WMD Final Test – Study Guide, Practice Questions & Comprehensive
Exam Review
Nuclear Pessimist - ANS ✔✔This idea believes that it leads to more of a pessimistic evaluation
of the likelihood of nuclear preventative wars. It sheds light on military biases in favor of attacks.
It even mentions how if the economic resources and geographical conditions for survivable
forces exist. As a result, a state will not develop a secure second strike capability organizational
biases. It also can have inflexible routines of the professional military dominate its behavior of
this issue.
Nuclear Optimist - ANS ✔✔Nuclear optimists like Mearsheimer, maintains that "military
calculations alone should suffice to deter the Russians from launching a preventive war. View
that the spread of nuclear weapons will produce stable deterrence is based on a rationalist
assumption that new proliferators' behavior will reflect their interest in avoiding nuclear war.
Nuclear Coercion - ANS ✔✔States may use force for coercion. One state may threaten to harm
another state not to deter it from taking a certain action but to compel one. An example is
Napoleon III threatened to bombard Tripoli if the Turks did not comply with his demands for
Roman Catholic control of the Palestinian Holy Places. The effectiveness of nuclear coercions
depends on the context. The definition of it is the process in which nuclear weapons compel
states to change their own behavior or policies in regards to a particular subject. Compellent
threats are going to be effective if the challenger can credibly threaten to seize the item in
dispute. Also if enacting the threat would entail few costs to the challenger.
Nuclear Deterrence - ANS ✔✔It operates by frightening a state out of attacking, not because of
the difficulty of launching an attack and carrying it home, but because the expected reaction of
the attacked will result in one's own severe punishment. Nuclear weapons can be used as
deterrence. Force can be used for deterrence.
Nuclear Posture - ANS ✔✔It is a country's policies with the regard to using nuclear energy for
security purposes. It changes over time and by context. It refers to capabilities (actual nuclear
forces), employment doctrine (under what conditions they might be used), and command and
control procedures (how they are managed, deployed, and potentially released).
, 3 different types of posture - ANS ✔✔(1) assured retaliation (example India) (2) catalytic
(posture designed to prompt the intervention of a patron, an example is Israel); (3)
asymmetrical escalation (example France).
Catalytic Posture - ANS ✔✔is the strategy that attempts to catalyze superpower intervention on
the state's behalf.
Assured Retaliation - ANS ✔✔is a strategy that threatens certain nuclear retaliation in the event
that a state suffers nuclear attack.
Asymmetric Escalation - ANS ✔✔is a strategy that threatens the first use of nuclear weapons
against conventional attacks
Three factors increase salience of proliferation threat - ANS ✔✔(1) prior violent militarized
conflict; (2) the presence of a highly autocratic proliferator; and (3) divergent foreign policy
interests.
Fuhrmann and Krebs argue that states are likely to attack or consider attacking nuclear facilities
- ANS ✔✔when they are highly threatened by a particular country's acquisition of nuclear
weapons.
How big is the risk of nuclear terrorism? - ANS ✔✔29%
What policy measures would be most effective in reducing that risk of nuclear terrorism? - ANS
✔✔The model strongly suggests that the most promising policy options are based on combining
strengthened counterterrorism policies that reduce the number of groups considering nuclear
violence and their likely effectiveness with an urgent global campaign to secure or remove the
nuclear stockpiles from the world's most vulnerable sites.
Exam Review
Nuclear Pessimist - ANS ✔✔This idea believes that it leads to more of a pessimistic evaluation
of the likelihood of nuclear preventative wars. It sheds light on military biases in favor of attacks.
It even mentions how if the economic resources and geographical conditions for survivable
forces exist. As a result, a state will not develop a secure second strike capability organizational
biases. It also can have inflexible routines of the professional military dominate its behavior of
this issue.
Nuclear Optimist - ANS ✔✔Nuclear optimists like Mearsheimer, maintains that "military
calculations alone should suffice to deter the Russians from launching a preventive war. View
that the spread of nuclear weapons will produce stable deterrence is based on a rationalist
assumption that new proliferators' behavior will reflect their interest in avoiding nuclear war.
Nuclear Coercion - ANS ✔✔States may use force for coercion. One state may threaten to harm
another state not to deter it from taking a certain action but to compel one. An example is
Napoleon III threatened to bombard Tripoli if the Turks did not comply with his demands for
Roman Catholic control of the Palestinian Holy Places. The effectiveness of nuclear coercions
depends on the context. The definition of it is the process in which nuclear weapons compel
states to change their own behavior or policies in regards to a particular subject. Compellent
threats are going to be effective if the challenger can credibly threaten to seize the item in
dispute. Also if enacting the threat would entail few costs to the challenger.
Nuclear Deterrence - ANS ✔✔It operates by frightening a state out of attacking, not because of
the difficulty of launching an attack and carrying it home, but because the expected reaction of
the attacked will result in one's own severe punishment. Nuclear weapons can be used as
deterrence. Force can be used for deterrence.
Nuclear Posture - ANS ✔✔It is a country's policies with the regard to using nuclear energy for
security purposes. It changes over time and by context. It refers to capabilities (actual nuclear
forces), employment doctrine (under what conditions they might be used), and command and
control procedures (how they are managed, deployed, and potentially released).
, 3 different types of posture - ANS ✔✔(1) assured retaliation (example India) (2) catalytic
(posture designed to prompt the intervention of a patron, an example is Israel); (3)
asymmetrical escalation (example France).
Catalytic Posture - ANS ✔✔is the strategy that attempts to catalyze superpower intervention on
the state's behalf.
Assured Retaliation - ANS ✔✔is a strategy that threatens certain nuclear retaliation in the event
that a state suffers nuclear attack.
Asymmetric Escalation - ANS ✔✔is a strategy that threatens the first use of nuclear weapons
against conventional attacks
Three factors increase salience of proliferation threat - ANS ✔✔(1) prior violent militarized
conflict; (2) the presence of a highly autocratic proliferator; and (3) divergent foreign policy
interests.
Fuhrmann and Krebs argue that states are likely to attack or consider attacking nuclear facilities
- ANS ✔✔when they are highly threatened by a particular country's acquisition of nuclear
weapons.
How big is the risk of nuclear terrorism? - ANS ✔✔29%
What policy measures would be most effective in reducing that risk of nuclear terrorism? - ANS
✔✔The model strongly suggests that the most promising policy options are based on combining
strengthened counterterrorism policies that reduce the number of groups considering nuclear
violence and their likely effectiveness with an urgent global campaign to secure or remove the
nuclear stockpiles from the world's most vulnerable sites.
