SNNO · Strategic Narrative of Nuclear Order

Strategic Narrative of Nuclear Order

How was the European nuclear order stabilised? SNNO investigated the emergence, projection, and contestation of the strategic narrative of nuclear order in Europe. This narrative emerged in the 1960s as the ideological foundation of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, displacing alternative visions of nuclear politics such as comprehensive disarmament and a supranational European nuclear community. Navigating between the alleged extremes of immediate abolition and unrestrained proliferation, governments in Europe and North America converged on the goal of freezing nuclear politics in its current form, at any rate as an initial solution; the nuclear order-building project of arms control and deterrence followed the European Cold War logic of stabilising the status quo to eventually overcome it. For the narrators of nuclear order – influential policymakers and defence intellectuals – the primary task of any diplomatic process should be to avert disruptive changes and secure stability through managerial control. To that end, the narrators of nuclear order promoted the ideas that nuclear weapons are indispensable for the maintenance of peace, that extended nuclear deterrence provides a bulwark against proliferation, and that nuclear risks are controllable. This narrative has since been solidified through official government communication and incorporation into high-school textbooks, policy discourse, print and broadcast media, and other cultural products. The strategic narrative of nuclear order has been most powerfully projected by members and supporters of NATO. The continuation of the policies of extended nuclear deterrence, ‘nuclear sharing’, and step-by-step arms control has come to be defined as irreplaceable elements of the alliance’s material and ontological security. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the narrative of nuclear order has collided with attempts at developing an image of Europe as a human-security oriented normative power. Moreover, the prevailing narrative is currently under pressure both by norm entrepreneurs (such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and technological developments that challenge the sustainability of deterrence (remote-sensing techniques and cyber capabilities in particular). The overall objective of SNNO was to trace the emergence, projection, and contestation of the narrative of nuclear order in Europe since the 1960s. The aim was to examine how governments and state apparatuses have perpetuated the status quo through narrative, and to analyse how oppositional actors have sought to challenge the prevailing logic. In a nutshell, the project asked how European nuclear security was constituted through narrative. The project’s overall objective may be broken down into three sub-objectives: First, to conceptualise and trace the emergence of the narrative of nuclear order (1960s). Second, to demonstrate how the narrative is projected and contested through official communication, institutional practice, research funding, and public education (1970s–). And third, to demonstrate how the narrative of nuclear order has influenced policy and diplomatic postures.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union