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This article is helpful because it provides specific statistics and numbers with date about the French Nuclear Program. It focuses on the different projects and goals set by the French government referring to their Nuclear Program.

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A comprehensive guide to United Kingdom nuclear bombers and bomber-delivered weapons.

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This article talked about Japan's reasoning behind not signing the UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty and discusses Japan's views on nuclear weapons.

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This article is a good source overall for pro-nuclear weapons. Most importantly, it shows a greater level of suffering and deaths from firebombings in Tokyo than either atomic bomb in Nagasaki or Hiroshima

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Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog

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Meditations

by Alex Wellerstein, published September 22nd, 2014

How many people would have died if an atomic bomb had been dropped on Tokyo in early 1945, instead of firebombs? Before you accuse me of excessive obsession with morbidity (as one anonymous e-mailer recently did), let me explain to you how I came to ask myself this question, and what the consequences of the answer are.

Before the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was the burning of Tokyo. Operation Meetinghouse, the early March 1945 raid on Tokyo that involved over 330 B-29s dropping incendiary bombs from low-altitude at night, killed roughly 100,000 people, and may have injured and made homeless an order of magnitude more. As with all statistics on the damage caused by strategic bombing during World War II, there are debatable points and methodologies, but most people accept that the bombing of Tokyo probably had at least as many deaths as the Hiroshima bombing raid, and probably more. It is sometimes listed as the most single deadly air raid of all time as a consequence.

So it is understandable that many people, including myself, point to Tokyo whenever people want to talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can't see the atomic bombings in isolation. The practice of targeting civilian areas with massively destructive aerial bombing had already been done before. And to some, the atomic bombs were just a refinement of the art of area bombing - a more efficient means to accomplish the same ends.

However, there are a few points that I fear get missed in that kind of equivalence. I certainly agree that the philosophy of bombing used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't a new one. Indeed, the experience of firebombing gave a lot of guidance to the question of nuclear targeting. The goals were similar, though the people planning the atomic bombs emphasized the raw terror that they hoped such a spectacle would inspire.

But I depart from the standard comparison in two places. The first is the idea that since the atomic bombings were not original in targeting civilians, then they do not present a moral or ethical question. As I've written about before, I think the question of morality gets more problematic. If the atomic bombings were one-off events, rare interventions to end the war, then it might (for some) be compelling to say that they were worth the price of crossing over some kind of line regarding the deliberate burning of civilians to death en masse. But if they were instead the continuation of a well-established policy of burning civilians to death en masse, then the moral question gets much broader. The question changes from, Was it morally justified to commit a civilian massacre two times?, to Was it morally justified to make civilian massacre a standard means of fighting the war?

I want to state explicitly that I don't think, and I don't want my phrasing to imply, that the answer to the above is necessarily an unequivocal "no." There are certainly many moral frameworks that can allow for massacres (e.g. ends-justify-the-means). But I prefer to not dress this sort of thing up in euphemisms, whether we think it justified or not. Massacre means to deliberately and indiscriminately kill people. That is what you get when you bomb densely-populated cities with weapons that cannot distinguish between civilians and members of the military. Incendiary raids and atomic bombs certainly fall in this category, whether one thinks that the circumstances required them or not.

The second place I depart is a technical one. There are several important differences between the effects of firebombing and atomic bombing. They are not, even in the case of the bombing of Japan, strictly equivalent from the point of view of their effects or their outcomes.

The Tokyo firebombing raid was a relatively slow (compared to an atomic bomb), massively-distributed attack. The Tokyo raid involved hundreds of B-29 bombers arriving and attacking over the course of several hours. Such massive groups of B-29s could be heard and tracked from a considerable distance. They spread their bombs over a large area of the city, with the goal of creating a mass conflagration that would be impossible to control. They could be fought against with interceptors and anti-aircraft guns; air-raid alarms could be sounded; civilians could flee to shelter, or outside of the city itself. This is not to imply that any of these strategies were necessarily effective, and it does not necessarily make firebombing raids any more "humane." But it does change the outcome quite a bit, when compared to an atomic bomb attack.

The atomic bombing raids of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fast, near-instantaneous attacks. They involved a single B-29 weather plane in advance, and then two or three B-29s approaching the city, one with the bomb itself. This means that effective air-raid warning was minimal, because it was not possible to distinguish an atomic bomb attack from a reconnaissance or weather flight, all of which were common by that late stage in the war. (And obviously any hope of detecting an atomic bomb attack was impossible prior to Hiroshima.)

The primary acute effects of the atomic bombs were blast and thermal radiation. The former travels at the speed of sound, the latter significantly faster. (The rays are transmitted at more or less the speed of light, but the intensity and duration of the thermal pulse is a more complex phenomena and unfolds over the course of several seconds.) The blast knocks down buildings. The thermal radiation heats and burns. Both contribute to the starting of fires - the thermal radiation directly (for certain materials), the blast wave indirectly by knocking over flammable materials, stoves, candles, etc. After Hiroshima there was a significant firestorm, as with incendiary bombing, but there was not after Nagasaki. There was no effective preparation for such an attack - perhaps if they had the foresight of some later Civil Defense techniques, some lives could have been saved (different shelter types did affect the fatality rates significantly, even close in to the zero point), but obviously this was not quite in the cards during the war itself, when the atomic bomb was such a novelty. There was no time for shelters, no time to flee the city, no time even for real comprehension of what was happening - a bright light followed by a crushing blast, followed by fire. For those who survived the blast and fire, there were radiation effects, if they were with a few kilometers of the epicenter. This could range from acute radiation sickness and death with several weeks, to an increased cancer risk over the course of their lives.

Are the atomic bomb effects significantly different from firebombing to warrant putting them into different ethical or moral categories? One could argue the point either way. I tend to think that they are both pretty terrible forms of suffering, but they are not identical. In many ways the atomic bombing effects were significantly worse for the people living in the target cities - all of the suffering of firebombing accelerated, with a few new terrors added into the mix, and with less warning.

But the equivalence argument also misses some important differences in how deadly the atomic bombs were. The firebombing of Tokyo did, indeed, kill the most people of any air raid in history - from 80,000 to over 100,000 dead in a single raid. But the city of Tokyo had some 5 million people living in it. In the areas targeted, there were 1.5 million people living. So that means that it killed no more than 2% of the total population of the city, and no more than 7% of the people who lived in the targeted areas. The bombing of Hiroshima killed between 90,000 and 160,000 people in a city of 345,000 or so. So that is a fatality rate of 26-46%, depending on whose fatality estimates you go with. The bombing of Nagasaki killed between 39,000 to 80,000 people in a city of 260,000 people or so. So that is a fatality rate of 15-30%.

So to put it another way, the Hiroshima bombing was around 5 times more deadly than the Tokyo raid per capita, and the Nagasaki bombing was maybe 4 times more deadly. The total number dead is similar in all three cases, but the total number of people possible to kill in Tokyo was much higher than the number of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This isn't the whole story, though. There is a subtle technical difference mixed in here. Firebombing on par with the Tokyo raid spread a moderate chance of death over a large area. The atomic bombs dropped in World War II spread a very high chance of death over a relatively small area. So depending on the target in question, the difference in fatalities might or might not matter. The Hiroshima bomb was perfectly capable of killing something like half of the city - but it was a pretty small city, compared to Tokyo. Tokyo has areas of incredibly high density, but also large areas of relatively moderate to low density.

So why does this matter? From an ethical standpoint, I'm not sure it does. The targeting of civilians for mass destruction seems to be the core ethical issue, whether you do this by means of fire, neutrons, or toxic gas. But I do think we end up underestimating the effects of the atomic bombs if we see them as exactly equivalent to firebombs. There is an error in seeing the atomic bombs as just an expeditious form of firebombing - it both overstates the deadliness of firebombing while understating the deadliness of atomic bombs.

All of this is what led me to the question I opened with: What if, in some hypothetical alternative universe, instead of launching a firebombing raid in early March 1945, the US was able to drop the Little Boy atomic bomb onto Tokyo? What would the casualties have been for that raid?

Obviously an exact answer is not possible. But we do have population density maps of Tokyo, and we do have records on the relationship between distance from "ground zero" and percentage of population killed. There are lots of uncertainties, here, regarding the types of buildings, the differences in geography, and other things that are hard to estimate. But let's do a rough estimation.

If we transpose the effects of Hiroshima - a 15 kiloton bomb detonated around 1,968 feet above the ground - to the population densities of Tokyo, what is the result? I don't want to clog up the blog post with a detailed explanation of the methodology I've used, so I'm putting it at the end with the footnotes. The basic gist of it was this: I took a population density map of Tokyo from 1940, divided the different density areas into different layers in Photoshop, then selected radii based on bomb effects and did pixel counting. I used all of this to come up with rough minimum-maximum estimates of how many people lived in areas at different regions from the bomb blast, and then multiplied those population counts against known average fatality/casualty rate data taken from Hiroshima.

I looked at two ground zeros, to further emphasize the intense locality of a Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb attack (compared to a firebombing raid). If targeted on the moderately-dense Honjo area (which is more or less the center of the firebombing attack), one could roughly expect there to be between 213,000 and 344,000 fatalities, and between 442,000 and 686,000 injuries. This is the ground zero shown in the above image. If you move it north-west by only 1 km, though, to the more densely populated Asakusa area, the numbers change to 267,000 to 381,000 dead and 459,000 to 753,000 injured.

So if the Hiroshima bomb had been dropped on Tokyo, it probably would have destroyed less area than the March 1945 Tokyo firebombings - something like 5 square miles, compared to the 15 square miles destroyed by firebombing. However it would have killed between two and four times as many people who died in the firebombings, and injured possibly fewer or the same amount of people.

These numbers seem roughly plausible to me, even given all of the uncertainties involved, and they align with the rough guess one would make from the relative area destruction and casualty rates cited earlier. It is of note that the shifting of an atomic bomb's aiming point can increase total casualties by several tens of thousands of people in a city the density of Tokyo; firebombing is probably not quite as dependent on any given aiming point, given how much lower the accuracy was.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Tokyo firebombing was much more fatal than most of the other firebombing raids. As the first low-altitude, massed night B-29 incendiary raid, against Japan's highest-density city, it was especially fatal. Later raids killed, on average, orders of magnitudes less, both for the reasons given at the beginning (e.g. fleeing when you hear hundreds of B-29s in the distance), and because of much lower population densities. Had Hiroshima been firebombed, the fatalities would have certainly been much lower than the atomic bombings, because the Tokyo case is in fact an anomalously high one.

Atomic bombings may be ethically no better or worse than firebombing raids like Tokyo, but to regard them as simply an expedient form of firebombing misses a key point about their relative deadliness: If you have to pick, and you get to pick, one should choose to be firebombed, not atomic bombed - unless you know exactly where the bombs are going to go off.
Detailed methodology for the casualty calculation

The only population density map of Tokyo that I was able to find for this period was from 1940. It isn't perfect for this purpose, because it has two major categories that are open ended ("Less than 30,000" and "135,000 and over" per square mile), which means we are left with some rather broad estimates on the high and low ends of things. But it's better than nothing.

We know that during the March 1945 raid, the US targeted the densely-populated area just east of the Imperial Palace. So we can put our atomic bomb ground zero there too and not feel like we are doing anything wrong, though actual targeting strategy would probably vary. I placed one ground zero in the Honjo area, which was more or less the aiming point for the firebombing raids. I also did the calculations for a ground zero in the very densely populated Asakusa area, to illustrate how the difference of only 1 km in ground zero location could lead to very different results.

I took the map and color-coded each of the population density regions in Photoshop, each on their own layer. This allowed me to use the Histogram tool to count the pixels on each layer within a selected circle. I then correlated what a pixel meant in terms of a square mile, given the scale of the map. The resolution of everything means there is some rounding, of course, but this was never an exact science to begin with.

I then made pixel count measurements corresponding to circles corresponding to 0.1 km, 0.2 km, and so on in 0.1 km intervals, up to 2 km, and then in 0.5 km intervals up to 4.5 km. I then (in Excel) used these to extrapolate minimum and maximum populations within those areas. The minimum count was pretty easy (because I could just assume nobody lived in the least dense areas), but I tried to be conservative regarding the maximum counts, assuming that the "135,000 and up" areas only would go up to 165,000 or so on average. This might be incorrect, so these figures might be either under- or overestimating things considerably for the very dense Asakusa area.

I then took an average fatality/casualty chart that was produced by the US Army Corps of Engineers using data from Hiroshima (figure 3-10H, page 70 from Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan; Volume VI) and correlated their percentage estimates with my population estimates.

Things not controlled for include building type, the question of whether a firestorm would be formed in the same way, and time of day issues (e.g. the difference between an early morning and a night bombing). I also have not tried to estimate what the radiation effect differences would have been, obviously. This should be taken as only a rough estimate.

The end result of all this was a calculation that between 2.4 million and 4 million people lived within a 4.5 km radius of my ground zeros in 1940. Which seems plausible on the face of it, given that Tokyo had a population of around 7 million and the area in question encompasses the densest parts of the city.

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Meditations by Alex Wellerstein, published September 22nd, 2014 How many people would have died if an atomic bomb had been dropped on Tokyo in early 1945, instead of firebombs? Before you accuse me of excessive obsession with morbidity (as one anonymous e-mailer recently did), let me explain to you how I came to ask myself this question, and what the consequences of the answer are.

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This article is a bit lengthy, but includes incredibly useful information. It goes into the history of Nuclear weapons in Russia and gives an insight on the competition between countries with nuclear weapons.

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This article talks about French and American nuclear policy. It has a lot about french nuclear policy, and how they justify using their weapons.

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Tiphaine de Champchesnel |Research Fellow, Institute for Strategic Research, Ministry of the Armed Forces, France

On nuclear doctrine, Washington and Paris have always differed on several points but stayed aligned on key principles. Will the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) create a gap between these two allies' approach to nuclear weapons? This commentary assesses the 2018 NPR and identifies the convergences and divergences between current American and French nuclear policies. I argue that, despite some new aspects of the 2018 NPR, the US and French nuclear doctrines remain convergent, even if some of the new additions in the NPR replay the historical differences between the two countries, particularly on limited nuclear war.

Analysis of French nuclear policy is usually based on presidential statements on deterrence. These traditionally constitute the core of France's declaratory policy, with one major statement on deterrence for each presidential term. President Macron has not delivered one yet, but he has already signaled his strong commitment to France's nuclear deterrent through a presidential visit to the submarine "le Terrible" in early July 2017 and in a speech on defense delivered at Istres air base later that month. Moreover, President Macron has endorsed the French Strategic Review of Defense and National Security (SR) which includes key paragraphs dedicated to nuclear deterrence. [1]

The recently released Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) confirms that nuclear weapons play a crucial role in the U.S. national security strategy. It explains that, given the current and future international context, "U.S. nuclear weapons remain necessary to prevent war and safeguard the Nation". As with the 2010 NPR "vital interests" remain at the core of the U.S. nuclear doctrine. The current NPR states, "For any President, the use of nuclear weapons is contemplated only in the most extreme circumstances to protect our vital interests and those of our allies" [emphasis added]. [2] The concept of "vital interests" is also a key part of French nuclear policy and is an important similarity between the U.S. and France. The 2017 French SR states that nuclear deterrence "protects us from any aggression against our vital interests emanating from a state, wherever it may come from and whatever form it may take" [emphasis added]. Moreover, for both countries, "vital interests" include a dimension beyond the national context:

the U.S. affirms that they would defend "the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners";

France explains "the definition of our vital interests cannot be restricted to the national scope".

These two strong and important statements concern the protection of allies. The non-national dimension of nuclear deterrence is a crucial element of both security strategies. But they also reflect a major point of difference. France insists that its nuclear deterrent "contributes to the security of the Atlantic Alliance and that of Europe". However it does not have extended deterrence agreements with partners. The U.S. does, which explains other doctrinal differences. For example, the U.S. does not mention self-defense whereas France attaches paramount importance to this principle, as enshrined in the UN Charter. It regularly reaffirms that the use of nuclear weapons would be conceivable only in "extreme circumstances of self-defense" while the U.S. only mentions "extreme circumstances". Still, both use the term "extreme circumstances" to characterize their nuclear threshold.

Since the US and France's doctrines relies on the notion of "vital interest, the U.S. they emphasize the depth of the damage that could be caused by a potential aggressor but not the nature of the potential threat or attack. Neither are guided by a sole purpose policy establishing that nuclear weapons are only to deter a nuclear attack and neither have adopted no-first-use policies. In that sense, both believe that ambiguity is pivotal for deterrence. Yet ambiguity is not used for offensive purposes, or to intimidate, but to prevent potential adversaries from assuming that at a certain level of aggression these countries would not risk a nuclear retaliation.

The French nuclear doctrine insists that it must preserve the "life" of the Nation, "whatever the means used by the state adversary". [3] The 2018 NPR expresses it differently, affirming that U.S. nuclear forces contribute to the "deterrence of nuclear and non-nuclear attack". At first glance the phrasing is different but the meaning is the same. Still, the U.S. NPR seems to establish a hierarchy among U.S. nuclear policy purposes: "to deter potential adversaries from nuclear attack of any scale" is the "highest U.S. nuclear policy and strategy priority". France keeps it very simple and does not detail this part of the doctrine beyond "whatever the means". This is certainly because it does not feel the need to reconfirm a principle which has never changed. The United States however suggested in the past (during the preparatory work of the 2010 NPR) that they may consider the adoption of a sole purpose policy. This could partly explain why the 2018 NPR makes the role of the U.S. nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks "one of the report's most heavily emphasized themes" as noted by Rebecca Hersman in a recent CSIS Commentary. The most pressing explanation, as stated by the NPR, is the need to correct the "misperception" of potential adversaries of the ability to benefit from non-nuclear aggression.

Altogether, on the principles and scope of nuclear deterrence, the U.S. and French views seem to converge. Both express the belief that nuclear weapons must only serve defensive purposes. Yet they differ on the practical ways and means of implementing deterrence.

A few years ago, in a comparison of US, UK and French nuclear policies and doctrines, Bruno Tertrais explained that the three countries "exercise nuclear deterrence primarily through the threat of inflicting "unacceptable damage" upon an adversary" but that they also "insist that they should have limited nuclear options in addition to massive strike options". However, the 2018 NPR decisions on additional "non-strategic weapons" raise the question of the U.S. understanding of such limited nuclear options. Thus, it also raises the question of U.S.-French convergence or divergence on this critical issue.

Paris abandoned non-strategic nuclear weapons by the end of the Cold War. Since then it has insisted that nuclear weapons are not intended to provide any advantage in a conflict. Washington also clearly rejects the prospect of "nuclear war-fighting". However, the NPR seems counterintuitive in this respect. How can the development of "non-strategic weapons", the rejection of "nuclear war-fighting" and the claim not to lower the nuclear threshold, be reconciled?

According to the NPR, the reasoning behind the new emphasis on "non-strategic weapons" is that U.S. nuclear deterrence needed to be restored in the eyes of potential adversaries who, supposedly, include limited nuclear use in their doctrine. For this purpose, the NPR's drafters concluded that it would be necessary to add "supplements" to enhance deterrence by denying potential adversaries any mistaken confidence that limited nuclear employment can provide a useful advantage.

But are these "non-strategic weapons" really non-strategic? To put it differently, are they intended for a non-strategic use? Based on the way the NPR described their place in the nuclear doctrine, the answer is no.

There is a distinct difference here between the U.S. and French nuclear doctrine. The 2018 NPR is not planning for a limited nuclear war but its reasoning seems to assume that, if deterrence fails, the risk of nuclear escalation would be manageable. France's has always wanted to avoid the prospect of a nuclear exchange. Its "nuclear warning", intended to restore deterrence in case of miscalculation by an adversary, is a non-repeatable strike. This divergence between the U.S. and France is not new but echoes historical debates about the flexible response theory. It should also be remembered that U.S. has to take into account its various extended deterrence commitments that make deterrence more complex, especially because Washington constraints itself by the need to limit damage "if deterrence fails in a regional contingency".

Washington and Paris have different ways to apply nuclear deterrence. But most importantly, their shared and essential objective remains to "preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression", as argued in 2016 in the NATO Warsaw Summit communiqué.

[1] See paras 240-248

[2] Strategic Review of Defense and National Security (SR), paragraph. 240

[3] SR, para 159.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the French Ministry of armed forces. The opinions articulated above also do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN's aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe's capacity to address pressing foreign, defence, and security challenges.

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The United States, France and nuclear deterrence post NPR

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Tiphaine de Champchesnel |Research Fellow, Institute for Strategic Research, Ministry of the Armed Forces, France On nuclear doctrine, Washington and Paris have always differed on several points but stayed aligned on key principles. Will the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) create a gap between these two allies' approach to nuclear weapons?

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this article helps to explain nuclear-weapon free countries and what it means. It also compares a little bit between nuclear weapon free countries from all over, and during different treaties.

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The establishment of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) is a regional approach to strengthen global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament norms and consolidate international efforts towards peace and security. Article VII of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states: "Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories".

General Assembly resolution 3472 B (1975) defines a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone as

...any zone recognized as such by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which any group of States, in the free exercises of their sovereignty, has established by virtue of a treaty or convention whereby:

(a) The statute of total absence of nuclear weapons to which the zone shall be subject, including the procedure for the delimitation of the zone, is defined;

(b) An international system of verification and control is established to guarantee compliance with the obligations deriving from that statute.

Guidelines and Principles for the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones

The UN Disarmament Commission in its report of April 30, 1999, recommended a set of principles and guidelines for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone, which included, inter alia:

Nuclear-weapon-free zones should be established on the basis of arrangements freely arrived at among the States of the region concerned.

The initiative to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone should emanate exclusively from States within the region concerned and be pursued by all States of that region.

The nuclear-weapon States should be consulted during the negotiations of each treaty and its relevant protocol(s) establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in order to facilitate their signature to and ratification of the relevant protocol(s) to the treaty, through which they undertake legally binding commitments to the status of the zone and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against States parties to the treaty.

A nuclear-weapon-free zone should not prevent the use of nuclear science and technology for peaceful purposes and could also promote, if provided for in the treaties establishing such zones, bilateral, regional and international cooperation for the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the zone, in support of socio-economic, scientific and technological development of the States parties.

Treaties Involved in the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones

The following treaties form the basis for the existing NWFZs:

Mongolia's self-declared nuclear-weapon-free status has been recognized internationally through the adoption of UN General Assembly resolution 55/33S on "Mongolia's international security and nuclear weapon free status."

Other treaties that also deal with the denuclearization of certain areas are:

Antarctic Treaty

Outer Space Treaty - Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies

Moon Agreement - Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies

Seabed Treaty - Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil Thereof

The text and status of all the above-mentioned treaties are available on the UNODA Treaty Database.

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The establishment of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) is a regional approach to strengthen global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament norms and consolidate international efforts towards peace and security. Article VII of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states: "Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories".

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This article is helpful because it compares Obama's views on nuclear weapons with Trump's views on nuclear weapons. It nicely showcases how their views and policies differentiate.

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The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review.

Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation, said the new nuclear posture review prepared by the Pentagon, envisages a modified version of the Trident D5 submarine-launched missiles with only part of its normal warhead, with the intention of deterring Russia from using tactical warheads in a conflict in Eastern Europe.

The new nuclear policy is significantly more hawkish that the posture adopted by the Obama administration, which sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defence.

Arms control advocates have voiced alarm at the new proposal to make smaller, more "usable" nuclear weapons, arguing it makes a nuclear war more likely, especially in view of what they see as Donald Trump's volatility and readiness to brandish the US arsenal in showdowns with the nation's adversaries.

The NPR also expands the circumstances in which the US might use its nuclear arsenal, to include a response to a non-nuclear attack that caused mass casualties, or was aimed at critical infrastructure or nuclear command and control sites.

The nuclear posture review (NPR), the first in eight years, is expected to be published after Donald Trump's State of the Union speech at the end of January.

Wolfsthal, who has reviewed what he understands to be the final draft of the review, said it states that the US will start work on reintroducing a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile, as a counter to a new ground-launched cruise missile the US has accused Russia of developing in violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.

Wolfsthal said that earlier drafts of the NPR was even more hawkish. The final draft drops proposals to develop a nuclear hyper-glide weapon, and to remove assurances to non nuclear weapons states that the US will not use its nuclear arsenal against them.

"My read is this is a walk-back from how extreme it was early on. It doesn't have as much terrible stuff in it as it did originally," Wolfsthal said. "But it's still bad."

"What I've been told by the people who wrote the thing was what they were trying to do was to send a clear deterrent message to Russians, the North Korean and the Chinese. And there is pretty good, moderate but strong language that makes clear that any attempt by Russia or North Korea to use nuclear weapons would result in a massive consequence for them and I think that's actually moderate, centrist and probably very much needed."

"Where they go overboard, is where they say that in order to make that credible the US needs to develop two new types of nuclear weapons," he added.

Wolfsthal said the modified Trident warhead, with just the primary (fission) part of its thermonuclear warhead, was "totally unnecessary" as the US already has low-yield weapons, B61 gravity bombs and air-launched cruise missiles, in its arsenal.

He also said it was "pretty dumb" to put a low-yield "tactical" weapon on the planned new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, because firing it would give away a submarine's position.

"We spend $5bn per submarine to make it invisible and we put a lot of warheads on each submarine and so what they want to do is take one missile, put one small warhead on it and launch it first, so the submarine is vulnerable to Russian attack." Wolfsthal said. "That strikes me as being unsustainable from a naval strategy point of view."

The development of a low-yield warhead for a sea-launched ballistic missile is based on the belief that in any conflict with Russia on Nato's eastern flank, the Russians would use a tactical nuclear weapon early on, to compensate for their relative weakness in conventional arms. The Russians, the argument goes, would count on US reluctance to use the massive warheads on its existing weapons, leading Washington to back down.

Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that justification for developing the new weapons was incoherent.

"It assumes that the intelligence community has determined that one or several adversaries out there are gambling that the US would be self-deterred from using a ballistic missile warhead because they have larger yield. Thats just not the case. We have never, ever heard anyone say that is so," Kristensen said.

"I don't think any adversary - certainly not Russia, - would gamble that if they did something with nukes that were low yield that we would not respond. That's completely ludicrous," he added. "I think this is about having some warhead work at the laboratories and exploring options. I don't see this as a real mission."

Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, said that the development of new weapons in the US nuclear arsenal was "dangerous, Cold War thinking".

"The United States already possesses a diverse array of nuclear capabilities, and there is no evidence that more usable weapons will strengthen deterrence of adversaries or compel them to make different choices about their arsenals," Kimball wrote on the Arms Control Today website.

He also cautioned against moves to broaden the circumstances in which nuclear weapons would be used.

"The use of even a small number of these weapons would be catastrophic," Kimball said. "Threatening nuclear attack to counter new kinds of 'asymmetric' threats is unnecessary, would increase the risk of nuclear weapons use, and would make it easier for other countries to justify excessive roles for nuclear weapons in their policies."

Topics

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US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads

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The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review.

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this page is about the recent US nuclear arsenal, how much they have today and what they plan to do in the near future. this has helped me because it is a very detailed and lengthy page about anything and everything you need to know abut the US nuclear arsenal in the past present and near future.

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This article is about France's stance on nuclear weapons as well as introducing American views on the matter.

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A new debate has emerged in France on the opportunities and risks of missile defense. It has been triggered by events of the past three years - nuclear tests conducted in 1998 by India and Pakistan, the missile tests in Iran and North Korea a few months later, the national missile defense project of the Clinton Administration, and the US Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - that appear to have threatened non-proliferation efforts and increased awareness of the danger that weapons of mass destruction pose to Europe. American plans to develop a national missile defense (NMD) system have been the focus of particular attention. French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine, for example, have both recently warned that a US missile defense program could have "possibly destabilizing strategic consequences" for US allies.

In December 2000, the French National Assembly issued a major Report on the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destriction and their Delivery, the primary author of which was Pierre Lellouche, a member of parliament from Paris and a noted expert on strategic affairs.

The Lellouche report presents an unusually clear discussion of the rising threats from weapons of mass destruction and missiles, including less publicized threats from biological weapons and cruise missiles. It follows a report commissioned six months earlier by the French Senate, signed by President of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Services Commission Xavier de Villepin, on the subject of the US national missile defense (NMD) plan.

Based on the statements of political leaders and on these reports, it is possible to distinguish areas of agreement and disagreement between French and US policy towards missile defense.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, France does not wholly reject the idea of anti-missile defenses. Indeed on many issues in the missile defense debate French and American views and interests already converge. French officials and experts agree with the US assessment of the growing threat of proliferation, although they differ on the level, timing and nature of the threat. France shares the US interest in developing theater missile defense. But France is concerned that the United States will embrace a national missile defense system as an alternative to cooperative diplomacy as a means of reducing foreign threats. By doing so, France worries, the United States would worsen the security dilemma for its friends and foes without significantly improving security at home.
The French Position
The French position on missile defense is often misunderstood in Washington. In a recent article in the New York Times, Michael Gordon writes: "The French remain opposed to the Bush plan, in part, because they fear that a world full of antimissile systems might affect the effectiveness of their small missile deterrent. But the French have been critical of so many policies of the United States that their criticisms tend to be discounted in Washington."

While representative of the US view, the claim is misleading in two important respects.

First, France is not concerned about losing its deterrent capability, whatever the "Bush plan" ends up being. France has only aproximately 450 nuclear warheads mounted on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), compared to the several thousand that Russia and the United States possess. But for the purpose of deterrence, the destructiveness and reliability of a nuclear force is more important than its size. Moreover, French ICBMs are launched from bombers and submarines. This would make them almost unreachable by any defense system that targets missiles in their boost phase. French ICBMs also carry multiple independently-targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) and employ sophisticated decoy systems. This would make them a difficult target for an umbrella-style missile defense, one that targets ICBMs later in their flight trajectories.

Second, French concerns about US missile defense plans should not be discounted as mere anti-Americanism. They represent a coherent alternative view of strategic policy - one that is broadly shared by France's European partners, including Britain and Germany.

The French view can be summarized in three points.

Non-proliferation regimes remain essential. French experts acknowledge that bilateral and multilateral agreements aimed at curbing proliferation are not a panacea. Non-proliferation agreements such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) have been disappointing. But agreements aimed at controlling nuclear and chemical weapons proliferation - including the International Atomic Energy Agency created in 1956, the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - have been relatively successful, and there is a strong consensus in France that they are worth strengthening. In 1974, US intelligence experts were forecasting the emergence of two dozen nuclear powers over the following two decades. As recently as 1990, Dick Cheney estimated that, by the year 2000, "more than two dozen developing nations will have ballistic missiles, 15 of those countries will have the scientific skills to make their own, and half of them either have or are near to getting nuclear capability, as well. Thirty countries will have chemical weapons and ten will be able to deploy biological weapons."

Yet each of these predictions have proved almost entirely wrong, and this success must be credited in large part to international non-proliferation efforts.

The threat is real, but distant. French experts and officials accept that risks are increasing, and point out instances-Iraqi nuclear capacities and North Korean ballistic capacities - in which Western intelligence estimates have proved to be overly optimistic. And the possibility exists that countries like North Korea would sell missiles to countries close to Europe. Moreover, as the Lellouche Report acknowledges, Europe is "already within range of ballistic missiles developed by some countries in the Middle East." Still, French analysts feel that real threats will be less serious and emerge on a longer time scale than those foreseen by US analysts, for three reasons.

First, US estimates are based on an improbable assessment of the scientific and industrial capacities of so-called rogue states. They thus assume threats will emerge more rapidly than does the French analysis. North Korea today, for example, has only somewhat enhanced SCUD missile technology. France feels that the North Koreans still face enormous challenges before they are able to produce a reliable ICBM, including conversion to solid fuel, management of multi-stage propulsion, and improved guidance.

Second, it is necessary to distinguish between the enormous threat posed by nuclear weapons, and the lesser threat posed by conventional, chemical and biological weapons. Nuclear weapons alone offer a viable payload for ICBMs intended for blackmail or deterrence, and developing adequately miniaturized warheads is an extremely difficult task.

Third, France sees weapons of mass destruction as a risk, not a threat. They become threatening only in a political or military context in which a country might profitably consider using them. France feels that such a context is extremely unlikely to arise given the retaliatory power of any western coalition.

Missile defense has its uses. If skeptical of the threat posed by ICBMs, the Lellouche and Villepin reports stress the growing threat coming from short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and cruise missiles and, in the longer term, medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs). In the cases of Japan and Israel, for whom these weapons already pose a real threat, missile defense can be a sensible tool. These systems could also be used to defend Southern Europe, and to protect European troops - in particular Europe's forthcoming 60,000-troop Rapid Reaction Force - operating in remote theaters.The French Ministry of Defense has included a theater missile defense system in its next five-year plan. It is a necessary complement to France's on-going military modernization effort, aimed at projecting the French military more effectively abroad. Thus the French aerospace firm Aérospatiale-Matra and the Italian firm Alenia are collaborating on the Aster antimissile system, able to intercept cruise missiles, SRBMs and MRBMs. The Aster (Mark I) designed to destroy a 600 km SCUD-type missile, should be ready in 2005. Its successor, Aster (Mark II), will be equivalent to the American Patriot PAC 3 anti-missile system and capable of destroying missiles with a 1500 km range. It should be in production in approximately 2010.
The High Cost and Low Benefit of a National Missile Defense Shield
The benefits the US would gain from building an NMD shield are much less clear to France. Technically, it seems unlikely that a country like North Korea will be able to mount a reliable nuclear weapon on a reliable ICBM any time soon. It seems even less likely that an NMD shield could stop the missile and its accompanying decoys. Politically, it seems unlikely that Pyongyang would ever be in a military or political situation in which it could use its missiles as a credible deterrent to US intervention in the region. France does not believe that nuclear weapons will ever be used for irrational reasons. It is, among other things, a scenario with no historical precedent. And experts agree that building an effective system against the Russian or even Chinese nuclear arsenal is bound to fail. This view was summarized by President Jacques Chirac: "[In the] struggle between sword and shield, there is no instance in which the shield has won."

Thus from the French perspective the benefits of an NMD shield for the United States are, at best, unclear.

The costs, however, are easier to assess. The financial cost, estimated at $60 to $100 billion for any likely program, is of course a domestic matter for the United States. But the political costs will be born by the entire international community. One political cost, already being felt, is a slowing of international non-proliferation efforts. The NMD project, accompanied by the Senate's rejection of the CTBT, and by candidate George Bush's speech on 23 May 2000, in which he advocated unilateral cuts in the US nuclear arsenal and large missile defense systems, has given the impression that the United States intends to move from a stable strategic paradigm of deterence and cooperation to an uncertain paradigm of defense and unilateralism. This shift in US tone has altered the perceptions and behavior of all other international actors - friends and foes alike - who must now define their own security in different terms than in the past.

The second political cost lies in the risk of encouraging proliferation and arms race. On the one hand, an American NMD program risks to antagonize Russia, especially if no agreement is found on the ABM Treaty. Very little would be worse for world security than a proliferating Russia. On the other hand, there is a strong risk of setting off an arms race in Asia. China does not need NMD to justify building up its forces in the Taiwan Strait, but there is little doubt that it would respond to an NMD shield by building even more ICBMs, as well as developing MIRVed heads and decoy technologies. This would likely induce India to upgrade its nuclear arsenal, and Pakistan would quickly follow. It would be surprising, at this point, if Iran and Israel did not also choose to follow suit, further upsetting their neighbours.
Room for Compromise
France's objection to the Clinton NMD system was not against the idea of missile defense in general. It felt that the project threatened to upset - indeed already showed signs of upsetting - the international strategic balance and to undermine non-proliferation regimes. And that it did so in order to counter an implausible scenario of attack against the US, based on an implausible estimate of NMD efficiency. The Bush administration plans are not yet known. It is to be hoped that they will offer a system that will not be strategically destabilizing. A boost-phase missile defense, for example, could provide an imaginative, comprehensive solution on which many countries, including France and Russia, could cooperate.

It is also to be hoped, as Tony Blair emphasized in February 2001, that president Bush will be able to complement any missile defense plan with a new international drive against proliferation.

The world still needs US leadership to promote and help enforce useful cooperative agreements. As the Lellouche report emphasizes, each partner needs to make a step towards the other:

There is no contradiction between non-proliferation and counter-proliferation, that is, between a diplomacy-based approach and a defense-based approach. The real debate is on the optimal combination to reach between them. In this respect, it would be illusory, and destabilizing for the international strategic balance, to claim that it is possible to reach this goal only by defense, as the US seems to think. But it would also be insufficient for Europe to rely only on diplomacy.

Justin Vaisse is a visiting scholar at the Center on the US and France at the Brookings Institution and an instructor at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris.

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A new debate has emerged in France on the opportunities and risks of missile defense.

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This article is very useful because it goes through Stalin/ Russia's

actions, plans, and problems during the nuclear arms race. It’s really long and dense so I recommend scanning it until you get to a part that answers your question.

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STALIN AND THE BOMB The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. By David Holloway. Illustrated. 464 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press. $30.
Text:

FOR decades now, a debate has been raging over who was more to blame for the cold war, Stalin's Russia or the United States. Since the Vietnam War especially, revisionist historians have argued that the United States monopoly of the atomic bomb -- and the unspoken threat to use it -- played a larger role than Americans have realized in the breakdown of the World War II alliance and the onset of the long, untidy quasi peace.

Into this debate, and on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and the Allied victory in World War II, has been dropped a new book, the long-awaited "Stalin and the Bomb," by David Holloway, a professor of political science and co-director of the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. It is a superb history, recounting the Soviet nuclear weapons program until three years after Stalin's death, with an eye to the part played by the atomic bomb in the outbreak of the cold war.

Using speeches and interviews given by Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Maxim Litvinov and G. M. Malenkov, and documents that have become available in Russia over the past seven years, Mr. Holloway presents a hardheaded view of the way the early postwar universe looked to the men inside the Kremlin. He asks questions about missed opportunities that have bedeviled scholars in the West, weighs the evidence scrupulously and comes up with answers that will bring little comfort to many liberals -- and none at all to revisionist historians. And in a ground-breaking chapter about the hydrogen bomb, he uses interviews with Andrei Sakharov, Yuli Khariton and other former Soviet physicists to give a clearer picture of the way the Soviet H-bomb was built than anything we have yet been given about the construction of the hydrogen bomb in our own country.

Mostly, however, this is the story of Stalin's race to end the American atomic monopoly. Abetted by his chief of secret police, Lavrenti Beria, who doubled as head of the bomb project, Stalin made liberal use of espionage from abroad, and thereby hangs an extraordinary tale. Just as Mr. Holloway's book comes during a debate among Western historians, so, too, it appears at the height of a controversy in Moscow -- a controversy fueled by "Special Tasks," a book by Pavel Sudoplatov, the former security forces general -- over who deserves credit for the Soviet atomic bomb, Russia's scientists or its spies. Mr. Holloway surveys the work of Igor Kurchatov, the scientific director of the Soviet project, and his team of physicists, mathematicians and radiochemists, and concludes that whereas the Russians tested a version of the American plutonium bomb in 1949 with the help of espionage data from the West, without it they would have tested an atomic bomb of their own design about 1951.

The saving of those two years was no straightforward matter. Alerted by Soviet intelligence to the possibility that Hitler might be building an atomic bomb and that Britain and the United States might be doing the same, Stalin decided in 1942 to launch a small-scale atomic project. First he consulted his scientists, but he did not let them see espionage data from Britain that shed crucial light on whether a bomb could be built at all. Not until March 1943, after Russia's victory at Stalingrad, did Stalin allow Kurchatov to see the data. For several days Kurchatov pored over them in the office of Foreign Minister Molotov. "How are the materials?" Molotov finally asked. "Wonderful," Kurchatov answered, according to Mr. Holloway. "Just what we are lacking." He was then permitted to see the fruits of Soviet espionage, but not to show them to anyone.

Primed by secret reports from Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass, spies who were working on the Manhattan Project -- but not, according to Mr. Holloway and contrary to Mr. Sudoplatov, from J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi or other leaders of the Project -- Kurchatov had to suggest new research leads to his colleagues without so much as a hint that those leads had been stolen from abroad. (Later he was allowed, on occasion, to show foreign intelligence materials to other Soviet scientists, but only with special permission.) Kurchatov, not surprisingly, acquired a reputation for extraordinary intuition, and he managed to maintain his colleagues' trust despite the deception that had been forced upon him. But he was unhappy about the low priority accorded to his operation and the disparity in quality between the Soviet effort and that of the United States.

Stalin's paranoia cost the bomb project dearly. He had reliable espionage material from abroad and, at home, magnificent, utterly loyal nuclear physicists who had done breakthrough work even before the war -- and he did not trust either. He and Beria knew nothing about science. How could they be sure Kurchatov was not deceiving them? And the same was true of the intelligence reports. Perhaps the enemy was trying to draw them into expenditures that had no future. "If this is disinformation," Beria threatened a high-level agent who was giving him secret data, "I'll put you all in the cellar."

This misplaced suspicion had other costs as well. In 1941 Stalin had ignored warnings from his own intelligence, and from the intelligence services of Britain and France, that Hitler was about to attack Russia. Similarly, in 1945, he failed utterly to anticipate the role that nuclear weapons would soon play, despite warnings from Fuchs that the United States would test an atomic bomb in early July and would use it in Japan, if the test succeeded. After the bomb was dropped, Stalin was furious. The place Russia had earned as a world power by its victory in the war had been snatched away. "Hiroshima has shaken the whole world," he is said to have told Kurchatov. "The balance has been destroyed."

At this point one of those "what-if" questions arises. Was there, as the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr concluded in 1944 and as historians have wondered since, a chance to short-circuit the cold war by openly informing our Soviet ally about the bomb well before the end of World War II? Mr. Holloway thinks not. He cites abundant evidence that Stalin had decided on a tough postwar course long before Hiroshima or the atomic bomb entered his calculations. Even if Bohr's advice had been followed and if President Harry S. Truman and his Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, had eschewed all thought of using the existence of the bomb as a diplomatic weapon, Stalin still would have wanted a bomb of his own. The only thing he disliked about the new weapon was that Truman, "that noisy shopkeeper," had it and he did not.

Stalin now gave the bomb project the priority he had denied it before. "If a child doesn't cry," he told Kurchatov in late summer 1945, urging haste, "the mother doesn't know what he needs. Ask for whatever you like. You won't be refused." Early in 1946 he summoned Kurchatov again. This time he rejected advice he had received from the famous Russian physicist Pyotr Kapitsa that the Soviet Union ought to follow its own, cheaper path to the bomb rather than copy the American design. Stalin said that "it was not worth engaging in small-scale work," Kurchatov wrote in his notes, "but necessary to conduct the work broadly, with Russian scope. . . . It was not necessary to seek cheaper paths."

Capable as the Soviet scientists were (and this also went for the aircraft and missile designers who were hard at work copying the American B-29 bomber and the German V-2 rocket), their ideas did not receive full support from Stalin until they had been validated in the West. And so Kurchatov and his top associate Khariton had to set aside their own design for a uranium bomb and embark on an all-out effort to reproduce the plutonium weapon the Americans had tested successfully at Alamogordo, N.M. The irony is that while all this was going on, Stalin was simultaneously engaged in an attempt to root out foreign influences in Soviet life, beginning with the arts and spreading to biology. In 1948 a campaign led by the fraudulent geneticist Trofim Lysenko destroyed Soviet biological research for decades to come. The next year, in March 1949, a conference was to take place in Moscow that would censure Soviet physicists for "kowtowing and groveling before the West." At the last minute the conference was called off and, in the Russia of those days, only one man could have done that.

According to a story related by Mr. Holloway, Beria had asked Kurchatov shortly before the conference whether it was true that quantum mechanics and relativity theory were idealist and antimaterialist. Kurchatov reportedly replied that if relativity theory and quantum mechanics had to be rejected by Russian science, the atomic bomb would have to be rejected, too. According to another story in the book, Stalin phrased his decision to cancel this way: "Leave them [ the physicists ] in peace. We can always shoot them later." He could afford a charlatan like Lysenko in biology, but physics was another matter. Stalin relied on his physicists for the bomb -- and for Soviet status as a superpower. When his first atomic bomb was tested in August 1949, five months after the aborted conference, those scientists who would have been shot in the event of failure received the highest awards: Hero of Socialist Labor and so on, down the line.

In spite of Beria's management by terror, his "issuing threats and exuding an air of menace" on visits to atomic plants, the scientists worked selflessly and with enthusiasm. Some viewed it as "a splendid task in physics," while others were anxious to prove the value of Soviet science; still others worked because they were appalled by American use of the bomb in Japan, were aware that cracks had appeared in the wartime alliance and, in what the author calls "in some psychological sense a continuation of the war with Germany," considered atomic weapons necessary for their country's defense. For these reasons there was, two scientists wrote afterward, "in the first, most romantic years of our work . . . a wonderful atmosphere of good will and support." Not only that, but the physics community managed to maintain much of its old autonomy and mutual loyalty even within the harsh system of administrative command. The Soviet atomic bomb was the result of miraculous synergistic fusion between scientists and engineers on the one hand, and the police state, with its awesome ability to mobilize resources, on the other.

Well before the atomic bomb test of 1949, Sakharov and others were secretly at work on the next megaweapon, the hydrogen bomb. Once again they worked with enthusiasm because, as Sakharov wrote, "we . . . believed that our work was absolutely necessary as a means of achieving a balance in the world." Their American counterparts, too, had been working on hydrogen-bomb designs and, after Russia acquired the atomic bomb, President Truman ordered them to build the hydrogen bomb as rapidly as they could. Truman, however, had his dissenters. In the fall of 1949 the Atomic Energy Commission's General Advisory Committee recommended against an all-out thermonuclear program for reasons that have been misunderstood to this day. One was that after seven years of research, American scientists still thought there was only slightly better than a 50-50 chance that the bomb could be built. Another was that the hydrogen weapon, as then conceived, could be made infinitely large and carry unlimited destructive power. The hydrogen bomb had nothing to do with wiping out military objectives or even whole cities. It could wipe out the human race.

At this point in his story, Mr. Holloway asks another of the "what-if" questions that have troubled Westerners. Suppose Truman had announced in 1949 that the United States would refrain from an all-out effort to build the hydrogen bomb. Could Stalin have been enticed, as Oppenheimer and others hoped, into agreement not to develop his own bomb? Once again Mr. Holloway responds with a hardheaded no, agreeing with Sakharov that Stalin would have regarded such an offer as the product of either deception or foolishness -- and a misstep to be exploited.

Stalin's death in 1953 did not at once alter the Soviet scientists' enthusiasm. The physicist Lev Landau, who said, "That's it. He's gone. I'm no longer afraid of him, and I won't work on [ nuclear weapons ] any more," was very much the exception. In the summer of 1953 they carried out test "Joe-4" (named after Stalin by the Americans) of a modified hydrogen weapon based on Sakharov's "layer cake" design, and in 1955 they tested a so-called "true" hydrogen bomb, based, as the 1952 and 1954 American devices were, on the concept of radiation implosion, and they did all of this without espionage help.

The enhanced confidence brought by their independent attainment of the hydrogen bomb gave some of the scientists, notably Sakharov, leeway for reflection. So, too, did the easing of repression of thought under Stalin's successors, and spreading knowledge of the extent of Stalin's crimes. And there was the sheer power of the hydrogen bomb itself. Kurchatov was badly shaken when he saw the damage. "One more test like those of 1953 and 1955," he said to Sakharov, "and I'm going to retire." He told another colleague, "That was such a terrible, monstrous sight! That weapon must not be allowed ever to be used!"

Kurchatov evidently briefed the new Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev, who later said: "When I was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee and learned all the facts about nuclear power I couldn't sleep for several days. Then I became convinced that we could never possibly use these weapons, and when I realized that I was able to sleep again." At the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, Khrushchev broke with Stalin's theory that war was inevitable and announced a new theory of his own. "Either peaceful coexistence or the most destructive war in history," he declared. "There is no third way." In the Soviet Union as in the United States, the physicists' awe at their handiwork spread to the political leaders. When that happened, Mr. Holloway informs us, nuclear weapons, which had hastened breakdown of the wartime alliance and heightened tension in the early years, began to serve as a restraint.

"Stalin and the Bomb" is a prodigious book. Mr. Holloway has plowed through the new sources available in Russia, turning up fresh insights into the cold war and, even more, into the conditions of intellectual life in Stalin's Russia. This study is a work on the largest scale, one that advances our understanding and is likely to remain definitive for years to come. RUSSIA'S MANHATTAN PROJECT

An atomic industry had to be established before the bomb could be built. This was a formidable task for a country that had suffered so much in the war. But Stalin wanted the bomb as soon as possible, and was prepared to disregard the cost. The building of the atomic bomb was the kind of task for which the Stalinist command economy was ideally suited. It resembled the huge construction projects of the 1930's -- the steel city at Magnitogorsk, or Dneprostroi, the great dam on the Dnieper. It was a heroic undertaking for which the resources of the country could be mobilized, including the best scientists and industrial managers, as well as the slave laborers of the Gulag. The project was a curious combination of the best and the worst of Soviet society -- of enthusiastic scientists and engineers produced by the expansion of education under Soviet rule, and of prisoners who lived in the inhuman conditions of the labor camps.

No good figures are available for the cost of the project, or for the number of people involved. Some indication of the project's size, however, is given by a 1950 Central Intelligence Agency report, which estimated that between 330,000 and 460,000 people were employed in it. Most of these -- 255,000 to 361,000 -- worked in mining in the Soviet Union (80,000 to 120,000) and in Eastern Europe (175,000 to 241,000). . . . The C.I.A. estimated that about 10,000 technically qualified people -- engineers, geologists, research scientists and laboratory technicians -- worked in the project. Although these figures are estimates, they appear plausible, and certainly of the right order of magnitude. Many of these people, and in particular the miners and construction workers, were prisoners. From "Stalin and the Bomb." IDEOLOGY MATTERED, BUT THE BOMB MATTERED MORE

It was during the early 1970's that David Holloway first considered writing about the birth of the Soviet bomb program. "I'd been interested in the history of the Manhattan Project," he recalled in a telephone interview from his office in Palo Alto, Calif., where he is a political science professor at Stanford University. "It was a remarkable group of people building a bomb of great destructive power that raised all kinds of questions." He thought it would be worthwhile to investigate the Soviet program in the same way historians had examined the Manhattan Project.

Mr. Holloway, 51, whose first book, "The Soviet Union and the Arms Race," was published in 1983, began working in earnest on "Stalin and the Bomb" four or five years ago, during the collapse of Communism. His research benefited from archival material that began to emerge and from the growing willingness of the participants to speak openly. "There were all kinds of legends which turned out not to be true," he said.

Mr. Holloway was surprised at how late in the game Stalin became serious about the bomb. "The evidence is pretty strong," he observed, that while Stalin had started the bomb program during the war, it was only "after Hiroshima that it became a crash project." And, Mr. Holloway continued, he was struck by the fact that some of the K.G.B. people thought the American bomb project was "just disinformation, a kind of trap, the way that some people later portrayed Star Wars to be a kind of trap to lure them into spending money on something that wouldn't work."

Mr. Holloway is skeptical of several of the theories swirling around this period of history, like the view that the West might have prevented an arms race by sharing its bomb technology with Stalin: "A belief in the benefits of cooperation was really not something he displayed very much."

Stalin was even deeply suspicious of the loyalty of the scientists working on the bomb, yet he recognized the need to support their efforts. "On the one hand, the West was the model because it was more advanced, and its technology had to be copied," Mr. Holloway said. "On the other hand, the West was the enemy, and Western science and ideas were hostile and had to be kept out of the country. I think it was a contradiction he never managed to escape from. But essentially it was that contradiction that saved physics in the Soviet Union."

By the end, the author "was very taken with this whole community of scientists," which "somehow preserved some degree of intellectual freedom and autonomy even while locked up behind barbed wire in secret cities."

Mr. Holloway was able to spend time with some of the key figures in the Soviet project, including Andrei Sakharov and the physicist Yuli Khariton. He said he even traveled with Mr. Khariton "in his private railroad carriage, which he had been given after the first Soviet atomic bomb test. A whole car. I sat there on a summer evening talking, and I was kind of pinching myself, thinking 'this can't be true.' " SCOTT VEALE

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STALIN AND THE BOMB The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. By David Holloway. Illustrated. 464 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press. $30. Text: FOR decades now, a debate has been raging over who was more to blame for the cold war, Stalin's Russia or the United States.

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This Wikipedia page lists major inventions during the 20th century beside nuclear weapons which can help add detail  to the technology row

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List of British innovations and discoveries - Wikipedia

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The following is a list and timeline of innovations as well as inventions and discoveries that involved British people or the United Kingdom including predecessor states in the history of the formation of the United Kingdom.

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This article speaks and elaborates on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which Great Britain signed. Like the non proliferation act, the Nuclear Test Ban made it so nuclear bomb testing was not allowed. It is helpful in research on great Britain's nuclear disarmament.

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On August 5, 1963, after more than eight years of difficult negotiations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs marked the end of World War II and the beginning of the nuclear age. As tensions between East and West settled into a Cold War, scientists in the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union conducted tests and developed more powerful nuclear weapons.

In 1959, radioactive deposits were found in wheat and milk in the northern United States. As scientists and the public gradually became aware of the dangers of radioactive fallout, they began to raise their voices against nuclear testing. Leaders and diplomats of several countries sought to address the issue.

Attempts to Negotiate a Treaty

In May 1955, the United Nations Disarmament Commission brought together the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and the Soviet Union to began negotiations on ending nuclear weapons testing.

Conflict soon arose over inspections to verify underground testing. The Soviet Union feared that on-site inspections could lead to spying that might expose the Soviets' vastly exaggerated claims of the number of deliverable nuclear weapons. As negotiators struggled over differences, the Soviet Union and the United States suspended nuclear tests-a moratorium that lasted from November 1958 to September 1961.

Kennedy Opposes Testing

John F. Kennedy had supported a ban on nuclear weapons testing since 1956. He believed a ban would prevent other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons, and took a strong stand on the issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. Once elected, President Kennedy pledged not to resume testing in the air and promised to pursue all diplomatic efforts for a test ban treaty before resuming underground testing. He envisioned the test ban as a first step to nuclear disarmament.

President Kennedy met with Soviet Premier Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, just five weeks after the humiliating defeat of the US-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Khrushchev took a hard line at the summit. He announced his intention to cut off Western access to Berlin and threatened war if the United States or its allies tried to stop him. Many US diplomats felt that Kennedy had not stood up to the Soviet premier at the summit and left Khrushchev with the impression that he was a weak leader.

Pressure to Resume Testing

President Kennedy's political and military advisors feared that the Soviet Union had continued secret underground testing and made gains in nuclear technology. They pressured Kennedy to resume testing. And, according to a Gallup poll in July 1961, the public approved of testing by a margin of two-to-one. In August 1961, the Soviet Union announced its intention to resume atmospheric testing, and over the next three months it conducted 31 nuclear tests. It exploded the largest nuclear bomb in history-58 megatons-4,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Discouraged and dismayed by the Soviet tests, President Kennedy pursued diplomatic efforts before allowing renewed testing by the United States. In his address to the United Nations on September 25, 1961, he challenged the Soviet Union "not to an arms race, but to a peace race." President Kennedy was unsuccessful in his efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement and reluctantly announced the resumption of atmospheric testing. American testing resumed on April 25, 1962.

Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis

After the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev realized that they had come dangerously close to nuclear war. Both leaders sought to reduce tensions between their two nations.

As Khrushchev described it, "The two most powerful nations had been squared off against each other, each with its finger on the button." JFK shared this concern, once remarking at a White House meeting, "It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization." In a series of private letters, Khrushchev and Kennedy reopened a dialogue on banning nuclear testing.

In his commencement address at American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy announced a new round of high-level arms negotiations with the Russians. He boldly called for an end to the Cold War. "If we cannot end our differences," he said, "at least we can help make the world a safe place for diversity." The Soviet government broadcast a translation of the entire speech, and allowed it to be reprinted in the controlled Soviet press.

Success in Moscow

President Kennedy selected Averell Harriman, an experienced diplomat known and respected by Khrushchev, to resume negotiations in Moscow. An agreement to limit the scope of the test ban paved the way for a treaty. By excluding underground tests from the pact, negotiators eliminated the need for the on-site inspections that worried the Kremlin.

On July 25, 1963, after only 12 days of negotiations, the two nations agreed to ban testing in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. The next day, in a television address announcing the agreement, Kennedy claimed that a limited test ban" is safer by far for the United States than an unlimited nuclear arms race."

The Treaty

The Limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963, by US Secretary Dean Rusk, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and British Foreign Secretary Lord Home-one day short of the 18th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Over the next two months, President Kennedy convinced a fearful public and a divided Senate to support the treaty. The Senate approved the treaty on September 23, 1963, by an 80-19 margin. Kennedy signed the ratified treaty on October 7, 1963.

The treaty:

prohibited nuclear weapons tests or other nuclear explosions under water, in the atmosphere, or in outer space

allowed underground nuclear tests as long as no radioactive debris falls outside the boundaries of the nation conducting the test

pledged signatories to work towards complete disarmament, an end to the armaments race, and an end to the contamination of the environment by radioactive substances.

A Comprehensive Ban

Thirty-three years later, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Signed by 71 nations, including those possessing nuclear weapons, the treaty prohibited all nuclear test explosions including those conducted underground. Though it was signed by President Bill Clinton, the Senate rejected the treaty by a vote of 51 to 48.

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The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs marked the end of World War II and the beginning of the nuclear age. As tensions between East and West settled into a Cold War, scientists in the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union conducted tests and developed more powerful nuclear weapons.

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This article is helpful because it shows how many people died/were injured from the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during and after the bombs were dropped.

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Total Casualties | The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Historical Documents | atomicarchive.com

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The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by The Manhattan Engineer District, June 29, 1946. Total Casualties. There has been great difficulty in estimating the total casualties in the Japanese cities as a result of the atomic bombing.

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This article is helpful because it states the agreements that Russia made about nuclear weapons over the past years and what has changed regarding nuclear weapon control over time.

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U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Agreements at a Glance

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Over the past four decades, American and Soviet/Russian leaders have used a progression of bilateral agreements and other measures to limit and reduce their substantial nuclear warhead and strategic missile and bomber arsenals. The following is a brief summary.

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This link shows everything the United States has done with Nuclear weapons now and since the early 1940s. This link is helpful because it tells us what the United States has done with there Nuclear weapons in the past and in the present.

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International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

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This article is helpful because it includes much information about Frances involvement with the United Nations. It also has to do with other important topics that have to do with France and the certain "rules" of the UN.

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France will be able to assert its priorities only through independence - an independence we embrace, but without arrogance. This means that first and foremost, we must have a full and active presence in multilateral bodies, and foremost among them, of course, the United Nations." Emmanuel Macron, French President, 29 August 2017 in Paris

French President, Emmanuel Macron, during the United Nations General Assembly, 19 September 2017

UN Photos

France was one of the founding members of the UN when it was created in 1945. It is a member of the Security Council and holds a permanent seat, like the United States, China, the United Kingdom and Russia. As such, it plays a key role in many issues and drafts a large number of texts adopted by the Security Council.

France is also represented in other main organs of the UN (in ECOSOC where it has been a continuously re-elected member since its creation; in the Trusteeship Council where it has a permanent seat) as well as in the subsidiary organs (elected to the Human Rights Council and permanent member of the Conference on Disarmament, for example).

Within the United Nations, France plays an active role in all areas.

Peacekeeping and international security

France fully supports UN peacekeeping operations. It is the second troop contributing country among the five permanent members of the Security Council, with 940 blue helmets deployed on the ground in 8 peacekeeping operations. France is mainly present within the UNIFIL (Lebanon), MINUSCA (CAR) and MINUSMA (Mali).

France also supports the formation every year of more than 25,000 African soldiers, in 11 countries of the continent. In addition to this direct contribution, it is also present on the ground with UN authorized forces that are not blue helmets. France is the only UN Member State to deploy a national force in support of peacekeeping operations. In Mali, French operation Barkhane supports African forces and the MINUSMA in order to fight jihadist terrorism in the region. Until 2016, French operation Sangaris was supporting MINUSCA in Central African Republic. France also contributes financially to African operations, like the Multinational Joint Task Force fighting against Boko Haram or the G5 Sahel Joint Force.

France also plays a key role in terms of disarmament. It has worked for the elaboration of numerous treaties and is very involved in actions to enforce the non-proliferation regime. That is why France supported the adoption of the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty) and calls all States to ratify it. It is especially concerned by the development of nuclear and ballistic program in North Korea. France, together with its Security Council's partners, voted in favor of the last sanctions adopted against North Korea. Our objective remains a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

For further information: Peacekeeping

Development, environment and climate change

With regard to environment and climate change, France's action is part of a long-term effort, since the Rio declaration in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. More recently, the 2030 Agenda was adopted in 2015, establishing 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and which France fully supports. This comprehensive approach covers all development issues, linking extreme-poverty and preservation of the planet. Finalized and adopted during the COP21 hosted by France in December 2015, the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016. With this Agreement, countries committed themselves to put forward long-term development strategies with low greenhouse gas. It is the first universal agreement adopted on combating climate change. France also supports the adoption of a Global Pact for the Environment in order to harmonize all environments rights.

For further information: 2030 Agenda, Paris Agreement and Global Pact for the Environment

Human Rights

Human rights are among the founding principles of the French Republic and its foreign policy. France is actively committed to upholding the highest standards of these rights. France plays a leading role, especially within the Human Rights Council and the Security Council. France is particularly engaged in the fight against the recruitment of child soldiers, enforced disappearances, respect for women's rights, and protection of journalists; and is at the initiative on numerous resolutions and conventions. France is also fully mobilized in the fight to abolish the death penalty. In New York, it promotes the adoption of a General Assembly resolution calling for the establishment of a universal moratorium on the death penalty. Finally, France supports the fight against impunity, in order to prevent further abuses. It also contributed to the creation of the International Criminal Court, which it was one of the first states to ratify the statute.

For further information: Protection of Human Rights

UN Reform

France is very involved in United Nations reform. The recent crises confirmed the central role that the UN plays, but they also emphasized the need to make the organization more efficient and more representative of current global indicators. This is why France resolutely strivies for both a global Security Council reform and the framing of the use of veto.
-France promotes the framing of the use of veto by the five Security Council permanent members in case of mass atrocities. It aims at preventing a paralysis of the Security Council. This initiative led by France and Mexico is now supported by more than 100 UN Member States.
France also supports an expansion of the Security Council, within the framework of the negotiations relating to this issue that were initiated at the General Assembly on February 19, 2009. It thus supports the accession by Germany, Brazil, India and Japan to a permanent seat as well as the increased presence of African countries in the Security Council, particularly among the permanent members. There is also the question of the presence of an Arab State as part of the permanent members of the Security Council.

For further information: France and U.N. Reform

French Permanent Mission to the U.N.

To carry out its work on these various issues, the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations includes nearly 80 people, including around 30 diplomats and representatives from other ministries (in particular Economy and Finance and Defense). The Permanent Representative or the Deputy Permanent Representative holds a seat in Security Council and in all of the organs where France is represented, where they speak on behalf of France and defend its positions. For their part, specialists at the French mission prepare and negotiate the resolutions and texts adopted by these different organs.

For further information: French Mission at the UN

Dernière modification : 18/10/2017

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France will be able to assert its priorities only through independence - an independence we embrace, but without arrogance. This means that first and foremost, we must have a full and active presence in multilateral bodies, and foremost among them, of course, the United Nations."

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This article shows the nuclear stockpiles through the years, from the countries who have access to nuclear weapons.

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That is, of course, a rapidly developing situation. A North Korean official threatened this week that his country would test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean after President Donald Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "rocket man" and the North Korean shot back that Trump was a "dotard."

The road to North Korea's weapons capability follows decades of ups and downs as nuclear states such as the United States and Russia have built up and dismantled their programs.

Today, Russia is believed to have the most nuclear weapons, with 4,300. Not far behind is the United States, with 4,000, according to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Nuclear Notebook. Of the world's approximately 15,000 nuclear weapons, 9,400 are in military arsenals. The remaining weapons are retired and awaiting dismantlement. Nearly 4,000 are operationally available, and 1,800 are ready for use on short notice.

But after large-scale disarmament efforts by superpowers such as the United States, we're really at a low point in what was once a world that packed three or four times more operational nuclear power. See the chart below for a visualization of how nuclear arsenals have changed over time.

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union held about 40,000 nuclear weapons. The United States had close to 24,000. In fact, the Soviet republics during that time held more than three times the total world arsenal today, all on its own. All those Russian weapons were once housed in almost 500 facilities in the early 1990s. Today, researchers believe they are they stored in 48 facilities.

North Korea is believed to have developed nuclear weapons capability, but there is a high degree of uncertainty around whether the nation has actually built weapons. However, there is no disagreement it has produced fissile material that could be turned into a nuclear weapon.

The United States believes that North Korea will be able to launch a reliable nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile by early 2018, a US official familiar with the latest intelligence assessment confirmed to CNN in July.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told CNN via email that the "the intelligence assessment is that they have produced sufficient fissile material sufficient to potentially build 30-60 warheads, not that they necessarily have built that many operational weapons."

Other experts said they think that number is on the high side.

As the below map shows, nuclear weapons are spread throughout the globe, with the exception of Africa and South America. Although Israel has not acknowledged its nuclear weapons program, experts from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists assess that the country possesses about 80 nuclear weapons.

South Africa was believed to have nuclear weapons, but voluntarily give them up, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

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where are the world's nuclear weapons? - cnnpolitics

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Nine nuclear-capable states exist in the world, but only eight of them -- all but North Korea -- are believed by experts to have weapons mature and developed enough to be readily incorporated into the arsenals of their armed forces.

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START I was the first treaty to provide for deep reductions of U.S. and Soviet/Russian strategic nuclear weapons. It played an indispensable role in ensuring the predictability and stability of the strategic balance and serving as a framework for even deeper reductions.

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Overview

Signed: 31 July 1991

Lisbon Protocol: Signed 23 May 1992

Entered into Force: 5 December 1994

Duration: 15 year duration with option to extend for unlimited five year periods, if all parties agree

Expired: 5 December 2009

Parties: United States, Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine

Background

The U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I, was signed on July 31, 1991 by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

START I was the first treaty to provide for deep reductions of U.S. and Soviet/Russian strategic nuclear weapons. It played an indispensable role in ensuring the predictability and stability of the strategic balance and serving as a framework for even deeper reductions. Even though many elements of START I - first and foremost the limits on the number of warheads and delivery vehicles - quickly became outdated, its verification and transparency provisions maintained their value until the treaty's last days. At the same time, START I proved to be excessively complicated, cumbersome and expensive to continue, which eventually led the United States and Russia to replace it with a new treaty in 2010.

Negotiations that led to the signing of START I began in May 1982. In November 1983, the Soviet Union "discontinued" talks after the United States began deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe. In January 1985, U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko agreed on a new formula for three-part negotiations that encompassed strategic weapons, intermediate-range forces and missile defense. These talks received a significant boost at the Reykjavik summit between Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. In December 1987, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed. Negotiations subsequently turned to the reduction of strategic weapons.

START I entered into force on December 5, 1994. The break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the need to make arrangements with regard to its nuclear inheritance contributed to a three-year delay between the signing of the treaty and its entry into force. Principles for adapting START I to new political realities were agreed upon in May 1992 in the Lisbon Protocol. According to that agreement, four post-Soviet states - Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine - were recognized as parties to START I in place of the Soviet Union, but only Russia was designated a nuclear weapon state, while the other three assumed an obligation to join the NPT as non-nuclear states and eliminate all START I accountable weapons and associated facilities within seven years (the period of reductions mandated by the treaty). Whereas Belarus and Kazakhstan quickly joined the NPT and ratified START I "as is," Ukraine experienced intense domestic debates over how to deal with its nuclear inheritance that dragged on for more than two years; its first START I ratification resolution was rejected by the United States and Russia.

Although the entry into force of START I took more than three years, some important activities were conducted shortly after its signing, most notably exchange of data on strategic weapons and associated facilities, as well as inspections to verify data on technical characteristics of strategic missiles and implementation of provisions on test launches and telemetry exchanges.

START I had a duration of 15 years. Reductions mandated by the treaty were to be completed no later than seven years after its entry into force. Parties were then obligated to maintain those limits during the next eight years. In fact, both the United States and Russia continued reductions after reaching START I mandated limits. By the time of the treaty's expiration, their strategic nuclear arsenals were significantly below those stipulated in the treaty.

During the 1990s, the United States and Russia undertook several attempts to replace START I with a new treaty that would have provided for deeper reductions. The 1993 START II treaty never entered into force due to what Russia perceived as serious deficiencies of that treaty. Consultations on another treaty, sometimes referred to as START III, were conducted from 1997-2000 but ended without result. The Moscow Treaty provided for significantly lower limits on strategic weapons, but lacked verification and transparency provisions.

START I remained in force until December 5, 2009. It contained the option of extending the treaty for five-year periods, but Washington and Moscow decided against extension - negotiations were already underway on a new, replacement treaty, and START I was allowed to expire.

Treaty Obligations

START I established an aggregate limit of 1,600 delivery vehicles and 6,000 warheads for each party (a reduction from 10-12,000 warheads in 1991). Within that limit, the Treaty established three sub-limits: 4,900 warheads for ICBMs (land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles) and SLBMs ( submarine-launched ballistic missiles), 154 heavy ICBMs (defined as having a launch weight greater than 106t or a throw-weight greater than 4,350kg), 1,540 warheads for these heavy ICBMs (Only the Soviet Union possessed this type of missile), and 1,100 warheads for mobile ICBMs (de facto applied only to the Soviet Union and Russia because the United States, shortly after the signing of START I, decided to forego deployment of such missiles). The Treaty also established a limit of 3,600 metric tons (t) for the throw-weight of ballistic missiles.

The construction of new types of heavy ICBMs and SLBMs is banned, although modernization programs and, in exceptional cases, new silo construction, are permitted.

The treaty bans the testing of missiles equipped with a greater number of warheads than established in the treaty, and bans any new ballistic missiles with more than 10 warheads. Parties to the treaty may also reduce the number of warheads attributed to a specific missile. However, no more than three existing missile types may have the number of warheads reduced, and the total reduction may not exceed 1,250 warheads.

While the treaty counts each ICBM and SLBM reentry vehicle as a single warhead, counting rules for warheads attributed to heavy bombers are more complicated. Each Russian heavy bomber equipped to carry long-range nuclear ALCMs (defined as having maximum range of 600km or more), up to a total of 180 bombers, counts as eight warheads toward the 6,000 warhead limit, even though existing Russian heavy bomber types can carry between six and 16 ALCMs. Each Russian heavy bomber above the level of 180 has its actual number of ALCMs counted toward the 6,000 warhead limit. Similarly, each U.S. long-range nuclear ALCM-carrying heavy bomber, up to a total of 150 bombers, counts as 10 warheads toward the 6,000 warhead limit, and each bomber in excess of 150 has the actual number of ALCMs it can carry counted toward the warhead limit. Bombers not equipped to carry long-range nuclear ALCMs are counted as one warhead.

Verification and Compliance

START I contains extensive provisions for verification. These include:

1. National Technical Means (NTMs), together with a ban on actions that impair the effectiveness of NTMs of the other party;

2. Data exchange: Accompanying the START I treaty is a Memorandum of Understanding drafted by the two parties, which contains an extensive set of data, including numbers and locations of all strategic delivery vehicles, both deployed and non-deployed, as well the locations and diagrams of all facilities associated with strategic delivery vehicles, such as bases, storage and production facilities, etc. Each party is required to provide notification about any change in that data shortly after it occurs. In addition, parties must exchange the entire set of data contained in the Memorandum every six months;

3. On-site inspections to verify the accuracy of data contained in the Memorandum of Understanding. Some of those inspections are short-notice (baseline data, data update, reentry vehicle, etc.) while others are "planned" (verification of technical data, the right to observe elimination of missiles and facilities, etc.). The treaty also provides for a special verification regime for mobile ICBMs. During the first seven years (the period of reductions), the United States conducted 335 inspections; Russia conducted 243.

4. Perimeter and portal monitoring of plants that produce mobile ICBMs. Because the United States decided not to deploy such missiles, this measure only applies to Russia: the United States established monitoring at the Votkinsk plant (or, rather, continued, because its monitoring began under the INF Treaty);

5. A ban on encryption of telemetry transmitted from ballistic missiles during test launches and exchange of all such telemetry.

Developments

2011

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared in front of the State Duma that if the United States further pursues the deployment of an anti-missile shield near Russian border, it might "force us to use the article of the treaty that provides for the withdrawal of a state that feels violated in terms of security." Lavrov is referring to Article 14, which gives both countries a right to withdraw from the agreement.

2010

On 8 April 2010 in Prague, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev signed the New START Treaty, and Protocol.

2009

Negotiations on a new START Treaty began on 18 May in Moscow and continued throughout the year.

On 1 July, the last data exchange prior to START's expiration took place in the START Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms. Data exchanges occur no later than 30 days after the expiration of each six-month period following entry into force of the Treaty.

START I expired on 5 December. Negotiations were put on hold during the American and Russian holidays.

As the treaty expired, U.S. inspectors ended their 15-year perimeter and portal continuous monitoring mission at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant, which produces the SS-26 Bulava, the SS-27 Topol-M, and its new MIRVed variant, the RS-24. START I permitted continuous monitoring at ICBM production facilities in order to confirm the number of mobile launchers produced. Russia was unable to maintain reciprocal monitoring at an American production facility after the United States halted the production of Peacekeeper missiles in Promontory, Utah in April 2000.

Deployment of Russia's next-generation RS-24 was widely expected upon the treaty's expiration, since START prohibits MIRVing the Topol-M. However, sources at the Russian Ministry of Defense said that deployment may not happen until 2011, noting that the RS-24 will carry three warheads.

2008

On 7 April, after a bilateral meeting in Sochi, Russia, Putin stated that Russia would continue working with the United States to maintain all the useful and necessary parts of the START treaty.

On 9 April, the United States announced that the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program completed the elimination of SS-24 "scalpel" ICBM, including their supporting components, in accordance to START I obligations.

On 29 May, Russia announced that it had dismantled 36 outdated Topol mobile ballistic missile systems in 2007 and twelve in two consecutive operations in March and May 2008 under the provisions of the START I treaty.

On 11 September, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated Russia was still awaiting concrete proposals from the United States, a statement confirming Russian sources contending that the U.S. had not supplied necessary working papers to move the negotiation process forward.

On 29 September, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that the bilateral negotiations on the future of START were "not so far heading anywhere."

2007

In March, the United States and Russia commenced bilateral consultations at the level of the deputy minister to explore a post-START agreement, including a possible extension of certain verification elements of the treaty.

In July, statements were made at an informal meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, Maine, expressing support for the replacement of START I, which expires at the end of 2009. While there were no direct talks pertaining to the START I treaty during the meeting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented that both countries were committed to reducing strategic arms levels to "the lowest possible level consistent with their national security requirements." Supporters of the START treaty process expressed hope that the dialogue was to encourage a disarmament discussion in the future.

2001

On 4 January, the Russian Defense Ministry accused the United States of violating its START I obligations of disarmament in regards to the U.S. LGM-118A Peacekeeper ICBM. The United States considered destroying the first stage of the Peacekeeper to be sufficient under START I guidelines. However, the Russian Defense Ministry contended that all stages of the missile must be destroyed under START I. In response, the Pentagon claimed that the second and third stages of the Peacekeeper are used for space launch vehicles, which are permitted under START I.

On 24 August the United States announced the destruction of the last Minuteman III silo at Grand Forks, North Dakota.

On 30 October, Ukraine completed its compliance obligation under the START I Treaty by destroying its last SS-24 ICBM silo.

On 13 November President Putin announced that in late October the last Ukrainian nuclear warhead had been destroyed in Russia.

On 5 December the United States and Russia announced that both parties had fulfilled START I requirements. In particular, Russia announced that it had reduced its deployed strategic delivery vehicles to 1136 and its accountable warheads to 5518. This accomplishment marked the largest arms control reduction in history.

1997

In congruence with START I obligations, on 22 December the United States announced that the last Minuteman II silo was destroyed at Whiteman Air Force Base.

1996

On 23 November, after transferring its remaining ICBMs and nuclear warheads to Russia, Belarus announced that it had fulfilled its START I and NPT obligations and officially became a non-nuclear-weapon State.

1995

On March 14 a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman announced that US START I verification inspectors were "satisfied" with the three ICBM bases that they inspected during the first round of inspections conducted under the START I regime. The inspectors examined the Kostroma SS-24 base, the Irkutsk SS-25 base, and the Yasnaya SS-25 base.

On 9 November, a revision of the START I treaty was signed in Geneva, allowing converted mobile strategic missiles to be used as space launchers. Under the revision, Russia can establish space-launch sites anywhere in the world as long as the converted ICBM launchers remain under Russian control.

On 1 March, three 10-member teams from the On-Site Inspection Agency arrived in Russia from the U.S. to begin a 120-day baseline inspection. The teams inspected 71 weapons facilities in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine.

1994

On 5 December at the Budapest Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the United States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine exchanged instruments of ratification for START I, thereby marking the treaty's entry into force.

In May, the Joint Commission on Inspection and Compliance met in Geneva to discuss the implementation details of START I. Representatives from the United States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine signed several agreements that will help to realize the multilateral obligations of START I.

1993

On 26 Novemberthe Russian government formally denounced the Ukrainian Rada's conditional ratification of the START I Treaty, stating that it was not valid under international law.

On 18 November the Ukrainian Parliament ratified START I and the Lisbon Protocol. However, given Ukraine's serious reservations about the Treaties, doubts arose concerning Ukraine's commitment to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.

On 2 July Kazakhstan ratified START I and subsequently acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state on 14 February 1994.

On 23 April, President Clinton announced an accelerated reduction schedule for U.S. strategic forces under START I in an attempt to further strengthen disarmament and security measures.

On 4 February, Belarus ratified START I, the Lisbon Protocol and acceded to the NPT.

1992

On 4 November, Russia ratified START I. However, Russia announced that it would not exchange its instrument of ratification until Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were to accede to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states.

On 23 May, the United States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol in Portugal. Furthermore, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine agreed to accede to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states in "the shortest possible time".

1991

On 31 July, President Bush and President Gorbachev signed START I. The Treaty was expected to cut strategic warheads arsenals by approximately 35%.

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Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Strategic Offensive Reductions (START I)

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Overview Signed: 31 July 1991 Lisbon Protocol: Signed 23 May 1992 Entered into Force: 5 December 1994 Duration: 15 year duration with option to extend for unlimited five year periods, if all parties agree Expired: 5 December 2009 Parties: United States, Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine Background The U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I, was signed on July 31, 1991 by U.S.

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This article is helpful if you're looking for information on Japan's modern day stance (not necessarily the people, but rather the leaders). This article

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This article is helpful because it shows France's views on nuclear weapons and talks a lot about the nuclear weapons program.

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Often overshadowed by the achievements of the United States and the Soviet Union, France became the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons after its first test in 1960. While development was slowed by the impact of World War II, the achievements of early French research were critical for nuclear development worldwide. With nuclear secrecy strictly enforced by the United States during the Cold War, France independently developed its nuclear program and proliferation became a part of French national identity. France is also notable for its development of nuclear power, and today still generates the majority of its electrical energy from nuclear power plants.

The Outbreak of World War II: 1939-1940

The French nuclear program, much like the Manhattan Project, was sparked by the outbreak of the Second World War when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The French effort, however, was not at this time focused on building a bomb but rather on France's dire need for energy to fuel its war effort. While they were likely aware of the possibility of the atomic bomb, prominent French scientists believed that nuclear power could provide the answer to France's energy needs.

Nuclear research was led primarily by physicist and chemist Frédéric Joliot-Curie, the son-in-law of famed French scientist Marie Curie and the husband of Irène Joliot-Curie. The Joliot-Curies had together won the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1937, Frédéric Joliot-Curie accepted a teaching position at the Collège de France in Paris, where he also set up a laboratory complete with the first cyclotron in Western Europe. Together with physicist Lew Kowarski, Joliot-Curie achieved a fission reaction on January 26, 1939. They observed radioactive fragments, an indication that a sustained chain reaction might be possible.

According to Kowarski, Joliot-Curie noted, "Well, it's very amusing of course, but I can tell you that I'm quite sure that this discovery has already been made in other places." He was right, as other scientists had conducted nuclear fission experiments, but according to Kowarski, Joliot-Curie did not know and was merely guessing.

Armed with this information, Joliot-Curie decided to seek further government investment by building a model of a self-sustaining chain reaction. The problem lay in procuring the materials; it would require both uranium and heavy water. The uranium was obtained without incident from the Brussels Union Minière, a Belgian company mining uranium in the Congo, but the heavy water proved much more difficult. The only supply of heavy water at the time was produced at the Norsk-Hydro Plant in Norway. As the French would soon discover, the Germans were also interested in procuring it, an indication that they were likely working on their own atomic energy project.

In February 1940, Armaments Minister Raoul Dautry sent banker Jacques Allier to the Norsk-Hydro plant with instructions to purchase the heavy water. Joliot-Curie also gave Allier a tube of cadmium, telling him, "Keep this with you always. If the containers of heavy-water are in danger and you don't have time to empty them, pour a little in each one. The contents will immediately become unusable" (Pflaum 353). The secret plan worked perfectly, as Allier returned to Paris with 26 seven-liter canisters of heavy water, the entire world's supply at the time.

The Occupation: 1940-1944

Despite their successes in obtaining experimental materials, the German invasion of France in May 1940 put a hold on further research as the French were forced to hide their supplies of heavy water and uranium. The Belgian uranium was shipped out of the country to Morocco, where it remained safely for the duration of the war. The heavy water, known only as the product "Z", was moved in the dead of night to the Banque de France's Clermont-Ferrand branch by Joliot-Curie's lab assistant, Henri Moureu. After it became clear that the Germans would take Paris, the heavy water was moved again, this time to the Central Prison at Riom, before being taken to England by Kowarski and Hans Halban aboard the S.S. Broompark. It would be used in vital experiments by British and French scientists proving that a self-sustaining chain reaction was in fact possible.

While many prominent French scientists fled in advance of the German occupation, Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie decided to remain at their lab in Paris. The Joliot-Curies did not collaborate with the Germans. Rather, they viewed science as patriotism, and were determined to continue the French scientific effort. Under intense interrogation as to the location of the French uranium and heavy water supplies, Frédéric Joliot-Curie hid his knowledge of their respective locations.

The Germans were particularly interested in Joliot-Curie's cyclotron, as they had not yet developed one of their own. Nevertheless, Joliot-Curie never knew until after the war that a chain reaction was in fact possible, as he did not have time to complete his heavy water experiments before the Germans invaded. Thus, Joliot-Curie primarily researched the effects of radiation during the war, while efforts to build a nuclear reactor were tabled. He would go on to join the French Resistance. During the liberation, Joliot-Curie assisted with the Allied Alsos Mission by providing information about his work with German scientists.

Reviving the Program: 1944-1948

With the liberation of France and the return of prominent scientists including Kowarski, Halban, Jules Guéron, and Bertrand Goldschmidt, Frédéric Joliot-Curie was determined to restart atomic research as soon as possible. Nevertheless, General Leslie Groves was concerned about Joliot-Curie's communist ties. Fearing that Joliot-Curie would pass secrets to the Soviet Union, Groves kept tabs on him and his colleagues, even recording their conversations in London.

Despite the American atomic bombings in Japan, Joliot-Curie remained steadfast that the French program should pursue peaceful uses of atomic energy. The day after the bombing of Nagasaki, he published an article in L'Humanité asserting, "It is...true that the immense reserves of energy contained in the uranium devices can be liberated slowly enough to be used practically for the benefit of mankind. I am personally convinced that...it [atomic energy] will be of inestimable service to mankind in peacetime" (Pflaum 416).

Joliot-Curie's pleas for government investment were heard by the newly appointed head of state, Charles de Gaulle, as France was once again in desperate need of energy with its coal and oil reserves vastly depleted. On October 18, 1945, the Commissariat of Atomic Energy (CEA - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique) was formally created. Its stated mission was to "pursue scientific and technical research in the view of using atomic energy in the various domains of science, industry, and national defense" (Hecht 58). Joliot-Curie was named the high commissioner in charge of all scientific and technical work, while Raoul Dautry was appointed general administrator, and handled the administrative and financial side.

From the beginning, the CEA had significant political influence and it reported to the President of the Council of Ministers, not to any particular ministry, giving it relative autonomy. Its headquarters were established at the Fort of Châtillon, approximately three miles south of Paris. Despite the objections of General Groves, Kowarski, Gueron, and Goldschmidt, who had worked on nuclear projects at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories in Canada, came to an agreement with Washington for working on the French atomic program. They would only be allowed to share information with the French project that they themselves had worked on at Chalk River. The CEA quickly established three long term goals: to establish a heavy water and uranium reactor which could create radioactive isotopes, to then use those isotopes to build a larger pile and a nuclear center, and then finally to build a nuclear power plant.

The first of these goals was achieved on December 15, 1948, when France's first atomic pile, a uranium and heavy water design, went active at 12:12 PM. Intended to produce just five kilowatts of energy, the reactor was named Zoé (an acronym for Zéro énergie, or zero power as the reactor produced very little, Oxyde, or uranium oxide, and Eau lourde, or heavy water). Unlike the Manhattan Project, the success of the CEA did not remain a secret. French newspaper L'Aube called it "a great achievement, French and peaceful, which strengthens our role in the defense of civilization." President Vincent Auriol affirmed, "This achievement will add to the radiance of France" (Hecht 2).

Nuclearizing the Nation: 1948-1958

The success of the Zoé Reactor quickly buoyed the advancement of the French nuclear program. In 1949, a plutonium extraction plant was established at Le Bouchet using irradiated fuel from Zoé. A second plutonium production reactor would soon be opened at Saclay in 1952.

While there were not yet any formal plans for building an atomic bomb, concern quickly spread among French scientists that their work could soon be weaponized. Frédéric Joliot-Curie publicly stated, "if tomorrow they ask us to do war work, to make an atomic bomb, we will reply: No!" (Pflaum 442). Joliot-Curie also propagated the Stockholm Appeal, a petition for the ban of all nuclear weapons, with the help of the French Communist Party. As a result of France's growing anticommunism after a failed Communist Party strike in the winter of 1947 and a communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the CEA dismissed Joliot-Curie in 1950.

In 1952, a five-year plan was announced for three large-scale plutonium production plants to be built at Marcoule in the south of France. Aware that electricity would be produced as a byproduct, the CEA began working closely with Électricité de France (EDF) to use the electrical energy from these plants. The first Marcoule reactor, G-1, went critical in 1956 producing a small amount of electrical energy. The subsequent G-2 and G-3 reactors, built in 1958 and 1959 respectively, were much more powerful, capable of producing 200 megawatts of electricity. They also produced significant amounts of plutonium, an important factor in the eventual production of an atomic bomb.

By the time that the Marcoule plants were under construction, France had discovered and begun mining a significant amount of domestic uranium, as well as importing some from its colony in Madagascar. Although Zoé had used heavy water as a moderator, subsequent reactors used graphite as they decided building a heavy water plant would be too extensive. Similar reactors already existed (such as in the United States). But as it was French work and French materials that developed the graphite-moderated and gas-cooled reactors, the French called it the filière francaise (the French industry).

The association of national identity with nuclear abilities would soon become a driving force in the development of the French atomic bomb. Since the creation of NATO in 1949, France had long felt marginalized by the "special" relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom and even by West Germany, which entered NATO in 1955 over France's objections. France was humiliated even further in 1956 with the Suez Canal Crisis, when British and French troops were forced to withdraw from Egypt. Furthermore, the CEA had a fraction of the resources of the American or even British nuclear programs, and with a continued fear of French communism the U.S. and U.K. were reluctant to share information. Nuclear power became not only a question of national security but of global status, particularly as a nation with colonial holdings.

The French government took preliminary steps to reorganize its atomic program in 1956 under President Pierre Mendès France. Mendès France established a liaison between the CEA and the Ministry of Defense by creating the Comité des Applications de l'Energie Atomique, headed by General Paul Ely. The CEA and the Ministry of Defense also signed a memorandum committing to an eventual nuclear test. U.S. intelligence from 1957 indicated that there was increasing nationalist pressure to build a bomb. The same year, the U.S. and the U.K. agreed not to share any information from their nuclear programs with France or West Germany.

Militarization: 1958-1966

By 1958, the French government was pouring its resources into the Force Nucléaire Stratégique (FNS), known alternately as the force de frappe, literally "strike force." Nevertheless, any doubts as to the development of the French atomic bomb were washed away with the start of the Fifth French Republic and the return of nationalist President Charles de Gaulle. Frustrated by France's exclusion from the U.S.-U.K. partnership, de Gaulle wanted to make France more independent from NATO and sought to do so largely with the development of nuclear weapons. As de Gaulle explained, "A great State which does not possess them [nuclear weapons], while others have them, does not command its own destiny" (Pagedas 5).

In 1957, France had established a testing site near the town of Reggane, Algeria, an oasis in the Sahara Desert. The first French nuclear test, codenamed Gerboise Bleue (meaning blue jerboa, after the first color of the French flag and the desert rodent found in the Sahara) took place at 7:04 AM on February 13, 1960. Detonated on top of a 336-foot-high tower, the bomb had a yield of 60-70 kilotons, four times more powerful than the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima. President de Gaulle declared, "Hooray for France! Since this morning, she is stronger and prouder." French atomic bombs would be operational for military use by 1964.

Official French reports stated, "For the explosions at low altitude, the earth, the water, and varied debris... formed a vertical column between the sun and the sphere of gas heat which had the appearance of snow." Soon after the tests began, the French military quicklyestablished a 150km "contaminated zone" around Reggane. The French Senate has since stated that "this confirms that certain regions nearby to the test received a significant dose of radioactivity." The Senate also noted that since Algeria became independent, it never tried to pursue information about radiation contamination in the region, and that Saharan winds and erosion have "rendered inspections today practically impossible."An Al Jazeera report from 2015 stated that France buried additional radioactive materials in the Sahara but that, again, winds have made further investigation impossible.

France would continue testing in Algeria until 1966, almost four years after Algerian independence. Three more atmospheric tests were conducted at Reggane, sparking condemnation and protests from a number of African countries. A subsequent series of underground tests were thus conducted near the village of In Eker in southern Algeria. The Reggane testing site was not returned to Algerian control until January 15, 1967.

Having tested its own nuclear device, France sought inclusion in the U.S.-U.K. nuclear sharing program. The United States, however, was only willing to share its nuclear secrets within the structure of NATO, suggesting a multilateral force (MLF), a group of ballistic missile ships and submarines crewed by an international NATO coalition. De Gaulle rejected this proposal as an American attempt to gain political control of France's nuclear forces, asserting, "On matters of great importance a sovereign nation will exercise its sovereignty on a unilateral basis" (Pagedas 84). The MLF never came to fruition and was mocked by the Tom Lehrer song, " The MLF Lullaby." France went on to withdraw from NATO's integrated military command in Brussels in March 1966, and did not officially rejoin until 2009.

Testing in French Polynesia: 1966-1996

By 1960, President de Gaulle was aware that France was going to lose Algeria, and began looking for a suitable testing site elsewhere. Construction of testing sites began soon after at the Tuamotu atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa in the South Pacific, and the first test was conducted on July 2, 1966. France would go on to conduct 192 additional tests in French Polynesia.

The French government assured the native inhabitants that there would be no danger, as the sparsely populated island of Mururoa was 1500km from the more densely populated Tahiti, and promised that tests would only occur when the winds were blowing away from inhabited islands. They also asserted that appropriate evacuations would be undertaken and that safety instructions would be distributed. Nevertheless, the entirety of French Polynesia received at least some nuclear fallout. The island of Tahiti alone received 500 times the maximum allowed dose of radiation exposure during a test in 1974. Medical studies in recent years have concluded that testing can account for the rise of cancer in island inhabitants.

After a brief moratorium on nuclear testing in the early 1990s, President Jacques Chirac announced on June 13, 1995 that underground testing would resume in French Polynesia. The decision was condemned by countries across the globe and sparked mass protests across Tahiti. After six tests, the French testing program was officially halted in January 1996.

Legacy

France currently maintains the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world with roughly 300 operational warheads. It deploys submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) as well as fighter aircraft capable of delivering a bomb. In 2006, President Chirac declared that France would consider using nuclear weapons to fight terrorism, asserting, "The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would envision using . . . weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part." In 2008, President Nicholas Sarkozy announced a reduction in the French nuclear arsenal to a maximum of 300 warheads, a position continued by his successor, President François Hollande.

Électricité de France (EDF) continues to operate 58 nuclear reactors across France, producing approximately 75% of French electricity. Due to the low costs of production, France is the largest net exporter of electricity in the world and generates billions of euros in revenue each year from its energy production. Nevertheless, rising costs and aging facilities have forced the shutdown of several nuclear plants in recent years. The French government is currently considering a bill that would lower the nuclear share of French electricity to 50% by 2025.

While the French government long denied any links between its testing program and the health problems of the residents of French Polynesia, medical studies in recent years revealed a link between nuclear testing and a spike in thyroid cancer. Revelations since then have continued to prove the damage inflicted by the French nuclear program. In 2010, the French Parliament passed a law offering compensation to the victims of nuclear testing and their descendants.

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Often overshadowed by the achievements of the United States and the Soviet Union, France became the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons after its first test in 1960. While development was slowed by the impact of World War II, the achievements of early French research were critical for nuclear development worldwide.

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This article does a good job explaining how the Cold War affected the United Kingdom despite them not being an actual part of the war

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LADY THATCHER was conspicuous by her absence in Berlin this week. As George Bush, Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev reminisced on a stage together about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the woman who earned the sobriquet "iron lady" because of her resolute stance in the cold war remained in Britain. Some said it was because her presence in Berlin was inappropriate, given her deep misgivings about the unification of Germany. Others said it was simply a scheduling conflict. But whatever the real cause of the iron lady's absence, it captured the insousiance with which Britain is commemorating the end of the cold war.

Nobody disputes that the end of the cold war was a defining moment for the United States-and even more obviously for Germany and the Soviet Union. But when it comes to Britain there has been strikingly little reflection about how things changed in 1989. Historians and commentators have tended to regard the cold war as something that happened somewhere else; and to regard the defining questions for post-war Britain as the loss of empire, or the endless prevarication about Europe.

But, in fact, it was the cold war, more than any other event, that determined Britain's approach to the post-war world. Martin Longden of the University of Leeds points out that at the end of the second world war, the new Labour government was hoping to place Britain at the head of a new European block. Labour's foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, told the Foreign Office in August 1945 that Britain's aim was "extensive political, economic and military co-operation throughout Western Europe, with an Anglo-French alliance as a corner-stone."

However, his ambitions were thwarted by increasing tensions between the old wartime allies; Britain and the United States on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other. The French, with communists in General de Gaulle's government, were thought politically unreliable. And Britain's dire economic problems undermined its ability to ensure European security, in the face of what was perceived to be an immediate Soviet threat. So it became Britain's overriding aim to tie the Americans into Europe. The closeness of Anglo-American military and intelligence ties, driven by the cold war, became a defining feature of British foreign policy-and a source of tension between Britain and France, which led de Gaulle twice to veto British membership of the then European Economic Community, on the grounds of Britain's irremediable Atlanticism.

The cold war also had a huge impact on the British economy. David Edgerton, professor of the history of science at Imperial College, London, is the author of "The Rise of the British Warfare State", to be published next year. He argues that it would be more accurate to describe post-war Britain as a "warfare state" than as a "welfare state". Despite the creation of the National Health Service, Britain's spending on welfare as a proportion of GDP was actually low compared with its main European allies, whereas its spending on defence and warfare was the highest of the big European powers. After the immediate post-war disarmament, Britain began to rearm at a faster rate than at any time in its peacetime history. Come the early 1950s and the first set-piece cold war confrontation in Korea, Britain was spending almost 10% of its GDP on defence. Although by the 1980s this figure had halved, Britain still spent more on defence than any of the NATO allies except America.

Arguably, the rearmament of the early 1950s used up skilled labour and machinery at a crucial time, when Britain was struggling to recover from the second world war. There was an enormous concentration by government on defence-related research and development, which crowded out what might otherwise have been more productive research. Needless to say, several of these weapons programmes were costly flops, such as the Blue Streak missile and the TSR2 jet, both cancelled in the 1960s. By the early 1960s it was clear that Germany and France were beginning to pull clear of Britain economically. Could it have been, in part, because they did not have the defence burden as a drag on their economies?

Harriet Jones, director of the Institute of Contemporary British History, argues that the cold war also had a profound effect on domestic politics. In the 1951 election, the Tories used posters with the slogan "Socialism leads to Communism" against a background of an atomic mushroom cloud. In the 1980s, the Tories again skilfully exploited Labour's links to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Ms Jones suggests that the cold war environment was essential to the success of post-war conservatism, and that it was no coincidence that the Tories fell into disarray in the 1990s, without the glue of anti-communism to hold them together.

Discussing the legacy of the cold war has become a mini-industry in much of the United States and Eastern Europe. Britain is only just realising that-for all the concentration on empire and Europe-for almost 50 years it was the cold war which shaped Britain, for good, perhaps, but also probably for ill.

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LADY THATCHER was conspicuous by her absence in Berlin this week. As George Bush, Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev reminisced on a stage together about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the woman who earned the sobriquet "iron lady" because of her resolute stance in the cold war remained in Britain.

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The Non-Proliferation Treaty is a Treaty that is against the use of Nuclear weapons. The US and the USSR signed the Treaty saying they that will make there Nuclear weapons program smaller. The US and Russia first use the Treaty in 1968 during the Cold War to make sure nuclear weapons wouldn’t get out of hand.

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The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The Treaty represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States. Opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force in 1970. On 11 May 1995, the Treaty was extended indefinitely. A total of 191 States have joined the Treaty, including the five nuclear-weapon States. More countries have ratified the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, a testament to the Treaty's significance.

The Treaty is regarded as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and an essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. It was designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, to further the goals of nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament, and to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy

To further the goal of non-proliferation and as a confidence-building measure between States parties, the Treaty establishes a safeguards system under the responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Safeguards are used to verify compliance with the Treaty through inspections conducted by the IAEA. The Treaty promotes cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear technology and equal access to this technology for all States parties, while safeguards prevent the diversion of fissile material for weapons use.

General Assembly Resolutions

The provisions of the Treaty, particularly article VIII, paragraph 3, envisage a review of the operation of the Treaty every five years, a provision which was reaffirmed by the States parties at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.
The 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, ended without the adoption of a consensus substantive outcome. After a successful 2010 Review Conference at which States parties agreed to a final document which included conclusions and recommendations for follow-on actions, including the implementation of the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East, the 2015 outcome constitutes a setback for the strengthened review process instituted to ensure accountability with respect to activities under the three pillars of the Treaty as part of the package in support of the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995. The preparatory process for the 2020 Review Conference is currently underway.

____________

On 11 May 1995, in accordance with article X, paragraph 2, the Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons decided that the Treaty should continue in force indefinitely (see Decision 3).

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Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)

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The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament.

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This article is about the MOAB, the US military's biggest non nuclear bomb. It was dropped on Afghanistan last year. In the article, it lists facts about the bomb that are useful in comparing it to the atomic bomb.

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The US military has just dropped a big bomb in Afghanistan.

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, also called the "mother of all bombs" or MOAB for short, is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used by the US military on the battlefield. The 11-ton weapon was first tested in 2003 but had never been used in combat prior to Thursday - when a US MC-130 aircraft dropped one on what it claims was a network of ISIS tunnels. 36 ISIS fighters were killed, according to the Afghan government, and the US military has not found any evidence of civilian casualties.

The obvious question, following such a high-profile show of strength, is what this means. Does this mean ISIS is a bigger threat in Afghanistan than we previously thought? Is this President Trump just following through on his campaign promise to "bomb the shit out of ISIS"? Is the Trump administration trying to send a signal to countries like North Korea and Iran that it means business?

According to experts on weapons and foreign policy, it seems this was a military decision, not a political one, based on the realities on the ground in Afghanistan right now. There's no reason to assume this was something out of the ordinary, even though the bomb was bigger than ones typically used by the US military.

For one thing, a general, not the president, appears to have made the call to use the bomb - Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, specifically. For another, the nature of ISIS's presence in Afghanistan means that it actually kind of does make sense to use this bomb. Finally, Trump himself suggested it was not intended to send any kind of message.

"I don't know if it this sends a message; it doesn't make any difference if it does or does not," Trump told reporters on Thursday. "This was another very, very successful mission."

The speculation, in short, was way over the top.

"There is so little trust ... in the Trump administration to make basic tactical decisions that everyone sort of assumes something crazy and weird is going on," says Rob Farley, a professor at the University of Kentucky who studies the Air Force. "But I'd suggest not jumping to conclusions about what this particular weapon means."

The more important questions here are the standard ones you should ask after any US airstrike. Did the strike accomplish its objectives? Are the initial reports that there were no civilian casualties correct? Were the appropriate precautions taken to minimize the risks of the strike? Was the strike proportional to the threat, and did the value of the military target justify the risk of killing innocents?

The fact that these questions remain unanswered, however, is normal at this point - they usually take a while to fully investigate, and we just heard about the bomb. But just because a larger-than-normal bomb was used here doesn't mean there's necessarily anything out of the ordinary.

Why the US military would use a MOAB

The MOAB is not only powerful but also extremely large in a physical sense. It's so big that it can't be delivered by a normal bomber; you need to put it in a cargo plane like the MC-130 in order to get it to a target. Cargo planes are easier to hit with anti-aircraft missiles than bombers, which means the MOAB is inherently somewhat riskier to use than smaller bombs.

The MOAB is designed to destroy a lot of targets on the surface - unlike the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), the only US conventional bomb that's larger than the MOAB (and one that has yet to be used in combat). The MOP is designed to destroy hardened tunnels and bunkers, whereas the MOAB is designed to destroy buildings and things just below the surface, like caves.

"The blast radius goes up to a mile," Farley explains. "That does not mean everything within a mile dies - it means that everything within a mile has a potential to be affected. Structures that are a mile off, or three-quarters of a mile off, may not be destroyed based on how strong they are."

These two facts of the MOAB - that it's delivered by a cargo plane and that it destroys stuff on the surface - explain why it's not used very commonly by the US military. Since the weapon was made ready for use in 2003, the US has fought a lot of missions in densely populated urban areas and/or specifically targeting smaller enemy troop deployments.

Those aren't optimal situations for MOAB use because of the danger of collateral damage, and the added risk created by dropping it from a cargo plane means the US military rarely has a need to use it.

"It's a weapon that has a narrow target set," an Air Force official told me. "It's primarily intended for soft to medium surface targets - targets like a cave and canyon environment."

The area hit in Afghanistan appears to be one of the few targets that fit this profile.

The bomb site was in Achin District, a heavily agricultural area near the Pakistani border. Achin is also a hub of activity for ISIS-Khorasan - the name ISIS uses for its Afghanistan branch (Khorasan is a historical name jihadists often use for Afghanistan). If the US military is right - and we don't know that it is - then a significant group of ISIS fighters were holed up in a large network of caves and tunnels in a relatively remote part of Afghanistan. It's the rare case where using a MOAB makes sense.

As the group suffers mounting losses, Gen. Nicholson said in a statement emailed to press, it has begun to use things like bunkers and tunnels "to thicken their defense." "This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive," Nicholson said.

This means less than you think

It's easy to fixate on the use of such a huge bomb. But the truth of the matter is that the use of the MOAB means virtually nothing significant outside of the immediate area where the bomb was dropped. The mere use of a large bomb, in and of itself, is not strategically significant. There's no evidence so far that the MOAB was used for any reason other than that it made sense to use it against this specific ISIS target.

It may be tempting to see this as evidence that the US is increasingly worried about ISIS's influence in the country. But the truth appears to be closer to the opposite: ISIS's forces have dropped by about 75 percent since their peak in late 2015, and the group has lost significant territory since then.

"By NATO's own estimates, it's something like 800 fighters countrywide, a big drop over past year," Colin Cookman, an Afghanistan expert at the United States Institute of Peace, tweeted.

Nor does this bombing, in and of itself, augur a larger US intervention in that country.

"[It] means they are going after ISIS, otherwise nothing," Barnett Rubin, a professor at Columbia University who studies Afghanistan, told me when I asked what he thought of the strike.

It has even less significance elsewhere. After the bomb was used, speculation turned almost immediately to the idea that President Trump was trying to intimidate American enemies. The Daily Mirror tabloid called it a "terrifying message to North Korea and other countries muscle-flexing against the US."

But everything the US government has said so far suggests that the bomb was dropped for specific tactical reasons in Afghanistan, nothing more. Nor, experts say, does it really make sense as a way of threatening those countries.

"If you think about what a target profile might look like in either Iran or North Korea - both of those countries have air defense systems," Farley says. "This is a weapon dropped from a C-130, which is not a stealthy aircraft and not really a combat aircraft at all. This is not a weapon you can drop on someone who has an active defense of the target - fighters or any kind of surface-to-air missile."

Some overexcited coverage has even compared this bomb to a nuclear weapon, which nuclear experts think is completely absurd.

"Don't be fooled by the claim circulating in some quarters that the explosive yield of the MOAB rivals that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima," Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, tells me. "The reported yield of the MOAB is approximately 11 tons. The Hiroshima bomb was approximately 15 KILOtons."

The breathless speculation and obsession over this bomb, which you're seeing on both social media and cable news, needs to stop. This isn't a toy or some kind of geopolitical game - it's a weapon that just killed actual humans.

The questions we should be asking aren't the kinds of things you would ask in a game of Risk. They are the ones we should always be asking of our military: Who was actually killed in the attack? Did they absolutely have to be killed? And was this the best way to go about doing that?

This is a bombing raid like all other US bombing raids, just with a somewhat novel device. We should focus on the deadly nature of the bombing raid itself - and not the technological wonder.

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The US dropping the "mother of all bombs" is way less alarming than people think

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The US military has just dropped a big bomb in Afghanistan. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, also called the "mother of all bombs" or MOAB for short, is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used by the US military on the battlefield.

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This website has graphs that shows the death tolls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the atomic bomb. It is useful in comparing to other bombs and finding evidence.

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Total Casualties | The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki | Historical Documents | atomicarchive.com

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The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by The Manhattan Engineer District, June 29, 1946. Total Casualties. There has been great difficulty in estimating the total casualties in the Japanese cities as a result of the atomic bombing.

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This article provides a brief synopsis of the Cold War and its effects on American society as well as from a global standpoint. It is a summary of all important Cold War events and introduces many important leaders.

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Containment

By the time World War II ended, most American officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a strategy called "containment." In his famous "Long Telegram," the diplomat George Kennan (1904-2005) explained the policy: The Soviet Union, he wrote, was "a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi [agreement between parties that disagree]." As a result, America's only choice was the "long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."

"It must be the policy of the United States," he declared before Congress in 1947, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation...by outside pressures." This way of thinking would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades.

Did you know? The term 'cold war' first appeared in a 1945 essay by the English writer George Orwell called 'You and the Atomic Bomb.'

The Cold War: The Atomic Age

The containment strategy also provided the rationale for an unprecedented arms buildup in the United States. In 1950, a National Security Council Report known as NSC-68 had echoed Truman's recommendation that the country use military force to contain communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring. To that end, the report called for a four-fold increase in defense spending.

In particular, American officials encouraged the development of atomic weapons like the ones that had ended World War II. Thus began a deadly " arms race." In 1949, the Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or "superbomb." Stalin followed suit.

As a result, the stakes of the Cold War were perilously high. The first H-bomb test, in the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands, showed just how fearsome the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

The ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on American domestic life as well. People built bomb shelters in their backyards. They practiced attack drills in schools and other public places. The 1950s and 1960s saw an epidemic of popular films that horrified moviegoers with depictions of nuclear devastation and mutant creatures. In these and other ways, the Cold War was a constant presence in Americans' everyday lives.

The Cold War and the Space Race

Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for "traveling companion"), the world's first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth's orbit. Sputnik's launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans.

In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile-seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space-made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.

In 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and what came to be known as the Space Race was underway. That same year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.

That May, after Alan Shepard become the first American man in space, President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) made the bold public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA's Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set foot on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans.

U.S. astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.

The Cold War and the Red Scare

Meanwhile, beginning in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC) brought the Cold War home in another way. The committee began a series of hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.

In Hollywood, HUAC forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these "blacklisted" writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade. HUAC also accused State Department workers of engaging in subversive activities. Soon, other anticommunist politicians, most notably Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), expanded this probe to include anyone who worked in the federal government.

Thousands of federal employees were investigated, fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues and "loyalty oaths" became commonplace.

The Cold War Abroad

The fight against subversion at home mirrored a growing concern with the Soviet threat abroad. In June 1950, the first military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People's Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south. Many American officials feared this was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world and deemed that nonintervention was not an option. Truman sent the American military into Korea, but the Korean War dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.

In 1955, the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made West Germany a member of NATO and permitted it to remilitarize. The Soviets responded with the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization between the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria that set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union.

Other international disputes followed. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy faced a number of troubling situations in his own hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in the unstable, postcolonial "Third World."

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Vietnam, where the collapse of the French colonial regime had led to a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, the United States had been committed to the survival of an anticommunist government in the region, and by the early 1960s it seemed clear to American leaders that if they were to successfully "contain" communist expansionism there, they would have to intervene more actively on Diem's behalf. However, what was intended to be a brief military action spiraled into a 10-year conflict.

The End of the Cold War and Effects

Almost as soon as he took office, President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) began to implement a new approach to international relations. Instead of viewing the world as a hostile, "bi-polar" place, he suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.

At the same time, he adopted a policy of "détente"-"relaxation"-toward the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.

Despite Nixon's efforts, the Cold War heated up again under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom everywhere. As a result, he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the world. This policy, particularly as it was applied in the developing world in places like Grenada and El Salvador, was known as the Reagan Doctrine.

Even as Reagan fought communism in Central America, however, the Soviet Union was disintegrating. In response to severe economic problems and growing political ferment in the USSR, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) took office in 1985 and introduced two policies that redefined Russia's relationship to the rest of the world: "glasnost," or political openness, and " perestroika," or economic reform.

Soviet influence in Eastern Europe waned. In 1989, every other communist state in the region replaced its government with a noncommunist one. In November of that year, the Berlin Wall-the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War-was finally destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.

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Cold War: Summary, Combatants, Start & End

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The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for decades and resulted in anti-communist suspicions and international incidents that led the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear disaster.

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This article is helpful because it talks all about Great Britain's history with nuclear disarmament.  It describes Great Britain's  stance on nuclear weapons and how they are part of the NPT.

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An independent deterrent

since 1969, the Royal Navy has delivered the nuclear deterrent under Operation Relentless, with at least 1 of 4 nuclear-armed submarines on patrol at all times

our retention of an independent centre of nuclear decision making makes clear to any adversary that the costs of an attack on UK vital interests will outweigh any benefits

decision making and use of the system remains entirely sovereign to the UK; only the Prime Minister can authorise the launch of nuclear weapons, which ensures that political control is maintained at all times

the instruction to fire would be transmitted to the submarine using only UK codes and UK equipment; making the command and control procedures fully independent

Vanguard submarines operate readily without the Global Positioning by Satellite (GPS) system and the Trident D5 missile does not use GPS at all

our procurement relationship with the US regarding the Trident missile does not compromise the operational independence of our nuclear deterrent

A minimum and credible deterrent

we are committed to maintaining the minimum amount of destructive power needed to deter any aggressor. This requires us to ensure that our deterrent is not vulnerable to pre-emptive action by potential adversaries

our continuous patrol is essential to assure the invulnerability of the deterrent

invulnerability and security of capability are key components of the credibility of our deterrent and contribute to overall stability

Threat

it is a key responsibility of the government to be sure that the UK is properly protected should the future turn out to be less secure than we hope

in spite of the successes of arms control activities in slowing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the number of states with nuclear capabilities has continued to grow

there are risks that, over the next 20 to 50 years, a major direct nuclear threat to the UK or our NATO allies might re-emerge; a state's intent in relation to the use or threat of use of existing capabilities could change relatively quickly: for example, there was little prior warning of the collapse of the Soviet Union

when the case for the UK's independent nuclear deterrent was last presented to Parliament, by the Labour government in 2006-07, it was acknowledged that the old certainties of the Cold War were gone but it was recognised that the UK faced a growing number of diverse and complex threats in an unpredictable world

similar key judgements were made in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review. There is a risk that states with nuclear weapons, or those seeking to acquire them, might use their nuclear capabilities to threaten the UK, and attempt to constrain our decision making in a crisis or sponsor nuclear terrorism

therefore the government is committed to maintaining the UK's independent nuclear deterrent to deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, now and in the future

we know that international terrorists are trying to acquire radiological weapons. There are risks that they may try to acquire nuclear weapons; while our nuclear deterrent is not designed to deter non-state actors, it should influence the decision making of any state that might consider transferring nuclear weapons or nuclear technology to terrorists

UK and nuclear disarmament

as a responsible nuclear weapon state and party to the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ( NPT), the UK remains committed to the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons

we have reduced our own nuclear forces by over half from their Cold War peak in the late 1970s

we are the only nuclear weapon State which has reduced its deterrent capability to a single nuclear weapon system; we have dismantled our tactical nuclear capability and the RAF's WE177 free fall bombs

as a result of our reassessment of the minimum necessary requirements for credible deterrence, since 2010 we have:

reduced the number of warheads on each submarine from 48 to 40

reduced our requirement for operationally available warheads from fewer than 160 to no more than 120

reduced the number of operational missiles on each submarine to not more than 8

we remain committed to reducing the overall nuclear weapon stockpile to no more than 180 warheads by the mid-2020s.

of the recognised 'Nuclear Weapons States' (NWS), we possess only approximately 1% of the total global stockpile of nuclear weapons, the smallest of all the NPT nuclear weapon states

our submarines on patrol are at several days' notice to fire and, since 1994, we do not target our missiles at any state

the UK plays a leading international role on nuclear disarmament verification and has driven forward the first multilateral initiative involving both NWS and NNWS. This is an essential step for nuclear disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Infographic: UK's leading role in multilateral nuclear disarmament

Crown Copyright.

The infographic shows UK operational warheads reducing from 160 in 2010 to 120 in 2015 and operational warheads on patrol reducing from 48 in 2010 to 40 in 2015.

Cost

the Trident Alternatives Review in 2013 demonstrated that no alternative system is as capable as the current Trident based deterrent, or as cost effective

as set in the we estimate that 4 new Dreadnought submarines will cost £31 billion to build, test and commission, spread over 35 years, with a contingency of £10 billion.

we expect that, once the new fleet of deterrent submarines come into service, the in-service costs of the UK's nuclear deterrent will be similar to those of today, at around 6% of the defence budget

UK and US nuclear defence cooperation is underpinned by the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement and the 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement; among other things, these allow the UK to reduce costs by procuring Trident missiles and other components from the US while maintaining full operational independence

any programme to develop and manufacture a new cruise missile would cost far more than retaining the Trident missile; in terms of both cost and capability, retaining the Trident missile system is by far the best approach

Myths and discussion points

Myth 1. The nuclear deterrent is obsolete as it does not deter terrorism.

The nuclear deterrent is not intended to deter terrorists. The UK has policies and capabilities to deal with the wide range of threats we currently face or might face in the future. Our nuclear deterrent is there to deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means.

Myth 2. The money spent maintaining a nuclear deterrent would otherwise be invested in our conventional capabilities.

Nuclear weapons remain a necessary element of the capability we need to deter the most extreme threats. Conventional forces cannot deliver the same deterrent effect.

Myth 3. Submarines could become vulnerable to new technological developments such as underwater drones or cyber attack.

We believe it is unlikely there will be any radical technological breakthrough which might diminish the current advantages of the submarine over potential anti-submarine systems. In any event, we judge that a submarine will remain by far the least vulnerable of all the platform options.

Myth 4. Replacing Trident is illegal.

Maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrent is fully consistent with all our international legal obligations, including those under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.

Discussion point 1. The UK does not require a nuclear deterrent as we are already protected by the US nuclear deterrent.

A potential adversary might miscalculate the degree of US commitment to the defence and security of Europe. An independent deterrent provides the assurance that it can be used to deter attacks on our vital interests. An independent centre of nuclear decision making in the UK also reinforces the overall deterrent effect of allied nuclear forces and thus enhances our security and that of NATO allies.

Discussion point 2. All the UK needs is a dormant nuclear weapons capability, from which we could re-establish a deterrent if and when specific threats emerge.

Any UK decision to give up an active credible nuclear deterrent system would, for political and cost reasons, be extremely difficult to reverse. In practice, the timeframe for re-establishing a credible minimum deterrent would probably be longer than the likely warning of any change in intent of an established nuclear power or any covert programme elsewhere to develop nuclear weapons. Also, any move from a dormant programme towards an active one could be seen as escalatory, and thus potentially destabilising, in a crisis.

Discussion point 3. We don't need a continuous deterrent.

If we ceased continuous deterrent patrols, we could be deterred or prevented from deploying a nuclear submarine in a crisis. This is by far the least vulnerable of the platform options.

Discussion point 4. We could make do with an aircraft delivered system.

Short and medium range aircraft operating from the UK or overseas, or short or medium range land based missiles, do not provide an assured deterrent on the grounds that these options lack sufficient range. Even aircraft launched from aircraft carriers would not meet our range criteria. Furthermore, these options would be vulnerable to pre-emptive attacks, or to interception by air defence systems whilst in the air.

See our downloadable factsheet

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The UK's nuclear deterrent: what you need to know

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since 1969, the Royal Navy has delivered the nuclear deterrent under Operation Relentless, with at least 1 of 4 nuclear-armed submarines on patrol at all times our retention of an independent centre of nuclear decision making makes clear to any adversary that the costs of an attack on UK vital

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This article is about the importance of having nuclear weapons in America. It gives reasons why it is justified to have nuclear weapons. This can help mostly for the focus question about the purpose of nuclear attacks.

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The United States needs to develop more "usable" nuclear weapons to deter future conflict, according to a new think tank report.

This week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent international relations think tank in Washington, DC, released a new report entitled: "Project Atom: A Competitive Strategies Approach to Defining U.S. Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2025-2050."

In the report, Clark Murdock argues that the United States should develop and deploy more low-yield tactical nuclear weapons to deter adversaries from engaging in low-level nuclear aggression.

"The United States needs to develop and deploy more employable nuclear weapons, ones that enable the United States to respond directly and proportionately to an adversary's employment of a nuclear weapon," Murdock writes.

Elsewhere he elaborates: "Discriminate employment options would be provided by a suite of low-yield, special-effects warheads (low collateral, enhanced radiation, earth penetration, electromagnetic pulse, and others as technology advances), including possibly a smaller, shorter-range cruise missile that could be delivered by F-35s."

The thinking of the proposal is that America's unmatched military power encourages potential adversaries to use nuclear weapons to offset their conventional inferiority. The danger, Murdock argues, is that adversaries would use low-yield nuclear weapons early in a conflict in order to get the United States to "back off." Should such a scenario come to pass, America might be self-deterred from responding at the nuclear level.

"Since most U.S. nuclear response options are large, 'dirty,' and inflict significant collateral damage," Murdock writes, "the United States might be 'self-deterred' and not respond 'in kind' to discriminate nuclear attacks." Even just the possibility of potential adversaries believing this to be true could significantly increase the probability that they will use nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict with the United States.

Murdock is hardly the first analyst to foresee such a danger. For example, writing in Foreign Affairs in 2009, Keir Lieber and Daryl Press , "During a war, if a desperate adversary were to use its nuclear force to try to coerce the United States... an arsenal comprised solely of high-yield weapons would leave U.S. leaders with terrible retaliatory options. Destroying Pyongyang or Tehran in response to a limited strike would be vastly disproportionate, and doing so might trigger further nuclear attacks in return. A deterrent posture based on such a dubious threat would lack credibility."

Nor is such a scenario far-fetched. Indeed, since at least 2000, Russia's official defense posture has included a policy of "de-escalation" nuclear strikes. That is, Moscow's official declaratory policy is that if it is faced with an overwhelmingly conventionally superior foe, it will use low-level nuclear strikes to "de-escalate" the conflict. Such a policy could easily be adopted by other states like North Korea in time of war, once it acquires deliverable nuclear warheads.

As The National Interest has warned before, the remarkable accuracy of precision-guided missiles is also making it more possible to use low-yield nuclear weapons without causing excessive collateral damage against civilian populations.

Indeed, using a Pentagon computer model, Lieber and Press estimated that a U.S. counterforce strike against China's ICBM silos using high-yield weapons detonated at ground blast would kill anywhere between 3-4 million people. Using low-yield weapons and airbursts, this figure drops to as little as 700 fatalities.

Murdock, Lieber and Press are not the only ones calling for the United States to develop more usable nuclear weapons. In the new Project Atom report, Elbridge Colby (writing with Shawn Brimley and Ely Ratner) of the Center for a New American Security also calls for a similar U.S. nuclear force.

Predictably, however, Murdock's recommendation has some very vocal detractors. Kingston Reif, the Director of Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association, told Think Progress of Murdock's recommendation: "There's a number of reasons why this idea doesn't make sense.... "[I don't think that] Russia and China would understand its use to control escalation and not part of a campaign to change regimes in those countries."

Barry Blechman, the co-founder of the Stimson Center and a co-author of the new report, is also critical of Murdock's proposal. In his own chapter in the Project Atom report, Blechman and his co-author, Russell Rumbaugh, argue that America's conventional superiority allows the United States to reduce the prevalence of nuclear weapons in America's national security strategy. Later, Blechman told Think Progress that Murdock's proposal is "terrible on so many grounds," including that it would be "a huge waste of money" and could make it easier for terrorists to steal the nuclear devices.

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Revealed: Why America Needs New, Super Usable Nuclear Weapons

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The United States needs to develop more "usable" nuclear weapons to deter future conflict, according to a new think tank report. This week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a prominent international relations think tank in Washington, DC, released a new report entitled: "Project Atom: A Competitive Strategies Approach to Defining U.S.

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This article gives important information on why Japan will most likely not lead to using nuclear weapons in the future and helps the argument of why nuclear weapons are unjustified. It gives important details on Japan's opinion and supports having NO nuclear weapons.

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This article is helpful because it states the opinion of Japan and gives evidence towards why Nuclear weapons aren't justified. It also gives the laws set into place by Japan.

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Nevertheless, several neighboring countries have expressed concerns about possible Japanese nuclear ambitions due to Japanese officials' occasional nuclearization debates. Recent tension developing in the region, particularly on the Korean peninsula, has led to increased discussions in Japan about the once-taboo subject of nuclear weapons development, including comments by high-ranking officials on the possibility of amending the three non-nuclear principles in 2002.

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This Article is helpful because it shows Britain's history with nuclear weapons. It goes into great detail and provides many useful pieces of information

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The History of the UK Nuclear Weapons Programme

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This timeline has been prepared by Nuclear Information Service to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the first atomic test by the United Kingdom on 3 October 1952. It outlines key events in the development of the UK's nuclear weapons programme from the decision to begin research into atomic weapons during World War II to the current debate on whether to replace the UK's Trident nuclear weapons.

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This article is helpful because it provides useful information on how much Russian Ruble is worth. Additionally, it gives a very detailed graph that shows the day to day analysis of Russia's stock market. Lastly, there is an option to see all the past years from each day which can be useful to see the changes there have been in Russia's stock.

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Russian Ruble | 1993-2017 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast | News

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The USDRUB increased 0.1234 or 0.21% to 58.6900 on Monday August 28 from 58.5666 in the previous trading session. Historically, the Russian Ruble reached an all time high of 82.45 in January of 2016 and a record low of 0.98 in August of 1993.

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This is a very helpful source because it show the changes in nuclear weapons from the cold war to present day.

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The United Kingdom's involvement in the development of nuclear weapons and energy dates back to 1940 when two émigré scientists based in England, Otto Frisch and Fritz Peierls, laid the conceptual groundwork for how an operational atomic bomb could be constructed.

Nuclear

The United Kingdom's involvement in nuclear energy and weapons development dates back to 1940 when two émigré scientists based in England, Otto Frisch and Fritz Peierls, laid the conceptual groundwork for the atomic bomb.

Initially conducting its own research, the United Kingdom later sent several scientists to Los Alamos to contribute to the Manhattan Project. Following the war, and the passing of the Atomic Energy Act in the United States, the United Kingdom decided to pursue its own nuclear weapons program. This program was led by William G. Penney-a British scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project. Penney's position at Los Alamos Laboratory equipped him with the tacit knowledge needed for a successful nuclear program.

Multiple factors influenced the United Kingdom's decision to pursue an indigenous nuclear weapons program. As a result of its diminished economic and military strength in the immediate post-war years, the United Kingdom viewed nuclear weapons as a way to maintain its status as a global power. An independent nuclear deterrent was also intended to augment, or at least "hedge" against a breakdown of, the U.S. nuclear guarantee in Europe. [1] The emerging Soviet threat in Eastern Europe led UK defense planners to consider a "second center of decision-making" which would, in the event of conflict, force Moscow to take into account responses from both London and Washington. [2]

These considerations, coupled with United States' domestic political environment, led to the United Kingdom's first nuclear test on 3 October 1952. [3] The test, codename "Hurricane," was held at the Monto Bello Islands off the coast of Australia. The UK's first indigenously produced weapon-a plutonium fission bomb nicknamed the "Blue Danube"-entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1953. [4]

Current Force Configuration

The United Kingdom's nuclear forces today are entirely sea-based. They consist of four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) that each carry up to 16 Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). Four submarines are believed to be the minimum number required to carry out continuous at-sea deterrence (CASD) while allowing adequate time for the four phases of the continuous patrolling cycle: patrol, reserve, training and repair. [5] While the submarines are designed and constructed in the United Kingdom, the Trident missile is purchased directly from the United States-a process that is deemed more economical as it allows the United Kingdom to "exploit American economies of scale." [6] Furthermore, the UK nuclear warhead, although independent, is based on the U.S. W76 design. [7]

Britain's strategic submarine fleet is based at Her Majesty's Naval Base in Clyde, Scotland, while its operational nuclear warheads are stored at the nearby Coulport ammunition base. [8] Although the United Kingdom does not design its own ballistic missiles, the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermarston does design, build, and maintain the UK nuclear warheads. [9] The strategic submarine fleet has been the key component of the UK deterrent since 1962 when President Kennedy offered then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan the Polaris submarine-launched missile system. [10]

Modernization

Although the United Kingdom has no plans to expand its strategic deterrent, it is planning to replace the existing Trident-carrying nuclear submarines with what it calls a "like-for-like" system (essentially the same delivery platform but in modernized form). [11] The modified submarines will be powered by the PWR3, an updated pressurized water reactor. The PWR3 has longer in-life service and lower through-life maintenance costs. [12] The decision was first presented to the UK parliament in December 2006 by former Prime Minister Tony Blair and laid-out in the 2006 White Paper entitled "The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent." [13] The White Paper estimated that replacing all four submarines would cost between GBP 15-and 20 billion. [14] Given that the current Vanguard-class SSBNs will likely begin leaving service in 2024, and it will take over ten years to commission a replacement submarine, a final "main gate" decision on the design plans for the upgraded fleet was considered urgent at the time. [15]

However, the current coalition government has delayed making a final "Main Gate" spending decision until 2016 (after the next general election) and any decision on a replacement warhead has been delayed until 2019. If approved, these new submarines would likely enter service in 2028. [16] The postponement of the project has been largely attributed to the UK's overstretched defense budget, and the belief that a delay will save money. [17] Forecasts estimate that the cost of modernization will range from 15 to 20 billion, and in-serve costs will take up to 5-6 percent of the annual defense budget. [18] Additionally, the Liberal Democrats―the junior partner in the UK's coalition government-have been critical of the decision to replace the current naval deterrent with a "like-for-like" system, and have argued that cheaper alternatives have not received due consideration. [19]

In response to Liberal Democrat concerns, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister jointly commissioned the Cabinet Office to investigate possible alternatives to the Trident system. Published in July 2013, the study found that the Trident II missile was not only the most capable system, but also the most cost-effective, backing up a similar finding from the 2006 White Paper, which determined aircraft equipped with cruise missiles, land-based ballistic missiles, and surface sea-based options would either cost more to develop or fail to meet the UK's deterrence requirements. [20] The 2013 review did acknowledge, however, the possibility of cutting costs by ending the permanent SSBN deterrent patrols, and Liberal Democrats praised these savings as a step forward for disarmament. [21]

According to a report by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the United Kingdom "...is investing in modernizing its nuclear weapon complex. This includes the new Pegasus facility for manufacturing uranium components for weapons to be built at Aldermaston, and the Mensa plant for warhead assembly and disassembly to be located at Burghfield." [22]

To ensure the safety and viability of their nuclear weapons stockpiles - while adhering to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - the UK and France signed a bilateral agreement in November 2010 allowing for cooperation in this area. [23] Joint activities will involve the construction of a simulation facility in Valduc, France, where scientists will conduct work on the safety and security of their respective warheads. A joint Technology Development Center will also be established in Aldermaston, UK, to develop simulation technology for the center at Valduc. It is estimated that the Valduc facility (EPURE) will become operational around 2015 with construction costs to be split equally between France and the United Kingdom. [24]

Force Posture and Doctrine

The UK nuclear deterrent is assigned to NATO and its primary function is to contribute to the Alliance's collective defense. It has performed this role since 1962 when the United Kingdom agreed to purchase the Polaris ballistic missile system from the United States. [25] Although the four Vanguard-class submarines and their Trident missiles are fully assigned to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), they remain independent due to the nature of NATO command and control systems, which allow British commanders to communicate with both NATO and UK authorities. [26] As a result, SACEUR commands can be overruled in defense of the national interest.

Although the United Kingdom no longer maintains tactical nuclear weapons, the 1998 Strategic Defense Review (SDR) did suggest that the Trident missiles could be given a "sub-strategic" role if required. The term "sub-strategic" was used on numerous occasions in the past, but in 2007 Defense Secretary Des Browne stated, "we have deliberately chosen to stop using the term 'sub-strategic' Trident." [27] Des Browne further explained that the weapons were not meant for use on a battlefield but were rather a form of "self-defence." [28] The insistence that nuclear weapons would only be used in the most extreme circumstances, reflects the 1996 Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). [29]

The 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) gave, for the first time, an assurance that the United Kingdom "will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT." [30] However, the document also emphasizes that the assurance does not apply to any state deemed to be "in material breach" of its nonproliferation obligations. [31] This language is reflective of the United States' 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which provides a similar assurance and caveat. In addition, the SDSR states that the UK will retain a degree of calculated ambiguity by remaining "deliberately ambiguous about precisely when, how and at what scale" it would contemplate the use of its nuclear weapons. [32] In support of this declaratory policy, the UK maintains a minimal nuclear force that would only be used in "the most extreme circumstance of self defence," including the defense of NATO allies. [33]

Scottish Secession: Ramifications for Trident

Despite the failed Scottish independence referendum which took place on 18 September 2014, Scotland's domestic politics continue to have important implications for Britain's sea based nuclear deterrent. Currently, the United Kingdom's SSBN fleet is based in Scotland at the Faslane naval base, with its nuclear warheads stored nearby at the Coulport weapons depot. [34] Ahead of the independence vote, the Scottish National Party (SNP) released an interim constitution, which stipulated that in the event of independence, Scotland must pursue negotiations towards securing nuclear disarmament and the expeditious removal of all nuclear weapons. [35] Since the vote, SNP has tripled its membership and is now the third largest party in the UK. [36] With the referendum's narrow margin of defeat and the SNP's growing influence in UK politics, London has agreed to increase autonomy for the Scottish government. [37] The plan for maximum devolution (Devo Max) and the possibility of another independence vote in the future make it unlikely that SNP will give up on its plan for exporting UK's nuclear deterrent outside of Scottish territory. UK defense planners must factor in the changing political environment when forecasting long-term plans for its sea based nuclear deterrent.

UK-US Cooperation

Although Anglo-American cooperation was prevalent during World War II, scientific collaboration was halted once the war ended. This was primarily due to U.S. fears over the transfer of knowledge and technology to third parties. But this policy was reversed in 1958 when the U.S. congress passed the Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA), which was primarily a response to the Soviet Union's Sputnik launch in 1957. [38] The United States feared that it was falling behind in the arms race and would benefit from pooling resources and sharing expertise with the United Kingdom. The UK has since had access to U.S. weapons engineering expertise, warhead design, delivery systems, and testing facilities. [39] In return, the United States has benefited from high-level scientific collaboration and access to UK military bases. Technical exchanges between scientists largely took place within the framework of a series of Joint Working Groups (JOWOGs). [40] These groups are still in existence today with both countries benefiting from a "crosscurrent of ideas and information." [41]

This particular relationship is best demonstrated by President Kennedy's Nassau meeting with Prime Minister Macmillan in 1962. Kennedy shared information that the Skybolt missile system, which Britain hoped to procure, had experienced poor test results and offered to sell the Polaris missile system instead. [42] This 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement (PSA) was amended in the 1980s to allow the UK access to the Trident D5 missiles. The agreement will expire in 2040, and Washington has confirmed that it will supply the successor missile to the Trident D5 at the time of its retirement. [43]

Today, cooperation is also evident at the operational level. When the UK's submarines are commissioned, they report to the U.S. naval base at King's Bay, Georgia to load their Trident missiles. Thereafter, they return to the Royal Ammunition depot at Coulport, Scotland to mate their nuclear warheads. [44] All of the UK's Trident missiles are serviced in the United States.

Arms Reductions

During the cold war the United Kingdom maintained a strategic dyad that comprised both sea- and air-based capabilities. It is estimated that in 1989 the United Kingdom had around 250 tactical weapons primarily in the form of WE-177 gravity bombs that could be dropped from a twin-engine Tornado combat aircraft. [45] However, all the WE-177s were retired prior to the Labour government's 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR). In 1989 the United Kingdom also possessed an estimated 43 WE-177A nuclear depth bombs, which were destroyed in 1992. [46]

The 1998 UK SDR concluded that each of the Vanguard-class nuclear submarines should carry a maximum of 48 warheads - a significant reduction from the previous maximum of 96. Furthermore, as part of the 2006 decision to replace the Vanguard-class submarines, former Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that the United Kingdom was implementing a further 20 percent cut in its operational warheads to less than 160. Foreign Secretary William Hague also stated in May 2010 that the United Kingdom intends to possess a total stockpile of no more than 225 nuclear warheads. [47] The most recent UK reductions were outlined in the 2010 SDSR, which contains a commitment to reduce the number of operational warheads onboard each Trident nuclear submarine from 48 to 40, to reduce the number of total operational warheads from 160 to 120, and to reduce the overall stockpile to no more than 180 nuclear warheads. [48] Current debate in the United Kingdom focuses on reductions to the Trident program, with supporters (mainly Liberal Democrats) advocating an alternative weapon system, or a reduction in Vanguard- or successor-class submarines from four boats to two or three. [49] While the number of SSBNs remains four, a number of reductions in warheads have occurred. In 2015 the UK completed reductions of warheads and operational missiles on ballistic missile submarines-40 warheads and 8 missiles-and completed reductions of total operational warheads from 160 to 120 in 2015. [50]

Disarmament

Despite the initial 2006 decision to replace its existing Trident delivery platform, the United Kingdom has been perhaps the strongest supporter of multilateral disarmament among the nuclear weapon states. It currently has the smallest number of deployed nuclear warheads and has cut its nuclear weapons arsenal considerably since the end of the Cold War. Its reliance on only one delivery platform, coupled with the relatively marginal role that nuclear weapons play in the country's defense strategy, means that it would be easier for Britain to cease to be a nuclear power than any of the other nuclear weapons states. [51] Although the UK has resisted calls for unilateral disarmament, Margaret Beckett (former Foreign Minister), David Miliband (former Foreign Minister) and Des Browne (former Defence Secretary) all spoke publically in favor of multilateral and incremental disarmament during their time as ministers. [52] The current coalition government has maintained this stance. [53]

The United Kingdom, in partnership with Norway, has also been carrying out technical research into the verification of nuclear disarmament at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermartson. Both parties hope this research will enable nuclear weapon states to allow non-nuclear weapons states to inspect warhead dismantlement without transferring sensitive information. Toward this end, the initiative focuses on creating information barriers and developing non-destructive assay techniques. [54] Both the United Kingdom and Norway presented an update to their findings at the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 2012 NPT Preparatory Committee, and the 2015 NPT Review Conference. [55]

Civilian Nuclear Sector

In comparison to France, the United Kingdom's nuclear energy sector is relatively small, accounting for only 18 percent of electricity generation. [56] This more marginal contribution is due, in large part, to domestic oil and gas reserves in the North Sea. [57] However, the depletion of these resources and the increase in demand means that the United Kingdom will become more dependent on imports - placing greater emphasis on the need for a secure energy supply. [58] This, coupled with the fact that the government is legally bound to curb the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, means that there is a requirement for a significant expansion in nuclear energy. [59] As a result, the government's 2006 energy review acknowledged the need to replace Britain's current nuclear energy infrastructure as and when required. Despite plans to build 12 new reactors, there are many opponents of nuclear energy in the UK who ensure such plans remain subject to debate. [60] There are currently 16 nuclear reactors in the United Kingdom, with the majority of these due to close by 2023. [61] The 2006 report stated that they would be replaced with a new generation of reactors that the private sector will "initiate, fund, construct and operate." [62] In 2009, the government identified ten sites as part of a policy that will include a large expansion in renewable energy and the use of so-called clean coal. As of June 2015, the government had confirmed eight of the ten nominated sites (Bradwell, Hartlepool, Heysham, Hinkley Point, Oldbury, Sellafield, Sizewell, and Wyfla). [63] The UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Energy and Climate Change produced a 2013 report titled "The UK's Nuclear Future," which set the goal of five new nuclear power stations by 2030, pushing back the previous goal of eight sites by 2025. [64] It also appears likely that a further expansion of nuclear power will be needed if the United Kingdom is to meet its ambitious emission targets.

Fuel Cycle Facilities

The United Kingdom imports its uranium supplies but is largely self-sufficient in all other areas of the nuclear fuel cycle. Its facilities can be categorized as follows:

Conversion - Carried out at Springfields and managed by Westinghouse under contract to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. This was completed through a deal with Cameco, a uranium producer; however, this deal was terminated prematurely in August 2014. [65]

Deconversion - Urenco is planning to build a deconversion plant at Capenhurst with operation due to begin in 2015. It will treat uranium tails from all three Urenco enrichment sites at Capenhurst, Almelo in the Netherlands, and Gronau in Germany. [66]

Enrichment - Carried out by Urenco at its centrifuge plant at Capenhurst. This was previously the site of the gaseous diffusion plant that enriched uranium for defense purposes. [67]

Fuel Fabrication - Takes place at Springfields and includes AGR and LWR fuels. [68]

Reprocessing - Undertaken at Sellafield, Cumbria. The THORP plant previously took spent fuel from international customers and is expected to remain in operation until at least 2016. [69]

Waste - The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is responsible for cleaning up the United Kingdom's legacy of nuclear waste at reactor sites, reprocessing plants and research facilities. Nuclear waste is currently being stockpiled above ground at short-term facilities at Sellafield. [70] There are plans to construct underground intermediate and high-level nuclear waste storage sites in Harwell and Sizewell, respectively. Construction of a high-level waste storage facility is underway at Sizewell B. Additionally, the NDA has set up the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate, a deep geological repository for high and intermediate level waste. The facility is estimated to cost GBP 12 billion and to become operational in 2040; no site has been selected. [71]

The United Kingdom possesses a significant reprocessing capability that is performed at Sellafield, Cumbria, on England's northwest coast. Its Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) has been in operation since 1994 and is scheduled to close in 2016. [72] It was originally built to provide reprocessing services for international customers following a worldwide expansion in the use of nuclear power, but the level of expansion predicted was never fully realized. Sellafield has been the subject of long-running environmental concerns, particularly with regards to the local marine environment. [73] The site contains a number of disused reactors and the storage pond in Building B30 is said to contain old reactor parts and decaying fuel rods, many of which have now turned to sludge and emit large doses of radiation. [74] The estimated cleanup costs continue to rise. Recent estimates suggested that the clean-up operation at Sellafield might cost up to GBP 70 billion over the next 100 years. [75]

An August 2014 declaration to the IAEA revealed that the UK possessed 118.1 tons (t) of separated plutonium in product stores at reprocessing plants at the end of 2013. [76] This material is largely being held at Sellafield. In addition, there were 0.8t of plutonium in unirradiated MOX fuel, 1.9t in the MOX fuel manufacturing process, and 1.5t held elsewhere. [77] Plutonium contained in spent fuel at civilian reactor sites was estimated at 8t and a further 23t of plutonium was contained in spent fuel at reprocessing plants. Less than 500kg of plutonium was contained in spent fuel held elsewhere. [78] The United Kingdom currently faces a dilemma about what to do with its plutonium stocks. Three long-term options are being considered: conversion to MOX fuel, immobilization as waste, and part immobilization. [79]

The United Kingdom had previously produced highly enriched uranium (HEU) for defense purposes at the gaseous diffusion plant at Capenhurst. Today it continues to use HEU for military purposes, including naval propulsion reactors and test reactors. [80] According to its 2014 declaration to the IAEA, the United Kingdom's civilian stockpile of HEU stood at 1,396 kg at the end of 2013, including 342kg located at fabrication plants, 914 kg at laboratories and research facilities, and 141 kg of irradiated HEU at civilian reactor or other sites. [81]

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[57] Department of Energy and Climate Change, "Oil and gas: field data," 26 June 2014, www.gov.uk.
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[64] Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department of Energy and Climate Change with the Nuclear Industry Association, "The UK's Nuclear Future," Issued 26 March 2013, p. 8; "New UK nuclear plant sites named," BBC News, 12 June 2011, www.bbc.co.uk.
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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The United Kingdom's involvement in the development of nuclear weapons and energy dates back to 1940 when two émigré scientists based in England, Otto Frisch and Fritz Peierls, laid the conceptual groundwork for how an operational atomic bomb could be constructed.

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This article is helpful because it discussed France's participation in the United Nations. It talks about the specific areas France has  played a role in changing.

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France Diplomatie :: Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs

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France was a founding member of the United Nations when it was established in 1945. It is a permanent member of the Security Council alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia and China. In this capacity it plays a driving role on a number of subjects. It is also represented both in the other main UN bodies and subsidiary bodies and has been elected to the Human Rights Council. Furthermore, it is a permanent member of the Conference on Disarmament.

Within the United Nations, France is active in every field.

Reform of the United Nations

Recent crises have highlighted the central role of the UN, but they have also underlined the need to make it more effective and more representative of current global balances. This is why France is working resolutely towards Security Council reform.

Just as it promotes the expansion of the G8 into the G13, it also supports a widening of the Security Council in the framework of the negotiations opened on this issue at the General Assembly on 19 February 2009. France thus supports permanent membership for Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, as well as increased Security Council membership of African countries, notably among the permanent members.

There is also the question of the presence of an Arab country as a permanent member.

France would also like review work to be carried out on Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) in order to make them more effective and more capable of achieving their goals. It made a joint proposal with the United Kingdom to its Council partners for reflection on the issue.
For more information:
Human rights

France has always had a special role in the area of human rights. It inspired the 1948 Universal Declaration and continues to fight today for human rights worldwide, both through its leading role on the Human Rights Council and through it action at the Security Council.

France also supports the fight against impunity to prevent new atrocities, and contributed to the creation of the International Criminal Court. It was one of the first States to ratify the Court's Statute.
For further information:
The environment and climate disruption

Concerning the environment and climate change, France's action is carried out in the European Union framework, which plays a leading role in mobilization and seeking solutions.

The European Union and France thus worked with the major CO2 emitters for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed in 1997 and entered into force in 2005. The Protocol, aimed at implementing the Framework Convention on Climate Change that was adopted during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, asks developed States to reduce their CO2 emissions. It was the first to establish a market in greenhouse gas emission trading in order to achieve this goal.

During the 19th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP19), France was officially appointed host country for the 21st climate conference: the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.
For further information:
Official Development Assistance (ODA)

Official Development Assistance (ODA) is an essential part of France's foreign policy.

During the Monterrey Conference in 2002, France committed to increasing its ODA to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The French Government thus set itself the goal of increasing ODA to 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2015.

France implements strong diplomatic efforts to promote innovative international mechanisms which could contribute additional resources for development, such as the tax on air tickets to finance UNITAID and the International Finance Facility for Immunisation.
For further information:
Maintenance of peace and security

In the area of peacekeeping and security, France plays an important role in disarmament. It has worked towards the drafting of many treaties, such as the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) which was adopted in 2008, has been deeply involved in efforts to ensure compliance with the non-proliferation regime, and has played a key role in adopting various resolutions on Iran and North Korea.

France and the United Kingdom were the first two States to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1998 and France is working for its entry into force.

France was also the first State to have decided on and implemented the dismantlement of its facilities for the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. It supports the resumption of the work on negotiating a Treaty banning the production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons.

More generally, it seeks to steadfastly promote an ambitious and efficient role for the United Nations based on international law and consensus:

During the 2003 Iraq crisis, France opposed unilateral use of force and advocated a central role for the United Nations;

Its military and police forces are heavily present outside its borders.

For further information:
Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in New York

The permanent representative or deputy permanent representative sits on the Security Council, as well as on all bodies where France has representation. They speak on behalf of France and uphold its positions.

For their part, the experts at the French Mission prepare and negotiate the resolutions and texts adopted by these different bodies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
France was a founding member of the United Nations when it was established in 1945. It is a permanent member of the Security Council alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia and China. In this capacity it plays a driving role on a number of subjects.

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This article is helpful because it gave detailed information on how disarmament affected France’s government and people.

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Political Perceptions of Nuclear Disarmament in the United Kingdom and France: A Comparative Analysis | NTI

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1] George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons," The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com, 4 January 2007. [2] George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons," The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com, 4 January 2007.

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This article is very helpful because not only does it give statistics, numbers, and death polls, but it also includes a very detailed timeline of the creation, storage, and use of the atomic bombs.

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Preparations
July 16:
The "Gadget," an plutonium implosion device, detonates successfully in the Trinity test at Alamogordo, NM, demonstrating that the Fat Man atomic bomb design will work.

Little Boy bomb units, accompanied by the U-235 projectile, are shipped out of San Francisco on the USS Indianapolis for Tinian Island.
July 20:
The 509th Composite Group begins flying practice missions over Japan.

July 21:

President Harry Truman receives report on the successful Trinity test.
July 23:
Secretary of War Henry Stimson, in Potsdam for meeting between President Truman and Soviet Premier Stalin, receives current target list. In order of choice it is: Hiroshima, Kokura, and Niigata. He also receives an estimate of atomic bomb availability: Little Boy should be ready for use on Aug. 6, second Fat Man-type by Aug. 24, 3 should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December.

Combat hemispheres for Fat Man are fabricated at Los Alamos.

July 24:

General Leslie Groves drafts the directive authorizing the use of the atomic bombs as soon as bomb availability and weather permit. It lists the following targets in order of priority: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. This directive constitutes final authorization for atomic attack; no further orders are issued.

The U-235 target for Little Boy is cast at Los Alamos.

July 25:

Peer de Silva, the official courier for the Fat Man core, signs for 6.1 kg of plutonium at Los Alamos, NM.

July 26:

President Truman issues the Potsdam Declaration, which warns Japan of "prompt and utter destruction" and requires unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces.

USS Indianapolisdelivers Little Boy bomb units and the U-235 projectile to Tinian Island.

Five C-54 transport planes leave Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque with: the Little Boy U-235 target (its final component), the Fat Man plutonium core, and its initiator.
July 29:
The Japanese government rejects the Potsdam surrender demand.

The five C-54 transports arrive at Tinian. All components for Little Boy are now on site, but no Fat Man bomb assemblies have yet arrived.
July 30:
The nuclear components (target, projectile, and 4 initiators) are inserted into bomb unit number L11.

The USS Indianapolis is attacked by a Japanese submarine and sinks.

July 31:

The assembly of Little Boy is completed. It is ready for use the next day.
August 1:
A typhoon approaching Japan prevents launching an attack with Little Boy. Several days are required for weather to clear.

Early morning: Colonel Paul Tibbets drafts the top secret order for the first atomic bombing attack in history. It only took him a few minutes to write it. The order was sealed and sent by special courier to General Curtis LeMay's headquarters in Guam. Tibbets then selected which of his crews would fly with him on the mission. A total of seven B-29's would be used in the mission. One would be located at Iwo Jima to serve as a stand-by aircraft. Three aircraft would fly ahead of the plane carrying the atomic bomb to assess the weather of the three target cities. This information would then be relayed back to the atomic bomb carrier. The remaining two B-29's will accompany the atomic bomb carrier as observation aircraft.

Afternoon: At his Washington D.C. headquarters, General Groves receives a cablegram from General Thomas Farrell. General Farrell was Groves's deputy. The cablegram reads, "As of 1000 hours Eastern War Time, the atomic bomb was ready to drop over Japan."
August 2:
Fat Man bomb cases F-31 and F-32 arrive on Tinian, carried by 509th B-29's Luke the Spook and Laggin' Dragon. Fat Man assembly begins. Bombing date is set for August 11.

The survivors of the USS Indianapolis are rescued after four days in the water. Many died from shark attacks. The majority died in the water. 879 crew members perished, including four who died despite being rescued from the water. Only 317 crew members survived.

Early afternoon: Tibbets and his bombardier, Thomas Ferebee, arrive in Guam to meet with General LeMay to complete the remaining details of the mission order. The first order of business is to find out which target city was preferred by LeMay. LeMay's answer was "Paul, the primary's Hiroshima." Tibbets provided an immediate response: "I've always preferred it as the target." After some discussion on whether to fly into the wind or downwind for safety and bombing accuracy reasons, the conversation ends with a unanimous agreement to fly into the wind. The last order of business is for Ferebee to select his aiming point. Without hesitation, Ferebee places his index finger on the T-shaped Aioi Bridge located in the center of Hiroshima. LeMay nodded his head and Tibbets agreed, stating, "It's the most perfect aiming AP [aim point] I've seen in this whole damn war."
August 4:
Tibbets briefs the 509th Composite Group about the impending attack. He reveals that they will drop immensely powerful bombs, but the nature of the weapons is not revealed.
August 5:
At 1500, Gen. LeMay officially confirms the mission for the next day. Tibbets will take over as pilot, Capt. William "Deak" Parsons will fly as weaponeer. Tibbets names B-29 No. 82 the "Enola Gay" after his mother, over the objections of its pilot Robert Lewis. Little Boy is loaded on the plane. Also, dummy Fat Man unit F33 (complete except for plutonium core) is prepared for practice bombing run.

The Bombing of Hiroshima: August 6, 1945
[Times are in Tinian time unless otherwise noted. The time in Hiroshima is one hour behind Tinian.]
0000: Colonel Paul Tibbets gives a final briefing at one end of the crew lounge to the crews of Special Bombing Mission No. 13, consisting of the seven B-29's. The target of choice remains Hiroshima. Tibbets is pilot, Robert Lewis is co-pilot of the weapon plane, the . The two observation planes (The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil) would be carrying cameras and scientific equipment and accompany the Enola Gay.

0015: Tibbets summons Chaplain William Downey, who invites the crews to bow their heads. Downey then reads a prayer that he composed specifically for this occasion.

"Almighty Father, Who wilt hear the prayer of them that love thee, we pay thee to be with those who brave the heights of Thy heaven and who carry the battle to our enemies. Guard and protect them, we pray thee, as they fly their appointed rounds. May they, as well as we, know Thy strength and power, and armed with Thy might may they bring this war to a rapid end. We pray Thee that the end of the war may come soon, and that once more we may know peace on earth. May the men who fly this night be kept safe in Thy care, and may they be returned safely to us. We shall go forward trusting in Thee, knowing that we are in Thy care now and forever. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

0112: Trucks pick up the crews of the two observation planes that will accompany the Enola Gay.

0115: A truck picks up the crew of the Enola Gay. Tibbets and Parsons sit in the front with the driver. In the back of truck are Dutch Van Kirk, Thomas Ferebee, Robert Lewis, Jacob Beser, Morris Jeppson, Bob Caron, Robert Shumard, Joseph Stiborik, and Richard Nelson. The crew wears pale green combat overalls. The only identification they have are the dog tags around their necks. Jacob Beser's dog tag is stamped "H" for "Hebrew."

0137: The three weather planes, Straight Flush, Jabit III, and Full House, take off, each one independently assigned to assess weather conditions over Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki.

0151: takes off to assume its stand-by role as the strike spare plane at Iwo Jima.

0220: The final Enola Gay crew photo is taken. Tibbets turns to his crew and says, "Okay, let's go to work."

0227: Enola Gay 's engines are started.

0235: Enola Gay arrives at her takeoff position on the runway.

0245: Enola Gay begins takeoff roll. Colonel Paul Tibbets says to co-pilot Robert Lewis, "Let's go." He pushes all of the throttles forward. The overloaded Enola Gay lifts slowly into the night sky, using all of the more than two miles of runway.

0255: Ten minutes after takeoff, Dutch Van Kirk writes his initial entry in the navigator's log.

0300: Capt. William "Deak" Parsons taps Tibbets on the shoulder, indicating that they were going to start arming Little Boy. Parsons and Morris Jeppson, the Electronic Test Officer, climb into the bomb bay.

0310: Parsons inserts the gunpowder and the detonator into Little Boy.

0320: Parsons and Jeppson complete inserting the charge into Little Boy, and climb out of the bomb bay.

0420: Van Kirk provides an estimated time of arrival over Iwo Jima of 5:52am.

0600: The B-29s rendezvous over Iwo Jima, climb to 9,300 feet, and set their course for Japan.

0715: Jeppson removes Little Boy's safety devices and inserts the arming devices (changing from green plugs to red plugs).

0730: Tibbets announces to the crew: "We are carrying the world's first atomic bomb." He pressurizes the Enola Gay and begins an ascent to 32,700 feet. The crew puts on their parachutes and flak suits.

0809: The weather planes fly over the possible target cities. In Hiroshima, an air raid alert is communicated.

0824: The pilot of the Straight Flush weather plane sends Tibbets a coded message that states: "Cloud cover less than 3/10ths at all altitudes. Advice: bomb primary." Tibbets turns on the intercom and announces, "It's Hiroshima." Tibbets then asks Richard Nelson to send a one word message to William L. Uanna, squadron security chief on Iwo Jima: "Primary."

0831: The weather planes depart their locations. In Hiroshima, the all-clear is sounded.

0850: Flying at 31,000 ft, Enola Gay crosses Shikoku due east of Hiroshima. Bombing conditions are good, the aim point is easily visible, and no opposition is encountered.

0905: Van Kirk announces, "Ten minutes to the AP." The Enola Gay is at an altitude of 31,060 feet with an air speed of 200 miles an hour when the City of Hiroshima first comes into view. It is high tide in the Sea of Japan, so the seven branches of the Ota River are completely full and still. Male students are on their way to work at the munitions factory. Schoolgirls are already demolishing more buildings to create additional fire lanes.

0912: Control of the Enola Gay is handed over to the bombardier, Thomas Ferebee, as the bomb run begins. A Radio Hiroshima operator reports that three planes have been spotted.

0914: Tibbets tells his crew, "On glasses."

0914:17 (0814:17 Hiroshima time): Ferebee's aiming point, the T-shaped Aioi Bridge, is in clear range. The 60-second sequence to automatic release of the bomb is engaged with the Norden bombsight. Luis Alvarez, one of the Manhattan Project's senior scientists aboard The Great Artiste, releases two pressure gauges on parachutes in order to determine the bomb's yield. People on the ground, looking at the single bomber six miles above, observe the small object as it floats down.

0915:15 (8:15:15 Hiroshima time): The bomb bay doors snap open, and Little Boy drops clear of its restraining hook. Ferebee announces, "Bomb away." The nose of the Enola Gay rises ten feet as the 9,700 pound Little Boy bomb is released at 31,060 feet. Tibbets immediately pulls the Enola Gay into a sharp 155 degree turn to the right. Ferebee watches the bomb wobble before it picks up speed and falls away.

On the ground, a second air raid alert is called for. For an additional 44.4 seconds, the Enola Gay continues to flies north as the bomb drops toward its aiming point. When the designated detonation altitude is reached, Little Boy explodes over the city of Hiroshima.

At the time of the detonation, the Enola Gay is already eleven and a half miles away. Tibbets, with his back to the explosion, observes a silver blue flash and experiences a strange feeling in his mouth, the same feeling as if he touched the lead and silver fillings in his mouth with a fork.

Bob Caron, the tail gunner of the Enola Gay, is the only crew member facing Hiroshima at the time of detonation. He sees a shimmer in the atmosphere coming towards the plane. Not understanding what is happening, Caron remains quiet. Soon after, the first of the three consecutive shockwaves strike the Enola Gay and the fuselage creaks and groans with the sound of crinkling aluminum foil.

0916:02 (8:16:02 AM Hiroshima time): After falling nearly six miles in forty-three seconds, Little Boy explodes 1,968 feet above the Dr. Shima's Clinic, 550 feet away from the aiming point of the Aioi Bridge. Nuclear fission begins in 0.15 microseconds with a single neutron, initiating a supercritical chain reaction that increases the temperature to several million degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the surface of the sun at the time the bomb casing blows apart. The yield is 12.5-18 Kt (best estimate is 15 Kt).

It is the peak of the morning rush hour in Hiroshima. Above the city, the fireball is rapidly expanding.

.1 seconds: The fireball has expanded to one hundred feet in diameter combined with a temperature of 500,000°F. Neutrons and gamma rays reach the ground. The ionizing radiation is responsible for causing the majority of the radiological damage to all exposed humans, animals and other biological organisms.

.15 seconds: The superheated air above the ground glows. A woman sitting on steps on the bank of the Ota river, a half a mile away from ground zero, instantly vaporizes.

0.2-0.3 seconds: Intense infrared energy is released and instantly burns exposed skin for miles in every direction. Building roofing tiles fuse together. A bronze Buddha statue melts, and even granite stones. Roof tiles fuse together, wooden telephone poles carbonize and become charcoal-like. The soft internal organs (viscera) of humans and animals are evaporated. The blast wave propagates outward at two miles per second or 7,200 miles per hour.

1.0 second and beyond: The fireball reaches its maximum size, approximately 900 feet in diameter. The blast wave slows to approximately the speed of sound (768 miles per hour). The temperature at ground level directly beneath the blast (hypocenter) is at 7,000° F. The mushroom cloud begins to form.

The blast wave spreads fire outward in all directions at 984 miles per hour and tears and scorches the clothing off every person in its path. The blast wave hits the mountains surrounding Hiroshima and rebounds back. Approximately 60,000 out of the city's 90,000 buildings are demolished by the intense wind and firestorm.

Approximately 525 feet southwest from the hypocenter, the copper cladding covering the dome of the Industrial Products Display Hall is gone, exposing the skeleton-like girder structure of the dome. However, most of the brick and stonework of the building remains in place.

The ground within the hypocenter cools to 5,400°F. The mushroom cloud reaches a height of approximately 2,500 feet. Shards of glass from shattered windows are imbedded everywhere, even in concrete walls. The fireball begins to dim but still retains a luminosity equivalent to ten times that of the sun at a distance of 5.5 miles.

Nuclear shadows appear for the first time as a result of the extreme thermal radiation. These shadows are outlines of humans and objects that blocked the thermal radiation. Examples are the woman who was sitting on the stairs near the bank of the Ota River. Only the shadow of where she sat remains in the concrete. The shadow of a man pulling a cart across the street is all that remains in the asphalt. The shadow of a steel valve wheel appears on a concrete wall directly behind it because the thermal radiation was blocked by the outline of the wheel.

Russell Gackenbach, the navigator aboard Necessary Evil, at a distance of 15 miles from the atomic blast, is illuminated by light so bright that, even with his protective goggles on, he could have read the fine print of his pocket Bible.

On the ground, the firestorm continues to rage within an area which had now grown to over a mile wide. A gruesome, raging red and purple mass begins to rise in the sky. The mushroom column sucks superheated air, which sets fire to everything combustible. Bob Caron likens the sight to "a peep into Hell."

A coded message drafted by Parsons is sent to General Thomas Farrell at Tinian. It stated: "Clear cut, successful in all aspects. Visible effects greater than Alamogordo. Conditions normal in airplane following delivery. Proceeding to base."

circles Hiroshima a total of three times beginning at 29,200 feet and climbing towards 30,000 feet before heading for home. It was 368 miles from Hiroshima before Caron reported that the mushroom cloud was no longer visible.

0930 (0830 Hiroshima time): The Kure Navy Depot sends a message to Tokyo that a bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima.

1055 (0955 Hiroshima time): The US intercepts a message from the Japanese 12th Air Division reporting "a violent, large special-type bomb, giving the appearance of magnesium."

1100 (1000 Hiroshima time): A message from Hiroshima to the Army Ministry references information about a new American bomb and reports that "this must be it."

1458: lands in Tinian Island at the North Field. The first atomic bombing mission has lasted a total of twelve hours and thirteen minutes.

1500 (1400 Tokyo time): The Domei News Agency telegram in Tokyo reports an attack on Hiroshima, but not the magnitude of the destruction.

Evening: A senior Japanese government administrator reports enormous destruction in Hiroshima.

The uranium gun-type atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima had an explosive blast equal to approximately 12-15,000 tons of TNT, incinerating five square miles of the city surrounding the Aioi Bridge. At the time of the bombing, Hiroshima was home to 280,000-290,000 civilians as well as 43,000 soldiers. About 80,000 were killed instantly or seriously wounded. Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-month period following the explosion. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that after five years there were perhaps 200,000 or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, while the city of Hiroshima has estimated that 237,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb's effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer. Of the estimated 90,000 buildings, 62,000 were destroyed, including the elimination of all utilities and means of transportation.

To read statements by survivors recalling the horror of the bombing, please click here.

Between the Bombings

A message to Vice Chief of the Imperial Army General Staff Torashiro Kawabe reports: "The whole city of Hiroshima was destroyed instantly by a single bomb." Kawabe writes in his diary that he was "shocked tremendously," but that the Imperial Army must continue to resist.

Close advisor Koichi Kido meets with Emperor Hirohito to discuss the Hiroshima bombing.

A crash effort begins to print millions of leaflets to be dropped on major Japanese cities warning of future atomic attacks.

The decision to drop the second bomb is made on Guam. The date for dropping Fat Man is moved up to August 10, then to August 9, to avoid a projected 5 days of bad weather. This requires skipping many check out procedures during assembly.

A seven-man Imperial Army investigation team (dispatched from Tokyo and delayed by aircraft problems) arrives at Hiroshima and circles the city by plane.

Hirohito receives a report on Hiroshima from Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, who calls for an end to the war based on the Potsdam Declaration.

At Togo's request, Soviet Ambassador Naotake Sato tries to persuade the Soviets to mediate surrender negotiations. Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informs Sato that the Soviet Union is at war with Japan effective the next day.

The Japanese government does not formally meet to discuss surrender.
August 9:
Leaflet dropping and warnings to Japan by Radio Saipan begin. Nagasaki does not receive warning leaflets until August 10. Fat Man unit F33 is dropped in practice bomb run. Assembly of Fat Man unit F31 with the plutonium core is completed in the early morning. In the rush to complete the bomb, the firing unit cable was installed backwards, requiring Barney J. O'Keefe to cut the connectors and reinstall them at the very last minute.

The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria.
[Times are in Tinian time unless otherwise noted. The time in Nagasaki is one hour earlier.]
The Bombing of Nagasaki - August 9, 1945

August 8, 1400: Initial word is sent out that there would be an upcoming briefing.

2300: A pre-flight briefing is held for all crew members of the three primary planes. Rendezvous point is changed from Iwo Jima to Yakushima due to bad weather. In addition, the altitude at which the planes were to fly was raised 17,000 feet from the normal 9,000 feet. This would increase fuel consumption. Two important directives were issued by Colonel Paul Tibbets at this briefing: wait no more than fifteen minutes at the rendezvous point before proceeding on to Japan, and drop the Fat Man bomb visually.

August 9, 0215: The Bockscar crew boards the plane and performs pre-flight checks. Flight engineer John Kuharek notices the fuel pump for one of the 640 gallon reserve tanks on Bockscar is not functioning. The crew deplanes while the situation is discussed. The decision is made to carry on with the mission as planned.

0258: The two weather planes, Enola Gay and Laggin' Dragon, take off for their selected cities to monitor weather conditions.

0347: Bockscar, piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, lifts off from Tinian Island. The target of choice is Kokura Arsenal.

0351: The Great Artiste, piloted by Capt. Fred Bock, takes off.

0353: , piloted by Major James Hopkins, takes off.

0400: Cmdr. Fred Ashworth, the weaponeer on Bockscar, enters the bomb bay and switches out the safety plugs.

0910: Bockscar reaches the rendezvous point and immediately spots The Great Artiste. Big Stink is nowhere in sight. The planes increase their altitude to 30,000 feet and slowly circle Yakushima Island. The weather planes report that both Kokura and Nagasaki have cloud cover but visibility is sufficient for visual bombing.

0950: After circling for forty minutes, Bockscar and The Great Artiste finally head in the direction of Kokura. is nowhere to be seen. (Note: There are still to this day differing stories of why Big Stink failed to rendezvous with the rest.) The additional thirty minutes that Bockscar and The Great Artiste took to wait may have cost the mission visual bombing conditions over Kokura, possibly saving the city from the bombing and instead dooming Nagasaki.

1044: Bockscar arrives at Kokura, but finds it covered by haze. The aim point cannot be seen. Three bomb runs are made on Kokura, but each time the drop is called off. Flak and fighters appear, forcing the plane to stop searching for the aim point. Animated discussions take place amongst crew members as what to do next.

1132: The decision is made to head for the only secondary target in range, Nagasaki, 95 miles to the south. Major Charles Sweeney turns toward Nagasaki.

1158: Upon arriving at Nagasaki, Bockscar has enough fuel for only one pass over the city, even with an emergency landing at Okinawa. Nagasaki is covered with clouds, but one gap allows a drop several miles from the intended aim point. Bombardier Kermit Beahan releases Fat Man. Bockscar and The Great Artiste take a 155 degree dive to their right and left respectively.

1200 (1100 Tokyo time): The Imperial Supreme War Council meets to discuss a conditional surrender.

1202 (11:02 AM Nagasaki time): Fat Man explodes at an altitude of 1,650 feet over the city. Three shock waves are felt by both planes.

On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, and 400 prisoners of war. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died immediately following the atomic explosion, while another 60,000 people suffered severe injuries.

The radius of total destruction from the atomic blast was about one mile, followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to two miles south of where the bomb had been dropped. In contrast to many modern aspects of Hiroshima, almost all of the buildings in Nagasaki were of old-fashioned Japanese construction, consisting of wood or wood-frame buildings with wood walls and tile roofs. Many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also situated in buildings of wood or other materials not designed to withstand explosions. As a result, the atomic explosion over Nagasaki leveled nearly every structure in the blast radius.

The failure to drop Fat Man at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a portion of the city was protected from the explosion. The Fat Man bomb was dropped over the city's industrial valley midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works in the north. The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT, roughly the same as the Trinity blast. Nearly half of the city was completely destroyed.

1206: Bockscar and The Great Artiste, now low on fuel, head toward Okinawa. Real possibility exists for a forced landing in the water. Attempt to raise air/sea rescue units fails.

1230 (1130 Tokyo time): The Supreme War Council receives news of the Nagasaki bombing and continues to debate.

1300: Okinawa is in sight. Attempts to notify airfield of emergency landing fail. There are other planes landing at the time on the only active runway. Finally, Sweeney orders flares to be fired and Bockscar heads in. They land at 150 MPH instead of the normal 120 MPH. The number 2 engine runs out of fuel as they are on the runway.

1320: Both The Great Artiste andland at Okinawa. Big Stink had made its way to Nagasaki and arrived in time to take photographs of the bombing.

1730: Bockscar, The Great Artiste, and Big Stink take off from Okinawa for Tinian Island.

2230: The planes arrive back at North Field on Tinian. Unlike after the Hiroshima mission, no one was waiting to greet them or for photo ops.

On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, and 400 prisoners of war. Prior to August 9, Nagasaki had been the target of small-scale bombing by the United States. Though the damage from these bombings was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and many people were evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time of the nuclear attack. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died immediately following the atomic explosion, while another 60,000 people suffered severe injuries. Total deaths by the end of 1945 may have reached 80,000.

To read statements by survivors recalling the horror of the bombing, please click here.
August 9:
Aftermath

J. Robert Oppenheimer cables General Leslie Groves with the following shipping schedule for more atomic bombs: 11 Aug. first quality HE unit; 12 Aug. next plutonium core; 14 Aug. another first quality HE unit.

August 10:

The Imperial Army investigation team reports on the bombing of Hiroshima. Japanese civilian and military leaders are still unable to agree on accepting the Potsdam Declaration's surrender terms. Hirohito instead breaks the tradition of imperial non-intervention in government and makes his "sacred decision" to accept the Potsdam Declaration, but under the condition that the Emperor remain sovereign. The cabinet remains divided.

Defying the wishes of military officials, the Domei News Agency sends a message to the Allies using Morse code: "Japan Accepts Potsdam Proclamation." The United States begins broadcasting information that Japan had surrendered.
August 11:
General Groves reports that the second plutonium core would be ready for shipment on August 12 or 13, with a bombing possible on August 17 or 18. President Truman orders a halt to further atomic bombing until further orders are issued.

U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes rejects Japan's conditional surrender. His message states, "From the moment of surrender the authority of the emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers" while "the ultimate form of government of Japan shall be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people." Hirohito's postwar position is left ambiguous.

General Groves decides to delay shipping the second plutonium core and contacts Robert Bacher just after he had signed receipt for shipping the core to Tinian Island. The core is retrieved from the car before it leaves Los Alamos, NM.

General Carl Spaatz orders a halt of area firebombing, but other attacks continue.

Hirohito decides to accept the Byrnes Note and unconditional surrender. He informs the Imperial family of his decision.

The Supreme War Council meets to discuss a response to the Byrnes Note.

Hirohito orders the suspension of all military activity.

A small group of Japanese military officials plot a coup against Hirohito.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson recommends shipping the second plutonium core to Tinian Island, but no decision is made.

President Truman orders area firebombing resumed. Gen. Henry Arnold, US Army Air Force, launches a raid with over 1000 B-29s and other aircraft, carrying 6000 tons of bombs. Thousands of Japanese are killed by August 14.

August 14:

With rumors of a coup and his generals still divided, Hirohito calls together the Supreme War Council and his cabinet to announce his decision of unconditional surrender.

Major Kenji Hatanaka and Lieutenant Colonel Jiro Shiizaki lead a group of junior officers who try to seize the Imperial Palace and impose martial law, but they fail to gain the support of senior officials.

The cabinet approves a message of surrender that Japan intends to accept the Potsdam Declaration unconditionally and sends it to the Allies.

The coup fails. Hatanaka, Shiizaki, and others commit ritual suicide on the grounds of the Imperial Palace.
September 2:
Hirohito announces the decision to surrender over the radio. For many Japanese, it is their first time hearing the Emperor's voice.

Japanese officials sign the formal Japanese Instrument of Surrender on board the USS Missouri.

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombing Timeline - Nuclear Museum

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July 16: The "Gadget," an plutonium implosion device, detonates successfully in the Trinity test at Alamogordo, NM, demonstrating that the Fat Man atomic bomb design will work. Little Boy bomb units, accompanied by the U-235 projectile, are shipped out of San Francisco on the USS Indianapolis for Tinian Island.

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This article is helpful because it shows important dates of nuclear weapon development in Russia, and it compares the amount of weapons over time to the United States' amount of weapons. This supports the guiding question because it shows that Russia justifies nuclear weapons as it has grown its nuclear weapon program so rapidly and the most.

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World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society - Username

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This article is helpful because it shows video of Shinzo Abe's (the current prime minister of Japan) thoughts on nuclear weapons through his speech on the 72nd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

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Japan's Prime Minister has called for "a world free of nuclear weapons" at a ceremony to mark the 72nd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

Shinzo Abe said existing non-proliferation treaties should be strengthened, and pledged Japan would make "utmost efforts for the realisation of eternal world peace".

The country was marking the date more than seven decades since the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which detonated 600 metres above the city, killing 140,000 and effectively ending the Second World War.

The event at Peace Memorial Park, near Hiroshima's ground zero, was attended by 50,000 people and representatives from 80 nations and the EU, according to The Japan Times.

However, the commemoration has been overshadowed by the escalating threat posed by North Korea.

Last month its military tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles with major US cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago within range of attack, though it is unclear if they could be armed with nuclear warheads.

"This hell is not a thing of the past," Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said at Sunday's commemoration ceremony. "As long as nuclear weapons exist and policymakers threaten their use, their horror could leap into our present at any moment.

"You could find yourself suffering their cruelty."

If a nuclear bomb was dropped today it could cause greater damage than the Hiroshima bomb combined with the one dropped on the city of Nagasaki three days later, he added.

Japan is the only country to have come under nuclear attack, and uses the "never again" mantra to come to terms with the impact of the two bombs dropped in August 1945.

Article 5 of the country's constitution renounces war, and states that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained".

But when asked whether Japan should acquire the means to strike North Korean missile sites, Mr Abe did not reject the idea of a pre-emptive strike.

Japan currently relies on allies such as the US for nuclear deterrence, and refused to ratify or negotiate a landmark UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons last month.

When Barack Obama became the first US President to visit Hiroshima last year, Donald Trump criticised his call for an end to nuclear weapons and suggested he bring up Japan's 1941 attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour instead.

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Japan has vowed never to declare war again. Now they want the world to put down their nuclear weapons

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Japan's Prime Minister has called for "a world free of nuclear weapons" at a ceremony to mark the 72nd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. Shinzo Abe said existing non-proliferation treaties should be strengthened, and pledged Japan would make "utmost efforts for the realisation of eternal world peace".

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This article is helpful because it clearly states the Three Non-Nuclear Principles outlined on Japans official government website.

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Statement by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato at the Budget Committee in the House of Representative(December 11th, 1967) My responsibility is to achieve and maintain safety in Japan under the Three Non-Nuclear Principles of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons, in line with Japan's Peace Constitution.

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This article is helpful because it displays the impact of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in statistics and numbers. This provides solid evidence of how atomic bombs are devastating.

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Avalon Project - The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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The results of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasakias reported by the Manhattan Engineer District

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This is a great article because of the depth and detail that this article goes in to regarding Nuclear Weapons and how Japan's intense Nuclear Policy affects their world and their relations with other countries.

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Nevertheless, several neighboring countries have expressed concerns about possible Japanese nuclear ambitions due to Japanese officials' occasional nuclearization debates. Recent tension developing in the region, particularly on the Korean peninsula, has led to increased discussions in Japan about the once-taboo subject of nuclear weapons development, including comments by high-ranking officials on the possibility of amending the three non-nuclear principles in 2002.

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This article is helpful because it gives good information about the current situation with Russia's nuclear weapon program and gives you a lot of numbers with the amount of certain types of weapons Russia has.

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Sources: [1] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, "Russian Nuclear Forces, 2017," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 73.2 (March/April 2017), pp 115, www.thebulletin.org. [2] Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, "Russian Nuclear Forces, 2017," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 73.2 (March/April 2017), pp 116, www.thebulletin.org. [3] U.S.

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This article is helpful because it talks about the treaty to ban nuclear weapons. It also talks about France's views on the treaty.

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Bernard Norlain |Former Air Defense Commander and Air Combat Commander of the French Air Force

Seventy years after the very first UN resolution of which one of the key measures was to "eliminate atomic weapons from national weapons", a consultation process led by the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) within the UN General Assembly's Disarmament and International Security Committee led to the Committee adopting Resolution L41 by 123 of 193 UN Member States.

Sixteen countries abstained. Thirty eight voted against, including France and the United Kingdom. This resolution provided for the organisation of a United Nations conference with the aim of "negotiating a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination".

On this occasion, France spoke on behalf of the United Kingdom and the United States to reiterate the fear "that prohibiting nuclear weapons risks weakening the examination process for the NPT making consensus impossible, thus creating a less secure world"

However, none of the countries voting in favor of this resolution questioned the NPT. On the contrary, these countries believed that adopting the treaty to ban nuclear weapons would complete and strengthen the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation process - as is the case with the CTBT. Consequently, the arguments and fears that the process would destroy the NTP were unjustified and unfounded.

In addition, this debate which pits against each other the partisans and adversaries of such a resolution needs to be placed in the strategic context which is evolving before us. Some changes which have created new strategic pressure points include several new political and strategic divisions, including with major nuclear players, the increased complexity of a world which is both global and local, and the sudden arrival of new strategic players.

In this new context, nuclear weapons are, more than ever before, a major issue and a symbol of power. By refusing to question their nuclear status and respect the commitment to disarm, as detailed in Article VI of the NTP, the Nuclear States that are signatories to the NTP (with the exception of China), are in fact encouraging proliferation.

Nuclear weapons are becoming a factor for instability and are a direct threat to global security. Moreover, they are also provoking the resentment of a very large majority of States who have voluntarily chosen not to arm themselves with nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment from the five Nuclear Weapon States recognized by the NTP to get rid of their nuclear weapons in the long term.

Thus, the realistic assessment of the world at the beginning of the 21st century and the new global strategic alliances which will govern it, should incite the Nuclear Weapon States to become conscious of the increasing threat that nuclear weapons pose to their security and global security and to respect first and foremost their commitment to removing their nuclear weapons.

The United Kingdom and France have an important role to play in this regard. Their proximity in terms of volume of nuclear forces and geostrategy, notably their position in Europe, gives them (despite Brexit) particular responsibility among Nuclear Weapon States. What is more, the Lancaster House Agreements solidify a political and technological link in the nuclear weapon field which makes these two countries even closer allies.

Our two countries, if they wish for the NPT to continue to operate, must promote a process of multilateral disarmament. Far from putting the NPT into decline, this process would have the primary consequence of strengthening it. This is particularly true in the current context of a new nuclear arms race between the nine states with nuclear weapons.

Committing to a progressive and controlled multilateral nuclear disarmament process, like the one that has been achieved for chemical and bacteriological weapons, would reduce strategic pressures and remove the nuclear threat which is so destructive for humanity.

Faced with an increase in strategic tensions and the risk of spiraling conflict, particularly in Europe, our two nations, key players in European security, should support a treaty whose implementation would prevent nuclear conflict from breaking out, including on the European soil.

Finally, France and the United Kingdom, two of the great powers who have dominated the world for centuries and who have thus the responsibility and mission to promote the values of liberty and equality, must listen to the voices of those countries who wish to live without a direct or indirect threat of a nuclear attack. These countries who have chosen not to acquire nuclear weapons want those who are already armed with nuclear weapons to respect their commitments and proceed with the total removal of their nuclear weapons.

According to the process started by Resolution 41, "a conference open to all States" should be called in 2017, following the last vote of the UN General Assembly in December this year, "with the participation and contribution of international organizations and civil society, in order to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination".

For all of these reasons, France and the United Kingdom, mindful of their commitments and responsible for the collective security in Europe, must participate in such negotiations and not oppose the adoption of a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons.
The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELN's aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europe's capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security challenges of our time.

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France, the UK and the Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons

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Bernard Norlain |Former Air Defense Commander and Air Combat Commander of the French Air Force Seventy years after the very first UN resolution of which one of the key measures was to "eliminate atomic weapons from national weapons", a consultation process led by the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) within the UN General Assembly's Disarmament and International Security Committee led to the Committee adopting Resolution L41 by 123 of 193 UN Member States.

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this is a great source because it has estimates of the total number of nukes each world power has, lined up next to each other for comparison

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Nine countries together possess around 15,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their nuclear weapons on high-alert status - ready to be launched within minutes of a warning. Most are many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. A single nuclear warhead, if detonated on a large city, could kill millions of people, with the effects persisting for decades.

The failure of the nuclear powers to disarm has heightened the risk that other countries will acquire nuclear weapons. The only guarantee against the spread and use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them without delay. Although the leaders of some nuclear-armed nations have expressed their vision for a nuclear-weapon-free world, they have failed to develop any detailed plans to eliminate their arsenals and are modernizing them.

How many nuclear weapons are there in the world?

COUNTRY NUCLEAR PROGRAMME SIZE OF ARSENAL
Total 14,900 warheads

Source: Federation of American Scientists 2017

The wider problem

Five European nations host US nuclear weapons on their soil as part of a NATO nuclear-sharing arrangement, and roughly two dozen other nations claim to rely on US nuclear weapons for their security. Furthermore, there are many nations with nuclear power or research reactors capable of being diverted for weapons production. The spread of nuclear know-how has increased the risk that more nations will develop the bomb.

Nations with nuclear weapons

United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea

Nations hosting nuclear weapons

Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey

Nations in nuclear alliances

Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain (plus the five host nations)

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Nine countries together possess around 15,000 nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia maintain roughly 1,800 of their nuclear weapons on high-alert status - ready to be launched within minutes of a warning. Most are many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

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This documentary within the last half an hour talks about how there was an American frenzy for nuclear weapons. It shows the affect of nuclear weapon testing on the citizens of a country.

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PBS - Atomic Bomb / Nuclear Bomb Documentary "The Bomb" 720p Remastered Video

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Outline of Japan's International Peace Cooperation -Benji Clachko

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Outline of Japan's International Peace Cooperation -Benji Clachko

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This article shows what Japan submitted to the United Nations and it states their thoughts on world peace.

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Outline of Japan's International Peace Cooperation

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In order to play a more proactive role in fostering international peace, Japan enacted the Act on Cooperation with United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Other Operations (the International Peace Cooperation Act) in June 1992. Since then, Japan has made substantial personnel and in-kind contributions for efforts toward international peace mainly led by the United Nations.

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This page is very helpful especially when determining Churchill's views on nuclear weapons

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'the best thing I've read this year'Lisa Jardine

'Remarkable and important'Claire Tomalin

'Superbly informative'Antoine Capet

'Enthralling'Norman Dombey
Contemporary
Physics

'Entertaining'Physics Today

'Fresh & compelling ... a page-turner'The Scotsman

'Written with
all of Farmelo's characteristic rigour and panache'Brian Cathcart

'Farmelo
offers a fresh history of the development of atomic weapons'Mary Jo Nye

'What a fantastic, compelling book!'Sir Michael Berry

'A fine work'Nicholas Sambaluk
West Point

A hidden story of science, politics and war

Winston Churchill was a nuclear visionary, repeatedly warning before World War II that the nuclear age was imminent. Early in WWII, physicists in Britain showed that the Bomb could almost certainly be built. Prime Minister Churchill paid only fitful interest in the speculative weapon and the initiative soon passed to the US, which had the vast resources needed to realise the venture. British scientists played only a minor role in it. Churchill dismissed warnings from the Danish physicist Niels Bohr that Anglo-American nuclear policy would lead to an arms race. After the war, the US government declined to honour a personal agreement between Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill to share their countries' nuclear research. After Churchill returned to power in 1951, during the Cold War, he became the first British leader to have nuclear weapons, and also commissioned the H-bomb. Appalled by the prospect of thermonuclear war, he ended his political career as pioneer of détente.

1. 'A scientist who missed his vocation'

Churchill was interested in basic science - in 1926, he was captivated by atomic physics and chaired a talk seven years later on the epoch-making nuclear discoveries made at Ernest Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.

Chartwell, Churchill''s country seat

Frederick Lindemann (left) with physicist Erwin Schrödinger (right) in Oxford, 1933

'All the qualities ... of the scientist are manifest in him. The readiness to face realities, even though they contradict a favourite hypothesis; the recognition that theories are made to ﬁt facts, not facts to ﬁt the theories; the interest in phenomena and the desire to explore them, and above all the underlying conviction that the world is not just a jumble of events but that there must be some higher unity.' Lindemann talking about Winston Churchill, 15 March 1933

Churchill''s article 'Fifty Years Hence published in The Strand Magazine, December 1931

'There is no question among scientists that this gigantic source of energy exists. What is lacking is the match to set the bonﬁre alight ... The scientists are looking for this.' Churchill on nuclear energy (1931)' Churchill on nuclear energy (1931)

Clock Tower, University of Birmingham, a stone's throw from where Frisch and Peierls wrote their memo in March 1940

'As a weapon, the super-bomb would be practically irresistible. There is no material structure that could be expected to resist the force of the explosion.' Frisch-Peierls memorandum, March 1940

4. Churchill's nuclear deal with FDR

Confronted with American attempts to shut down nuclear collaboration, in August 1943 Churchill signed a secret agreement with President Roosevelt. This enabled British scientists to re-engage with the Manhattan Project, and cemented an Anglo-American partnership. The deal fell apart after the War.

Group photo at the Quebec meeting, August 1943

Niels Bohr, c. 1943

'He scolded us like two schoolboys' - Niels Bohr on Churchill, after meeting him and Lindemann

William Penney, c. 1952

7. Octogenarian and nuclear experimenter

After leaving office, Churchill remained interested in the British nuclear programme. In his early eighties, during a visit to the British government's nuclear research centre, he participated in an experiment to scatter neutrons.

Left and right: Churchill at Harwell, 30 December 1954, when he first took part in a nuclear experiment

8. Churchill's legacy to science and technology

In the mid-1950s, Churchill decided to set up a new institution that would increase the number and the quality of Britain's science and engineering graduates. The project became the building of Churchill College, Cambridge, whose first master was the nuclear pioneer John Cockcroft, one of Rutherford's students.

Churchill visits the site of the Cambridge College named after him, 17 October 1959 (photo probably taken by Paul or Manci Dirac)

Churchill College, Cambridge (2013)

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'the best thing I've read this year' Lisa Jardine 'Remarkable and important' Claire Tomalin 'Superbly informative' Antoine Capet 'Enthralling' Norman Dombey Contemporary Physics 'Entertaining' Physics Today 'Fresh & compelling ... a page-turner' The Scotsman 'Written with all of Farmelo's characteristic rigour and panache' Brian Cathcart 'Farmelo offers a fresh history of the development of atomic weapons' Mary Jo Nye 'What a fantastic, compelling book!'

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This talks about how the UK used Nuclear weapons and Nuclear submarines. it also talks about the reasons they have these things and what they use them for. It mentions how nato is involved.

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One of Jeremy Corbyn's first battles shortly after he became Labour leader was trying to have a debate on the renewal of Trident, Britain's submarine-based nuclear deterrent. Introduced in 1994 to replace the predecessor system Polaris, Trident is expected to last until the middle of the next decade, which means that construction of a new system needs to begin soon. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't believe that it should be renewed, and the Conservatives have called a vote today on whether its replacement should go ahead. The Conservative have consistently pledged a replacement to Trident, promising four submarines to deliver a continuous deterrent with a submarine always at sea at a likely cost of over £20bn just to build. Given the immense cost - the nuclear fleet are the most expensive items the UK owns - why would the UK want to maintain the ability to launch nuclear missiles from beneath the sea?

In a 2007 vote, MPs voted for plans to renew Trident by 409 to 161. Since then the government has been spending hundreds of millions of pounds planning the Trident replacement. As one of the five permanent and founding members of the Security Council, the UK is one of the biggest global defence spenders and a recognized nuclear power with the power to veto UN Security Council resolutions. The UK hasn't used the right to veto since 1989 when it was used to defend the US invasion of Panama, but with that place on the UN Security Council the UK has a seat at the very highest table in international politics alongside the USA, Russia, China and France.

While some point to the difficulty of removing the UK from the Council, members are the only states recognized as "nuclear weapon states" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and many fear that abandoning the UK's nuclear weapons would loosen our grip on permanent membership.

Since the US bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, no nation has used a nuclear weapon in wartime. During the Cold War, the UK's nuclear submarines were part of NATO's targeted planning of USSR sites to allow NATO to launch a nuclear counter strike independent of national orders. Such drastic planning for the remote circumstances of a full-scale nuclear war were part of the stalemate that prevented the Cold War from ever becoming hot and prevented "nuclear blackmail" of Europe.

Eric Schlosser: 'It's extraordinary no city has been destroyed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki'

Today, India and Pakistan's nuclear weapons are part of the fragile balancing act between the nations that has prevented full-scale war. With Russia's expansionist conduct in Georgia, the Ukraine, and their actions in Syria, it would be impossible not to rule out Russia as a threat to global peace and stability. The threat of nuclear weapons might not deter Isis, but between states they have the powerful effect of raising the stakes to a point at which conventional warfare becomes too dangerous to contemplate. As the victim of nuclear weapons, Japan has long avoided them, but with tensions with China in the East China Sea, there have even been calls in Japan to develop nuclear weapons. Given the global trend towards proliferation, unilateral abandonment of nuclear weapons is considered by many to pose a major risk to the UK's security.

Submarine-based nuclear weapons give the UK the ability to hide their nuclear weapons, and to fire them independent of communication. One of the first jobs an incoming UK prime minister has is to sit and write the instructions to nuclear submarines that sit in their safes while on patrol, to be opened in the event of nuclear war. These "letters of last resort" are part of the system that ensures the UK's nuclear deterrent is a functioning deterrent in all circumstances. At any one time the UK has a submarine carrying 16 nuclear missiles, each capable of hitting targets 7,000 miles away. Each missile has a dozen independent warheads with the power to destroy a city. There is no scenario in which the destruction of 192 cities is a good outcome, but the chilling effect of Trident is to massively discourage aggression against the UK or nuclear blackmail by states against the UK. There are even rumours that Margaret Thatcher persuaded French President François Mitterrand to give the UK the codes to disable Argentina's French missiles during the Falklands war by threatening to fire a nuclear weapon at Argentina. Such is the persuasive power of such weapons in conflict, even when they are not deployed.

Britain's nuclear deterrent is an expensive one, but it is estimated that up to 15,000 jobs depend on it. Britain has never had to use a nuclear weapon, but there is evidence that having them has assisted the UK in conflict and in peacetime. While the rest of the world continues to pursue them, it would seem prudent to hold on to ours, and to our foremost position in the United Nations. Jeremy Corbyn couldn't persuade his party even to debate Trident, let alone to vote against it, which will leave Britain's top military planners, and the British defence industry, sighing with relief.

Follow Rupert Myers on Twitter: @RupertMyers

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One of Jeremy Corbyn's first battles shortly after he became Labour leader was trying to have a debate on the renewal of Trident, Britain's submarine-based nuclear deterrent. Introduced in 1994 to replace the predecessor system Polaris, Trident is expected to last until the middle of the next decade, which means that construction of a new system needs to begin soon.

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Provides very helpful and useful information on the atomic race from a US standpoint. It shows how although the US were not all for using the atomic bomb, it was a very useful weapon that they wouldn’t get behind on.

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Provides solid information about the early stages of Russia's nuclear weapon program and some of the events where Russia tested it's nuclear weapons and what type of weapons they were.

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I remember President Kennedy once stated... that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wipe out the Unites States only once... When journalists asked me to comment...

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This article is helpful because it provides the Soviet Unions views on having a nuclear weapon program.

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Born Iosif Visarrianovich Dzhugashvili, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party and Premier of the Soviet Union.

Early Life and Rise to Power

Stalin was born in the modern day Republic of Georgia. By most accounts, his father struggled with alcoholism, and Stalin's family life was unstable at best. He eventually entered seminary school before he became disillusioned with religion and joined the Bolshevik movement. It was during his time as a young Bolshevik activist that he began using the "Stalin" alias, which roughly translates to "Man of Steel."

Stalin's ascension to the forefront of the Communist Party mirrored the party's own expanding influence in Russia. By the time Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, the party was in control of the country and Stalin was in position to lead the party. To do so he defeated other party officials in a power struggle, ultimately exiling his chief rival Leon Trotsky. By the 1930s he had dictatorial control over the new Soviet Union.

Soviet Leader

Stalin's time as General Secretary of the Communist Party (which was the country's de facto head of state, although he would later officially became Premier) was a period of massive change and instability in the Soviet Union. Throughout the 1930s he led infamous "purges" that saw multitudes of political enemies and ethnic minorities imprisoned, exiled, or executed. He was also the catalyst behind efforts to rapidly develop the Soviet Union's industrial prowess, which threw the country's economy, which had previously depended on agriculture, into tumult.

At the same time, Stalin dedicated himself to creating a cult of personality. This including attaching his name to many cities, buildings, and monuments. By World War II, Stalin's name would be included in the Soviet national anthem.

Stalin and the Atomic Bomb

Stalin was keenly focused on the expansion of Soviet ideals around the world. He envisioned a Soviet Union that had the military capability to expand far beyond Russia. As such, he was eager to pursue any possible military development that could give the USSR an edge over other world powers. To that end, the Soviet Union maintained an active espionage program to follow the military activity of the country's rivals. Through these channels, Stalin became aware of the beginnings of a bomb program in Britain by 1940, with knowledge of the upcoming American program soon to follow. In fact, Stalin was aware of the Manhattan Project's existence before future President Harry Truman.

After receiving notices from Soviet spies and Soviet physicists who were cognizant of the direction of their field, Stalin began taking steps to creating a Soviet nuclear program. Despite this, he was still skeptical of much of the intelligence he was receiving that directed him to that conclusion, particularly that which would lead him to pricey investments in nuclear physics. As a result, the initial Soviet nuclear program was quite small. It was not until after the first atomic weapon was used at Hiroshima that Stalin fully realized the potential impact that developing nuclear weapons for the Soviet Union could have on international politics.

After the war, Stalin spared no expense on the immediate development of the Soviet nuclear program, even though the country was facing massive amounts of war-related death and destruction. Stalin at one point remarked to Igor Kurchatov, the leading scientist on the Soviet nuclear program, "If a child does not cry, the mother doesn't understand what he needs. Ask for anything you'd like, you won't be let down."

Stalin's dedication soon resulted in the first Soviet nuclear weapon, "First Lightning," (nicknamed Joe-1 in the United States) in 1949. The aim of the postwar Soviet nuclear program was to undermine American nuclear hegemony, and that began with ending the American nuclear monopoly. Stalin pursued this criterion for the rest of his life, and the Soviet Union successfully detonated its first hydrogen bomb within months of Stalin's death in 1953.

For more information on Joseph Stalin and the Soviet nuclear program, click here.

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Born Iosif Visarrianovich Dzhugashvili, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party and Premier of the Soviet Union. Stalin was born in the modern day Republic of Georgia. By most accounts, his father struggled with alcoholism, and Stalin's family life was unstable at best.

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This is a very helpful resource because it covers all of the information on the U.K and their opinions about nuclear weapons and nuclear attacks and all of the statistics about them.

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The United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent resides on four Vanguard-class submarines, each outfitted to carry 8 U.S.-supplied Trident II (D-5) sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and up to 40 warheads as of January 2015. [32] [33] The UK shares a pool of missiles with the United States at the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic, Kings Bay Submarine Base, Georgia.

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This source is helpful because it explains Japan's nuclear weapon program

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Founded in 1995 during the NPT Review and Extension Conference, Abolition 2000 is an international non-governmental global network working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. The coalition consists of over 2,000 organizations from 90 different countries that work both independently and in concert to accomplish the goal of nuclear abolition through an eleven point program.

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This article is helpful because it provides the impact both atomic bombs had on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including the number of people who died and the number of people affected.

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Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Causes, Impact & Lives Lost

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On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, immediately killing 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.

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This article is helpful because it provides a full view on the amount of money America spent on its nuclear weapon program throughout the course of the Cold War.

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Cost of U.S. Nuclear Weapons | How Much Does a Nuclear Bomb Cost? | NTI

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Learn about the costs incurred by the United States developing and maintaining nuclear weapons, including dismantlement, storage & disposal of radioactive wastes.

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This article is helpful because it has helpful information about Great Britain's stance on nuclear weapons and their view.

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The United Kingdom maintains a fleet of four ballistic missile submarines with the ability to devastate even the largest of countries. This fleet came into being after its ally, the United States, canceled a key weapon system that would have been the cornerstone of London's nuclear arsenal. Fifty years later, the UK's missile submarine force is the sole custodian of the country's nuclear weapons, providing a constant deterrent against nuclear attack.

The United Kingdom's nuclear force in the early 1960s relied upon the so-called "V-Force" strategic bombers: the Avro Vulcan, Handley Page Victor and Vickers Valiant. The bombers were set to be equipped with the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile, which could penetrate Soviet defenses at speeds of up to Mach 12.4 (9,500 miles an hour). Unfortunately technical problems plagued Skybolt, and the U.S. government canceled the missile in 1962.

Skybolt's cancellation threatened to undo the UK's entire nuclear deterrent, and the two countries raced to come up with a solution. The United States agreed to offer the new Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile to replace Skybolt. The United Kingdom had no missile submarines to carry Polaris-it would have to build them.

A study by the Ministry of Defense concluded that, like France, the UK would need at least five ballistic missile submarines to maintain a credible deterrent posture. This number would later be reduced to four submarines. Like the French Le Redoutable class, the submarines would bear a strong resemblance to the U.S. Navy's Lafayette-class ballistic missile submarines, with two rows of eight missiles tubes each behind the sail. Unlike Lafayette and Le Redoutable, the new submarines of the Royal Navy's Resolution-class would have their hydroplanes on the bow, with the ability to fold up when parked along a pier.

Most of the submarine was British, with two built by Vickers Armstrong at Furness and two by Cammel Laird at Birkenhead. The missiles, missile launch tubes and fire control mechanisms, however, were built in the United States. Each submarine was equipped with sixteen Polaris A-3 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The Polaris had a range of 2,500 miles and was originally equipped with a single British warhead. A midlife improvement for the missile, Polaris A-3TK, replaced the single warhead with two Chevaline warheads plus penetration aids.

The first submarine, HMS Resolution, was laid down in 1964 and commissioned in 1967, followed by Repulse and Renown, commissioned in 1968, and the aptly-named Revenge in 1969. Resolution first successfully launched a missile off the coast of Florida in February 1968.

In the early 1980s, it became clear that the Resolution class would eventually need replacement. Despite the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet threat, London held firm and built all four ships. The UK again decided to build its own submarines and outfit them with American missiles. The result were the four Vanguard-class submarines: Vanguard (commissioned in 1993), Victorious (1995), Vigilant (1996) and Vengeance (1999). Vanguard carried out her first Trident II missile firing in 1994, and undertook her first operational patrol in 1995.

At 15,000 tons displacement, the Vanguards are twice the the size of the Resolution class that preceded them. Although each submarine has sixteen launch tubes, a decision was made in 2010 to load each sub with just eight American-built Trident II D-5 submarine launched ballistic missiles. The Trident II D-5 has a range of 4,600 miles, meaning it can strike targets across European Russia with ease. Each D-5 carries eight multiple independently targetable warhead 100 kiloton warheads, giving each submarine a total of 6.4 megatons of nuclear firepower.

UK missile submarine crews, like their American counterparts, maintain two crews per boat to increase ship availability. Under a program known as Continuous At Sea Deterrence (CASD) at least one submarine is on patrol at all times, with another coming off patrol, another preparing for a patrol and a fourth undergoing maintenance. According to the Royal Navy, CASD has not missed a single day in the last forty-eight years without a submarine on patrol.

In 2016, the Ministry of Defense announced the next generation of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, dubbed Successor, would be the Dreadnought class. The Royal Navy will builds four Dreadnought-class subs, each weighing 17,200 tons, with construction beginning in September 2016. Each will have twelve missile tubes instead of sixteen, and the subs will recycle the Trident II D-5 missiles from their predecessors. The Dreadnought boats are expected to enter service in the 2030s and have a thirty-year life cycle. The ministry expects the new submarines to cost an estimated $39 billion over thirty-five years, with a $12 billion contingency. The introduction of the third generation Dreadnought class will provide the UK with a powerful strategic deterrent until the 2060s and possibly beyond.

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Great Britain's Nuclear Weapons Could Easily Destroy Entire Countries

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The United Kingdom maintains a fleet of four ballistic missile submarines with the ability to devastate even the largest of countries. This fleet came into being after its ally, the United States, canceled a key weapon system that would have been the cornerstone of London's nuclear arsenal.

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This article is helpful because it provides information about what the United States and Japan thought about Nuclear Weapons and how it affected their world during war.

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The first bomb, dropped on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, resulted in a death toll of around 135,000. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed at least 50,000 people - according to some estimates, as many as 74,000 died. But was the US justified in dropping the atomic bombs? Here, readers George Evans-Hulme and Roy Ceustermans debate.
George: Yes, it was. The US was, like the rest of the world, soldiering on towards the end of a dark period of human history that had seen the single most costly conflict (in terms of life) in history, and they chose to adopt a stance that seemed to limit the amount of casualties in the war, by significantly shortening it with the use of atomic weapons.

It was certainly a reasonable view for the USA to take, since they had suffered the loss of more than 418,000 lives, both military and civilian. To the top rank of the US military the 135,000 death toll was worth it to prevent the "many thousands of American troops [that] would be killed in invading Japan" - a view attributed to the president himself.

This was a grave consequence taken seriously by the US. Ordering the deployment of the atomic bombs was an abhorrent act, but one they were certainly justified in doing.

Roy: No, the US wasn't justified. Even secretary of war Henry Lewis Stimson was not sure the bombs were needed to reduce the need of an invasion: "Japan had no allies; its navy was almost destroyed; its islands were under a naval blockade; and its cities were undergoing concentrated air attacks."

The United States still had many industrial resources to use against Japan, and thus it was essentially defeated. Rear Admiral Tocshitane Takata concurred that B-29s "were the greatest single factor in forcing Japan's surrender", while Prince Konoye already thought Japan was defeated on 14 February 1945 when he met emperor Hirohito.

A combination of thoroughly bombing blockading cities that were economically dependent on foreign sources for food and raw materials, and the threat of Soviet entry in the war, would have been enough.

The recommendations for the use of the bomb show that the military was more interested in its devastating effect than in preparing the invasion. Therefore the destruction of hospitals and schools etc was acceptable to them.

George: The USA was more interested in a quick and easy end to the war than causing untold suffering. They had in their hands a weapon that was capable of bringing the war to a swift end, and so they used it.

The atom bombs achieved their desired effects by causing maximum devastation. Just six days after the Nagasaki bombing, the Emperor's Gyokuon-hōsō speech was broadcast to the nation, detailing the Japanese surrender. The devastation caused by the bombs sped up the Japanese surrender, which was the best solution for all parties.

If the atomic bombs had not had the devastating effect they had, they would have been utterly pointless. They replaced thousands of US bombing missions that would have been required to achieve the same effect of the two bombs that, individually, had the explosive power of the payload of 2,000 B-29s. This freed up resources that could be utilised for the war effort elsewhere.

Roy: After the bloody battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the death toll on both sides was high, and the countries' negative view of one other became almost unbridgeable, says J Samuel Walker in Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and The Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan. Therefore, the US created unconditional terms of surrender, knowingly going against the Japanese ethic of honour and against the institute of the emperor, whom most Americans probably wanted dead.

Consequently, the use of the atomic bomb became a way to avenge America's fallen soldiers while also keeping the USSR in check in Europe. The Japanese civilian casualties did not matter in this strategy. Also, it did not prevent the Cold War, as the USSR was just a few years behind on a-bomb research.

At the time, revenge, geopolitics and an expensive project that could not be allowed to simply rust away, meant the atomic bomb had to be hastily deployed "in the field" in order to see its power and aftermath - though little was known about radiation and its effects on humans.

George: Admittedly, the US did use the atom bomb to keep the USSR in line, and for that it served its purpose. It may not have stopped the Soviets developing their own nuclear device, but that's not what it was intended for. It was used as a deterrent to keep the (sometimes uneasy) peace between the US and the USSR, and it achieved that. There are no cases of a direct, all-out war between the US and the Soviets that can be attributed to the potentially devastating effects of atomic weaponry.

The atomic bombs certainly established US dominance immediately after the Second World War - the destructive power it possessed meant that it remained uncontested as the world's greatest power until the Soviets developed their own weapon, four years after the deployment at Nagasaki. It is certainly true that Stalin and the Soviets tried to test US dominance, but even into the 1960s the US generally came out on top.

Roy: The price to keep the USSR in check was steep: the use of a weapon of mass destruction that caused around 200,000 deaths (most of them civilians) and massive suffering through radiation. However, it did not stop the USSR from creating the same weapon within four years.

It might be argued that, following the explosions, Japan virtually disappeared from the world stage while the USSR viewed the bombing as an incentive to acquire the same weaponry in order to retaliate in equal force if the atomic bomb was ever used again. Considering the tension between the two countries, a similar attack with tens of thousands of civilian casualties would have created a nuclear apocalypse.

If the US had organised a demonstration, as they had briefly considered, the USSR would still have responded in the same manner, while Japan - which had made clear overtures for a (un)conditional surrender - could have been spared. Furthermore, by postponing the use of the bomb, scientists would have had time to understand the test results, meaning further anguish, like the Bikini Atoll [a huge US hydrogen bomb test in 1954 that had major consequences for the geology and natural environment, and on the health of those who were exposed to radiation] could have been avoided.

George: The large civilian death toll that resulted from the bombings can be seen as a small price to pay by the United States in return for their assertion of dominance on the world stage.

The USSR's development of an atomic weapon had been underway since 1943, and so their quest for nuclear devices cannot be solely attributed to the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It should also be considered that the Soviets' rapid progress in creating an atom bomb was not exclusively down to their desire to compete with the United States, but from spies passing them US secrets.

Postponing the use of the atom bomb would only have prolonged the war and potentially created an even worse fate for the people of Japan, with an estimated five to 10 million Japanese fatalities - a number higher than some estimates for the entire Soviet military in the Second World War.

Ultimately, the atomic bombs did what they were designed to do. They created such a high level of devastation that the Japanese felt they had no option but to surrender unconditionally to the United States, hence resulting in US victory and the end of the Second World War.

Roy: Of course civilian casualties of another nation would have been acceptable to the USA. Japan had made clear overtures to peace, but cultural differences made this nearly impossible (the shame of unconditional surrender goes against their code of honour).

The determination to use an expensive bomb instead of letting it rust away; the desire to find out how devastating it was and the opportunity to use the bomb as a strong showcase of US supremacy, made Japan the ideal target.

Obviously, the USSR would eventually succeed in creating the a-bomb. Therefore, making Hiroshima & Nagasaki the example of the tremendous power of the bombs would make it clear to the USSR that they too needed such weapons to defend themselves.

Moreover, other countries claimed the right of nuclear weapons to defend their citizens. Consequently, the tragic bombings became the example of an arm's race instead of peace.

Furthermore, since Japan was already on the brink of collapse the bombing was unnecessary, and peace talks would have taken place within a decent time frame (even after the cancelled Hawaii summit). The millions of deaths calculated by Operation Downfall [the codename for the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of the Second World War, which was abandoned when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] actually show that only desperation and honour stood between Japan and unconditional surrender.
George, from Wolverhampton, is currently studying for his A-levels, which include modern history, at Kenilworth Sixth Form in Warwickshire. He volunteers for the National Trust as a room guide at the Baddesley Clinton Estate. He has a passion for military and political history, and enjoys visiting historical sites across the UK. Roy, 29, from Belgium, has a master's degree in the history of the Catholic Church; an advanced master's degree on the historical expansion, exchange and globalisation of the world, and a master's degree in management. He has worked as a complaint manager for the city of Leuven, and is now an inspector for the Cadastre [tax office]. Last year during his honeymoon Roy visited the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. Photos taken immediately after the 1945 bombing have left a lasting impression on him. If you enjoyed this article, why not subscribe to the print edition of BBC History Magazine? Alternatively, subscribe to the magazine digitally - on iPad and iPhone, Kindle and Kindle Fire, Google Play and Zinio.

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Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War? You debate

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The first bomb, dropped on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, resulted in a death toll of around 135,000. The second, which hit Nagasaki on 9 August, killed at least 50,000 people - according to some estimates, as many as 74,000 died. But was the US justified in dropping the atomic bombs?

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Miranda Del Carmen Rodriguez Diaz Gonzalez Quintero Monroy

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Miranda Del Carmen Rodriguez Diaz Gonzalez Quintero Monroy

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This article is helpful because it describes all of Japan's experiences and events with nuclear weapons and how it has impacted their view on those weapons.

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Nevertheless, several neighboring countries have expressed concerns about possible Japanese nuclear ambitions due to Japanese officials' occasional nuclearization debates. Recent tension developing in the region, particularly on the Korean peninsula, has led to increased discussions in Japan about the once-taboo subject of nuclear weapons development, including comments by high-ranking officials on the possibility of amending the three non-nuclear principles in 2002.

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This article is helpful because it is about how Great Britain seemed to be forgotten during the Cold War. However, this article shows how Britain was affected during this time and you can infer on why a nuclear war would have been a bad idea.

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LADY THATCHER was conspicuous by her absence in Berlin this week. As George Bush, Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev reminisced on a stage together about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the woman who earned the sobriquet "iron lady" because of her resolute stance in the cold war remained in Britain. Some said it was because her presence in Berlin was inappropriate, given her deep misgivings about the unification of Germany. Others said it was simply a scheduling conflict. But whatever the real cause of the iron lady's absence, it captured the insousiance with which Britain is commemorating the end of the cold war.

Nobody disputes that the end of the cold war was a defining moment for the United States-and even more obviously for Germany and the Soviet Union. But when it comes to Britain there has been strikingly little reflection about how things changed in 1989. Historians and commentators have tended to regard the cold war as something that happened somewhere else; and to regard the defining questions for post-war Britain as the loss of empire, or the endless prevarication about Europe.

But, in fact, it was the cold war, more than any other event, that determined Britain's approach to the post-war world. Martin Longden of the University of Leeds points out that at the end of the second world war, the new Labour government was hoping to place Britain at the head of a new European block. Labour's foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, told the Foreign Office in August 1945 that Britain's aim was "extensive political, economic and military co-operation throughout Western Europe, with an Anglo-French alliance as a corner-stone."

However, his ambitions were thwarted by increasing tensions between the old wartime allies; Britain and the United States on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other. The French, with communists in General de Gaulle's government, were thought politically unreliable. And Britain's dire economic problems undermined its ability to ensure European security, in the face of what was perceived to be an immediate Soviet threat. So it became Britain's overriding aim to tie the Americans into Europe. The closeness of Anglo-American military and intelligence ties, driven by the cold war, became a defining feature of British foreign policy-and a source of tension between Britain and France, which led de Gaulle twice to veto British membership of the then European Economic Community, on the grounds of Britain's irremediable Atlanticism.

The cold war also had a huge impact on the British economy. David Edgerton, professor of the history of science at Imperial College, London, is the author of "The Rise of the British Warfare State", to be published next year. He argues that it would be more accurate to describe post-war Britain as a "warfare state" than as a "welfare state". Despite the creation of the National Health Service, Britain's spending on welfare as a proportion of GDP was actually low compared with its main European allies, whereas its spending on defence and warfare was the highest of the big European powers. After the immediate post-war disarmament, Britain began to rearm at a faster rate than at any time in its peacetime history. Come the early 1950s and the first set-piece cold war confrontation in Korea, Britain was spending almost 10% of its GDP on defence. Although by the 1980s this figure had halved, Britain still spent more on defence than any of the NATO allies except America.

Arguably, the rearmament of the early 1950s used up skilled labour and machinery at a crucial time, when Britain was struggling to recover from the second world war. There was an enormous concentration by government on defence-related research and development, which crowded out what might otherwise have been more productive research. Needless to say, several of these weapons programmes were costly flops, such as the Blue Streak missile and the TSR2 jet, both cancelled in the 1960s. By the early 1960s it was clear that Germany and France were beginning to pull clear of Britain economically. Could it have been, in part, because they did not have the defence burden as a drag on their economies?

Harriet Jones, director of the Institute of Contemporary British History, argues that the cold war also had a profound effect on domestic politics. In the 1951 election, the Tories used posters with the slogan "Socialism leads to Communism" against a background of an atomic mushroom cloud. In the 1980s, the Tories again skilfully exploited Labour's links to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Ms Jones suggests that the cold war environment was essential to the success of post-war conservatism, and that it was no coincidence that the Tories fell into disarray in the 1990s, without the glue of anti-communism to hold them together.

Discussing the legacy of the cold war has become a mini-industry in much of the United States and Eastern Europe. Britain is only just realising that-for all the concentration on empire and Europe-for almost 50 years it was the cold war which shaped Britain, for good, perhaps, but also probably for ill.

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LADY THATCHER was conspicuous by her absence in Berlin this week. As George Bush, Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev reminisced on a stage together about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the woman who earned the sobriquet "iron lady" because of her resolute stance in the cold war remained in Britain.

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This article is helpful because it describes how Japan did not join United Nations talks of disarmament, which is viewed as a betrayal to their own legacy and experience with nuclear weapons (atomic bomb).

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Many nations that previously championed their nuclear disarmament credentials have now been outed as part of the problem

In a historic vote at the United Nations on Friday, 122 nations adopted a new nuclear weapon prohibition treaty (NWPT) to ban the acquisition, development, production, manufacture, possession, transfer, receipt, testing, extraterritorial stationing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. The NWPT is the most significant multilateral development on nuclear arms control since the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968.

Many nations that have previously championed their disarmament credentials - Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Norway - have been outed instead as part of the problem with their embarrassing decision to boycott the duly constituted and U.N.-mandated conference. Although I focus on Japan, almost all the arguments apply equally to all the nuclear weapon possessing countries and allies who shelter under their nuclear umbrella. In sum, they have put themselves on the wrong side of history, geography, legality, morality and humanity.

History

The U.N. General Assembly's very first resolution on Jan. 24, 1946, discussed how to abolish weapons of mass destruction. Ever since, activists, NGOs, governments and the U.N. have been relentless in putting in place planks of an increasingly sophisticated normative architecture to limit the spread of nuclear weapon technology, materials and arsenals. At the center of the effort lies the NPT itself. But additional planks include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) following earlier successes in proscribing atmospheric and underground testing; the Nuclear Suppliers Group set up after India's testing breakout in 1974; various regional nuclear weapon-free zones that cover the southern hemisphere and extend to a limited extent into the northern hemisphere in Central Asia and Mongolia; the Proliferation Security Initiative; etc. In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) acts as the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog to ensure compliance with nonproliferation obligations.

In other words history has moved in one direction only, albeit in a jagged rather than a linear progression, to limit and seek to end the existence of nuclear weapons and their use. The NWPT is part of that historically progressive trend.

Geography

Four of the world's nine nuclear weapon possessor countries are in Asia (China, India, North Korea, Pakistan), plus three umbrella states (Australia, Japan, South Korea). Russia and the U.S. also have a massive geographical footprint each in the Pacific. Four of the eight CTBT holdout states preventing its entry into force are Asian (China, India, North Korea, Pakistan). Asia is the only continent where nuclear tests are being carried out and warhead stockpiles are growing.

Asia remains the only site and Japan the only victim of nuclear weapon use. The Indian subcontinent and the Korean Peninsula are two of the least unlikely theaters of a nuclear war and a direct China-U.S. confrontation from an escalation spiral starting in the South China seas is also possible. The Fukushima nuclear accident and independent assessments confirm continuing nuclear safety and security vulnerabilities across Asia.

Conscious of these dangers, Asian states have overwhelmingly supported the U.N. conference and voted for the NWPT. The possessor and umbrella countries are out of step with their neighborhood in discounting the nuclear threats in favor of indefinite reliance on nuclear deterrence.

Legality

The World Court's Advisory Opinion of July 8, 1996, held that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law, and in particular humanitarian law. The court could not confirm the legality of nuclear weapon use even in the extreme circumstance of the very survival of a state being at stake. And it significantly strengthened the nature of NPT obligations by affirming that states have an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. Yet 21 years later, there are still around 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries, all of whom are modernizing, upgrading or expanding nuclear weapon delivery platforms and some are increasing warhead numbers.

The NWPT conforms to the NPT legal obligation to disarm. All those boycotting the U.N. conference disrespected a duly constituted multilateral process driven by a two-thirds majority of NPT members. Non-participation also put them in non-compliance with the obligation of all 188 NPT states parties, not just the nuclear powers, to pursue and conclude disarmament negotiations.

Morality

Nuclear weapons obliterate the distinction between combatants and civilians that is central to every moral code in all cultures and civilizations. Most countries have chosen nuclear abstinence because people overwhelmingly abhor the bomb as deeply immoral. It is the most indiscriminately inhumane weapon ever invented. Its primary intended deterrent effect relies on the threat to kill millions of innocent civilians. Accurately called the balance of terror, deterrence is a euphemism for state-sanctioned nuclear terrorism.

The preamble of the NWPT explicitly acknowledges "the ethical imperatives for nuclear disarmament" and describes a nuclear weapon-free world as "a global public good of the highest order, serving both national and collective security interests." The U.N. conference president, ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez of Costa Rica, said on July 3: "Each one of us has assumed the historic responsibility to give humankind an instrument that reflects the moral imperative of prohibiting nuclear weapons and leading to a future free of nuclear weapons."

Humanity

The NWPT is explicitly and powerfully rooted in humanitarian principles. The preamble expresses deep concern "about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from any use of nuclear weapons" that pose "grave implications for human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security and the health of current and future generations, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls."

It further notes "the unacceptable suffering of and harm caused to the victims of the use of nuclear weapons (hibakusha), as well as of those affected by the testing of nuclear weapons," and recognizes the "disproportionate impact of nuclear-weapon activities on indigenous peoples." And finally, it reaffirms "that any use of nuclear weapons would also be abhorrent to the principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience."

Given Japan is the emotional touchstone of nuclear weapon policy, its stance on the U.N. ban treaty is not just a deeply flawed misreading of international sentiment. It is also a deep betrayal of Japan's own history, legacy and people. By coincidence the two highest international public offices in this sector, the IAEA director general and the U.N. secretary-general's high representative on disarmament, are both currently held by Japanese. Both are likely to be somewhat embarrassed by Tokyo's nuclear timidity.
Ramesh Thakur is director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.

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Japan on the wrong side of nuclear weapons ban treaty | The Japan Times

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Many nations that previously championed their nuclear disarmament credentials have now been outed as part of the problem In a historic vote at the United Nations on Friday, 122 nations adopted a new nuclear weapon prohibition treaty (NWPT) to ban the acquisition, development, production, manufacture, possession, transfer, receipt, testing, extraterritorial stationing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.

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This article is helpful because it describes all aspects of France's nuclear weapon program.

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Home to 58 nuclear power plants generating about 75 percent of the country's electricity, France has a robust civil nuclear sector. [43] France is also Europe's largest provider of electricity generated from nuclear power, which it regularly supplies to neighboring countries such as Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

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This article is helpful because it provides an example of a type of nuclear weapons Great Britain uses and why. This provides a contrast to how the other countries use nuclear weapons and for what reasons.

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Who is in the nuclear weapons club?

Nine countries have nuclear weapons: The US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and NorthKorea.

The UK is one of five countries along with the US, China, Russia and France formally recognised as a 'Nuclear Weapon State' under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which aims to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.

The NPT was negotiated in 1968 and all members agreed to the three pillars - working towards disarmament, non-proliferation, and peaceful nuclear technology. In return the non-nuclear signatories to the Treaty (every other country in world bar India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, all of whom possess nuclear weapons outside the Treaty) agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons.

In line with this, Britain cut its operational warheads from 160 in 2010 to 120 in 2015, and slashed the number of warheads on patrol from 48 to 40 in the same period.

It's worth noting that the UK has significantly fewer nuclear weapons than the US and Russia, and has what is called a "minimum deterrent" - the ability to inflict massive devastation but with minimum nuclear force.

When was the first nuclear explosion?

The world's first nuclear weapons explosion took place on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico, when the US tested its first nuclear bomb.

Three weeks later, on August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima killing and wounding 130,000 people. Three days after that, the US bombed Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people. These acts resulted in the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945 and the end of the Second World War.

The US remains the only nation to have actually used nuclear weapons in conflict.

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european organization for nuclear research (cern)

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What is Trident? Britain's nuclear deterrent explained

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Nine countries have nuclear weapons: The US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and NorthKorea. The UK is one of five countries along with the US, China, Russia and France formally recognised as a 'Nuclear Weapon State' under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which aims to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.

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This image is helpful because it shows the comparison between the number of nuclear weapons (warheads) the US and USSR have from 1950 to 2010.

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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. During this period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.

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This article is helpful because it describes Soviet Union's Nuclear Weapons Program in 1946 (right at the beginning of the Cold War era).

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Soviet physicists paid close attention to the news of the discovery of fission in Germany in 1938. Throughout 1939, leading Soviet physicists attempted to reproduce the fission experiment that Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann had conducted in Berlin and began to make measurements and calculations to determine under exactly what conditions, if any, a nuclear chain reaction would take place.

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Soviet nuclear physics work largely ceased. Scientists and engineers were drafted or assigned to work on projects, such as radar, that were seen as more pressing. However, a small fraction of physicists continued to explore the possibilities of uranium. Peter L. Kapitza, a high-ranking physicist, remarked in October 1941 that the recent discovery of nuclear energy could be useful in the war against Germany and that the prospects of a uranium bomb seemed promising. Soviet leaders learned that both the United States and Germany had embarked on efforts to build an atomic bomb. In February 1943, the Soviets began their own program led by nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov and political director Lavrentiy Beria.

The Soviet Atomic Bomb during World War II

The Soviet atomic program during the war was puny compared to the Manhattan Project, involving approximately twenty physicists and only a small number of staff. They researched the reactions necessary to produce both atomic weapons and nuclear reactors. They also began exploring ways to generate enough pure uranium and graphite, and researched uranium isotope separation methods.

Work on the program sped up quickly in 1945, however, especially after the Soviets learned of the Trinity test. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, Truman told Joseph Stalin about the United States atomic bomb program for the first time. According to Truman, "I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make good use of it against the Japanese."

While Stalin may have appeared uninterested, he privately told his top advisers to speed up work on the Soviet atomic program: "They simply want to raise the price. We've got to work on Kurchatov and hurry things up."

The Soviet regime immediately stepped up their program. General Boris L. Vannikov (who has been compared to General Leslie Groves) headed an engineering council that oversaw the project. Its members included Kurchatov, M.G. Pervukhin, A.I. Alikhanov, I.K. Kikoin, A.P. Vinovgradov, Abram Joffe, A.A. Bochvar, and Avraamy Zavenyagin.

Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin called for an all-out crash program in atomic research and development. In 1946 Yuli Khariton was appointed by Kurchatov as the program's lead scientist. He was tasked with directing atomic research, development, design, and weapons assembly, and helped select and establish the site of the secret Soviet nuclear weapons facility, known as Arzamas-16 and nicknamed "Los Arzamas."

The Soviet Atomic Bomb and the Cold War

On December 25, 1946, the Soviets created their first chain reaction in a graphite structure similar to Chicago Pile-1. After encountering some difficulties with the production of plutonium and the isotopic separation of uranium over the next two years, Soviet scientists managed to get their first production reactor working satisfactorily in the fall of 1948. It would only be a matter of months before the U.S.S.R. exploded its own atomic bomb. The Soviets successfully tested their first nuclear device, called RDS-1 or "First Lightning" (codenamed "Joe-1" by the United States), at Semipalatinsk on August 29, 1949.

As the Cold War intensified, both the Soviet Union and the United States embarked upon efforts to rapidly develop and grow their respective nuclear arsenals. Shortly after the US launched its hydrogen bomb program in the early 1950s, the USSR followed suit and initiated their own hydrogen bomb program.

Espionage

Contrary to po pular belief, there was no concrete "secret" behind the atomic bomb. The discovery of fission in 1938 meant that a nuclear chain reaction was possible and that the energy produced from this process could be used to produce a weapon of unusual force. Physicists like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard knew that it was only a matter of time before other countries were able to develop their own atomic weapons. The only secret behind the bombs lay in their specifications, material composition, and inner workings. Any government with the determination and the resources to develop an atomic weapon could do so within a matter of time.

When Klaus Fuchs's espionage was discovered in 1950, many believed that his actions had been essential to the Soviet bomb. Fuchs did pass along important information about the bomb's design and technical specifications, and the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy concluded that "Fuchs alone has influenced the safety of more people and accomplished greater damage than any other spy not only in the history of the United States but in the history of nations." However, there has been much debate surrounding the role of espionage in the Soviet Union's atomic program. Scholarship suggests that Soviet spying probably allowed the USSR to develop an atomic bomb six months to two years faster than they would have had there been no espionage.

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Soviet physicists paid close attention to the news of the discovery of fission in Germany in 1938. Throughout 1939, leading Soviet physicists attempted to reproduce the fission experiment that Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann had conducted in Berlin and began to make measurements and calculations to determine under exactly what conditions, if any, a nuclear chain reaction would take place.

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This article is helpful because it provides information about the amount of money Russia has spent on nuclear weapons, the development of nuclear weapons in Russia, and treaties about nuclear weapons they have signed.

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Nuclear Weapons in Russia | Russian Nuclear Sites & Weapons Program | NTI

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With a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, Russia is one of five recognized nuclear weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

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This talks about the nuclear weapon free zone treaty and the specifics of this document and how it effects the countries who are a part of it

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What is a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone?

A nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) is a specified region in which countries commit themselves not to manufacture, acquire, test, or possess nuclear weapons. Five such zones exist today, with four of them spanning the entire Southern Hemisphere. The regions currently covered under NWFZ agreements include: Latin America (the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco), the South Pacific (the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga), Southeast Asia (the 1995 Treaty of Bangkok) Africa (the 1996 Treaty of Pelindaba) and Central Asia (the 2006 Treaty of Semipalatinsk).
Background
Initial efforts to create an area free of nuclear weapons began in the late 1950s with several proposals to establish such a zone in Central and Eastern Europe. Poland offered the first proposal-named the Rapacki Plan after the Polish foreign minister-in 1958. The Rapacki Plan sought to initially keep nuclear weapons from being deployed in Poland, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, and East Germany, while reserving the right for other European countries to follow suit. The Soviet Union, Sweden, Finland, Romania, and Bulgaria also floated similar proposals. All these early efforts, however, floundered amidst the U.S.-Soviet superpower conflict, although the Rapacki Plan would serve as a model to the nuclear-weapon-free zones that were eventually set up in other regions of the globe.

Article VII of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970, affirms the right of countries to establish specified zones free of nuclear weapons. The UN General Assembly reaffirmed that right in 1975 and outlined the criteria for such zones. Within these nuclear-weapon-free zones, countries may use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Protocol for Nuclear Weapon States
Each treaty establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone includes a protocol for the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the NPT-China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States-to sign and ratify. These protocols, which are legally binding, call upon the nuclear-weapon states to respect the status of the zones and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against treaty states-parties. Such declarations of non-use of nuclear weapons are referred to as negative security assurances. For more information, see Nuclear Declaratory Policy and Negative Security Assurances.

However, the five nuclear-armed countries have at times signed and ratified a NWFZ protocol and declared conditions reserving the right to use nuclear weapons in certain scenarios against parties to a nuclear-weapon-free zone. For instance, the United States signed the protocol for the African nuclear-weapon-free zone in April 1996 with a declaration that it would reserve the right to respond with all options, implying possible use of nuclear weapons, to a chemical or biological weapons attack by a member of the zone. None of the nuclear-weapon states have signed the relevant protocol for the treaty creating a zone in Southeast Asia because of concerns that it conflicts with the right of their ships and aircraft to have freedom of movement in international waters and airspace and problems with the definitions of territory, since includes exclusive economic zones and continental shelves. The other three zones do not explicitly rule out the transit of nuclear weapons by nuclear-weapon states through the zones, and the general practice of nuclear-weapon states is not to declare whether nuclear weapons are aboard their vessels.

In addition to nuclear-weapon-free zones, there are treaties and declarations, which are not covered by this fact sheet, banning the deployment of nuclear weapons in Antarctica, Mongolia, on the seabed, and in outer space.

Basic Elements of Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaties

Duration: The treaties are to remain in force indefinitely. Yet, each treaty includes a withdrawal option for states-parties. With the exception of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which simply requires three months' advance notice before a withdrawal can take effect, all the NWFZ treaties require 12 months' advance notice for a state-party to end its treaty obligations.

Conditions: None of the treaties can be subjected to conditions by its non-nuclear-weapon states-parties.

Verification: Each state-party adopts comprehensive safeguards administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which verifies that states-parties are not pursuing nuclear weapons illicitly. The Central Asian NWFZ goes a step further in requiring that states in the region adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which provides for expanded monitoring.

Territory Covered: Each zone applies to the entire territories of all of its states-parties. Territory is understood to include all land holdings, internal waters, territorial seas, and archipelagic waters. The Latin American treaty also extends hundreds of kilometers from the states-parties' territories into the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, but the nuclear-weapon states, citing their freedom at sea, assert that this does not apply to their ships and aircraft that might be carrying nuclear weapons. A dispute also exists over the inclusion of the Chagos Archipelago, which includes the U.S. military base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, as part of the proposed African nuclear-weapon-free zone. Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom recognizes Diego Garcia as being subject to the Pelindaba Treaty.

Opened for signature: February 14, 1967
Entered into force: October 23, 2002[1]

Protocol ratification by nuclear-weapon states:

Opened for signature: August 6, 1985
Entered into force: December 11, 1986

Protocol ratification by nuclear-weapon states:

*(open only to France, the United Kingdom and the United States)

Opened for signature: December 15, 1995
Entered into force: March 27, 1997

Protocol ratification by nuclear-weapon states:

None. Five nuclear weapons states and ASEAN members met in July 2012 to sign the treaty protocol. The treaty commission, however, postponed the signing of the protocol until November, requesting more time to review reservations that several of the NWS indicated that they would attach during ratification.

Opened for signature: April 11, 1996
Entered into force: July 15, 2009

Protocol ratification by nuclear-weapon states:

*(open only to France and Spain)

Opened for signature: September 8, 2006
Entered into force: March 21, 2009

Protocol ratification by nuclear-weapon states:

*United States signed but has not ratified
Notes:
1. The treaty specified that the full zone would not enter into force until it was ratified by all states within the zones. That did not occur until Cuba ratified the treaty in 2002. However, the treaty permitted individual states to waive that provision and declare themselves bound by the treaty, which many did beginning in 1968.

2. Russia is recognized as inheriting the Soviet Union's treaty commitments.

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Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) At a Glance | Arms Control Association

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A nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) is a specified region in which countries commit themselves not to manufacture, acquire, test, or possess nuclear weapons. Five such zones exist today, with four of them spanning the entire Southern Hemisphere.

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This article is especially helpful in breaking down the pros and cons of nuclear weapons (16 reasons). It also provides a ted talk on the pros and cons. For Russia it is important to focus on the pros.

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How does one keep a society safe at a national level? In the past, city-states

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This article is very useful because it takes the reader through Stalin/ Russia's process and involvement with nuclear weapons. It's very long and packed with information so I recommend scanning through it until it gets to a section that answers your question.

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STALIN AND THE BOMB The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. By David Holloway. Illustrated. 464 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press. $30.
Text:

FOR decades now, a debate has been raging over who was more to blame for the cold war, Stalin's Russia or the United States. Since the Vietnam War especially, revisionist historians have argued that the United States monopoly of the atomic bomb -- and the unspoken threat to use it -- played a larger role than Americans have realized in the breakdown of the World War II alliance and the onset of the long, untidy quasi peace.

Into this debate, and on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and the Allied victory in World War II, has been dropped a new book, the long-awaited "Stalin and the Bomb," by David Holloway, a professor of political science and co-director of the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. It is a superb history, recounting the Soviet nuclear weapons program until three years after Stalin's death, with an eye to the part played by the atomic bomb in the outbreak of the cold war.

Using speeches and interviews given by Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Maxim Litvinov and G. M. Malenkov, and documents that have become available in Russia over the past seven years, Mr. Holloway presents a hardheaded view of the way the early postwar universe looked to the men inside the Kremlin. He asks questions about missed opportunities that have bedeviled scholars in the West, weighs the evidence scrupulously and comes up with answers that will bring little comfort to many liberals -- and none at all to revisionist historians. And in a ground-breaking chapter about the hydrogen bomb, he uses interviews with Andrei Sakharov, Yuli Khariton and other former Soviet physicists to give a clearer picture of the way the Soviet H-bomb was built than anything we have yet been given about the construction of the hydrogen bomb in our own country.

Mostly, however, this is the story of Stalin's race to end the American atomic monopoly. Abetted by his chief of secret police, Lavrenti Beria, who doubled as head of the bomb project, Stalin made liberal use of espionage from abroad, and thereby hangs an extraordinary tale. Just as Mr. Holloway's book comes during a debate among Western historians, so, too, it appears at the height of a controversy in Moscow -- a controversy fueled by "Special Tasks," a book by Pavel Sudoplatov, the former security forces general -- over who deserves credit for the Soviet atomic bomb, Russia's scientists or its spies. Mr. Holloway surveys the work of Igor Kurchatov, the scientific director of the Soviet project, and his team of physicists, mathematicians and radiochemists, and concludes that whereas the Russians tested a version of the American plutonium bomb in 1949 with the help of espionage data from the West, without it they would have tested an atomic bomb of their own design about 1951.

The saving of those two years was no straightforward matter. Alerted by Soviet intelligence to the possibility that Hitler might be building an atomic bomb and that Britain and the United States might be doing the same, Stalin decided in 1942 to launch a small-scale atomic project. First he consulted his scientists, but he did not let them see espionage data from Britain that shed crucial light on whether a bomb could be built at all. Not until March 1943, after Russia's victory at Stalingrad, did Stalin allow Kurchatov to see the data. For several days Kurchatov pored over them in the office of Foreign Minister Molotov. "How are the materials?" Molotov finally asked. "Wonderful," Kurchatov answered, according to Mr. Holloway. "Just what we are lacking." He was then permitted to see the fruits of Soviet espionage, but not to show them to anyone.

Primed by secret reports from Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass, spies who were working on the Manhattan Project -- but not, according to Mr. Holloway and contrary to Mr. Sudoplatov, from J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi or other leaders of the Project -- Kurchatov had to suggest new research leads to his colleagues without so much as a hint that those leads had been stolen from abroad. (Later he was allowed, on occasion, to show foreign intelligence materials to other Soviet scientists, but only with special permission.) Kurchatov, not surprisingly, acquired a reputation for extraordinary intuition, and he managed to maintain his colleagues' trust despite the deception that had been forced upon him. But he was unhappy about the low priority accorded to his operation and the disparity in quality between the Soviet effort and that of the United States.

Stalin's paranoia cost the bomb project dearly. He had reliable espionage material from abroad and, at home, magnificent, utterly loyal nuclear physicists who had done breakthrough work even before the war -- and he did not trust either. He and Beria knew nothing about science. How could they be sure Kurchatov was not deceiving them? And the same was true of the intelligence reports. Perhaps the enemy was trying to draw them into expenditures that had no future. "If this is disinformation," Beria threatened a high-level agent who was giving him secret data, "I'll put you all in the cellar."

This misplaced suspicion had other costs as well. In 1941 Stalin had ignored warnings from his own intelligence, and from the intelligence services of Britain and France, that Hitler was about to attack Russia. Similarly, in 1945, he failed utterly to anticipate the role that nuclear weapons would soon play, despite warnings from Fuchs that the United States would test an atomic bomb in early July and would use it in Japan, if the test succeeded. After the bomb was dropped, Stalin was furious. The place Russia had earned as a world power by its victory in the war had been snatched away. "Hiroshima has shaken the whole world," he is said to have told Kurchatov. "The balance has been destroyed."

At this point one of those "what-if" questions arises. Was there, as the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr concluded in 1944 and as historians have wondered since, a chance to short-circuit the cold war by openly informing our Soviet ally about the bomb well before the end of World War II? Mr. Holloway thinks not. He cites abundant evidence that Stalin had decided on a tough postwar course long before Hiroshima or the atomic bomb entered his calculations. Even if Bohr's advice had been followed and if President Harry S. Truman and his Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, had eschewed all thought of using the existence of the bomb as a diplomatic weapon, Stalin still would have wanted a bomb of his own. The only thing he disliked about the new weapon was that Truman, "that noisy shopkeeper," had it and he did not.

Stalin now gave the bomb project the priority he had denied it before. "If a child doesn't cry," he told Kurchatov in late summer 1945, urging haste, "the mother doesn't know what he needs. Ask for whatever you like. You won't be refused." Early in 1946 he summoned Kurchatov again. This time he rejected advice he had received from the famous Russian physicist Pyotr Kapitsa that the Soviet Union ought to follow its own, cheaper path to the bomb rather than copy the American design. Stalin said that "it was not worth engaging in small-scale work," Kurchatov wrote in his notes, "but necessary to conduct the work broadly, with Russian scope. . . . It was not necessary to seek cheaper paths."

Capable as the Soviet scientists were (and this also went for the aircraft and missile designers who were hard at work copying the American B-29 bomber and the German V-2 rocket), their ideas did not receive full support from Stalin until they had been validated in the West. And so Kurchatov and his top associate Khariton had to set aside their own design for a uranium bomb and embark on an all-out effort to reproduce the plutonium weapon the Americans had tested successfully at Alamogordo, N.M. The irony is that while all this was going on, Stalin was simultaneously engaged in an attempt to root out foreign influences in Soviet life, beginning with the arts and spreading to biology. In 1948 a campaign led by the fraudulent geneticist Trofim Lysenko destroyed Soviet biological research for decades to come. The next year, in March 1949, a conference was to take place in Moscow that would censure Soviet physicists for "kowtowing and groveling before the West." At the last minute the conference was called off and, in the Russia of those days, only one man could have done that.

According to a story related by Mr. Holloway, Beria had asked Kurchatov shortly before the conference whether it was true that quantum mechanics and relativity theory were idealist and antimaterialist. Kurchatov reportedly replied that if relativity theory and quantum mechanics had to be rejected by Russian science, the atomic bomb would have to be rejected, too. According to another story in the book, Stalin phrased his decision to cancel this way: "Leave them [ the physicists ] in peace. We can always shoot them later." He could afford a charlatan like Lysenko in biology, but physics was another matter. Stalin relied on his physicists for the bomb -- and for Soviet status as a superpower. When his first atomic bomb was tested in August 1949, five months after the aborted conference, those scientists who would have been shot in the event of failure received the highest awards: Hero of Socialist Labor and so on, down the line.

In spite of Beria's management by terror, his "issuing threats and exuding an air of menace" on visits to atomic plants, the scientists worked selflessly and with enthusiasm. Some viewed it as "a splendid task in physics," while others were anxious to prove the value of Soviet science; still others worked because they were appalled by American use of the bomb in Japan, were aware that cracks had appeared in the wartime alliance and, in what the author calls "in some psychological sense a continuation of the war with Germany," considered atomic weapons necessary for their country's defense. For these reasons there was, two scientists wrote afterward, "in the first, most romantic years of our work . . . a wonderful atmosphere of good will and support." Not only that, but the physics community managed to maintain much of its old autonomy and mutual loyalty even within the harsh system of administrative command. The Soviet atomic bomb was the result of miraculous synergistic fusion between scientists and engineers on the one hand, and the police state, with its awesome ability to mobilize resources, on the other.

Well before the atomic bomb test of 1949, Sakharov and others were secretly at work on the next megaweapon, the hydrogen bomb. Once again they worked with enthusiasm because, as Sakharov wrote, "we . . . believed that our work was absolutely necessary as a means of achieving a balance in the world." Their American counterparts, too, had been working on hydrogen-bomb designs and, after Russia acquired the atomic bomb, President Truman ordered them to build the hydrogen bomb as rapidly as they could. Truman, however, had his dissenters. In the fall of 1949 the Atomic Energy Commission's General Advisory Committee recommended against an all-out thermonuclear program for reasons that have been misunderstood to this day. One was that after seven years of research, American scientists still thought there was only slightly better than a 50-50 chance that the bomb could be built. Another was that the hydrogen weapon, as then conceived, could be made infinitely large and carry unlimited destructive power. The hydrogen bomb had nothing to do with wiping out military objectives or even whole cities. It could wipe out the human race.

At this point in his story, Mr. Holloway asks another of the "what-if" questions that have troubled Westerners. Suppose Truman had announced in 1949 that the United States would refrain from an all-out effort to build the hydrogen bomb. Could Stalin have been enticed, as Oppenheimer and others hoped, into agreement not to develop his own bomb? Once again Mr. Holloway responds with a hardheaded no, agreeing with Sakharov that Stalin would have regarded such an offer as the product of either deception or foolishness -- and a misstep to be exploited.

Stalin's death in 1953 did not at once alter the Soviet scientists' enthusiasm. The physicist Lev Landau, who said, "That's it. He's gone. I'm no longer afraid of him, and I won't work on [ nuclear weapons ] any more," was very much the exception. In the summer of 1953 they carried out test "Joe-4" (named after Stalin by the Americans) of a modified hydrogen weapon based on Sakharov's "layer cake" design, and in 1955 they tested a so-called "true" hydrogen bomb, based, as the 1952 and 1954 American devices were, on the concept of radiation implosion, and they did all of this without espionage help.

The enhanced confidence brought by their independent attainment of the hydrogen bomb gave some of the scientists, notably Sakharov, leeway for reflection. So, too, did the easing of repression of thought under Stalin's successors, and spreading knowledge of the extent of Stalin's crimes. And there was the sheer power of the hydrogen bomb itself. Kurchatov was badly shaken when he saw the damage. "One more test like those of 1953 and 1955," he said to Sakharov, "and I'm going to retire." He told another colleague, "That was such a terrible, monstrous sight! That weapon must not be allowed ever to be used!"

Kurchatov evidently briefed the new Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev, who later said: "When I was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee and learned all the facts about nuclear power I couldn't sleep for several days. Then I became convinced that we could never possibly use these weapons, and when I realized that I was able to sleep again." At the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, Khrushchev broke with Stalin's theory that war was inevitable and announced a new theory of his own. "Either peaceful coexistence or the most destructive war in history," he declared. "There is no third way." In the Soviet Union as in the United States, the physicists' awe at their handiwork spread to the political leaders. When that happened, Mr. Holloway informs us, nuclear weapons, which had hastened breakdown of the wartime alliance and heightened tension in the early years, began to serve as a restraint.

"Stalin and the Bomb" is a prodigious book. Mr. Holloway has plowed through the new sources available in Russia, turning up fresh insights into the cold war and, even more, into the conditions of intellectual life in Stalin's Russia. This study is a work on the largest scale, one that advances our understanding and is likely to remain definitive for years to come. RUSSIA'S MANHATTAN PROJECT

An atomic industry had to be established before the bomb could be built. This was a formidable task for a country that had suffered so much in the war. But Stalin wanted the bomb as soon as possible, and was prepared to disregard the cost. The building of the atomic bomb was the kind of task for which the Stalinist command economy was ideally suited. It resembled the huge construction projects of the 1930's -- the steel city at Magnitogorsk, or Dneprostroi, the great dam on the Dnieper. It was a heroic undertaking for which the resources of the country could be mobilized, including the best scientists and industrial managers, as well as the slave laborers of the Gulag. The project was a curious combination of the best and the worst of Soviet society -- of enthusiastic scientists and engineers produced by the expansion of education under Soviet rule, and of prisoners who lived in the inhuman conditions of the labor camps.

No good figures are available for the cost of the project, or for the number of people involved. Some indication of the project's size, however, is given by a 1950 Central Intelligence Agency report, which estimated that between 330,000 and 460,000 people were employed in it. Most of these -- 255,000 to 361,000 -- worked in mining in the Soviet Union (80,000 to 120,000) and in Eastern Europe (175,000 to 241,000). . . . The C.I.A. estimated that about 10,000 technically qualified people -- engineers, geologists, research scientists and laboratory technicians -- worked in the project. Although these figures are estimates, they appear plausible, and certainly of the right order of magnitude. Many of these people, and in particular the miners and construction workers, were prisoners. From "Stalin and the Bomb." IDEOLOGY MATTERED, BUT THE BOMB MATTERED MORE

It was during the early 1970's that David Holloway first considered writing about the birth of the Soviet bomb program. "I'd been interested in the history of the Manhattan Project," he recalled in a telephone interview from his office in Palo Alto, Calif., where he is a political science professor at Stanford University. "It was a remarkable group of people building a bomb of great destructive power that raised all kinds of questions." He thought it would be worthwhile to investigate the Soviet program in the same way historians had examined the Manhattan Project.

Mr. Holloway, 51, whose first book, "The Soviet Union and the Arms Race," was published in 1983, began working in earnest on "Stalin and the Bomb" four or five years ago, during the collapse of Communism. His research benefited from archival material that began to emerge and from the growing willingness of the participants to speak openly. "There were all kinds of legends which turned out not to be true," he said.

Mr. Holloway was surprised at how late in the game Stalin became serious about the bomb. "The evidence is pretty strong," he observed, that while Stalin had started the bomb program during the war, it was only "after Hiroshima that it became a crash project." And, Mr. Holloway continued, he was struck by the fact that some of the K.G.B. people thought the American bomb project was "just disinformation, a kind of trap, the way that some people later portrayed Star Wars to be a kind of trap to lure them into spending money on something that wouldn't work."

Mr. Holloway is skeptical of several of the theories swirling around this period of history, like the view that the West might have prevented an arms race by sharing its bomb technology with Stalin: "A belief in the benefits of cooperation was really not something he displayed very much."

Stalin was even deeply suspicious of the loyalty of the scientists working on the bomb, yet he recognized the need to support their efforts. "On the one hand, the West was the model because it was more advanced, and its technology had to be copied," Mr. Holloway said. "On the other hand, the West was the enemy, and Western science and ideas were hostile and had to be kept out of the country. I think it was a contradiction he never managed to escape from. But essentially it was that contradiction that saved physics in the Soviet Union."

By the end, the author "was very taken with this whole community of scientists," which "somehow preserved some degree of intellectual freedom and autonomy even while locked up behind barbed wire in secret cities."

Mr. Holloway was able to spend time with some of the key figures in the Soviet project, including Andrei Sakharov and the physicist Yuli Khariton. He said he even traveled with Mr. Khariton "in his private railroad carriage, which he had been given after the first Soviet atomic bomb test. A whole car. I sat there on a summer evening talking, and I was kind of pinching myself, thinking 'this can't be true.' " SCOTT VEALE

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STALIN AND THE BOMB The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. By David Holloway. Illustrated. 464 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press. $30. Text: FOR decades now, a debate has been raging over who was more to blame for the cold war, Stalin's Russia or the United States.

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This is useful for Russia because it states Russia's view on nuclear weapons and why they think that nuclear weapons are important for Russia to have. This is also reliable because it was written by a war history professor.

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Americans don't think very much about nuclear weapons, and they certainly don't think very often about their own arsenal, at least until something goes wrong with it, like the recent scandals involving the U.S. ICBM force. The Obama administration completed a nuclear posture review in 2010, a document that supposedly lays out the purpose and future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Like previous U.S. reviews conducted in 1994 and 2002, it sank without a trace. The fact of the matter is that nuclear weapons and their mission simply do not matter much to post-Cold War American leaders.

Nuclear weapons, however, certainly matter to the Russians. Nuclear arms have always been the source of superpower status for both Soviet and Russian leaders. This is especially true today: the Soviet collapse left the Russian Federation a country bereft of the usual indicators of a great power, including conventional military force or the ability to project it. Little wonder that Moscow still relies on its nuclear arsenal as one of the last vestiges of its right to be considered more than merely-in President Obama's dismissive words-a "regional power." (Or in the caustic words of Senator John McCain: "A gas station masquerading as a country.")

Today, nuclear weapons have retained not only their pride of place but an actual role in Russian military planning. Unlike the Americans, who see little use for nuclear weapons in the absence of the Soviet threat, the Russians-wisely or not-continue to think about nuclear arms as though they are useful in military conflicts, even the smallest. Some of this might only be the bluster of officers who have never overcome their Soviet training, but some of it is also clearly based on the Russian General Staff's understanding of Russia's military weakness against far superior adversaries, including the United States and NATO.

Before considering the future of the Russian nuclear arsenal and its role in Russian defense policy, a quick review of the development of Russia's nuclear forces might be helpful.

Once freed from Stalinist orthodoxy, Soviet thinkers, like their Western colleagues, wrestled throughout the Cold War with the implications of nuclear weapons. Early on, Soviet theorists decided that while nuclear warheads were a remarkable development, it was not only their appearance but the ability to deliver them rapidly over long distances -that is, the development of ICBMs-that overall constituted a "revolution in military affairs." (This phrase was later adopted and almost completely misunderstood by American strategists in thinking about the role of technology in warfare, but the Soviets pioneered the term.)

The Soviets rejected-at least in public-any notion that the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons defeated traditional aims of strategy. They held firmly to the assertion that nuclear war, as awful as it would be, would nonetheless be a war with a political character like any other, with a winner and a loser. Later evidence revealed that this idea was prevalent mostly among the Soviet military; Soviet civilians were far less sanguine about nuclear war and far less willing than their generals and marshals to court it. (There are undeniable and unsettling parallels here with American civil-military relations on nuclear issues.)

During this time, the Soviets and the Americans constructed nuclear forces that mirrored each other in important ways. Both relied on a mixture of ICBMs, submarine-launched missiles, and bombers to ensure the survivability of their deterrent and to maintain the ability to deliver a massive retaliatory strike no matter how bad the first wave of nuclear exchanges. To this day, only Russia and the United States maintain this "triad" of delivery systems. There were differences, however, that reflected geography and tradition: the Soviet Union, a massive land empire spanning two continents, commanded plenty of real estate and therefore buried most of its deterrent in silos. The United States, a maritime superpower, put most of its megatonnage underwater on submarines. The Soviet long-range bomber force never progressed beyond propeller-driven aircraft that had only enough range for one-way suicide missions, while the Americans developed the workhorse B-52 bomber and its stealth follow-on, the B-2.

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Americans don't think very much about nuclear weapons, and they certainly don't think very often about their own arsenal, at least until something goes wrong with it, like the recent scandals involving the U.S. ICBM force . The Obama administration completed a nuclear posture review in 2010 , a document that supposedly lays out the purpose and future of the U.S.