While President Obama has made it a priority to change the U.S. nuclear posture and reduce the number and role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, other countries have not followed his lead. The leaders of most nuclear states and states with nuclear aspirations perceive nuclear arms to be of enduring value in meeting their security needs. The world is already well into a second nuclear age in which the bomb is proliferating for reasons very different from those of the strategic nuclear competition between the United States and the USSR during the Cold War.
What are the implications of this divergence in views?
This study offers insights into the motivations of countries to acquire nuclear weapons, and how those countries view the role of nuclear weapons in their military and national security strategy.