Effects of nuclear technology export competition on nuclear nonproliferation

Abstract

While nuclear suppliers compete in markets, they simultaneously partner in other fields. This produces a delicate relationship between civilian nuclear programs and nuclear weapon proliferation. This study explores how export competition affects suppliers’ conditions of supply related to nuclear nonproliferation. We investigated three export cases (India, North Korea, and South Korea) and identified four effects that competition has on the conditions of supply related to nonproliferation. First, under highly competitive conditions, suppliers might hesitate to enforce the conditions of supply to avoid negotiation conflicts with recipients. Second, suppliers focus on politically and economically attractive recipients while mostly ignoring unattractive ones, perhaps allowing proliferation problems to fester out of view in marginal states. Third, suppliers can build consensus on the conditions of supply to avoid being the only party experiencing negotiation conflicts. Fourth, suppliers can constrain others from relaxing the conditions of supply to maintain economic benefits and nonproliferation norms. The first two effects accelerate proliferation while the last two promote nonproliferation. Although the extent of these effects can vary with changes in nonproliferation norms, they can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between nonproliferation and civilian nuclear programs.