Irreversibility and Nuclear Disarmament: Unmaking Nuclear Weapon Complexes

This article develops a framework for examining ‘irreversible nuclear disarmament’ by drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS). It argues that maximising the irreversibility of nuclear disarmament is about the ‘unmaking’ of a nuclear weapons complex understood as a large socio-technical system. This entails the discontinuation, or unravelling, of the system’s network of materials, competencies, meanings and institutions, the erosion of tacit knowledge, the discursive reframing of nuclear weapons, and new governance processes to manage discontinuation. The article applies this framework to the experiences of the United States’ nuclear weapons complex in the aftermath of the Cold War to illustrate the ways in which the weapons complex of an established nuclear-armed state could come apart.