five - From Nuclear to ‘Degenerate’ War

Summary

Introduction

As has become evident in previous chapters, criminological scholars have demonstrated notable engagement with the subject of war, during and in the aftermaths of the First and Second World Wars (Chapter Two), prominently in the post-9/11 era (Chapter Three), and in response to acts of genocides throughout the 20th and 21st centuries (Chapter Four). However, although capturing war and genocide at either extreme of the transition from ‘old’ to ‘new’ wars (see Kaldor, 2014, discussed in the Introduction), this is not all criminologists have had to say on the subject. They have also been active commentators on nuclear issues since the end of the Cold War era. To explore some of this commentary, in this and the following chapter we address the changing nature of war within modernity as it turned towards the disproportionate mass killing of civilians following on from the Second World War.

This chapter foregrounds previous criminological work related to nuclear issues with a specific focus on David Kauzlarich and Ronald Kramer's (1998) seminal book Crimes of the American Nuclear State: At Home and Abroad. This book is first used here to define nuclear weapons and armament as ‘state crimes’ and identify the human consequences of using nuclear weapons from a critical criminological perspective. Next, we use the work of Kauzlarich and Kramer (1998) and Kramer and Kauzlarich (2010) to identify other ways in which the ‘crimes of the nuclear state’ could be considered differently in relation to Shaw’s (2003) concept of ‘degenerate war’. In doing so, we shift the focal point for criminological analysis onto the disproportionate targeting of civilians in war during the 20th and 21st centuries. This brings war victims and the environment more fully to our attention, rather than purely focusing on ‘criminals’ and criminality. The chapter concludes noting the contemporary relevance of nuclear issues for criminological studies of war. It finishes by providing a platform on which aerial ‘terror bombing’ can be further explored (in Chapter Six) as continuing to be disproportionately directed at civilians and non-combatants as a weapon of ‘new’ war.

Criminology and nuclear war

During 1983, an article published by Richard Harding outlined some preliminary issues for criminology with regards to nuclear weapons and nuclear armament.