School of Public Policy

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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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End date: 2009Subject: search.filters.subject.nuclear weapons

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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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.
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    Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age
    (2004-09-20) Lewis, Jeffrey; Steinbruner, John D; Public Affairs; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Among the 5 states authorized under the NPT to possess nuclear weapons, China has the most restrained pattern of deployment: The People's Republic of China (PRC) operationally deploys about 80 nuclear warheads exclusively for use with land-based ballistic missiles. Its declaratory doctrine rejects the initiation of nuclear war under any circumstance. The PRC does not maintain tactical nuclear forces of any kind, and its strategic forces are kept off alert, with warheads in storage. This posture has been sustained over time and changes in threat perception, suggesting restraint is the result of choice and not expediency. The apparent implication of the sustained pattern of Chinese restraint implies a distinctly different strategic assessment from that developed by Russia and the US to justify and direct their larger and more actively deployed forces. As articulated in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, the United States seeks credible options for the preventive use of strategic forces. Such options will presumably undermine confidence among Chinese leaders that a small strategic force provides adequate deterrence, and that vulnerability to preemption poses a less significant risk than the loss of control over alert forces. There is no evidence yet of a fundamental revision in the traditional deployment pattern of Chinese strategic forces, perhaps because China is likely to preserve a modest capability sufficient for its minimalist conception of deterrence. If China were subjected to a level of preemptive threat that Beijing judged intolerable, Chinese leaders would likely to reject, at least initially, the systematic emulation of US deployment patterns. Although the inner deliberations of China's leadership are only barely perceptible, patterns in Chinese defense investments, strategic force deployments, and arms control behavior suggest China would consider asymmetric responses that targeted the vulnerable command, control and intelligence (C2I) systems essential to preventive operations. This dissertation attempts a systematic examination of Chinese policy statements and diplomatic actions for two purposes: 1. To test the plausibility of China's apparent strategic logic against the conflicting expectations of prevailing US assessments. 2. To provide guidance for shaping both the specific security relationship with China and global security arrangements in general.