Between zero and one: liminality of nuclear threshold states

Abstract

The existence of nuclear threshold states as a phenomenon is subject to revisiting through the prism of a general scientific notion of liminality. This type of actors is represented by the nations technically possessing a full nuclear fuel cycle but stopping short of making a decision to militarize their nuclear programmes. An advantage of the utilized approach consists in its transdisciplinary format: considering the problem at the interface of philosophy, political science and even literature studies assists in uncovering its multidimensional nature as well as in the mutual enrichment of the named areas of knowledge. A literature review – predominantly comprising secondary sources in English – has demonstrated but a sporadic application of the liminality concept in the International Relations and Security Studies scholarship (including nonproliferation of nuclear weapons). It has been established that a nuclear test is a specific ritualized act symbolizing the transition of threshold states into the cohort of de facto nuclear states. The duality of such a gesture consists, on the one hand, in challenging an instituted taboo, and, on the other hand, in a metamorphosis into a qualitatively new condition. At the same time, even such an example of transformation of the status does not mean that a nation overcomes liminality. This is due to the lack of the mechanisms – both informal and adopted in the international law – and the precedents of the transition by a de facto nuclear state into the club of the nuclear weapons states. Manifold dimensions of liminality are singled out and characterized: temporal, technological, strategic, operational, and identification dimensions. With the help of the case studies featuring the threshold states in the Asia-Pacific, it is demonstrated that latent nuclear nations can exist in this liminal space for decades, even benefitting from their transient condition. That being said, the heterogeneity of the space of liminality finds expression in the presence of various threshold actors on its different stages.