Benjamin Valentino on Public Support for the Use of Nuclear Weapons in the US, UK, France, and Israel

by Ben Nathan, MA student in European Union Studies

Earlier this year, the UIUC community welcomed Benjamin Valentino, Professor of Government and Chair of the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. During his visit, he presented on "Public Support for the Use of Nuclear Weapons in the US, UK, France, and Israel." Speaking broadly on the topic, Valentino discussed what nuclear weapons have come to represent in the world. Since their use in WWII, nuclear weapons have seemingly prevented their own use. When two nuclear powers come into conflict with one another, evidently, the knowledge that they both have nuclear capabilities disincentivizes the utilization of those capabilities. To test that notion of the self-disincentivizing mechanism, Valentino and his colleagues conducted a series of surveys that asked participants to share their views on when and how nuclear weapons should be used.

The seemingly taboo nature of nuclear weapons on the world stage should yield results illustrating that survey participants prefer conventional weapons over a nuclear option in any given scenario. Yet, the results showed something unexpected. When all variables are equal and a nuclear strike would yield the same number of casualties as a conventional strike would at the same success rate, nuclear strikes are not preferable to conventional ones. When nuclear strikes are even slightly more effective, however, they are preferable to conventional ones.

Valentino then discussed the views of the American, Israeli, French, and UK citizenries on whether the use of nuclear weapons by their respective governments would be justifiable and if so, in what context. While a plurality of respondents from the US, UK, and France all found that it would never be justified, there was significant support from American, UK, and French participants for using a nuclear strike as a deterrent against a possible attack. Moreover, the Israeli participants supported the use of a nuclear weapon in the context of an actual war to a far greater extent that the other three countries. What all of these surveys amount to, then, is that “support for nuclear weapons is surprisingly high everywhere” and that the notion of nuclear weapons being taboo may not be as accurate as it once was.

Finally, Valentino offered a parting conclusion. The best way to go about preventing a nuclear war in the future is to further stigmatize nuclear weapons. So long as the citizenries of nuclear powers can justify nuclear force, nuclear war remains a distinct possibility.

The recording of Dr. Valentino's talk can be found here.