Rhetoric has traditionally played an important role in constituting the nuclear future, yet that role has changed significantly since the declared end of the Cold War. Viewed from the perspectives of nuclear criticism and postmodern theories of risk and security, current rhetoric of US nuclear modernization demonstrates how contingencies of voice and persona mediate the success of official depictions of the future as a warrant for proposals to innovate nuclear weapons. In particular, two forces destabilize the virtuous persona of modernization's advocates: incongruity between the types of risk they conceptualize, and an ethic of "responsibility" that opposes their promotion of instrumental "responsiveness." These forces create openings for challenge by a rising international movement to abolish nuclear weapons. (Contains 103 notes.)