The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the question of nuclear meaning

Examining the implications of the prohibition logic behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) foregrounds the ambiguity of the meaning of nuclear weapons, their history and place in our world. In this way, the TPNW exposes not only the political fault lines of the current global nuclear order, but also some core theoretical concerns about nuclear weapons, global politics, and modernity. The call by the treaty’s supporters to change the meaning of nuclear weapons provides an impetus to think further and critically about what these weapons mean.