Revisiting the Dove's Dilemma: - Program on Strategic Stability ...

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Erickson and Way, “Doves <strong>Dilemma</strong>” are very similar using <strong>the</strong> Jo and Gartzke dates. Nor do <strong>the</strong> results depend on <strong>the</strong> particular operationalization of enduring rivalry. 21 In many ways, this is <strong>the</strong> take-home point: countries pursuing nuclear weapons somehow manage to import even more major conventional weapons than one would expect conditional upon characteristics of <strong>the</strong>ir security environment. Yet how <strong>the</strong>y are getting those weapons is also of interest. Are some countries cutting off nuclear aspirants, only to be undercut by o<strong>the</strong>r exporters? To explore <strong>the</strong>se patterns, we turn to dyad-specific models of arms flows. Here, our unit of observation is <strong>the</strong> exporter-importer dyad year. For example, we have distinct data for flows from Italy to Argentina for each year, from Italy to Taiwan, from Italy to South Africa, and so on for each exporter and importer in each year. Table 2 presents results for dyadic models. 22 Columns 1 and 2 pool all exporters toge<strong>the</strong>r. These results show a strong and significant positive effect of nuclear weapons programs on <strong>the</strong> flow of conventional arms: Countries pursing nuclear arms imported on average about 31% more arms from specific exporters. Prior to estimating <strong>the</strong> models reported in Table 2, however, we explored exporter-specific models for all nine major exporters. This produced a surprising result: Eight of <strong>the</strong> nine major arms exporters had a positive coefficient for pursuit of nuclear arms (with six of those significant), and only one country featured a negative coefficient: <strong>the</strong> United States (it was not significant). Differences in export behavior were negligible among eight of <strong>the</strong> nine countries. We thus created a dummy variable for <strong>the</strong> United States as exporter, and interacted that with pursuit of nuclear weapons. This allows for both a USA-specific intercept, and a USA-specific response to nuclear weapons programs. The results of <strong>the</strong>se models are 21 Codings of rivalries do vary substantially. With this in mind, we also used alternative codings by Goertz and Diehl, Thompson, and Hewitt. However, none of <strong>the</strong> results depend upon <strong>the</strong> particular coding of enduring rivalry. 22 Once again, <strong>the</strong>se results are using <strong>the</strong> Singh and Way dates, but do not depend upon <strong>the</strong>m. With <strong>the</strong> Gartzke and Jo dates, we find that countries pursuing nuclear weapons receive 47% more. Moreover, <strong>the</strong> same pattern between pursuit and acquisition appears in <strong>the</strong> dyadic data, and with both sets of dates. 19
Erickson and Way, “Doves <strong>Dilemma</strong>” reported in columns 3 and 4. As <strong>the</strong> results show, all exporters respond roughly <strong>the</strong> same way to <strong>the</strong> pursuit of nuclear weapons, except for <strong>the</strong> United States. On average, according to <strong>the</strong> model in column 1, an exporter-importer dyad features about 33% more arms flows (<strong>the</strong> average figure is higher when we separate out <strong>the</strong> atypical behavior of <strong>the</strong> USA) when <strong>the</strong> importer is pursuing nuclear weapons. However, as <strong>the</strong> model in column 2 shows, for <strong>the</strong> United States <strong>the</strong>re is no discernable increase. In fact, <strong>the</strong> USA-specific coefficient is negative (indicating a roughly 30% drop in arms flows), although not discernable from zero. Our data analysis spans over 40 years – and a lot can change in four decades. The nuclear non-proliferation regime emerged, <strong>the</strong> first Gulf War revealed <strong>the</strong> porousness of <strong>the</strong> NPT regime, <strong>the</strong> ideational climate regarding nuclear weapons changed, and states had plenty of time to learn what works – and what doesn’t. Thus it is very possible that <strong>the</strong> relationship between our variable of interest and <strong>the</strong> outcome of interest changes over time. To explore this possibility, we estimated moving windows versions of both <strong>the</strong> total import and dyadic models. By estimating <strong>the</strong> model sequentially for rolling slices of time, this procedure allows us to see if <strong>the</strong> coefficient on <strong>the</strong> variable of interest changes over time. Starting with <strong>the</strong> models for total imports, Figure 2 reports <strong>the</strong> coefficient on pursuit of nuclear weapons from a moving windows version of <strong>the</strong> model reported in column 1 of Table 1. (note: moving windows results not ready yet; <strong>the</strong>se are an approximation using period dummies). The relationship between <strong>the</strong> pursuit of nuclear weapons and access to conventional arms clearly changes over time. Both before <strong>the</strong> era of <strong>the</strong> non-proliferation regime – roughly from 1969 onwards – and after <strong>the</strong> end of <strong>the</strong> Cold War <strong>the</strong>re is no discernable relationship between pursuit of nuclear arms and total imports of conventional weapons. We cannot reject <strong>the</strong> hypo<strong>the</strong>sis that pursuing nuclear weapons makes no difference for total imports of arms. However during <strong>the</strong> 20
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