The Ideology of Nuclear Order

ABSTRACT

The “global nuclear order” is commonly understood as an evolving set of institutions, norms, and practices governing the development and use of nuclear technology worldwide. The pursuit of nuclear order is often portrayed as a “pragmatic” or “practical” compromise between unconstrained nuclear anarchy, on the one hand, and prompt steps toward nuclear disarmament, on the other. In this article, I use the tools of ideology critique to conceptualize the discourse and practices of nuclear order as a political ideology that has entrenched extant power structures and constrained the space for political action. While the ideology is formally wedded to the pursuit of the “sublime object” of a world without nuclear weapons, its underlying assumptions imply that the grand vision of abolition can never be realized in practice. To overcome the status quo, agents of change must subvert the ideology and re-politicize the nonproliferation and disarmament regime.

Acknowledgments

For feedback and help, I am grateful to Benoît Pelopidas, Maitreyee Kishor, Sanne Vershuren, Marianne Egeland, Nari Shelekpayev, and the journal’s anonymous reviewers.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Australia, UNGA First Committee, UN doc. A/C.1/70/PV.4. New York (October 12, 2015.

² France, UNGA First Committee, UN doc. A/C.1/69/PV.3. New York (October 8, 2015).

³ United States, UNGA First Committee, UN doc. A/C.1/70/PV.4. New York (October 12, 2015).

⁴ Russia, UNGA First Committee, UN doc. A/C.1/70/PV.26. New York (November 6, 2015).

⁵ China, UNGA First Committee. UN doc. A/C.1/70/PV.18. New York (October 27, 2015).

⁶ Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991), pp. 4, 58.

⁷ Louis Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism, G.M. Goshgarian, trans. (London: Verso, 2014), p. 181.

⁸ Benoît Pelopidas, “The Birth of Nuclear Eternity,” forthcoming in Futures, eds. Sandra Kemp and Jenny Andersson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

⁹ See Benoît Pelopidas, “The Unbearable Lightness of Luck,” European Journal of International Security 2:2 (2017), pp. 240–62.

¹⁰ Carina Meyn, “Realism for Nuclear-Policy Wonks,” Nonproliferation Review 25:1–2 (2018), pp. 111–28.

¹¹ E.g. Nick Ritchie, “A Hegemonic Nuclear Order,” Contemporary Security Policy 40:4 (2019), pp. 409–34; William Chaloupka, Knowing Nukes (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), p. 1; E. P. Thompson, “Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilization,” New Left Review 121 (1982), pp. 3–31.

¹² See e.g. Joachim Krause, “Enlightenment and Nuclear Order,” International Affairs 83:3 (2007), p. 485.

¹³ Hugh Gusterson, “Nuclear Weapons and the Other in the Western Imagination,” Cultural Anthropology 14:1 (1999), pp. 111–43; Anne Harrington de Santana, “Nuclear Weapons as the Currency of Power,” Nonproliferation Review 16:3 (2009), pp. 325–45; Shampa Biswas, Nuclear Desire (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), pp. 117, 124–25.

¹⁴ Eagleton, Ideology, 152.

¹⁵ Eagleton, Ideology, pp. 1–7.

¹⁶ Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism, p. 265.

¹⁷ Daniel Deudney, “The Great Debate,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Security, eds. Alexandra Gheciu and William C. Wohlforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 334–49; Grégoire Mallard, Fallout: Nuclear Diplomacy in an Age of Global Fracture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

¹⁸ Emanuel Adler, “The Emergence of Cooperation,” International Organization 46:1 (1992), pp. 101–45; Pelopidas, “The Birth of Nuclear Eternity.”

¹⁹ William Walker, A Perpetual Menace (London: Routledge, 2012); Michal Smetana, Nuclear Deviance (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), p. 93; Nicola Horsburgh, China and Global Nuclear Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 59.

²⁰ Rens van Munster and Casper Sylvest, Nuclear Realism (Abindgon: Routledge, 2016).

²¹ Pelopidas, “The Unbearable Lightness of Luck”; Patricia Lewis et al., Too Close for Comfort (London: Chatham House, 2014).

²² William Walker, “Weapons of Mass Destruction and International Order to 1990,” Adelphi Papers 44:370 (2004), p. 30.

²³ Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin, and Laura Roselle, Strategic Narratives (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 176.

²⁴ See e.g. Kutchesfahani, Global Nuclear Order; Ursula Jasper, “Dysfunctional, but Stable – a Bourdieuian Reading of the Global Nuclear Order,” Critical Studies on Security 4:1 (2016), pp. 42–56; Tanya Ogilvie-White, “Great Power Responsibility and Nuclear Order,” The Nonproliferation Review 20:1 (2013), pp. 173–77.

²⁵ William Walker, “Nuclear Order and Disorder,” International Affairs 76:4 (2000), p. 708.

²⁶ See Gabrielle Hecht, Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012); Ritu Mathur, “Sly Civility and the Paradox of Equality/Inequality in the Nuclear Order,” Critical Studies on Security 4:1 (2016), pp. 57–72.

²⁷ See e.g. Thomas A. Halsted, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 31:5 (1975), p. 11; Lincoln P. Bloomfield, “Nuclear Spread and World Order,” Foreign Affairs 53:4 (1975), pp. 743–55; Hedley Bull, “Rethinking Non-Proliferation,” International Affairs 51:2 (1975), p. 177; William Epstein, The Last Chance (London: The Free Press, 1976), p. 256.

²⁸ Van Munster and Sylvest, Nuclear Realism; Campbell Craig, Glimmer of a New Leviathan (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003).

²⁹ See e.g. George Perkovich and James M. Acton, “Abolishing Nuclear Weapons,” Adelphi Papers 48:396 (2008), p. 25.

³⁰ Pelopidas, “The Birth of Nuclear Eternity.”

³¹ Joshua Coupe et al., “Nuclear Winter Responses to Nuclear War Between the United States and Russia,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 124:15 (2019), pp. 8522–43.

³² Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists (May 2019), available online at: https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/.

³³ Walker, “Nuclear Order and Disorder,” p. 703.

³⁴ Walker, A Perpetual Menace, p. 12.

³⁵ Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism, p. 262; Eagleton, Ideology, p. 152.

³⁶ William Walker, “Nuclear Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment,” International Affairs 83:3 (2007), pp. 431–53.

³⁷ A sixth op-ed, by three of the “four horsemen”, was published in 2019.

³⁸ Philip Taubman, The Partnership (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2012), p. 422.

³⁹ See e.g. Eben Harrell, “The Four Horsemen of the Nuclear Apocalypse,” Time (May 20, 2011), available online at: https://science.time.com/2011/03/10/the-four-horsemen-of-the-nuclear-apocolypse/; J. Peter Scoblic, “Disarmament Redux,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 64:1 (2008), pp. 34–39.

⁴⁰ George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal (January 4, 2007), available online at: https://media.nti.org/pdfs/NSP_op-eds_final_.pdf.

⁴¹ George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World,” Wall Street Journal (January 16, 2008), available online at: https://media.nti.org/pdfs/NSP_op-eds_final_.pdf.

⁴² Shultz et al., “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”; Shultz et al., “Toward a Nuclear-Free World”; George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “How to Protect Our Nuclear Deterrent,” Wall Street Journal (January 20, 2010), available online at: https://media.nti.org/pdfs/NSP_op-eds_final_.pdf; George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation,” Wall Street Journal (March 7, 2011), available online at: https://media.nti.org/pdfs/NSP_op-eds_final_.pdf; George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Risks,” Wall Street Journal (March 5, 2013), available online at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324338604578325912939001772.

⁴³ Martin Senn and Christoph Elhardt, “Bourdieu and the Bomb,” European Journal of International Relations 20:2 (2014), p. 316; Taubman, The Partnership.

⁴⁴ Shultz et al., “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.”

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Shultz et al., “How to Protect Our Nuclear Deterrent.”

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Shultz et al., “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation.”

⁴⁹ Cf. Gusterson, “Nuclear Weapons and the Other,” p. 132.

⁵⁰ Shultz et al., “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.”

⁵¹ See Columba Peoples, “Life in the Nuclear Age,” Journal of International Political Theory 15:3 (2019), pp. 279–96.

⁵² Shultz et al., “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.”

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Ibid.; Shultz et al., “Toward a Nuclear-Free World”; Shultz et al., “Next Steps.”

⁵⁶ Walker, “Nuclear Order and Disorder,” p. 704.

⁵⁷ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Press Release – It Is Now 100 Seconds to Midnight” (January 23, 2020), available online at: https://thebulletin.org/2020/01/press-release-it-is-now-100-seconds-to-midnight/.

⁵⁸ Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The Stockholm Ministerial Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament and the Non-Porliferation Treaty” (June 11, 2019), available online at: https://www.government.se/statements/2019/06/the-stockholm-ministerial-meeting-on-nuclear-disarmament-and-the-nonproliferation-treaty/.

⁵⁹ The Elders, “Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament” (2019), available online at: https://theelders.org/programmes/nuclear-nonproliferation-and-disarmament.

⁶⁰ Munich Security Conference. “The Great Puzzle” (2019), available online at: https://www.securityconference.de/en/publications/munich-security-report/.

⁶¹ UK House of Lords, “Rising Nuclear Risk, Disarmament and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” London (April 24, 2019).

⁶² United Nations, Securing Our Common Future (New York, NY: Office for Disarmament Affairs, 2018).

⁶³ US Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review (Arlington, VA: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2018).

⁶⁴ Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1979), p. 194.

⁶⁵ Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 2008), p. 192.

⁶⁶ Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Barack Obama in Prague as Delivered,” Prague (April 5, 2009), available online at: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered.

⁶⁷ Reuters, “Trump Says ‘Ultimate Deal’ With Putin Would Be World Without Nuclear Weapons” (July 12, 2018), available online at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-summit-trump-nuclear/trump-says-ultimate-deal-with-putin-would-be-world-without-nuclear-weapons-idUSKBN1K21ME; Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Abe of Japan,”Marcha-Lago (April 18, 2018), available online at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-prime-minister-abe-japan-joint-press-conference/.

⁶⁸ Fumio Kishida, “Press Conference by Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Tokyo (July 11, 2017), available online at: https://www.mofa.go.jp/press/kaiken/kaiken3e_000025.html. Note the use of scare quotes.

⁶⁹ See Mohammed I. Shaker, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Vol. 2 (London: Oceana, 1980), p. 556.

⁷⁰ Anne Harrington de Santana, “The Strategy of Non-Proliferation,” Millennium 40:1 (2011), pp. 3–19.

⁷¹ Jan Ruzicka, “Behind the Veil of Good Intentions,” International Politics 55:3–4 (2018), pp. 369–85.

⁷² See e.g. Benjamin Zala, “Can the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Outrun its Double Standard Forever?” Sustainable Security (May 12, 2013), available online at: https://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk.

⁷³ Epstein, The Last Chance, p. 118.

⁷⁴ See, for example, Caroline Fehl, “Understanding the Puzzle of Unequal Recognition,” in Recognition in International Relations, eds. Christopher Daase et al. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 107.

⁷⁵ Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, trans. M. Eldred (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), pp. 5–6.

⁷⁶ Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, p. 6. See also Harrington de Santana, “Nuclear Weapons as the Currency of Power.”

⁷⁷ Benoît Pelopidas, “A Bet Portrayed as a Certainty,” in The War That Must Never Be Fought, eds. George. P. Schultz and James E. Goodby (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2015), p. 53.

⁷⁸ Pelopidas, “The Birth of Nuclear Eternity.”

⁷⁹ Richard Butler, Fatal Choice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), p. 146.

⁸⁰ Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, p. 59.

⁸¹ See e.g. United Kingdom, UNGA First Committee, UN doc. A/C.1/69/PV.12. New York (October 20, 2014); Adil Sultan, Universalizing Nuclear Nonproliferation Norms (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 24.

⁸² Biswas, Nuclear Desire, p. 114.

⁸³ Benoît Pelopidas, “The Oracles of Proliferation,” Nonproliferation Review 18:1 (2011), pp. 297–314.

⁸⁴ Ibid.

⁸⁵ See e.g. Shultz et al., “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.”

⁸⁶ Shultz et al., “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation.”

⁸⁷ Pelopidas, “The Oracles,” p. 307.

⁸⁸ Ibid.

⁸⁹ Effeminate, subaltern, and racialized “others” are implicitly assumed to lack the capacity for responsibility and restraint. See Ray Acheson, “Impacts of the Nuclear Ban,” Global Change, Peace & Security 30:2 (2018), p. 247; Gusterson, “Nuclear Weapons and the Other.” Race has also been argued to have played a role in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. See Sean L. Malloy, “When You Have to Deal with a Beast,” in The Age of Hiroshima, eds. Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020). Malloy finds that the role of race in nuclear politics has been underexplored in part due to a more general lack of attention to the ideological underpinnings of nuclear policy.

⁹⁰ Slavoj Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies (London: Verso, 2008), pp. 97–98.

⁹¹ Pelopidas, “The Oracles.”

⁹² See e.g. United Nations, A More Secure World (New York, NY: Department of Public Information, 2004), p. 40.

⁹³ See Benoît Pelopidas, “Renunciation, Reversal and Restraint,” in Routledge Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation and Policy, eds. Joseph Pilat and Nathan E. Busch (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 337–47.

⁹⁴ Pelopidas, “A Bet Portrayed as a Certainty.”

⁹⁵ Harrington de Santana, “Nuclear Weapons as the Currency of Power,” p. 327.

⁹⁶ Dean Acheson, “The Obstacles to Partnership with Europe,” Engineering and Science 26:6 (1963), pp. 11–15.

⁹⁷ Shultz et al., “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation.”

⁹⁸ Susan B. Martin, “The Continuing Value of Nuclear Weapons,” Contemporary Security Policy 34:1 (2013), p. 174.

⁹⁹ Thérèse Delpech, Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century (Santa Monica, CL: RAND, 2012), p. 56.

¹⁰⁰ Noland D. McCaskill, “UN Ambassador Haley Opposes International Ban on Nukes,” Politico (March 27, 2017), available online at: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/nikki-haley-united-nations-nuclear-weapons-ban-236544.

¹⁰¹ See e.g. Richard N. Lebow, “Deterrence: Then and Now,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28:5 (2005), pp. 765–73.

¹⁰² Harrington de Santana, “Nuclear Weapons as the Currency of Power”; Pelopidas, “A Bet Portrayed as a Certainty”; Ward Wilson, “The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence,” Nonproliferation Review 15:3 (2008), pp. 421–39.

¹⁰³ David Mutimer, “From Arms Control to Denuclearization,” Contemporary Security Policy 32:1 (2011), p. 60.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid., 72. Emphasis added.

¹⁰⁵ Harrington de Santana, “Nuclear Weapons as the Currency of Power.”

¹⁰⁶ Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism.

¹⁰⁷ John Mueller, Atomic Obsession (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

¹⁰⁸ See e.g. Kate Dewes and Robert Green, “The World Court Project,” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 7:1 (1999), p. 66.

¹⁰⁹ Etienne de La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (Cambridge: Hackett, 2012 [1576]).

¹¹⁰ See Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, “Power in International Politics,” International Organization 59:1 (2005), pp. 39–75.

¹¹¹ Campbell Craig and JanuaryRuzicka, “The Nonproliferation Complex,” Ethics and International Affairs 27:3 (2013), pp. 329–48.

¹¹² Craig and Ruzicka, “The Nonproliferation Complex,” p. 329.

¹¹³ See e.g. Pelopidas, “The Oracles”; Neil Cooper, “Putting Disarmament Back in the Frame,” Review of International Studies 32:2 (2006), pp. 353–76.

¹¹⁴ Kjølv Egeland and Benoît Pelopidas, “European Nuclear Weapons? Zombie Debates and Nuclear Realities,” European Security (early view, 2020).

¹¹⁵ Edward Schiappa, “The Rhetoric of Nukespeak,” Communication Monographs 56:3 (1989), pp. 253–72.

¹¹⁶ See e.g. Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” Signs 12:4 (1987), pp. 687–718; Claire Duncanson and Catherine Eschle, “Gender and the Nuclear Weapons State,” New Political Science 30:4 (2008), pp. 545–63.

¹¹⁷ See e.g. Tilman A. Ruff, “The Humanitarian Impact and Implications of Nuclear Test Explosions in the Pacific Region,” International Review of the Red Cross 97:899 (2015), pp. 807–8.

¹¹⁸ Biswas, Nuclear Desire, Chapter 2.

¹¹⁹ Benoît Pelopidas, “Nuclear Weapons Scholarship as a case of Self-Censorship in Security Studies,” Journal of Global Security Studies 1:4 (2016), pp. 326–36.

¹²⁰ Meyn, “Realism for Nuclear-Policy Wonks,” pp. 115–16.

¹²¹ The statistic includes all news and opinion pieces but excludes obituaries.

¹²² Richard Ned Lebow, “Counterfactuals and Security Studies,” Security Studies 24:3 (2015), p. 406.

¹²³ Ken Booth, Theory of World Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 397–98.

¹²⁴ See Iver Neumann, “Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn,” Millennium 31:3 (2002), pp. 627–51.

¹²⁵ Craig and Ruzicka, “The Nonproliferation Complex,” p. 344.

¹²⁶ Ibid.

¹²⁷ Franklin Miller, George Robertson, and Kori Schake, “Germany Opens Pandora’s Box,” Center for European Reform (February 2020), p. 2.

¹²⁸ David Yost, “US Extended Deterrence in NATO and North-East Asia,” in Perspectives on Extended Deterrence, ed. Bruno Tertrais (Paris: Fondation pour la recherche strategique, 2010), p. 20.

¹²⁹ Ritchie, “A Hegemonic Nuclear Order,” p. 410.

¹³⁰ See Kjølv Egeland, “Banning the Bomb: Inconsequential Posturing or Meaningful Stigmatization?” Global Governance 18:1 (2018), pp. 11–20.

¹³¹ See e.g. Germany, Open-Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, Geneva (February 24, 2016), available online at: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/OEWG/2016/Statements/25Feb_Germany.pdf.

¹³² Jasper, “Dysfunctional, but Stable,” p. 51.

¹³³ Ruzicka, “Behind the Veil.”

¹³⁴ Cf. Giddens, Central Problems, pp. 193–96.

¹³⁵ Slavoj Žižek, The Universal Exception (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), p. xvi.

¹³⁶ Slavoj Žižek, “What Can’t You Say?,” New Statesman (May 28, 2015), available online at: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/what-can-t-you-say-stephen-fry-slavoj-i-ek-elif-shafak-and-more-say-unsayable.

¹³⁷ Walker, “Nuclear Order and Disorder,” p. 722.

¹³⁸ Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society. 3rd edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p. 196.

¹³⁹ Ibid.

¹⁴⁰ Gro Nystuen and Stein-Ivar L. Eide, “Wanted: Resolute Normative Leadership,” European Leadership Network (September 5, 2013), available online at: https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/wanted-resolute-normative-leadership/.

¹⁴¹ Laura Considine, “The ‘Standardization of Catastrophe’,” European Journal of International Relations 23:3 (2017), pp. 681–702. Some analysts have identified the TPNW as an expression of the same trend as the “four horsemen” and Global Zero initiative. My analysis suggests that the latter two are expressions of the ideology of nuclear order while the former is an overt challenge to it. Cf e.g. Peoples, “Redemption and Nutopia,” p. 222.

¹⁴² Žižek, Plague of Fantasies, p. 221.

¹⁴³ Russia, UNGA First Committee. UN doc. A/C.1/71/PV.22. New York (October 27, 2016).

¹⁴⁴ Cf. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52:4 (1997), pp. 887–917.

¹⁴⁵ Laura Considine, “Contests of Legitimacy and Value,” International Affairs 95:5 (2019), p. 1092.

¹⁴⁶ Žižek, “What Can’t You Say?”.

¹⁴⁷ Tony Blair, House of Commons – Hansard (February 21, 2007), column 260.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 841764 (SNNO), Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.