states act rationally to advance their security, power, and wealth in an anarchic international system. 93 Consequently, realist concerns over how to manage the potential spread of nuclear technology and its effects on the stability of the international system led to the creation of the proliferation management framework. This framework divides itself into the twin concepts of proliferation optimism and proliferation pessimism. 94 In their monumental debates, Kenneth Waltz (Optimism) and Scott Sagan (Pessimism), two of the best-known proliferation management scholars, advocate opposing positions as to whether nuclear proliferation is good or bad for international stability and peace. Waltz employs rational deterrence theory to argue the spread of nuclear weapons decreases the likelihood of war because the destructive power of these weapons make the costs of war too great, therefore they will deter aggressors. 95 Accordingly, the rational deterrence model has three requirements for stable nuclear deterrence. First, there must be no preventive war during the transition period when one state has nuclear weapons and the other state has not developed a nuclear breakout capability. Second, both states must develop a survivable second-strike capability. Third, their nuclear arsenals must have a robust command and control system to prevent accidental or unauthorized use. 96 Waltz's assumption that nuclear weapons increase the likelihood of peace is based on the belief that the annihilative power of nuclear weapons dissuades states from going to war more so than conventional weapons because in a conventional war there is a chance to win, while in a nuclear war, both losing and winning could mean complete destruction of the state. Therefore, Waltz asserts rational states will avoid nuclear war because "Nuclear weapons deter nuclear weapons… The temptation of one country to employ increasingly larger amount of force is lessened if its opponent has the ability to raise the ante. Force can be used with less hesitation by those states able to parry, and to threaten at varied levels of military endeavor." 97 Waltz downplays alarmist fears of a nuclear arms race by arguing nuclear weapons have largely proliferated vertically and not cascaded horizontally as pessimists predicted. In the event of horizontal proliferation, he advocates allowing states to overtly develop their nuclear programs in order to receive international assistance to incorporate nuclear command and control system safeguards, which aid in preventing the unauthorized or accidental release of nuclear weapons and maintains positive control over them until the decision to authorize nuclear weapons is ordered by the competent authority. In this self-help environment, optimists downplay pessimist concerns of an aggressive nuclear state vis-à-vis a non-nuclear state-stability-instability paradox-and assert that since "rulers like to continue to rule" there is no reason to believe they will suddenly go mad and challenge the vital interests of another state or launch a nuclear first strike against an adversary. 98 The question of whether Iran is a rational actor circulates in Western circles, particularly as it relates to the nuclear question. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accuses the Iranians of being "apocalyptic," and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham declared, "I think they're crazy." 99 Preceding the signing of the Iran nuclear deal, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon warned of Iran having an "apocalyptic messianic ambition." 100 Countering this argument of an irrational actor, Fareed Zakaria points to Kenneth Pollack, who reviewed decades of Iranian foreign policy and argues the Iranians are not only rational, but prudent when it comes to its foreign policy decision-making. Sagan utilized Organization Theory to stress the influences on decision-makers to champion the pessimist argument that proliferation increases the likelihood of war, promotes instability, encourages nuclear arms races, and increases the risk of accidental nuclear exchange due to military control over the nuclear command and control system. The foundation of Organization Theory rests on two major themes. First, large organizations function within a limited form of rationality and must develop routines to coordinate actions among different units. Second, complex organizations have multiple, conflicting goals, and the process by which objectives are chosen and pursued is very political. 102 Under the pessimist rubric, proliferation increases the likelihood of nuclear war as unstable states are incapable of maintaining control over their nuclear arsenals, and their fear of a decapitating preventive first strike may drive them to adopt unsafe nuclear practices. 103 Accentuating this fear of preventive strikes, Sagan argues U.S. foreign policy has given states incentive to pursue a nuclear deterrent due to Washington threatening them so often. 104 This is a position advanced by Ted Galen Carpenter, who argues U.S. foreign policy often compels states to acquire a nuclear deterrent because the United States delegitimizes their national security concerns and demonstrates that without a nuclear weapon these states are susceptible to violent regime change. 105 After the United States rout of Iraq in Desert Storm, former Indian Chief of Staff of the Army General K. Sundarji proclaimed, "The lesson of Desert Storm is, don't mess with the United States without nuclear weapons." 106 North Korea's official KCNA news agency echoed this sentiment, when harkening a Hobbesian view of the world when it stated the current international situation resembled the "law of the jungle" where only the strong survive. The news agency then alluded to a reason why North Korea will not denuclearize by referencing how Iraq and Libya suffered regime change because they did not have a nuclear deterrent, "The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Qaddafi regime in Libya could not escape the fate of destruction after being deprived of their foundations for nuclear development and giving up nuclear programs of their own accord." 107 Then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton sparked outrage in Pyongyang by asserting the United States would look at the "Libya model of 2003, 2004," as it pertains to North Korea's disarmament. 108 The Libya model is in reference to Moammar Qaddafi renouncing his weapons of mass destruction program and opening Libyan facilities to international weapons inspectors shortly after the United States-led invasion of Iraq because he feared he might be the next target of regime change. Nearly seven years after relinquishing his WMD program, Qaddafi was overthrown by insurgents with the assistance of United States-led NATO air support. Within this cycle of fear, instability and mistrust, pessimists profess the inherent dangers of aspiring nuclear states because they are often controlled by the military, which Sagan argues is more inclined than their civilian counterparts "to see war as likely in the near term and inevitable in the long term." 109 Sagan supports this position by arguing, "Preventive war is likely to be chosen when military leaders, who minimize diplomatic consideration and believe war is inevitable in the long term, have a significant influence over a state's final decision." 110 Despite their robust arguments, neither optimists nor pessimists fully address individual state reactions to proliferation because their approaches are applied across a broad swath of states throughout the international and regional political systems. Accordingly, the debates provide prescriptions for how states should behave to maximize their prospects for survival and to minimize losses as opposed to how they will likely behave based on factors that affect their individual national security interests and perceptions. 111 The shortfall of this approach is that it does not account for factors that affect states differently, such as a rival state's political rhetoric or past relations between states. This schema is particularly relevant since Iran restarted its centrifuges in the wake of the 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA. If Iran approaches the weapons-grade enrichment threshold, world powers will likely be confronted with three primary options: acceptance, increased multilateral sanctions, or military strikes. The proliferation literature should account for how a powerful state perceives a weaker rival's proliferation efforts because this perception will influence the powerful state's response. The current proliferation management discussions often take a binary approach to the ramifications of the further spread of nuclear technology by focusing primarily on the "why" of proliferation-why do states proliferate and why is this proliferation either good or bad. This either-or approach creates a rigid landscape that fails to fully address the dynamics of proliferation since neither argument explains why some states feel more threatened than others do when faced with the possibility of a non-nuclear state going nuclear. Nor does this approach consider that a state may change its perceptions of another state over a period of time, such as the United States and Israel having alternating responses to the Iraq 1981 and 2003 proliferation cases. These determinations are critical to explaining differing proliferation responses. Matthew Kroenig argues this systemic focus on the relationship between nuclear proliferation and international stability does not provide insight into how proliferation affects different types of states. 112 He continues, These scholars have examined whether nuclear proliferation increases or decreases the stability of international and regional systems. For this reason, the existing scholarship has devoted less attention to the differential effects of nuclear proliferation. In other words, optimists and pessimists do not explicitly examine whether nuclear proliferation may differentially affect different types of states. 113 His Differential Effects of Nuclear Proliferation Theory addresses proliferation's varying effects on differently situated states, therefore it provides the study's foundation to forecast when and why states that have the ability to destroy a rival state's nuclear program choose to use coercive diplomacy or military force as a proliferation response. Although valuable in the focus it places on proliferation's varying effects, Kroenig's theory has several weaknesses, which are illuminated in the next section. Kroenig expands the Waltz-Sagan debates on the aggregate effects of proliferation by examining how proliferation differentially affects states and therefore may be better for some and worse for others. Whereas the Waltz-Sagan debates focused on the international and regional effects of proliferation, Kroenig assesses proliferation's effects at the system-level and state-level by dividing the world into two types of states: power projecting (global and local) and non-power-projecting. 114 Powerprojecting states have the ability to project conventional military power over the target state. These powerful states have the most to lose because further proliferation: (1) constrains their ability to exert power over the target state; (2) reduces the effectiveness of their coercive diplomacy; (3) could trigger regional instability; (4) may weaken the integrity of their alliances; and (5) could ignite a nuclear arms race. 115 By definition, non-power-projecting states are unable to project power against a target state and thus are less affected by proliferation because the power symmetry remains relatively unchanged. Kroenig's argument is supported by realist theory, which posits threats and the use of force are important for securing a state's position in the international system. 116 However, while examining the effects of proliferation relative to a particular state, Kroenig continues to emphasize the international system's reliance on power as the primary determinant of proliferation's effect on a state. In doing so, he defines power projection as a state's "ability to fight a full-scale, conventional, military, ground war on the territory of a potential target state," and argues the "ability to bomb a state alone without a corresponding ability to put boots on the ground in that state's territory is not a sufficient power-projection capability." 117 This reliance on power projection as the primary factor for determining proliferation's effects on a state limits his theory's effectiveness because it does not consider additional variables that may influence a powerful state's perceptions of another state's nuclear ambitions. 118 This study accepts Kroenig's assertion that nuclear proliferation affects states in different ways. However, the study's Differential Effects of Threat Perception Theory improves on his Differential Effects of Nuclear Proliferation Theory by arguing that states are affected based on how they perceive the proliferating state and its intentions, as opposed to Kroenig's primary assertion that states are affected based upon their ability to project power over the rival state. In arguing the primacy of power projection, his theory imprecisely posits a state can only project power over another state if it has the ability to conduct a full-scale conventional ground war inside the target state. By drawing such a restrictive definition of power projection, Kroenig ignores the battle-proven experiences that the ability to conduct effective air operations against a country constitutes a form of power projection (Israel vis-à-vis Iraq in 1981, United States vis-à-vis Iraq in 1990, United States vis-à-vis Serbia in 1999, and Israel vis-à-vis Syria in 2007). This determination allows for the study's use of independent variables where the two power-projecting countries have differing military capabilities, as in the cases of the United States and Israel. The use of airpower is the most immediate and effective counterproliferation tool, as many nuclear sites are dispersed and concealed, and airpower is the most efficient and practical means of attacking these sites. Critics may argue this determination is insufficient in explaining the Iraq 2003 case study because the United States invaded Iraq rather than simply launching air strikes against suspected targets. To this point the study argues the intent of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was not just to halt its suspected proliferation program, but, more importantly, to institute regime change. Thomas just air strikes. Consequently, the study controls the question of disparate reactions within the cases by arguing the United States had two goals in the Iraq 2003 case study, halt suspected proliferation and institute regime change as a fountainhead to spread democracy in the region. 120 Thus, the boots on the ground aspect of the Iraq 2003 case study was for regime change and not to attack suspected proliferation sites, for which intelligence later revealed were nonexistent. Kroenig posits if a state cannot project power over a target state, its strategic position is not undermined by proliferation. 121 His theory does not account for instances when power-projecting states do not perceive a proliferating state's actions to be a significant enough threat to warrant the use of force (United States vis-à-vis Iraq in 1981, United States vis-à-vis Syria in 2007, and United States vis-à-vis Iran in 2015) because, he argues power-projecting states are expected to feel threatened in all cases of proliferation. Kreps and Fuhrmann raised a similar concern in an excellent quantitative empirical study on targeting nuclear programs in war and peace. 122 Consequently, Kroenig's theory does not account for response variations in similar proliferation cases. These gaps exist because his theory is not structured to assess threat perceptions that influence the national actors who shape a state's foreign policy and its correlate responses to international crises. To understand why powerful states respond inconsistently to similar nuclear proliferation cases, it is necessary to examine how the state's decision-makers interpret and respond to horizontal proliferation. Research suggests the response is shaped by whether the opposing state's actions are interpreted as a high or low threat. This necessitates a study of how the decision-makers' perception of a potential threat, and the influences and motivations that drive this perception. Since national actors are responsible for foreign policy decisions, examining the psychological influences on these decision-makers demonstrates political psychology is the optimal theoretical foundation for explaining political decision variations, i.e., when and why do powerful states choose to attack proliferating states. Research supports the argument that while system-level variables help to explain or predict broad historical trends, no crisis or war is understandable without referencing the decision-making of individual state leaders. 123 Robert Jervis first studied foreign policy decision-making from a cognitive perspective in his book Perception and Misperception in International Politics, where he stressed the importance of a decision-maker's beliefs about the world, and how perceptions and images of others can influence crucial decisions and policies. 124 Jervis argued, I think it is astounding that most of the political science literature seems to put aside the notion that at least some wars are fueled by passions and that one reason they are so hard to conclude is that people have come to hate each other and to find the notion of compromise repulsive. 125 Political psychology demonstrates its importance in helping explain and predict national actor behaviors in response to certain events. 126 When planning the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's negative image of America led to his miscalculation that the United States would not intervene in the region because he believed Washington still suffered from the Vietnam Syndrome and therefore was unwilling to accept mass casualties. 127 In explaining former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's identification with and succession to his father, noted psychiatrist Jerrold Post argues Kim could not appear to abandon his father Kim Il Song's founding principles of juche-self-reliance-and reunification of the Korean peninsula. 128 Political psychology also illustrates the ways in which President George W. Bush's psychological dispositions influenced his cognitive processing of how to respond to the September 11th attacks. Michael Hirsh argued Bush's "Manichaean sense of right and wrong" combined with his evangelical Christian identity pushed him to view future U.S. actions from an "us-versus-them" perspective-"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." 129 Similarly, Bruce Lawrence, professor of religious history at Duke University, argued the post-September 11th White House was characterized by religious fundamentalism. These included a "predilection to impose God's will -the one true faith -on other peoples, an intolerance of dissent, and a central reliance on inerrant scripture for ideology and authority." 130 In using Attribution Theory to explain President Bush's response to the September 11th attacks, political psychology argues Bush searched for a cause in the behavior of the 9/11 attackers, and his decision-making heuristic-mental shortcuts in processing information about others-was that those who attacked America were evildoers who hated our freedoms. Rose McDermott cautioned that defective decision-making can cause hostilities to erupt. Once defective decision making and other factors cause hostility to emerge, a crisis can erupt. A crisis is defined as a situation with the elements of surprise, high threat, and short decision time. In these instances, a leader and his immediate advisers hold a great deal of power unto themselves because there is little time to respond and consult others. A leader's freedom under such conditions also allows individual biases or pathologies to play a role in the decision-making process. 131 In his book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes, former U.S. intelligence official Michael Scheuer contested the idea that al-Qaeda hates the United States because of its freedoms. More succinctly, Scheuer studied Osama bin Laden's speeches and statements, and argues bin Laden hated the United States for what he perceived as its anti-Islamic behavior, occupation of Islamic lands, lack of religious belief, focus on money, and its relentless persecution of Muslims. 132 For Scheuer, to shape policy and actions to mitigate the threat posed by al-Qaeda, it is imperative to understand bin Laden, his ideology, and the circumstances that brought him to power. 133 Professors Bruce Lincoln and David S. Domke analyzed the 2001-2005 speeches of top Bush administration officials from the perspective of their apparent religious and political goals. In Bush's October 2001 speech to the nation, in which he outlined his planned military response to the 9/11 attacks, Lincoln argued Bush's rhetoric was similar to that of Osama bin Laden. Lincoln posited, "Both men constructed a Manichean struggle, where Sons of Light confront Sons of Darkness, and all must enlist on one side or the other, without possibility of neutrality, hesitation, or middle ground." 134 Lincoln also described a "double coding" in which Bush signaled to attentive Christians that he shared their scriptural invocations-using phrases from the revelation of St. John (6:15-17, the wrath of the lamb) and Isaiah (evildoers hiding in caves and the lonely paths of the godless). 135 Domke argued Bush constructed "a religious fundamentalist worldview with political language to create a political fundamentalism" acceptable to Americans. Accordingly, liberty and freedom were the God-defined norms for which Americans were fighting, and this was Bush's remedy for fear and evil. For Domke, the White House heralded "the universal gospel of freedom and liberty" that were gifts from God, thus implying the United States, in waging the Global War on Terrorism and wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, was carrying out God's will. 136 As illustrated by the previous points, Bush's evangelical psychological milieu influenced his decision to transition from twelve years of United States-led coercive diplomacy to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In his book The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush, Peter Singer warned against George W. Bush's binary black and white mindset, while also highlighting the influence of beliefs and motivations on foreign policy decision-makers. It is a mistake to divide the world neatly into good and evil, black and white without shades of gray, in a manner that eliminates the need to learn more about those with whom one is dealing. For an unreflective person, having a sense of "moral clarity" that disregards the shadings in human motivation and conduct can be a vice, not a virtue. When it is coupled with a firm belief that the nation you lead is on the right side of history, pursuing "God's justice," and even that there is some divine plan that has put you in the position of leader of that nation, what you see as moral clarity, others will see as self-righteousness. When that selfproclaimed moral clarity is coupled with actions that fail to live up to the rhetoric, others will see it as hypocrisy. In the president of the most powerful nation on earth, self-righteousness and hypocrisy are dangerous vices. 137 Similarly, former South African President Nelson Mandela criticized President Bush's myopic worldview and his push for war in Iraq. It is a tragedy, what is happening, what Bush is doing. But Bush is now undermining the United Nations… What I am condemning is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust. 138 Similarly, then-Senator Barack Obama stated his opposition to the Iraq War, and singled out members of the Bush administration for their ideological agendas. in turn, influence the national actors' decision to select coercive diplomacy, take no action, or use military force as a proliferation response. This assumption is in opposition to neorealism, which argues sovereign states are the principal actors in the international system and state actions are motivated by the rational pursuit of security and survival; both of which are constrained by the distribution of military and economic power. Political psychologists argue this neorealist focus on structural and external constraints fails to address how decision-makers' cognitive thought (operational codes); motivational goals (dissonance reduction); and emotional states influence their perceptions and actions. This study supports political psychology's premise that a "variation in the beliefs, psychological processes and personalities of individual decision-makers" exert a decisive influence on a state's foreign policy behavior. 140 This study also seeks to explain how a state's perception of a particular threat varies based on how its leaders distinguish between the psychological milieu-the world as the actor sees it-and the operational milieu-the world in which the policy will be carried out. How an actor perceives a threat must be weighed carefully against an adversary's intentions and military capabilities. The human predisposition to perceive a threat varies with a person's beliefs about her ability to take effective counteraction if she perceives the danger. As such, a statesman who believed he was powerless to bring about changes in his state's policy if he detected a threat would perceive these threats less readily than a person who believed his views would matter (Table 2 .2). 141 Research suggests threats motivate protective behaviors and promotes support for aggressive foreign policies. 142 This is critical as the study examines Israel's fear of a second Holocaust and its equating Arab and Iranian nuclear programs to existential threats. Similar research noted evidence that threat perception has a substantial, positive impact on support for overseas military action. 143 This contributes to explaining the Bush administration's Iraq policy shift from smart sanctions-the containment of the Iraq regime, not its overthrow-to the use of force to topple Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party after the 9/11 attacks. 144 In responding to traumatic events, such as the September 11th attacks, political leaders can tap into widespread patriotism by appealing to national unity in the face of a threat. In a speech delivered from the Oval Office on the night of the 9/11 attacks, President Bush reassured the nation the Foreign policy is best understood as the attempt to pursue security in an inherently conflictual world Foreign policy is the unending task of sequential problem-solving by goal-directed elites operating within organizational and cognitive constraints Power is the primary currency of international relations Information is the primary currency of international relations The structure of the global system is the primary determinant of state behavior United States would "bring justice" to the terrorists and "those who harbor them." 145 He then laid the foundation for the future use of military force by the United States. This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. 146 Nine days later, on September 20, 2001, Bush delivered another speech to the nation expanding his goal of bringing to justice those who attacked America by including terrorist organizations around the world, in what became the Global War on Terrorism. "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." 147 In expanding the war effort to transnational violent extremist organizations, the Bush administration used threat inflation to create concern for a threat that 145 went beyond the scope and urgency that disinterested analysis would justify. 148 The Bush administration later drew on this war against terrorism as a causal mechanism to invade Iraq by floating a potential worst-case scenario linkage between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. In a simple threat inflation process model decision-makers perceive threats, create communication strategies to inflate the threats, implement those strategies within the media, or marketplace of ideas, in an effort to shape opinions and influence policies. They either succeed or fail in their efforts to inflate the threat. In determining the degree of threat, political psychologists argue most problems arise in the information processing step as decision-makers fall victim to cognitive and emotional biases that affect their perceptions. Other psychologists argue these cognitive biases may lead the public to overreact to certain threats and to be overly receptive to decision-makers who emphasize worst-case scenarios. 149 Rose McDermott argued, Once defective decision making and other factors cause hostility to emerge, a crisis can erupt. A crisis is defined as a situation with the elements of surprise, high threat, and short decision time. In these instances, a leader and his immediate advisers hold a great deal of power unto themselves because there is little time to respond and consult others. A leader's freedom under such conditions also allows individual biases or pathologies to play a role in the decision-making process. 150 Political psychology theories suggest people may misperceive national security threats due to cognitive biases that limit their ability to assess threats rationally. In the Iraq 2003 case, it is argued the Bush administration interpreted facts in ways that supported its expectations even though the facts did not warrant such conclusions. This may be attributed to the political psychological argument that people do not update their beliefs in response to new information, and instead use their previously formed beliefs as guidance for interpreting and understanding the world. 151 The administration also fell victim to groupthink, as key elites integrated their own politicized biases and motivations into the decision-making calculus in pressing for war, and intelligence was subsequently tailored to support these goals. Phillip Henderson "inaccurate and wrong," and expressed regret that he used it to make the adminstration's case for war during his testimony before the United Nations, on February 5, 2003. 152 The United States and Israel are democracies in which a decision-making process underscores their actions whether it is Congressional debate or the forming of coalition governments. As such, their respective foreign policy decisions are indicative of a psychological process where options are weighed, and national actors' expectations and beliefs influence perceptions of the event. Consequently, when a rival infringes on an accepted norm of behavior, such as by taking steps to weaponize nuclear materials, leaders assert the rival is no longer bound by conventional restraints, i.e., compliance with the NPT, and is therefore deemed a serious threat. 153 A leader's cognitive predispositions can induce them to misperceive a potential threat by either minimizing or exaggerating it. These leaders then categorize threats using schemata to relate new information to prior knowledge. 154 During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israeli military planners focused on two key alternatives available to the Arabs-war or no war-while ignoring the possibility of a limited war option available to Egypt and Syria. 155 Thomas Ricks notes that in making the case for war in Iraq, the George W. Bush administration looked at worst-case scenarios for weapons of mass destruction and dismissed contrary evidence. Ricks argues the Bush White House asserted Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was on the road to acquiring a nuclear weapon, while emphasizing the possibility of Saddam sharing these weapons with terrorists who would use them against the United States. 156 This allowed the Bush administration to inflate the threat of Iraq and its intentions to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, the perceptions of historical relations can influence current attitudes because history teaches lessons about the need for caution, suspicion, and toughness. President Bush's push to declare Baghdad in material breach of over a dozen UN Security Council resolutions was influenced by twelve years of coercive diplomacy with a recalcitrant Iraq. This predisposition of Saddam Hussein's assumed guilt was evident in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's address to the United Nations, For more than 20 years, by word and by deed Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows, intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world's most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he must hold to fulfill his ambition. 157 Secretary Powell used a fundamental attribution error to assign a cause and effect to Saddam's behavior. In doing so, Powell attributed Saddam's actions to his dispositional qualities (personality and motivation) rather than to situational factors in the environment that may have caused two disastrous wars and contributed to Saddam's behavior, the Iran-Iraq War and Gulf War, followed by twelve years of coercive UN diplomacy. 158 In analyzing Saddam Hussein's mentality, Jerrold Post argued that for Saddam, nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction were critical because he believed world-class leaders have world-class weapons. 159 With this understanding, the United States could assume Saddam would never admit to no longer having these weapons and that they were all destroyed after the Gulf War. Admitting he no longer possessed these weapons would not only be an admission of weakness to his enemies in Tehran, Tel Aviv, and Washington, but also an admission that he was not a worldclass leader. Therefore, Saddam bluffed and chose to remain vague about his WMD arsenal, until the truth was discovered after the United States invaded Iraq. Another component of perceptions is the degree of legitimacy each party assigns to the other. In extreme cases, actors may derogate the legitimacy of the rival's identity or existence, which can lead to each side attempting to eliminate the other's political or physical existence. 160 Iranian President Ahmadinejad's's anti-Semitic questioning the extent of the Holocaust derogated Israel's identity and contributed to the Jewish State declaring Iran an existential threat, thus legitimizing Israel's desire to destroy Tehran's nuclear program before the Iranians achieve a nuclear breakout capability. For Ahmadinejad, "The creation of this Zionist regime [Israel] is based on false pretexts… It is a lie based on a declaration that is both unproven and mythical." 161 Similarly, Israel has militarily defeated all its neighbors; and maintains a significant qualitative military edge over all its rivals; however, even with this power asymmetry it still perceives its neighbors' efforts to increase their security posture as existential threats. This existential threat perception is even extended to the Arab states attempting to purchase advanced air defense systems such as the Russian-built S-400 SAM system. These air defense systems are designed to enhance a state's ability to defend itself from an air and cruise missile attack, and are not offensive in nature. Israel's lack of empathy for the security requirements of its neighbors delegitimizes their need for security against what they perceive to be legitimate threats from the regional hegemon. Political psychology also highlights the way in which decision-makers frame a particular problem can be critically important in demonstrating how they will behave in making decisions. 162 Since humans have cognitive limitations on the amount of information we can store and process, we often employ mental shortcuts, known as heuristics, to assist us with making decisions. One of the ways in which humans use mental shortcuts is to employ analogies to simplify complex issues by relating new situations to previous experiences or historical references. Because heuristics reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to make a decision, McDermott cautions they can lead to systematic biases that can distort assessments of events. 163 As increased attention is placed on the relevance of political psychology, there is a correlate increase in literature focusing on the use of analogical reasoning to frame policy issues. Yuen Foong Khong conducted one of the most well-known studies of analogical reasoning in his book Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965, where he addressed leaders' tendencies to use historical analogies to influence the selection of policy options. 164 Two well-known analogies have been used historically to argue against military intervention (Vietnam analogy) and political compromise (Munich analogy). The Vietnam analogy suggests any U.S. military intervention will result in an open-ended commitment to a losing cause that will result in a large number of U.S. casualties and political unrest at home. The Munich analogy, in reference to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's 1938 appeasement of Adolf Hitler's territorial demands, argues if a state does not stand up to an aggressor, and instead seeks to appease them or make concessions in the hope of keeping the peace, the result will be to encourage them to be more aggressive. This aggression will likely result in the war the appeaser was trying to avoid in the first place. 165 Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referenced the Munich analogy when voicing his opposition to the Bush administration's attempt to build an Arab coalition after the September 11th attacks when he stated, "Don't repeat the terrible mistake of 1938 [appeasement of Hitler] when the enlightened democracies of Europe decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a temporary solution. Do not try to placate the Arabs at our expense… Israel will not be Czechoslovakia." 166 The Bush administration also used the Munich analogy to argue Saddam was incorrigible and needed to be removed from power; otherwise, he would continue to destabilize the region. Likewise, opponents of the Iraq War used the Vietnam analogy to argue the United States was already at war with those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks (al-Qaeda) and those who sheltered them (Taliban) in Afghanistan. When criticizing President Bush's push to war with Iraq, then-Senator Barack Obama argued, "You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with bin Laden and al-Qaeda…" 167 Critics argued Iraq was an albatross that would result in increased financial and human losses on the part of Americans. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu continues the Munich analogy and routinely compares the Iran nuclear deal to the 1938 Munich agreement. Taking it a step further, Netanyahu's defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, once compared President Barack Obama to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, before retracting the statement. 168 Chamberlain is known for his policy of appeasing Hitler by relinquishing Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in an attempt to avoid war and achieve "peace in our time. " Khong argues policymakers are unreceptive to information inconsistent with their schemas and are not likely to abandon their analogies even when challenged. 169 This process was evident in the Bush administration's continued assertion Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction long after intelligence indicated his WMD programs were destroyed after the first Gulf War. Similarly, Prime Minister Netanyahu continued to invoke analogical reasoning to map Iran's nuclear program to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. In a 2006 Knesset speech, Netanyahu stated former Iranian President Ahmadinejad was worse than Adolf Hitler, and continued, "Hitler went out on a world campaign first, and then tried to get nuclear weapons. Iran is trying to get nuclear arms first. Therefore, from that perspective, it is much more dangerous." 170 The use of worst-case scenario analogical reasoning can force leaders to paint themselves into a corner in which the use of force is the only plausible option since political compromise after tough talk may be perceived as weakness. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke out against Netanyahu's extensive use of the Holocaust analogy to frame Israel-Iran tensions when he argued, "Israel is not European Jewry… We are a strong country to which the whole world attributes nuclear capabilities, and in regional terms we are a superpower." Barak also expressed his distaste of using the Holocaust analogy to equate the perceived Iranian threat, "because it cheapens the Holocaust and stretches current challenges beyond their proper place. There is none that will dare to destroy Israel." 171 Similarly, Haaretz correspondent Chemi Shalev contested use of the Munich analogy to compare Israel's current challenges with Iran. The Iran-Nazi analogy, however, suffers from one fatal flaw: The existence of an Israelnever mind the U.S. -that can, according to foreign sources, obliterate and evaporate Iran within minutes, bringing 4,000 years of Persian civilization to an abrupt end. If Jews had even a remotely similar capability during World War II, the Holocaust would have been over before it even started. Erasing this factor from the equation is a thus gross distortion of the history and what can arguably be portrayed as a perversion of the essence of the Holocaust: The total helplessness of the Jews in the face of the Nazi plan to exterminate their race. 172 Likewise, James Fallows dismissed the Munich analogy on which then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz relied. Fallows argued, Nazi and Holocaust analogies have a trumping power in many arguments, and their effect in Washington was to make doubters seem weak -Neville Chamberlains, versus the Winston Churchills who were ready to face the truth… I ended up thinking that the Nazi analogy paralyzes the debate about Iraq rather than clarifying it. 173 As illustrated, the use of political psychology to explain the influences on decisionmakers is critical in explaining the variations in foreign policy decision-making. By examining the speeches of national actors, political psychology provides insight into the beliefs, fears, and motivations of those responsible for formulating a state's foreign policies. Furthermore, political psychology contributes to understanding a state's political culture, thus illuminating how national traumas such as the September 11th attacks and the Holocaust influence a state's patriotism and nationalist behaviors, and support for aggressive foreign policies. This chapter discussed the spectrum of proliferation literature, to include Deterrence Theory, nuclear motivations, the proliferation management debates, and the Differential Effects of Nuclear Proliferation Theory, and illustrated the literature's limitations in determining the reasons for variations in individual state proliferation responses. This discussion provides background and context for the study's central question, "When and why do states that have the military capability to use force to disrupt or destroy a proliferating state's nuclear facilities choose to take no action, pursue coercive diplomacy, or use military force?" The chapter then discussed Matthew Kroenig's Differential Effects of Nuclear Proliferation Theory and demonstrated that, while it provides a rich foundation to assess proliferation's varying effects on differently situated states, it is ineffective in determining why states that have the ability to project power over the same state have differing proliferation responses to the same state. Kroenig's approach is constrained by its narrow definition of power projection, which does not include airpower as a power-projecting capability. To apply his power-based approach, Kroenig divides the world into three types of states: global powers, local powers, and non-power-projecting states, and argues each state is affected differently by proliferation, depending on its ability to project power over the proliferating state. Global powers project power worldwide and local powers project power within their specific region, and the further spread of nuclear weapons may constrain their ability to project conventional military force in the region and against the proliferating state. For Kroenig, proliferation is less threatening to non-power-projecting states because they are already unable to use conventional military force to project power to secure their national security interests, so an opposing state's acquisition of a nuclear weapon does not necessarily alter the power dynamic between the two states. The chapter also discussed the study's acceptance of Kroenig's argument that proliferation has differing effects on differently situated states, but departs from his theory at this point to pursue an argument that provides for understanding why states that have the ability to project power over the same state have differing responses to the same proliferating state. The study's Differential Effects of Threat Perception Theory examines this phenomenon by expanding Kroenig's power projection definition to include airpower, and argues proliferation's differing effects on a state, and its subsequent response, are directly related to the intensity of the threat perceived by the powerful state. The study further illustrates these perceptions are shaped by cognitive psychological influences on state decision-makers. To illustrate the causal mechanisms for these variations in perceptions and responses, this chapter surveyed the political psychology literature. This literature provides a rich contextual basis for examining the cognitive psychological influences that contribute to national leaders' differing views and perceptions of nuclear proliferation and the potential threat posed by proliferating states. A Short History of Nuclear Non-Proliferation A World Free of Nuclear Weapons Numerical Strength and Nuclear Status in the Politics of the Third World Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program: Its History, Dismantlement, and Lessons for Today Changing Views of Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East Redefining Success: Applying Lessons in Nuclear Diplomacy from North Korea to Iran Seeking International Legitimacy: Understanding the Dynamics of Nuclear Nationalism in Iran Seeking International Legitimacy: Understanding the Dynamics of Nuclear Nationalism in Iran Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers A Nuclear Iran How Washington Encourages Nuclear Proliferation The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century North Korea Cites Muammar Gaddafi's 'Destruction' in Nuclear Test Defense Political Psychology: Some Challenges and Opportunities Introduction to Political Psychology Introduction to Political Psychology Leaders and Their Follower in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior Bush and the World The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century A Sketch of Political Psychology Perception and Misperception in International Politics The Political Consequences of Perceived Threat and Felt Insecurity The Political Consequences of Perceived Threat and Felt Insecurity The Mind-Set Matters: Foreign Policy Is Shaped by Leaders and Events, Not Lobbies Anatomy of a National Security Fiasco: The George W. Bush Administration, Iraq, and Groupthink Building Politics into Psychology: The Misperception of Threat Building Politics into Psychology Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making Full text of Colin Powell's speech Introduction to Political Psychology Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World National Self-Images, Perception of Enemies, and Conflict Strategies Green Ribbons and Turbans: Young Iranians Against the Mullahs Introduction to Political Psychology Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 Introduction to Political Psychology Furious Bush Hits Back at Sharon Transcript: Obama's Speech Against the Iraq War Netanyahu, AOC, Concentration Camps and the Obscene Holocaust Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Rage Analogies at War Netanyahu's Rage at Iran Nuclear Deal Is Fueled by 1938 Western Betrayal at Munich Don't Use the Holocaust to Define an Iranian Nuclear Bomb