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127-499: The result may be a nuclear peace , in which the presence of nuclear weapons decreases the risk of crisis escalation, since parties will seek to avoid situations that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Proponents of nuclear peace theory therefore believe that controlled nuclear proliferation may be beneficial for global stability. Critics argue that nuclear proliferation increases the chance of nuclear war through either deliberate or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons, as well as

254-513: A misnomer , as their energy comes from the nucleus of the atom, just as it does with fusion weapons. In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material ( enriched uranium or plutonium ) is forced into supercriticality —allowing an exponential growth of nuclear chain reactions —either by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another (the "gun" method) or by compression of a sub-critical sphere or cylinder of fissile material using chemically fueled explosive lenses . The latter approach,

381-651: A policy of deliberate ambiguity , it does not acknowledge having them. Germany , Italy , Turkey , Belgium , the Netherlands , and Belarus are nuclear weapons sharing states. South Africa is the only country to have independently developed and then renounced and dismantled its nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, but there are different views of its effectiveness. There are two basic types of nuclear weapons: those that derive

508-505: A US nuclear attack, Moscow might make rash moves (such as putting its forces on alert) that would provoke a US preemptive strike. An outline of current US nuclear strategy toward both Russia and other nations was published as the document " Essentials of Post–Cold War Deterrence " in 1995. In November 2020, the US successfully destroyed a dummy ICBM outside the atmosphere with another missile. Bloomberg Opinion writes that this defense ability "ends

635-597: A combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb ), producing a nuclear explosion . Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter . The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to 20,000 tons of TNT (84  TJ ). The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to 10 million tons of TNT (42 PJ). Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54 ) and 50 megatons for

762-678: 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

889-463: A destructive agent so terrible that War shall mean annihilation and men's fears will force them to keep the peace." The concept was also described in 1863 by Jules Verne in his novel Paris in the Twentieth Century , though it was not published until 1994. The book is set in 1960 and describes "the engines of war", which have become so efficient that war is inconceivable and all countries are at

1016-458: 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

1143-594: A few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them. The only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and acknowledge possessing them—are (chronologically by date of first test) the United States , the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia ), the United Kingdom , France , China , India , Pakistan , and North Korea . Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons, though, in

1270-538: A fission bomb to initiate them. Such a device might provide a simpler path to thermonuclear weapons than one that required the development of fission weapons first, and pure fusion weapons would create significantly less nuclear fallout than other thermonuclear weapons because they would not disperse fission products. In 1998, the United States Department of Energy divulged that the United States had, "...made

1397-637: A follow-up article in the same publication, others criticized the analysis, including Peter Flory , the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, who began by writing "The essay by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press contains so many errors, on a topic of such gravity, that a Department of Defense response is required to correct the record." Regarding reductions in Russian stockpiles, another response stated that "a similarly one-sided examination of [reductions in] U.S. forces would have painted

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1524-463: A full-scale Soviet retaliatory strike ( massive retaliation ). Thus it was generally assumed that any combat in Europe would end with apocalyptic conclusions. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike (inherently counterforce ) or a counterforce second strike , due to: Unlike a decapitation strike or a countervalue strike , a counterforce strike might result in

1651-421: A fusion weapon as of January 2016 , though this claim is disputed. Thermonuclear weapons are considered much more difficult to successfully design and execute than primitive fission weapons. Almost all of the nuclear weapons deployed today use the thermonuclear design because it results in an explosion hundreds of times stronger than that of a fission bomb of similar weight. Thermonuclear bombs work by using

1778-509: A guaranteed second-strike capability because of their stealth and by the number fielded by each Cold War adversary—it was highly unlikely that all of them could be targeted and preemptively destroyed (in contrast to, for example, a missile silo with a fixed location that could be targeted during a first strike). Given their long-range, high survivability and ability to carry many medium- and long-range nuclear missiles, submarines were credible and effective means for full-scale retaliation even after

1905-535: A massive first strike. This deterrence strategy and the program have continued into the 21st century, with nuclear submarines carrying Trident II ballistic missiles as one leg of the US strategic nuclear deterrent and as the sole deterrent of the United Kingdom. The other elements of the US deterrent are intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on alert in the continental United States, and nuclear-capable bombers. Ballistic missile submarines are also operated by

2032-472: A nation's economic electronics-based infrastructure. Because the effect is most effectively produced by high altitude nuclear detonations (by military weapons delivered by air, though ground bursts also produce EMP effects over a localized area), it can produce damage to electronics over a wide, even continental, geographical area. Research has been done into the possibility of pure fusion bombs : nuclear weapons that consist of fusion reactions without requiring

2159-548: A new arms race, forcing the USSR to spend an increasing proportion of GDP on defense—something which has been claimed to have been an indirect cause of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev himself in 1983 announced that “the continuation of the S.D.I. program will sweep the world into a new stage of the arms race and would destabilize the strategic situation.” Proponents of ballistic missile defense (BMD) argue that MAD

2286-532: A new nuclear strategy, one that is distinct from that which gave relative stability during the Cold War. 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 . 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

2413-425: 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

2540-414: A nuclear war relatively unharmed. The true second-strike capability could be achieved only when a nation had a guaranteed ability to fully retaliate after a first-strike attack. The United States had achieved an early form of second-strike capability by fielding continual patrols of strategic nuclear bombers, with a large number of planes always in the air, on their way to or from fail-safe points close to

2667-411: 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

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2794-465: A nuclear weapon is a gravity bomb dropped from aircraft ; this was the method used by the United States against Japan in 1945. 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

2921-409: 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. The simplest method for delivering

3048-433: A nuclear weapon with suitable materials (such as cobalt or gold ) creates a weapon known as a salted bomb . This device can produce exceptionally large quantities of long-lived radioactive contamination . It has been conjectured that such a device could serve as a "doomsday weapon" because such a large quantity of radioactivities with half-lives of decades, lifted into the stratosphere where winds would distribute it around

3175-399: A perpetual stalemate. MAD has been invoked by more than one weapons inventor. For example, Richard Jordan Gatling patented his namesake Gatling gun in 1862 with the partial intention of illustrating the futility of war. Likewise, after his 1867 invention of dynamite , Alfred Nobel stated that "the day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it

3302-421: 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.". Graham Allison makes a similar case, arguing that the key to expanded deterrence

3429-452: A post-MAD environment. Russian refusal to accept invitations to participate in NATO BMD may be indicative of the lack of an alternative to MAD in current Russian war-fighting strategy due to the dilapidation of conventional forces after the breakup of the Soviet Union . Proud Prophet was a series of war games played out by various American military officials. The simulation revealed MAD made

3556-525: A potentially more constrained retaliation. Though the Minuteman III of the mid-1960s was MIRVed with three warheads, heavily MIRVed vehicles threatened to upset the balance; these included the SS-18 Satan which was deployed in 1976, and was considered to threaten Minuteman III silos, which led some neoconservatives to conclude a Soviet first strike was being prepared for. This led to the development of

3683-440: A practical nuclear weapon, anticipated deterrence as the principal means of combating an enemy with nuclear weapons. In August 1945, the United States became the first nuclear power after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Four years later, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its own nuclear device . At the time, both sides lacked the means to effectively use nuclear devices against each other. However, with

3810-403: A premium on striking first. The START II agreement was proposed to ban this type of weapon, but never entered into force. In the event of a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe , NATO planned to use tactical nuclear weapons . The Soviet Union countered this threat by issuing a statement that any use of nuclear weapons (tactical or otherwise) against Soviet forces would be grounds for

3937-484: A safe way to deter continued even farther with the thought that nuclear weapons intended on being used for the winning of a war, were impractical, and even considered too dangerous and risky. Even with the Cold War ending in 1991, deterrence from mutually assured destruction is still said to be the safest course to avoid nuclear warfare. A study published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 2009 quantitatively evaluated

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4064-481: A sane regard for the consequences, presents a strong case for proponents of BMD who seek a policy which both protect against attack, but also does not require an escalation into what might become global nuclear war . Russia continues to have a strong public distaste for Western BMD initiatives, presumably because proprietary operative BMD systems could exceed their technical and financial resources and therefore degrade their larger military standing and sense of security in

4191-447: A significant portion of their energy from fission reactions used to "trigger" fusion reactions, and fusion reactions can themselves trigger additional fission reactions. Only six countries—the United States , Russia , the United Kingdom , China , France , and India —have conducted thermonuclear weapon tests. Whether India has detonated a "true" multi-staged thermonuclear weapon is controversial. North Korea claims to have tested

4318-473: A similarly dire portrait". A situation in which the United States might actually be expected to carry out a "successful" attack is perceived as a disadvantage for both countries. The strategic balance between the United States and Russia is becoming less stable, and the objective, the technical possibility of a first strike by the United States is increasing. At a time of crisis, this instability could lead to an accidental nuclear war. For example, if Russia feared

4445-443: A sole strategy, and that this form of deterrence was seen as one of numerous options in US nuclear policy. Former officers have emphasized that they never felt as limited by the logic of MAD (and were prepared to use nuclear weapons in smaller-scale situations than "assured destruction" allowed), and did not deliberately target civilian cities (though they acknowledge that the result of a "purely military" attack would certainly devastate

4572-454: A state with limited nuclear capability and was not planned to alter the nuclear posture between Russia and the United States. While relations have improved and an intentional nuclear exchange is more unlikely, the decay in Russian nuclear capability in the post–Cold War era may have had an effect on the continued viability of the MAD doctrine. A 2006 article by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press stated that

4699-547: A substantial investment" in the past to develop pure fusion weapons, but that, "The U.S. does not have and is not developing a pure fusion weapon", and that, "No credible design for a pure fusion weapon resulted from the DOE investment". Nuclear isomers provide a possible pathway to fissionless fusion bombs. These are naturally occurring isotopes ( Hf being a prominent example) which exist in an elevated energy state. Mechanisms to release this energy as bursts of gamma radiation (as in

4826-420: Is a thermonuclear weapon that yields a relatively small explosion but a relatively large amount of neutron radiation . Such a weapon could, according to tacticians, be used to cause massive biological casualties while leaving inanimate infrastructure mostly intact and creating minimal fallout. Because high energy neutrons are capable of penetrating dense matter, such as tank armor, neutron warheads were procured in

4953-451: 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." According to the Pentagon's June 2019 " Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations " of

5080-417: Is assumed that each side has 100 missiles, with five warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing two warheads at each silo, then the attacking side can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about five by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads, and keeping the rest of 60 missiles in reserve. As such, this type of weapon

5207-403: 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." The process

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5334-443: Is exceptionally dangerous in that it essentially offers a single course of action in the event of a nuclear attack: full retaliatory response. The fact that nuclear proliferation has led to an increase in the number of nations in the " nuclear club ", including nations of questionable stability (e.g. North Korea ), and that a nuclear nation might be hijacked by a despot or other person or persons who might use nuclear weapons without

5461-481: Is for the purpose of achieving different yields for different situations , and in manipulating design elements to attempt to minimize weapon size, radiation hardness or requirements for special materials, especially fissile fuel or tritium. Some nuclear weapons are designed for special purposes; most of these are for non-strategic (decisively war-winning) purposes and are referred to as tactical nuclear weapons . The neutron bomb purportedly conceived by Sam Cohen

5588-571: Is mutual nuclear weapon ownership with both states possessing nuclear weapons, the odds of war drop precipitously. The concept of MAD had been discussed in the literature for nearly a century before the invention of nuclear weapons. One of the earliest references comes from the English author Wilkie Collins , writing at the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870: "I begin to believe in only one civilizing influence—the discovery one of these days of

5715-477: Is necessary to have nuclear (as well as conventional) forces such that in considering aggression against our interests any adversary would recognize that no plausible outcome would represent a victory or any plausible definition of victory. To this end and so as to preserve the possibility of bargaining effectively to terminate the war on acceptable terms that are as favorable as practical, if deterrence fails initially, we must be capable of fighting successfully so that

5842-551: Is no evidence that it is feasible beyond the military domain. However, the US Air Force funded studies of the physics of antimatter in the Cold War , and began considering its possible use in weapons, not just as a trigger, but as the explosive itself. A fourth generation nuclear weapon design is related to, and relies upon, the same principle as antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion . Most variation in nuclear weapon design

5969-409: Is not a fusion bomb. In the boosted bomb, the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions serve primarily to increase the efficiency of the fission bomb. There are two types of boosted fission bomb: internally boosted, in which a deuterium-tritium mixture is injected into the bomb core, and externally boosted, in which concentric shells of lithium-deuteride and depleted uranium are layered on the outside of

6096-490: Is not clear that this has ever been implemented, and their plausible use in nuclear weapons is a matter of dispute. The other basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large proportion of its energy in nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs (abbreviated as H-bombs ), as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen ( deuterium and tritium ). All such weapons derive

6223-448: Is the primary means of nuclear weapons delivery; the majority of US nuclear warheads, for example, are free-fall gravity bombs, namely the B61 , which is being improved upon to this day. 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

6350-459: Is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops." In 1937, Nikola Tesla published The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media , a treatise concerning charged particle beam weapons. Tesla described his device as a "superweapon that would put an end to all war." The March 1940 Frisch–Peierls memorandum , the earliest technical exposition of

6477-408: The Cold War (1940s to 1991), in which MAD was seen as helping to prevent any direct full-scale conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union while they engaged in smaller proxy wars around the world. MAD was also responsible for the arms race , as both nations struggled to keep nuclear parity, or at least retain second-strike capability . Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990s,

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6604-522: The Columbia class, which began construction in 2021 and enter service in 2031. In the 1960s both the Soviet Union ( A-35 anti-ballistic missile system ) and the United States ( LIM-49 Nike Zeus ) developed anti-ballistic missile systems. Had such systems been able to effectively defend against a retaliatory second strike , MAD would have been undermined. However, multiple scientific studies showed technological and logistical problems in these systems, including

6731-688: The Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test in 1962, an unexpected effect was produced which is called a nuclear electromagnetic pulse . This is an intense flash of electromagnetic energy produced by a rain of high-energy electrons which in turn are produced by a nuclear bomb's gamma rays. This flash of energy can permanently destroy or disrupt electronic equipment if insufficiently shielded. It has been proposed to use this effect to disable an enemy's military and civilian infrastructure as an adjunct to other nuclear or conventional military operations. By itself it could as well be useful to terrorists for crippling

6858-542: 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. Journal of Conflict Resolution The Journal of Conflict Resolution is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on international conflict and conflict resolution . It

6985-548: The Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent ). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as 600 pounds (270 kg) can release energy equal to more than 1.2 megatonnes of TNT (5.0 PJ). A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation . Since they are weapons of mass destruction , the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been deployed twice in war , both by

7112-616: The Tsar Bomba of the USSR, which released an energy equivalent of over 50 megatons of TNT (210 PJ), was a three-stage weapon. Most thermonuclear weapons are considerably smaller than this, due to practical constraints from missile warhead space and weight requirements. In the early 1950s the Livermore Laboratory in the United States had plans for the testing of two massive bombs, Gnomon and Sundial , 1 gigaton of TNT and 10 gigatons of TNT respectively. Fusion reactions do not create fission products, and thus contribute far less to

7239-424: The hafnium controversy ) have been proposed as possible triggers for conventional thermonuclear reactions. Antimatter , which consists of particles resembling ordinary matter particles in most of their properties but having opposite electric charge , has been considered as a trigger mechanism for nuclear weapons. A major obstacle is the difficulty of producing antimatter in large enough quantities, and there

7366-544: The head of government or head of state . Despite controls and regulations governing nuclear weapons, there is an inherent danger of "accidents, mistakes, false alarms, blackmail, theft, and sabotage". 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

7493-436: The tropopause into the stratosphere , where the calm non-turbulent winds permit the debris to travel great distances from the burst, eventually settling and unpredictably contaminating areas far removed from the target of the explosion. There are other types of nuclear weapons as well. For example, a boosted fission weapon is a fission bomb that increases its explosive yield through a small number of fusion reactions, but it

7620-639: The "assured destruction" required for MAD. If the United States had a guarantee against Soviet nuclear attacks, its critics argued, it would have first-strike capability, which would have been a politically and militarily destabilizing position. Critics further argued that it could trigger a new arms race, this time to develop countermeasures for SDI. Despite its promise of nuclear safety, SDI was described by many of its critics (including Soviet nuclear physicist and later peace activist Andrei Sakharov ) as being even more dangerous than MAD because of these political implications. Supporters also argued that SDI could trigger

7747-537: The "implosion" method, is more sophisticated and more efficient (smaller, less massive, and requiring less of the expensive fissile fuel) than the former. A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons (500 kilotons ) of TNT (4.2 to 2.1 × 10  GJ). All fission reactions generate fission products ,

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7874-529: The 1980s (though not deployed in Europe) for use as tactical payloads for US Army artillery shells (200 mm W79 and 155 mm W82 ) and short range missile forces. Soviet authorities announced similar intentions for neutron warhead deployment in Europe; indeed, they claimed to have originally invented the neutron bomb, but their deployment on USSR tactical nuclear forces is unverifiable. A type of nuclear explosive most suitable for use by ground special forces

8001-425: 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. 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

8128-488: 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." 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

8255-437: The MAD doctrine and destabilize the situation, because it would have less to fear from a second strike . The same principle is invoked against missile defense . The doctrine further assumes that neither side will dare to launch a first strike because the other side would launch on warning (also called fail-deadly ) or with surviving forces (a second strike ), resulting in unacceptable losses for both parties. The payoff of

8382-523: The MAD doctrine continues to be applied. Proponents of MAD as part of the US and USSR strategic doctrine believed that nuclear war could best be prevented if neither side could expect to survive a full-scale nuclear exchange as a functioning state. Since the credibility of the threat is critical to such assurance, each side had to invest substantial capital in their nuclear arsenals even if they were not intended for use. In addition, neither side could be expected or allowed to adequately defend itself against

8509-401: The MAD doctrine was and still is expected to be a tense but stable global peace. However, many have argued that mutually assured destruction is unable to deter conventional war that could later escalate. Emerging domains of cyber-espionage , proxy-state conflict, and high-speed missiles threaten to circumvent MAD as a deterrent strategy. The primary application of this doctrine started during

8636-497: 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

8763-536: The Soviet Union , the Russian Federation emerged as a sovereign entity encompassing most of the territory of the former USSR. Relations between the United States and Russia were, at least for a time, less tense than they had been with the Soviet Union. While MAD has become less applicable for the US and Russia, it has been argued as a factor behind Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons . Similarly, diplomats have warned that Japan may be pressured to nuclearize by

8890-514: The Soviet Union. His approach did not greatly change his foreign policy or military doctrine but is apparent in his determination to choose options that minimized the risk of war. Beginning in 1955, the United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) kept one-third of its bombers on alert, with crews ready to take off within fifteen minutes and fly to designated targets inside the Soviet Union and destroy them with nuclear bombs in

9017-485: The US and the Soviet Union developed, there was increasing priority being given to ICBMs over bombers. It was only with the advent of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines , starting with the George Washington class in 1959, that a genuine survivable nuclear force became possible and a retaliatory second strike capability guaranteed. The deployment of fleets of ballistic missile submarines established

9144-651: The USAAF detonated a plutonium implosion-type fission bomb nicknamed " Fat Man " over the Japanese city of Nagasaki . These bombings caused injuries that resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel . The ethics of these bombings and their role in Japan's surrender are to this day, still subjects of debate . Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , nuclear weapons have been detonated over 2,000 times for testing and demonstration. Only

9271-753: The USAF AIR-2 Genie , the AIM-26 Falcon and US Army Nike Hercules . Missile interceptors such as the Sprint and the Spartan also used small nuclear warheads (optimized to produce neutron or X-ray flux) but were for use against enemy strategic warheads. Other small, or tactical, nuclear weapons were deployed by naval forces for use primarily as antisubmarine weapons. These included nuclear depth bombs or nuclear armed torpedoes. Nuclear mines for use on land or at sea are also possibilities. The system used to deliver

9398-515: The United States against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 during World War II . Nuclear weapons have only twice been used in warfare, both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War II . On August 6, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) detonated a uranium gun-type fission bomb nicknamed " Little Boy " over the Japanese city of Hiroshima ; three days later, on August 9,

9525-476: The United States and Soviet Union started to become a reality, theorists began to think that mutual assured destruction would be sufficient to deter the other side from launching a nuclear weapon. Kenneth Waltz , an American political scientist, believed that nuclear forces were in fact useful, but even more useful in the fact that they deterred other nuclear threats from using them, based on mutually assured destruction. The theory of mutually assured destruction being

9652-430: The United States could carry out a nuclear first strike on Russia and would "have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM." This was attributed to reductions in Russian nuclear stockpiles and the increasing inefficiency and age of that which remains. Lieber and Press argued that the MAD era is coming to an end and that the United States is on the cusp of global nuclear primacy. However, in

9779-512: 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. 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

9906-494: The United States. This program continued until 1969. Between 1954 and 1992, bomber wings had approximately one-third to one-half of their assigned aircraft on quick reaction ground alert and were able to take off within a few minutes. SAC also maintained the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP, pronounced "kneecap"), also known as "Looking Glass", which consisted of several EC-135s, one of which

10033-493: The adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable, or in any event greater than his gains, from having initiated an attack. The doctrine of MAD was officially at odds with that of the USSR , which had, contrary to MAD, insisted survival was possible. The Soviets believed they could win not only a strategic nuclear war, which they planned to absorb with their extensive civil defense planning, but also

10160-593: The aforementioned Pershing II , the Trident I and Trident II , as well as the MX missile , and the B-1 Lancer . MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to carry many warheads (up to eight in existing US missiles, limited by New START , though Trident II is capable of carrying up to 12) and deliver them to separate targets. If it

10287-411: The atmosphere and diminish sunlight worldwide, thus reducing world temperatures by “-15° to -25°C”. These findings led to theory that MAD would still occur with many fewer weapons than were possessed by either the United States or USSR at the height of the Cold War. As such, nuclear winter was used as an argument for significant reduction of nuclear weapons since MAD would occur anyway. After the fall of

10414-416: The borders of the Soviet Union. This meant the United States could still retaliate, even after a devastating first-strike attack. The tactic was expensive and problematic because of the high cost of keeping enough planes in the air at all times and the possibility they would be shot down by Soviet anti-aircraft missiles before reaching their targets. In addition, as the idea of a missile gap existing between

10541-485: 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. 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

10668-525: The cities as well). However, according to a declassified 1959 Strategic Air Command study, US nuclear weapons plans specifically targeted the populations of Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw for systematic destruction. MAD was implied in several US policies and used in the political rhetoric of leaders in both the United States and the USSR during many periods of the Cold War: To continue to deter in an era of strategic nuclear equivalence, it

10795-426: The conventional war that they predicted would follow after their strategic nuclear arsenal had been depleted. Official Soviet policy, though, may have had internal critics towards the end of the Cold War, including some in the USSR's own leadership: Nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions , either fission (fission bomb) or

10922-435: The creation of nuclear fallout than fission reactions, but because all thermonuclear weapons contain at least one fission stage, and many high-yield thermonuclear devices have a final fission stage, thermonuclear weapons can generate at least as much nuclear fallout as fission-only weapons. Furthermore, high yield thermonuclear explosions (most dangerously ground bursts) have the force to lift radioactive debris upwards past

11049-450: 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

11176-573: The destabilizing effect of North Korea via military force. MAD may not apply to the situation in North Korea because the theory relies on rational consideration of the use and consequences of nuclear weapons, which may not be the case for potential North Korean deployment. Whether MAD was the officially accepted doctrine of the United States military during the Cold War is largely a matter of interpretation. The United States Air Force , for example, has retrospectively contended that it never advocated MAD as

11303-583: The development of aircraft like the American Convair B-36 and the Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 , both sides were gaining a greater ability to deliver nuclear weapons into the interior of the opposing country. The official policy of the United States became one of "Instant Retaliation", as coined by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles , which called for massive atomic attack against the Soviet Union if they were to invade Europe, regardless of whether it

11430-463: The energy of a fission bomb to compress and heat fusion fuel. In the Teller-Ulam design , which accounts for all multi-megaton yield hydrogen bombs, this is accomplished by placing a fission bomb and fusion fuel ( tritium , deuterium , or lithium deuteride ) in proximity within a special, radiation-reflecting container. When the fission bomb is detonated, gamma rays and X-rays emitted first compress

11557-442: The era of nuclear stability". MAD does not entirely apply to all nuclear-armed rivals. India and Pakistan are an example of this; because of the superiority of conventional Indian armed forces to their Pakistani counterparts, Pakistan may be forced to use their nuclear weapons on invading Indian forces out of desperation regardless of an Indian retaliatory strike. As such, any large-scale attack on Pakistan by India could precipitate

11684-411: The event of a Soviet first-strike attack on the United States. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy increased funding for this program and raised the commitment to 50 percent of SAC aircraft. During periods of increased tension in the early 1960s, SAC kept part of its B-52 fleet airborne at all times, to allow an extremely fast retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union in the event of a surprise attack on

11811-405: The fission bomb core. The external method of boosting enabled the USSR to field the first partially thermonuclear weapons, but it is now obsolete because it demands a spherical bomb geometry, which was adequate during the 1950s arms race when bomber aircraft were the only available delivery vehicles. The detonation of any nuclear weapon is accompanied by a blast of neutron radiation . Surrounding

11938-420: The fusion fuel, then heat it to thermonuclear temperatures. The ensuing fusion reaction creates enormous numbers of high-speed neutrons , which can then induce fission in materials not normally prone to it, such as depleted uranium . Each of these components is known as a "stage", with the fission bomb as the "primary" and the fusion capsule as the "secondary". In large, megaton-range hydrogen bombs, about half of

12065-520: The globe, would make all life on the planet extinct. In connection with the Strategic Defense Initiative , research into the nuclear pumped laser was conducted under the DOD program Project Excalibur but this did not result in a working weapon. The concept involves the tapping of the energy of an exploding nuclear bomb to power a single-shot laser that is directed at a distant target. During

12192-831: The inability to distinguish between real and decoy weapons. The multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) was another weapons system designed specifically to aid with the MAD nuclear deterrence doctrine. With a MIRV payload, one ICBM could hold many separate warheads. MIRVs were first created by the United States in order to counterbalance the Soviet A-35 anti-ballistic missile systems around Moscow. Since each defensive missile could be counted on to destroy only one offensive missile, making each offensive missile have, for example, three warheads (as with early MIRV systems) meant that three times as many defensive missiles were needed for each offensive missile. This made defending against missile attacks more costly and difficult. One of

12319-412: The journal has a 2012 impact factor of 3.1, ranking it 45th out of 187 journals in the category "Political Science" and 19th out of 96 journals in the category "International Relations". This article about a journal on international relations is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See tips for writing articles about academic journals . Further suggestions might be found on

12446-720: The journal has been run by a team at the University of Maryland. Bruce Russett was a long-time editor-in-chief of the journal prior to Paul Huth's appointment as editor-in-chief in 2009. The journal is published under the auspices of the Peace Science Society . The journal is abstracted and indexed in Scopus , RePEc , and the Social Sciences Citation Index . According to the Journal Citation Reports ,

12573-482: The largest US MIRVed missiles, the LGM-118A Peacekeeper , could hold up to 10 warheads, each with a yield of around 300 kilotons of TNT (1.3 PJ)—all together, an explosive payload equivalent to 230 Hiroshima-type bombs. The multiple warheads made defense untenable with the available technology, leaving the threat of retaliatory attack as the only viable defensive option. MIRVed land-based ICBMs tend to put

12700-527: The likelihood of nuclear material falling into the hands of violent non-state actors . The term "mutual assured destruction", commonly abbreviated "MAD", was coined by Donald Brennan, a strategist working in Herman Kahn 's Hudson Institute in 1962. Brennan conceived the acronym cynically, spelling out the English word " mad " to argue that holding weapons capable of destroying society was irrational. Under MAD, each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy

12827-496: The majority of their energy from nuclear fission reactions alone, and those that use fission reactions to begin nuclear fusion reactions that produce a large amount of the total energy output. All existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as atomic bombs or atom bombs (abbreviated as A-bombs ). This has long been noted as something of

12954-407: 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

13081-536: The military establishment 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

13208-408: 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

13335-498: The navies of China, France, India, and Russia. The US Department of Defense anticipates a continued need for a sea-based strategic nuclear force . The first of the current Ohio -class SSBNs are expected to be retired by 2029, meaning that a replacement platform must already be seaworthy by that time. A replacement may cost over $ 4 billion per unit compared to the USS Ohio ' s $ 2 billion. The USN's follow-on class of SSBN will be

13462-434: The nuclear peace hypothesis and found support for the existence of the stability-instability paradox . The study determined that nuclear weapons promote strategic stability and prevent large-scale wars but simultaneously allow for more low intensity conflicts . If a nuclear monopoly exists between two states, and one state has nuclear weapons and its opponent does not, there is a greater chance of war. In contrast, if there

13589-410: The other side. Either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate, irreversible escalation of hostilities resulting in both combatants' mutual, total, and assured destruction. The doctrine requires that neither side construct shelters on a massive scale. If one side constructed a similar system of shelters, it would violate

13716-507: The other's nuclear missiles. This led both to the hardening and diversification of nuclear delivery systems (such as nuclear missile silos , ballistic missile submarines , and nuclear bombers kept at fail-safe points) and to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty . This MAD scenario is often referred to as rational nuclear deterrence . Theory of mutually assured destruction When the possibility of nuclear warfare between

13843-553: The planned response to a Soviet attack was no longer to bomb Soviet population centers and cities primarily, but first to kill the Soviet leadership, then attack military targets, in the hope of a Soviet surrender before total destruction of the Soviet Union (and the United States). This modified version of MAD was seen as a winnable nuclear war, while still maintaining the possibility of assured destruction for at least one party. This policy

13970-425: The possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack; this, in turn, ensured the credible threat of a devastating retaliatory strike against the aggressor, increasing a nation's nuclear deterrence . Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko argue that Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet leader 1953 to 1964) decided that policies that facilitated nuclear war were too dangerous to

14097-461: The presence of North Korean nuclear weapons. The ability to launch a nuclear attack against an enemy city is a relevant deterrent strategy for these powers. The administration of US President George W. Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June 2002, claiming that the limited national missile defense system which they proposed to build was designed only to prevent nuclear blackmail by

14224-415: The ready: Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Fail Safe (1964). The strategy of MAD was fully declared in the early 1960s, primarily by United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara . In McNamara's formulation, there was the very real danger that a nation with nuclear weapons could attempt to eliminate another nation's retaliatory forces with a surprise, devastating first strike and theoretically "win"

14351-428: The remains of the split atomic nuclei. Many fission products are either highly radioactive (but short-lived) or moderately radioactive (but long-lived), and as such, they are a serious form of radioactive contamination . Fission products are the principal radioactive component of nuclear fallout . Another source of radioactivity is the burst of free neutrons produced by the weapon. When they collide with other nuclei in

14478-402: The surrounding material, the neutrons transmute those nuclei into other isotopes, altering their stability and making them radioactive. The most commonly used fissile materials for nuclear weapons applications have been uranium-235 and plutonium-239 . Less commonly used has been uranium-233 . Neptunium-237 and some isotopes of americium may be usable for nuclear explosives as well, but it

14605-496: 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 US and the Soviet Union . 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

14732-553: The use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan, thus rendering MAD inapplicable. However, MAD is applicable in that it may deter Pakistan from making a “suicidal” nuclear attack rather than a defensive nuclear strike. Since the emergence of North Korea as a nuclear state , military action has not been an option in handling the instability surrounding North Korea because of their option of nuclear retaliation in response to any conventional attack on them, thus rendering non-nuclear neighboring states such as South Korea and Japan incapable of resolving

14859-478: The use of nuclear weapons dissipated and American war plans were changed to emphasize the use of conventional forces. In 1983, a group of researchers including Carl Sagan released the TTAPS study (named for the respective initials of the authors), which predicted that the large scale use of nuclear weapons would cause a “ nuclear winter ”. The study predicted that the debris burned in nuclear bombings would be lifted into

14986-529: The use of nuclear weapons virtually impossible without total nuclear annihilation, regardless of how nuclear weapons were implemented in war plans. These results essentially ruled out the possibility of a limited nuclear strike, as every time this was attempted, it resulted in a complete expenditure of nuclear weapons by both the United States and USSR. Proud Prophet marked a shift in American strategy; following Proud Prophet, American rhetoric of strategies that involved

15113-446: 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

15240-631: 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, and Waltz, who was somewhat more non- interventionist . 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 . The threat of potentially suicidal terrorists possessing nuclear weapons (a form of nuclear terrorism ) complicates

15367-624: The yield comes from the final fissioning of depleted uranium. Virtually all thermonuclear weapons deployed today use the "two-stage" design described to the right, but it is possible to add additional fusion stages—each stage igniting a larger amount of fusion fuel in the next stage. This technique can be used to construct thermonuclear weapons of arbitrarily large yield. This is in contrast to fission bombs, which are limited in their explosive power due to criticality danger (premature nuclear chain reaction caused by too-large amounts of pre-assembled fissile fuel). The largest nuclear weapon ever detonated,

15494-401: Was a conventional or a nuclear attack. By the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis , both the United States and the Soviet Union had developed the capability of launching a nuclear-tipped missile from a submerged submarine, which completed the "third leg" of the nuclear triad weapons strategy necessary to fully implement the MAD doctrine. Having a three-branched nuclear capability eliminated

15621-463: Was airborne at all times from 1961 through 1990. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the bombers were dispersed to several different airfields, and sixty-five B-52s were airborne at all times. During the height of the tensions between the US and the USSR in the 1960s, two popular films were made dealing with what could go terribly wrong with the policy of keeping nuclear-bomb-carrying airplanes at

15748-526: Was established in 1957 and is published by SAGE Publications . The editor-in-chief is Paul Huth ( University of Maryland, College Park ). The journal was established in 1957. In 1959, the journal was run by the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. When the Center closed in 1971 due to lack of funding, the journal was run by a team at Yale University . Since 2009,

15875-650: Was further developed by the Reagan administration with the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, nicknamed "Star Wars"), the goal of which was to develop space-based technology to destroy Soviet missiles before they reached the United States. SDI was criticized by both the Soviets and many of America's allies (including Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher ) because, were it ever operational and effective, it would have undermined

16002-559: Was intended to be banned under the START II agreement; however, the START II agreement was never brought into force, and neither Russia nor the United States ratified the agreement. The original US MAD doctrine was modified on July 25, 1980, with US President Jimmy Carter 's adoption of countervailing strategy with Presidential Directive 59 . According to its architect, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown , "countervailing strategy" stressed that

16129-744: Was the Special Atomic Demolition Munition , or SADM, sometimes popularly known as a suitcase nuke . This is a nuclear bomb that is man-portable, or at least truck-portable, and though of a relatively small yield (one or two kilotons) is sufficient to destroy important tactical targets such as bridges, dams, tunnels, important military or commercial installations, etc. either behind enemy lines or pre-emptively on friendly territory soon to be overtaken by invading enemy forces. These weapons require plutonium fuel and are particularly "dirty". They also demand especially stringent security precautions in their storage and deployment. Small "tactical" nuclear weapons were deployed for use as antiaircraft weapons. Examples include

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