Since the 1980s, the U.S. military has used depleted uranium in munitions and in protective armor on tanks. Depleted uranium is a toxic heavy metal and is weakly radioactive. Concerns have been raised about the adverse health effects from exposure to depleted uranium that is aerosolized during combat. Some think it may be responsible for illnesses in exposed veterans and civilians. These concerns led the Army to commission a book, Depleted Uranium Aerosol Doses and Risks: Summary of U.S. Assessments, referred to as the Capstone Report that evaluates the health risks associated with depleted uranium exposure. This National Research Council book reviews the toxicologic, radiologic, epidemiologic, and toxicokinetic data on depleted uranium, and assesses the Army's estimates of health risks to personnel exposed during and after combat. The book recommends that the Army re-evaluate the basis for some of its predictions about health outcomes at low levels of exposure, but, overall, the Capstone Report was judged to provide a reasonable characterization of the exposure and risks from depleted uranium. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction and Technical Background 2 Toxicokinetics of Depleted Uranium 3 Toxic Effects of Uranium on the Kidneys 4 Toxic Effects of Uranium on the Lungs 5 Toxic Effects of Uranium on Other Organ Systems 6 Radiologic Effects of Depleted Uranium 7 Uranium Carcinogenicity and Genotoxicity 8 Evaluation of the Army's Capstone Report References Appendix A: Biographic Information on the Committee on Toxicologic and Radiologic Effects from Exposure to Depleted Uranium During and After Combat Appendix B: Risk of Selected Cancers and Nonmalignant Diseases in Uranium Workers

A new approach to nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and the prevention of nuclear terrorism that focuses on controlling the production and stockpiling of nuclear materials. Achieving nuclear disarmament, stopping nuclear proliferation, and preventing nuclear terrorism are among the most critical challenges facing the world today. Unmaking the Bomb proposes a new approach to reaching these long-held goals. Rather than considering them as separate issues, the authors-physicists and experts on nuclear security-argue that all three of these goals can be understood and realized together if we focus on the production, stockpiling, and disposal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium-the fissile materials that are the key ingredients used to make nuclear weapons. The authors describe the history, production, national stockpiles, and current military and civilian uses of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, and propose policies aimed at reducing and eventually eliminating these fissile materials worldwide. These include an end to the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons, an end to their use as reactor fuels, and the verified elimination of all national stockpiles.

Addressing an increasingly complex array of nuclear weapons challenges in the future will require talented young people with the necessary technical and policy expertise to contribute to sound decisionmaking on nuclear issues over time. To that end, the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) runs a yearly Nuclear Scholars Initiative for graduate students and young professionals. Those accepted into the program are hosted once per month at CSIS in Washington, DC, where they participate in daylong workshops with senior government officials and policy experts. Over the course of the six-month program, scholars are required to prepare a research paper. This volume is a collection of the 2014 papers from the Nuclear Scholars Initiative.

A recent National Security Strategy report singles out nuclear proliferation as one of the gravest threats to the United States. Much of this fear is focused on North Korea and Iran, two "rogue states" that have violated nonproliferation rules and engaged in provocative actions, including nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Conventional wisdom dictates that the regimes in these countries have a uniquely defiant and dangerous nature, and that coercive measures such as sanctions and preemptive strikes are the most effective way to deal with them. But how do the neighbors of these two states view them, and how does this perception map onto the regional landscape in East Asia and the Middle East? Global Rogues and Regional Orders offers a systematic analysis of the intersection of nuclear proliferation and regional order in East Asia and the Middle East. It does so by exploring the causes and consequences of the regional perceptions and policies with regard to the North Korean and Iranian challenges. The U.S. depiction of North Korea and Iran as archetypical global rogues is fundamentally at odds with the regional debate, which centers on multiple understandings of what these nations respectively mean for the regional order. While some regional actors, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, side with the United States, others seek to challenge, or dissociate from, the U.S. position as a means to enhance their countries' regional role and foreign policy autonomy. By turning the analytical focus onto regional actors and the regional dimension of nuclear proliferation, this book offers a novel way to analyze global proliferation challenges and provides new insights into the making of regional orders in East Asia and the Middle East.

The U.S. and Russian academies convened a workshop in 2003 for sharing best practices in nuclear materials protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A), including the status and application of remote monitoring technologies, personnel issues, and both national and international safeguards worldwide. The goals of the workshop were to identify areas in which the United States and Russia can promote best practices in MPC&A globally and expand U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation. The papers presented in the workshop and the outcomes of workshop discussions form the basis for this workshop summary. Table of Contents Front Matter Introduction Workshop Background Workshop Context Overviews of the International Nuclear Nonproliferation Context International Political Efforts to Address the Dangers of Nuclear Weapons and Materials The Legal and Regulatory Context for MPC&A Safeguards Culture IAEA Nonproliferation and MPC&A programs Domestic MPC&A Programs Concluding Remarks Appendix A: Workshop Participants List Appendix B: Workshop Agenda

Abolition of Nuclear Weapons as a Moral Imperative argues that the use of nuclear weapons as a threat in policies of nuclear deterrence violate basic principles of morality and consequently the abolition of nuclear weapons from the world is a moral imperative nations that have them. The focus is on the United States since it will have to take the lead in any program of abolition. The argument is formulated in terms accessible to theorists in different disciplines and activists in a large range of causes. It appeals to principles that are widely shared but whose application to national policies, especially to deterrence by threats of mass destruction, has been debated ever since nuclear weapons were developed. The book explains what is meant by the "immorality" of a national policy, the stake which citizens have in their agents acting morally and the role of their opinions in seeing that they do. The argument of the book is couched in terms of consequences. The effects of the U.S.'s nuclear deterrent on the probability of nuclear war are difficult to calculate; but the harms for the country and others across the globe caused by the immense apparatus necessary to make U.S. threats credible are sufficient to condemn the policy. The last part of the book is devoted to way the U.S. can take the lead in safe and effective steps necessary to abolish the weapons and prevent their reintroduction into the world.

IN THE NEWSDon McCauley's audio interview with Kenneth FordThe Authors Show, 11 August 2016Mt. Airy scientist one of those who built the H-BombChestnut Hill Local, 19 February 2016Building the H-Bomb: The Big IdeaAPS News, June 2015 (Volume 24, Number 6)Behind the Making of a Super BombThe Washington Post, 22 May 2015Hydrogen Bomb Physicist's Book Runs Afoul of Energy DepartmentThe New York Times, 23 March 2015

The Project on Nuclear Issues 2013 conference series included events at Northrop Grumman in May, Sandia National Laboratory in July, and CSIS in December, before concluding with a Capstone Conference at Offutt Air Force Base, home of the U.S. Strategic Command, in March 2014. The papers included in this volume are a collection of some of the presentations delivered at the Capstone Conference. Spanning a wide range of technical and policy issues, these selected papers hope to further discussion in their respective areas, as well as contribute to the success of the greater nuclear community.

Four decades have passed since India conducted its first nuclear test. Since then the world has undergone a transition, both in terms of power dynamics and military warfare. The emergence of New Nuclear and Threshold states has transformed the traditional military warfare, making it more asymmetric. Though the concept of nuclear deterrence in the American strategic thought has diminished, but the Asian countries still consider nuclear weapons as an important strategy in combating conventional weaknesses. This altered strategic space has created problems in the civilian and the military domains. The emergence of economically strong China aiming for military modernization, to achieve global reach through precision missiles, is making Asia edgy. A nuclear Pakistan which is constantly increasing its nuclear stockpile is creating stability-instability paradoxes in Asia. India which is also emerging as a powerful state needs to approach this dynamic shift in a holistic manner. A strategic churning has begun in Asia and whether this will be in India's favour depends on the strategic choices that India adopts.China has revolutionized its Second Artillery through a process of "Informationalisation and Modernisation" and is diversifying the military technology which is having a cascading effect in Asia. Pakistan through its nuclear policy of "First Use", its alleged use of "Tactical Nuclear Weapons" is making South Asia vulnerable to nuclear terrorism. Under such conditions are there any gaps between India's nuclear doctrine and its force structure? Can India's nuclear strategy counter China? Is India capable of countering a Sino-Pak nexus? These are a few questions along with others which this book will try to unravel.

Once dismissed as ineffectual, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has in the past twenty years emerged as a powerful international organization. Member states allow the IAEA to render judgment on matters vital to peace and security while nations around the globe comply with its rules and commands on proliferation, safety, and a range of other issues. Robert L. Brown details the IAEA's role in facilitating both control of nuclear weapons and the safe exploitation of nuclear power. As he shows, the IAEA has acquired a surprising amount of power as states, for political and technological reasons, turn to it to supply policy cooperation and to act as an agent for their security and safety. The agency's success in gaining and holding authority rests in part on its ability to apply politically neutral expertise that produces beneficial policy outcomes. But Brown also delves into the puzzle of how an agency created by states to aid cooperation has acquired power over them.

In this engaging scientific memoir, Kenneth Ford recounts the time when, in his mid-twenties, he was a member of the team that designed and built the first hydrogen bomb. He worked with - and relaxed with - scientific giants of that time such as Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Stan Ulam, John von Neumann, and John Wheeler, and here offers illuminating insights into the personalities, the strengths, and the quirks of these men. Well known for his ability to explain physics to nonspecialists, Ford also brings to life the physics of fission and fusion and provides a brief history of nuclear science from the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 to the ten-megaton explosion of "Mike" that obliterated a Pacific Island in 1952.Ford worked at both Los Alamos and Princeton's Project Matterhorn, and brings out Matterhorn's major, but previously unheralded contribution to the development of the H bomb. Outside the lab, he drove a battered Chevrolet around New Mexico, a bantam motorcycle across the country, and a British roadster around New Jersey. Part of the charm of Ford's book is the way in which he leavens his well-researched descriptions of the scientific work with brief tales of his life away from weapons.

This book begins with the analysis of America's post-war intelligence operations, propaganda campaigns, and strategic psychological warfare in Japan. Banking on nuclear safety myths, Japan promoted an aggressive policy of locating and building nuclear power plants in depopulated areas suffering from a significant decline of local industries and economies. The Fukushima nuclear disaster substantiated that U.S. propaganda programs left a long lasting legacy in Japan and beyond and created the fertile ground for the future nuclear disaster. The book reveals Japan's tripartite organization of the dominating state, media-monopoly, and nuclear-plant oligarchy advancing nuclear proliferation. It details America's unprecedented pro-nuclear propaganda campaigns; Japan's secret ambitions to develop its own nuclear bombs; U.S. dumping of reprocessed plutonium on Japan; and the joint U.S.-Nippon propaganda campaigns for "safe" nuclear-power and the current "safe-nuclear particles" myths. The study shows how the bankruptcy of the central state has led to increased burdens on the population in post-nuclear tsunami era, and the ensuing dangerous ionization of the population now reaching into the future.

The public perception of the making of the atomic bomb is yet an image of the dramatic efforts of a few brilliant male scientists. However, the Manhattan Project was not just the work of a few and it was not just in Los Alamos. It was, in fact, a sprawling research and industrial enterprise that spanned the country from Hanford in Washington State to Oak Ridge in Tennessee, and the Met labs in Illinois. The Manhattan Project also included women in every capacity. During World War II the manpower shortages opened the laboratory doors to women and they embraced the opportunity to demonstrate that they, too, could do \u0022creative science.\u0022 Although women participated in all aspects of the Manhattan Project, their contributions are either omitted or only mentioned briefly in most histories of the project. It is this hidden story that is presented in Their Day in the Sun through interviews, written records, and photographs of the women who were physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, and technicians in the labs. Authors Ruth H. Howes and Caroline L. Herzenberg have uncovered accounts of the scientific problems the women helped solve as well as the opportunities and discrimination they faced. Their Day in the Sun describes their abrupt recruitment for the war effort and includes anecdotes about everyday life in these clandestine improvised communities. A chapter about what happened to the women after the war and about their attitudes now, so many years later, toward the work they did on the bomb is included.

Most observers who follow nuclear history agree on one major aspect regarding Israel's famous policy of nuclear ambiguity; mainly that it is an exception. More specifically, it is largely accepted that the 1969 Nixon-Meir understanding, which formally established Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity and transformed it from an undeclared Israeli strategy into a long-lasting undisclosed bilateral agreement, was in fact a singularity, aimed at allowing Washington to turn a blind eye to the existence of an Israeli arsenal. According to conventional wisdom, this nuclear bargain was a foreign policy exception on behalf of Washington, an exception which reflected a relationship growing closer and warmer between the superpower leading the free world and its small Cold War associate. Contrary to the orthodox narrative, this research demonstrates that this was not the case. The 1969 bargain was not, in fact, an exception, but rather the first of three Cold War era deals on nuclear tests brokered by Washington with its Cold War associates, the other two being Pakistan and South Africa. These two deals are not well known and until now were discussed and explored in the literature in a very limited fashion. Bargaining on Nuclear Tests places the role of nuclear tests by American associates, as well as Washington's attempts to prevent and delay them, at the heart of a new nuclear history narrative.

This book analyses 10 C.F.R. 37, a new rule promulgated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to protect radioactive material. "By-product material" includes specified types of radioactive material other than uranium or plutonium. The rule regulates by-product material of types and in quantities that could be used to make a "dirty bomb". Congress attaches great importance to protecting the United States against terrorist threats and this rule will affect the many industrial, research, and medical activities nation-wide that use radioactive materials, thereby affecting many constituents and raising cost-benefit issues. There is wide concern also about regulation and radiation.

Uranium from Africa has long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2002, George W. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein had 'sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' (later specified as the infamous 'yellowcake from Niger'). Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. But did that admit Niger, or any of Africa's other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of nuclear states? Does uranium itself count as a nuclear thing? In this book, Gabrielle Hecht lucidly probes the question of what it means for something - a state, an object, an industry, a workplace - to be 'nuclear'. Hecht shows that questions about being nuclear - a state that she calls 'nuclearity' - lie at the heart of today's global nuclear order and the relationships between 'developing nations' (often former colonies) and 'nuclear powers' (often former colonizers). Nuclearity, she says, is not a straightforward scientific classification but a contested technopolitical one. Hecht follows uranium's path out of Africa and describes the invention of the global uranium market. She then enters African nuclear worlds, focusing on miners and the occupational hazard of radiation exposure. Could a mine be a nuclear workplace if (as in some South African mines) its radiation levels went undetected and unmeasured? With this book, Hecht is the first to put Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa. Doing so, she remakes our understanding of the nuclear age.

The Iranian nuclear crisis has dominated world politics since the beginning of the century, with the country now facing increasing diplomatic isolation, talk of military strikes against its nuclear facilities and a disastrous Middle East war. What is Iran's nuclear programme all about? What is its genesis? There is little real understanding of Iran's nuclear programme, in particular its history, which is now over fifty years old. This ground-breaking book is unprecedented in its scope. It argues that the history of Iran's nuclear programme and the modern history of the country itself are irretrievably linked, and only by understanding one can we understand the other. From the programme's beginnings under the Shah of Iran, the book details the central role of the US in the birth of nuclear Iran, and, through the relationship between the programme's founder and the Shah of Iran himself, the role that nuclear weapons have played in the programme since the beginning. The author's unique access to 'the father' of Iran's nuclear programme, as well as to key scientific personnel under the early Islamic Republic and to senior Iranian and Western officials at the centre of today's negotiations, sheds new light on the uranium enrichment programme that lies at the heart of global concerns. What emerges is a programme that has, for a variety of reasons, a deep resonance to Iran. This is why it has persisted with it for over half a century in the face of such widespread opposition. Drawing on years of research across the world, David Patrikarakos has produced the most comprehensive examination of Iran's nuclear programme - in all its forms to date.

It is not inevitable that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons or even that it will gain the capacity to quickly produce them. U.S. and even Israeli analysts continually push their estimates for such an event further into the future. Nevertheless, absent a change in Iranian policy, it is reasonable to assume that, some time in the coming decade, Iran will acquire such a capability. Most recent scholarly studies have also focused on how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Other, less voluminous writing looks at what to do after Iran becomes a nuclear power. What has so far been lacking is a policy framework for dealing with Iran before, after, and, indeed, during its crossing of the nuclear threshold. This monograph attempts to fill that gap by providing a midterm strategy for dealing with Iran that neither begins nor ends at the point at which Tehran acquires a nuclear weapon capability. It proposes an approach that neither acquiesces to a nuclear-armed Iran nor refuses to admit the possibility - indeed, the likelihood - of this occurring.

The debate about appropriate purposes and policies for U.S. nuclear weapons has been under way since the beginning of the nuclear age. With the end of the Cold War, the debate has entered a new phase, propelled by the post-Cold War transformations of the international political landscape. This volume?based on an exhaustive reexamination of issues addressed in The Future of the U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Relationship (NRC, 1991)?describes the state to which U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and policies have evolved since the Cold War ended. The book evaluates a regime of progressive constraints for future U.S. nuclear weapons policy that includes further reductions in nuclear forces, changes in nuclear operations to preserve deterrence but enhance operational safety, and measures to help prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. In addition, it examines the conditions and means by which comprehensive nuclear disarmament could become feasible and desirable. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary 1 WHY CHANGE U. S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY? 2 CURRENT U. S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY 3 A REGIME OF PROGRESSIVE RESTRAINTS 4 PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS A Biographical Sketches of Committee Members B The Buildup and Builddown of Nuclear Forces

Proceedings of a seminar focusing on planetary emergencies, followed in a multidisplinary approach since 1980 by permanent monitoring panels.

The book examines Bernard Brodie's strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age, embedding his work within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz. Bernard Brodie (1910-1978) was a leading 20th century theorist and philosopher of war. A key architect of American nuclear strategy, Brodie was one of the first civilian defense intellectuals to cross over into the military world. "State of Doom" explores Brodie's evolution as a theorist and his response to the technological innovations that transformed warfare from WWII to the Vietnam War. It situates his theoretical development within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), as Brodie came to be known as "America's Clausewitz." While his first influential works focused on naval strategy, his most lasting impact came within the field of nuclear strategic thinking. Brodie helped conceptualize America's strategy of deterrence, later taking into account America's loss of nuclear monopoly, thermonuclear weapons, and intercontinental missiles. This in-depth exploration of Brodie's strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age and of his effort to reconcile Clausewitz's theories to the new challenges of the nuclear era will make this book a must read to anyone in strategic studies, international relations, and philosophy of war.

Since August 2003, negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons have involved six governments: the U.S., North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. Since the talks began, North Korea has operated nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and apparently has produced weapons-grade plutonium estimated as sufficient for five to eight atomic weapons. U.S. officials have cited evidence that North Korea also operates a secret highly enriched uranium program, which also could produce atomic weapons. This book summarizes what is known from open sources about the North Korean nuclear weapons program and assesses current developments in achieving denuclearisation. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

The purpose of the book is to provide guidance to politicians, diplomatic, high ranking military officers, military experts, journalists and academics during the preparation of national policies on non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control. The United Nations disarmament machinery, including the Conference on Disarmament could use this book as a reference when preparing different proposals of actions to be implemented by the international community in order to preserve international peace and security. Another purpose of this book is to serve as a guidance to high ranking military officers, disarmament experts, journalists and academics in their daily researcher work, as well as to serve as teaching materials in post-graduated studies in the field of disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control.