Chapter 8 covers the tumultuous events of November 2020 to January 2021 – including the US presidential election and the storming of the US Capitol – arguing that there is a democratic deficit at the heart of nuclear weapons policy. Here, the twin forces of populist authoritarianism and the backsliding of democracy create, as the poet Amanda Gorman eloquently put it in her poem at the inauguration of President Biden, ‘a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it’. This chapter argues that authoritarian conspiracy theories that influence populist movements of the modern era pose a serious threat to the planet, especially in states that have leaders with the sole authority to use nuclear weapons. As the storming of the US Capitol made clear, democratic states such as the United States are not immune to instability and violence striking at the heart of state institutions. Beyond this, the author demonstrates how nuclear weapons undermine democracy itself, and shows that the Third Nuclear Age is wrought with exterminist dangers that threaten the social and political fabric of democracy itself.
The concluding chapter summarises the core arguments of the book and reflects on the dawn of the Third Nuclear Age as well as developments since January 2021. The central argument is that the ills of the Third Nuclear Age have not gone away with the departure of Donald Trump. Instead, as Russia brutally invades Ukraine and Vladimir Putin rattles his nuclear sabre, as India accidentally launches a nuclear-capable missile into Pakistan, as China builds more nuclear missile silos, and as the UK increases the cap on its nuclear warhead stockpile, many of the issues analysed in this book are here to stay. Despite the renewal of nuclear arms control treaties such as New START, alongside the nuclear weapons states’ reaffirmation of the Reagan–Gorbachev principle that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’, the chapter argues that the Third Nuclear Age is still a time of potentially unparalleled catastrophe. The final section of this chapter explores what can be done to challenge and overcome the exterminism of the new nuclear age, and draws together some of the positive developments made during the period of analysis – such as the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in January 2021 – to suggest where we go from here.
Chapter 2 directly follows on from Chapter 1 by introducing recent events from the start of the Trump presidency that led to the dawn of the Third Nuclear Age. It then introduces current research on the new nuclear age, pointing out that the dangers of the new nuclear age have not gone away with the departure of Donald Trump from office, and explaining how research suggests that the Third Nuclear Age is characterised by a multipolar world of competitive nuclear relationships, potential nuclear proliferation, the development of new technologies, the unpredictable change of key concepts and theories such as deterrence, the erosion of norms around the non-use of nuclear weapons, as well as the continued persistence of dangers from earlier nuclear ages. The chapter then demonstrates how a novel approach grounded in critical nuclear studies can provide for a richer insight into the Third Nuclear Age by going beyond the state-centric focus on ‘high politics’ of current research and illuminating how the ‘low politics’ of everyday lived experiences matter. It makes the case for critical nuclear studies by drawing together a range of interdisciplinary scholarship that is attuned to the role of nuclear masculinity, nuclear imperialism, nuclear culture, and nuclear exterminism in order to analyse and address the challenges and harms of the new nuclear age.
Chapter 6 begins with the murder by police of George Floyd in May 2020, whose last words ‘I can’t breathe’ resonated across the world as people took to the streets to protest against police brutality and racism. This chapter argues that even though the police murder of a Black American citizen on the streets of Minneapolis may seem a far cry from the realm of nuclear politics, George Floyd’s death occurred due to the structural racism that permeates and shapes state institutions, global politics more broadly, and much thinking and policy about nuclear weapons. To illustrate this point the author examines the role of racism, colonialism, and orientalism in the Third Nuclear Age, as evidenced in renewed calls for the United States to test a nuclear weapon for the first time in decades on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the American atomic bombing of Japan. In tracing the linkages between the racism that underpinned the testing of nuclear weapons on indigenous lands and the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the racism that led to renewed calls to test nuclear weapons today, the chapter argues that the Third Nuclear Age cannot be understood without an interrogation of colonialism and white supremacy in nuclear politics.
Chapter 3 opens in August of 2019 with the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), which the author argues stands as the pivotal point at which the Third Nuclear Age began. The chapter analyses the significance of arms control and its recent unravelling, but goes beyond a narrow focus on the ‘high politics’ of arms control negotiations and diplomacy to demonstrate how a critical approach reveals how arms control is influenced by, and in turn shapes, broader societal norms. It argues that as the INF Treaty was the first bilateral treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapon from the USA and USSR, it worked to seriously limit exterminism during the time it was implemented. American and Russian steps to develop and deploy INF missiles after the demise of the treaty therefore demonstrate that the dangers of exterminism are once again with us. The text then elaborates on the ‘nuclear taboo’ – the norm around the non-use of nuclear weapons – and illustrates how this norm is being eroded through, for example, two statements made in August 2019: Donald Trump’s exclamation, ‘I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?’ when hurricanes were heading to the US mainland that summer, and Elon Musk’s idea to ‘Nuke Mars!’. Whilst recognising the ridiculous nature of these claims, the author argues that they reveal a worrying tendency for nuclear weapons to be viewed as a silver bullet solution to complex problems, where their existence and use then becomes normalised.
The introduction establishes the context for the book, as well as the central argument: that the world is racing towards unparalleled catastrophe by entering a dangerous Third Nuclear Age that cannot be understood simply by focusing on the realm of the ‘high politics’ of state leaders, techno-strategic developments and military doctrine. Instead, the work of the peace activist and historian E. P. Thompson on the concept of exterminism is introduced in order to demonstrate how an attention to the broader cultural politics and lived experiences of the Third Nuclear Age can help us to understand and address the challenges that now confront us. This chapter highlights how the book builds upon and extends a burgeoning field of research on critical nuclear studies, before providing an outline of the book.
Chapter 7 analyses events between August and October 2020 and begins by discussing the revelation that money given to the Pentagon for face masks and medical equipment was instead funnelled to defence contractors to make jet engine parts and body armour. The author argues that militarism and the entrenchment of the nuclear-military-industrial complex across economics, politics, media, and society serve to make the world less safe. In particular, the chapter focuses on the absurdities of the Pentagon awarding a $13 billion contract to Northrup Grumman to build a new fleet of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Such developments reflect a staggering level of exterminism given that in a bizarre hangover from the Cold War, ICBM silos based across the American Midwest are intended to act as a ‘nuclear sponge’ to draw an enemy attack away from larger American cities. Also central to this chapter is the impact that militarism and nuclear weapons currently have on exacerbating climate change, and the potential climate impact of even a small nuclear war that could annihilate all life on earth By discussing the influence of lobbying, cronyism, and corruption in and beyond the nuclear-military-industrial complex, this chapter draws attention to the political economy and environmental harm that underpins the Third Nuclear Age.
Chapter 5 engages with the COVID-19 pandemic which seemed to many as though we were living in ‘the world of post-apocalypse movies’. This chapter argues that rather than being tangential to nuclear politics, global health crises – such as COVID-19 – are exacerbated by how states prioritise nuclear weapons and military spending as solutions to security threats. The author analyses how the Trump administration’s decision to end a pandemic early warning system, the UK government’s failure to take the findings of a pandemic planning exercise seriously, and the early handling of the COVID-19 pandemic during February–April 2020 demonstrate how poorly prepared states are for security threats and health crises, such as those that would be generated by a nuclear conflict or accident. Moreover, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic reveals how a state-centric, military-focused understanding of security makes the world less, rather than more, safe. Subsequently, the chapter builds upon recent work in critical security studies and argues that by reconceptualising security differently and moving away from the importance of the state as the object to be secured, not only can we better understand and critique the political and ethical dimensions of nuclear weapons, but we can also contribute towards reforming security and addressing the harms that nuclear weapons cause in the Third Nuclear Age.
Chapter 4 covers the period from November 2019 to the end of January 2020. Taking its title from a song released by Sam Fender (Newcastle’s answer to a young Bruce Springsteen) and voted BBC Radio 1’s ‘Hottest Record of the Year’, this chapter argues that the norm around the non-use of nuclear weapons is further eroded by recent steps to develop and deploy new nuclear weapons technologies across the globe. The chapter focuses on the recent deployment of low-yield nuclear weapons as well as new technologies such as hypersonic missiles to show that such technologies present novel risks and dangers by facilitating a new arms race. The author then goes beyond the conventional account of new technology in the new nuclear age by arguing that popular culture is central to shaping how the world comes to know, think, and feel about technological developments and nuclear weapons. By engaging with the rise of doom-laden apocalyptic indie pop music by the likes of Sam Fender and Phoebe Bridgers, as well as media coverage of the UK General Election in December 2019, alongside the American assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, the chapter examines the salience that nuclear weapons are now once again gaining in the public imagination. In doing so the author illustrates how popular culture and the media construct representations of the world that enable certain policies and political actions in the new nuclear age.
Unparalleled catastrophe provides a timely intervention that challenges orthodox thinking around nuclear weapons by mapping out how and why the world is entering a new era of catastrophic threats. After the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, Albert Einstein warned the world that ‘we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe’. This book tells the story of how we are no longer drifting, but racing towards unparalleled catastrophe at breakneck speed. As states modernise and increase their nuclear weapon stockpiles, and develop new weapons systems, and as the global nuclear arms control regime faces pressures like never before, Unparalleled catastrophe provides a chronicle of events, and an analysis of developments that have brought the world into a Third Nuclear Age. To make sense of our contemporary moment, Unparalleled catastrophe puts forward the case for critical nuclear studies, traces the dangers of recent epoch-defining developments, and provides a political intervention into contemporary security debates about nuclear weapons. The book is the first of its kind to document and critically analyse the dawn of the Third Nuclear Age. Drawing on a diverse range of source material – from policy documents, military doctrine and news reports to pop songs and social media memes – Unparalleled catastrophe examines the causes of the Third Nuclear Age and how it manifests in our everyday lives. In doing so, Unparalleled catastrophe explores what has brought us to the brink of catastrophe, and suggests what can be done to avoid it.