CRITIQUE/PROLIFERATION IMAGE

LINK: FOCUS ON PROLIFERATION ENTRENCHES THE PROLIFERATION IMAGE

FOCUS ON PROLIFERATION AS THE CRITICAL QUESTION CREATES A "PROLIFERATION IMAGE" WITHIN WHICH POLICIES ARE MADE

DAVID MUTIMER, Prof. Political Science York University, 2000; THE WEAPONS STATE: PROLIFERATION AND THE FRAMING OF SECURITY // VT2002 acs p. 58

To this point I have discussed the various images through which weapons technology has been framed in general terms. The central argument of this book is that these technologies have been reframed in terms of "proliferation," and that this has had particular practical and political consequences. To make this argument and to explore those consequences, it is necessary to fill in the "proliferation" frame in much more detail. This image joins together a number of discursive links to create a particular discursive construction of an international security problem. The central element of the image, the one that draws the others together into a single image, is proliferation itself.

EXAMPLES OF "SPREADING" RHETORIC WHICH CREATE THE PROLIFERATION IMAGE

DAVID MUTIMER, Prof. Political Science York University, 2000; THE WEAPONS STATE: PROLIFERATION AND THE FRAMING OF SECURITY // VT2002 acs p.

60

The first implication is that something imagined in terms of "proliferation" is seen to grow or multiply from a single source. Although animal reproduction involves two individuals, the father is quickly forgotten, and it is the mother who is proliferous. The budding of cells, which gives rise to the proliferation of some plants and, of course, cancers, begins with a single, or source, cell and spreads from there-in the case of a cancer, both to produce a single tumor and to create a number of separate tumors throughout the host body. Similarly, the problem of weapons proliferation is one of a source or sources proliferating, that is, reproducing by supplying the necessary technology to a new site of technological application. This form of imagining highlights the transmission process from source to recipient. Hence, the dominant response to nuclear proliferation has been the creation of supplier groups-the Zangger Committee and the NSG -- that seek to control the spread of nuclear technology. In other words, to paraphrase Murray and Hunt, they attempt to provide the checks and balances that normally ensure orderly transfer and prevent the spread of nuclear technology resulting in the "cancer" of a prolific number of nuclear weapons.

INSPECTION SYSTEMS LIKE IN IRAQ ARE AN EXAMPLE OF THE PROLIFERATION IMAGE

DAVID MUTIMER, Prof. Political Science York University, 2000; THE WEAPONS STATE: PROLIFERATION AND THE FRAMING OF SECURITY // VT2002 acs p.

146-147

"Proliferation" imagines the security problems of military technology as produced by "the spread of technology related to the research for or production of [weapons of mass destruction]."" It therefore divides control strategies by the particular technology and applies controls to those uses identified as legitimate, as well as tracking the global movement of the relevant technologies. The "proliferation" image is precisely reproduced in the practices of UNSCOM. From the beginning, inspections were organized first on the basis of technologies. The initial UNSCOM inspections were conducted by the IAEA to "develop an over-all picture of the nature, direction and capabilities of the Iraqi nuclear programme." The majority of the remainder of UNSCOM's work was organized according to a plan finally submitted to the Security Council on 2 October 1991. The plan outlined the means of "ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with its obligations" under Resolution 687.