Public Policy Research Works

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    Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System
    (Union of Concerned Scientists and MIT Security Studies Program, 2000-04) Fetter, Steve; Sessler, Andrew M.; Cornwall, John M.; Dietz, Bob; Frankel, Sherman; Garwin, Richard L.; Gottfried, Kurt; Gronlund, Lisbeth; Lewis, George N.; Postol, Theodore A.; Wright, David C.
    The National Missile Defense system under development by the United States would be ineffective against even limited ballistic missile attacks from emerging missile states. Moreover, its deployment would increase nuclear dangers from Russia and China, and impede cooperation by these countries in international efforts to control the proliferation of long-range ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The United States should reconsider its options for countering the threats posed by long-range ballistic missiles and shelve the current NMD plans as unworkable and counterproductive.
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    The Hazard from Plutonium Dispersal by Nuclear-warhead Accidents
    (Taylor & Francis, 1990) Fetter, Steve; Frank, von Hippel
    Nuclear weapons are carefully designed to have an extremely low probability of exploding accidentally with an appreciable yield—even if they are involved in a high-speed crash, struck by a bullet or consumed in a fire. The principal concern when nuclear warheads are involved in such accidents is the possible dispersal of plutonium into the environment. In particular, an explosion could disperse a significant fraction of the plutonium in a warhead as particles of respirable size.
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    Nuclear Energy and Proliferation Resistance: Securing Benefits, Limiting Risks
    (American Physical Society, 2005-05) Fetter, Steve; Hagengruber, Roger; Ahearne, John; Budnitz, Robert J.; Moniz, Ernest; Richter, Burton; Shea, Thomas E.; Tape, Jim; von Hippel, Frank
    Global electricity demand is expected to increase by more than 50 percent by 2025 and nuclear power is a primary carbon-free energy source for meeting this extensive global energy expansion. At the same time, the technologies used in peaceful nuclear power programs overlap with those used in the production of fissionable material for nuclear weapons. This report examines technological steps that the US can take to enhance the proliferation resistance of nuclear power systems.
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    Verifying Nuclear Disarmament
    (Westview Press, The Perseus Books Group, 1998-03) Fetter, Steve
    Commentators differ on whether nuclear disarmament would be desirable, but many argue that disarmament is impractical because it could not be verified. Three reasons are often offered for such pessimism. First, nuclear weapons are small and difficult to detect, and one could not be sure that a few weapons had not been hidden away. Second, nuclear weapons are so destructive that a mere handful would confer enormous military and political advantages over non-nuclear adversaries. Finally, nuclear know-how cannot be eliminated, and any nation that had dismantled its nuclear weapons would be capable of quickly assembling a new arsenal from scratch or using civilian nuclear materials. Because of the difficulty of verifying that other states had eliminated all their weapons and providing adequate warning of their rearming, it is argued, states would not agree to disarm in the first place.
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    Toward True Security: A U.S. Nuclear Posture for the Next Decade
    (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2001-06) Fetter, Steve; Blair, Bruce G.; Cochran, Thomas B.; Collina, Tom Z.; Dean, Jonathan; Garwin, Richard L.; Gottfried, Kurt; Gronlund, Lisbeth; Kelly, Henry; McKinzie, Matthew G.; Norris, Robert S.; Segal, Adam; Sherman, Robert; von Hippel, Frank N.; Wright, David; Young, Stephen
    This report proposes a nuclear weapons policy for the United States for the next decade that reflects today’s political and strategic realities. By contrast, the official policies and doctrines of both the United States and Russia are mired in Cold War patterns of thought. Eleven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, both countries still maintain massive nuclear arsenals ready for nearly instant use. Although nuclear war plans differ in size and detail from those drawn up 20 or more years ago, their basic structure remains unchanged. The US nuclear arsenal and doctrine were designed to deter a deliberate large-scale Soviet nuclear attack on the United States and a massive Soviet conventional attack on US European allies, as well as to preserve the option of a disarming first strike against Soviet nuclear forces. This force structure and doctrine are obsolete and jeopardize American national security.