The Bomb as God: a metaphor that impedes nuclear disarmament

Abstract“Nuclear embeddedness” refers to a state’s persistent failure to reconsider its possession of a nuclear arsenal. The sedimentation of the metaphor of the Bomb as God in a state’s political culture consolidates “nuclear embeddedness.” Because metaphorizing something as God puts it beyond even boundedly rational calculation, the metaphor of the Bomb as God effectively blocks a state from seeing its way clear to nuclear renunciation. The article probes the plausibility of this hypothesis with historical analyses of the nuclear policies of the U.S., India, Pakistan, and North Korea, and with case studies of three high-level American, British, and French nuclear officials who ultimately turned against the Bomb. AcknowledgmentsThanks to Fiona Adamson, Lynn Eden, Robert English, Ron Hassner, Rieko Kage, Joshua Kertzer, Nancy Kokaz, Ronald Krebs, Richard Ned Lebow, Reid Pauly, Benoît Pelopidas, M. V. Ramana, Brian Rathbun, William Walker, Anna Weichselbraun, David Welch, participants at a 2019 conference at the Princeton Program on Science and Global Security, the 2020 Peace Science Society annual conference, an online seminar organized by Michal Smetana and Michal Onderco in 2021, and the Security Studies editors and reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Earlier talks at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, the Duke University political science department, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs were also valuable experiences as I was trying to feel my way forward on the topic of nuclear disarmament. The USC Center for International Studies provided generous funding support.Notes1 William Walker, “On Nuclear Embeddedness and (Ir)Reversibility” (working paper, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University, February 2020): 7. 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Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, CA, 17 February 2011. [https://www.wagingpeace.org/breaking-free-from-nuclear-deterrence/]158 Green, Security without Nuclear Deterrence, 30-31.159 Green, “Breaking Free from Nuclear Deterrence.”160 Author interview with Green, 22 July 2022.161 Green and Dewes, A Thorn in Their Side, 193.162 Serge Regourd and André Cabanis, Paul Quilès ou comment rester socialiste: de Mitterrand à…Jaurès (Paris : Editions du Cherche-Midi, 2015), 93.163 Regourd and Cabanis, Paul Quilès ou comment rester socialiste, 151.164 Regourd and Cabanis, Paul Quilès ou comment rester socialiste, 156.165 Regourd and Cabanis, Paul Quilès ou comment rester socialiste, 164.166 Paul Quilès, Nucléaire, un mensonge français (Paris : Editions Charles-Léopold Mayer, 2012); Paul Quilès, Bernard Norlain, and Jean-Marie Collin, Arrêtez la bombe! (Paris : Editions du Cherche-Midi, 2015); Paul Quilès and Jean-Marie Collin, L’Illusion nucléaire (Paris : Editions Charles-Léopold Mayer, 2018).167 Paul Quilès interviewed on Sud Radio, March 2013. [https://soundcloud.com/quiles-paul/interview-sud-radio-paul]. Starts at 2:58. Thanks to Chloé Bernadaux for transcription and translation assistance.168 Nick O’Donovan, “Causes and Consequences: Responsibility in the Political Thought of Max Weber,” Polity 43, no. 1 (January 2011): 84-105.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJacques E. C. HymansJacques E. C. Hymans is an associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California.