Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010 Scholars Nuclear K’s

*A2: Prolif K*

Solves – Prolif Epistemology Solves

The support of scholars is critical to the success of non-proliferation
KRAUSE 7 (JOACHIM, IR-Christian-Albrechts U., International Affairs 83: 3 (2007) 483–499 http://www.politik.uni-kiel.de/publikationen/krause/krauseenlightenment.pdf TBC 6/29/10)

It is no secret that the political agenda of arms control and, in particular, of nuclear non-proliferation has been influenced over the past four decades by the school of liberal arms control. This epistemic community has defined the basic tenets of international arms control and non-proliferation politics. It encompasses not only scholars and researchers, but also a large number of diplomats, politicians, bureaucrats and journalists. Members of this school have shaped US arms control policy since the 1960s, many experts from that community having served various US administrations. But the group has also found adherents outside the United States. International arms control diplomacy has been to a great extent the result of diligent and devoted eff orts by liberal arms controllers from several parts of the world. Without this epistemic community, international arms control and nonproliferation efforts would not have been so successful.

NPT/Arms Control Good

Their argument is premised on 3 faulty assumptions – Arms control agreements have done more good than bad

Yost 7 (David, Naval Postgraduate School Associate Professor, Former DOD Official, Woodrow Wilson International Center Security Studies Fellow, John Hopkins Visiting Scholar, Int'l Affairs, 83.3, http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/news/view/-/id/370/, AD: 6/30/10) jl

Applying the method of enlightenment correctly to the area of nuclear nonproliferation would require a major effort to critically evaluate ideologies. Liberal arms control-despite its many successes and merits-has devised over the years a whole set of ideological tenets and attitudes. Some of them have been transformed into beliefs that could be termed myths. The most prominent ideological myth of the liberal arms control school is the notion that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968 (NPT) was in essence a disarmament agreement, not a non-proliferation treaty. To depict the negotiations as a premeditated effort of enlightenment, here the governments of this world came together to solemnly decide that some of them would be allowed to have some nuclear weapons for an interim period while the others would renounce their possession immediately, is pure. It would be equally wrong to qualify the 'grand bargain' as one between the nuclear haves and the nuclear have-nots. Another myth of the liberal arms control school is the notion that-in order to gain support for the NPT-the superpowers had altered their nuclear weapons strategy in the 1960s. Again, this contention is not borne out by the development of nuclear strategies and doctrines. The third myth is the contention that there was an abrupt shift in US non-proliferation policy as George W. Bush came into power. The major changes in US non-proliferation policy had already started during the Clinton administration and some of them can be traced back to the tenure of President George W. H. Bush senior. They all rejected the changed international environment and represented necessary adjustments of the non-proliferation strategy. The Clinton administration left some of the traditional paths of arms control and rightly undertook some changes that were necessary because traditional instruments of arms control were no longer adequate. The Bush administration continued that policy, but in a more radical way.

Universal vision or bounded rationality?

William Walker's article takes a strongly universalist view of the requirements of nuclear order. It finds recent American administrations deliberately unwilling to maintain international confidence in the necessary collective narrative of eventual universal nuclear disarmament, so causing a crisis of confidence in the Non Proliferation Treaty regime. This commentary examines how far realistically different recent US policies and declarations could have avoided such problems, given certain underlying realities and dynamics surrounding the management of nuclear weapons. It also questions how indispensable abstract universalism will be in containing future nuclear proliferation.

Enlightenment in the second nuclear age

The debate on nuclear proliferation has become increasingly polarized. While there is widespread agreement on the perilous state of the traditional non-proliferation regime, the analyses of the causes differ widely. The liberal arms control community has sought to salvage the eroding non-proliferation regime both by overplaying its importance ('nuclear enlightenment') as well as by blaming the policies of the nuclear weapons states, notably the United States. However, this view rests on several assumptions that have been increasingly revealed as myths: the myth of a universal non-proliferation norm generated largely by the Nonproliferation Treaty; the myth of a direct relationship between nuclear reductions and proliferation; and the myth of US policy being a cause of, rather than a reaction to, the non-proliferation crisis. Clinging to these myths is counterproductive, as it seeks to perpetuate old policies at the expense of new approaches. However, new approaches to non-proliferation are bound to gain in importance, even if they run counter to established arms control dogmas.