Introduction
Dr. Stephen Herzog is Professor of the Practice at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a Visiting Scholar with the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom. He recently published an edited volume with MIT Press for the Belfer Center Studies in International Security Series: Atomic Backfires: When Nuclear Policies Fail.
In a field fixated on finding solutions, Atomic Backfires, edited by Stephen Herzog, Giles David Arceneaux, and Ariel F. W. Petrovics, provocatively takes the opposite tack. An impressive group of contributors calls for close scrutiny of “standard operating procedures” in nuclear politics. They warn decision makers, scholars, and students not to lose sight of the drivers and often calamitous effects of failed nuclear policies. The volume’s authors aim to provide insights for navigating the difficult nuclear choices pursued in Washington, D.C., and other capitals around the globe.
Your edited volume, with David Arceneaux and Ariel Petrovics, brings together an incredible group of contributors and emerging thought leaders in the field of nuclear politics. Let’s get to the central question first: Why do nuclear policies fail?
Dr. Stephen Herzog: My co-editors and I assembled our cast of contributors for Atomic Backfires because we noticed a gap in policy and scholarly attention to the causes of nuclear policy failures. Put simply, our authors argue that such failures are not because leaders are irrational, but because they rely on tools that have systematic, underappreciated side effects. The book’s chapters use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine these tools and strategies, and each is written both as part of the broader collection and as a standalone essay that can be assigned in a classroom or policy training session.
Policymakers reach for a fairly standard toolkit to reduce nuclear dangers to international security: sanctions, coercive threats, arms control, alliance guarantees, and more. These instruments are familiar, domestically attractive, and may provide short-term successes. But across the chapters in the book, several recurring problems emerge.
First, leaders often misdiagnose the drivers of adversary behavior. If you think Iran or North Korea is mainly driven by greed or prestige, sanctions and pressure look like obvious policy responses. If, as several chapters show, those regimes are instead obsessed with survival, these actions can reinforce the very nuclear behaviors policymakers seek to counter.
Second, tools deployed for domestic political reasons may quietly distort their own effects. Arms control agreements that are supposed to cap arsenals may wind up bundled with massive nuclear modernization programs to placate hawks. Security guarantees meant to reassure allies may instead generate anxiety about entrapment and abandonment, sometimes spurring more nuclear hedging, not less, among American partners.
Third, nuclear tools can create dangerous feedback loops. “Tough” signaling to show resolve can provoke fury and escalation; ballistic missile defenses meant to increase strategic stability can provoke offensive buildups; and kinetic attacks and sabotage that look like counterproliferation “wins” can teach proliferators to go deeper underground.
The core lesson from Atomic Backfires is that leaders generally pursue quick victories, but the causes of nuclear policy failures are often baked into the incentives surrounding these tools. More enlightened leadership and forward-looking scholarship is needed to avert counterproductive consequences. In the end, even well-intentioned strategies can make nuclear problems harder, not easier, to manage and resolve.
What does Atomic Backfires teach us about the future of nuclear deterrence and escalation management?
Deterrence and escalation management tools are definitely not going away, but the way leaders use them often makes nuclear dangers worse. The authors in the book suggest that deterrence works best when it is credible but appropriately calibrated, and when it avoids theatrics. Otherwise, such policies may carry counterproductive implications for U.S. foreign policy and global security alike.
For example, in his chapter, Hyun-Binn Cho shows how leaders lean on provocative signaling––tough talk, public humiliation, and conspicuous military moves—to prove their resolve in nuclear crises. The intention is to enhance stability by convincing their adversaries to back down. But the actual effect can be anger, honor concerns, and domestic pressure to stand firm, thereby raising the risk of escalation instead of containing it. The takeaway here may be that successful deterrence involves fewer performative threats, more crisis communication, and private reassurance. “Boring” may be “safer.”
Kristin Ven Bruusgaard’s chapter makes a related point on Russia. When Western leaders misread Russian nuclear intentions in the past by mirror-imaging and treating worst-case assessments as facts, they often responded by building up their own forces and altering their doctrine. That pattern can likewise feed arms racing and crisis instability.
How should U.S. nuclear policy adapt in an age of collaboration between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran?
The United States has to treat today’s emerging “bloc” politics as a reason for more discipline, not more reflexive pressure.
My Atomic Backfires co-editor David Arceneaux’s chapter on North Korea shows how regime change talk and maximalist coercion can harden an adversary’s threat perceptions and push it toward earlier nuclear weapons use. Meanwhile, Daniel Salisbury’s work on supply-side controls illuminates how blanket technology restrictions often strengthen illicit procurement networks and drive potential U.S. partners toward cooperation with Russia and China.
In a world where these states are learning from one another, U.S. nuclear policy should prioritize credible but limited coercive tools and greater attention to how export controls and sanctions rewire global networks. Washington should strive to manage its rivalries without unintentionally tightening partnerships between its adversaries.
What does Atomic Backfires reveal about why sanctions, pressure campaigns, and even counterproliferation strikes often fail to resolve nuclear disputes?
It’s a great question, and I would highlight three main reasons why our contributors believe that these sorts of efforts may be more prone to failure than U.S. leaders might hope.
First, there is often a tendency to misread what is actually driving potential proliferators. David M. Allison and Tyler Bowen write specifically about this. One of their key points is that efforts to “solve” proliferation with kinetic attacks, scientist assassinations, cyber intrusions, and maximum pressure are unlikely to succeed if states like Iran and North Korea see nuclear programs as protection against regime change. Coercion may well confirm their worst fears, strengthening their determination to get the bomb or keep it. How this dynamic unfolds after the recent Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities will be a test of whether coercion curbs proliferation or triggers exactly the kind of atomic backfire our book describes.
Second, my other Atomic Backfires co-editor Ariel Petrovics’ chapter shows how leaders frequently employ sanctions threats as cheap talk. This is intuitive, as such threats are politically attractive because they sound tough but appear “costless” and “flexible” at first glance. But these threats have a remarkably ineffective historical lineage and rarely change the course of nuclear programs. If states fear for their survival and are willing to run the risks of flirting with the bomb, they are unlikely to be swayed by economic pressure. Furthermore, over time, failed sanction threats against Iran and North Korea appear to have harmed U.S. credibility to apply sanctions elsewhere.
Third, as I previously mentioned, Daniel Salisbury’s chapter is a reminder that strategic trade controls can carry unintended effects for Washington’s nonproliferation policy. They can encourage proliferators to indigenize the production process, improve illicit procurement, and deepen ties with less scrupulous nuclear suppliers abroad.
What lessons does the book offer for preventing nuclear proliferation today?
As our contributors make clear in Atomic Backfires, effective nuclear nonproliferation requires less faith in longstanding tools that have been favored in the policy world and more foresight about how they can backfire.
Actor-specific strategies have to start from a clear understanding of the target state’s security anxieties, not our own policy preferences. Many governments move toward the bomb because they fear overthrow or abandonment by their patron. Piling on pressure, threatening to rescind assurances, hinting at regime change, and celebrating sabotage efforts may all too easily confirm leaders’ beliefs that only a nuclear deterrent will keep them in power––and alive. Stated bluntly, nonproliferation works best when it lowers survival fears rather than amplifying them.
Sanctions and other forms of pressure may seem cheap, but they should probably be relatively rare and embedded in diplomacy that gives the target state an off-ramp. Constant threats may create noise, not leverage. Over time, states learn to discount them and build workarounds to acquire a nuclear arsenal.
Above all, policymakers should focus more on demand than on supply. Technology controls can do a lot for nonproliferation, but if states feel deeply insecure, the lesson from Atomic Backfires is that they will adapt. Monitoring and verification may become even more difficult as artificial intelligence enables new forms of knowledge substitution and changes beliefs about the probability of a successful nuclear breakout. Addressing regional security dilemmas and engaging in thoughtful alliance management almost certainly matter more in the long run than drafting the next sanctions package.
How do alliances and extended nuclear deterrence guarantees, such as the U.S. umbrella over Europe and Asia, sometimes create new risks?
It has long been taken for granted in nuclear policy and scholarly circles that alliances are some of the most effective nonproliferation tools available. While they can indeed have benefits, our Atomic Backfires contributors urge policymakers to be attentive to potential pressures simmering inside the U.S. network of alliances in Europe and Asia.
The chapter by Eliza Gheorghe on security triangles is a case in point. She shows how a patron’s multiple protégés can become competitive “frenemies,” with intra-alliance tensions and comparisons shaping nuclear choices. These dynamics played a role in British and French decisions to build the bomb and in early Japanese and South Korean thinking about proliferation. Nuclear umbrellas and today’s NATO nuclear sharing do not just exist in a vacuum. They can shape how Washington’s allies view each other and encourage jealousy and hedging. Policymakers ignore this at their own peril.
Now, contemporary statements by Polish and South Korean leaders about acquiring nuclear arms are more focused on Russia, North Korea, and declining U.S. credibility than they are on “frenemies.” But their logic does bear some similarities to Gheorghe’s analysis, as allies judge their own security by asking whether they are as protected as their neighbors under the same U.S. umbrella.
Additionally, Ulrich Kühn’s work on Germany shows how longstanding reliance on U.S. nuclear protection and NATO nuclear sharing has carried costs for Berlin. Although maintaining the status quo has been seen as politically convenient and cheap for Germany, the country now finds itself locked in an awkward situation as European security worsens and American commitments to the continent have reduced credibility.
Perhaps most striking, Lauren Sukin’s chapter on the United Kingdom finds that credible U.S. nuclear guarantees can actually increase public support for British nuclear modernization, rather than dampening it. Stronger nuclear assurances reduce fears of abandonment, but they can create worries about entrapment in a U.S.-driven conflict. The result is, ironically, alliance politics wherein “reassurance” can feed domestic pressures to upgrade national nuclear forces instead of making them seem less necessary.
The common thread in all of these chapters is that the U.S. nuclear umbrella is anything but a neutral policy tool. It interacts with domestic politics, alliance dynamics, and public opinion in ways that can unintentionally add proliferation pressure and escalation risks––especially when Washington’s credibility and fairness are in doubt. Alliance management has to focus as much on these internal pressures as on external adversaries.
Let’s talk about Russia: What can policymakers do better to predict and defend against Russian nuclear intentions?
In the West, there are countless reasons to be concerned about Russian foreign and security policy. These include the Kremlin’s brutal war on Ukraine and its constant nuclear saber-rattling, seemingly intended to terrify NATO publics and weaken support for Ukraine. Some of the contributions in the volume suggest that “fighting fire with fire” can itself be dangerous.
Kristin Ven Bruusgaard’s chapter shows how Western debates often project our own nightmares onto Russian nuclear doctrine. If analysts treat every exercise or purportedly novel nuclear capability as proof that Moscow is eager to escalate, this risks driving force and doctrinal changes that contribute to a spiral of instability. Sarah Bidgood’s analysis of U.S. ballistic missile defenses further underscores how efforts to close windows of vulnerability have repeatedly triggered Russian countermeasures and eroded arms control.
As I read the contributions in Atomic Backfires, the prescription appears to be threefold. First, while no one should take Russian nuclear threats lightly, there is a need for better, empirically grounded analysis of Russian nuclear intentions. Second, deterrence measures aimed at Russia must be firm but not needlessly provocative. And most importantly, there is an urgent need to revive cooperative arms control and risk reduction efforts between the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals––Washington and Moscow.
How can the United States and its allies design more effective future arms control agreements with Russia, China, and others?
If there’s one big lesson from Atomic Backfires in this domain, it is that better arms control is as much about political design as technical detail. U.S. policymakers should bear that in mind as they look toward a post-New START world, and so should scholars of nuclear politics––many of whom are just beginning to focus their attention on arms control.
To begin, James Cameron shows what can happen when negotiators seek strategic advantage in treaty design. Capping launchers but leaving multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) unconstrained made the Interim Agreement of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) easier to negotiate for the U.S. side. But it spurred arms racing and fears of first-strike advantages that contributed to the political backlash against SALT II. Modern arms control with Russia, China, and others ought to first focus on the capabilities that are most dangerous for nuclear crisis stability and command and control. This should be the case even when those are the hardest issues at the table to resolve, as easy “wins” can carry future costs.
At the same time, Rebecca Davis Gibbons reminds readers not to ignore the domestic bargains that often underlie arms control treaties. Indeed, U.S. presidents have repeatedly “paid” for ratification with side deals on modernization and new systems at home, thereby placating arms control hawks. These dynamics can produce larger, more expensive arsenals and make future arms control much more difficult to achieve.
Finally, my own chapter in the book points to another constraint. Emerging technologies and nuclear alliances are expanding the club of states whose participation may be required for arms control to be effective. Multilateral agreements work best when the right states––those with the most significant capabilities––are at the table, lest they undermine treaties from the outside. But requiring such players to take part in treaties can produce overly demanding entry-into-force rules. That is why an ambitious agreement like the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) can sadly become stuck in limbo for decades.
Ultimately, the Atomic Backfires path forward for successful arms control would probably consider how to restrict the most destabilizing systems while designing treaties that are ambitious enough to matter but simple enough to achieve entry into force. Treaties that “kick the can down the road” can leave nuclear competition largely unchecked, whereas treaties that never enter into force represent missed global security opportunities to limit the existential risks presented by the bomb.
Finally, if you had to identify the “most dangerous” atomic backfire risk facing the world right now, what would it be?
If I had to pick just one, the most dangerous backfire risk in today’s security environment is the normalization of trilateral nuclear great power competition among the United States, Russia, and China. Nuclear signaling, force modernization, and talk of limited nuclear use are increasingly being treated as routine features of rivalry, not as extraordinary measures of last resort. And that is harrowing to think about. Atomic Backfires is ultimately about resisting this pull by making more enlightened political choices that weigh long-term nuclear risks and hidden costs, even when familiar tools seem to deliver short-term successes on the cheap.
That kind of normalization I referred to creates a more deadly environment for humanity because it becomes an enabling landscape for every other atomic backfire risk addressed in the book. It encourages more provocative crisis signaling, generates greater faith in coercive sanctions and pressure campaigns, inspires more investment in arms control as another arena of geopolitical competition, and intensifies alliance anxieties. These behaviors all complicate efforts to reduce nuclear dangers and may even make risk reduction initiatives look naïve. In that world, “atomic backfires” are not exceptions; they become the default setting of nuclear politics.
