Description
In the imaginative worlds of fantasy and science fiction, imaginaries of how societies can be organised are given concrete interpretations that invite us to reflect back on the non-fictional world in which we live. Matters of international security feature frequently. In this paper, I interrogate the prominent presence of the idea of strategic stability – the belief that nuclear weapons stabilise international relations through mutual vulnerability and the threat of retaliation – in cultural artefacts. Recent scholarship has theoretically explored the so-called ‘Superweapon Peace’ discourse in pop culture, yet empirical work remains largely absent. I make a unique empirical contribution to the existing literature by demonstrating that everyday social practices, such as the creation and consumption of pop cultural artefacts, normalise and legitimise the development, possession and use of nuclear weapons. Through a (visual) discourse analysis of a cross-national sample of films, literature and videogames featuring representations of strategic stability, I assert that the cultural reproduction and transformation of the strategic stability imaginary naturalises the apparently common-sensical idea that nuclear ‘superweapons’ are instrumental for the establishment of peace, even in distant or alien worlds, and so glorify the possession of nuclear weapons in our non-fictional world.
