Bombs, Brexit Boys and Bairns: a Feminist Critique of Nuclear (In)security in the Integrated Review

This blog post develops a feminist critique of 'Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy'. We suggest that it is only with an eye on gendered logics that we can fully explain the British government’s decision to raise the ceiling on the nuclear warhead stockpile, increase the reasons that could justify their use, and refuse transparency about deployed warheads; all whilst cutting aid to the world’s poorest countries. The blog identifies three ways gender is at work in the Integrated Review: first, in the association of nuclear weapons with masculine status and power; second in the deployment of the euphemisms, abstractions and jargon that Carol Cohn long ago identified as typical of the masculinist 'technostrategic' discourse deployed by nuclear scientists and decision-makers; and third, in the flawed vision of security based on masculinist values.