1.
UGM-133 Trident II
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The UGM-133A Trident II, or Trident D5 is a submarine-launched ballistic missile, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, and deployed with the American and British navies. It was first deployed in March 1990, and remains in service, the Trident II Strategic Weapons System is an improved SLBM with greater accuracy, payload, and range than the earlier Trident C-4. It is a key element of the U. S. strategic nuclear triad, the Trident II is considered to be a durable sea-based system capable of engaging many targets. It enhances the U. S. position in strategic arms negotiation with performance, Trident II missiles are carried by 14 US Ohio and 4 British Vanguard-class submarines, with 24 missiles on each Ohio class and 16 missiles on each Vanguard class. There have been 161 successful test flights of the D5 missile since design completion in 1989, there have been fewer than 10 test flights that were failures, the most recent being from HMS Vengeance off the coast of Florida in June 2016. The D5 is the sixth in a series of missile generations deployed since the sea-based deterrent program began 60 years ago, the Trident D5LE version will remain in service until 2042. Lockheed Martin designs and manufactures the Trident II Missile as well as all generations of US Fleet Ballistic Missiles. The Trident II was designated to be the latest longer-range missile, in 1972, the US Navy projected an initial operating capability date for the Trident II in 1984. The US Navy continued to advance the IOC date to 1982, on 18 October 1973, a Trident program review was administered. On 14 March 1974, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense disseminated two requirements for the Trident program, the first was an accuracy improvement for the Trident C-4. The second requirement asked for an alternative to the C-4, or a new Trident II missile with a larger first stage motor than the C-4, studies were conducted to determine whether the more-expensive Trident II could be constructed similar to the US Air Forces MX ICBM. This was done primarily to decrease budget costs and it was established that the Trident II would be 83 inches in diameter and 44 ft in length in order to maintain performance with the existing MX ICBM. Modifications to the system, electronics hardening, and external protective coatings were incorporated into the design. While this satisfied the US Naval study requirements, it did not accommodate the US Air Force payload requirements, propulsion stages were proposed to be used between the first stage and second stage motors, effectively making the Trident II a longer three-stage missile than the C-4. Studies were delayed in 1978 when Congress only approved $5 million of the suggested $15 million for the Naval/Air Force program studies, by December 1978, the US Navy and Air Force studies agreed that the savings made by a similar missile structure would not be effective. It was determined that the US Navy and Air Force maintain, the US Navy continued with their own weapon design of the Trident II. In March 1980, US Secretary of Defense Harold Brown proposed an increased level of funding for the ballistic missile modernization. Emphasis was strained for the need of increased accuracy, the House Armed Services Committee recommended no funding, while the Senate Armed Services Committee recommended full funding of $97 million
2.
Submarine-launched ballistic missile
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A submarine-launched ballistic missile is a ballistic missile capable of being launched from submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles each of which carries a nuclear warhead, submarine-launched ballistic missiles operate in a different way from submarine-launched cruise missiles. Modern submarine-launched ballistic missiles are closely related to ballistic missiles. The war ended before it could be tested, but the engineers who had worked on it went on to work for the USA and USSR on their SLBM programs. These and other early SLBM systems required vessels to be surfaced when they fired missiles, a converted Project 611 submarine launched the worlds first SLBM, an R-11FM on 16 September 1955. Five additional Project V611 and AV611 submarines became the worlds first operational ballistic missile submarines with two R-11FM missiles each, entering service in 1956–57. The United States Navy initially worked on a variant of the US Army Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile, projecting four of the large. Red Raborn headed a Special Project Office to develop Jupiter for the Navy, soon Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke concentrated all Navy strategic research on Polaris, still under Admiral Raborns Special Project Office. All US SLBMs have been solid-fueled while all Soviet and Russian SLBMs have been liquid-fueled except for the Russian RSM-56 Bulava, george Washington also conducted the first successful submerged SLBM launch with a Polaris A-1 on 20 July 1960. The Soviets were only a year behind the US with their first SSBN, however, the Hotel class carried only three R-13 missiles each and had to surface and raise the missile to launch. Submerged launch was not an operational capability for the Soviets until 1963, the Soviet Union was able to beat the U. S. The United States eventually conducted a similar test in the Pacific Ocean on 6 May 1962, the first Soviet SSBN with 16 missiles was the Project 667A, which first entered service in 1967 with 32 boats completed by 1974. By the time the first Yankee was commissioned the US had built 41 SSBNs, the short range of the early SLBMs dictated basing and deployment locations. By the late 1960s the Polaris A-3 was deployed on all US SSBNs with a range of 4,600 kilometres, the A-3 also had three warheads that landed in a pattern around a single target. The Yankee class was equipped with the R-27 Zyb missile with a range of 2,400 kilometres. The US was much more fortunate in its basing arrangements than the Soviets, the SSBN facilities at the Advanced Refit Sites were austere, with only a submarine tender and floating dry dock. Converted merchant ships designated T-AKs were provided to ferry missiles and supplies to the sites, with two rotating crews per boat, about one-third of the total US force could be in a patrol area at any time. These missiles were the R-29 Vysota series, equipped on Projects 667B, 667BD, 667BDR, the SS-N-8, with a range of 7,700 kilometres, entered service on the first Delta-I boat in 1972, before the Yankee class was even completed
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
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
10.
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
11.
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
