Wizards, cowboys, and action intellectuals : masculinity and the Cold War origins of nuclear deterrence

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Eschle, Catherine (2025) Wizards, cowboys, and action intellectuals : masculinity and the Cold War origins of nuclear deterrence. The Nonproliferation Review, 32 (1-3). pp. 25-46. (https://doi.org/10.1080/10736700.2025.2585176)

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Abstract

This article addresses the apparent permanence of nuclear deterrence by interrogating the role of gender in stories of its origin. More specifically, I ask how gender shaped the emergence and appeal of nuclear-deterrence theorizing at the RAND Corporation, a prototype think tank and crucible of nuclear strategy, in the two decades after its establishment in 1946. I focus on stories told about RAND, drawing on primary and secondary sources to retell a “shadow narrative” of the protagonists, their backstory and setting, and the plot of their rise and fall. This shadow narrative reveals key gendered mechanisms, including the pervasive association of RAND men with genius and wizardry; the role of what could be called “old boys’ networks” and sexist and exclusionary processes of fraternal bonding; and the rise of a newly hegemonic form of masculinity in which rationality ostensibly replaced physical force as the marker of aspirational manhood. Critical examination of these mechanisms serves to denaturalize the emergence of nuclear-deterrence theorizing, revealing it to be contextual and contingent. The article thereby contributes to the possibility of thinking about nuclear weapons differently, beyond nuclear deterrence.

ORCID iDs

Eschle, Catherine ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4566-9176;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)