| Is a world without nuclear weapons possible, and if so, what would it look like? I argue that a world without nuclear weapons is possible, but the current renaissance in disarmament politics does not provide the theoretical tools to get there. For disarmament advocates---from Shultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn, to Obama, to Global Zero---the vision of a disarmed world is obscured by the practice of nuclear fetishism. Nuclear fetishism is a specific instance of a general behavior in which a structural contradiction that cannot be resolved at the level of the collective (or the individual in the case of a personal fetish) is displaced onto an object. This displacement consists of ascribing the contradiction to a single element of a complex network, instead of to the effect of multiple elements interacting within the network. By treating a structural contradiction as if it were the immediate property of a material object, it becomes possible to indirectly manage that contradiction by manipulating the object. In the case of nuclear fetishism, the practice of nuclear deterrence displaced the structural contradiction endemic to nuclear policy onto the weapons themselves. This behavior allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to postpone the systemic transformation that would be required to resolve the contradiction of war without victory, creating instead a two-tiered international order premised on the management of nuclear weapons as fetish objects. |
