From close call to close contacts: transsystemic techno-diplomacy and cooperation in the civilian uses of nuclear power, 1963–79. Issue 4 (2nd October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guth, Stefan
• Is Part Of: Cold War history. Volume 21:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: 491
• Page End: 508
• Publication Date: 2021-10-02
• Subjects: Soviet Union -- United States -- France -- nuclear power -- transsystemic cooperation -- techno-diplomacy -- 1960s -- 1970s; Cold War -- Periodicals; World politics -- 1945- -- Periodicals; 940.55
• DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2020.1775588
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1468-2745

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The centrality of the nuclear in Cold War politics has long been undisputed. But while confrontation and competition between the blocs figure prominently in accounts of the atomic age, transsystemic cooperation is only beginning to attract scholarly attention. Based on an analysis of Soviet collaboration with the United States and France in fast breeder reactor development and nuclear-powered water desalination, this article argues that in a changing international order, the red lines of Soviet nuclear sharing stopped to coincide with the bloc divide, and started to align ever more closely with the division line between nuclear haves and nuclear have-nots.