Ponamareva Anastasia Mikhailovna – Ph.D. in Sociology, Senior Researcher, INION RAN
he paper focuses on the political motives for the US President B. Obama’s initiative aimed at a global legal ban on nuclear weapons with specific provisions for the elimination of existing arsenals, and analyses prospects for the return of the theme of «nuclear zero» to the international agenda. The article examines preconditions for emergence of this idea, its development during the Cold War, and re-emergence in the 2000 s. The author argues that, while promoting the theme of «nuclear zero», the US administration sought to achieve deeper reductions in the negotiations on the START-III, and to push Moscow to include tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) in the scope of the Treaty. Based on an analysis of NPR-2010 and NATO’s strategic concept of «Active Engagement, Modern Defense» it is proved that by initiating a discussion on moving towards a nuclear-free world, the United States sought to consolidate its overwhelming military superiority in the field of high-precision conventional weapons and devalue the nuclear capabilities of other nuclear weapons through radical nuclear disarmament and the construction of a global US missile defense system. However, today, during the period of aggravation of relations between Russia and the United States and the collapse of the arms control system of the Cold War era, the theme of «nuclear zero» has become a kind of «zombie category» of world politics – an empty concept that still continues to influence our thinking, although it is not adequate (anymore) to capture social reality.
international nuclear non-proliferation regime, «nuclear zero», arms control, NPT, СTBT, TPNW, B. Obama.
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