This paper explores Russia's sensitive nuclear assistance to Iran in an effort to determine why a supplier state might proliferate against its own apparent security interests. The goal is to help readers understand the supply-side dynamics of nuclear proliferation. Through careful reconstruction of the historical narrative, using open source data, this study tests the plausibility of a "fatalistic calculus" explanation, identified by Stephen Sestanovich as a possible driver for Russia's behavior. According to the hypothesis, Russia has cooperated with Iran as a way both to stay in the good graces of a neighbor that is suspected of developing nuclear weapons and to win short-term influence and profits.;The paper also examines the role of other factors advanced in the existing supply-side literature, such as economic motives identified by physicist and nonproliferation scholar David Albright. The findings show that bureaucratic, economic and fatalistic factors have each played a role in motivating Russia's cooperation with Iran, with their relative importance shifting over time. Fatalism begets a strategy of Russian "minimaxing," in the lexicon of Russia scholar Robert Freedman, wherein Russia attempts to minimize damage to its relationship with the U.S. while maximizing influence in Iran via nuclear cooperation. Fatalism, as actualized by minimaxing, best explains Russia's behavior after former Russian president Vladmir Putin came to power, when the bureaucratic and economic arguments become less cogent.
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