Rejoinder: A nuclear exchange on survivable normative biases

Kroenig, Matthew

doi:10.1177/2336825x20908470

Cited by 16 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…"U.S. nuclear weapons," writes Kroenig (2020b), "have been one of the greatest forces for good in the world over the past three-quarters of a century," helping to create and maintain "garden[s] of stability" (p. 127). These bombs, the most destructive weapons ever conceived, are venerated by many as "instruments of peace" (Spalding, 2013) with "war preventing effects" (Kaiser et al, 1982(Kaiser et al, : 1159) that form the "bedrock of our security" (Carter, cited in Mehta, 2016).…”

Section: Absolute Weapons For Absolute Endsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Superweapons and the myth of technological peace

Renic

2022

European Journal of International Relations

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In this article, I trace and critique the discourse of “The Superweapon Peace”—the long-standing and enduring idea that weapons of radical destructiveness, both nuclear and non-nuclear, can force an end to war by rendering it too destructive to contemplate. The Superweapon Peace, I argue, is constituted by three elements. The first is an assumption of war as a controllable and resolvable problem. Within this formulation, superweapons function as disincentivizers, “solving” war by raising its destructive cost to an unendurable level. For all its intuitive appeal, this logic is flawed, grounded in a certitude of control that fails to comport with empirical reality. The second element of The Superweapon Peace is utopian ambition. Its proponents hold that through the threat of mass violence, war can be overcome in a fundamental sense. This, I argue, gives license to a ruthless consequentialism at odds with conventional morality, which restricts the use or threatened use of violence against those not liable to such an end. The third and final element of The Superweapon Peace is silver-bullet thinking, which frames the superweapon as the most effective, and likely only, method by which to eliminate or significantly mitigate large-scale armed conflict. This mode of thinking has overly narrowed the scope of possibility regarding alternative remedies to war. The Superweapon Peace, I ultimately conclude, is a false promise, giving license to modes of thinking and action that imperil rather than facilitate peace.

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Section: Absolute Weapons For Absolute Endsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Superweapons and the myth of technological peace

Renic

2022

European Journal of International Relations

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The Universal Republic

Koenig-Archibugi

2024

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Can humanity achieve collective self-government in a highly interdependent world? Catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, war and displacement, the dangers of nuclear weapons and new technologies, and persistent poverty and inequality are among the global challenges that expose the weaknesses of existing international institutions as well as the profound disparities of power and vulnerability that exist among the world’s people. The Universal Republic: A Realistic Utopia? examines whether a democratic world state is a feasible and desirable solution to the problem of establishing effective and just governance on the planet we share. While this question has haunted thinkers and doers for centuries, this book opens up novel perspectives by putting the powerful methods and rich data of contemporary social science into the service of a systematic analysis of several key dimensions of the broader theme. The first part shows why a democratic world state—a universal republic—is possible: why it can be achieved, and how it can endure without generating a frightful global despotism. The second part of the book shows why the universal republic is desirable, by exploring how it can help bring under our collective control the persistent sources of coercion, harm, and other processes that affect us deeply across national borders. By combining insights from political philosophy and empirical political science, this work sheds new light on a crucial question of our time: how to bring about a more democratic world.

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Koenig-Archibugi

2024

The Universal Republic

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Rejoinder: A nuclear exchange on survivable normative biases

Cited by 16 publications

References 6 publications

Superweapons and the myth of technological peace

Superweapons and the myth of technological peace

The Universal Republic

List of Figures

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