There have been three notable nuclear-weapons-related events in recent months. The first concerns the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was agreed in 1968, came into force on 5 March 1970 and was ratified by a large number of countries. ‘Considering the devastation that would be visited upon all mankind by a nuclear war’, the parties agreed to prevent the ‘diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons’, to act to counter the spread of nuclear weapons and to take effective measures ‘in the direction of nuclear disarmament’ and the maintenance of peace. However, Russia, after invading Ukraine and settling into a long-term war there, while threatening the Atlantic Alliance on several occasions with the use of atomic weapons, has decided to leave the NPT.
The second event was the release in July 2023 of Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, which has been immensely successful in France, as shown by the box office figures (in excess of 4 million by November, according to Box Office France). The third is the publication of an updated and expanded paperback edition of Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s The War That Must Not Occur (Redwood : Stanford University Press, 2023), which takes the view that ‘we are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been’. Dupuy offers his take on Nolan’s film here, putting into proper context the portrayal of the physicist Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), director of the Manhattan Project that led to the development of the atom bomb.
