Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?: Proliferation Models as Concurrent Pressures on a State

Major Curtice applies three theoretical models of nuclear proliferation and argues that they are more accurate when used in conjunction with each other than separately. Nuclear proliferation, Curtice states, occurs when Domestic Politics-Positive and Normative-Positive pressures are greater than their negative counterparts when a state is facing a security threat. By using India as a theoretical model, Major Curtice demonstrates how threats from neighboring countries, as well as internal political perspective shifts, changed the country from championing nuclear disarmament to conducting nuclear tests in just one decade.