Nuclear weapon

The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 kilometers (11 mi) above the hypocenter.

A nuclear weapon is a weapon which derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of fission or fusion. As a result, even a nuclear weapon with a small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives, and a single weapon is capable of destroying an entire city.

In the history of warfare, nuclear weapons have been used only twice, both during the closing days of World War II. The first event occurred on the morning of August 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second event occurred three days later when the United States dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki. The use of these weapons, which resulted in the immediate deaths of around 100,000 to 200,000 people and even more over time, was and remains controversial — critics around the world charged that they were unnecessary acts of mass killing, while others claimed that they ultimately reduced casualties on both sides by hastening the end of the war (see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a full discussion).

Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing and demonstration purposes. The only countries known to have detonated such weapons are (chronologically) the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

Various other countries may hold nuclear weapons but have never publicly admitted possession, or their claims to possession have not been verified. For example, Israel has modern airborne delivery systems and appears to have an extensive nuclear program with hundreds of warheads (see Israel and weapons of mass destruction), though it officially maintains a policy of "ambiguity" with respect to its actual possession of nuclear weapons. In an apparent slip, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted in an interview that Israel was among the countries that possessed nuclear weapons. According to some estimates, it possesses as many as 200 nuclear warheads. Iran currently stands accused by a number of governments of attempting to develop nuclear capabilities, though its government claims that its acknowledged nuclear activities, such as uranium enrichment, are for peaceful purposes. South Africa also secretly developed a small nuclear arsenal, but disassembled it in the early 1990s. (For more information see List of states with nuclear weapons.)

Apart from their use as weapons, nuclear explosives have been tested and used for various non-military uses. Synthetic elements such as Einsteinium, created by nuclear fission, were discovered in the aftermath of the first hydrogen bomb test.

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Governance and control

The International Atomic Energy Agency was created in 1957 in order to encourage the peaceful development of nuclear technology while providing international safeguards against nuclear proliferation.

Because of the immense military power they can confer, the political control of nuclear weapons has been a key issue for as long as they have existed. In the late 1940s, lack of mutual trust prohibited the United States and the Soviet Union from making ground towards international arms control agreements, but by the 1960s steps were being taken to limit both the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries and the environmental effects of nuclear testing. The Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963) restricted all nuclear testing to underground nuclear testing, to prevent contamination from nuclear fallout, while the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) attempted to place restrictions on the types of activities which signatories could participate in, with the goal of allowing the transference of non-military nuclear technology to member countries without fear of proliferation. In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established under the mandate of the United Nations in order to encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, provide international safeguards against its misuse, and facilitate the application of safety measures in its use. In 1996, many nations signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which prohibits all testing of nuclear weapons, which would impose a significant hindrance to their development by any complying country.

Additional treaties have governed nuclear weapons stockpiles between individual countries, such as the SALT I and START I treaties, which limited the numbers and types of nuclear weapons between the United States and the U.S.S.R.

Nuclear weapons have also been opposed by agreements between countries. Many nations have been declared Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones, areas where nuclear weapons production and deployment are prohbited, through the use of treaties. The Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967) prohibited any production or deployment of nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Treaty of Pelindaba (1964) prohibits nuclear weapons in many African countries. As recently as 2006 a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone was established amongst the former Soviet republics of Central Asia prohibiting nuclear weapons.

In 1996, the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, issued an Advisory Opinion concerned with the "Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons". The court ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons would violate various articles of international law, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

See also

More technical details

• Nuclear weapon design
• Nuclear weapon yield
• Nuclear explosion

History

• History of nuclear weapons
• Manhattan Project
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Nuclear testing
  • Nevada Test Site
• Soviet atomic bomb project
• Stanislav Petrov
• German nuclear energy project
• Japanese atomic program
• Nuclear and radiation accidents (including nuclear weapons accidents)

Related technology and science

• Nuclear physics
• Nuclear fission
• Nuclear fusion
• Nuclear reactor
• Nuclear engineering

Military strategy

• Nuclear warfare
• Civil Defense
• Nuclear strategy
• Mutual Assured Destruction
• Fractional Orbital Bombardment System

Proliferation and politics

• Nuclear proliferation
• Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
• Nuclear disarmament
• International Court of Justice advisory opinion on legality of nuclear weapons
• List of countries with nuclear weapons
• Nuclear weapons and the United States
• Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
• List of nuclear weapons

Popular culture

• Nuclear weapons in popular culture

Aftermath

• Nuclear winter
• Nuclear summer

References

• Bethe, Hans Albrecht. The Road from Los Alamos. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. ISBN 0-671-74012-1
• DeVolpi, Alexander, Minkov, Vladimir E., Simonenko, Vadim A., and Stanford, George S. Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry. Fidlar Doubleday, 2004.
• Glasstone, Samuel and Dolan, Philip J. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (third edition). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977. Available online (PDF).
• NATO Handbook on the Medical Aspects of NBC Defensive Operations (Part I - Nuclear). Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force: Washington, D.C., 1996.
• Hansen, Chuck. U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History. Arlington, TX: Aerofax, 1988.
• Hansen, Chuck. The Swords of Armageddon: U.S. nuclear weapons development since 1945. Sunnyvale, CA: Chukelea Publications, 1995. [1]
• Holloway, David. "Stalin and the Bomb". New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-300-06056-4
• The Manhattan Engineer District, "The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (1946)
• Smyth, Henry DeWolf. Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945. (Smyth Report – the first declassified report by the US government on nuclear weapons)
• The Effects of Nuclear War. Office of Technology Assessment, May 1979.
• Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0-684-82414-0
• Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986 ISBN 0-684-81378-5
• Weart, Spencer R. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

External links

General

• Nuclear Weapon Archive from Carey Sublette is a reliable source of information and has links to other sources and an informative FAQ.
• The Federation of American Scientists provide solid information on weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons and their effects
• Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues – contains many resources related to nuclear weapons, including a historical and technical overview and searchable bibliography of web and print resources.
• Everything you wanted to know about nuclear technology — Provided by New Scientist.
• Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Nuclear weapons
• AtomicForum.org contains lots of information about weapons history and development

Historical

• The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb at AtomicArchive.com
• Los Alamos National Laboratory — History (U.S. nuclear history)
• Race for the Superbomb, PBS website on the history of the H-bomb
• U.S. nuclear test photographs from the DOE Nevada Site Office
• U.S. nuclear test film clips from the DOE Nevada Site Office

Effects

• Hans Bethe talking about his shock of seeing the after effects of Hiroshima on Peoples Archive.
• Nuclear weapon simulator for several major US cities, from Federation o fAmerican Scientists
• Fallout Calculator for various regions, from Federation of American Scientists
• Example scenarios – Two scenarios of a nuclear explosion on two United States cities, from AtomicArchive.com
• Effects of Nuclear weapons These tables describe the effects of various nuclear blast sizes. All figures are for 15-mph winds. Thermal burns represent injuries to an unprotected person. The legend describes the data.
• Effects of nuclear weapons from AtomicArchive.com
• The Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan (1977 edn.) — an official text of the US government on weapons effects which is generally considered definitive

Issues

• "The Nuclear Weapons Debate" - OneWorld.net's Perspectives Magazine, May 2005
• "Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons: Making the Connections" – an article about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons development by an anti-nuclear group.
• Nuclear War Survival Skills is a public domain text about civil defense.
• IPPNW: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War – Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization with information about the medical consequences of nuclear weapons, war and militarization.
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – Magazine founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists. Covers nuclear weapons proliferation and many other global security issues. See this page for comprehensive data on nuclear weapons worldwide.
• 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons – Largest, smallest, number, cost, etc.
• Nuclear Files.org covers the history of nuclear weapons and explores the political, legal and ethical challenges of the Nuclear Age.
• Union of Concerned Scientists – Nuclear Policy, weapons, testing, technical issues, and arms control.
• Nuclear Ambitions - The World's Deadly Arsenal - Independent news on issues relating to nuclear weapons and disarmament by the news agency Inter Press Service