Shampa Biswas - Nuclear Desire: Power and the Postcolonial Nuclear Order

Nuclear Desire

Nuclear Desire

Power and the Postcolonial Nuclear Order

Shampa Biswas

University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis | London

Copyright 2014 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by the University of Minnesota Press

111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290

Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520

http://www.upress.umn.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Biswas, Shampa.

Nuclear desire : power and the postcolonial nuclear order / Shampa Biswas.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4529-4342-8

1. Nuclear nonproliferationPolitical aspectsHistory. 2. Nuclear arms controlHistory. 3. Postcolonialism. I. Title.

JZ 5675. B 57 2014

327.1'747dc23

2014005524

The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

To Sumita Biswas and Richard Ashford, for keeping me intact

To build peace, now more than ever, it is necessary to build more than peace. To refuse nuclear weapons, we must refuse much more than nuclear weapons.

Raymond Williams, The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament

Contents

I am pleased to have this opportunity to express my gratitude to some of the mentors, friends, and comrades who have shaped my intellectual formation and helped sustain my intellectual pursuits. Conditions of work are integral to all our labors. This is even more true for women and minority scholars in an increasingly neoliberal academy. In that context, the Department of Politics at Whitman College is a remarkable place to live and work. But one of the joys of working in this liberal arts college has been the vast network of colleagues from a variety of different disciplines who have enhanced my intellectual life in so many ways. I owe a special thanks to Tim Kaufman-Osborn for his generous mentorship over the years. Phil Brick, Paul Apostolidis, Susanne Beechey, Aaron Bobrow-Strain, Melisa Casumbal-Salazar, Kristy King, Leena Knight, Tom Knight, Gaurav Majumdar, Dalia Rokhsana, Nicole Simek, and Zahi Zalloua have enriched my professional and personal lives in so many ways. Elyse Semerdjian and Jon Walters have been wonderfully enlivening intellectual allies. Jeanne Morefield inspired and guided me in more ways than I can enumerate. Finally, the friendship, intellectual camaraderie, and support of Bruce Magnusson have been vital to my work. I have also had the good fortune of working with some of the brightest and edgiest students who sharpened my thinking and clarified my political commitments in ways that I could not have anticipated. There are too many of them to list here, but so many have gone on to make all manners of change in the world. Here I must thank Mitch Dunn, Marten King, and Sara Rasmussen for all their help with research and writing, and I must especially thank Thomas Friedenbach, without whose early help with research I could not have conceived or executed this project.

Outside Whitman, I have been sustained by a wide circle of friends and colleagues who have both carved out a space for the kind of work I am inspired to do and engaged with my work in many different ways. Bud Duvall and Naeem Inayatullah first taught me to trust my intellectual instincts and speak with honesty and clarity. Anna Agathangelou, Tarak Barkawi, Marshall Beier, David Blaney, Geeta Chowdhry, Carol Cohn, Lisa Disch, Siba Grovogui, Sankaran Krishna, Sheila Nair, Himadeep Muppidi, Eric Selbin, and Latha Varadarajan are all formidable scholars who have pushed, challenged, and helped form my thinking in ways that I can no longer even trace. I am deeply grateful to Marshall Beier for his sharp and attentive reading of the manuscript in its entirety.

My parents, Nirmal and Sumita Biswas, taught me all I know about love, integrity, and perseverance. Of the many gifts that she has given me, my mother was the first to give me my love of reading, writing, and politics. Amit, Swati, Nikhiel, and Neil have been among my fiercest and most generous cheerleaders. Elaine Ashford and Janet Axell have showed me great wisdom and given me much support.

I thank my editor, Pieter Martin, for his unflagging support and expert guidance.

I have learned so much about pacifism and justice from the intelligence, kindness, and many generosities of my sons, Ishan and Samir. I think they endured my many absences because they genuinely believed that my work may contribute in some measure to making a more peaceful and just world. Although my own ambitions are much more modest in this regard, for their sake I hope that they are right. Finally, there is nothing I can say that will adequately express the depth of my gratitude to my partner in all things, Richard Ashford. Without his constant encouragement, willingness to listen and engage with my work, and endless forms of daily nourishment, I could not have begun or finished this project. With him, so much more is possible.

ABM Anti-Ballistic Missile (Treaty)

ACDA Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

ACDIS Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security

AEC Atomic Energy Commission

ANA Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

BAS Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

BESA BeginSadat Center for Strategic Studies

CACNP Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

CDI Center for Defense Information

CEA Commissarait a LEnergie Atomique

CISAC Center for International Security and Cooperation

CITS Center for International Trade and Security

CNS Center for Nonproliferation Studies

CRDF (U.S.) Civilian and Research Development Foundation

CRS Congressional Research Service

CSI Container Security Initiative

CSIS Center for Strategic and International Studies

CSP Center for Security Policy

CTBT Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty

CTBTO Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization

CTR (NunnLugar) Cooperative Threat Reduction

DAE Department of Atomic Energy

DPG Delhi Policy Group

DTRA Defense Threat Reduction Agency

ENDC Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament

EURATOM European Atomic Energy Community

FAS Federation of American Scientists

FMCT Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty

G8 Group of Eight

GDP gross domestic product

GICNT Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism

GNEP Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

HDI Human Development Index

HEU highly enriched uranium

IAEA International Atomic Energy Association

ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile

ICNND International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament

IGCC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation

IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies

INESAP International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (Treaty)

INMM Institute of Nuclear Materials Management

IPCS Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies

IPPNW International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

IR international relations (the discipline)

IRBM intermediate-range ballistic missile

ISIS Institute for Science and International Security

ISTC International Science and Technology Center

L&T Larsen and Toubro

LAWS Lawyers Alliance for World Security

LTBT Limited Test Ban Treaty

MAD mutually assured destruction

METI Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry