International Stability Through Nuclear Proliferation: Rethinking The Realist Nuclear Peace Proposition

摘要

The collapse of the Soviet Union, not only marked the end of the Cold War, but also resulted in demise of the Nuclear Peace Proposition. With the absence of one of its key prerequisites, namely bipolar world order, the once prevalent in the academic circles structural realist idea that nuclear deterrence successfully promotes international order, fell into oblivion. Despite of repeated attempts by structural realists to revive the notion that nuclear proliferation plays a crucial role in establishing long-term international peace and stability, both contemporary proponents and critics of deterrence strategies disregard the relevance of the Nuclear Peace Proposition, due to a variety of reasons. This research paper engages the ongoing scholarly debate on the applicability of the theory of nuclear peace to the present-day international sphere and seeks to add to the contested topic by proposing the Nuclear Peace Proposition to be disassociated from bipolarity and instead analyzed through the prism of a newly developed model of power allocation, defined as multi-level polarity. Built upon the classical model of multipolarity, multi-level polarity transcends the parochial outlook on proliferation that exclusively revolves around globalism and envisions two distinct layers of nuclear dissemination. It is on the basis of this innovative approach towards the structure of the present-day international sphere that the capacity of the theory of nuclear peace to decrease interstate conflict is both qualitatively and quantitatively investigated.