Nuclear Weapons Complex Modernization PDF Download

Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Strategic Forces Subcommittee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Author: United States. Department of Defense
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781072273189
Category : Nuclear Policy
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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On January 27, 2017, President Donald Trump directed Secretary of Defense James Mattis to initiate a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The President made clear that his first priority is to protect the United States, allies, and partners. He also emphasized both the long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and the requirement that the United States have modern, flexible, and resilient nuclear capabilities that are safe and secure until such a time as nuclear weapons can prudently be eliminated from the world.The United States remains committed to its efforts in support of the ultimate global elimination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. It has reduced the nuclear stockpile by over 85 percent since the height of the Cold War and deployed no new nuclear capabilities for over two decades. Nevertheless, global threat conditions have worsened markedly since the most recent 2010 NPR, including increasingly explicit nuclear threats from potential adversaries. The United States now faces a more diverse and advanced nuclear-threat environment than ever before, with considerable dynamism in potential adversaries' development and deployment programs for nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Author: Bruce Goodwin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781952565113
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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The making of policy for nuclear security requires a strong grasp of the associated technical matters. That grasp came naturally in the early decades of the nuclear era, when scientists and engineers were deeply engaged in policymaking. In more recent decades, the technical community has played a narrower role, one generally limited to implementing policies made by others. This narrower role has been accentuated by generational change in the technical community, as the scientists and engineers who conceived, built, and executed the programs that created the existing U.S. nuclear deterrent faded into history along with the long-term competition for technical improvements with the Soviet Union. There is thus today a clear need to impart to the new generation of nuclear policy experts the necessary technical context.That is the purpose of this paper. Specifically: to introduce a new generation of nuclear policy experts to the technical perspectives of a nuclear weapon designer, to explain the science and engineering of nuclear weapons for the policy generalist, to review the evolution of the U.S. approach to nuclear weapons design, to explain the main attributes of the existing U.S. nuclear stockpile, to explain the functions of the nuclear weapons complex, and how this all is integrated to sustain deterrence into the future.

Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Author: Eric Heginbotham
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833096524
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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China’s approach to nuclear deterrence has been broadly consistent since its first test in 1964, but it has recently accelerated nuclear force modernization. China’s strategic environment is likely to grow more complex, and nuclear constituencies are gaining a larger bureaucratic voice. Beijing is unlikely to change official nuclear policies but will probably increase emphasis on nuclear deterrence and may adjust the definition of key concepts.

Author: Lynn Eden
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801435782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war?U.S. bombing in World War II caused massive fire damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but later war plans took account only of damage from blast; they completely ignored damage from atomic firestorms. Recently a small group of researchers has shown that for modern nuclear weapons the destructiveness and lethality of nuclear mass fire often--and predictably--greatly exceeds that of nuclear blast. This has major implications for defense policy: the U.S. government has underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden finds, and built far more warheads, and far more destructive warheads, than it needed for the Pentagon's war-planning purposes. How could this have happened? The answer lies in how organizations frame the problems they try to solve. In a narrative grounded in organization theory, science and technology studies, and primary historical sources (including declassified documents and interviews), Eden explains how the U.S. Air Force's doctrine of precision bombing led to the development of very good predictions of nuclear blast--a significant achievement--but for many years to no development of organizational knowledge about nuclear fire. Expert communities outside the military reinforced this disparity in organizational capability to predict blast damage but not fire damage. Yet some innovation occurred, and predictions of fire damage were nearly incorporated into nuclear war planning in the early 1990s. The author explains how such a dramatic change almost happened, and why it did not. Whole World on Fire shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't do well, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences. In a sweeping conclusion, Eden shows the implications of the analysis for understanding such things as the sinking of the Titanic, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the poor fireproofing in the World Trade Center.

Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300253486
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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“This is a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable and infuriate those who have taken refuge in stereotypes and moral attitudinizing.”—Gordon A. Craig, New York Times Book Review Originally published more than fifty years ago, this landmark book explores the ways in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new introduction to the work shows how Schelling’s framework—conceived of in a time of superpowers and mutually assured destruction—still applies to our multipolar world, where wars are fought as much online as on the ground.

Author: Naval War College Press
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781478398455
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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The Naval War College has expanded its expertise in the Asia-Pacific Rim region in recent years largely in response to the growing significance of the region to U.S. national security. The College has actively hired prominent scholars and hosted a number of conferences, workshops, and guest speakers focusing on the problems and possibilities facing the Pacific Rim. South and Northeast Asia, after all, are home to some of the world's fastest-growing economies and close American allies, as well as several potential political and diplomatic flashpoints. Even more to the point, China is an ascending economic and military power both in the region and on the world stage. The U.S. Navy plays a leading role in maintaining stability in the region with its strong presence and ability to guard the freedom of navigation in vital sea lines of communication. The efforts of the Asia-Pacific Rim specialists at the Naval War College in some ways represent a case of “back to the future.” One of the proudest episodes in the College's history came in the 1930s when Newport played a central role in developing the military plans necessary to cope with the ascendance of another Asian economic and military power—Japan. Although we expect that wise diplomacy and national self-interest will prevent a reoccurrence of similar difficulties in the coming decades, there is no substitute for military preparedness and well-thought-out international and regional strategies for dealing with the important region. The Naval War College Press has done its part in providing its readers with many excellent articles on regional security in Asia in the Naval War College Review; an important book—Jonathan Pollack, editor, Strategic Surprise? U.S.-China Relations in the Early Twenty-first Century (released March 2004); and now Newport Paper 22. Professor Lyle Goldstein of the Strategic Research Department of the College's Center for Naval Warfare Studies has been at the forefront of recent research into China's future. In this project he has guided a handful of naval officers through the puzzle of China's ongoing nuclear modernization programs. With the able assistance of Andrew Erickson, these sailor-scholars have examined various aspects of nuclear modernization from ballistic missile defense to nuclear command and control. In general the chapter tells a cautionary tale; the progress of China's nuclear modernization documented here should give pause to those inclined to dismiss China's military modernization. Steadily and with relatively little attention the People's Republic continues to improve its technologies and weapons systems. As the authors emphasize, no “Rubicon” has been crossed, but potentials are already apparent that, if realized, the U.S. Navy as now constituted would find challenging indeed.

Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nuclear facilities
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Author: Brad Roberts
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797153
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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“An excellent contribution to the debate on the future role of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence in American foreign policy.” ―Contemporary Security Policy This book is a counter to the conventional wisdom that the United States can and should do more to reduce both the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategies and the number of weapons in its arsenal. The case against nuclear weapons has been made on many grounds—including historical, political, and moral. But, Brad Roberts argues, it has not so far been informed by the experience of the United States since the Cold War in trying to adapt deterrence to a changed world, and to create the conditions that would allow further significant changes to U.S. nuclear policy and posture. Drawing on the author’s experience in the making and implementation of U.S. policy in the Obama administration, this book examines that real-world experience and finds important lessons for the disarmament enterprise. Central conclusions of the work are that other nuclear-armed states are not prepared to join the United States in making reductions, and that unilateral steps by the United States to disarm further would be harmful to its interests and those of its allies. The book ultimately argues in favor of patience and persistence in the implementation of a balanced approach to nuclear strategy that encompasses political efforts to reduce nuclear dangers along with military efforts to deter them. “Well-researched and carefully argued.” ―Foreign Affairs