When competition becomes contagious: Strategic arms racing spillovers, alliance politics, and the Sino-American nuclear competition
Name
When competition becomes contagious Strategic arms racing spillovers alliance politics and the Sino-American nuclear competition.pdf
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1003.37 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
dd0834e55426ac20dda815533435d30a
Author(s)
Seitz, Samuel M.
Ji, Elliot S.
Date Issued
August 10, 2025
Journal
Journal of Strategic Studies
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
Seitz, S. M., & Ji, E. S. (2025). When competition becomes contagious: Strategic arms racing spillovers, alliance politics, and the Sino-American nuclear competition. Journal of Strategic Studies, 1–23.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The development of new conventional counterforce systems and improved missile defence systems enables non-nuclear states to directly influence the strategic nuclear balance. These dynamics increase the possibility of strategic arms racing spillovers, where arms racing in one dyad yields capabilities that threaten third parties’ arsenals and thus creates a type of security dilemma. It also increases the risk of non-nuclear allies entrapping their nuclear patrons in strategic arms racing. We illustrate this argument via the case of North and South Korea’s arms racing.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Security Studies Program
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2025.2543859
