Do nascent WMD arsenals deter?
President George W. Bush’s labeling of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as representing an “axis of evil” in late January 2002 seemed unwarranted and even bizarre to many Americans given that there is little evidence tying these regimes to the events of September 11. The article below offers a theoretically significant explanation for this major development. It hypothesizes that radically asymmetric weapons of mass destruction (WMD) rivalries are inherently unstable. The instability of America’s relations with the so-called rogue states has been further underlined in recent articulations of American strategy, for example in the “National Security Strategy,” published in September 2002. There, it is observed, “Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking WMD and…
