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Hugh Gusterson

Hugh Gusterson

An anthropologist, Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University. His expertise is in nuclear culture, international security, and the anthropology of science. He has conducted considerable fieldwork in the United States and Russia, where he studied the culture of nuclear weapon scientists and antinuclear activists. Two of his books encapsulate this work--Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (University of California Press, 1996) and People of the Bomb: Portraits of America's Nuclear Complex (University of Minnesota Press, 2004). He also coedited Why America's Top Pundits Are Wrong (University of California Press, 2005) and the sequel, The Insecure American (University of California Press, 2009). Previously, he taught in MIT's Program on Science, Technology, and Society.

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Articles by Hugh Gusterson

Columnists
6 September 2013
Biosecurity
AmericasMiddle East

Syria and the limits of realpolitik

Hugh Gusterson

The idea that intervention will make America safer is wrong-headed.

Columnists
23 July 2013
Technology and Security
Americas

Not all secrets are alike

Hugh Gusterson

Why there will be more Bradley Mannings and Edward Snowdens.

Columnists
31 January 2013
Nuclear Weapons

Where women warriors will lead

Hugh Gusterson

The announcement that the Pentagon will open combat positions to women marks the third great turn toward integration and equality in the history of the US military. The first came in 1948 when President Harry Truman ordered racial desegregation of the armed forces. Thanks to Truman, we now accept a situation that was deeply troubling to some at the time: white soldiers serving under black officers. The second integrationist turn came with the decision, initiated by President Clinton and finalized under President Obama, to allow gay men and women to serve in the military.

Columnists
13 November 2012
Nuclear Weapons

The nuclear dogs that didn't bark

Hugh Gusterson

In the Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze, the key to solving a mystery turns out to be identifying what did not happen (and, as so often with things that do not happen, had therefore been ignored).

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Book ReviewColumnists
30 March 2012
Nuclear Weapons
Americas

The new abolitionists

Hugh Gusterson

Philip Taubman's new book, The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb, recounts the story of five front-rank Cold Warriors who have become nuclear abolitionists in their old age.

Columnists
28 February 2012
Nuclear Weapons

Weapons labs and the inconvenient truth

Hugh Gusterson

On February 16, the strategic forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the oversight of the nuclear weapons laboratories. The nine out of 16 committee members who skipped the hearing -- including the congressman who represents the district encompassing the Livermore Laboratory -- missed a fine show.

Columnists
2 February 2012

An education in occupation

Hugh Gusterson

As the last American soldiers left Iraq in December, so, too, did many of the journalists who had covered the war, leaving little in the way of media coverage of post-war Iraq.

1 November 2011
Features

The assault on Los Alamos National Laboratory: A drama in three acts

Hugh Gusterson
Columnists
13 October 2011

Death by drone

Hugh Gusterson

Anwar al-Awlaki was clearly not a nice person, but the manner in which he was killed on September 30 should trouble us all, regardless of our political orientation. Awlaki, a US citizen who once lived in Northern Virginia, was a Muslim cleric who took up residence in Yemen, where he incited anti-US sentiment -- until he was executed by a drone.

Columnists
8 September 2011
Nuclear Weapons

The costs of war

Hugh Gusterson

Military responses to problems have a way of creating all sorts of new problems. The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy offers an opportunity to reflect on the costs and benefits of the wars the United States initiated against Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks. A comprehensive new study, "Costs of War," sponsored by Brown University (and with which I have been affiliated) suggests that the costs have been wildly out of proportion to  the benefits.

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