Atomic Arguments and Counter-Arguments: How Exposure to Conflicting Information Influences American Public Support for the Use of Nuclear Weapons, (International Studies Quarterly 2025) is well on its way to becoming a reference point for scholars studying public attitudes toward nuclear use. Its core innovation, testing how hawkish and dovish arguments influence public opinion when they are presented in direct competition with each other rather than in isolation, has already shaped new work on nuclear attitudes in  Russia, on public support for arms control in NATO countries, and how threat perceptions influence opinions on military technologies.

The article’s influence stems from its central question: how do Americans respond when they encounter conflicting messages about whether the United States should use nuclear weapons in a military conflict? By simulating a realistic debate, the study identifies the conditions under which support for nuclear use strengthens, weakens, or shifts entirely.

The 2025 Study: Testing Arguments in Realistic Information Environments

To mirror how people encounter competing claims in public discourse, the study pairs pro-use and anti-use messages rather than testing each in isolation.

It identifies three factors that determine whether a message shifts public opinion:

• Novelty: Does it offer new information that the respondent has not already considered?
   
• Salience: Does the respondent feel the information is relevant to the scenario?
   
• Resilience: Does it remain persuasive even after counterarguments are presented?

One key finding is that precedent-setting arguments, warnings that U.S. nuclear use could make future nuclear strikes by other states more likely, significantly reduce support for nuclear weapons use. Legal and moral arguments, by comparison, have much smaller effects. By testing messages in this more contested environment, the study provides a more realistic sense of how opinions might evolve during a crisis.

“Our research showed that most messages had only limited effects that were largely washed out by counterarguments. When the public was asked to consider whether the US use of nuclear weapons might set a precedent that would encourage others to use nuclear weapons against America or its allies in the future, the message stuck and continued to decrease support for nuclear use even in the face of counterarguments,” said Ben Valentino.

Beyond its empirical findings, the study also identifies clear directions for future research. Sagan and Valentino note that their results raise questions about how these dynamics play out outside the United States, how exposure to counter-arguments shapes opinion in different political and media environments, and whether elite cues amplify or dampen public responses to competing claims. Many of the studies that followed have taken up these questions directly, extending the article’s framework to new national contexts, policy domains and audiences.

A Decade of Collaboration

The 2025 study builds on more than ten years of collaboration between Sagan and Valentino, now a professor of political science, who was previously Sagan’s undergraduate honors thesis advisee at Stanford. Together, they have worked together to understand how Americans assess the use of nuclear and conventional weapons. The collaboration’s influence is evident in the more than 600 scholarly citations of their joint work, including studies on public opinion, deterrence strategy, and nuclear ethics, across articles they published in 2013, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, and this most recent article in 2025.

Much earlier research on the “nuclear taboo” focused on political leaders and historical cases. Far less was known about how ordinary citizens evaluate nuclear use, and even fewer studies used large-scale survey experiments to test these attitudes directly. Their collaboration emerged in response to this gap, aiming to examine how the public weighs civilian harm, legality, strategic considerations, and moral arguments when evaluating potential nuclear strikes.

Valentino reflected on the collaboration’s origins: “Scott Sagan and I have been working for more than ten years on research trying to understand how the public thinks about the use of nuclear weapons. Our findings have generally been rather disheartening, showing that the public is more willing to use nuclear weapons than many people believed. In this paper we wanted to explore what kinds of information and messaging might cause the public to think differently.”

Shaping the Second Wave of Nuclear Taboo Research

As their findings accumulated, other researchers began to take notice. The International Studies Review later described this emerging body of work as the second wave of nuclear taboo research, a shift from elite-focused historical analyses to survey-experimental methods emphasizing how the public thinks about nuclear weapons.

Rather than rejecting the idea of a nuclear taboo, the second wave asks new questions: How strong is the taboo among ordinary citizens? Under what conditions does it weaken or strengthen? And how do real-world information environments influence public support for nuclear use?

Sagan and Valentino’s research helped define this new direction. Their research found that Americans’ attitudes can shift based on the arguments they encounter in press reports and how conflicting information is presented; insights that informed their 2025 article.

Why it Matters

The study has implications far beyond academic debates. For policymakers, the findings suggest that public support for nuclear use is shaped by the arguments leaders choose to emphasize, and by how opponents counter them. The results also signal that strategic, forward-looking concerns may resonate more strongly with citizens than abstract moral claims.

For scholars, the article pushes nuclear-taboo research into new territory by highlighting the importance of information environments. It offers a framework that other researchers can apply in cross-national studies and in future research on public attitudes toward military force.

Looking Ahead

As Sagan and Valentino reflect on their collaboration, the release of Atomic Arguments and Counter-Arguments marks both a milestone and a new point of departure. It builds on a decade of work that has reshaped how researchers think about nuclear restraint and opens new questions about how the public interprets risks, morality, and global consequences.

After ten years and a major contribution to the second wave of nuclear-taboo research, this latest study represents another significant step in a partnership that continues to influence how scholars engage with this policy debate.