Nuclear Weapons Research Articles

Dracarys: Unleashing the Lessons of Nuclear Conflict from House of the Dragon

Given increasing nuclear-related dangers in the real world, which pose an existential threat to humanity, teaching nuclear theory to students is critically important. I argue that the hit TV show House of the Dragon can be utilized to educate students on the nuances of nuclear theory in a fun and engaging—but also surprisingly rigorous—way. In particular, the fire-breathing weapons of mass destruction in the Game of Thrones prequel show illustrate five key lessons about nuclear conflict dynamics. First, nuclear war is incredibly destructive and causes significant psychological trauma to survivors of nuclear attacks. Second, nuclear weapons can induce caution in leaders and deter major war. Third, while a powerful force, nuclear deterrence can fail due to irrational leaders, principle-agent problems, and accidents. Fourth, nuclear compellence is harder than nuclear deterrence and can backfire. Fifth, nuclear superiority beyond a secure second-strike capability provides little strategic benefit. In sum, House of the Dragon offers a more modern option than classics like Dr. Strangelove to teach about nuclear theory.

The Nazi Bomb Project: A Case Study of Value Neutrality in Science and Technology

Scientists in Nazi Germany attempted but failed to build an atomic bomb or working nuclear reactor during the years of the Second World War, 1939-1945. Can philosophical meaning be drawn from this history? The history of the Nazi scientists and nuclear fission raises important issues concerning the alleged value-neutrality of scientific research and technological development. We can also ask whether there is an ethical dimension to the failure of the Nazi bomb project. Did the scientists who worked in the Third Reich make a moral decision not to complete the development of a working nuclear reactor and/or a usable nuclear explosive device? In this essay, I argue that Werner Heisenberg and other Nazi scientists fell victim to a value-neutral conception of science that led them to make unethical choices in support of the Nazi regime. The story of the Nazi bomb project exemplifies a more general philosophical point: if scientists fail to understand the social, political, and cultural context of their research they will be vulnerable to ethically wrong decisions.

Preliminary study on electrical wire explosion utilized in pyro-breaker

Preliminary study on electrical wire explosion utilized in pyro-breaker

Investigation of Radioxenon Probability Density Functions at IMS Radionuclide Stations Using a Monte Carlo Method for Background Estimation

Abstract The International Monitoring System, the primary means of verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, monitors the planet for any sign of a nuclear explosion. Regarding the International Monitoring System radionuclide stations, it is known that radioxenon released from nuclear facilities such as medical isotope production facilities and nuclear power plants influences the stations. For the purposes of monitoring nuclear explosions, it is important to better understand the radioxenon background based on these nuclear facilities. The probability density functions of background activity concentration at IMS radionuclide stations are estimated using a Monte Carlo method based on emissions from known nuclear facilities and source receptor sensitivity data. This paper describes two case studies of radioxenon detections at radionuclide stations applying the developed approach. This method could be one of several prospective approaches to predict the activity concentrations of isotopes of radioxenon at radionuclide stations in Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s (CTBTO’s) prototype xenon background estimation tool software. It can also be used in characterization of CTBT-relevant nuclear events for expert technical analysis. Plain Language Summary Civil nuclear power stations and medical isotope production facilities release radioisotopes of xenon during their normal operations. These emissions would make it harder to detect xenon produced from any nuclear weapon test that might occur. A method is described that starts with information about civil releases and produces a statistical description of the concentrations of isotopes measured at stations designed to detect nuclear tests. This information makes it possible to enhance nuclear explosion detection performance.

The Psychology of Deterrence: Using AI with Mind Genomics to Broadcast the Seriousness of the Response to Nations Promising to Use Nuclear Weapons

AI-driven simulations of enemy conversations can provide valuable insights into American policy and strategy development (Table 1 ). By role-playing the enemy's perspective, AI can anticipate potential threats and understand weaknesses in American policies [2] . This predictive insight can mitigate risks and enhance national defense mechanisms [5] . AI simulations can also expose blind spots within current strategic thinking, revealing perspectives that American strategists may not see naturally. This effort can fuel defensive preparedness and negotiation tactics [6] . AI simulations can compress time and offer predictive outcomes based on potential decisions, allowing agencies to respond in real-time to threats while staying ahead of competitors [7, 8] . However, there are risks and limitations to AI-assisted simulations. One issue is over-reliance on technology and algorithms instead of human judgment and intuition. AI algorithms may not have human motivations, emotions, or spontaneity, leading to irrational or emotional decisions. Additionally, AI simulations may not reflect real discussions due to human factors. Despite these limitations, AI-assisted simulations can enhance understanding, decision-making speed, and avoid blind spots.

Echoes of a Cold War

Echoes of a Cold War

Experimental study on the critical current in highly flexible REBCO cables under copper tube compaction

Experimental study on the critical current in highly flexible REBCO cables under copper tube compaction

Playing for the Highest Stakes

Poker has often been used as a metaphor for international relations and existential threats such as nuclear weapons. Nate Silver’s On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything is a lengthy, often meandering but always entertaining exploration of this metaphor and its salience in the twenty-first century, from the world of professional gambling to existential risks such as climate change, nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. The book has two entangled but independent threads: a discussion on how to think about risk, and a sociocultural conceit that modern elites, especially in the United States, can be meaningfully divided into two tribes competing for power and influence. What separates these groups are not, as Silver contends, cognitive and psychological traits, but in-group jargon and cultural references. Silver’s discussions and insights about how to think about risk do not need this dichotomy to be real or sound; in fact; the conceit offers more distraction than insight.

Poisoned Grounds: Toxic Discourse in Barbara Kingsolver’s Fiction and Nonfiction

Abstract In his Writing for an Endangered World (2001), Lawrence Buell coins and defines the term “toxic discourse” as “anxiety arising from the perceived threat of environmental hazard due to chemical modification by the human agency” (31). Buell’s concept of toxic discourse offers a framework and four topoi: “the shock of awakened perception,” “a world without refuge from toxic penetration,” “the threat of hegemonic oppression,” and “gothicization” (35–42). Following this line of thought, the present paper addresses the intersection between ecocriticism and toxic discourse. Then it proceeds to explore how Buell’s four topoi are presented in the works of American essay writer, scientist, and novelist Barbara Kingsolver, in Animal Dreams (1990), Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 (1989), Prodigal Summer (2000), the essay “In the Belly of the Beast” from the collection High Tide in Tucson (1995), and three essays, “A Fist in the Eye of God,” “A Forest’s Last Stand,” and “The Patience of a Saint” from the collection Small Wonder (2003). Kingsolver’s fiction and nonfiction present how human-induced chemical toxicity destroys the planetary ecosystem. This study examines how Buell’s concept of “contaminated communities” is reinforced through Kingsolver’s depiction of the copper mining community in Arizona or the small farms exposed to chemical hazards from using pesticides. Buell’s tendency to “gothicize” toxicity resonates with Kingsolver’s works presenting grotesque images of nuclear waste dump/fallout and industrial pollution, and present the “hegemonic oppression” of the mining corporation (Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation in the USA) or the government policies using nuclear warheads and agricultural chemicals. (AP and VS)

United Kingdom nuclear weapons, 2024

ABSTRACT For decades, the United Kingdom has maintained a stockpile of approximately 225 nuclear warheads—up to 120 of which are available for delivery by four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. The stockpile is now increasing. The United Kingdom is currently building a new class of Dreadnaught-class submarines and developing a new nuclear warhead. In addition, it is expected that the United Kingdom will eventually increase the size of its arsenal and that Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath will regain a United States Air Force nuclear mission in the coming years. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, and senior research associates Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight. To see all previous Nuclear Notebook columns in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists dating back to 1987, go to https://thebulletin.org/nuclear-notebook/.

The entanglement of fusion energy research and bombs

ABSTRACT The recent achievement of fusion ignition—meaning more energy came out of a self-sustaining fusion reaction than was put in—at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility has brought to the fore long-simmering questions about whether certain experiments violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear explosions. Fusion research for peaceful use and military use are highly intertwined, despite attempts to cloak nuclear weapons with the aura of the so-called “peaceful atom.” Ignition has been achieved, but there is still a remarkable silence around whether pure fusion weapons—weapons that could kill large numbers of humans with neutron radiation but have blast effects much smaller than current thermonuclear weapons—are an objective of the overall program. Even if not an explicit objective, would they be built if fusion technology makes them feasible?

Controlling Nuclear Arms in a Multipolar World

Sixty years of nuclear-arms-control efforts have been successful in many respects, with one notable exception: it has proven difficult to transition from a bilateral (US–Soviet Union/Russia) to a multilateral format in seeking to limit and reduce existing nuclear weapons. This is principally because of a mistaken approach to multilateral disarmament that does not take into account the nature of multilateral deterrence among nuclear states. Yet a transition to a multilateral format is becoming an indispensable condition for the rescue of the non-proliferation and disarmament system in the emerging polycentric world order. Assuming that the Russia–Ukraine war can first be settled, a new approach to multilateral arms control is needed that takes into account the security interests of all the participating states.

EXPANDING OF COOPERATION BETWEEN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA AS A THREAT TO REGIONALAND GLOBAL SECURITY

The invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine radically affected the system of international relations. The security situation has deteriorated not only in Cen- tral and Eastern Europe, but also in other regions of the world and at the global level in general. The Russian Federation found itself under international sanc- tions and isolation. This forced the Russian leadership to intensify contacts with rogue countries such as the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The article analyzes the process of rapprochement of two dictatorial regimes – V. Putin and Kim Jong Un. High-level contacts of the Rus- sian Federation and the DPRK are monitored. Special attention is paid to military and military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. Thus, the facts of supplying North Korea with military supplies and missiles and their use against Ukraine are revealed. The forms in which Russia settles, or can settle, with North Korea for the assistance provided – oil supply; support at the level of international organizations, in particular the UN; cooperation in the space sphere; improvement of underwater submarines capable of carrying nuclear warheads, etc. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between the DPRK and the Russian Federation that was formed in the summer of 2024 is a subject for analysis.

Valuing life

Abstract The heart of prospect theory is the value function, proposing that the carriers of value are positive or negative changes from a reference point. Daniel Kahneman observed that if prospect theory had a flag, the value function would be drawn on it. The function is nonlinear, reflecting diminishing sensitivity to magnitude. When describing how human lives are valued, the function exposes profound incoherence. An individual life is highly valued and thus vigorously protected if it is the only life at risk. But that life loses its value when it is one of many endangered by a larger tragedy. Beyond this insensitivity, the function may actually decline when many lives at risk become mere numbers. The more who die, the less we care. Implications of this deadly ‘arithmetic of compassion’ for understanding and managing the risk from nuclear weapons are briefly discussed.

Forecasting Costs of U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Against a Major Nuclear Strike

ABSTRACT How many dollars would the United States need to spend on its ballistic missile defense (BMD) for each dollar the attacker spends to launch land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear warheads? A hypothetical scenario is analyzed in which the United States has a functioning BMD technology and enough interceptors to distribute them in a two-layer defense with the overall system efficiency of 90%, as targeted by U.S. war planners. It is assumed that the attacker has enough missiles to deliver a range between 500 and 6000 warheads to the continental United States. Results show that in the most optimistic case for the defender, with a very high individual interceptor kill effectiveness of 90% and with perfect decoy discrimination capability, the United States would need to spend on average 8 times more than the attacker, for a total cost between $60 billion and $500 billion. With a more realistic individual interceptor effectiveness of 50% and if the system is unable to discriminate against decoys, the United States would need to spend on average 70 times more, for a total cost between $430 billion and $5.3 trillion.

Sandia National Laboratories Impacts

Technology transfer (T2) from government laboratories to private sector partners is an activity encouraged by the federal government through policy mandates. This study evaluates the economic outcomes of T2 contracts between Sandia National Laboratories and outside partners between 2000 and 2010 to quantify the economic contribution of these agreements to the U. S. economy and identify their practical value to the federal government. The research team surveyed T2 partners by asking questions regarding sales of new products and services resulting from the T2 agreements. They asked additional questions of companies whose agreements focused on nuclear weapons, stockpiles, and non-proliferation. The team obtained full or partial information from 93% of the Cooperative Research and Development agreements and license agreements. The IMPLAN economic impact assessment model was used to estimate the economic impact of the related technologies. Major findings from the study included $53.7 billion in total sales of new products and services from these agreements, including $21.9 billion in sales of products to the government. The total economic impact nationwide was $95.9 billion. Other findings included $9.9 billion in new tax revenues, nearly $1.7 billion in estimated cost savings, and 434,464 jobs supported, with an average compensation of approximately $69,000 per year.

Making Bombs in the Hinterlands: The Manhattan Project and Regional Displacement in Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger and Stella Maris

ABSTRACT McCarthy chooses the unfamiliar location of Oak Ridge to weave his novel The Passenger into the modern horror of an atomic age, a new concern in his work as a focus of sustained attention. He also uses the historical moment of the World War II weapons race to return in his last novels to a very familiar theme in his fiction—governmental overreach and its detrimental effects on those less connected to the power hierarchies associated with the government. There are scarcely no bigger governmental initiatives in the nation’s history than the Oak Ridge and Los Alamos projects during World War II, where the government developed world-class laboratories, uranium-enrichment plants, and nuclear bombs and testing facilities out of nothing in some of the most isolated and geographically daunting places in the nation. McCarthy ties the Manhattan Project laboratories in Oak Ridge to a larger story about early twentieth-century social planning and experimentation that led to the displacement of local citizens as seen in the formation of the Great Smokies Mountains National Park, the TVA river-damming projects, and the formation of the Oak Ridge nuclear facility that was a key part of the Manhattan Project in World War II.

A Brief Legal Commentary on Nuclear Weapons States’ Contemporary Policies Through Comparative International Approaches

Despite the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons remain an important issue in international relations, where efforts and cooperation worldwide have been reported toward the conceptualization of the “global nuclear order” for the purposes of mitigating nuclear dangers, inhibiting arms races, preventing the continuous spread of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear-weapons states (NNWS), as well as creating conditions for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Hence, the objective of this research paper concerns to scrutinize the effectiveness of the global nuclear order through the legal perspective of international law. For that matter, the research methods adopted by this research paper include comparative international approaches by providing a legal commentary in regards to the nuclear policies and doctrines of the nine nuclear-weapons states (NWS) currently in possession of nuclear weapons. They are classified in three main categories: (1) recognized NWS (Russia, the U.S., the U.K., France and China), (2) states declaring possession of nuclear weapons (India, Pakistan and North Korea) and (3) states indicated to possess nuclear weapons (Israel). The results obtained from this research paper implicate the clash between contrasting nuclear-related objectives of different political backgrounds demonstrating the potential to increase the risk of nuclear escalation threatening international peace and security.

On the Brink: Reagan, Freeze, and the Nuclear Weapons Debate (1981-1984)

This article examines the nature of what motivated Reagan’s disarmament policy and what influence the Freeze movement had on it during his first term. It challenges the conventional view posited by scholars such as Lawrence S. Wittner and Angela Santese that early in his administration, Reagan was not interested in disarmament and that the Freeze movement, via public pressure and efforts in Congress, forced Reagan to soften his bellicose rhetoric and alter his approach to disarmament policy. By examining Freeze documents from the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO), executive branch documents from the Reagan Library, and the State Department Office of the Historian, as well as pertinent memoirs, this article offers a more complex and nuanced analysis of what drove Reagan’s thinking during this crucial period in the Cold War. In contrast to Wittner and Santese, it asserts that Reagan genuinely sought nuclear arms reductions throughout his first term and that any tactical adaptation in his approach resulted from an evolution in his mindset toward the Soviets caused by the cumulative effect of the attempt on his life, relationship with Ambassador Dobrynin, the Pentecostalist case, and NATO’s Able Archer exercise, and was only tangentially related to the Freeze movement.

Measurements of radioxenon activities during periods of gaseous release from an advanced gas-cooled reactor

Activities of radioxenon isotopes are reported from an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) during periods of gaseous release. Xenon isotopes are relevant to the monitoring regime of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). These releases may affect detections from the International Monitoring System (IMS) by influencing the radioxenon background. Time series activity plots have been produced from both in-core monitoring and direct measurement at the point of release using a stack monitor system. Ratio plots using both data sets have been produced with results compared with a commonly chosen nuclear explosion “discrimination line.” The reported results improve the understanding of radionuclide emissions from civil nuclear power plants. This work is being performed as part of the Xenon Environmental Nuclide Analysis at Hartlepool (XENAH) collaboration between the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE, UK), EDF Energy (UK), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL, USA), and the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI). Published by the American Physical Society 2025