The Competing Securitisation Moves of Nuclear Deterrence and Humanity’s Survival

Jones develops, and discerns between, the conceptual securitisation moves of nuclear deterrence and a securitisation ‘of humanity’. These competing moves of deterrence vie for legitimacy, manifested as inertia in the arms control regime, in the absence of major nuclear disarmament by the N5. His paper applies the nascent framework of existential security and utilises select securitisation theories to present an argument in favour of the securitisation of humanity against the nuclear threat. The piece is situated at the intersection of critical nuclear scholarship and work on deterrence’s securitisation. NATO’s re-securitisation of Russia serves as the contextual frame of the theoretical argument. The conception of securitisation depth is developed, with potential implications for future disarmament proposals. Ultimately, if the securitisation ‘of humanity’ is to succeed, it must seek means of overwhelming the securitisation of nuclear deterrence. A symbolic existential threat to the state is conflated with the objective existential threat to the species, which imperils its long-term future with civilisational collapse. I conclude that a plan for global nuclear control should receive greater scholarly attention despite its marginal prospects for success under resurgent great-power competition.

Speaker: Rhys Lewis Jones (Cardiff University)

Discussants: Eric Sangar (Sciences Po Lille) and Tom Vaughan (University of Leeds)