Do Alliance Abandonment and Coercion Increase Support for Nuclear Weapons? An Elite Survey in NATO

Abstract Alliances are central to U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Many scholars suggest that actions which might undermine allies’ faith in or dependence on the United States will in turn increase their interest in nuclear weapons. Yet this prediction has received only limited empirical attention. This research note tests whether U.S. signals of abandonment and efforts to encourage allied burden-sharing using threats of abandonment increase support for nuclear weapons acquisition, using a survey of foreign policy elites from sixteen European NATO members. The findings suggest U.S. threats to abandon allies unless they increase defense spending modestly increase support for nuclear weapons, but not as much as unconditional signals of diminished commitment such as a withdrawal of U.S. troops. The findings suggest that while U.S. signals of abandonment may undermine nonproliferation, there is less evidence that U.S. coercion has the same effect, or that there is a direct tradeoff between burden-sharing and nonproliferation.