Nuclear Conquistadors: Military Colonialism in Nuclear Test Site Selection during the Cold War

Abstract

The history of nuclear weapon testing by the major nuclear powers during the Cold War is intimately tied to the history of military colonialism in the 20th century. For each of the first five nuclear powers (U.S., USSR, UK, France, and China) the process of selecting a site for nuclear weapon testing was driven more by the location of a small group of politically marginalized people unable to object to being exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive fallout, to the loss of their homes, and the contamination of the land and seas providing their primary food sources, than it was by scientific and military requirements. Invariably these populations were constituted of people of a different racial, ethnic or religious group than that of the colonial power. This article examines the selection of nuclear test sites for each of the five major nuclear powers both in the reaches of their military empires and their own domestic landmasses.

Human Rights Fallout of Nuclear Detonations: Reevaluating ‘Threshold Thinking’ in Assisting Victims of Nuclear Testing

“…The US government promoted ‘suburban dispersal’ as a way to protect cities from nuclear weapons (Vanderbilt, 2002). Nuclear‐armed states located test programs in places framed as ‘remote’, suggesting that the intervening space insulated metropolitan people from sites of detonation (Jacobs, 2013; Teaiwa, 1994). A ‘concurrent strand of thinking was to fortify the everyday environment’ (Vanderbilt, 2002, p. 80).…”

“…After its devastation in the Second World War, France sought a nuclear arsenal to regain status as a world power. Rather than conducting nuclear detonations in metropolitan France, the military sited tests in territories under colonial control, framed as ‘remote’ and ‘backward’ (Jacobs, 2013; Teaiwa, 1994). Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron has admitted ‘I think it's true that we would not have done the same tests in La Creuse or in Brittany’ (in France24, 2021).…”

Addressing the Ongoing Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear Weapons: An Introductory Review

“…Nuclear‐armed states frequently tested devices in areas they considered peripheral, which has placed a disproportionate burden of environmental contamination on indigenous communities. Members of these communities are frequently unable to access appropriate care or secure remedies for the violation of their rights (Jacobs, 2013; Johnston, 2007; Maclellan, 2017). For example, the radioactive contamination resulting from UK atmospheric tests at Maralinga in Australia has had a disproportionate impact on indigenous people, many of whom ‘continued to move throughout the region at the time of the tests.…”

Addressing the Humanitarian and Environmental Consequences of Atmospheric Nuclear Weapon Tests: A Case Study of UK and US Test Programs at Kiritimati (Christmas) and Malden Islands, Republic of Kiribati

“…UK government‐commissioned studies reveal a ‘healthy soldier’ effect, while often neglecting psychosocial experiences of veterans, and completely ignoring i‐Kiribati inhabitants’ rights to understand their health (Kendall et al, 2004; Miles, et al, 2011; Muirhead et al, 2003a, 2003b; Muirhead, 2004). Some independent research has been undertaken to consider the impacts to British nuclear test veterans and their descendants, and this work has revealed physical, social and cultural consequences to this community (Alexis‐Martin et al, 2019; Jacobs, 2013; Roff, 1999; Trundle, 2011).…”