Yusuf publishes on ‘The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons’

Moeed Yusuf’s paper titled ‘Predicting Proliferation: The History of the Future of Nuclear Weapons’ has just been published by the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. Moeed Yusuf is a Research Fellow at the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and author’s of the Pardee Center’s most recent Pardee Paper titled ‘Does Nuclear Energy Have a Future?’ (November 2008).

In the new Brookings paper, Moeed Yusuf offers a comprehensive survey of attempts by intelligence communities and independent experts to predict the future of nuclear landscape since the beginning of the Cold War. The analysis suggests persistent inaccuracies in the forecasts throughout the period under review. Most projections erred on the side of pessimism, those emanating from independent experts more so than intelligence estimates. Moreover, the pace and timing of proliferation was consistently slower than was anticipated by most experts. Further, the tone of predictive studies was not always consistent with contemporaneous events. Moreover, there is evidence that over the long-term, external assistance was a major factor in proliferation. External actors played the role of dampeners and, more recently, of collaborators in nuclear proliferation.

Looking at the nuclear world in 2020, the paper speculates, at most, modest paced proliferation. There are unlikely to be any large-scale chain reactions among threshold states. The U.S. role in global politics is likely to be a major determinant of the ultimate pace of proliferation. If threshold states perceive the United States either as an antagonistic power or as an unreliable ally, they are more likely to pursue independent nuclear weapons programs. As for vertical proliferation, American and Russian warheads will likely continue declining at a steady pace, while other nuclear powers will likely remain content will small, diverse nuclear forces. Finally, while a major nuclear incident involving a terrorist organization is by no means a certainty, the menace of nuclear terrorism will become increasingly important over the next decade. The non-proliferation regime will then come under greater pressure.

The Executive Summary of the paper is available here, and the full paper can be downloaded here.