The destruction of Hiroshima by a US atomic bomb on 6 August 1945 ‘inaugurate[d] a new historical epoch’, according to the Austrian philosopher Günther Anders. He was less concerned with the power struggle between the US and the Soviet Union than with the radical shift that had taken place: humanity now had the means to bring about its own demise.
Eighty years later, the risk of apocalypse endures. Just nine states – the US, UK, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel (though this last has never officially acknowledged its status as a nuclear power) – possess more than 12,000 nuclear warheads. In addition, 40 or so other countries have defence policies linked to nuclear armament, either through NATO membership or agreements with nuclear powers (such as that between Belarus and Russia).
Despite commitments made in the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to ‘facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery’, those in possession of ‘the bomb’ have never really given disarmament a chance. Current nuclear programmes are shaped by decisions taken in the 2000s, a period of relative stability in relations between major powers, and preceding the war in Ukraine, which has seen Russia threaten to press the red button. The production process for nuclear weapons is lengthy, with between 20 and 30 years from an initial political decision to manufacture and commissioning.
France’s continuing airborne nuclear capability is a clear example of its decision not to disarm. In accordance with a schedule drawn up in the 1990s, medium-range air-to-ground missiles (ASMP) were replaced with an ‘improved’ version (ASMP-A) at the end of the 2000s. A mid-life modernisation programme was then launched in 2016, enabling the two existing strategic squadrons (…)
