BUILDING MORE BOMBS: THE DISCURSIVE EMERGENCE OF US NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY by JOHN M. VALDEZ A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Political Science and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2018 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: John M. Valdez Title: Building More Bombs: The Discursive Emergence of US Nuclear Weapons Policy This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Political Science by: Jane K. Cramer Chair Gerald Berk Core Member Lars Skalnes Core Member Greg McLauchlan Institutional Representative and Sara D. Hodges Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2018. ii © 2018 John M. Valdez iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT John M. Valdez Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science June 2018 Title: Building More Bombs: The Discursive Emergence of US Nuclear Weapons Policy This dissertation investigates the social construction and discursive emergence of US nuclear weapons policy against the backdrop of the nuclear taboo and its associated anti-nuclear discourse. The analysis is drawn from poststructuralism with a focus on the discourses that construct the social world and its attendant “common sense,” and makes possible certain policies and courses of action while foreclosing others. This methodology helps overcome the overdetermined nature of foreign policy, or its tendency to be driven simultaneously by the international strategic environment, the domestic political environment, and powerful domestic organizations, and while being shaped and delimited by the discourses associated with the nuclear taboo. I apply this method to three different cases of presidential administration policymaking: Eisenhower, Reagan, and George W. Bush. In each, the analysis illuminates the coherent discourses that emerged, crystallized, and either became policy, or were usurped by competing discourses and their associated policies. I follow the actions of key actors as they stitched together existing discourses in new ways to create meaning for nuclear weapons and the US arsenal, as well as to limit what could and should be done with that arsenal. The case studies reveal the content of the strategic international, domestic political, organizational, and normative bases of US nuclear weapons policy. These results suggest that most challenges to the nuclear policy status quo emerge from new presidents whose own discourse is built upon personal conviction and critiques of their predecessors. Upon taking office, these sources compete with discourses emerging from organizations, especially the nuclear weapons complex, and anti-nuclear forces including: activists, the scientific community, the international public, US allied governments, and the US public. It was this political conflict and confrontation that made possible the pattern of nuclear weapons policy that characterized each administration. This work points to the strength iv of the nuclear taboo, and the effort that must be expended for its associated discourses to impact presidential policymaking. This insight provides an opening for managing the nuclear threat posed by the Trump administration’s new nuclear weapons policy. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: John M. Valdez GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of Nevada, Las Vegas Pepperdine University, Malibu, California DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science, 2018, University of Oregon Master of Arts in Political Science, 2015, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, 2003, Major: Business Administration, Pepperdine University AREAS OF INTEREST: AOS: International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Interpretive Research Methods AOC: Politics of Nuclear Weapons, US Foreign Policy, Cold War History, Causes of War PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Instructor, Department of Politics, Willamette University, Salem, OR, 2017 Graduate Employee, Department of Political Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2011-2018 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Thomas Hovet Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Fellowship Instructors, Department of Political Science, University of Oregon, 2018 William C. Mitchell Summer Research Award, Department of Political Science, University of Oregon ($2000), 2016 Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Departments of Political Science, University of Oregon, 2011-present vi Cum Laude, Pepperdine University, 2003 PRESENTATIONS: Presentation and discussion. “The Impact of Norms of Nuclear Weapons Use on American Foreign Policy and the Non-Proliferation Regime.” Sponsored by the Oregon chapter of Alexander Hamilton Society, October, 2017. “Emerging Discourse: Constructing Possibilities for Nuclear Weapons Policy During the Eisenhower Administration.” Presented at the Junior Scholars Symposium panel at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, February, 2017, Baltimore, Maryland. “Frozen Identity: Re-examining the Role of Public Opinion and Political Action in the Reagan Administration’s Nuclear Weapons Politics”. Presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, March, 2016, Atlanta, Georgia. “Testing the Taboo: Analyzing the George W. Bush Attack on the Norm of the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons,” co-authored with Dr. Jane Cramer. Presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, February, 2015, New Orleans, Louisiana. "Sources of the Normative Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons Use in the United States: A Discursive Analysis." Presented at the Pacific Northwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, October, 2014, Bend, Oregon. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 The Problem: Socially-Constructed Taboo, Insular Policymakers .................. 3 Investigating Foreign Policy ............................................................................ 5 The Literature ................................................................................................... 7 History.................................................................................................. 8 Doctrine and Foreign Policy ................................................................ 9 “Nuclear Weapons Policy” ................................................................ 13 Research Hypotheses ..................................................................................... 17 Hypothesis 1....................................................................................... 17 Hypothesis 2....................................................................................... 18 Hypothesis 3....................................................................................... 18 Poststructural Discourse Analysis.................................................................. 20 Epistemology ..................................................................................... 24 Systems of Signification .................................................................... 25 Productivity ........................................................................................ 27 Play of Practice .................................................................................. 28 Case Studies ................................................................................................... 29 Dwight D. Eisenhower ....................................................................... 30 Ronald W. Reagan ............................................................................. 32 George W. Bush ................................................................................. 34 II. THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION: EMERGENCE OF INTERNATIONAL NORMS ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY .................... 39 Introduction .................................................................................................... 39 Pre-Presidency: The Eisenhower Discourse from 1945-1953 ....................... 42 Advent of the Cold War ..................................................................... 44 NSC 68 ............................................................................................... 48 The Early 1950’s: No Consensus ....................................................... 49 The Early Eisenhower Administration: Candor and Atoms for Peace .......... 52 “Armaments and American Policy” ................................................... 53 NSC 151 ............................................................................................. 58 Psychological Warfare ....................................................................... 61 A Chance for “Peace” ........................................................................ 63 Candor and the Soviet Hydrogen Bomb ............................................ 68 1954-1956: From Theory to Practice ............................................................. 78 Quemoy and Matsu ............................................................................ 85 The Nuclear Fallout Problem ......................................................................... 90 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 100 III. FROZEN DISCOURSE: REAGAN CONFRONTS THE NUCLEAR FREEZE MOVEMENT