the threat can be identified by both models, there will still be two separate analyses because of subtle differences in the two. The major reason to be concerned with nuclear proliferation in the new Soviet Republics is the chance, even if small, that a nuclear incident could occur either intentionally or by accident. When this threat is examined with a Modern Realism model, the emerging problems in a developing security dilemma become apparent. There are two main reasons to be concerned about security dilemmas. First, they are powerful stimulants for states to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and so they make preventing proliferation harder. Second, they cause states to arm themselves beyond their security needs. A security dilemma arises when a state, while arming itself for purely defensive reasons, unintentionally makes its neighbors fell more insecure. The neighboring states in response increase their own arsenals, believing they have redressed a serious imbalance in forces. The original state, seeing this activity by its neighbors, and believing that nothing it did caused its neighbors to arm, infers that its neighbors must have offensive intentions (or else they wouldn't have armed) and consequently increases its own arsenal in response. This is called a spiral of mutual armament and leads to increasing levels of suspicion about each other's intentions. The security dilemma has particular implications for the non-Russian republics. Given their size relative to Russia, and their consequent lack of confidence in their ability to defend themselves with conventional weapons, security dilemmas are more likely to make them want to acquire nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. This scenario has a consequence that I have already referred to earlier in the paper: that there would be a greater autonomous risk of nuclear war, whether by intentional means or not. In addition, modern realists see the economic distre...
