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.

Acknowledgments

Thanks 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.

Disclosure Statement

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

Correction Statement

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

Notes

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5 “Disarmament” would be the standard word to use here, but “disarmament” could also mean mere nuclear arms reductions, so “renunciation” is clearer.

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31 Smith, Unthinking the Unthinkable, 2.

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42 DesCamp and Sweetser, “Metaphors for God,” 233. See also George Lakoff and Elizabeth Wehling, Your Brain’s Politics: How the Science of Mind Explains the Political Divide (Exeter, UK: Andrews UK Ltd., 2016), 102-107.

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55 See Kövecses, Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory, 55-56.

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59 The United Methodist Council of Bishops, In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace (Nashville, TN: Graded Press, 1986), 13.

60 Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), 22-23.

61 Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1988): 583.

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63 Ray Monk, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 439.

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67 Robert S. Gilpin, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), 26.

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78 See, e.g., Michael Howard, The Causes of Wars and Other Essays, 2^nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 141; Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., USN (Ret.), “Introduction,” in Max G. Manwaring, ed., Deterrence in the 21^st Century (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 2.

79 Dan Caldwell, “Weapons Proliferation and Arms Control,” in Steven W. Hook and Christopher M. Jones, eds., Routledge Handbook of American Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2011), 369.

80 William Epstein, The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control (New York: The Free Press, 1976), 118.

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119 Clary, “Pakistan: The Nuclear Consensus,” 224-225.

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125 Son, “Nuclear Dilemma of North Korea,” 207.

126 Cohn, “Sex and Death,” 702.

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128 Gusterson, Nuclear Rites, 153.

129 Gusterson, Nuclear Rites, 164.

130 Quoted in Gerson S. Sher, From Pugwash to Putin: A Critical History of U.S.-Soviet Scientific Cooperation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019), 128.

131 Again see, e.g., Howard, The Causes of Wars and Other Essays, 141; Crowe, “Introduction,” 2.

132 Cohn, “Sex and Death,” 711.

133 Dmitry Adamsky, Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics, and Strategy (Stanford University Press, 2019), 77.

134 Adamsky, Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy, 1.

135 Eryn McDonald, “Whose Finger is on the Button? Nuclear Launch Authority in the United States and Other Nations,” Union of Concerned Scientists Issue Brief, 22 September 2017. [https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/Launch-Authority.pdf]

136 Quoted in Masha Gessen, “Putin Lied About His Nuclear Doctrine and Promised Russians That They Would Go to Heaven,” The New Yorker, 19 October 2018. [https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/putin-lied-about-his-nuclear-doctrine-and-promised-russians-that-they-would-go-to-heaven]

137 Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 241.

138 Daniel Enstedt, “Sociological Approaches to Leaving Religion,” in Daniel Enstedt, Göran Larsson, and Teemu T. Mantsinen, eds., Handbook of Leaving Religion (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019), 292-306.

139 George Lee Butler, Uncommon Cause: A Life at Odds with Convention, v. 1 (Denver, CO: Outskirts Press, 2016), ch. 6, Kindle loc. 906 of 7242.

140 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 1, ch. 6, Kindle loc. 817 of 7242.

141 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 2, ch. 26, Kindle loc. 3643 of 8225.

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144 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 2, ch. 29, Kindle loc. 4352 of 8225.

145 Butler, “At the End of the Journey,” 763-764.

146 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 2, ch. 29, Kindle loc. 5022 of 8225.

147 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 2, ch. 31, Kindle loc. 6303 of 8225.

148 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 2, ch. 29, Kindle loc. 5284 of 8225.

149 Butler, Uncommon Cause, v. 2, ch. 30, Kindle loc. 6168 of 8225.

150 Author interview with Robert Green, via Zoom, 22 July 2022.

151 Robert Green, Security without Nuclear Deterrence (Nottingham, UK: Spokesman, 2018), 28.

152 Green, Security without Nuclear Deterrence, 263.

153 Green, Security without Nuclear Deterrence, 30-31.

154 Robert Green with Kate Dewes, A Thorn in Their Side (London: John Blake Publishing, 2013), 62.

155 Green and Dewes, A Thorn in Their Side, 66.

156 Green, personal communication with author, 22 February 2023.

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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.

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Jacques E. C. Hymans

Jacques E. C. Hymans is an associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California.