The EU-US Management of Nuclear Proliferation in the 21st Century: How Strategic a Strategic Partnership?

Abstract

The nuclear non-proliferation policies of the United States and the European Union (EU) have converged and diverged since 1991, particularly with respect to the assessment of the nature of the threat posed by nuclear proliferation, the preferred methods for supporting the non-proliferation regimes and sanctioning deviants, and the solutions to mitigating or reversing nuclear proliferation. The pace and threat of nuclear proliferation accelerated after 1991. The United States undertook an aggressive and anticipatory set of policies designed to reverse the expansion of the number of nuclear weapons states attending the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to secure Soviet-era nuclear weapons and weapons-grade materiel, and to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime over the long-term. The EU largely lacked a common non-proliferation strategy in the 1990s (van Ham 2011), although it played a critical role in redressing the environmental security threat posed by the design flaws of Soviet-era nuclear reactors and dilapidated nuclear power infrastructures in the FSU (former Soviet Union) and central and eastern Europe. In the first post-Cold War decade, the Indian and Pakistani acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability had shaken the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and the redoubled nuclear ambitions of Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea suggested a fatal weakening of the non-proliferation norm. After the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, US nuclear non-proliferation efforts were redirected to the threat posed by nuclear terrorism. Although the shock of 11 September on European sensibilities is not to be underestimated, the prospect of nuclear terrorism directed at Europe became psychologically manifest S. Blavoukos et al. (eds.), The EU and the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons