Abstract: Members of the nonproliferation regime give technical assistance to countries contemplating nuclear weapons. This is puzzling: it facilitates the behavior donors wish to stop, and other forms of concessions do not have this drawback. Why do it? I develop a model of uncertainty, bargaining, and nuclear proliferation. In it, assistance hastens acquisition time but also generates a signal about the recipient’s domestic nuclear capacity. This allows donor states to better calibrate other concessions to the recipient. In equilibrium, donor states sometimes find the information worth sacrificing bargaining leverage. However, despite providing information, assistance can cause proliferation if donors believe the recipient is competent but observe a false signal indicating incompetence. Strategic assistance from international institutions does not suffer from this problem, though a selection effect can make observational data appear to suggest otherwise.
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- Arms Negotiations, War Exhaustion, and the Credibility of Preventive War
- Bad-Faith Cooperation
- Bargaining over the Bomb: The Successes and Failures of Nuclear Negotiations
- Bribery and Fair Representation on the United Nations Security Council
- Cornering the Market: Optimal Governmental Responses to Competitive Political Violence
- Credible Commitment in Covert Affairs
- Deterring Intervention: The Civil Origins of Nuclear Proliferation
- Do Nonproliferation Agreements Constrain?
- Doubling Down: The Dangers of Disclosing Secret Actions
- Getting a Hand By Cutting Them Off: How Uncertainty over Political Corruption Affects Violence
- High Valuations, Uncertainty, and War
- How Fast and How Expensive? Uncertainty and Incentives in Nuclear Negotiations
- How Uncertainty About Judicial Nominees Can Distort the Confirmation Process
- Introducing 𝜈-CLEAR: A Latent Variable Approach to Measuring Nuclear Proficiency
- Militarized Disputes, Uncertainty, and Leader Tenure
- Multi-Method Research: A Case for Formal Theory
- Only Here to Help? Bargaining and the Perverse Incentives of International Institutions
- Outbidding as Deterrence: Endogenous Demands in the Shadow of Group Competition
- Policy Bargaining and Militarized Conflict
- Power to the People: Credible Communication in the Quotidian Use of Authoritarian Institutions
- Power Transfers, Military Uncertainty, and War
- Rational Overreaction to Terrorism
- Sanctions, Uncertainty, and Leader Tenure
- Slow to Learn: Bargaining, Uncertainty, and the Calculus of Conquest
- Stall Wars: When Do States Fight to Hold onto the Status Quo?
- Terrorism, Signaling, and Delegation
- The Uncertainty Tradeoff: Does Interdependence Decrease War?
- Why Give Nuclear Assistance to Would-Be Proliferators?
- You Get What You Give: A Model of Nuclear Reversal
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