The Near-Miss Case of Taiwan’s Historical Nuclear Proliferation: Countering Proliferation via Diplomacy, Intelligence, and Verification

Abstract

Taiwan’s covert push during the 1990s toward developing nuclear weapons is an important, but relatively unknown, near-miss case of historical nuclear weapons proliferation that was thwarted by strong diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and international verification. The Taiwan case is relatively unknown and its lessons are unexplored except in a very few published writings, none of which have had access to the collection of documents and materials that ISIS has. This project will contribute to scholarship on Taiwanese history and the dynamics of nuclear proliferation by making public a large body of significant, currently unpublished historical documents and data related to the Taiwan case. The project will investigate the historical case of Taiwan’s efforts at producing nuclear weapons in order to utilize time-sensitive sources to build a thoroughly documented case history for future scholars, as well as to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the motivations and constraints affecting countries’ pursuit of nuclear weapons.