A very nearly final version of the preface and opening chapter of my book Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Proliferation, co-authored with Alexandre Debs and forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2016, is now available here.
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Excellent preface. Enjoyed your short publication on this as well. Was wondering, though, why you don’t consider the technological side to proliferation?
We do incorporate technology in our analysis to some extent. For example, in the conclusion to the book we discuss the role played by surveillance and detection capabilities in our theory, and how the dual-purpose nature of much nuclear technology creates problematic dynamics. But for the bulk of the book we focus on our strategic variables, for two reasons. First, we think that’s where most of the action is in terms of conditioning the odds of proliferation. Second, there is already much good work on the technology side. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for your comment.