A Federation of American Scientists (FAS) New Voices Fellowship Project
CULTURE BLAST:
TRACING NUCLEAR NARRATIVES
AUTHOR: Charlotte Yeung
ABSTRACT
Nuclear narratives told and believed today are rooted in how nuclear weapons are discussed in school, culture, and locality. The branching narratives in the United States and Japan are particularly distinct and told through different forms of official narratives taught in textbooks, visual aesthetics, preservation of nuclear-related sites, movements, and the military-industrial complex. This project – a combination of research work, personal narrative, and illustrations– asks how education and culture are the roots through which come the multidimensional nature of how Americans and Japanese learn about nuclear weapons and how those define the systems that shape public opinion about nuclear weapons today in those two countries.
With gratitude to Lovely Umayam, founder of Bombshelltoe Policy x Arts Collective for research and design guidance during this project.
With gratitude to Eliza Nicoll, translator, for research and Japanese translation during this project.
INTRODUCTION
Public knowledge and interest in nuclear weapons has faded even as serious nuclear threats rise. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022 and continues today with no end in sight, has significantly undermined international security, now with the specter of a Russian nuclear attack hanging over Ukraine and the rest of the world. The possible introduction of nuclear weapons on the battlefield, or the sabotage of a nuclear power plant, marks the most severe nuclear threat since the Cold War. All the while, other nuclear concerns continue to develop: North Korea has continued to test ballistic and cruise missiles to strengthen its nuclear weapons capabilities, and Iran’s nuclear program continues to evolve, with many worrying it is on a fast-track into a weapons program. While the international community grows cautious of Moscow, Pyongyang, and Tehran, the greater American public has remained relatively unfazed by these nuclear dangers.
A 2022 Pew survey found that the American public recognize Russia and China’s global and economic ascendancy to be a major concern, but cyberattacks and the spread of misinformation are ranked as the top security threats – nuclear war does not make the list at all. (It ranked third in 2020.) A University of Cambridge survey also revealed that only 3.2% of respondents in the UK and 7.5% in the United States have heard of “nuclear winter” – a devastating environmental consequence in the wake of nuclear war – in the media. A more recent poll noted that American respondents are uncertain about whether nuclear weapons protect or harm, and a majority expressed interest in learning more. The invasion of Ukraine and changing geopolitical power dynamics have prompted public debate about the merits of developing nuclear weapons or nuclear umbrella, but on the whole, regular citizens remain insufficiently unaware or uneducated to formulate strong, informed opinions about nuclear weapons policy. Young people in particular — millennials and Gen Z — have ranked nuclear weapons as the lowest threat on their radar, far below concerns about government corruption and unemployment. Internationally, the United Nations commissioned a study in 2002 on disarmament and non-proliferation education that combines small arms and light weapons with nuclear weapons. While this effort resulted in a wide range of international initiatives to improve learning opportunities on the subject matter, the UN does not have the capacity to provide analysis on the impact of educational offerings worldwide.
Several elements contribute to the American public’s detachment from nuclear weapons issues, but one that is consistently highlighted by nuclear policy scholars is the lack of formal opportunities to learn about it.
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At this time, there is no comprehensive study tracking American students' exposure to nuclear policy and history in school and college curricula, but several smaller-scale surveys have indicated that nuclear weapons is a subject not covered consistently in classrooms. A 2018 nuclear outreach project conducted in Washington State Tri-Cities schools observed that only 1 percent out of the 1,000 college and high school students they engaged knew which countries possess nuclear weapons. Another 2019 study found that courses on nuclear nonproliferation topics were only offered on average less than two courses per semester across seventy-five American colleges they examined, a paltry compared to courses covering other security-relevant issues including climate change (over twenty a semester, on average).
Beyond schools, people encounter nuclear policy issues as news headlines typically framed as foreign policy matters largely outside of their control. Government decision-making around nuclear weapons, from nuclear modernization to arms control efforts, are opaque and exclusive by design, receiving little to no public input. When citizens learn about policy changes after the fact – and sometimes not until the information is declassified many years later – it reinforces a public’s passive relationship with governance, which ultimately erases a sense of immediacy to potential threats and distorts risk perception. Some scholars go so far as to call it a tactic of “psychic numbing”, ultimately leading people to accept nuclear policies without question. It is possible that public interest would naturally accelerate as nuclear threats become more tangible and proximate. For instance, the United States experienced cycles of strong nuclear activism in the past with distinct peaks in the 1980s due to fears of nuclear war between the US and Russia, as well as backlash against nuclear accidents. However, scholars argue that delayed awareness of security challenges, in particular to nuclear crises, should be unacceptable as it robs citizens of agency, blindsiding them with worst case scenarios with no point of return.
While educators, activists, nuclear experts, and diplomats express support for increasing educational opportunities or ways to raise awareness on nuclear weapons issues in order to counter growing public apathy, there is little research that articulates what constitutes nuclear “education” (acquiring knowledge and skills through systematic instruction) and “awareness” (a heightened perception of a given situation through immersion) in the public sphere. What shapes public understanding of nuclear weapons? This project attempts to map this complex and expansive terrain – an assemblage of nation-state disseminated information, as well as informal and fluid cultural artifacts that coexist and contradict each other – as a way to encourage a more intentional approach to learning about this important global security issue.
NUCLEAR NARRATIVES AS PATHWAYS AND ROADBLOCKS TO AWARENESS AND EDUCATION
As noted above, many news media and research institutions conduct polls and surveys almost every year in the United States to gauge public attitudes and beliefs about nuclear issues. However, there is limited research exploring the sources of observed nuclear attitudes. In general, there are two prevailing conceptual frameworks that influence public attitudes towards foreign policy: the “top-down” model wherein political figures and other elites (policy experts, scientists, etc.) inform people what to do or think, and the “bottom-up” model where the public takes cues from each other through the exchange of social values, and culturally-influenced imagery. This research project traces how both the top-down and bottom-up approaches converge in communicating nuclear threats, ultimately braiding rich nuclear narratives that inform the public consciousness around nuclear weapons: the ways these bombs have shaped their lives, and will impact their futures.
Although school education – the systematic exchange of facts and analysis of nuclear weapons policy in a classroom setting – is the easiest to quantify (hence, the easiest to recommend as a solution), it is only one piece that contributes to the creation of nuclear narratives.
A more thorough exploration of nuclear narrative production and sharing must venture into the realm of aesthetics and culture, where a multitude of knowledge, experiences, and images that don’t neatly fit the strict framework of nuclear weapons policy and nuclear physics, must be taken into account. As such, it is impossible to classify or evaluate all the elements that constitute nuclear narratives and study it holistically. Nonetheless, mapping the ways certain threads weave nuclear narratives that inform public awareness can still be valuable exercise. Today, there is no shortage of brand strategists, activists, even politicians promoting the power of stories as a way to activate a disinterested public on a wide range of issues. More recently, the nuclear policy field has become receptive to storytelling strategies, commissioning a wide range of studies to identify narrative themes to encourage public support for nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament. Despite growing recognition of nuclear narratives as powerful tools, the formulation and movement of nuclear narratives – the dynamic interaction between national histories, lived experience, and eclectic media – and how they contribute or prevent awareness and education remain under-researched in the nuclear policy field.
This project looks at a fraction of nuclear weapon’s vast narrative landscape, observing the interplay of three “sites”
where narrative threads emerge:
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For many people, the first line of exposure to nuclear weapons issues is through history or social science courses taken in high school. Information shared in the classroom often centers on status-quo perspectives or the grand narratives of nation states, as governments often have influence over classroom materials. It is also usually the first time people encounter imagery of war as historical source and narrative, enabling students to make connections between past and present manifestations of political violence. Moreover, some scholars argue that classroom impressions are formative; students may not necessarily remember specific historical facts as they age, but they are more likely to carry general lessons learned through adulthood, which will inevitably shape their framing of the world.
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Nuclear narratives are not only forged by sweeping national histories, but are also influenced by localized reference points that balance and further contextualize monolithic understandings and assumptions. Nuclear weapons, while controlled and brandished by world leaders at the international level, are intimately felt at the local level; the infrastructure of a weapons program could power local economies (U.S. Air force bases where nuclear missile silos are maintained bring millions of dollars to their host states, such as Nebraska and Montana) or devastate ecological and human health in other areas (the countless examples of frontline communities suffering from the effects of nuclear testing.) Some scholars argue that hyperlocal experiences don’t receive enough emphasis in narrative-making; painting the topic with too broad of a brushstroke – the”unthinkable” weapon that threatens all humanity – erases the unique and intimate experiences of those whose lands and bodies have been harmed. The threat of nuclear weapons is borderless, yet it has made an irrevocable imprint on specific localities. As such, local accounts could support or contest government-sanctioned narratives depending on the place and the communities in it.
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Public interpretations of nuclear-related information through different media produces cultural imagery – from early novels about the deadly effects of radiation to today’s apocalyptic memes found online – which in turn create impressions transcending space and time. Unlike rote learning in school or lived experience, cultural imagery is emergent and accumulative. They can rally large groups of people towards a core message or emotional response. For instance, fear is the central emotion associated with nuclear technologies, in part due to the images that have been created, some intentionally while others by chance, as a way to process and respond to nuclear-related events. Images and stories can serve as conduits through which viewers can relate to and reflect on a particular situation, even imagine themselves in the moment. Images can also be disruptive agents that counter government messaging. As powerful as they may be, some scholars contend that these types of artifacts are heavily context dependent; their effects are contingent on the producer and viewer, such as geographies, nationalities, social values, among others. Thus, cultural imagery cannot produce narratives on their own, but rather amplify, preserve, exaggerate, or marginalize them.
The branching nuclear narratives in America and Japan are told through education, visual aesthetics, and locality because these are the filters through which Americans and Japanese interact with and learn about nuclear history, influencing how they think today.
FOLLOWING TWO PATHS AMERICAN & JAPANESE
NUCLEAR NARRATIVES
While the United States grapples with dwindling public awareness and education around nuclear weapons, another country continues to reckon with its deep and irrevocable relationship with the bomb. To date, Japan is the only country that has suffered a nuclear attack: the United States bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9,1945, which resulted in an estimate of over 100,000 casualties combined. Such a direct experience of destruction and loss, and the subsequent national surrender and American occupation following the attacks, yielded uniquely painful nuclear narratives that can only be fully understood in context of the Japanese experience as victims and survivors. Given its history, Japanese people are against nuclear weapons; a 2020 national survey found 75% of the public across generations supported the idea of Japan signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. But this does not suggest that Japanese nuclear narratives are simple or one-dimensional; narrative threads can be complex and contradictory, emerging from experience with other nuclear technologies (in particular its experience with another nuclear tragedy: the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdown accident in 2011), as well as the country’s current reliance on the United States nuclear umbrella as part of its security policy.
To enrich this mapping exercise, this project will examine the three aforementioned sites (early schooling; local space; cultural imagery) in the context of the United States and Japan. While there have been numerous studies examining the ways in which nuclear policies in Japan and the United States differ, there is currently no research looking at the relationships and differences between the nuclear narratives in the two countries. One obvious distinction is their categorically opposing roles in nuclear history, with the former being the perpetrator of a nuclear attack and the latter being the victim. Although this seems to be straightforward, a deeper dive into these countries reveal something more complex, even contradictory given the various collisions of historical perspectives and how they are preserved and communicated through various media.
Thus, a comparative analysis hopes to illuminate (1) The narrative threads that emerge in a nuclear aggressor vis-a-vis a nuclear victim / survivor state, and (2) how narratives are informed by and also add to public understanding of nuclear risk and nuclear deterrence. By pulling from a wide range of material – high school textbooks, educator interviews, architectural design, pop-culture references, among others – this project offers a different lens to understand how nuclear education and awareness emerge from these two countries.
Early Education
How the United States and Japanese educational systems cover the atomic bombings according to textbooks at pedagogical approaches.
Local Spaces
How the United States and Japan engage nuclear weapons issues in two cities (Las Vegas and Tokyo), and architectural elements such as bombshellters.
Cultural Imagery
How the United States and Japan portray nuclear weapons in pop-culture, and the dominant symbols that emerge out of cultural influence.
Activists from Japan were also interviewed so that this research perspective would include the insight of established nuclear activists from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo.
PATTERNS AND OBSERVATIONS
The limitations of labeling narrative threads as a binary:
survivor and aggressor/hero and villain
Following nuclear narrative threads communicated in early schooling, online, and local cities reveal that while overall, Japan embraces and preserves a predominantly anti-nuclear narrative, there are nuances in this story line: it is at times muted, especially when observed in locales like Tokyo that interface with the international community. Increasingly, Japan has become invested in appearing politically neutral (as culturally that is the preferred norm), and is careful not to offend the United States (their close ally), and must take into account being situated so close to nuclear-possessing countries it has frosty relationships with. Some activists interviewed in Japan have also pointed out the duality in Japan’s role in World War II, complicating narratives of aggressor and survivor. In some cases, it is hard to hold its identity as nuclear victims without forgetting the atrocities the Japanese government and military committed in other countries during World War II. It can be very difficult to convey this complexity through narrative, especially those that are heavily influenced by national grand narratives (in textbooks, for example) or those transmitted prioritizing emotion (cultural aesthetics, especially online). Interestingly, the United States seem more uniform and straightforward: a majority of narrative threads in the United States portray nuclear weapons as a s tool for justice , influencing why the public seems apathetic to the role of being a nuclear aggressor.
Impact of Nuclear Spaces in the Way People Live
Based on analysis of spatial considerations of nuclear narratives, the development of nuclear weapons and theory of deterrence had a significant role in determining American urban planning, which affected how many Americans live, even if most of them are unaware of this impact. The U.S. government partly promoted the suburbanization of America because of fears of a nuclear attack; the design of sprawl has had generational impact on Americans livelihoods, but the origin stories of this is not as publicly available. Ranging from memorials to bunkers to labs, nuclear-related history conveyed through local spaces is both visible and hidden. Nuclear disarmament as a movement largely comes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, even in Tokyo, there is very little obviously linked to nuclear weapons though many cities do have peace museums.
Imprints of Early Schooling Through Textbooks
American textbooks and Japanese textbooks had very different narratives: Japanese textbooks ultimately focused on global nuclear disarmament while American textbooks discussed US-Soviet treaties. American textbooks focused on justifying the use of the bomb and always brought up the land invasion alternative. Japanese textbooks brought up the role of the Soviet invasion and peace feelers to Moscow more frequently than American textbooks. Furthermore, American textbooks gave a Hiroshima Nagasaki death count from 110-260K while Japanese textbooks ranged from 210-340K. Neither American nor Japanese textbooks discussed nuclear policy after the cold war. Japan stops after TPNW and America stops after Reagan.