A Critique of the Technical Approach

Abstract

There are two approaches to the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation: the technical-economic and the political. The former focuses on the ‘dis-economies’ of nuclear power and of producing nuclear weapons as a spin-off from commercial nuclear power, and on depriving the near-nuclear states of the technology, technical means, and materiel needed to produce nuclear weapons, as the way to control proliferation. This paper refutes the technical approach as a complete solution and then develops a possible political approach which incorporates technical constraints as a partial solution. To this end, it seeks to answer the following series of questions: Do we really have to worry about nuclear weapons proliferation? Will technical strategies suggested for non-proliferation work? Why or why not? What strategies might be effective?