Apocalyptic Crimes

Why Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal and Must Be Abolished

By Ronald C. Kramer

SERIES: Critical Issues in Crime and Society

Rutgers University Press

In 2023, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the iconic Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to midnight, or civilization-ending apocalypse, it has ever been. Designed at the onset of the Cold War amid new fears of atomic weapons, the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic countdown to annihilation. Now, a generation later, the world is more vulnerable than ever to the nuclear weapons it sought to warn against. In Apocalyptic Crimes, Ronald C. Kramer reconsiders the immense danger these weapons pose to humanity, examining the use, threat to use, and continued possession of nuclear weapons from a criminological perspective.

Kramer argues that any country holding on to its nuclear arsenal—including the United States—is committing a criminal act. Offering a sharp rebuke to the common claim that nuclear stockpiles serve to deter the escalation of conflict, Apocalyptic Crimes emphasizes the harm caused by the mere possession of these deadly weapons. It further considers the culpability of political officials, acting as representatives of the state, whose threatening statements about nuclear weapons contain actions or omissions that violate specific international laws. But Kramer also shows how a nuclear apocalypse might be averted and offers a pathway to disarmament. Through critical analysis and a specific criminology of nuclear weapons, Kramer outlines the political actions necessary to rewind the Doomsday Clock and pull the world back from the brink of destruction—before the clock strikes midnight.

Kramer brilliantly provides an in-depth, meticulous, and unambiguous critical analysis establishing the immorality and illegality of nuclear weapons and the ominous catastrophic threat they pose to all of humanity and other living species. Apocalyptic Crimes is a timely must-read given the climate crisis, increased geopolitical tensions, wars, conflicts, and ongoing nuclear aspirations. Kramer elegantly demonstrates that the culture of nuclearism must end and atomic weapons should be abolished, dismantled, and destroyed before the Doomsday Clock clicks on midnight. Dawn L. Rothe, coeditor of State Crime: Current Perspectives

As one of few criminologists to warn of the threats posed to humanity by nuclear weapons, Kramer has been a prominent and assiduous voice on the importance of this issue within the discipline for over forty years. In this book, he provides a means of historicizing, conceptualizing, analyzing, and—importantly—challenging contemporary geopolitical apocalyptic crimes. Calling on scholars and the public to take seriously the stockpiling of and threats to use nuclear weapons, this book is a wake-up call for criminology to foreground these contemporary problems as key features of the discipline. Ross McGarry, coauthor of A Criminology of War?

RONALD C. KRAMER is a professor of sociology at Western Michigan University. His books include Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes and State-Corporate Crime, both from Rutgers University Press.

Preface and Acknowledgments
Foreword by Ray Michalowski
Chapter 1 “It is 90 Seconds to Midnight”: Nuclear Weapons, Apocalyptic Harms, and
State Crime
Chapter 2 Nuclear Warfare is Illegal: International Law and Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3 The Use of the Atomic Bomb Against Japan and the Normalization of a
Geopolitical Crime
Chapter 4 Crimes of Empire: Cold War Nuclear Threats and the Failure of International
Controls
Chapter 5 Nuclear Madness, Arms Control Treaties, and the End of the Cold War
Chapter 6 After the Cold War: Lost Opportunities for Disarmament, Nuclear
Nonproliferation by Force, and the Prague Promise
Chapter 7 Current Apocalyptic Threats, The American Empire, and a Pathway to the
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
List of Abbreviations
Index

Foreword: Nuclear Death by Raymond J. Michalowski ix
Preface and Acknowledgments
xxi
List of Abbreviations xxv
1 “It Is 90 Seconds to Midnight”: Nuclear Weapons,
Apocalyptic Harms, and State Crime 1
2 Nuclear Warfare Is Illegal: International Law
and Nuclear Weapons 23
3 The Use of the Atomic Bomb against Japan
and the Normalization of a Geopolitical
Crime 51
4 Crimes of Empire: Cold War Nuclear Threats
and the Failure of International Controls 83
5 Nuclear Madness, Arms Control Treaties,
and the End of the Cold War 109
6 After
the Cold War: Lost Opportunities
for Disarmament, Nuclear Nonproliferation
by Force, and the Prague Promise 139
7 Current Apocalyptic Threats, the American
Empire, and a Pathway to the Abolition of
Nuclear Weapons 177
Notes 213
Index 000

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