Public Opinion and Conventional Uses of Force in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons

• In Event: Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

How do nuclear weapons affect public opinion on the use of conventional force? An explosion of survey research examines public attitudes towards the use of nuclear weapons, but relatively little examines the effect of nuclear weapons on preferences for conventional conflict. This oversight in the survey experimental literature causes it to miss a key debate between two prominent theoretical perspectives in nuclear politics: the stability-instability paradox and the nuclear revolution. According to the former, the possession of a second-strike nuclear capability by a state and its adversary should encourage people to engage in conventional conflict because the irrationality of nuclear escalation makes it safer to use conventional force. The nuclear revolution, on the other hand, holds that the mutual possession of second-strike capabilities should make people more reluctant to use conventional force, since any level of conventional conflict could spiral out of control and end in destruction.

This debate has implications for how the U.S. public will react to China’s nuclear buildup. If the public thinks more along the lines of the stability-instability paradox, then China gaining a second-strike capability should, if anything, increase their willingness to use conventional force against China. If the public thinks more along the lines of the nuclear revolution, then China’s nuclear buildup will make members of the U.S. public more reluctant to use conventional force against China.

To test the implications of these two perspectives for the use of force against China, we develop two survey experiments that focus on a hypothetical conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan. We vary information about the possession of a second-strike capability, and we vary information about China’s declaratory policy. We expect these variables to influence how members of the public perceive the risk of nuclear escalation inherent in the use of conventional force. This should affect their willingness to engage in a conventional war against China over Taiwan. We anticipate our results to inform debates in the scholarship on nuclear politics as well as current debates over the merits of defending Taiwan from a Chinese attack.

Authors

• Tyler Bowen, United States Naval War College

• Michael Goldfien, Naval War College