Description
What status, if any, do national boundaries hold within the functions of global nuclear politics? Adopting methodological insights for studying Large Technical Systems (LTS) from Science and Technology Studies, the framework developed in this paper reconceptualises the Global Nuclear Arsenal (GNA) as a single LTS, rather than as discrete national stockpiles. The immediate goal of the paper is to produce an understanding of the relationship between the social construction of the GNA’s function and the technical outputs of the system regardless of the claims of its managers. In practical terms, this means tracing the socio-technical connections between the components. Empirically, the analysis challenges deterrence advocates’ claims that they control the arsenals of their own, and adversary, states. As an international LTS, the web of socio-technical connections is too complex that any one group can be said to be in control. The paper concludes from this approach that the GNA is a threat to modernity itself. These findings are especially important for discerning the de facto ethics of the GNA through its threat to the rights of people living under its sway, even in nuclear-free zones. Democracy and justice in global nuclear politics therefore demands the dismantling of the GNA.
