Mend: A Nurturing Voice in the Nuclear Arms Debate

While the argument about the meaning of nuclear weapons has been fluid and dynamic for the past forty years, it is fair to say that, at the present time, the prevailing definition of the nuclear situation is “deterrence policy.” Some of the fundamental premises of this doctrine are (1) that the Soviets are an unambiguous and non-negotiable threat to U.S. interests, (2) that Soviet expansionism must be contained, and (3) that nuclear weapons are designed to deter the Soviet Union from launching an attack on the United States or its allies. While the deterrence doctrine has obtained a dominant position, it is not the only voice in the nuclear conversation. In this paper, we report on the efforts of “Mothers Embracing Nuclear Disarmament” (MEND), an anti-nuclear group that is attempting to redefine the nuclear situation and reset the parameters of the conversation. MEND is challenging the techno-strategic assumptions of the deterrence doctrine by employing a nurturing discourse that insists mothers share a universal biological and spiritual bond that cuts across political boundaries. We report on the discourse strategies that MEND employs to gain ownership of the nuclear situation, the responses MEND has engendered from competing voices, and the contradictions that are emerging in the group's discourse. In the process, we counter the passive view of language that has predominated in the study of international relations with an essentially constitutive view of the role language plays in political action.