Summary of the impact

The case study describes the impact on society of research on the history and politics of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation. Specifically, it demonstrates how this research has informed and shaped public understanding, discourse and debate on the nature of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The research underpinning this impact examines the effects of the nuclear revolution upon international politics, and the consequences of these effects upon the contemporary non-proliferation regime. The research identifies a number of negative consequences arising from the activities of the so-called `nuclear non-proliferation complex'. The active dissemination of the research findings has generated considerable media coverage of research claims. In part through this extensive media exposure, the research has impacted, in a distinctive way, discussions over nuclear non-proliferation among a wide range of societal beneficiaries: members of the public, commentators, policy observers concerned with nuclear affairs, and civil society and NGO actors. The impact has been generated both within and outside the UK.

Underpinning research

The research on nuclear weapons and non-proliferation at Aberystwyth University (AU) has sought to challenge the conventional understanding of the nuclear non-proliferation regime by unearthing and bringing to light the power relations, contradictions and hypocritical elements which underpin it. The research has been conducted primarily by Professor Campbell Craig (at AU since September 2009), Dr Jan Ruzicka and Professor Nicholas J. Wheeler (at AU until February 2012).

Professor Craig's work has analysed the unique political dynamics created by the nuclear revolution, a theme recently explored in a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Cold War (3.1). He has also sought to demonstrate that attempts to solve the nuclear dilemma logically and inexorably point toward the necessity of world government, a case he has developed most recently in an edited volume on global government (3.2). The combination of these two pursuits has led him since 2010 to become interested in the self-defeating nature of the current non-proliferation regime, which seeks to solve the nuclear dilemma within the existing interstate system and pays little consideration to potentially more comprehensive and effective means of contending with the omnicidal spectre of nuclear war.

A major research contribution has arisen also from the project `The Challenges to Trust-building in Nuclear Worlds' headed by Professor Wheeler. This project secured funding under the RCUK's Global Uncertainties Programme and began in October 2009 (3.5). Dr Ruzicka served as a research assistant on this project between October 2009 and July 2011, when he became a lecturer in the Department. The key dimension for the impact generated by this project was the research conducted on the nature of the global non-proliferation regime. In their 2010 International Affairs article Ruzicka and Wheeler reconceptualised the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a set of trusting-relationships between the signatories (3.3). The research explored the damage which the persistent lack of progress on disarmament and the hypocrisy generated by the non-proliferation regime has had upon these trusting relationships.

In 2010, Professor Craig and Dr Ruzicka began to pursue a joint research and public engagement agenda on nuclear non-proliferation as members of the multidisciplinary Core Group of Experts on the `Challenges to Trust-Building in Nuclear Worlds' project. This effort has culminated in a research article in Ethics and International Affairs (3.4). Building on Craig's arguments about the logic of world government and Ruzicka's examination of hypocrisy within the existing regime, this piece traces the rise and core patterns of operation of the `non-proliferation complex' — a loose conglomeration of international organizations, government departments and agencies, NGOs, think tanks, academic programs, and charitable foundations, all formally dedicated to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and, ultimately, to their abolition.

The article makes three provocative arguments about the negative effects of this non-proliferation complex. First, its commitment to non-proliferation makes it difficult for the `international community' to oppose wars against `rogue states' that might be seeking a bomb, as the run-up to the Iraq War in 2002-03 demonstrated. Second, the `non-proliferation complex' creates cynicism not only among potential proliferators but also among other non-nuclear states as they witness how powerful nuclear states maintain and upgrade their own stockpiles while demanding that other states eschew the bomb in the name of nuclear peace. Third, the dominance of a narrow non-proliferation discourse crowds out alternative, more revolutionary but also potentially more effective and fruitful, ways of contending with nuclear danger.

References to the research

Grants associated with research:

3.5 ESRC/AHRC-sponsored grant awarded under the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme for project The Challenges to Trust-Building in Nuclear Worlds. Principal Investigator: Professor Nicholas J. Wheeler. Dates of grant: 01/10/2009-30/09/2013. Value of the grant £387 740. Notes on quality: Highly competitive grant awarded by a very prestigious grant body. Grant evaluation not yet completed.

Details of the impact

Dissatisfied with the lack of critical public debate on the shortcomings of the existing non-proliferation regime and the discourse surrounding it, and aware of the difficulty of introducing change through the more conventional `public policy route' (for reasons identified in the research, namely, the constraints imposed on debate by the existence of the non-proliferation complex), Craig and Ruzicka sought to bring their research findings directly to the public sphere in order to increase public understanding of and debate on the issue.

In 2010 Campbell Craig had started to explore the possibilities for informing public debate through the media with the publication of an op-ed piece `Just like Ike (on deterrence)' in the New York Times. This was followed up in 2012 by a jointly-authored essay by Craig and Ruzicka `Who's In, Who's Out? The Non-proliferation Complex' in the London Review of Books (LRB). As documented below, this essay generated substantial media coverage, which in turn has contributed to the research becoming influential in informing public discussions on the issue. This section will first set out the nature of the influence on media reporting, followed by a discussion of how this has translated into impact on the wider public, commentators, policy observers and civil society.

Shortly after the publication of the LRB piece, the claims made in it featured prominently in an opinion article by a Daily Mail columnist (5.1). He cites Craig and Ruzicka's piece in the first sentence of his column and then structures most of the ensuing argument precisely along the lines of the LRB piece. He uses Craig and Ruzicka's major points to question Western rationales for a war against Iran, and to identify the long-term dangers of the cynicism generated by the non-proliferation complex.

Further prominent media coverage of the core claims of Craig and Ruzicka arose as a result of an article in the Guardian commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis in October 2012. The author, having read the LRB piece `with great interest and admiration' (5.2), also directly referred to the work of Craig and Ruzicka, specifically their analysis of the hypocrisy of the current nuclear non-proliferation regime (5.3). The Guardian article has since been cross-posted in a large number of other outlets, ensuring extensive secondary reach of the research findings nationally and globally (5.3).

Media interest in the LRB piece has also been reflected in several invitations to contribute to television and radio programmes. The provocative nature of the research findings communicated in the LRB piece has generated this interest. For example, when a major American radio programme, particularly noted for its progressive social agenda, interviewed Craig about non-proliferation and the hypocrisy of US nuclear policy on an extended live radio transmission, the invitation was issued specifically `to discuss your [London Review of Books] article' (5.4). Also, when Al Jazeera English TV invited Craig and Ruzicka to comment in its discussion programme `Inside Story' on double standards in nuclear security, the reporter stressed that the invitation was extended because the `op-eds were very interesting' (5.5). The BBC also invited Craig in March 2012 to participate in a live radio debate on the Iranian nuclear programme, stressing that 'we feel you could make a valuable contribution to this following your stance in your recent essay in the [London Review of Books] about nuclear non-proliferation politics' (5.6). In this debate Craig contended vociferously with Matthew Kroenig, a prominent American advocate of war against Iran.

Success in informing and shaping media coverage of the issue has translated into considerable impact on public understanding, discourse and debate on nuclear non-proliferation.

Impact on public discussion was exemplified in online commentaries of prominent media articles covering the research. For example, on the Daily Mail's commentary site, a number of readers, echoing Craig and Ruzicka's arguments, commented specifically on the hypocrisy of singling out Iran as a nuclear rogue (5.1). Also, of the 181 public comments generated by the Guardian article several engage in a discussion of the consequences of the ownership of nuclear weapons by nuclear powers as the basis for dealing with nuclear danger, the issue specifically pointed to by Craig and Ruzicka. A number of commentators indicate, along the lines of Craig and Ruzicka's argument, that they are sceptical of the current state of affairs (5.3).

While much of the initial debate among members of the public was generated by the two media articles, numerous cross-postings of these articles demonstrate substantial secondary reach of the research and have generated further public commentaries (5.3). Wide-spread media attention is arguably also partly responsible for the many references to the research on various blog entries and newswires (5.7). A Google search at the end of July 2013 highlighted up to 191,000 results for the search entry `Craig+Ruzicka+nuclear' (5.8). It should also be noted that references to the research insights produced by Craig and Ruzicka have now appeared in posts on the subject on websites hosted, for example, in Chinese, French and Spanish, further demonstrating global reach (5.9). The volume and global reach of cross-postings and references to the research demonstrate impact which extends beyond the UK.

Further evidence of impact on the public is provided by the fact that Craig and Ruzicka's research has been used as a reference point in public debate on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. When a public seminar on nuclear non-proliferation was organised in Amsterdam, the Craig-Ruzicka article was distributed as background reading (5.10).

The research has not only informed discussions among media and the members of the public, but it has also been acknowledged, discussed and reflected upon among prominent commentators and policy observers. In a letter to a journal oriented towards policy makers, a leading former UN diplomat and an opinion-former in the nuclear policy field, for example, states that: `Painful though it is, given the contribution the NPT has, in fact, made to global security, it is difficult not to agree with security theorists Campbell Craig and Jan Ruzicka's criticism of what has become the real state of affairs with respect to the NPT: ``selective non-proliferation and ineffectual abolition''' (5.11). Another senior fellow at a major US-based think-tank concludes: `As somebody who lives among those in the nuclear proliferation "complex" I certainly recognize the effects that [Craig and Ruzicka] laid out' (5.12). Craig and Ruzicka's research then has informed and shaped understandings and discourse among nuclear policy commentators, even those who work `within' the nuclear non-proliferation complex. This opens up possibilities for reflection on the problems of the current nuclear non-proliferation regime `inside' as well as `outside' the nuclear non-proliferation complex.

Craig and Ruzicka's research has also been acknowledged, cross-posted, referenced and discussed amongst a number of civil society organisations active in rethinking nuclear policy (see, for example, 5.13). A notable example of impact on civil society is provided by a report by `Reaching Critical Will', one of the most influential and respected global non-proliferation NGO actors, which features Craig and Ruzicka's research in its discussion of social movements and the creation of `critical will' to achieve global nuclear policy change (5.14). The report cites and addresses the core arguments of Craig and Ruzicka's LRB essay at length. Specifically of concern to the authors of the report are the constraints which arise, as Craig and Ruzicka argue, from the funding patterns of the `non-proliferation complex' for NGO actors and the nature and scope of their activity. Craig and Ruzicka's research features as a core reference in the report's thinking about the future direction which social movements should take in order to achieve critical will and thus change states' nuclear policies (5.14).

In sum, while the impact of their research on public understanding, discourse and debate on nuclear proliferation is on-going, Craig and Ruzicka's research, as a result of its public dissemination strategy, has already achieved considerable impact upon media coverage, discourse and debate among members of the public as well as on policy commentators and civil society groups. In this context it is significant to note that a June 2012 analysis by Truthout, a US organization which counts more than 150,000 followers, referred to Craig and Ruzicka's essay as a prominent demonstration of the fact that awareness of the proliferation double-standard `has finally begun to rear its head in established media' (5.15).

Sources to corroborate the impact

5.1 Powerful States Lecturing Iran Already Have Deadly Weapon Arsenals. Daily Mail, February 20, 2012. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2103492/Iran-nuclear-weapons-Why-bomb.html.

5.2 Correspondence from author.

5.3 Thank You Vasili Arkhipov, the Man Who Stopped Nuclear War. Guardian, 27 October, 2012. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war. Reposted for example at:
http://www.wagingpeace.org/sunflower.php?issue=184#A13;
http://ourbookreviewsonline.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/edward-wilson-author-contribution.html.

5.4 Correspondence from a representative of WNRU 89.3 FM Chicago, 28 February, 2012.

5.5 Correspondence from a representative of Al-Jazeera, March 26, 2012.

5.6 Correspondence from a representative of the BBC, 29 February, 2012.

5.7 See for example: http://jebin08.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/complex.html; http://samirchopra.com/tag/jan-ruzicka/; http://oneworldgroup.org/2012/02/17/a-blast-at-nuclear-non-proliferation-complex/; http://www.abstractmodem.com/2012/12/why_cant_iran_have_the_bomb/.

5.8 Google search on 30/07/2013 for `Craig+Ruzicka+nuclear'.

5.9 See for example: http://article.yeeyan.org/view/170046/328345 (Language: Chinese); http://www.sinpermiso.info/textos/index.php?id=5389 (Language: Spanish); http://montrealracing.com/forums/showthread.php?839268-Vasilli-Arkhipov-the-man-who- saved-the-world-(stopped-WW3) (Language: French).

5.10 See http://gibuva.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/nonproliferation-can-it-work-toward.html. 5.11 A Wiser Approach to Pursuing Middle East Regional Security. A letter in Nonproliferation Review, 20 (1) 2013, p. 12.

5.12 Correspondence from a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

5.13 See http://www.ppu.org.uk/down/peaceworks-f/PeaceWorks7.pdf.

5.14 Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Weapon Modernization Around the World. Reaching Critical Will, 2012. Available at:
http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/modernization/assuring-destruction-forever.pdf.

5.15 West's Idea of Nuclear Disarmament Does Not Include Itself. Truthout, June 19, 2012.
Available at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/9758-wests-idea-of-nuclear-disarmament-doesnt-include-itself.