1.
Nuclear weapon
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A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from small amounts of matter. The first test of a bomb released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10 million tons of TNT, a thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. A nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate a city by blast, fire. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of destruction, and their use. Nuclear weapons have been used twice in nuclear warfare, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II, the bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel from acute injuries sustained from the explosions. The ethics of the bombings and their role in Japans surrender remain the subject of scholarly, since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for the purposes of testing and demonstration. Only a few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them, israel is also believed to possess nuclear weapons, though in a policy of deliberate ambiguity, it does not acknowledge having them. Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands are nuclear weapons sharing states, south Africa is the only country to have independently developed and then renounced and dismantled its nuclear weapons. Modernisation of weapons continues to occur, all existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as bombs or atom bombs. This has long noted as something of a misnomer, as their energy comes from the nucleus of the atom. The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former and only the approach can be used if the fissile material is plutonium. A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons of TNT, all fission reactions necessarily generate fission products, the radioactive remains of the atomic nuclei split by the fission reactions. Many fission products are highly radioactive or moderately radioactive. Fission products are the radioactive component of nuclear fallout
2.
History of nuclear weapons
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Nuclear weapons possess enormous destructive power from nuclear fission or combined fission and fusion reactions. In August 1945, two bombs were dropped on Japan, and stands to date as the only use of nuclear weapons in combat. The Soviet Union started development shortly thereafter with their own atomic bomb project, in the first decades of the 20th century, physics was revolutionised with developments in the understanding of the nature of atoms. In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie discovered that pitchblende, an ore of uranium, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy identified that atoms were breaking down and turning into different elements. Hopes were raised among scientists and laymen that the elements around us could contain tremendous amounts of unseen energy, H. G. Wells was inspired to write about atomic weapons in a 1914 novel, The World Set Free, which appeared shortly before the First World War. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, leó Szilárd fled to London where he proposed, and in 1934 patented, the idea of a nuclear chain reaction via neutrons. The patent also introduced the critical mass to describe the minimum amount of material required to sustain the chain reaction. He subsequently assigned the patent to the British Admiralty so that it could be covered by the Official Secrets Act, in a very real sense, Szilárd was the father of the atomic bomb academically. In December 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sent a manuscript to Naturwissenschaften reporting that they had detected the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons, lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch correctly interpreted these results as being due to the splitting of the uranium atom. They gave the process the name fission because of its similarity to the splitting of a cell into two new cells, even before it was published, news of Meitner’s and Frisch’s interpretation crossed the Atlantic. Scientists at Columbia University decided to replicate the experiment and on January 25,1939, the following year, they identified the active component of uranium as being the rare isotope uranium-235. Uranium appears in nature primarily in two isotopes, uranium-238 and uranium-235, when the nucleus of uranium-235 absorbs a neutron, it undergoes nuclear fission, releasing energy and, on average,2.5 neutrons. Because uranium-235 releases more neutrons than it absorbs, it can support a chain reaction, uranium-238, on the other hand, is not fissile as it does not normally undergo fission when it absorbs a neutron. By the time Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, beginning World War II, physicists on both sides were well aware of the possibility of utilizing nuclear fission as a weapon, but no one was quite sure how it could be done. In August 1939, concerned that Germany might have its own project to develop fission-based weapons, Roosevelt responded by setting up the Uranium Committee under Lyman James Briggs but, with little initial funding, progress was slow. It was not until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December,1941, organized research first began in Britain as part of the Tube Alloys project. The blast from such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area, the size of this area is difficult to estimate, but it will probably cover the centre of a big city. Edgar Sengier, a director of Shinkolobwe Mine in Congo which produced by far the highest quality uranium ore in the world, had become aware of possible use in a bomb
3.
Nuclear warfare
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Nuclear warfare is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is used to inflict damage on the enemy. In contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time-frame, some activists had claimed in the 1980s that with this potential nuclear winter side-effect of a nuclear war, almost every human on Earth could starve to death. So far, two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II, on August 6,1945, a uranium gun-type device was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium device was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 120,000 people, in 1974, India, and in 1998, Pakistan, two countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons. Israel and North Korea are also thought to have developed stocks of nuclear weapons, the Israeli government has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, although it is known to have constructed the reactor and reprocessing plant necessary for building nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over 2,000 occasions for testing purposes, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resultant end of the Cold War, the threat of a major nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers was generally thought to have declined. Since then, concern over nuclear weapons has shifted to the prevention of localized nuclear conflicts resulting from nuclear proliferation, the possibility of using nuclear weapons in war is usually divided into two subgroups, each with different effects and potentially fought with different types of nuclear armaments. The first, a nuclear war, refers to a small-scale use of nuclear weapons by two belligerents. This term could apply to any use of nuclear weapons that may involve military or civilian targets. The second, a nuclear war, could consist of large numbers of nuclear weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including military, economic. Such an attack would almost certainly destroy the economic, social, and military infrastructure of the target nation. Some Cold War strategists such as Henry Kissinger argued that a nuclear war could be possible between two heavily armed superpowers. Some predict, however, that a war could potentially escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. Even the most optimistic predictions of the effects of a nuclear exchange foresee the death of many millions of victims within a very short period of time. However, such predictions, assuming total war with nuclear arsenals at Cold War highs, have not been without criticism. The authors of the study estimated that as much as five tons of soot could be released, producing a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America. The cooling would last for years and could be catastrophic, according to the researchers, either a limited or full-scale nuclear exchange could occur during an accidental nuclear war, in which the use of nuclear weapons is triggered unintentionally
4.
Nuclear weapon design
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Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types, in many existing designs, the explosive energy of deployed devices is derived primarily from nuclear fission, not fusion. Pure fission weapons were the first nuclear weapons built and have so far been the type ever used in warfare. Implosion, a mass of either material is surrounded by high explosives that compress the mass. The implosion method can use either uranium or plutonium as fuel, the gun method only uses uranium. Boosted fission weapons improve on the implosion design, the high pressure and temperature environment at the center of an exploding fission weapon compresses and heats a mixture of tritium and deuterium gas. The hydrogen fuses to form helium and free neutrons, boosting can more than double the weapons fission energy release. Staged thermonuclear weapons are essentially a chain of fusion-boosted fission weapons, the secondary stage is imploded by x-ray energy from the first stage, called the primary. This radiation implosion is much more effective than the high-explosive implosion of the primary, consequently, the secondary can be many times more powerful than the primary, without being bigger. The secondary can be designed to maximize fusion energy release, but in most designs fusion is employed only to drive or enhance fission, as it is in the primary. More stages could be added and conceptual designs incorporating up to seven have been produced, pure fusion weapons have not been invented. Such weapons, though, would produce far less radioactive fallout than current designs, pure fission weapons historically have been the first type to be built by a nation state. Most known innovations in nuclear weapon design originated in the United States, although some were developed independently by other states. In early news accounts, pure fission weapons were called atomic bombs or A-bombs, Weapons involving fusion were called hydrogen bombs or H-bombs, also a misnomer since their energy comes mostly from fission. Practitioners favored the terms nuclear and thermonuclear, respectively, the term thermonuclear refers to the high temperatures required to initiate fusion. It omits the equally important factor of radiation pressure, which was considered secret at the time the term became widespread, many nuclear weapon terms similarly obfuscate because of their origin in a classified environment. Nuclear fission separates or splits heavier atoms to form lighter atoms, Nuclear fusion combines together lighter atoms to form heavier atoms. In some ways, fission and fusion are opposite and complementary reactions, to understand how nuclear weapons are designed, it is useful to know the important similarities and differences between fission and fusion
5.
Nuclear weapons delivery
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Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. Several methods have developed to carry out this task. Strategic nuclear weapons are used primarily as part of a doctrine of deterrence by threatening large targets, weapons meant for use in limited military maneuvers, such as destroying specific military, communications, or infrastructure targets, are known as tactical nuclear weapons. In terms of yields, nowadays the former have much larger yield than the latter. The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were weaker than many of todays tactical weapons, historically, the first method of delivery, and the method used in the only two nuclear weapons actually used in warfare, was a gravity bomb dropped by a plane. S. Nuclear warheads are represented in bombs, although some are in the form of missiles, gravity bombs are designed to be dropped from planes, which requires that the weapon be able to withstand vibrations and changes in air temperature and pressure during the course of a flight. Early weapons often had a core for safety, known as in flight insertion cores. They had to meet safety conditions, to prevent accidental detonation or dropping, a variety of types also had to have a fuse to initiate detonation. US nuclear weapons that met these criteria are designated by the letter B followed, without a hyphen, the B61, for example, was the primary bomb in the US arsenal for decades. Various air-dropping techniques exist, including bombing, parachute-retarded delivery. The early gravity nuclear bombs could only be carried by the B-29 Superfortress, most ballistic missiles exit the Earths atmosphere and re-enter it in their sub-orbital spaceflight. Placement of nuclear missiles on the low Earth orbit has been banned by the Outer Space Treaty as early as 1967. An ICBM is more than 20 times as fast as a bomber and more than 10 times as fast as a plane, and also flying at a much higher altitude. ICBMs can also be fired quickly in the event of a surprise attack, early ballistic missiles carried a single warhead, often of megaton-range yield. Because of the accuracy of the missiles, this kind of high yield was considered necessary in order to ensure a particular targets destruction. Since the 1970s modern ballistic weapons have seen the development of far more accurate targeting technologies and this set the stage for smaller warheads in the hundreds-of-kilotons-range yield, and consequently for ICBMs having multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. Advances in technology have enabled a single missile to launch a payload containing several warheads, the number of independent warheads capable of deployment from ballistic missiles depends on the weapons platform the missile is launched from. For example, one D5 Trident missile carried by an Ohio-class submarine is capable of launching eight independent warheads, MIRV has a number of advantages over a missile with a single warhead
6.
Nuclear weapon yield
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An explosive yield of one terajoule is 0.239 kt of TNT. The yield-to-weight ratio is the amount of weapon yield compared to the mass of the weapon, the practical maximum yield-to-weight ratio for fusion weapons has been estimated to six megatons of TNT per metric ton of bomb mass. Yields of 5.2 megatons/ton and higher have been reported for large weapons constructed for use in the early 1960s. Most artificial non-nuclear explosions are considerably smaller than even what are considered to be very small nuclear weapons, the yield-to-weight ratio is the amount of weapon yield compared to the mass of the weapon. According to nuclear-weapons designer Ted Taylor, the practical maximum yield-to-weight ratio for fusion weapons is about 6 megatons of TNT per metric ton. The Taylor limit is not derived from first principles, and weapons with yields as high as 9.5 megatons per metric ton have been designed and built. The 25 Mt yield option reported for the B41 would give it a ratio of 5.1 megatons of TNT per metric ton. This results in the B41 still retaining the record for the highest Yield-to-weight weapon ever designed, in 1963 DOE declassified statements that the U. S. had the technological capability of deploying a 35 Mt warhead on the Titan II, or a 50-60 Mt gravity bomb on B-52s. Neither weapon was pursued, but either would require yield-to-weight ratios superior to a 25 Mt Mk-41, for current smaller US weapons, yield is 600 to 2200 kilotons of TNT per metric ton. By comparison, for the very small devices such as the Davy Crockett it was 0.4 to 40 kilotons of TNT per metric ton. For historical comparison, for Little Boy the yield was only 4 kilotons of TNT per metric ton, and for the largest Tsar Bomba, the yield was 2 megatons of TNT per metric ton. The largest pure-fission bomb ever constructed Ivy King had a 500 kiloton yield, however, there is no known upper yield limit for a fusion bomb. For example, the Mk-36 bomb as built had a ratio of 1.25 megatons of TNT per metric ton. Delivery size limits can be estimated to ascertain limits to delivery of high yield weapons. If the full 250 metric ton payload of the Antonov An-225 aircraft could be used, likewise, the maximum limit of a missile-delivered weapon is determined by the missile gross payload capacity. The large Russian SS-18 ICBM has a capacity of 7,200 kg. A Saturn V-scale missile could deliver over 120 tons, giving a maximum yield of about 700 megatons. The following list is of nuclear explosions
7.
Effects of nuclear explosions
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The blast effect is created by the coupling of immense amounts of energy, spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, with the surroundings. Locations such as submarine, surface, air burst, or exo-atmospheric determine how energy is produced as blast. In general, denser media around the bomb, like water, absorb more energy, when an air burst occurs, lethal blast and thermal effects proportionally scale much more rapidly than lethal radiation effects, as higher and higher yield nuclear weapons are used. Energy from an explosive is initially released in several forms of penetrating radiation. When there is a material such as air, rock, or water. This causes vaporization of surrounding material resulting in its rapid expansion, kinetic energy created by this expansion contributes to the formation of a shockwave. When a nuclear detonation occurs in air near sea level, much of the released energy interacts with the atmosphere, intense thermal radiation at the hypocenter forms a nuclear fireball and if the burst is low enough, it is often associated with a mushroom cloud. In a burst at high altitude, where the air density is low, more energy is released as ionizing gamma radiation and this would concern a nuclear reaction of two nitrogen atoms forming a carbon and an oxygen atom, with release of energy. This energy would heat up the remaining nitrogen enough to keep the reaction going until all nitrogen atoms were consumed. Hans Bethe was assigned the task of studying there was a possibility in the very early days. Richard Hamming, a mathematician, was asked to make a similar calculation just before Trinity, nevertheless, the notion has persisted as a rumor for many years, and was the source of black humor at the Trinity test. The high temperatures and radiation cause gas to move outward radially in a thin, the front acts like a piston that pushes against and compresses the surrounding medium to make a spherically expanding shock wave. At first, this wave is inside the surface of the developing fireball. For air bursts at or near sea-level, 50–60% of the energy goes into the blast wave, depending on the size. As a general rule, the blast fraction is higher for low yield weapons, furthermore, it decreases at high altitudes because there is less air mass to absorb radiation energy and convert it into blast. This effect is most important for altitudes above 30 km, corresponding to <1 per cent of air density. The effects of a rain storm during an Operation Castle nuclear explosion was found to dampen, or reduce. Much of the caused by a nuclear explosion is due to blast effects
8.
Nuclear explosion
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The blast effect is created by the coupling of immense amounts of energy, spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, with the surroundings. Locations such as submarine, surface, air burst, or exo-atmospheric determine how energy is produced as blast. In general, denser media around the bomb, like water, absorb more energy, when an air burst occurs, lethal blast and thermal effects proportionally scale much more rapidly than lethal radiation effects, as higher and higher yield nuclear weapons are used. Energy from an explosive is initially released in several forms of penetrating radiation. When there is a material such as air, rock, or water. This causes vaporization of surrounding material resulting in its rapid expansion, kinetic energy created by this expansion contributes to the formation of a shockwave. When a nuclear detonation occurs in air near sea level, much of the released energy interacts with the atmosphere, intense thermal radiation at the hypocenter forms a nuclear fireball and if the burst is low enough, it is often associated with a mushroom cloud. In a burst at high altitude, where the air density is low, more energy is released as ionizing gamma radiation and this would concern a nuclear reaction of two nitrogen atoms forming a carbon and an oxygen atom, with release of energy. This energy would heat up the remaining nitrogen enough to keep the reaction going until all nitrogen atoms were consumed. Hans Bethe was assigned the task of studying there was a possibility in the very early days. Richard Hamming, a mathematician, was asked to make a similar calculation just before Trinity, nevertheless, the notion has persisted as a rumor for many years, and was the source of black humor at the Trinity test. The high temperatures and radiation cause gas to move outward radially in a thin, the front acts like a piston that pushes against and compresses the surrounding medium to make a spherically expanding shock wave. At first, this wave is inside the surface of the developing fireball. For air bursts at or near sea-level, 50–60% of the energy goes into the blast wave, depending on the size. As a general rule, the blast fraction is higher for low yield weapons, furthermore, it decreases at high altitudes because there is less air mass to absorb radiation energy and convert it into blast. This effect is most important for altitudes above 30 km, corresponding to <1 per cent of air density. The effects of a rain storm during an Operation Castle nuclear explosion was found to dampen, or reduce. Much of the caused by a nuclear explosion is due to blast effects
9.
Nuclear winter
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Nuclear winter is the severe global-climatic-cooling-effect, hypothesized to occur after the ignition of a number of firestorms. It was within this early 1980s context, that the effects of soot from fires, was chanced upon. In these modelled scenarios, various soot cloud events, containing quantities of soot, were assumed to form over cities, oil refineries. Once the quantity of soot is decided upon by the researchers, the term nuclear winter was specifically coined in 1983 by Richard P. As nuclear devices need not be involved in the ignition of a firestorm and this is due, in greatest part, to the vast majority of published papers stating, without qualitative justification, that nuclear explosions are the cause of the modeled firestorm effects. Although rarely discussed, the proponents of the hypothesis do state that the nuclear winter effect would occur if 100 conventionally lit firestorms were ignited. The climate models suggest that the ignition of 100 firestorms, comparable in intensity to that observed in Hiroshima in 1945, the burning of these firestorms would result in the injection of soot into the Earths stratosphere, producing an anti-greenhouse effect that lowers the Earths surface temperature. Robock has not modeled, but speculated, that this would have global agricultural losses as a consequence, a much larger number of firestorms, in the thousands, was the initial assumption of the computer modelers who coined the term in the 1980s. These were speculated to be a result of any large scale employment of countervalue city-airbursting nuclear weapon use during an American-Soviet total war. This cooling was produced due to a 99% reduction in the solar radiation reaching the surface of the planet in the first few years. This is somewhat analogous to the frequent volcanic eruptions that inject sulfates into the stratosphere and thereby produce minor, even negligible, volcanic winter effects. Information regarding all of these properties is necessary to ascertain the length and depth of the cooling effect of firestorms. Presently, from satellite tracking data, stratospheric smoke aerosols are removed in a time span under approximately two months, the existence of any hint of a tipping point into a new stratospheric condition where the aerosols would not be removed within this time frame remains to be determined. As the incendiary effects of a nuclear explosion do not present any especially characteristic features.2 kilotons of incendiary bombs from 220 B-29s distributed over the city, aerosol–atmosphere interactions are still poorly understood. Sooty aerosols can have a range of properties, as well as complex shapes. These partially burnt organics as they are known, often form tar balls and brown carbon during common lower-intensity wildfires, and can also coat the purer carbon black particles. A study presented at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 found that even a small-scale. The cooling would last for years, and, according to the research, a 2008 study by Michael J
10.
Nuclear labor issues
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A subculture of frequently undocumented workers do the dirty, difficult, and potentially dangerous work shunned by regular employees. When they exceed their allowable radiation exposure limit at a specific facility, the industry implicitly accepts this conduct as it can not operate without these practices. The World Nuclear Association states that the transient workforce of nuclear gypsies - casual workers employed by subcontractors has been part of the scene for at least four decades. Existent labor laws protecting worker’s health rights are not always properly enforced, records are required to be kept, but frequently they are not. Some personnel were not properly trained resulting in their own exposure to toxic amounts of radiation, at several facilities there are ongoing failures to perform required radiological screenings or to implement corrective actions. The median annual wage for hazardous radioactive materials removal workers, according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is $37,590 in the U. S - $18 per hour. A 15-country collaborative cohort study of cancer due to exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation. The study evaluated 31 types of cancers, primary and secondary, in 1942 thirty indigenous Dené men were recruited to mine uranium, locally known as the money rock for three dollars per day at the Port Radium mine. By 1998,14 of these workers had died of lung, colon and kidney cancers, the Dené were not told of the hazards of mining uranium, and breathed radioactive dust, slept on the ore, and ate fish from the tailings ponds. Ottawa was the worlds largest supplier of uranium at that time, in subsequent decades, thousands of Native miners were not warned of the risks. Namibias Rössing Uranium Mine is the longest-operating open-pit uranium mine, the company is owned and operated by Rio Tinto, one of the worlds largest mining groups, and Rössing Uranium Limited. The uranium mill tailings dam has been leaking for a number of years, and on January 17,2014, the France-based laboratory, Commission de Recherche et dInformation Independentantes sur la Radioactivite reported elevated levels of radioactive materials in the area surrounding the mine. There have been numerous reports published on labor and human rights conditions at the mine, Workers were not informed of the dangers of working with radioactive materials and the health effects thereof. The Director of Labor Resource and Research Institute, Hilma Shindondola-Mote, at the open cut Kayelekera uranium mine near Karonga, Malawi, a mine employee, Khwima Phiri, was killed on July 20,2013. He was struck in the chest and killed while inflating a wheel, there have been allegations of radiation-induced diseases among the mine workers and nearby residents. The Malawi government has been unable to verify these, stating that the absence of monitoring equipment, on June 19,2011 a truck at the mine caught fire, killing the driver. On September 23,2010, workers were ordered to work despite the fact that the mine could not provide them with dust masks to protect them against radioactive materials. The American and British demand for large quantities of uranium to use in nuclear weapons initiated New Zealands uranium survey during WWII, in 1944 in Wellington, geologists and physicists assembled two exploration teams to survey South Island, particularly the granite deposits and black beach sand areas
11.
Nuclear ethics
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In contemporary security studies, the problems of nuclear warfare, deterrence, proliferation, and so forth are often understood strictly in political, strategic, or military terms. In the study of organizations and law, however, these problems are also understood in legal terms. Specifically, it assumes that the outcomes of human extinction, mass human destruction, another area of inquiry concerns future generations and the burden that nuclear waste and pollution imposes on them. Some scholars have concluded that it is morally wrong to act in ways that produce these outcomes. Ethical justifications of nuclear deterrence, for example, emphasize its role in preventing great power nuclear war since the end of World War II, indeed, some scholars claim that nuclear deterrence seems to be the morally rational response to a nuclear-armed world. Moral condemnation of nuclear deterrence, in contrast, emphasizes the seemingly inevitable violations of human, the application of nuclear technology, both as a source of energy and as an instrument of war, has been controversial. Even before the first nuclear weapons had developed, scientists involved with the Manhattan Project were divided over the use of the weapon. The role of the two atomic bombings of the country in Japans surrender and the U. S. s ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. The question of whether nations should have nuclear weapons, or test them, has continually and nearly universally controversial. The public became concerned about nuclear testing from about 1954. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing, some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express their concerns. In the early 1970s, there were protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in Wyhl. The project was cancelled in 1975 and anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to power in other parts of Europe. Nuclear power became an issue of public protest in the 1970s. Between 1949 and 1989, over 4,000 uranium mines in the Four Corner region of the American Southwest produced more than 225,000,000 tons of uranium ore. This activity affected a number of Native American nations, including the Laguna, Navajo, Zuni, Southern Ute, Ute Mountain, Hopi, Acoma. Many of these worked in the mines, mills and processing plants in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah
12.
Nuclear arms race
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The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. The first nuclear weapon was created by the U. S. during the Second World War and was developed to be used against the Axis powers, scientists of the Soviet Union were aware of the potential of nuclear weapons and had also been conducting research on the field. When President Truman informed Stalin of the weapons, he was surprised at how calmly Stalin reacted to the news, other members of the United States and British delegations who closely observed the exchange formed the same conclusion. A ring of spies operating within the Manhattan Project, had kept Stalin well informed of American progress and they provided the Soviets with detailed designs of the implosion bomb and the hydrogen bomb. Fuchs arrest in 1950 led to the arrests of many other Russian spies, including Harry Gold, David Greenglass, in August 1945, on Trumans orders, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities. The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki by the B-29 bombers named Enola Gay. Shortly after the end of the Second World War in 1945, during the United Nations first General Assembly in London in January 1946, they discussed the future of Nuclear Weapons and created the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. The goal of this assembly was to eliminate the use of all Nuclear weapons, the United States presented their solution, which was called the Baruch Plan. This plan proposed that there should be an authority that controls all dangerous atomic activities. The Soviet Union disagreed with this proposal and rejected it, the Soviets proposal involved universal nuclear disarmament. Both the American and Soviet proposals were refused by the UN, in the years immediately after the Second World War, the United States had a monopoly on specific knowledge of and raw materials for nuclear weaponry. Initially, it was thought that uranium was rare in the world, American leaders hoped that their exclusive ownership of nuclear weapons would be enough to draw concessions from the Soviet Union but this proved ineffective. Just six months after the UN General Assembly, the United States conducted its first post-war nuclear tests, the purpose of this operation was to test the effectiveness of nuclear explosions on ships. These tests were performed at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific on 95 ships, including German, one plutonium implosion-type bomb was detonated over the fleet, while the other one was detonated underwater. Behind the scenes, the Soviet government was working on building its own atomic weapons, during the war, Soviet efforts had been limited by a lack of uranium but new supplies in Eastern Europe were found and provided a steady supply while the Soviets developed a domestic source. While American experts had predicted that the Soviet Union would not have weapons until the mid-1950s. The bomb, named First Lightning by the West, was more or less a copy of Fat Man, both governments spent massive amounts to increase the quality and quantity of their nuclear arsenals. Both nations quickly began the development of a bomb and the United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb on November 1,1952, on Enewetak
13.
Nuclear espionage
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Nuclear espionage is the purposeful giving of state secrets regarding nuclear weapons to other states without authorization. During the history of nuclear weapons there have been cases of known nuclear espionage. States are also limited in their making public of weapons information by non-proliferation agreements and these people are often referred to as the Atomic Spies, and their work continued into the early Cold War. The most prominent of these included, Klaus Fuchs – German refugee theoretical physicist who worked with the British delegation at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and he was eventually discovered, confessed, and sentenced to jail in Britain. He was later released, and he emigrated to East Germany, theodore Hall – a young American physicist at Los Alamos, whose identity as a spy was not revealed until very late in the 20th century. He was never arrested in connection to his work, though seems to have admitted to it in later years to reporters. David Greenglass – an American machinist at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, Greenglass confessed that he gave crude schematics of lab experiments to the Russians during World War II. Some aspects of his testimony against his sister and brother-in-law are now thought to have been fabricated in an effort to keep his own wife from prosecution, Greenglass confessed to his espionage and was given a long prison term. George Koval – The American born son of a Belorussian emigrant family that returned to the Soviet Union where he was inducted into the Red Army and he infiltrated the US Army and became a radiation health officer in the Special Engineering Detachment. Acting under the code name DELMAR he obtained information from Oak Ridge and his work was not known to the west until he was posthumously recognized as a hero of the Russian Federation by Vladimir Putin in 2007. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg – Americans who were involved in coordinating and recruiting an episonage network which included David Greenglass. While most scholars believe that Julius was likely involved in some sort of network, Julius and Ethel refused to confess to any charges, and were convicted and executed at Sing-Sing Prison. Harry Gold – American, confessed to acting as a courier for Greenglass, whether the espionage information significantly aided the speed of the Soviet atomic bomb project is also disputed. On 10 July 1985, the branch of the French foreign intelligence services carried out the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, the French government wanted to prevent the ship from interfering with a planned nuclear test in Moruroa. In April 2013, the French interior intelligence agency DCRI attempted to have the article about the Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station removed from the French language Wikipedia, the DCRI pressured a volunteer administrator of the French language Wikipedia into deleting the article. Israel has never acknowledged or denied having a program, and Vanunu was abducted and smuggled to Israel. Vanunu did not immediately release his information and photos on leaving Israel, the politics of the case are hotly disputed
14.
Nuclear proliferation
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Four countries besides the five recognized Nuclear Weapons States have acquired, or are presumed to have acquired, nuclear weapons, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel. None of these four is a party to the NPT, although North Korea acceded to the NPT in 1985, then withdrew in 2003, Research into the development of nuclear weapons was undertaken during World War II by the United States, Germany, Japan, and the USSR. The United States was the first and is the country to have used a nuclear weapon in war. With their loss during the war, Germany and Japan ceased to be involved in any nuclear weapon research, in August 1949, the USSR tested a nuclear weapon. The United Kingdom tested a nuclear weapon in October 1952, France developed a nuclear weapon in 1960. The Peoples Republic of China detonated a weapon in 1964. India exploded a device in 1974, and Pakistan conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests in May 1998. In 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, none of these efforts were explicitly public, because the weapon developments themselves were kept secret until the bombing of Hiroshima. The Baruch Plan, which drew heavily from the Acheson–Lilienthal Report of 1946, proposed the verifiable dismantlement, Security Council could veto, and which would proportionately punish states attempting to acquire the capability to make nuclear weapons or fissile material. Baruchs plea for the destruction of nuclear weapons invoked basic moral, in one part of his address to the UN, Baruch said, Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work out our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of Fear and we must elect World Peace or World Destruction. We must answer the worlds longing for peace and security, with this remark, Baruch helped launch the field of nuclear ethics, to which many policy experts and scholars have contributed. Although the Baruch Plan enjoyed wide support, it failed to emerge from the UNAEC because the Soviet Union planned to veto it in the Security Council. Still, it remained official American policy until 1953, when President Eisenhower made his Atoms for Peace proposal before the U. N. General Assembly, eisenhowers proposal led eventually to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957. Efforts to conclude an agreement to limit the spread of nuclear weapons did not begin until the early 1960s. Although these efforts stalled in the early 1960s, they renewed once again in 1964, in 1968, governments represented at the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee finished negotiations on the text of the NPT. In June 1968, the U. N. General Assembly endorsed the NPT with General Assembly Resolution 2373, and in July 1968, the NPT entered into force in March 1970. The main materials whose generation and distribution is controlled are highly enriched uranium and plutonium, dual-use technology refers to the possibility of military use of civilian nuclear power technology
15.
Nuclear disarmament
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Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. There have been many large demonstrations and protests. On June 12,1982, one million people demonstrated in New York Citys Central Park against nuclear weapons and it was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. In recent years, some U. S. elder statesmen have also advocated nuclear disarmament, the four have created the Nuclear Security Project to advance this agenda. Organisations such as Global Zero, an international group of 300 world leaders dedicated to achieving nuclear disarmament, have also been established. Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it would lessen the probability of nuclear war occurring, critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine deterrence. In 1945 in the New Mexico desert, American scientists conducted Trinity, even before the Trinity test, national leaders debated the impact of nuclear weapons on domestic and foreign policy. On August 6,1945, towards the end of World War II, subsequently, the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles grew. Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1946. Its purpose was to test the effect of weapons on naval ships. Pressure to cancel Operation Crossroads came from scientists and diplomats, manhattan Project scientists argued that further nuclear testing was unnecessary and environmentally dangerous. A Los Alamos study warned the water near a recent surface explosion will be a witchs brew of radioactivity, to prepare the atoll for the nuclear tests, Bikinis native residents were evicted from their homes and resettled on smaller, uninhabited islands where they were unable to sustain themselves. Radioactive fallout from nuclear testing was first drawn to public attention in 1954 when a Hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific contaminated the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon. One of the fishermen died in Japan seven months later, the incident caused widespread concern around the world and provided a decisive impetus for the emergence of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in many countries. The anti-nuclear weapons movement grew rapidly because for many people the atomic bomb encapsulated the very worst direction in which society was moving, Peace movements emerged in Japan and in 1954 they converged to form a unified Japanese Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. Japanese opposition to the Pacific nuclear weapons tests was widespread, CND organised Aldermaston marches into the late 1960s when tens of thousands of people took part in the four-day events. On November 1,1961, at the height of the Cold War and it was the largest national womens peace protest of the 20th century. In 1958, Linus Pauling and his wife presented the United Nations with the petition signed by more than 11,000 scientists calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing, Pauling started the International League of Humanists in 1974
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Anti-nuclear movement
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The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, the initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The formation of parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics. Scientists and diplomats have debated nuclear weapons policy since before the bombings of Hiroshima. The public became concerned about nuclear testing from about 1954. In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing, some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express their concerns. In the early 1970s, there were protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in Wyhl. The project was cancelled in 1975 and anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to power in other parts of Europe. Nuclear power became an issue of public protest in the 1970s. A protest against nuclear power occurred in July 1977 in Bilbao, Spain, following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, an anti-nuclear protest was held in New York City, involving 200,000 people. The largest protest was held on June 12,1982, when one million people demonstrated in New York City against nuclear weapons, a 1983 nuclear weapons protest in West Berlin had about 600,000 participants. In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program. In the US, public opposition preceded the shutdown of the Shoreham, Yankee Rowe, Millstone 1, Rancho Seco, Maine Yankee, and many other nuclear power plants. For many years after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster nuclear power was off the agenda in most countries. The 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents undermined the nuclear power industrys proposed renaissance and revived nuclear opposition worldwide. As of 2016, countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Malaysia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland are phasing-out nuclear power. Globally, more nuclear reactors have closed than opened in recent years
17.
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
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Opened for signature in 1968, the treaty entered into force in 1970. As required by the text, after years, NPT Parties met in May 1995. More countries have adhered to the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, four UN member states have never accepted the NPT, three of which are thought to possess nuclear weapons, India, Israel, and Pakistan. In addition, South Sudan, founded in 2011, has not joined, the treaty effectively recognizes five states as nuclear-weapon states, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. The treaty is reviewed every five years in meetings called Review Conferences of the Parties to the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. S, government efforts led by Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. At the time the NPT was proposed, there were predictions of 25–30 nuclear weapon states within 20 years, instead, over forty years later, five states are not parties to the NPT, and they include the only four additional states believed to possess nuclear weapons. Critics argue that the NPT cannot stop the proliferation of weapons or the motivation to acquire them. Several high-ranking officials within the United Nations have said that they can do little to stop states using nuclear reactors to produce nuclear weapons, the NPT consists of a preamble and eleven articles. These pillars are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, with the right to access the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology comes the responsibility of nonproliferation. Progress on disarmament reinforces efforts to strengthen the regime and to enforce compliance with obligations. Under Article III of the Treaty, non-nuclear-weapon states pledge to accept IAEA safeguards to verify that their nuclear activities serve only peaceful purposes. Five states are recognized by NPT as nuclear weapon states, China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and these five nations are also the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. These five NWS agree not to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices and not in any way to assist, encourage. NNWS parties to the NPT agree not to receive, manufacture, however, these undertakings have not been incorporated formally into the treaty, and the exact details have varied over time. The U. S. also had nuclear warheads targeted at North Korea, Article VI of the NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states. Under this interpretation, Article VI does not strictly require all signatories to conclude a disarmament treaty. Rather, it requires them to negotiate in good faith. On the other hand, some governments, especially non-nuclear-weapon states belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement, have interpreted Article VIs language as being anything, the ICJ opinion notes that this obligation involves all NPT parties and does not suggest a specific time frame for nuclear disarmament
18.
United States and weapons of mass destruction
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The United States is known to have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. The U. S. is the country to have used nuclear weapons in combat. It had secretly developed the earliest form of the weapon during the 1940s under the title Manhattan Project. The United States pioneered the development of both the nuclear fission and hydrogen bombs and it was the worlds first and only nuclear power for four years, until the Soviet Union managed to produce its own nuclear weapon. The United States has the second largest number of deployed nuclear weapons in the world, Nuclear weapons have been used twice in combat, two nuclear weapons were used by the United States against Japan during World War II in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Altogether, the two bombings killed 120,000 people and injured another 130,000 while devastating hundreds or thousands of military bases, factories, the U. S. conducted an extensive nuclear testing program. 1,054 tests were conducted between 1945 and 1992, the exact number of nuclear devices detonated is unclear because some tests involved multiple devices while a few failed to explode or were designed not to create a nuclear explosion. The last nuclear test by the United States was on September 23,1992, Air Forces heavy bomber group The United States is one of the five Nuclear Weapons States under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the U. S. ratified in 1968. On October 13,1999, the U. S. Senate rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, having previously ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963. In the early 1990s, the U. S. stopped developing new weapons and now devotes most of its nuclear efforts into stockpile stewardship. The administration of George W. Bush decided in 2003 to engage in research towards a new generation of nuclear weapons. The budget passed by the United States Congress in 2004 eliminated funding for some of this including the bunker-busting or earth-penetrating weapons. The exact number of weapons possessed by the United States is difficult to determine. In its Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty declaration for 2003, the U. S. listed 5968 deployed warheads as defined by START rules, other warheads are in some step of the disassembly process. The exact number as of Sept.30,2009, was 5,113 warheads, in 2002, the United States and Russia agreed in the SORT treaty to reduce their deployed stockpiles to not more than 2,200 warheads each. In 2003, the U. S. rejected Russian proposals to reduce both nations nuclear stockpiles to 1,500 each. In 2007, for the first time in 15 years, the United States built new warheads and these replaced some older warheads as part of the Minuteman III upgrade program. 2007 also saw the first Minuteman III missiles removed from service as part of the drawdown, overall, stockpiles and deployment systems continue to decline in number under the terms of the New START treaty
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Russia and weapons of mass destruction
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The figures are, by necessity, only estimates because the exact number of nuclear weapons in each countrys possession is a closely held national secret. In addition to weapons, Russia declared an arsenal of 39,967 tons of chemical weapons in 1997. The Soviet Union ratified the Geneva Protocol on April 5,1928 with reservations, the reservations were later dropped on January 18,2001. Russia is also party to the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Soviet Union had a peak stockpile of 45,000 nuclear warheads in 1988. It is estimated that from 1949 to 1991 the Soviet Union produced approximately 55,000 nuclear warheads, at the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Soviet nuclear weapons were deployed in four of the new republics, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Ukraine agreed to give up its weapons to Russia, in exchange for guarantees of Ukrainian territory from Russia, the UK, China and France also made statements in support of the memorandum. The exact number of warheads is a state secret and is therefore a matter of guesswork. According to 2016 data from the New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms facts sheet, on the other hand, Russia is estimated to have roughly 1,500 tactical nuclear weapons, all of which are declared to be in central storage. S. In 2015, informations emerged that Russia may be developing a new up to 100 megatons nuclear torpedo, two potential carrier submarines, the Project 09852 Belgorod, and the Project 09851 Khabarovsk, are new boats laid down in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Status 6 appears to be a deterrent weapon of last resort and it appears to be a torpedo-shaped robotic mini-submarine, that can travel at speeds of 185 km/h. More recent information suggests a top speed of 100 km/h, with a range of 10,000 km and this underwater drone is cloaked by stealth technology to elude acoustic tracking devices. After the Korean War, the Soviet Union transferred nuclear technology and weapons to the Peoples Republic of China as an adversary of the United States, subsequently, the Soviet Union built all the essentials of China’s new military nuclear industry. Russia is one of the five Nuclear Weapons States under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a number of Soviet-era nuclear warheads remained on the territories of Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. It is estimated that the Soviet Union had approximately 45,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled at the time of its collapse, the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed for a warming of relations with NATO. Fears of a nuclear holocaust lessened, in September 1997, the former secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Lebed claimed 100 suitcase sized nuclear weapons were unaccounted for. He said he was attempting to inventory the weapons when he was fired by President Boris Yeltsin in October 1996, in 2005, Sergey Sinchenko, a legislator from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, said 250 nuclear weapons were unaccounted for. When comparing documents of nuclear weapons transferred from Ukraine to weapons received by Russia, indeed, several US politicians have expressed worries and promised legislation addressing the threat. In 2002, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their stockpiles to not more than 2,700 warheads each in the SORT treaty, in 2003, the US rejected Russian proposals to further reduce each nations nuclear stockpiles to 1,500
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Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom was the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, in October 1952. It is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the NPT, since the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the United States and the United Kingdom have cooperated extensively on nuclear security matters. The special relationship between the two countries has involved the exchange of classified data and materials such as plutonium. The UK retains a stockpile of 215 thermonuclear warheads, of which 120 are operational as of 2016, since 1998, the Trident nuclear programme has been the only operational nuclear weapons system in British service. The delivery system consists of four Vanguard class submarines based at HMNB Clyde in Scotland, each submarine is armed with up to 16 Trident II missiles, each carrying warheads in up to eight MIRV re-entry vehicles. With at least one submarine always on patrol, the Vanguards perform a strategic role and are also believed to have a sub-strategic capability. The UK has not run a programme to develop an independent delivery system since the cancellation of the Blue Streak in 1960, instead it has purchased US delivery systems for UK use, fitting them with warheads designed and manufactured by the UKs Atomic Weapons Establishment and its predecessor. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has estimated the figure as about 170, at the same time, the UK government indicated that warheads required to provide a necessary processing margin and for technical surveillance purposes were not included in the fewer than 200 figure. These surveillance rounds are used to monitor deterioration in the many components of the warhead. The SIPRI figures correspond accurately with the announcements and are likely to be the most accurate. The Natural Resources Defense Council speculates that a figure of 200 is accurate to within a few tens, in 2008 the National Audit Office stated that the UK stockpile was of fewer than 160 operationally available nuclear warheads. Until the 1990s the UK deployed a variety of nuclear weapons around the world, such as V bombers in Singapore in the 1960s, aircraft on Cyprus. Until August 1998, the UK retained the WE.177 nuclear weapon manufactured in the mid-1960s to late 1970s, in air-dropped free-fall bomb and its withdrawal left the four Vanguard class submarines, which replaced the Polaris ones in the early 1990s, as Britains only nuclear weapons platform. It has been estimated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the United Kingdom has built around 1,200 warheads since the first Hurricane device of 1952, at its peak, these numbered 327 for the British Army of the Rhine in Germany alone. The United Kingdom tested its first nuclear weapons in Australia during the 1950s, on the Montebello Islands, the first detonation, codenamed Operation Hurricane, occurred on 3 October 1952, in a shallow bay on Trimouille Island. Two further tests were held on the Montebello Islands during 1956, the second of these, codenamed G2, included the largest nuclear explosion in Australia, with a yield of 98 kilotons. Seven further nuclear tests were conducted on the Australian mainland between 1955 and 1963, within the Woomera Prohibited Area, at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia, the first British hydrogen bombs were tested during Operation Grapple at Malden Island and Christmas Island in the Central Pacific Ocean. The operation consisted of nine tests in the period 1957–1959, ultimately proving that the UK had developed thermonuclear weapons, different sources give the total number of test explosions that the UK has conducted as either 44 or 45
21.
France and weapons of mass destruction
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France is one of the five Nuclear Weapons States under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. France was the country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon in 1960. France denies currently having chemical weapons, ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1995, France had also ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1926. France was one of the pioneers, going back to the work of Marie Skłodowska Curie. Curie’s last assistant Bertrand Goldschmidt became the father of the French Bomb, after World War II Frances former position of leadership suffered greatly because of the instability of the Fourth Republic, and the lack of finance available. During the Second World War Goldschmidt invented the method for extracting plutonium while working as part of the British/Canadian team participating in the Manhattan Project. But after the Liberation in 1945, France had to start its own program almost from scratch, nevertheless, the first French reactor went critical in 1948 and small amounts of plutonium were extracted in 1949. There was no commitment to a nuclear weapons program at that time. However, in the 1950s a civilian nuclear program was started. In 1956 a secret Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy was formed, the intervention of the United States in the Suez Crisis that year is credited with convincing France that it needed to accelerate its own nuclear weapons program to remain a global power. With the return of Charles de Gaulle to the presidency of France in the midst of the May 1958 crisis, the decisions to build an atomic bomb were taken. According to Lieutenant Colonel Warner D, progress in nuclear science and technology in France and Israel remained closely linked throughout the early fifties. Israeli scientists probably helped construct the G-1 plutonium production reactor and UP-1 reprocessing plant at Marcoule, in 1957 Euratom was created, and under cover of the peaceful use of nuclear power the French signed deals with Germany and Italy to work together on nuclear weapons development. The West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told his cabinet that he wanted to achieve, through EURATOM, as quickly as possible, in 1958 de Gaulle became President and Germany and Italy were excluded. France developed its nuclear and thermonuclear bombs without outside assistance, the United States, however, began providing technical assistance in the early 1970s through the 1980s. The aid was secret, unlike the relationship with the British nuclear program, areas in which the French received help included MIRV, radiation hardening, missile design, intelligence on Soviet anti-missile defences, and advanced computer technology. Because the French program attracted the best brains of the nation, France is understood to have tested neutron or enhanced radiation bombs in the past, apparently leading the field with an early test of the technology in 1967 and an actual neutron bomb in 1980. There were 210 French nuclear tests from 1960 through 1995, seventeen of them were done in the Algerian Sahara between 1960 and 1966, starting in the middle of the Algerian War
22.
China and weapons of mass destruction
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The Peoples Republic of China has developed and possesses weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and nuclear weapons. The first of Chinas nuclear weapons tests took place in 1964, tests continued until 1996, when China signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. China has acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in 1984, the number of nuclear warheads in Chinas arsenal is a state secret. There are varying estimates of the size of Chinas arsenal, according to some estimates, the country could more than double the number of warheads on missiles that could threaten the United States by the mid-2020s. Early in 2011, China published a white paper, which repeated its nuclear policies of maintaining a minimum deterrent with a no-first-use pledge. Yet China has yet to define what it means by a minimum deterrent posture and this, together with the fact that it is deploying four new nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, invites concern as to the scale and intention of China’s nuclear upgrade. China signed the Chemical Weapons Convention on January 13,1993, China ratified the CWC on April 25,1997. It has declared only three former chemical production facilities that may have produced gas, phosgene and Lewisite. China was found to have supplied Albania with a stockpile of chemical weapons in the 1970s during the Cold War. However, China was reported to have had a biological weapons program in the 1980s. Kanatjan Alibekov, former director of one of the Soviet germ-warfare programs, Alibekov asserted that Soviet reconnaissance satellites identified a biological weapons laboratory and plant near a site for testing nuclear warheads. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed her concerns over possible Chinese biological weapon transfers to Iran, in response to this, China issued export control protocols on dual use biological technology in late 2002. Mao Zedong decided to begin a Chinese nuclear-weapons program during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–1955 over the Quemoy, while he did not expect to be able to match the large American nuclear arsenal, Mao believed that even a few bombs would increase Chinas diplomatic credibility. Construction of uranium-enrichment plants in Baotou and Lanzhou began in 1958, and a facility in Jiuquan. The Chinese, who preferred to import technology and components to developing them within China, exported uranium to the Soviet Union, and that year, however, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev told Mao that he planned to discuss arms control with the United States and Britain. China was already opposed to Khruschevs post-Stalin policy of peaceful coexistence, although Soviet officials assured China that it was under the Soviet nuclear umbrella, the disagreements widened the emerging Sino-Soviet split. The Chinese conducted their first nuclear test, code-named 596, on 16 October 1964, Chinas last nuclear test was on July 29,1996. According to the Australian Geological Survey Organization in Canberra, the yield of the 1996 test was 1–5 kilotons and this was Chinas 22nd underground test and 45th test overall
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India and weapons of mass destruction
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India possesses weapons of mass destruction in the form of nuclear weapons and, in the past, chemical weapons. In 1999 India was estimated to have 800 kg of separated reactor-grade plutonium, with an amount of 8300 kg of civilian plutonium. India is not a signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India has signed and ratified the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. India is also a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime, India has a well-developed biotechnology infrastructure that includes numerous pharmaceutical production facilities and bio-containment laboratories for working with lethal pathogens. It also has highly qualified scientists with expertise in infectious diseases, some of Indias facilities are being used to support research and development for biological weapons defence purposes. India has ratified the Biological Weapons Convention and pledges to abide by its obligations, there is no clear evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that directly points toward an offensive BW program. India does possess the capability and infrastructure to launch an offensive BW program. In terms of delivery, India also possesses the capability to produce aerosols and has numerous potential delivery systems ranging from crop dusters to sophisticated ballistic missiles. No information exists in the public domain suggesting interest by the Indian government in delivery of biological agents by these or any other means. To reiterate the latter point, in October 2002, the then President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam asserted that India will not make biological weapons and it is cruel to human beings. In 1992, India signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, stating that it did not have chemical weapons, by doing this India became one of the original signatories of the CWC in 1993, and ratified it on 2 September 1996. Others suggested that the fact that India has found chemical weapons dispensable highlighted its confidence in the weapons system at its command. In June 1997, India declared its stock of chemical weapons, India informed the United Nations in May 2009 that it had destroyed its stockpile of chemical weapons in compliance with the international Chemical Weapons Convention. With this India has become third country after South Korea and Albania to do so and this was cross-checked by inspectors of the United Nations. India has a commercial chemical industry, and produces the bulk of its own chemicals for domestic consumption. Homi Bhabha when he founded the research centre, the Institute of Fundamental Research. India first tested a device in 1974, which it called a peaceful nuclear explosion. The test used plutonium produced in the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor, and this also stimulated the early work of the Nuclear Suppliers Group
24.
Nuclear weapons and Israel
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It is one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the others being India, Pakistan and North Korea. Israel maintains a policy known as nuclear ambiguity, Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite international pressure to do so, and has stated that signing the NPT would be contrary to its national security interests. Additionally, Israel has made efforts to deny other regional actors the ability to acquire their own nuclear weapons. The counter-proliferation, preventive strike Begin Doctrine added another dimension to Israels existing nuclear policy, Israel remains the only country in the Middle East believed to possess them. Israel is alleged to have built its first nuclear weapon in December 1966, but it is not publicly confirmed. In 1987, an unclassified US DoD report stated that As far as nuclear technology is concerned and it should be noted that the Israelis are developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. Estimates as to the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal vary between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads, former U. S. officials Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell have stated that Israel has 200 or more than 300 nuclear warheads. Israels first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was nearly obsessed with obtaining nuclear weapons to prevent the Holocaust from recurring. He stated, What Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Teller, the three of them are Jews, made for the United States, could also be done by scientists in Israel, for their own people. Ben-Gurion decided to recruit Jewish scientists from abroad even before the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War that established Israels independence, in 1949 a unit of the Israel Defense Forces Science Corps, known by the Hebrew acronym HEMED GIMMEL, began a two-year geological survey of the Negev. In early 1952 Hemed Gimmel was moved from the IDF to the Ministry of Defense and was reorganized as the Division of Research and that June, Bergmann was appointed by Ben-Gurion to be the first chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. The techniques were two more advanced than American efforts. Bergmann, who was interested in increasing nuclear cooperation with the French, although they were never commercialized, it was a consequential step for future French-Israeli cooperation. In addition, Israeli scientists probably helped construct the G-1 plutonium production reactor, France and Israel had close relations in many areas. At the same time Israeli scientists were also observing Frances own nuclear program, According to Lieutenant Colonel Warner D. Progress in nuclear science and technology in France and Israel remained closely linked throughout the early fifties, furthermore, according to Farr, There were several Israeli observers at the French nuclear tests and the Israelis had unrestricted access to French nuclear test explosion data. The French justified their decision to provide Israel a nuclear reactor by claiming it was not without precedent, in September 1955 Canada publicly announced that it would help the Indian government build a heavy-water research reactor, the CIRUS, for peaceful purposes. In exchange, France would provide the nuclear reactor as the basis for the Israeli nuclear weapons program, Shimon Peres, sensing the opportunity on the nuclear reactor, accepted
25.
Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction
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Pakistan is one of nine states to possess nuclear weapons, and the only Muslim majority country to do so. The Kahuta Project started under the supervision of a board that oversaw the activities of KRL. The Board consisted of A G N Kazi, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and Agha Shahi, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and General Tikka Khan appointed military engineer Major General Ali Nawab to the program. Eventually, the passed to Lt General Zahid Ali Akbar in President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haqs Administration. Moderate uranium enrichment for the production of material was achieved at KRL by April 1978. Pakistans nuclear weapons development was in response to the loss of East Pakistan in 1971s Bangladesh Liberation War, Bhutto called a meeting of senior scientists and engineers on 20 January 1972, in Multan, which came to known as Multan meeting. In December 1972, Abdus Salam led the establishment of Theoretical Physics Group as he called scientists working at ICTP to report to Munir Ahmad Khan and this marked the beginning of Pakistans pursuit of nuclear deterrence capability. Finally, on 28 May 1998, a few weeks after Indias second nuclear test, Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices in the Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai district, Balochistan. This operation was named Chagai-I by Pakistan, the underground iron-steel tunnel having been long-constructed by provincial martial law administrator General Rahimuddin Khan during the 1980s. The last test of Pakistan was conducted at the sandy Kharan Desert under the codename Chagai-II, also in Balochistan, Pakistans fissile material production takes place at Nilore, Kahuta, and Khushab/Jauharabad, where weapons-grade plutonium is refined. Pakistan thus became the country in the world to successfully develop. Although, according to a sent by A. Q. Khan to General Zia, the capability to detonate a bomb using highly enriched uranium as fissile material produced at KRL had been achieved by KRL in 1984. After the Partition of India in 1947, India and Pakistan have been in conflict over several issues, including the territory of Jammu. The uneasy relationships with India, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Union, on 8 December 1953, Pakistan media welcomed the U. S. Atoms for Peace initiatives, followed by the establishment of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission in 1956, in 1953, Foreign minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan publicly stated that Pakistan does not have a policy towards the atom bombs. Before 1971, Pakistans nuclear development was peaceful but an effective deterrent against India, Pakistans nuclear energy programme was established and started in 1956 following the establishment of PAEC. Pakistan became a participant in U. S. President Eisenhowers Atoms for Peace program, pAECs first chairman was Dr. Nazir Ahmad
26.
North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
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North Korea and weapons of mass destruction concerns North Korea, which declared in 2009 that it had developed a nuclear weapon, and possessed a small stockpile of relatively simple nuclear weapons. North Korea may also have a chemical weapon and/or biological weapons capability, since 2003, North Korea is no longer a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The nuclear program can be traced back to about 1962, when North Korea committed itself to what it called all-fortressization, in 1963, North Korea asked the Soviet Union for help in developing nuclear weapons, but was refused. The Soviet Union agreed to help North Korea develop a nuclear energy program. Later, China, after its nuclear tests, similarly rejected North Korean requests for help with developing nuclear weapons, in 1979 North Korea indigenously began to build in Yongbyon a second research reactor, an ore processing plant and a fuel rod fabrication plant. North Koreas nuclear weapons program dates back to the 1980s, in 1985 North Korea ratified the NPT, but did not conclude the required safeguards agreement with the IAEA until 1992. In early 1993, while verifying North Koreas initial declaration, the IAEA concluded that there was strong evidence this declaration was incomplete, when North Korea refused the requested special inspection, the IAEA reported its non-compliance to the UN Security Council. In 1993, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT, under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the U. S. government agreed to facilitate the supply of two light water reactors to North Korea in exchange for North Korean disarmament. Such reactors are considered more proliferation-resistant than North Koreas graphite-moderated reactors, implementation of the Agreed Framework floundered, and in 2002 the Agreed Framework fell apart, with each side blaming the other for its failure. By 2002, Pakistan had admitted that North Korea had gained access to Pakistans nuclear technology in the late 1990s, on October 9,2006, North Korea announced it had successfully conducted its first nuclear test. An underground nuclear explosion was detected, its yield was estimated as less than a kiloton, on January 6,2007, the North Korean government further confirmed that it had nuclear weapons. In April 2009, reports surfaced that North Korea has become a fully fledged nuclear power, on May 25,2009, North Korea conducted a second nuclear test, resulting in an explosion estimated to be between 2 and 7 kilotons. The 2009 test, like the 2006 test, is believed to have occurred at Mantapsan, Kilju County, on February 11,2013, the U. S. Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance, reported to be a third underground nuclear test. North Korea has officially reported it as a nuclear test with a lighter warhead that delivers more force than before. Multiple South Korean sources estimate the yield at 6–9 kilotons, while the German Federal Institute for Geosciences, however, the German estimates has since revised to a yield equivalent of 14 kt when they published their estimations in 2016 Jan. On January 6,2016 in Korea, the United States Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance, North Korea claimed that this test involved a hydrogen bomb. This claim has not been verified, within hours, many nations and organizations had condemned the test. Expert U. S. analysts do not believe that a bomb was detonated
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South Africa and weapons of mass destruction
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From the 1960s to the 1980s, South Africa pursued research into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The country has been a signatory of the Biological Weapons Convention since 1975, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since 1991, and the Chemical Weapons Convention since 1995. In 1957, South Africa reached an understanding with the United States after signing a 50-year collaboration under the U. S. -sanctioned programme, the Atoms for Peace. The treaty concluded the South African acquisition of a nuclear research reactor. The SAFARI-2 reactor was intended to be moderated by heavy water, in 1969, the project was abandoned by the South African government because the reactor was draining resources from the uranium enrichment program that was initiated in 1967. South Africa began focusing on the success of its enrichment programme which was seen by its scientists as easier compared to plutonium. South Africa was able to mine uranium ore domestically, and used aerodynamic nozzle enrichment techniques to produce weapons-grade material. The South African and Pakistani scientists studied the use of aerodynamic-jet nozzle process to enrich the fuel at the University of Birmingham and it is not clear how much knowledge they gained and to what extent they cooperated. South Africa gained sufficient experience with the technology to capitalize on the promotion of the U. S. governments Peaceful Nuclear Explosions program. Finally in 1971, South African minister of mines Carl de Wet gave approval of the countrys own PNE programme with the stated objective of using PNEs in the mining industry. The date when the South African PNE programme transformed into a program is a matter of some dispute. South Africa developed a small finite deterrence arsenal of gun-type fission weapons in the 1980s, six were constructed and another was under construction at the time the program ended. South Africa only produced a weapon after Armscor took over production. In 1982, Armscor built the first operational weapon, code-named Hobo and this device reportedly had a yield of 6 kilotons of TNT. It was eventually dissembled and the warhead reused in a production model bomb, Armscor then built a series of pre-production and production models under the code-name HAMERKOP after a bird. While Hobo/Cabot were not functional, the HAMERKOP series were smart television-guided glide bombs, the South African Atomic Energy Board selected a test site in the Kalahari Desert at the Vastrap weapons range north of Upington. Two test shafts were completed in 1976 and 1977, one shaft was 385 metres deep, the other,216 metres. In 1977, the AEB established its own high-security weapons research and development facilities at Pelindaba, in mid-1977, the AEB produced a gun-type device—without a highly enriched uranium core
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Nuclear weapons and Ukraine
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Prior to 1991, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and had Soviet nuclear weapons in its territory. In 1994 Ukraine agreed to destroy the weapons, and to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a 2016 study argues that the denuclearization of Ukraine was not a stupid mistake and that it is unclear that Ukraine would be better off as a nuclear state. The study argues that the push for Ukrainian independence was with a view to make it a nonnuclear state, the United States would also not have made Ukraine an exception when it came to the denuclearization of other post-Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan. The ICBMs also had a range of 5. 000-10.000 km, Ukraine would also likely have faced retaliatory action by Russia. Ukraine would also have struggled with replacing the nuclear weapons once their service life expired, in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons, Ukraine received financial compensation, as well as the security guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum. The four parties signed the memorandum, containing a preamble and six paragraphs, france and China also provided Ukraine with assurances similar to the Budapest Memorandum, but with some significant differences. China fully understands the desire of Ukraine for security assurance, the Chinese Government has always maintained that under no circumstances will China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States or nuclear-weapon-free zones. This principled position also applies to Ukraine, the Chinese Government urges all other nuclear-weapon States to undertake the same commitment, so as to enhance the security of all non-nuclear-weapon States, including Ukraine. The Chinese Government has constantly opposed the practice of exerting political and it maintains that disputes and differences should be settled peacefully through consultations on an equal footing. Thus, Chinas pledge, similar to Frances, does not pledge to involve UN or consultative mechanisms in case of crisis, however, it does pledge to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Despite Russias claimed annexation of Crimea, the Government of Ukraine in 2014 reaffirmed its 1994 decision to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapon state, after the Ukrainian Parliament voted to remove President Viktor Yanukovych from office, a power vacuum formed, and Russia annexed Crimea. The Russian pretext used nationalist and cultural rhetoric, stating that the Russian military was protecting ethnic Russians from attack in Crimea, Russias military actions violated the Budapest Memorandum. He said We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement, now, theres a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake. He also said that, In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, if you have nuclear weapons, people dont invade you. On 13 December 2014 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stated that he did not want Ukraine to become a nuclear power again
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Weapon of mass destruction
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The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Who can think without horror of another widespread war would mean. At the time, nuclear weapons had not been developed, japan conducted research on biological weapons, and chemical weapons had seen wide battlefield use in World War I. They were outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925, Italy used mustard gas against civilians and soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935–36. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and during the Cold War, the application of the term to specifically nuclear and radiological weapons is traced by William Safire to the Russian phrase Оружие массового поражения – oruzhiye massovogo porazheniya. That exact phrase, says Safire, was used by Bernard Baruch in 1946. The resolution also created the Atomic Energy Commission, an exact use of this term was given in a lecture Atomic Energy as an Atomic Problem by J. Robert Oppenheimer. The lecture was delivered to the Foreign Service and the State Department, the lecture is reprinted in The Open Mind. The term was used in the introduction to the hugely influential U. S. government document known as NSC-68 written in April 1950. During a speech at Rice University on 12 September 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke of not filling space with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. The following month, during a presentation about the Cuban Missile Crisis on 22 October 1962. An early use of the phrase in an international treaty was in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. During the Cold War, the weapons of mass destruction was primarily a reference to nuclear weapons. This policy of action against real or perceived weapons of mass destruction became known as the Begin Doctrine. Reagans successor, George H. W. Bush, used the term in an 1989 speech to the United Nations, the end of the Cold War reduced U. S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, causing it to shift its focus to disarmament. With the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and 1991 Gulf War, Iraqs nuclear, biological, following the war, Bill Clinton and other western politicians and media continued to use the term, usually in reference to ongoing attempts to dismantle Iraqs weapons programs. After the 11 September 2001 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, however, American forces found none in Iraq. Iraq, however, declared a chemical weapons stockpile in 2009, the stockpile contained mainly chemical precursors, but some warheads remained usable
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Biological agent
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In addition to these living and/or replicating pathogens, biological toxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,200 different kinds of potentially weaponizable bio-agents have been described and studied to date, Biological agents have the ability to adversely affect human health in a variety of ways, ranging from relatively mild allergic reactions to serious medical conditions, including death. Many of these organisms are ubiquitous in the environment where they are found in water, soil, plants. Bio-agents may be amenable to weaponization to render them easier to deploy or disseminate, genetic modification may enhance their incapacitating or lethal properties, or render them imprevious to conventional treatments or preventives. Since many bio-agents reproduce rapidly and require minimal resources for propagation, the Biological Weapons Convention is an international treaty banning the use or stockpiling of bio-agents, as of February 2015 there were 171 state signatories. Bio-agents are, however, widely studied for defensive purposes under various biosafety levels, in 2008, according to a U. S. The former US biological warfare program categorized its weaponized anti-personnel bio-agents as either Lethal Agents or Incapacitating Agents, since 1997, United States law has declared a list of bio-agents designated by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services or the U. S. Select agents are divided into HHS select agents and toxins, USDA select agents and toxins and Overlap select agents, centers for Disease Control and Prevention breaks biological agents into three categories, Category A, Category B, and Category C. Category A agents pose the greatest threat to the U. S, Category A agents include anthrax, botulism, plague, smallpox, tularemia, and viral hemorrhagic fevers. The following pathogens and toxins were weaponized by one nation or another at some time, NATO abbreviations are included where applicable. Additionally, the Soviet Union is known to have weaponized Marburg virus in the 1970s and 80s, simulants are organisms or substances which mimic physical or biological properties of real biological agents, without being pathogenic. They are used to study the efficiency of various dissemination techniques or the risks caused by the use of agents in bioterrorism. The typical size of simulants enables it to buildings with closed windows and doors. This bears a sigificant health risk, even if the agent is normally not pathogenic
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Chemical weapon
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A chemical weapon is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. Munitions or other devices designed to deliver chemical weapons, whether filled or unfilled, are also considered weapons themselves. Chemical weapons are classified as weapons of destruction, though they are distinct from nuclear weapons, biological weapons. All may be used in warfare and are known by the military acronym NBC, Weapons of mass destruction are distinct from conventional weapons, which are primarily effective due to their explosive, kinetic, or incendiary potential. Chemical weapons can be dispersed in gas, liquid and solid forms. Nerve gas, tear gas and pepper spray are three examples of CW. Lethal, unitary, chemical agents and munitions are extremely volatile, unitary agents are effective on their own and do not require mixing with other agents. The most dangerous of these are agents, GA, GB, GD, and VX as well as vesicant agents, which are formulations of sulfur mustard such as H, HT. They all are liquids at room temperature, but become gaseous when released. Widely used during the First World War, the effects of so-called mustard gas, phosgene gas and others caused lung searing, blindness, death and maiming. As of 2016, CS gas and pepper spray remain in use for policing and riot control, while CS is considered a non-lethal weapon. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, there is a binding, worldwide ban on the production, stockpiling. Notwithstanding, large stockpiles of CW continue to exist, usually justified as a precaution against putative use by an aggressor. A separate declaration stated that in any war between signatory powers, the parties would abstain from using projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases. The Washington Naval Treaty, signed February 6,1922, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, aimed at banning CW, the subsequent failure to include CW has contributed to the resultant increase in stockpiles. It was signed at Geneva June 17,1925, and entered force on February 8,1928. 133 nations are listed as state parties to the treaty, ukraine is the newest signatory, acceding August 7,2003. This treaty states that chemical and biological weapons are justly condemned by the opinion of the civilised world
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Albania and weapons of mass destruction
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Albania once possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. This stockpile of weapons included 16,678 kilograms of mustard agent, lewisite, adamsite. Albania was among the countries who signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993. The treaty, which came into force in 1997, requires the declaration of chemical stockpiles, and the destruction of all chemical weapons, delivery systems and production facilities. One of only six nations to declare a stockpile, Albania made its declaration in March 2003, after the discovery, in December 2002, the material was probably acquired by Communist leader Enver Hoxha in the mid-1970s from China although no documentation was found. Costs were approximately 48 million U. S. dollars, the United States assisted with and funded the destruction operations under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction. Albania acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention on June 3,1992 and it also acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in September 1990. Albania joined the Geneva Protocol on 20 December 1989, banning chemical and biological weapons and deposited its accession to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on 23 April 2003
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Algeria and weapons of mass destruction
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In 1991, the government of the United States said it had unearthed details of the alleged construction of a nuclear reactor in Algeria. The Washington Times accused the country of developing nuclear weapons with the help of the Chinese government, the Algerian government admitted it was building a reactor, but denied any secrecy or military purpose. Surveillance from U. S. satellites also suggested that the reactor would not be used for military purposes, china had secretly made an agreement in 1983 to assist Algeria in developing a nuclear reactor. In November 1991, succumbing to pressure, Algeria placed the reactor under IAEA safeguards. Algeria signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 1995, and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention In August 2001, Algeria, Big deal in the desert
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Argentina and weapons of mass destruction
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Argentina has a history with the development of weapons of mass destruction. Under the National Reorganization Process, Argentina began a weapons program in the early 1980s. During the 1980s, the Alacrán and Cóndor 2 missiles were developed, the Cóndor 2, with a range of around 1,000 kilometres, was reportedly scrapped during the Menem administration under pressure from the United States government. The current status of the Alacrán remains unknown, Argentina conducted a nuclear weapon research program during the National Reorganization Process regime. Government officials at the time confirmed, in November 1983, that carried out at the Balseiro Institutes research reactor had yielded the capacity for weapons-grade uranium enrichment. The program was abandoned, however, shortly after the return of democracy, on February 10,1995, Argentina acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Argentina continues to use power in non-military roles, and is noted as an exporter of civilian use nuclear technology. In 2010, the government announced that it would start working in the creation of a nuclear submarine and those types of submarines only use atomic energy for propulsion. The announcement was criticized by politicians from opposing parties. Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials Brazilian nuclear weapons program The Nuclear Club, archived from the original on 14 April 2006. Archived from the original on 19 April 2006, the Woodrow Wilson Centers Nuclear Proliferation International History Project Conference on Brazilian and Argentine Nuclear Programs
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Australia and weapons of mass destruction
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Australia does not possess weapons of mass destruction, although it has participated in extensive research into nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the past. Australia chairs the Australia Group, a grouping of countries that seek to minimise the risk of assisting chemical and biological weapon proliferation. As with chemical and biological weapons, Australia does not possess weapons and is not at all known to be seeking to develop them. Australia has advanced research programs in immunology, microbiology and genetic engineering that support an industry providing world class vaccines for domestic use and it also has an extensive wine industry and produces microorganisms on an industrial scale to support other industries including agriculture, food technology and brewing. The dual-use nature of these mean that Australia, like any country with advanced biotechnological industries. Some disease research laboratories in Australia own strains of the Ebola virus, the Australian Microbial Resources Research Network lists 37 culture collections, many of which hold samples of pathogenic organisms for legitimate research purposes. In the wake of the Japanese advance through South East Asia during World War II, shedden, wrote to Macfarlane Burnet on 24 December 1946 and invited him to attend a meeting of top military officers to discuss biological warfare. The activities of the chemical and biological warfare subcommittee were scaled back soon after, Australia signed the Biological Weapons Convention on 10 April 1972 and deposited a certificate of ratification on 5 October 1977. Australia conducted extensive research into weapons during World War II. Although Australia has never produced chemical weapons, it did stockpile chemical weapons sourced from the USA, Chemical weapons known to have been stockpiled included mustard gas, phosgene, lewisite, adamsite and CN gas. Some of the weapons in the form of mortar and artillery shells, aerial bombs. No actual use of the weapons was made there were many trials using live chemical weapons. After World War II, the weapons were disposed of by burning, venting or by dumping at sea. Some 21,030 tons of weapons were dumped in the seas off Australia near Brisbane, Sydney. This has been covered in a Defence report by Geoff Plunkett, another stockpile of chemical weapons was discovered at Maxwelton, Queensland in 1989. Australia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in January 1993 and ratified it with the Chemical Weapons Act in 1994, Air Chief Marshal Frederick Scherger and Minister for Air Athol Townley supported acquiring nuclear weapons, both for international prestige and because of the small size of the countrys military. While Schergers British and American counterparts were encouraging, the Macmillan, Prime Minister Robert Menzies government decided that domestic production would be too difficult due to cost and international politics. Australia hosted British nuclear testing in Monte Bello Islands, Emu Field, Maralinga was developed as a joint facility with a shared funding arrangement
36.
Brazil and weapons of mass destruction
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In the 1970s and 80s, during the military regime, Brazil had a secret program intended to develop nuclear weapons. The program was dismantled in 1990, five years after the regime ended. Brazil is one of countries that have forsworn nuclear weapons under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the 1950s, President Getúlio Vargas encouraged the development of independent national nuclear capabilities, during the 1970s and 80s, Brazil and Argentina embarked on a nuclear competition. Through technology transfers from West Germany, which did not require IAEA safeguards, Brazil pursued a nuclear weapons program known as the Parallel Program. In 1987, President Sarney announced that Brazil had enriched uranium to 20%, in 1990, President Fernando Collor de Mello symbolically closed the Cachimbo test site, in Pará, and exposed the military’s secret plan to develop a nuclear weapon. Brazils National Congress opened an investigation into the Parallel Program, Congress members visited numerous facilities, including the Institute of Advanced Studies in São José dos Campos. The congressional investigation exposed secret bank accounts, code-named Delta, which were managed by the National Nuclear Energy Commission and used for funding the program. The congressional report revealed that the IEAv had designed two atomic bomb devices, one with a yield of twenty to thirty kilotons and a second with a yield of twelve kilotons, the same report revealed that Brazils military regime secretly exported eight tons of uranium to Iraq in 1981. In 1991, Brazil and Argentina renounced their nuclear rivalry, Brazil officially opened the Resende enrichment plant in May 2006. Brazils enrichment technology development, and the plant itself, involved substantial discussions with the IAEA, the dispute came down to whether IAEA inspectors would be allowed to inspect the machines themselves. The Brazilian government did not allow the inspection of the centrifugal cascade halls and they also claimed that their technology is better than that of the United States and France, mainly because the centrifugal axis is not mechanical, but electromagnetic. Then U. S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell and it is likely that Brazil has retained the technological capacity and knowhow to produce and deliver a nuclear weapon. Experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have concluded that in view of its previous nuclear activities, if Brazil decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, the centrifuges at the Resende enrichment plant could be reconfigured to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. Even a small enrichment plant like Resende could produce several nuclear weapons per year, the Brazilian Navy is currently developing a nuclear submarine fleet, and in 2007 authorised the construction of a prototype submarine propulsion reactor. In 2008, France agreed to transfer technology to Brazil for the joint development of the submarine hull. 23. 397°S47. 601°W / -23.397, -47.601 The Aramar Experimental Center located in Iperó in the State of São Paulo, was inaugurated in 1988 as the first uranium-only enrichment plant in Brazil. The facility is run by the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission and the Brazilian Navy, in addition to the Centrifuge Enrichment Plant, the facility also hosts an Isotopic Enrichment Laboratory and several Small Nuclear Centers
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Bulgaria and weapons of mass destruction
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Bulgaria has developed weapons of mass destruction, most notably chemical weapons. Chemical weapons production was concentrated in Smyadovo, as of 2016, Bulgaria does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. Bulgaria had a significant missile arsenal, including 67 Scud,50 Frog and 24 Spider ballistic missiles. Since the USSR planned to deploy its own nuclear weapons in Bulgaria in case a war broke out, the missiles were not armed with warheads. The SS-23 systems had conventional warheads plus a WMD launching capability, the nuclear missile launching pads and equipment were dismantled in 1991. The first missile brigade was created in 1961, in 1994 the country bought 46 conventional warheads for its SCUDs from Russia. All Scud, Frog and Spider missiles were destroyed in 2002, currently Bulgaria operates a dozen Scarab launchers, but information over the exact number of missiles is classified. They are all armed with conventional warheads of 160 kg each, information over Bulgarias chemical weapons is scarce. The only known chemical weapons production facility is located near Smyadovo, the country ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1994 and dismantled them by 2000. Bulgaria has signed and ratified the Biological Weapons Convention, Bulgaria has never developed nuclear weapons, although some treaties with the Soviet Union guaranteed the deployment of Soviet warheads on Bulgarian territory in case of a war with NATO. The site consisted of four apartment blocks, barracks, a cafeteria, a sports field, a social club, a store, and a plaza. The unit was disbanded in 1989, the warheads were quickly shipped to Ukraine and all equipment, uniforms, another Russian Army official later denied the story. However, in the 1980s four Bulgarian Air Force majors received training in the Soviet Union on releasing nuclear weapons from MiG-23BN aircraft, in 2001 the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry denied the presence of nuclear weapons in Bulgaria. The country has the potential to establish a nuclear program. A nuclear research facility with a 200 kW pool-type reactor is in operation in Sofia, the reactor of the facility produces some nuclear material, which is stored near Novi Khan. The substance, which was 36% enriched and took the form of fuel, was airlifted in December 2003 to Russia. Agency safeguards inspectors monitored and verified the packaging of the fuel, which Moscow says it will re-fabricate into low-enriched uranium
38.
Canada and weapons of mass destruction
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Canada has not officially maintained and possessed weapons of mass destruction since 1984 and, as of 1998, has signed treaties repudiating possession of them. Canada ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1930 and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1970, the first US nuclear weapon came to Canada in 1950 when the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command stationed 11 model 1561 Fat Man atomic bombs at CFB Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador. Goose Bay was used as a staging location for both the RAF V-Force and SAC. From 1963 to 1984, Canada fielded a total of four nuclear weapons systems which deployed several hundred nuclear warheads. Throughout the Cold War, Canada was closely aligned with defensive elements of United States programs in both NORAD and NATO. In 1964 Canada sent its White Paper on Defence to U. S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to ensure he would not, Canada’s military relationship with the United States has grown significantly since the Second World War. Although the Dominion of Canada came into being on July 1,1867, Canada entered the Great War in 1914 when Great Britain declared war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Canadian foreign policy became independent in December 1931 with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, in 1939 Canada declared war on Germany a week later than Great Britain, on September 10,1939. The United States did not enter the war until December 7,1941, one of the first formal agreements for military cooperation was made in August 1940. Known as the Ogdensburg Agreement, it established the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, both nations are founding members of the United Nations as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They signed the NORAD Agreement in 1957 and created the North American Air Defense Command to defend the continent against attacks from the USSR and this was the code name for the British Uranium Committee project which had worked on a theoretical design for an atomic bomb. One significant contribution was a calculation of the mass of uranium. The mass was less than earlier estimates and suggested that development of a bomb was practical. Tube Alloys was part of a shipment of the most secret scientific research in Great Britain that was sent to the United States for safekeeping when the threat of German invasion was significant. Materials included the cavity magnetron which was essential to RADAR, British information related to the German Enigma machines, Jet Engine designs as well as Tube Alloys. After briefly allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed in Goose Bay, Labrador. The Americans were refused permission to stockpile bomb casings for the B-36 at Goose Bay and these bombs would have been armed in wartime with materials brought from the United States. Goose Bay was used as a base for air refueling tankers which were to support the SAC B-47, in 1951 the Pinetree Line was established north of the US-Canada border, and in 1953 Canada built the Mid-Canada Air Warning Line, which was manned by the Canadian military
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Egypt and weapons of mass destruction
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Egypt had a history of weapons of mass destruction and used chemical weapons during the North Yemen Civil War. Egypts chemical weapons program is the most developed of its pursuit of developing a Weapons of Mass Destruction program though it is thought this reached its peak in the 1960s and it also used chemical weapons during the Yemeni Civil War. Phosgene and mustard gas were used against Royalist forces and civilians in Northern Yemen, Egypt has maintained a policy of not signing the Chemical Weapons Convention until questions regarding Israels nuclear weapons program are answered. The first use of gas took place on June 8,1963 against Kawma and this incident is considered to have been experimental, and the bombs were described as home-made, amateurish and relatively ineffective. The Egyptian authorities suggested that the incidents were probably caused by napalm. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, suggested in an interview that Nasser would not hesitate to use gas against Israel as well, there were no reports of gas during 1964, and only a few were reported in 1965. The reports grew more frequent in late 1966, on December 11,1966, fifteen gas bombs killed two people and injured thirty-five. On January 5,1967, the biggest gas attack came against the village of Kitaf, causing 270 casualties, the target may have been Prince Hassan bin Yahya, who had installed his headquarters nearby. The Egyptian government denied using poison gas, and alleged that Britain, on February 12,1967, it said it would welcome a UN investigation. On March 1, U Thant said he was powerless to deal with the matter, on May 10, the twin villages of Gahar and Gadafa in Wadi Hirran, where Prince Mohamed bin Mohsin was in command, were gas bombed, killing at least seventy-five. The Red Cross was alerted and on June 2, it issued a statement in Geneva expressing concern, the gas attacks stopped for three weeks after the Six-Day War of June, but resumed on July, against all parts of royalist Yemen. Casualty estimates vary, and an assumption, considered conservative, is that the mustard and it began its nuclear program in 1954 which expanded to include Russian 2MW nuclear research reactor ETRR-1 that was opened by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser at Inchass in 1961. Further development in its program was stopped in 1967 after its defeat in the Six Day War. In addition, in 1992 Egypt acquired a more powerful 22MW multi-purpose research reactor ETRR-2 from Argentina, Egypt signed the NPT in 1968 which it then later ratified in 1981. It has since 1974 worked to make the Middle East a nuclear free zone. Egypt signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention on April 10,1972 but has not ratified it, prior to signing the BWC President Anwar Sadat of Egypt made the following comment to a question about Israel and should they use Biological weapons. The only reply to biological warfare is that we too should use biological warfare, I believe that the density of the Israeli population confined in a small area would provide the opportunity to reply with the same weapon if they should begin using it. Briefly, we have the instruments of warfare in the refrigerators
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Germany and weapons of mass destruction
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Germany is among the powers which possess the ability to create nuclear weapons but has agreed not to do so. Along with most other nations, Germany produces components that can be used for creating deadly agents, chemical weapons. As one of the combatants in World War I, Germany used and developed what we would today describe as weapons of mass destruction. During World War I, Germany developed and used chemical weapons and these kinds of weapon were subsequently also employed by the Allies. The use of weapons in warfare during the Great War was allegedly in violation of clause IV. German scientists also did research on chemical weapons during the war. The first nerve gas, tabun, was invented by the German researcher Gerhard Schrader in 1937, during the war, Germany stockpiled tabun, sarin, and soman but refrained from their use on the battlefield. In total, Germany produced about 78,000 tons of chemical weapons, by 1945 the nation produced about 12,000 tons of tabun and 1,000 pounds of sarin. Delivery systems for the nerve agents included 105 mm and 150 mm artillery shells, a 250 kg bomb, even when the Soviets neared Berlin, Adolf Hitler was persuaded not to use tabun as the final trump card. The use of tabun was opposed by Hitlers Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer and this was not in fact the case, but Hitler accepted Ambross deduction, and Germanys tabun arsenal remained unused. As part of the negotiations of West Germany to the Western European Union at the London and Paris Conferences. This was reiterated in domestic law by the War Weapons Control Act, during the Cold War, nuclear weapons were deployed in Germany by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Despite not being among the nuclear powers during the Cold War, Germany had a political, in 1977, after the Soviet deployment of the new SS-20 IRBM, West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt expressed concern over the capability of NATOs nuclear forces compared to those of the Soviets. Later in the Cold War under the chancellorship of Helmut Kohl, Germany wanted to see such short range systems eliminated, because their major use was not deterrence but battlefield employment. In 1957 the European Atomic Energy Community was created to promote the use of energy in Europe. Under cover of the use of nuclear power, West Germany hoped to develop the basis of a nuclear weapons programme with France. The West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told his cabinet that he wanted to achieve, through EURATOM, as quickly as possible, in 1958 Charles De Gaulle became President of France, and Germany and Italy were excluded from the weapons project. Euratom continued as the European agency for the use of nuclear technology
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Iran and weapons of mass destruction
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Iran has first-hand knowledge of WMD effects—over 100,000 Iranian troops and civilians were victims of chemical weapons during the 1980s Iran–Iraq War. Later versions of this fatwa forbid only the use of nuclear weapons, Iran has stated its uranium enrichment program is exclusively for peaceful purposes. The senior officers of all of the major American intelligence agencies stated that there was no evidence that Iran has made any attempt to produce nuclear weapons since 2003. In a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the United States Intelligence Community assessed that Iran had ended all nuclear weapon design, U. S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated in January 2012 that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, but was not attempting to produce nuclear weapons. In 2009, U. S. intelligence assessed that Iranian intentions were unknown, some European intelligence believe Iran has resumed its alleged nuclear weapons design work. Iran has called for nuclear weapons states to disarm and for the Middle East to be a nuclear free zone. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad argued that the sanctions were illegal, the IAEA has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, but not the absence of undeclared activities. The Non-Aligned Movement has called on both sides to work through the IAEA for a solution, in November 2009, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution against Iran which urged Iran to apply the modified Code 3. Iran said the hasty and undue resolution would jeopardize the conducive environment vitally needed for successful negotiations, another IAEA report stated there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities. Were related to a weapons program. Iran has claimed that the threat posed by Israel and the United States is forcing it to restrict the release of information on its nuclear program. On 31 July 2006, the Security Council passed a resolution demanding Iran suspend its enrichment program, on 23 December 2006, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Iran, which were later tightened on 24 March 2007, because Iran refused to suspend enrichment. Irans representative to the UN argued that the sanctions compelled Iran to abandon its rights under the NPT to peaceful nuclear technology, the Non-Aligned Movement called on both sides to work through the IAEA for a solution. US intelligence predicted in August 2005 that Iran could have the key ingredients for a weapon by 2015. On 25 October 2007, the United States declared the Revolutionary Guards a proliferator of weapons of destruction. Iran responded that it is incongruent for a country who itself is a producer of weapons of destruction to take such a decision. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the IAEA at the time, said he had no evidence Iran was building nuclear weapons and his irresponsible attitude of sticking his head in the sand over Irans nuclear programme should lead to his impeachment. Israel and some western governments fear Iran is using its nuclear programme as a means to develop weapons
42.
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
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Iraqs military arsenal included weapons of mass destruction starting from 1960s, effectively ending with its near total destruction in the 1990s. Iraq used chemical weapons on multiple occasions, both domestically and in the war against Iran, after the first Gulf War in 1991, the UN Security Council required Iraq to eliminate its chemical, biological and previously unknown nuclear weapon programs under UN verification. Iraq was subsequently accused of having restarted its WMD programs, which was the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive weapons program. In response to diminishing Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM, the United States called for withdrawal of all UN and IAEA inspectors in 1998, the 1999 disarmament report by UNSCOM listed large quantities of WMD material that was unaccounted for. The United States and the UK asserted that Saddam Hussein still possessed large hidden stockpiles of weapons of destruction in 2003. In the event of proactive Iraqi cooperation, he said it would take, however, in his May 2003 report to the U. N. Blix said that his team had made little progress accounting for other materials which Iraq claims to have unilaterally destroyed. The United States asserted this was a breach of Resolution 1441, later U. S. -led inspections found out that Iraq had earlier ceased active WMD production and stockpiling. The report also found that Iraq had worked covertly to maintain the intellectual and physical capacity to produce WMDs, in 2015 it was learned that Iraqs weapons of mass destruction had not been fully accounted for by UN inspections. Operation Avarice, headed by army intelligence and the CIA, involved the purchase of the weapons from the unidentified individual to keep them off the black market. 1959 – August 17 USSR and Iraq wrote an agreement about building a power plant. 1968 – a Soviet supplied IRT-2000 research reactor together with a number of facilities that could be used for radioisotope production was built close to Baghdad. 1975 – Saddam Hussein arrived in Moscow and asked about building a model of an atomic power station. Moscow would approve if the station was regulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yet an agreement of co-operation was signed on April 15, which superseded the one from 1959, after 6 months Paris agreed to sell 72 kg of 93% Uranium and built a nuclear power plant without International Atomic Energy Agency control at a price of $3 billion. In the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein ordered the creation of a nuclear weapons program. Iraqs weapons of mass destruction programs were assisted by a variety of firms. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun and this work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade
43.
Israel and weapons of mass destruction
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Israel is widely believed to possess weapons of mass destruction, and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The US Congress Office of Technology Assessment has recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared chemical warfare capabilities, officially Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons. It is believed that Israel had possessed a nuclear weapons capability by 1967. Although no official statistics exist, estimates of Israeli nuclear weapons range from 75 to as many as 400 and it is unknown if Israels reported thermonuclear weapons are in the megaton range. Israel is also reported to possess a range of different systems, including neutron bombs, tactical nuclear weapons. Israel is believed to manufacture its nuclear weapons at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, Israels nuclear-capable ballistic missiles are believed to be buried so far underground that they would survive a nuclear attack. This admission was in contrast to the long-running Israeli government policy of ambiguity on whether it has nuclear weapons. The policy held that Israel would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East, former International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei regarded Israel as a state possessing nuclear weapons. Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but supports establishment of a Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction, Israel has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. Undertook a program of chemical warfare preparations in both offensive and protective areas, in late 1982 a probable CW nerve agent production facility and a storage facility were identified at the Dimona Sensitive Storage Area in the Negev Desert. Other CW agent production is believed to exist within a well-developed Israeli chemical industry, there are also speculations that a chemical weapons program might be located at the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona. The shipment was from a U. S. chemical plant to the IIBR under a U. S. Department of Commerce license. In 1993, the U. S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment WMD proliferation assessment recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared chemical warfare capabilities. Theres no doubt theyve had stuff for years, Israel is believed to have developed an offensive biological warfare capability. The US Congress Office of Technology Assessment records Israel as a country possessing a long-term, Israel is not a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention. It is assumed that the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona develops vaccines and antidotes for chemical and biological warfare, john Douglas-Grays thriller The Novak Legacy * Israel, WMD Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative, May 2014. 3 pp. 22–23 Israel and the Bomb, including declassified documents, obsessive secrecy undermines democracy By Reuven Pedatzur Haaretz. Tuesday, August 8, 2000—Cohen published Israel and the Bomb in the United States, in the eyes of the defense establishment, Cohen has committed a double sin
44.
Japan and weapons of mass destruction
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Beginning in the mid-1930s, Japan conducted numerous attempts to acquire and develop weapons of mass destruction. The 1943 Battle of Changde saw Japanese use of both bioweapons and chemical weapons, and the Japanese conducted a serious, though futile, nuclear weapon program, after the end of World War II, the nation ceased all production and abandoned their experiments. Since World War II, Japan has become a state, said to be a screwdrivers turn away from nuclear weapons, having the capacity, the know-how. Japan has consistently eschewed any desire to have weapons. Such weapons are forbidden by the Japanese constitution, in military campaigns, the Japanese army used biological weapons on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Japans infamous biological warfare Unit 731 was led by Lt. General Shirō Ishii, Japan developed new methods of biological warfare and used them on a large scale in China during World War II. Unit 731 used plague-infected fleas and flies covered with cholera to infect the population in China, localized and deadly epidemics resulted and nearly 500,000 Chinese died of disease. Recent additional firsthand accounts testify the Japanese infected civilians through the distribution of plague-infested foodstuffs, such as dumplings, during the Changde chemical weapon attacks, the Japanese also employed biological warfare by intentionally spreading cholera, dysentery, typhoid, bubonic plague, and anthrax. Other battles include the Kaimingye germ weapon attack, Japanese scientists from Unit 731 provided research information for the United States biological weapons program in order to escape war crimes charges. Japanese biological warfare information provided to US authorities after World War II remained a secret and was returned to Japan. Japans employment of BW was largely viewed as ineffective, due to the absence of an efficient production delivery system technology. In August 2002, a Japanese court ended decades of official denials and acknowledged, for the first time, the court acknowledged the existence of Japans biological warfare program but rejected the plaintiffs demands for compensation, saying the issue was covered under postwar treaties. Japans biological warfare experts and scientists from WWII, were alleged to have assisted the US in employment of BW in the Korean War. The Japanese used mustard gas and the blister agent Lewisite, against Chinese troops and guerillas in China, experiments involving chemical weapons were conducted on live prisoners. As of 2005,60 years after the end of the war, canisters that were abandoned by Japan in their hasty retreat are still being dug up in construction sites, causing injuries and allegedly even deaths. In December 1993, Japan signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, ratified it in 1995 and was thus a state party upon entering into force in 1997, however, JSDF possess chemical weapons facilities and some samples for protection which it said JGSDF Central NBC protection Troop. In 1995, JGSDF admitted possession of sarin for samples, a Japanese program to develop nuclear weapons was conducted during World War II. Japan signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in February 1970, for this reason Japan is often said to be a screwdrivers turn away from possessing nuclear weapons
45.
Libya and weapons of mass destruction
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Libya possesses chemical weapons and ballistic missiles and previously pursued nuclear weapons under the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi. Libya signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and ratified it in 1975, the United States and the United Kingdom assisted Libya in removing equipment and material from its nuclear weapons program, with independent verification by the IAEA. In October 2014, Libya asked for assistance to transport its 850 tonnes stockpile of precursor chemicals for making nerve gas out of Libya for destruction. In February 2015, Libyan military sources told media that unidentified armed men have captured large amounts of Libya’s chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin. Before the rollback of its nuclear program in late 2003, Libya had a nuclear weapons program. In 1981, the Soviet Union supplied a 10 MW research reactor at Tajura. However, by the time its nuclear program was roll back by Muammar Gaddafi, with an assistance from the U. S. and IAEA, Libyas nuclear program remained in very early developmental and initial stages. Despite commitment to NPT, which Libya became partied of it in 1968, the most famous buying foray was in 1970 when Libyan leaders paying a state visit to China. Gaddafi and his Prime Minister Abdessalam Jalloud made an attempt to convince China to sell tactical nuclear weapons to Libya. In a bilateral meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, Colonel Gaddafi unsuccessful attempt to convince Enlai to sell him a nuclear bomb, qaddafis justification towards the intentions for nuclear weapons were his concern over the Israeli nuclear capability, and publicly expressed his desire to obtain nuclear weapons. After being invited by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to attend the 2nd OIC conference in Lahore, Libya negotiated and was delegated to participate in its program, Project-706. In 1977, the Libyan technicians were departed to Pakistan but by the time Libyans joined the program, before Pakistans A-bomb project succeeded, Libya had been taken out of the equation as the new President General Zia-ul-Haq had distrusted and strongly disliked Gaddafi. With the Indian Prime minister Indira Gandhi visiting Libya in 1984, an energy pact was signed by Libya and India. Throughout the 1980s, Libyan efforts continue to push for acquiring nuclear weapons from various sources, the approach failed in 1979, and in 1980 Libya decided to pursue a plutonium-based pathway to nuclear weapons. Libya imported 1,200 tons of ore concentrate from French-controlled mines in Niger without declaring it to the IAEA. In 1982, Libya attempted to enter in an agreement with Belgium for purchasing a small plant for manufacturing UF4, at the time, Libya had no declared nuclear facilities that required UF4, and the purchase was refused. In 1980, Libya began to build its infrastructure from various nuclear black market sources. The centrifuges materials and expertise were provided by Swiss national, Friedrich Tinner, tinners work on centrifuges took place at the TNRF aimed at producing gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment
46.
Mexico and weapons of mass destruction
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Mexico is one of the few countries which has technical capabilities to manufacture nuclear weapons. However it has renounced them and pledged to use its nuclear technology for peaceful purposes following the Treaty of Tlatelolco in 1968. It is unknown if Mexico ever created or possessed nuclear or any kind of mass destruction weapons. The use of energy in Mexico isnt something new. The CNEN started nine programs, nuclear physics, education and training, seminaries, reactors, radioisotopes, industrial applications for energy, agronomy, genetics. During the sixties, the most relevant scientific project on the country was the construction of the Salazar Nuclear Center in the state of Mexico, two years later, the center already possessed a Tandem Van de Graaff particle accelerator and in 1968 a TRIGA Mark III. In 1972, the CNEN changed its name to ININ, however, regardless of the new name, its objective remains the same until today. In 1961 the Mexican government argued that use of weapons could not be justified under the right to self-defence in the UN charter. In April 2010, the Mexican government reportedly reached an agreement to turn over its highly enriched uranium to the United States. The US would help convert highly enriched uranium stored at Mexican research facilities into an enriched form unsuitable for weapons. Later in March 2012 Rachel Maddow reported that all highly enriched uranium had been removed from Mexico, in October 2010 Mexico signed a contract with the Russian uranium supplier Rosatom, which will supply low enriched uranium for the Mexican nuclear power plant Laguna Verde. In 2012 Mexico was admitted into the Nuclear Suppliers Group as an observer state, military of Mexico Mexican Army Mexican Navy Agencia Espacial Mexicana
47.
Myanmar and weapons of mass destruction
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Burma is widely suspected to have initiated a nuclear weapons programme. If such a program does exist, Burmas technical and financial limitations may make it difficult for the program to succeed, Burma has faced persistent accusations of using chemical weapons, however, the NTI has stated there is no evidence to suggest that Myanmar has a chemical weapons program. Burma is a member of nuclear, but not chemical or biological, however, the United States then took Burma off the list of nations with chemical weapons programmes in 1993. The deserters described seeing artillerymen wearing masks and gloves to fire the munitions, in a separate report from the same year, Dr. In response to the Christian Solidarity Worldwide report, the Burmese government denied the use of chemical weapons, in January 2014 Unity Weekly, a Burmese magazine, reported that Burma was making chemical weapons. The magazine also claimed Chinese technicians were often seen around the factory, in response, the Burmese government sentenced the head of Unity Weekly, along with four Unity Weekly journalists, to 10 years in prison and hard labor under colonial-era espionage laws. The Burmese government claims the factory produces military equipment but does not produce chemical weapons, Burma signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 but has yet to ratify the agreement. In 2007 Russia and Burma did a nuclear research center deal. According to an August 2009 report published in the Sydney Morning Herald, the information cited in the newspaper story reportedly originated from two high-ranking defectors who had settled in Australia. A UN report said there was evidence that North Korea had been exporting nuclear technology to Burma, Iran, based on Wins evidence, Robert Kelley, a former weapons inspector, said he believed Burma has the intent to go nuclear and it is. Expending huge resources along the way, but as of 2010, experts said that Burma was a long way from succeeding, given the poor quality of their current materials. The U. S. expressed concern in 2011 about possible NPT violations, but by 2012 stated that its concerns had been partially allayed
United States: 1,054 tests by official count (involving at least 1,149 devices). 219 were atmospheric tests as defined by the CTBT. These tests include 904 at the Nevada Test Site, 106 at the Pacific Proving Grounds and other locations in the Pacific, 3 in the South Atlantic Ocean, and 17 other tests taking place in Amchitka Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, New Mexico and Nevada outside the NNSS (see Nuclear weapons and the United States for details). 24 tests are classified as British tests held at the NTS. There were 35 Plowshare detonations and 7 Vela Uniform tests; 88 tests were safety experiments and 4 were transportation/storage tests.[17] Link to United States' table data. Motion pictures were made of the explosions, later used to validate computer simulation predictions of explosions.[18]
Soviet Union: 715 tests (involving 969 devices) by official count, plus 13 unnumbered test failures.[19][20] Most were at their Southern Test Area at Semipalatinsk Test Site and the Northern Test Area at Novaya Zemlya. Others include rocket tests and peaceful-use explosions at various sites in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Link to Soviet Union's table data
United Kingdom: 45 tests (21 in Australian territory, including three at the Montebello Islands, nine in mainland South Australia at Maralinga and Emu Field, some at Christmas Island (Kiritimati) in the Pacific Ocean, plus 24 in the United States at the Nevada Test Site as part of joint test series)[21] 43 safety tests (the Vixen series) are not included in that number, though safety experiments by other countries are. Link to the United Kingdom's summary table
France: 210 tests by official count (50 atmospheric, 160 underground[22]), four atomic atmospheric tests at C.E.S.M. near Reggane, 13 atomic underground tests at C.E.M.O. near In Ekker in the French Algerian Sahara, and nuclear atmospheric and underground tests at and around Fangataufa and Moruroa Atolls in French Polynesia. Four of the In Ekker tests are counted as peaceful use, as they were reported as part of the CET's APEX (Application pacifique des expérimentations nucléaires), and given alternate names. Link to France's summary table
China: 45 tests (23 atmospheric and 22 underground), at Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base, in Malan, Xinjiang[23] There are two additional unnumbered failed tests. Link to China's summary table
India: Six underground explosions (including the first one in 1974), at Pokhran. Link to India's summary table
Pakistan: Six underground explosions at Ras Koh Hills and the Chagai District.[24] Link to Pakistan's summary table
North Korea: Link to North Korea's summary table North Korea is the only country in the world that still tests nuclear weapons, and their tests have caused escalating tensions between them and the United States. Their most recent nuclear test was on September 3, 2017.
