Testing as the Blindspot of Nuclear Nonuse

Abstract

Pacific activists’ proclamation that nuclear testing is nuclear use poses a challenge to the notion of nuclear nonuse in the discipline of International Relations (IR). While addressing such a challenge, this article reveals a disciplinary blind spot regarding nuclear testing that disqualifies testing from nuclear use. I argue that IR discussions of nuclear nonuse—exemplified by Scott Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz’s debates on nuclear deterrence and Nina Tannenwald’s nuclear taboo framework—are part of the colonial knowledge production that dismisses the political agency and humanity of colonized people. This article then argues that nuclear testing is a form of nuclear use, specifically, the colonial use of nuclear weapons, by developing a postcolonial reinterpretation of nuclear testing in the case of US nuclear weapon tests in the Marshall Islands (1946–58).