ABSTRACT
This chapter examines alternative and hypothetical nuclear "worlds" for insights about the relationship between international stability and nonproliferation, supported by pertinent analysis. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and related agreements, limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile materials and nuclear related technology and know-how, have established a de facto anti-proliferation regime that can count many successes in helping to prevent or to reverse cases of nuclear proliferation. The "holding" model of constrained proliferation is not one that is risk free or invites complacency. The numbers of weapons assigned to each state are permissive of a variety of actual ranges: relative to the assigned target base. The structure for the "folding" world is less precisely stratified than the distribution of power among nuclear armed states in the proliferation-constrained model. Crisis management requires attention to the possibly provocative character of one state's war preparations, relative to the expectations and war plans of others.
