Un arma nuclear (también llamada bomba atómica, nuclear, bomba atómica, ojiva nuclear, bomba A o bomba nuclear ) es un dispositivo explosivo que deriva su fuerza destructiva de reacciones nucleares , ya sea de fisión (bomba de fisión) o de una combinación de reacciones de fisión y fusión ( bomba termonuclear ). Ambos tipos de bombas liberan grandes cantidades de energía a partir de cantidades relativamente pequeñas de materia.
La primera prueba de una bomba de fisión ("atómica") liberó una cantidad de energía aproximadamente igual a 20.000 toneladas de TNT (84 TJ ). [1] La primera prueba de bomba termonuclear ("hidrógeno") liberó energía aproximadamente igual a 10 millones de toneladas de TNT (42 PJ). Las bombas nucleares han tenido rendimientos entre 10 toneladas de TNT (el W54 ) y 50 megatones para el Tsar Bomba (ver equivalente de TNT ). Un arma termonuclear que pese poco más de 2.400 libras (1.100 kg) puede liberar energía equivalente a más de 1.2 millones de toneladas de TNT (5.0 PJ). [2]
Un dispositivo nuclear no más grande que las bombas tradicionales puede devastar una ciudad entera por explosión, fuego y radiación . Dado que son armas de destrucción masiva , la proliferación de armas nucleares es un tema central de la política de relaciones internacionales . Las armas nucleares se han desplegado dos veces en la guerra, por Estados Unidos contra las ciudades japonesas de Hiroshima y Nagasaki en 1945 durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial .
Prueba y despliegue de armas nucleares
Las armas nucleares se han utilizado dos veces en la guerra , en ambas ocasiones por parte de Estados Unidos contra Japón cerca del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial . El 6 de agosto de 1945, las Fuerzas Aéreas del Ejército de los Estados Unidos detonaron una bomba de fisión tipo pistola de uranio apodada " Little Boy " sobre la ciudad japonesa de Hiroshima ; tres días después, el 9 de agosto, las Fuerzas Aéreas del Ejército de Estados Unidos detonaron una bomba de fisión de implosión de plutonio apodada " Fat Man " sobre la ciudad japonesa de Nagasaki . Estos bombardeos causaron heridos que resultaron en la muerte de aproximadamente 200.000 civiles y militares . [3] La ética de estos atentados y su papel en la rendición de Japón son temas de debate .
Desde los bombardeos atómicos de Hiroshima y Nagasaki , las armas nucleares se han detonado más de 2.000 veces para realizar pruebas y demostraciones. Solo unas pocas naciones poseen tales armas o se sospecha que las buscan. Los únicos países que se sabe que han detonado armas nucleares, y reconocen poseerlas, son (cronológicamente por fecha de la primera prueba) los Estados Unidos , la Unión Soviética (reemplazada como potencia nuclear por Rusia ), el Reino Unido , Francia , China , India. , Pakistán y Corea del Norte . Se cree que Israel posee armas nucleares, aunque, en una política de ambigüedad deliberada , no reconoce tenerlas. Alemania , Italia , Turquía , Bélgica y los Países Bajos son estados que comparten armas nucleares . [4] [5] [6] Sudáfrica es el único país que desarrolló de forma independiente y luego renunció y desmanteló sus armas nucleares. [7]
El Tratado sobre la no proliferación de las armas nucleares tiene como objetivo reducir la propagación de las armas nucleares, pero se ha cuestionado su eficacia. La modernización de las armas continúa hasta el día de hoy. [8]
Tipos
Hay dos tipos básicos de armas nucleares: las que obtienen la mayor parte de su energía únicamente de las reacciones de fisión nuclear y las que utilizan reacciones de fisión para iniciar reacciones de fusión nuclear que producen una gran cantidad de la producción total de energía. [10]
Armas de fisión
Todas las armas nucleares existentes obtienen parte de su energía explosiva de reacciones de fisión nuclear. Las armas cuya salida explosiva proviene exclusivamente de reacciones de fisión se denominan comúnmente bombas atómicas o bombas atómicas (abreviadas como bombas A ). Esto se ha observado durante mucho tiempo como un nombre inapropiado , ya que su energía proviene del núcleo del átomo, al igual que lo hace con las armas de fusión.
En las armas de fisión, una masa de material fisionable ( uranio enriquecido o plutonio ) se ve forzada a la supercriticidad, lo que permite un crecimiento exponencial de las reacciones nucleares en cadena, ya sea disparando una pieza de material subcrítico a otra (el método de la "pistola") o por compresión de una esfera o cilindro subcrítico de material fisionable utilizando lentes explosivos alimentados químicamente . El último enfoque, el método de "implosión", es más sofisticado que el primero.
Un desafío importante en todos los diseños de armas nucleares es garantizar que se consuma una fracción significativa del combustible antes de que el arma se destruya a sí misma. La cantidad de energía liberada por las bombas de fisión puede variar desde el equivalente de poco menos de una tonelada hasta más de 500.000 toneladas (500 kilotones ) de TNT (4,2 a 2,1 × 10 6 GJ). [11]
Todas las reacciones de fisión generan productos de fisión , los restos de los núcleos atómicos divididos. Muchos productos de fisión son altamente radiactivos (pero de corta duración) o moderadamente radiactivos (pero de larga duración) y, como tales, son una forma grave de contaminación radiactiva . Los productos de fisión son el principal componente radiactivo de la lluvia radiactiva . Otra fuente de radiactividad es la explosión de neutrones libres producida por el arma. Cuando chocan con otros núcleos en el material circundante, los neutrones transmutan esos núcleos en otros isótopos, alterando su estabilidad y haciéndolos radiactivos.
Los materiales fisibles más utilizados para aplicaciones de armas nucleares han sido el uranio 235 y el plutonio 239 . El uranio-233 se ha utilizado con menos frecuencia . El neptunio-237 y algunos isótopos de americio también pueden usarse para explosivos nucleares, pero no está claro que esto se haya implementado alguna vez, y su uso plausible en armas nucleares es un tema de controversia. [12]
Armas de fusión
El otro tipo básico de arma nuclear produce una gran proporción de su energía en reacciones de fusión nuclear. Estas armas de fusión se conocen generalmente como armas termonucleares o más coloquialmente como bombas de hidrógeno (abreviadas como bombas H ), ya que se basan en reacciones de fusión entre isótopos de hidrógeno ( deuterio y tritio ). Todas estas armas obtienen una parte importante de su energía de las reacciones de fisión que se utilizan para "desencadenar" reacciones de fusión, y las reacciones de fusión pueden desencadenar por sí mismas reacciones de fisión adicionales. [13]
Sólo seis países ( Estados Unidos , Rusia , Reino Unido, China, Francia e India) han realizado pruebas de armas termonucleares. Es controvertido si India ha detonado un arma termonuclear de múltiples etapas "verdadera" . [14] Corea del Norte afirma haber probado un arma de fusión en enero de 2016.[actualizar], aunque esta afirmación está en disputa. [15] Las armas termonucleares se consideran mucho más difíciles de diseñar y ejecutar con éxito que las armas de fisión primitivas. Casi todas las armas nucleares desplegadas hoy utilizan el diseño termonuclear porque es más eficiente. [dieciséis]
Las bombas termonucleares funcionan utilizando la energía de una bomba de fisión para comprimir y calentar el combustible de fusión. En el diseño Teller-Ulam , que tiene en cuenta todas las bombas de hidrógeno de rendimiento de megatones múltiples, esto se logra colocando una bomba de fisión y combustible de fusión ( tritio , deuterio o deuteruro de litio ) en las proximidades dentro de un contenedor especial que refleja la radiación. Cuando se detona la bomba de fisión, los rayos gamma y los rayos X emitidos primero comprimen el combustible de fusión y luego lo calientan a temperaturas termonucleares. La reacción de fusión resultante crea una enorme cantidad de neutrones de alta velocidad , que luego pueden inducir la fisión en materiales que normalmente no son propensos a ella, como el uranio empobrecido . Cada uno de estos componentes se conoce como una "etapa", con la bomba de fisión como "primaria" y la cápsula de fusión como "secundaria". En las grandes bombas de hidrógeno de rango de megatones, aproximadamente la mitad del rendimiento proviene de la fisión final del uranio empobrecido. [11]
Prácticamente todas las armas termonucleares desplegadas en la actualidad utilizan el diseño de "dos etapas" descrito anteriormente, pero es posible agregar etapas de fusión adicionales; cada etapa enciende una mayor cantidad de combustible de fusión en la siguiente etapa. Esta técnica se puede utilizar para construir armas termonucleares de rendimiento arbitrariamente grande, en contraste con las bombas de fisión, que tienen una fuerza explosiva limitada. El arma nuclear más grande jamás detonada, la Tsar Bomba de la URSS, que liberó una energía equivalente a más de 50 megatones de TNT (210 PJ), era un arma de tres etapas. La mayoría de las armas termonucleares son considerablemente más pequeñas que esto, debido a las limitaciones prácticas de los requisitos de espacio y peso de las ojivas de misiles. [17]
Las reacciones de fusión no crean productos de fisión y, por lo tanto, contribuyen mucho menos a la creación de lluvia radiactiva que las reacciones de fisión, pero debido a que todas las armas termonucleares contienen al menos una etapa de fisión , y muchos dispositivos termonucleares de alto rendimiento tienen una etapa de fisión final, las armas termonucleares. puede generar al menos tanta lluvia radiactiva como las armas de solo fisión.
Otros tipos
También existen otros tipos de armas nucleares. Por ejemplo, un arma de fisión potenciada es una bomba de fisión que aumenta su rendimiento explosivo a través de un pequeño número de reacciones de fusión, pero no es una bomba de fusión. En la bomba impulsada, los neutrones producidos por las reacciones de fusión sirven principalmente para aumentar la eficiencia de la bomba de fisión. Hay dos tipos de bombas de fisión reforzadas: reforzadas internamente, en las que se inyecta una mezcla de deuterio-tritio en el núcleo de la bomba, y reforzadas externamente, en las que se colocan capas concéntricas de deuteruro de litio y uranio empobrecido en el exterior de la bomba de fisión centro.
Algunas armas nucleares están diseñadas para fines especiales; una bomba de neutrones es un arma termonuclear que produce una explosión relativamente pequeña pero una cantidad relativamente grande de radiación de neutrones ; Teóricamente, un dispositivo de este tipo podría usarse para causar bajas masivas mientras deja la infraestructura casi intacta y crea una cantidad mínima de consecuencias. La detonación de cualquier arma nuclear va acompañada de una explosión de radiación de neutrones . Rodear un arma nuclear con materiales adecuados (como cobalto u oro ) crea un arma conocida como bomba salada . Este dispositivo puede producir cantidades excepcionalmente grandes de contaminación radiactiva de larga duración . Se ha conjeturado que tal dispositivo podría servir como un "arma del fin del mundo" porque una cantidad tan grande de radiactividades con vidas medias de décadas, elevadas a la estratosfera donde los vientos la distribuirían por todo el mundo, haría que toda la vida del planeta extinto.
En relación con la Iniciativa de Defensa Estratégica , la investigación sobre el láser de bombeo nuclear se llevó a cabo en el marco del programa DOD Proyecto Excalibur, pero esto no resultó en un arma que funcionara. El concepto implica el aprovechamiento de la energía de una bomba nuclear que explota para alimentar un láser de un solo disparo que se dirige a un objetivo distante.
Durante la prueba nuclear a gran altitud Starfish Prime en 1962, se produjo un efecto inesperado que se llama pulso electromagnético nuclear . Se trata de un intenso destello de energía electromagnética producido por una lluvia de electrones de alta energía que a su vez son producidos por los rayos gamma de una bomba nuclear. Este destello de energía puede destruir o interrumpir permanentemente los equipos electrónicos si no están suficientemente blindados. Se ha propuesto utilizar este efecto para inhabilitar la infraestructura militar y civil de un enemigo como complemento de otras operaciones militares convencionales o nucleares contra ese enemigo. Debido a que el efecto es producido por detonaciones nucleares a gran altitud, puede producir daños a la electrónica en un área geográfica amplia, incluso continental.
Se ha investigado la posibilidad de bombas de fusión puras : armas nucleares que consisten en reacciones de fusión sin requerir una bomba de fisión para iniciarlas. Tal dispositivo podría proporcionar un camino más simple hacia las armas termonucleares que uno que requiera el desarrollo de armas de fisión primero, y las armas de fusión pura crearían significativamente menos lluvia radiactiva que otras armas termonucleares porque no dispersarían los productos de fisión. En 1998, el Departamento de Energía de los Estados Unidos divulgó que Estados Unidos había "... realizado una inversión sustancial" en el pasado para desarrollar armas de fusión pura, pero que "Estados Unidos no tiene ni está desarrollando una fusión pura". arma ", y que," Ningún diseño creíble para un arma de fusión pura resultó de la inversión del DOE ". [18]
La antimateria , que consiste en partículas que se asemejan a las partículas de materia ordinaria en la mayoría de sus propiedades pero que tienen carga eléctrica opuesta , se ha considerado un mecanismo de activación de las armas nucleares. [19] [20] [21] Un obstáculo importante es la dificultad de producir antimateria en cantidades suficientemente grandes, y no hay evidencia de que sea factible más allá del dominio militar. [22] Sin embargo, la Fuerza Aérea de los Estados Unidos financió estudios de la física de la antimateria en la Guerra Fría y comenzó a considerar su posible uso en armas, no solo como un disparador, sino como el explosivo en sí. [23] Un diseño de armas nucleares de cuarta generación [19] está relacionado y se basa en el mismo principio que la propulsión nuclear por pulsos catalizada por antimateria . [24]
La mayor parte de la variación en el diseño de armas nucleares tiene el propósito de lograr diferentes rendimientos para diferentes situaciones y de manipular los elementos de diseño para intentar minimizar el tamaño del arma. [11]
Entrega de armas
The system used to deliver a nuclear weapon to its target is an important factor affecting both nuclear weapon design and nuclear strategy. The design, development, and maintenance of delivery systems are among the most expensive parts of a nuclear weapons program; they account, for example, for 57% of the financial resources spent by the United States on nuclear weapons projects since 1940.[25]
The simplest method for delivering a nuclear weapon is a gravity bomb dropped from aircraft; this was the method used by the United States against Japan. This method places few restrictions on the size of the weapon. It does, however, limit attack range, response time to an impending attack, and the number of weapons that a country can field at the same time. With miniaturization, nuclear bombs can be delivered by both strategic bombers and tactical fighter-bombers. This method is the primary means of nuclear weapons delivery; the majority of U.S. nuclear warheads, for example, are free-fall gravity bombs, namely the B61.[11][needs update]
Preferable from a strategic point of view is a nuclear weapon mounted on a missile, which can use a ballistic trajectory to deliver the warhead over the horizon. Although even short-range missiles allow for a faster and less vulnerable attack, the development of long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) has given some nations the ability to plausibly deliver missiles anywhere on the globe with a high likelihood of success.
More advanced systems, such as multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), can launch multiple warheads at different targets from one missile, reducing the chance of a successful missile defense. Today, missiles are most common among systems designed for delivery of nuclear weapons. Making a warhead small enough to fit onto a missile, though, can be difficult.[11]
Tactical weapons have involved the most variety of delivery types, including not only gravity bombs and missiles but also artillery shells, land mines, and nuclear depth charges and torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare. An atomic mortar has been tested by the United States. Small, two-man portable tactical weapons (somewhat misleadingly referred to as suitcase bombs), such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition, have been developed, although the difficulty of combining sufficient yield with portability limits their military utility.[11]
Estrategia nuclear
Nuclear warfare strategy is a set of policies that deal with preventing or fighting a nuclear war. The policy of trying to prevent an attack by a nuclear weapon from another country by threatening nuclear retaliation is known as the strategy of nuclear deterrence. The goal in deterrence is to always maintain a second strike capability (the ability of a country to respond to a nuclear attack with one of its own) and potentially to strive for first strike status (the ability to destroy an enemy's nuclear forces before they could retaliate). During the Cold War, policy and military theorists considered the sorts of policies that might prevent a nuclear attack, and they developed game theory models that could lead to stable deterrence conditions.[26]
Different forms of nuclear weapons delivery (see above) allow for different types of nuclear strategies. The goals of any strategy are generally to make it difficult for an enemy to launch a pre-emptive strike against the weapon system and difficult to defend against the delivery of the weapon during a potential conflict. This can mean keeping weapon locations hidden, such as deploying them on submarines or land mobile transporter erector launchers whose locations are difficult to track, or it can mean protecting weapons by burying them in hardened missile silo bunkers. Other components of nuclear strategies included using missile defenses to destroy the missiles before they land, or implementing civil defense measures using early-warning systems to evacuate citizens to safe areas before an attack.
Weapons designed to threaten large populations or to deter attacks are known as strategic weapons. Nuclear weapons for use on a battlefield in military situations are called tactical weapons.
Critics of nuclear war strategy often suggest that a nuclear war between two nations would result in mutual annihilation. From this point of view, the significance of nuclear weapons is to deter war because any nuclear war would escalate out of mutual distrust and fear, resulting in mutually assured destruction. This threat of national, if not global, destruction has been a strong motivation for anti-nuclear weapons activism.
Critics from the peace movement and within the military establishment[citation needed] have questioned the usefulness of such weapons in the current military climate. According to an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in 1996, the use of (or threat of use of) such weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, but the court did not reach an opinion as to whether or not the threat or use would be lawful in specific extreme circumstances such as if the survival of the state were at stake.
Another deterrence position is that nuclear proliferation can be desirable. In this case, it is argued that, unlike conventional weapons, nuclear weapons deter all-out war between states, and they succeeded in doing this during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.[27] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Gen. Pierre Marie Gallois of France, an adviser to Charles de Gaulle, argued in books like The Balance of Terror: Strategy for the Nuclear Age (1961) that mere possession of a nuclear arsenal was enough to ensure deterrence, and thus concluded that the spread of nuclear weapons could increase international stability. Some prominent neo-realist scholars, such as Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer, have argued, along the lines of Gallois, that some forms of nuclear proliferation would decrease the likelihood of total war, especially in troubled regions of the world where there exists a single nuclear-weapon state. Aside from the public opinion that opposes proliferation in any form, there are two schools of thought on the matter: those, like Mearsheimer, who favored selective proliferation,[28] and Waltz, who was somewhat more non-interventionist.[29][30] Interest in proliferation and the stability-instability paradox that it generates continues to this day, with ongoing debate about indigenous Japanese and South Korean nuclear deterrent against North Korea.[31]
The threat of potentially suicidal terrorists possessing nuclear weapons (a form of nuclear terrorism) complicates the decision process. The prospect of mutually assured destruction might not deter an enemy who expects to die in the confrontation. Further, if the initial act is from a stateless terrorist instead of a sovereign nation, there might not be a nation or specific target to retaliate against. It has been argued, especially after the September 11, 2001, attacks, that this complication calls for a new nuclear strategy, one that is distinct from that which gave relative stability during the Cold War.[32] Since 1996, the United States has had a policy of allowing the targeting of its nuclear weapons at terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.[33]
Robert Gallucci argues that although traditional deterrence is not an effective approach toward terrorist groups bent on causing a nuclear catastrophe, Gallucci believes that "the United States should instead consider a policy of expanded deterrence, which focuses not solely on the would-be nuclear terrorists but on those states that may deliberately transfer or inadvertently leak nuclear weapons and materials to them. By threatening retaliation against those states, the United States may be able to deter that which it cannot physically prevent.".[34]
Graham Allison makes a similar case, arguing that the key to expanded deterrence is coming up with ways of tracing nuclear material to the country that forged the fissile material. "After a nuclear bomb detonates, nuclear forensics cops would collect debris samples and send them to a laboratory for radiological analysis. By identifying unique attributes of the fissile material, including its impurities and contaminants, one could trace the path back to its origin."[35] The process is analogous to identifying a criminal by fingerprints. "The goal would be twofold: first, to deter leaders of nuclear states from selling weapons to terrorists by holding them accountable for any use of their weapons; second, to give leaders every incentive to tightly secure their nuclear weapons and materials."[35]
According to the Pentagon's June 2019 "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs website Publication, "Integration of nuclear weapons employment with conventional and special operations forces is essential to the success of any mission or operation."[36][37]
Gobernanza, control y derecho
Because they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation and possible use of nuclear weapons are important issues in international relations and diplomacy. In most countries, the use of nuclear force can only be authorized by the head of government or head of state.[38] Despite controls and regulations governing nuclear weapons, there is an inherent danger of "accidents, mistakes, false alarms, blackmail, theft, and sabotage".[39]
In the late 1940s, lack of mutual trust prevented the United States and the Soviet Union from making progress on arms control agreements. The Russell–Einstein Manifesto was issued in London on July 9, 1955, by Bertrand Russell in the midst of the Cold War. It highlighted the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and called for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international conflict. The signatories included eleven pre-eminent intellectuals and scientists, including Albert Einstein, who signed it just days before his death on April 18, 1955. A few days after the release, philanthropist Cyrus S. Eaton offered to sponsor a conference—called for in the manifesto—in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Eaton's birthplace. This conference was to be the first of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, held in July 1957.
By the 1960s, steps were taken to limit both the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries and the environmental effects of nuclear testing. The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) restricted all nuclear testing to underground nuclear testing, to prevent contamination from nuclear fallout, whereas the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968) attempted to place restrictions on the types of activities 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 to encourage development of 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 the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty,[40] which prohibits all testing of nuclear weapons. A testing ban imposes a significant hindrance to nuclear arms development by any complying country.[41] The Treaty requires the ratification by 44 specific states before it can go into force; as of 2012[update], the ratification of eight of these states is still required.[40]
Additional treaties and agreements have governed nuclear weapons stockpiles between the countries with the two largest stockpiles, the United States and the Soviet Union, and later between the United States and Russia. These include treaties such as SALT II (never ratified), START I (expired), INF, START II (never ratified), SORT, and New START, as well as non-binding agreements such as SALT I and the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives[42] of 1991. Even when they did not enter into force, these agreements helped limit and later reduce the numbers and types of nuclear weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia.
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 prohibited, 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 among 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. Given the unique, destructive characteristics of nuclear weapons, the International Committee of the Red Cross calls on States to ensure that these weapons are never used, irrespective of whether they consider them lawful or not.[43]
Additionally, there have been other, specific actions meant to discourage countries from developing nuclear arms. In the wake of the tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, economic sanctions were (temporarily) levied against both countries, though neither were signatories with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One of the stated casus belli for the initiation of the 2003 Iraq War was an accusation by the United States that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear arms (though this was soon discovered not to be the case as the program had been discontinued). In 1981, Israel had bombed a nuclear reactor being constructed in Osirak, Iraq, in what it called an attempt to halt Iraq's previous nuclear arms ambitions; in 2007, Israel bombed another reactor being constructed in Syria.
In 2013, Mark Diesendorf said that governments of France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, UK, and South Africa have used nuclear power and/or research reactors to assist nuclear weapons development or to contribute to their supplies of nuclear explosives from military reactors.[44]
The two tied-for-lowest points for the Doomsday Clock have been in 1953, when the Clock was set to two minutes until midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs, and in 2018, following the failure of world leaders to address tensions relating to nuclear weapons and climate change issues.[45]
Disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are eliminated.
Beginning with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty and continuing through the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, there have been many treaties to limit or reduce nuclear weapons testing and stockpiles. The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has as one of its explicit conditions that all signatories must "pursue negotiations in good faith" towards the long-term goal of "complete disarmament". The nuclear-weapon states have largely treated that aspect of the agreement as "decorative" and without force.[46]
Only one country—South Africa—has ever fully renounced nuclear weapons they had independently developed. The former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine returned Soviet nuclear arms stationed in their countries to Russia after the collapse of the USSR.
Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it would lessen the probability of nuclear war, especially accidentally. Critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine the present nuclear peace and deterrence and would lead to increased global instability. Various American elder statesmen,[47] who were in office during the Cold War period, have been advocating the elimination of nuclear weapons. These officials include Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and William Perry. In January 2010, Lawrence M. Krauss stated that "no issue carries more importance to the long-term health and security of humanity than the effort to reduce, and perhaps one day, rid the world of nuclear weapons".[48]
In January 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev publicly proposed a three-stage program for abolishing the world's nuclear weapons by the end of the 20th century.[49] In the years after the end of the Cold War, there have been numerous campaigns to urge the abolition of nuclear weapons, such as that organized by the Global Zero movement, and the goal of a "world without nuclear weapons" was advocated by United States President Barack Obama in an April 2009 speech in Prague.[50] A CNN poll from April 2010 indicated that the American public was nearly evenly split on the issue.[51]
Some analysts have argued that nuclear weapons have made the world relatively safer, with peace through deterrence and through the stability–instability paradox, including in south Asia.[52][53] Kenneth Waltz has argued that nuclear weapons have helped keep an uneasy peace, and further nuclear weapon proliferation might even help avoid the large scale conventional wars that were so common before their invention at the end of World War II.[30] But former Secretary Henry Kissinger says there is a new danger, which cannot be addressed by deterrence: "The classical notion of deterrence was that there was some consequences before which aggressors and evildoers would recoil. In a world of suicide bombers, that calculation doesn’t operate in any comparable way".[54] George Shultz has said, "If you think of the people who are doing suicide attacks, and people like that get a nuclear weapon, they are almost by definition not deterrable".[55]
As of early 2019, more than 90% of world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by Russia and the United States.[56][57]
United Nations
The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat established in January 1998 as part of the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's plan to reform the UN as presented in his report to the General Assembly in July 1997.[58]
Its goal is to promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and the strengthening of the disarmament regimes in respect to other weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons. It also promotes disarmament efforts in the area of conventional weapons, especially land mines and small arms, which are often the weapons of choice in contemporary conflicts.
Controversia
Ethics
Even before the first nuclear weapons had been developed, scientists involved with the Manhattan Project were divided over the use of the weapon. The role of the two atomic bombings of the country in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. The question of whether nations should have nuclear weapons, or test them, has been continually and nearly universally controversial.[59]
Notable nuclear weapons accidents
- August 21, 1945: While conducting impromptu experiments on a third core (an alloy of plutonium and gallium) which had been prepared for atomic warfare at Los Alamos National Laboratory, physicist Harry Daghlian received a lethal dose of radiation. He died on September 15, 1945.
- May 21, 1946: While conducting further impromptu experiments on the third plutonium core at Los Alamos National Laboratory, physicist Louis Slotin received a lethal dose of radiation. He died on May 30, 1946. After these 2 incidents, the core was used to construct a bomb for use on the Nevada Test Range.[60]
- February 13, 1950: a Convair B-36B crashed in northern British Columbia after jettisoning a Mark IV atomic bomb. This was the first such nuclear weapon loss in history. The accident was designated a "Broken Arrow"—an accident involving a nuclear weapon but which does not present a risk of war. Experts believe that up to 50 nuclear weapons were lost during the Cold War.[61]
- May 22, 1957: a 42,000-pound (19,000 kg) Mark-17 hydrogen bomb accidentally fell from a bomber near Albuquerque, New Mexico. The detonation of the device's conventional explosives destroyed it on impact and formed a crater 25 feet (7.6 m) in diameter on land owned by the University of New Mexico. According to a researcher at the Natural Resources Defense Council, it was one of the most powerful bombs made to date.[62]
- June 7, 1960: the 1960 Fort Dix IM-99 accident destroyed a Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc nuclear missile and shelter and contaminated the BOMARC Missile Accident Site in New Jersey.
- January 24, 1961: the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload in the process.[63]
- 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 crash, where a Skyhawk attack aircraft with a nuclear weapon fell into the sea.[64] The pilot, the aircraft, and the B43 nuclear bomb were never recovered.[65] It was not until 1989 that the Pentagon revealed the loss of the one-megaton bomb.[66]
- January 17, 1966: the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash occurred when a B-52G bomber of the USAF collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard.[67] Of the four Mk28 type hydrogen bombs the B-52G carried,[68] three were found on land near Almería, Spain. The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impact with the ground, resulting in the contamination of a 2-square-kilometer (490-acre) (0.78 square mile) area by radioactive plutonium. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea, was recovered intact after a 2½-month-long search.[69]
- January 21, 1968: the 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash involved a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber. The aircraft was carrying four hydrogen bombs when a cabin fire forced the crew to abandon the aircraft. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out. The bomber crashed onto sea ice in Greenland, causing the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, which resulted in widespread radioactive contamination.[70] One of the bombs remains lost.[71]
- September 18–19, 1980: the Damascus Accident, occurred in Damascus, Arkansas, where a Titan missile equipped with a nuclear warhead exploded. The accident was caused by a maintenance man who dropped a socket from a socket wrench down an 80-foot (24 m) shaft, puncturing a fuel tank on the rocket. Leaking fuel resulted in a hypergolic fuel explosion, jettisoning the W-53 warhead beyond the launch site.[72][73][74]
Nuclear testing and fallout
Over 500 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests were conducted at various sites around the world from 1945 to 1980. Radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing was first drawn to public attention in 1954 when the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at the Pacific Proving Grounds contaminated the crew and catch of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon.[75] One of the fishermen died in Japan seven months later, and the fear of contaminated tuna led to a temporary boycotting of the popular staple in Japan. The incident caused widespread concern around the world, especially regarding the effects of nuclear fallout and atmospheric nuclear testing, and "provided a decisive impetus for the emergence of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in many countries".[75]
As public awareness and concern mounted over the possible health hazards associated with exposure to the nuclear fallout, various studies were done to assess the extent of the hazard. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/ National Cancer Institute study claims that fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests would lead to perhaps 11,000 excess deaths among people alive during atmospheric testing in the United States from all forms of cancer, including leukemia, from 1951 to well into the 21st century.[76][77] As of March 2009[update], the U.S. is the only nation that compensates nuclear test victims. Since the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990, more than $1.38 billion in compensation has been approved. The money is going to people who took part in the tests, notably at the Nevada Test Site, and to others exposed to the radiation.[78][79]
In addition, leakage of byproducts of nuclear weapon production into groundwater has been an ongoing issue, particularly at the Hanford site.[80]
Efectos de las explosiones nucleares
Effects of nuclear explosions on human health
Some scientists estimate that a nuclear war with 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear explosions on cities could cost the lives of tens of millions of people from long-term climatic effects alone. The climatology hypothesis is that if each city firestorms, a great deal of soot could be thrown up into the atmosphere which could blanket the earth, cutting out sunlight for years on end, causing the disruption of food chains, in what is termed a nuclear winter.[81][82]
People near the Hiroshima explosion and who managed to survive the explosion subsequently suffered a variety of medical effects:[83]
- Initial stage—the first 1–9 weeks, in which are the greatest number of deaths, with 90% due to thermal injury and/or blast effects and 10% due to super-lethal radiation exposure.
- Intermediate stage—from 10 to 12 weeks. The deaths in this period are from ionizing radiation in the median lethal range – LD50
- Late period—lasting from 13 to 20 weeks. This period has some improvement in survivors' condition.
- Delayed period—from 20+ weeks. Characterized by numerous complications, mostly related to healing of thermal and mechanical injuries, and if the individual was exposed to a few hundred to a thousand millisieverts of radiation, it is coupled with infertility, sub-fertility and blood disorders. Furthermore, ionizing radiation above a dose of around 50–100 millisievert exposure has been shown to statistically begin increasing one's chance of dying of cancer sometime in their lifetime over the normal unexposed rate of ~25%, in the long term, a heightened rate of cancer, proportional to the dose received, would begin to be observed after ~5+ years, with lesser problems such as eye cataracts and other more minor effects in other organs and tissue also being observed over the long term.
Fallout exposure—depending on if further afield individuals shelter in place or evacuate perpendicular to the direction of the wind, and therefore avoid contact with the fallout plume, and stay there for the days and weeks after the nuclear explosion, their exposure to fallout, and therefore their total dose, will vary. With those who do shelter in place, and or evacuate, experiencing a total dose that would be negligible in comparison to someone who just went about their life as normal.[84][85]
Staying indoors until after the most hazardous fallout isotope, I-131 decays away to 0.1% of its initial quantity after ten half lifes—which is represented by 80 days in I-131s case, would make the difference between likely contracting Thyroid cancer or escaping completely from this substance depending on the actions of the individual.[86]
Public opposition
Peace movements emerged in Japan and in 1954 they converged to form a unified "Japanese Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs". Japanese opposition to nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific Ocean was widespread, and "an estimated 35 million signatures were collected on petitions calling for bans on nuclear weapons".[87]
In the United Kingdom, the first Aldermaston March organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament(CND) took place at Easter 1958, when, according to the CND, several thousand people marched for four days from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment close to Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, to demonstrate their opposition to nuclear weapons.[88][89] The Aldermaston marches continued into the late 1960s when tens of thousands of people took part in the four-day marches.[87]
In 1959, a letter in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was the start of a successful campaign to stop the Atomic Energy Commission dumping radioactive waste in the sea 19 kilometres from Boston.[90] In 1962, Linus Pauling won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to stop the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and the "Ban the Bomb" movement spread.[59]
In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty prohibiting atmospheric nuclear testing. Radioactive fallout became less of an issue and the anti-nuclear weapons movement went into decline for some years.[75][91] A resurgence of interest occurred amid European and American fears of nuclear war in the 1980s.[92]
Costos y spin-offs tecnológicos
According to an audit by the Brookings Institution, between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent $9.61 trillion in present-day terms[93] on nuclear weapons programs. 57 percent of which was spent on building nuclear weapons delivery systems. 6.3 percent of the total, $602 billion in present-day terms, was spent on environmental remediation and nuclear waste management, for example cleaning up the Hanford site, and 7 percent of the total, $675 billion was spent on making nuclear weapons themselves.[94]
Usos sin armas
Peaceful nuclear explosions are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes, such as activities related to economic development including the creation of canals. During the 1960s and 1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted a number of PNEs. Six of the explosions by the Soviet Union are considered to have been of an applied nature, not just tests.
The United States and the Soviet Union later halted their programs. Definitions and limits are covered in the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976.[95][96] The stalled Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 would prohibit all nuclear explosions, regardless of whether they are for peaceful purposes or not.[97]
Historia del desarrollo
In the first decades of the 20th century, physics was revolutionized with developments in the understanding of the nature of atoms. In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie discovered that pitchblende, an ore of uranium, contained a substance—which they named radium—that emitted large amounts of radioactivity. Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy identified that atoms were breaking down and turning into different elements. Hopes were raised among scientists and laymen that the elements around us could contain tremendous amounts of unseen energy, waiting to be harnessed.
In Paris in 1934, Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie discovered that artificial radioactivity could be induced in stable elements by bombarding them with alpha particles; in Italy Enrico Fermi reported similar results when bombarding uranium with neutrons.
In December 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann reported that they had detected the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons. Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch correctly interpreted these results as being due to the splitting of the uranium atom. Frisch confirmed this experimentally on January 13, 1939.[98] They gave the process the name "fission" because of its similarity to the splitting of a cell into two new cells. Even before it was published, news of Meitner's and Frisch's interpretation crossed the Atlantic.[99]
Scientists at Columbia University decided to replicate the experiment and on January 25, 1939, conducted the first nuclear fission experiment in the United States[100] in the basement of Pupin Hall. The following year, they identified the active component of uranium as being the rare isotope uranium-235.[101]
By the start of the war in September 1939, many scientists likely to be persecuted by the Nazis had already escaped. Physicists on both sides were well aware of the possibility of utilizing nuclear fission as a weapon, but no one was quite sure how it could be engineered. In August 1939, concerned that Germany might have its own project to develop fission-based weapons, Albert Einstein signed a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning him of the threat.[102]
Roosevelt responded by setting up the Uranium Committee under Lyman James Briggs but, with little initial funding ($6,000), progress was slow. It was not until the U.S. entered the war in December 1941 that Washington decided to commit the necessary resources to a top-secret high priority bomb project.[103]
Organized research first began in Britain and Canada as part of the Tube Alloys project: the world's first nuclear weapons project. The Maud Committee was set up following the work of Frisch and Rudolf Peierls who calculated uranium-235's critical mass and found it to be much smaller than previously thought which meant that a deliverable bomb should be possible.[104] In the February 1940 Frisch–Peierls memorandum they stated that: "The energy liberated in the explosion of such a super-bomb...will, for an instant, produce a temperature comparable to that of the interior of the sun. The blast from such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area. The size of this area is difficult to estimate, but it will probably cover the centre of a big city."
Edgar Sengier, a director of Shinkolobwe Mine in the Congo which produced by far the highest quality uranium ore in the world, had become aware of uranium's possible use in a bomb. In late 1940, fearing that it might be seized by the Germans, he shipped the mine's entire stockpile of ore to a warehouse in New York.[105]
For 18 months British research outpaced the American but by mid-1942, it became apparent that the industrial effort required was beyond Britain's already stretched wartime economy. [106]:204 In September 1942, General Leslie Groves was appointed to lead the U.S. project which became known as the Manhattan Project. Two of his first acts were to obtain authorization to assign the highest priority AAA rating on necessary procurements, and to order the purchase of all 1,250 tons of the Shinkolobwe ore. [105][107] The Tube Alloys project was quickly overtaken by the U.S. effort [106] and after Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Quebec Agreement in 1943, it was relocated and amalgamated into the Manhattan Project.Ver también
- Cobalt bomb
- Cosmic bomb (phrase)
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Dirty bomb
- Induced gamma emission
- List of nuclear close calls
- List of nuclear weapons
- Nth Country Experiment
- Nuclear blackout
- Nuclear bunker buster
- Nuclear holocaust
- Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
- Nuclear weapons in popular culture
- Nuclear weapons of the United States
- OPANAL (Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean)
- Three Non-Nuclear Principles of Japan
Referencias
Notes
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total number of deaths is not known precisely ... acute (within two to four months) deaths ... Hiroshima ... 90,000–166,000 ... Nagasaki ... 60,000–80,000
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- ^ In the United States, the President and the Secretary of Defense, acting as the National Command Authority, must jointly authorize the use of nuclear weapons.
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- ^ "Announcement of Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions Peaceful Purposes (PNE Treaty)" (PDF). Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library. May 28, 1976. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
- ^ Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Gerald R. Ford: "Message to the Senate Transmitting United States-Soviet Treaty and Protocol on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Explosions," July 29, 1976". The American Presidency Project. University of California – Santa Barbara. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.
- ^ "Status of Signature and Ratification". ctbto dot org. CTBT Organization Preparatory Commission. Archived from the original on December 28, 2016. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
- ^ Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb 263 and 268 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).
- ^ Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb 268 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).
- ^ H. L. Anderson, E. T. Booth, J. R. Dunning, E. Fermi, G. N. Glasoe, and F. G. Slack The Fission of Uranium, Phys. Rev. Volume 55, Number 5, 511 – 512 (1839). Institutional citation: Pupin Physics Laboratories, Columbia University, New York, New York. Received February 16, 1939.
- ^ Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb 267–270 (1986).
- ^ Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986) 305-312..
- ^ Geoffrey Lucas Herrera (2006). Technology and International Transformation: The Railroad, the Atom Bomb, and the Politics of Technological Change. SUNY Press. pp. 179–80. ISBN 978-0-7914-6868-5.
- ^ Christoph Laucht (2012). Elemental Germans: Klaus Fuchs, Rudolf Peierls and the Making of British Nuclear Culture 1939–59. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 31–33. ISBN 978-1-137-22295-4.
- ^ a b Leslie R. Groves (1983). Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. Da Capo Press. pp. 33–. ISBN 978-0-7867-4822-8. Retrieved June 9, 2013.
- ^ a b Geoffrey Best (November 15, 2006). Churchill and War. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 206–. ISBN 978-1-85285-541-3. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
- ^ Vincent C. Jones (December 1, 1985). Manhattan, the Army and the Atomic Bomb. Government Printing Office. pp. 82–. ISBN 978-0-16-087288-4. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
Bibliography
- 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 (Two volumes, both accessible on Google Book Search) (Content of both volumes is now available in the 2009 trilogy by Alexander DeVolpi: Nuclear Insights: The Cold War Legacy)
- 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, "Swords of Armageddon: U.S. nuclear weapons development since 1945" (CD-ROM & download available). PDF. 2,600 pages, Sunnyvale, California, Chucklea Publications, 1995, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9791915-0-3 (2nd Ed.)
- 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)
- (in French) Jean-Hugues Oppel, Réveillez le président, Éditions Payot et rivages, 2007 ( ISBN 978-2-7436-1630-4). The book is a fiction about the nuclear weapons of France; the book also contains about ten chapters on true historical incidents involving nuclear weapons and strategy.
- 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
- Shultz, George P. and Goodby, James E. The War that Must Never be Fought, Hoover Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-8179-1845-3.
- Weart, Spencer R. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-674-62836-5
- Weart, Spencer R. The Rise of Nuclear Fear. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. ISBN 0-674-05233-1
Further reading
- Laura Grego and David Wright, "Broken Shield: Missiles designed to destroy incoming nuclear warheads fail frequently in tests and could increase global risk of mass destruction", Scientific American, vol. 320, no. no. 6 (June 2019), pp. 62–67. "Current U.S. missile defense plans are being driven largely by technology, politics and fear. Missile defenses will not allow us to escape our vulnerability to nuclear weapons. Instead large-scale developments will create barriers to taking real steps toward reducing nuclear risks—by blocking further cuts in nuclear arsenals and potentially spurring new deployments." (p. 67.)
- Michael T. Klare, "Missile Mania: The death of the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty [of 1987] has escalated the arms race", The Nation, vol. 309, no. 6 (September 23, 2019), p. 4.
- Moniz, Ernest J., and Sam Nunn, "The Return of Doomsday: The New Nuclear Arms Race – and How Washington and Moscow Can Stop It", Foreign Affairs, vol. 98, no. 5 (September / October 2019), pp. 150–161. Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn write that "the old [strategic] equilibrium" between the United States and Russia has been "destabilized" by "clashing national interests, insufficient dialogue, eroding arms control structures, advanced missile systems, and new cyberweapons... Unless Washington and Moscow confront these problems now, a major international conflict or nuclear escalation is disturbingly plausible—perhaps even likely." (p. 161.)
- Thomas Powers, "The Nuclear Worrier" (review of Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, New York, Bloomsbury, 2017, ISBN 9781608196708, 420 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no. 1 (January 18, 2018), pp. 13–15.
- Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, Penguin Press, 2013, ISBN 1594202273. The book became the basis for a 2-hour 2017 PBS American Experience episode, likewise titled "Command and Control". Nuclear weapons continue to be equally hazardous to their owners as to their potential targets. Under the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, nuclear-weapon states are obliged to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.
enlaces externos
- 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.
- Video archive of US, Soviet, UK, Chinese and French Nuclear Weapon Testing[permanent dead link] at sonicbomb.com
- The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History (United States) – located in Albuquerque, New Mexico; a Smithsonian Affiliate Museum
- Nuclear Emergency and Radiation Resources
- 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
- Recordings of recollections of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki[permanent dead link]
- The Woodrow Wilson Center's Nuclear Proliferation International History Project or NPIHP is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews and other empirical sources.
- NUKEMAP3D – a 3D nuclear weapons effects simulator powered by Google Maps.