Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology

Over the last seven decades, some states successfully leveraged the threat of acquiring atomic weapons to compel concessions from superpowers. For many others, however, this coercive gambit failed to work. When does nuclear latency—the technical capacity to build the bomb—enable states to pursue effective coercion?

In Leveraging Latency, Tristan A. Volpe argues that having greater capacity to build weaponry doesn't translate to greater coercive advantage. Volpe finds that there is a trade-of...