Download or read book Atomic Audit written by Stephen I. Schwartz and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1945, the United States has manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons to deter and if necessary fight a nuclear war. Some observers believe the absence of a third world war confirms that these weapons were a prudent and cost-effective response to the uncertainty and fear surrounding the Soviet Union's military and political ambitions during the cold war. As early as 1950, nuclear weapons were considered relatively inexpensive— providing "a bigger bang for a buck"—and were thoroughly integrated into U.S. forces on that basis. Yet this assumption was never validated. Indeed, for more than fifty years scant attention has been paid to the enormous costs of this effort—more than $5 trillion thus far—and its short and long-term consequences for the nation. Based on four years of extensive research, Atomic Audit is the first book to document the comprehensive costs of U.S. nuclear weapons, assembling for the first time anywhere the actual and estimated expenditures for the program since its creation in 1940. The authors provide a unique perspective on U.S. nuclear policy and nuclear weapons, tracking their development from the Manhattan Project of World War II to the present day and assessing each aspect of the program, including research, development, testing, and production; deployment; command, control, communications, and intelligence; and defensive measures. They also examine the costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, the management and disposal of large quantities of toxic and radioactive wastes left over from their production, compensation for persons harmed by nuclear weapons activities, nuclear secrecy, and the economic implications of nuclear deterrence. Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentati

Download or read book Effects of Nuclear Earth Penetrator and Other Weapons written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2005-10-06 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Underground facilities are used extensively by many nations to conceal and protect strategic military functions and weapons' stockpiles. Because of their depth and hardened status, however, many of these strategic hard and deeply buried targets could only be put at risk by conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapons (EPW). Recently, an engineering feasibility study, the robust nuclear earth penetrator program, was started by DOE and DOD to determine if a more effective EPW could be designed using major components of existing nuclear weapons. This activity has created some controversy about, among other things, the level of collateral damage that would ensue if such a weapon were used. To help clarify this issue, the Congress, in P.L. 107-314, directed the Secretary of Defense to request from the NRC a study of the anticipated health and environmental effects of nuclear earth-penetrators and other weapons and the effect of both conventional and nuclear weapons against the storage of biological and chemical weapons. This report provides the results of those analyses. Based on detailed numerical calculations, the report presents a series of findings comparing the effectiveness and expected collateral damage of nuclear EPW and surface nuclear weapons under a variety of conditions.

Download or read book Stages of Emergency written by Tracy C. Davis and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-06-27 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVCultural history of the nuclear civil defense excercises in the US, Canada, and the UK, which emphasizes the performative aspect of the staged drills and evacuations./div

Download or read book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons written by United States. Defense Atomic Support Agency and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Facts about Fallout Protection written by and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Nuclear Weapons under International Law written by Gro Nystuen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear Weapons under International Law is a comprehensive treatment of nuclear weapons under key international law regimes. It critically reviews international law governing nuclear weapons with regard to the inter-state use of force, international humanitarian law, human rights law, disarmament law, and environmental law, and discusses where relevant the International Court of Justice's 1996 Advisory Opinion. Unique in its approach, it draws upon contributions from expert legal scholars and international law practitioners who have worked with conventional and non-conventional arms control and disarmament issues. As a result, this book embraces academic consideration of legal questions within the context of broader political debates about the status of nuclear weapons under international law.

Download or read book Restricted Data written by Alex Wellerstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-09 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--

Download or read book The Future of U S Nuclear Weapons Policy written by Committee on International Security and Arms Control and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate about appropriate purposes and policies for U.S. nuclear weapons has been under way since the beginning of the nuclear age. With the end of the Cold War, the debate has entered a new phase, propelled by the post-Cold War transformations of the international political landscape. This volume--based on an exhaustive reexamination of issues addressed in The Future of the U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Relationship (NRC, 1991)--describes the state to which U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and policies have evolved since the Cold War ended. The book evaluates a regime of progressive constraints for future U.S. nuclear weapons policy that includes further reductions in nuclear forces, changes in nuclear operations to preserve deterrence but enhance operational safety, and measures to help prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. In addition, it examines the conditions and means by which comprehensive nuclear disarmament could become feasible and desirable.

Download or read book Bert the Turtle Says Duck and Cover written by and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Atomic Salvation written by Tom Lewis and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2020-07-20 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking analysis of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and what might have happened if conventional weapons were used instead. It has always been a difficult concept to stomach—that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, causing such horrific suffering and destruction, also brought about peace. Attitudes toward the event have changed through the years, from grateful relief that World War II was ended to widespread condemnation of the United States. Atomic Salvation investigates the full situation—examining documents from both Japanese and Allied sources, but also using in-depth analysis to extend beyond the mere recounting of statistics. It charts the full extent of the possible casualties on both sides had a conventional assault akin to D-Day gone ahead against Japan. The work is not concerned solely with the military necessity to use the bombs; it also investigates why that necessity has been increasingly challenged over the successive decades. Controversially, the book demonstrates that Japan would have suffered far greater casualties—likely around 28 million—if the nation had been attacked in the manner by which Germany was defeated: by amphibious assault, artillery and air attacks preceding infantry insertion, and finally by subduing the last of the defenders of the enemy capital. It also investigates the enormous political pressure placed on America as a result of their military situation. The Truman administration had little choice but to use the new weapon given the more than a million deaths that Allied forces would undoubtedly have suffered through conventional assault. By chartingreaction to the bombings over time, Atomic Salvation shows that there has been relentless pressure on the world to condemn what at the time was seen as the best, and only, military solution to end the conflict. Never has such an exhaustive analysis been made of the necessity behind bringing World War II to a halt.

Download or read book The Effects of Atomic Weapons written by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prepared for U.S. Atomic energy comm.

Download or read book Civil Defense written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Family Fallout Shelter written by and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In an atomic war, blast, heat, and initial radiation could kill millions close to ground zero of nuclear bursts. Many more millions-everybody else-could be threatened by radioactive fallout. But most of these could be saved. The purpose of this booklet is to show how to escape death from fallout. Everyone, even those far from a likely target, would need shelter from fallout. Your Federal Government has a shelter policy based on the knowledge that most of those beyond the range of blast and heat will survive if they have adequate protection from fallout." -Author's description.

Download or read book Civil Defense 1961 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Civil Defense written by United States. Congress. House Government Operations and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Nuclear Taboo written by Nina Tannenwald and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-20 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why have nuclear weapons not been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? Nina Tannenwald disputes the conventional answer of 'deterrence' in favour of what she calls a nuclear taboo - a widespread inhibition on using nuclear weapons - which has arisen in global politics. Drawing on newly released archival sources, Tannenwald traces the rise of the nuclear taboo, the forces that produced it, and its influence, particularly on US leaders. She analyzes four critical instances where US leaders considered using nuclear weapons (Japan 1945, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War 1991) and examines how the nuclear taboo has repeatedly dissuaded US and other world leaders from resorting to these 'ultimate weapons'. Through a systematic analysis, Tannenwald challenges conventional conceptions of deterrence and offers a compelling argument on the moral bases of nuclear restraint as well as an important insight into how nuclear war can be avoided in the future.

Download or read book Civil Defense for National Survival written by United States. Congress House. Committee on Government Operations and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: