Professor S. M. Amadae, Associate Professor of International Political Economy, Department of Politics and International Relations, Swansea University Research affiliate, Program on Science, Technology and Society, MIT

Discussants:

• Grey Anderson, Postdoctoral researcher, Sciences Po.
• Benoît Pelopidas, Chair of Excellence in Security Studies, Sciences Po

Any political theory of legitimate governance and sovereignty that cannot address the nuclear security dilemma is null and void: specifically in a time of neoliberal and illiberal politics celebrating Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. The current reconciliation of this nuclear dilemma emphasizes the credibility of deterrence through the preparedness to fight and win nuclear wars, escalation dominance, flexible response and coercive bargaining. Sustaining the credibility of nuclear deterrence is of the highest importance. The price for this is to relegate agency to unintended processes and to treat potential errors of judgment and technological accidents as instances of risk, both amenable to rational decision theory. To move beyond this stalemate of perennial nuclear saber-rattling and embrace of the likelihood of nuclear cataclysm, I turn to republican theory. Ian Shapiro (2017) and Daniel Deudney (2007) put forward two alternatives, the first shunning international government, and the latter embracing it as a means to achieve joint global nuclear security. In either case, I argue that the most critical step in jointly achieving freedom from the fear of nuclear domination is to go beyond strategic rational action.