The New Nuclear Imperialism: Science, Diplomacy and Power in the British Empire

1960年，面对法国在阿尔及利亚撒哈拉进行核试验的前景，后殖民时期加纳的领导人夸梅·恩克鲁玛（Kwame Nkrumah）预先警告了“新的核帝国主义”（Allman, 2008; Hill, 2018）。对外国土地的铀矿开采和核试验的遗产的开发，确保了恩克鲁玛的话的持续相关性，无论是在当代的“核新殖民主义”指控中，还是在动员全球禁止核条约运动中（Broinowski, 2015）。本研究探讨了英国对核能的追求是如何陷入帝国的，以及这段历史如何被用来参与当前关于核秩序的辩论。在这样做的过程中，这项研究不仅关注帝国与核能之间的结构联系——英国人用来获取铀或测试武器的资源和地点。它还关注帝国主义作为一种知识体系，英国的核计划是通过这种体系运作的。在一个被视为“科学帝国主义”的高峰时期，本研究试图展示帝国知识如何为关键决策和观点提供信息，包括在哪里开采和测试，谁来影响和参与这些过程，以及如何在国际政治中利用和合法化这些过程（Bennet和Hodge， 2011）。因此，英国的核计划为了解帝国末期的外交、生态和种族问题提供了一扇窗口。为了把握晚期帝国主义在核历史和政治中的作用，本项目考虑了核技术从生产到潜在影响，从铀矿开采到与武器试验有关的赔偿案件。为了将帝国主义作为一种独特的思考方式和在世界上的行动方式，该项目还调用了超越国家档案和物理学家论文的方法。例如，对神话和民间传说的检索将有助于理解土著群体与其土地之间的关系，以及如何将在这片土地上采矿和试验理解为具有“人道主义影响”。该项目基于五个方面，首先是在英法非殖民化和美国国际主义的背景下，对“核帝国主义”的含义及其形式的理论化。它继续关注奴隶制和纳米比亚的全球铀贸易；围绕法国在阿尔及利亚进行试验的外交斡旋及其对核与非核联盟的影响；以及对核时代的非科学、非西方观念对太平洋上的i -基里巴斯等土著群体的权利运动的重要性。该项目的最后一部分重点是退伍军人和测试“受害者”向英国国防部提出的赔偿要求。它利用这些来更广泛地参与历史不公正问题，特别是当它们出现在帝国史学和转向“赔偿”殖民主义历史时。晚期帝国主义与核武器之间的这些历史联系也有助于解释当今核秩序面临的挑战。为此，该项目将与参与“人道主义倡议”的非政府组织合作，提高人们对核帝国主义历史的认识，“人道主义倡议”是一项在联合国国家和非国家行为体之间废除核武器的运动。该项目将考虑这些历史在2020年在联合国举行的不扩散条约审查会议（RevCon）期间的政策辩论中的作用。它将与档案工作者、活动家、法律和医学专家以及核退伍军人一起开展这项工作。

Responding in 1960 to the prospect of French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara, the leader of postcolonial Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, forewarned of a 'new nuclear imperialism' (Allman, 2008; Hill, 2018). The exploitation of foreign lands for uranium mining and the legacies of nuclear testing has ensured the ongoing relevance of Nkrumah's words, both in contemporary charges of 'nuclear neo-colonialism' and in the mobilisation of a worldwide movement towards a nuclear ban treaty (Broinowski, 2015). This research explores how the pursuit of nuclear power by Britain was enmeshed in empire, as well as how this history can be used to engage with current debates about the nuclear order. In doing so, the research is concerned not only with the structural connection between empire and nuclear power - the resources and sites that the British used to procure uranium or test weapons. It is also concerned with imperialism as a knowledge system by which the British nuclear programme was operationalised. In a period regarded as the high point of 'scientific imperialism', this research seeks to show how imperial knowledge informed key decisions and perspectives on where to mine and test, who to affect and involve in these processes and how these could be harnessed and legitimised in international politics (Bennet and Hodge, 2011). The British nuclear programme thus provides a window into imperial thinking about diplomacy, ecology and race at the end of empire.In order to grasp the role of late imperialism in nuclear history and politics, this project considers nuclear technologies from their production to their potential effects, from the mining of uranium to compensation cases relating to the testing of weapons. In order to grasp imperialism as a distinctive mode of thinking about and acting in the world, the project also invokes methodologies that go beyond state archives and the papers of physicists. The retrieval of myths and folklore, for example, will help to comprehend the relationship between indigenous groups and their land, as well as how mining and testing on that land can be understood as having 'humanitarian impacts'. The project is grounded in five areas, starting with a theorisation of what 'nuclear imperialism' means - and what forms it took - in the context of British and French decolonisation and American internationalism. It goes on to focus on slavery and the global uranium trade in Namibia; diplomatic manoeuvrings around French tests in Algeria and their repercussions for nuclear and non-nuclear alliances; and the significance of non-scientific, non-western perceptions of the nuclear age for rights movements among indigenous groups such as the I-Kiribati in the Pacific. The final part of the project focuses on compensation claims against the British Ministry of Defence by veterans and 'victims' of tests. It uses these to engage more widely with issues of historical injustice, particularly as they have emerged in imperial historiography and the turn towards 'reparatory' histories of colonialism.These historical links between late imperialism and nuclearity also help to explain challenges to the nuclear order today. To this end, the project will raise awareness and shed light on histories of nuclear imperialism with NGOs that are part of the 'humanitarian initiative' - a movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons among state and non-state actors in the UN. The project will consider the role of these histories in policy debates during the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (or RevCon), which takes place at the UN in 2020. It will do so in tandem with archivists, campaigners, legal and medical specialists and nuclear veterans.