Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights the debates surrounding the great power narratives that in turn entailed consequences for the conduct of nuclear foreign policy. It demonstrates that the respective nuclear policies of the administrations entailed a negotiation between 'radical otherness' and 'otherness' as the spatial and temporal themes are utilised through identities of 'race', 'political economy' and 'gender' to maintain inequalities. The book considers foreign policy from a critical constructivist viewpoint through a focus on narratives and state identity. It argues that US nuclear policy towards India during the Cold War was guided by identity driven rhetoric through which US nuclear subjectivity came to be invoked much more clearly and became a driving force in the management of US nuclear relations with India.