Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology

"Leveraging Latency explores how the weak coerce the strong with nuclear technology. Allies and adversaries alike can compel concessions from superpowers by threatening to acquire atomic weapons. When does nuclear latency-the technical capacity to build the bomb-enable states to pursue this coercive strategy? The conventional wisdom is that compellence with nuclear latency works when states are close to the bomb. But this intuitive notion is wrong. Tristan Volpe finds that more latency seldom translates into greater bargaining advantages. He reveals how coercion creates a tradeoff between making threats and assurances credible. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation, but not so much that it becomes too difficult to promisenuclear restraint. The boundaries of this sweet spot align with the capacity to produce the fissile material at the heart of an atomic weapon. Historical studies of Japan, West Germany, North Korea, and Iran demonstrate that mere capacity to build atomicweapons can yield diplomatic dividends. As nuclear technology continues to cast a shadow over the global landscape, Leveraging Latency provides scholars and practitioners with a systematic assessment of its coercive utility. Volpe identifies a generalizable mechanism-the threat-assurance tradeoff-that explains why more power often makes compellence less likely to work. This framework illuminates how technology shapes broader bargaining dynamics and helps to refine policy options for inhibiting the spreadof nuclear weapons"--
Over the last seven decades, some states successfully leveraged the threat of acquiring atomic weapons to compel concessions from superpowers. For many others, however, this coercive gambit failed to work. When does nuclear latency--the technical capacity to build the bomb--enable states to pursue effective coercion?In Leveraging Latency, Tristan A. Volpe argues that having greater capacity to build weaponry doesn't translate to greater coercive advantage. Volpe finds that there is a trade-off between threatening proliferation and promising nuclear restraint. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation, but not so much that it becomes too difficult for them to offer nonproliferation assurances. The boundaries of this sweet spot align with the capacity to produce the fissile material at the heart of an atomic weapon.To test this argument, Volpe includes comparative case studies of four countries that leveraged latency against superpowers: Japan, West Germany, North Korea, and Iran. In doing so, Volpe identifies a generalizable mechanism--the threat-assurance trade-off--that explains why more power often makes compellence less likely to work. This framework illuminates how technology shapes broader bargaining dynamics and helps to refine policy options for inhibiting the spread of nuclear weapons. As nuclear technology continues to cast a shadow over the global landscape, Leveraging Latency provides a systematic assessment of its coercive utility.