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From the Guest Editor: The nuclear weapon and genocide: The beginning of a discussion

This special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research on nuclear weapons is published in the shadow of the untimely death of a scholar who was extremely keen to play a part in the project from the first moment he was asked to contribute to it. Eric Markusen, whose passing in January 2007 robbed the community of genocide scholars of a tireless campaigner, thoughtful academic, and thoroughly decent human being, considered that the moment was ripe for those working in this rapidly maturing field to turn their thoughts to the issue of nuclear weaponry. Unfortunately, the progression of his illness prevented him from writing the article he proposed for this volume and all we have is the abstract, entitled “The genocidal nature of nuclear war,” that he submitted in 2006. It had been intended that Eric’s article would open this volume, and by way of a tribute to him, although his death prevented us from receiving his finalized thoughts on this topic, his abstract is included as an appendix to this editorial, which will take the opportunity to discuss Eric’s ideas, for they provide, even in the briefest form, a significant contribution to the topic. This special issue seeks to promote a discussion that uses the knowledge, approaches and understandings gained from the field of genocide research to ask searching questions about the history of the world’s nuclear weapons programmes, along with the military, political and economic ideas underpinning the thinking about these weapons within the score of governments that now possess them. In doing so, it seeks to move beyond the long-standing dominance given in analysis of nuclear weapons policy to, what Lawrence Freedman has termed, “strategic, technological, political and economic factors.” A brief glance at the literature confirms that these themes have provided the focus for the majority of thought in this field. Central among these themes is the notion of strategic necessity, generally based on the argument that the nuclear option provides an essential element in a country’s defence, by deterring enemies from attacking. With the Cold War now assigned to the pages of history, the current catalogue of enemies for the governments in many nuclear weapons states is Journal of Genocide Research (2007), 9(3), September, 353–360