Political Science 154: Weapons of Mass Destruction

Political Science 12: International Relations

• Introductions

• Syllabus

• Course requirements

• Student standards

• Readings

• Schedule

• How to succeed in this course

• Some preliminary remarks

Introductions

• Instructor: Erik Gartzke, Associate Professor, Political Science

• Course webpage: dss.ucsd.edu/~egartzke/htmlpages/teaching2013_WMD.html

• Email: egartzke@ucsd.edu

• Office hours: Mondays 1:30-3PM. Office: SSB 327

• Teaching Assistants:

• Chris Chiego (cchiego@ucsd.edu) Office: SSB 343

• Jack Zhang (jjz007@ucsd.edu) Office: SSB 329

Syllabus: Course Requirements

• Class Participation (20%):

• Attendance

• Raise your hand

• Simulation

• Two Short papers (20% each):

• 5-7 pages, typed, double spaced. Due week 5, 8.

• Final (40%): Essay, blue book

Syllabus: Student Standards

• Plagiarism: Do not cheat or misrepresent the origins of your ideas.

• Disabilities/life issues: This course will follow University policies regarding disabilities.

• Grading: All grade appeals must be made in writing.

Syllabus: Required Readings

• Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz. 2002. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

• “Sagan and Waltz”

Syllabus: Required Readings

• Frank Barnaby. 2004. How to Build a Nuclear Bomb: And Other Weapons of Mass Destruction. New York: Nation.

• “Barnaby”

Syllabus: Required Readings

• Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, and Miriam Rajkumar. 2005. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, Rev. Ed. Washington, DC: Carnegie.

• “Cirincione”

Syllabus: Readings, cont.

• Dropbox: copies of most of the article length readings are available in a dropbox folder.

• Additional readings appear on the syllabus with a web link

• Required vs. optional readings:

• Required readings are required.

• Optional readings are optional.

Syllabus: Schedule

1. Introduction

2. Overview of nuclear policy

3. Nuts and bolts

4. Why states want nukes

5. Deterrence/compellence

6. Chemical and biological

7. Proliferation/counter proliferation

8. Simulation

9. Platforms (missiles)

10. CBRN terrorism

Syllabus: Papers/Simulation

• 1st Paper (due week 5):

1. Choose a country from our list of five nuclear states (MINIMUM SOURCES).

2. Prepare 3-5 page paper on some aspect of state’s nuclear policy.

• Simulation: Authors of best or most imaginative papers will become those countries in the simulation (teams).

• Everyone else will be assigned in teams to one of the remaining states.

• 2nd Paper (due week 8):

• Summarizes policy objective of state vis. other nuclear powers in simulation.

How to succeed in this course

• Do the readings

Preliminary remarks

• What are “weapons of mass destruction”?

• Do they need to be hugely destructive or just “unconventional” in the way they inflict harm?

• Panofsky:

nuclear weapons, which have been demonstrated to be by far the most destructive of the three classes of weapons, remain legitimate within certain restrictions while biological and chemical weapons, with more limited and problematic effectiveness, have been outlawed.

Preliminary remarks

• What are “weapons of mass destruction”?

• Do they need to be hugely destructive or just “unconventional” in the way they inflict harm?

• Panofsky:

nuclear weapons, which have been demonstrated to be by far the most destructive of the three classes of weapons, remain legitimate within certain restrictions while biological and chemical weapons, with more limited and problematic effectiveness, have been outlawed.

Preliminary remarks, cont.

• Deterrence: US has no chemical or biological weapons

• “Consequently, U.S. deterrence against the use or threatened use of such weapons has to be based either on conventional military superiority or through an expressed or tacit nuclear threat.” Panofsky

• Chem/bio taboo: To the degree that possession of nuclear weapons weakens prohibitions against possession of chemical/biological weapons, the US stance will tend to undermine chemical and biological weapons conventions.

• To the degree that these conventions are enforced in part by the deterrent effect of the US nuclear stockpile, however, efforts at “global zero” may harm the stability of chem/bio.

• Ambiguity: appealing for policy reasons, but also problematic in terms of security

• Ambiguous threats are less credible than unambiguous ones.

Preliminary remarks, cont. II

• Problem again of what “Weapons of Mass Destruction” means:

• “WMD mixes threats that should be distinguished” Perkovich

• “Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons have distinct physical and political effects.” Perkovich

• Does it make sense to discuss chemical and biological weapons alongside nuclear weapons? What is the role of radiological weapons?