Hostname: page-component-69cd664f8f-bj4lc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-12T13:54:19.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2003

Nina Tannenwald

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We have recently witnessed the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare. The non-use of nuclear weapons since then remains the single most important phenomenon of the nuclear age. Yet we still lack a full understanding of how this tradition arose and is maintained and of its prospects for the future. The widely cited explanation is deterrence, but this account is either wrong or incomplete. Although an element of sheer luck no doubt has played a part in this fortuitous outcome, this article argues that a normative element must be taken into account in explaining why nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. A normative prohibition on nuclear use has developed in the global system, which, although not (yet) a fully robust norm, has stigmatized nuclear weapons as unacceptable weapons of mass destruction. Without this normative stigma, there might have been more “use.” This article examines this phenomenon in the context of the nuclear experience of the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , Summer 1999 , pp. 433 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1999

References

Achen, Christopher H., and Duncan, Snidal. 1989. Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies. World Politics 41 (2):143–69.Google Scholar
Acheson, Dean. 1969. Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Adler, Emanuel. 1997. Seizing the Middle Ground: ConstructivismandWorld Politics. European Journal of International Relations 3:319–63.Google Scholar
Ambrose, Stephen. 1989. Nixon. Vol. 2: The Triumph of a Politician: 1962–1972. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Arkin, William M. 1996. Calculated Ambiguity: Nuclear Weapons and the Gulf War. The Washington Quarterly 19 (4):3–18.Google Scholar
Art, Robert. 1991. The United States: Nuclear Weapons and Grand Strategy. In Security with Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on National Security, edited by Regina Cowen, Karp, 57–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ascherio, Alberto, Robert, Chase, and Tim, Cote. 1992. Effect of the Gulf War on Infant and Child Mortality in Iraq. New England Journal of Medicine 327:931–36.Google ScholarPubMed
Baker, James A., III. 1995. The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Barrett, David M., ed. 1997. Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam Papers: A Documentary Collection. College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Barton F. 1995. The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered. Foreign Affairs 74 (1):135–52.Google Scholar
Betts, Richard K. 1987. Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Bilmes, Jack. 1986. Discourse and Behavior. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Blight, James, ed. 1998. Missed Opportunities? Revisiting the Decisions of the Vietnam War, 1945–68.Google Scholar
Hanoi Conference, 20–23 June 1997. Transcript, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, Providence, R.I.Google Scholar
Boyer, Paul S. 1998. Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America's Half-Century Encounter with Nuclear Weapons. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Bundy, McGeorge. 1988. Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Bundy, McGeorge 1991. Nuclear Weapons and the Gulf. Foreign Affairs 70 (4):83–94.Google Scholar
Bundy, William. 1998. A TangledWeb: TheMaking of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Bunn, George. 1997. The Legal Status of U.S. Negative Security Assurances to Non-Nuclear Weapons States. The NonproliferationReview 4:1–17.Google Scholar
Bush, George, and Brent, Scowcroft. 1998. A World Transformed. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Clodfelter, Mark. 1989. The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of Vietnam. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Samuel T. 1983. The Truth About the Neutron Bomb. New York: Morrow.Google Scholar
Dessler, David. 1989. What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate. International Organization 43: 441–73.Google Scholar
Dingman, Roger. 1988. Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War. International Security 13:50–91.Google Scholar
Dowler, Thomas J., and Joseph S., Howard, II. 1991. Countering the Threat of theWell-Armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Small NuclearWeapons. Strategic Review 19:34–40.Google Scholar
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL). National Security Files. Abilene, Kans.Google Scholar
Eisenhower, Dwight D. 1963. Mandate for Change, 1953–1956. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989. The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 1988. Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ferrell, Robert H., ed. 1980. Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn, Sikkink. 1998. International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International Organization 52:887–917.Google Scholar
Foot, Rosemary. 1985. The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950–1953. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Freedman, Lawrence. 1989. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. 2d ed. London:Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fujita, Hisakazu. 1988. International Regulation of the Use of Nuclear Weapons. Osaka, Japan: Kansai University Press.Google Scholar
Gaddis, John Lewis. 1987a. The Origins of Self-Deterrence: The United States and the Non-use of Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1958. In Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the ColdWar, 104–46. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gaddis, John Lewis 1987b. The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System. In Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, 215–45. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gaskins, Richard H. 1992. Burdens of Proof in Modern Discourse. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gavin, James M. 1958. War and Peace in the Space Age. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Gong, Gerrit W. 1985. The Standard of Civilization in International Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Graham|Thomas W. 1989. American Public Opinion on NATO, Extended Deterrence, and Use of Nuclear Weapons: Future Fission? CSIA Occasional Paper Series, No. 4. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Haig, Alexander M., Jr. 1992. Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir. New York: Warner Books.Google Scholar
Haldeman, H. R., with Joseph, Di Mona. 1978. The Ends of Power. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Hannikainen, Lauri. 1988. Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens) in International Law: Historical Development, Criteria, Present Status. Helsinki: Finnish Lawyers Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Hayes, Peter. 1991. Paci. c Powderkeg: American Nuclear Dilemmas in Korea. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Herring, Eric. 1991. The Decline of Nuclear Diplomacy. In New Thinking About Strategy and International Security, edited by Ken Booth, 90–109. London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Hersh, Seymour M. 1983. The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. New York: Summit Books.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1989a. The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert 1989b. Rational Deterrence: Theory and Evidence. World Politics 41:183–207.Google Scholar
Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL). National Security Files. Austin, Tex.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J., ed. 1996. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Keaney, Thomas A., and Elliot A., Cohen. 1993. Gulf War Air Power Survey. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry. 1994. Diplomacy. New York: Simon and Schuster. Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1995. Compromising West phalia. International Security 20 (3):115–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich V. 1989. Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
Lebow, Richard Ned, and Janice Gross, Stein. 1989. Rational Deterrence Theory: I Think, Therefore I Deter. World Politics 41 (2):208–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leffler, Melvyn P. 1992. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the ColdWar. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legro, Jeffrey W. 1995. Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint During World War II. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar
McElroy, Robert W. 1992. Morality and American Foreign Policy: The Role of Ethics in International Affairs. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar
McNamara, Robert S. 1983. The Military Role of Nuclear Weapons: Perceptions and Misperceptions. Foreign Affairs 62:58–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, with Brian, Van De Mark. 1995. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. New York: Times Books. Google Scholar
Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. The False Promise of International Institutions. International Security 19 (3):5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercer, Jonathan. 1996. Reputation and International Politics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar
Mueller, John. 1989. Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War. New York: Basic Books. Google Scholar
Müller, Harald. 1991. Maintaining Non-nuclear Weapon Status. In Security with Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on National Security, edited by Regina Cowan, Karp, 301–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Müller, Harald. 1993. The Internalization of Principles, Norms, and Rules by Governments: The Case of Security Regimes. In Regime Theory and InternationalRelations, edited by Volker, Rittberger, 361–88. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadelman, Ethan. 1990. Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society. International Organization 44 (4):479–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Archives. RG 59. Department of State Records.Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Newhouse, John. 1989. War and Peace in the Nuclear Age. New York: Knopf. Google Scholar
Nichols, K. D. 1987. The Road to Trinity. New York:Morrow.Google Scholar
Nitze, Paul H. 1989. From Hiroshima to Glasnost at the Center of Decision: AMemoir. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. Google Scholar
Nixon, Richard M. 1978. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Google Scholar
Nixon, Richard M. 1985. No More Vietnams. New York: Arbor House. Google Scholar
Paul, T. V. 1995. Nuclear Taboo and War Initiation in Regional Conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution 39 (4):696–717.Google Scholar
The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. 1971–1972. Senator Gravel edition. Five vols. Boston:Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Powell, Colin L., with Joseph E., Persico. 1995. My American Journey. New York: Random House. Google Scholar
Price, Richard. 1995. A Genealogy of the Chemical Weapons Taboo. InternationalOrganizations 49 (1):73– 103.Google Scholar
Price, Richard. 1998. Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines. International Organization 52 (3):613–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quester, George H. 1991. Conceptions of Nuclear Threshold Status. In Security with Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on National Security, edited by Regina Cowan, Karp, 218–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ray, James Lee. 1989. The Abolition of Slavery and the End of InternationalWar. International Organization 43:405–39.Google Scholar
Ridgway, Matthew B. 1967. The Korean War. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Google Scholar
Rosenberg, David Alan. 1983. The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945– 1960. International Security 7:3–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1998. What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge. International Organization 52: 855–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rusk, Dean. 1990. As I Saw It. Edited by Daniel S., Papp. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce M. 1989. The Real Decline in Nuclear Hegemony. In Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s, edited by Ernst-Otto, Czempiel and James N., Rosenau, 177–93. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Sagan, Scott D. 1997. Why Do States Build the Nuclear Weapons They Do? Three Models in Search of a Bomb. International Security 21 (3):54–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayle, Murray. 1995. Letter from Hiroshima: Did the Bomb End the War ? New Yorker, 31 July, 40–64.Google Scholar
Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey. 1996. Normative Explanations. In Social Rules: Origin,Character, Logic,Change, edited by David, Braybrooke, 35–51. Boulder, Colo.:Westview Press.Google Scholar
Schaffer, onald. 1985. Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. [1960] 1980. The Strategy of Conflict. Reprint, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. 1994. The Role of Nuclear Weapons. In Turning Point: The Gulf War and U.S. Military Strategy, edited by L. Benjamin, Ederington and Michael J., Mazarr, 105–15. Boulder, Colo.:Westview Press.Google Scholar
Schnabel, James F., and Robert J., Watson. 1979. The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy. Vol. 3, The Korean War, Part I. Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press. Google Scholar
Sherwin, Martin J. 1977. A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance. New York: Vintage. Google Scholar
Steiner, Franz. 1956. Taboo. London: Cohen and West. Google Scholar
Takaki|Ronald. 1995. Hiroshima:Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. New York: Little, Brown. Google Scholar
Talbott, Strobe. 1988. TheMaster of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace. New York: Knopf. Google Scholar
Tannenwald. Nina. The Nuclear Taboo.Manuscript in process.Google Scholar
Taylor, Maxwell D. 1972. Swords and Plowshares. New York: Norton. Google Scholar
Trachtenberg, Marc. 1991. A Wasting Asset: American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949–1954. In Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, 100–52. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations. 1991. Report to the Secretary-General on Humanitarian Needs in Kuwait and Iraq in the Immediate Post-Crisis Environment.UN Security Council Document S/22366. New York, N.Y.: UN.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1996. Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of NuclearWeapons. UN GAA/51/218, 15 October. New York, N.Y.: UN.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State. Various years. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of InternationalPolitics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
Westmoreland, William C. 1976. A Soldier Reports. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Google Scholar
Wittner, Lawrence S. 1997. Resisting the Bomb: A History of theWorld Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1945–1970. Vol. 2, The Struggle Against the Bomb. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar