Negotiating the Nuclear Threat: The History of Nuclear Diplomacy

The dual aim of this sabbatical project is 1) to write the political and diplomatic history of nuclear negotiations, and 2) to enhance our understanding about the contemporary nuclear challenges. The creation of nuclear weapons precedes negotiations about nuclear weapons with months only. The first nuclear explosion went off in July 1945, and the initial nuclear negotiation originates from a UN resolution adopted in January 1946. Since this bargaining genesis, nuclear diplomacy has multiplied and produced a large number of important agreements. But after decades of frequent contributions in decreasing the nuclear threat, nuclear diplomacy is currently associated with great difficulties to arrive at broad and durable agreements. The trend applies to all nuclear diplomacy objectives: to control existing nuclear arsenals, to prevent further spread of nuclear weapons, and to nuclear disarmament. This downwards trend in nuclear diplomacy runs in parallel with another development: We are moving away from an extensive period of gradually decreasing numbers of nuclear weapons, towards a phase of increasing numbers of strategic warheads among the nuclear armed states. How did we arrive here? The project addresses three research questions: What are the facilitating conditions that led to durable nuclear agreements in the past? What are the main reasons behind the current nuclear diplomacy stalemate? How can nuclear diplomacy be restored?