In close collaboration with Benoît Pelopidas, The Cartography Studio created a number of graphics to illustrate his book “Rethinking Nuclear Choices - the Seduction of the Impossible,” published by Sciences Po Press in January 2022.  

Offering a counterargument to the usual nuclear reasoning

The author, the head of the Nuclear Knowledges Program (Ceri) offers a new response to the usual arguments, especially in France, such as: nuclear proliferation is inevitable; the government will be able to warn the population in advance of any accidental nuclear explosion thanks to its perfect control of its arsenal; the population supports this policy (the famous “French consensus on nuclear dissuasion”); experts would have proposed alternatives if they existed. 

Redefining categories

After compiling and verifying various academic works, Benoît Pelopdas takes a global inventory of all the military nuclear programs since 1945. The comprehensiveness of this study doubles as a meditation on the pertinence of the criteria used. For example, to consider only “nuclear-armed states” does not take into consideration the risks presented by military nuclear activities (explosions, theft, terrorist threat, etc.). Thus, a judicious assessment considers the actual programs as well as countries hosting their allies’ nuclear weapons. Five European countries were in that situation in 2022. Taking this point of view, military nuclear activities were at their height during the Cold War and have continually decreased or stagnated since the beginning of the1990s. 

Proposing a new typology

Taking into account these nuances (nuclear-armed, programs, hosts) over the entire period since 1945 makes it possible to establish a new typology, one that goes beyond categories that are traditional but restrictive, derived from proliferation and disarmament paradigms. Indeed, those categories exclude the majority of countries, who have renounced the use of military weapons and have developed non-nuclear security strategies. Thus, a truly global approach offers the possibility of assessing the choices of all countries regarding military nuclear activity, including the majority (at least 143 countries out of 194) who have never shown any interest in nuclear weapons. This category, countries who have renounced nuclear weapons (in green), today represents almost three quarters of all countries.