Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The dangerous disregard of nuclear experts for one another
http://thebulletin.org/dangerous-disregard-nuclear-experts-one-another8136
The dangerous disregard of nuclear experts for one another
Hugh Gusterson 03/25/2015
This year’s meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA) in New Orleans began on the first day of Lent. The gaudy street parades and drunken revels of Mardi Gras subsided and, as city workers swept up colored beads from the streets, the academics converged on downtown hotels for four days of serious discussions about global security and development.
Noting that there were no less than fifteen panels on nuclear weapons issues on the ISA program, one speaker declared that we are in the midst of an academic “renaissance in nuclear studies.” But much of the “renaissance” looks more like recycling than rejuvenation, and it has created an intellectual terrain that is oddly partitioned.
<snip>
The bifurcation at ISA mirrors a larger split in global security discourse. On one hand, as the United States telegraphs its commitment to modernize its nuclear weapons and retain them as instruments of statecraft, it is clear that US national security elites, together with their cousins in Moscow, London, Paris, and Beijing, have an outlook that makes it impossible for them to imagine a world without nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons are abolished, it seems likely that it will not be through a process led by the United States but—like the negotiation of the treaties banning landmines and cluster munitions—through a process that the United States to some degree opposes.
<snip>
At the ISA conference the two speech communities operated in parallel worlds, rarely debating each other directly. (One notable exception came in a round table discussion where Patrick Morgan, a nuclear realist from the University of California, Irvine, scoffed at Sauer’s talk of a global convention banning nuclear weapons). But maybe this lack of communication is inevitable since the two communities operate within what Thomas Kuhn would have called incommensurable paradigms. Still, it was disconcerting to come away from the conference with the perception of two small intellectual communities talking past each other on the same topic—the topic being the most serious international security dilemma in the world today. If we are to solve the nuclear problem, we will need the combined insights of both communities.
<snip>
Back in my hotel in New Orleans, the receptionist told me you have to give something up for Lent. How about we give up ignoring those who disagree with us on nuclear weapons?
The dangerous disregard of nuclear experts for one another
Hugh Gusterson 03/25/2015
This year’s meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA) in New Orleans began on the first day of Lent. The gaudy street parades and drunken revels of Mardi Gras subsided and, as city workers swept up colored beads from the streets, the academics converged on downtown hotels for four days of serious discussions about global security and development.
Noting that there were no less than fifteen panels on nuclear weapons issues on the ISA program, one speaker declared that we are in the midst of an academic “renaissance in nuclear studies.” But much of the “renaissance” looks more like recycling than rejuvenation, and it has created an intellectual terrain that is oddly partitioned.
<snip>
The bifurcation at ISA mirrors a larger split in global security discourse. On one hand, as the United States telegraphs its commitment to modernize its nuclear weapons and retain them as instruments of statecraft, it is clear that US national security elites, together with their cousins in Moscow, London, Paris, and Beijing, have an outlook that makes it impossible for them to imagine a world without nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons are abolished, it seems likely that it will not be through a process led by the United States but—like the negotiation of the treaties banning landmines and cluster munitions—through a process that the United States to some degree opposes.
<snip>
At the ISA conference the two speech communities operated in parallel worlds, rarely debating each other directly. (One notable exception came in a round table discussion where Patrick Morgan, a nuclear realist from the University of California, Irvine, scoffed at Sauer’s talk of a global convention banning nuclear weapons). But maybe this lack of communication is inevitable since the two communities operate within what Thomas Kuhn would have called incommensurable paradigms. Still, it was disconcerting to come away from the conference with the perception of two small intellectual communities talking past each other on the same topic—the topic being the most serious international security dilemma in the world today. If we are to solve the nuclear problem, we will need the combined insights of both communities.
<snip>
Back in my hotel in New Orleans, the receptionist told me you have to give something up for Lent. How about we give up ignoring those who disagree with us on nuclear weapons?
