Unit -1

A)The evolution of nuclear era since 1945

The atomic bomb and the origins of the Cold War

The nuclear age began before the Cold War. During World War II, three countries decided to
build the atomic bomb: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Britain put its own work
aside and joined the Manhattan Project as a junior partner in 1943. The Soviet effort was small
before August 1945. The British and American projects were driven by the fear of a German
atomic bomb, but Germany decided in 1942 not to make a serious effort to build the bomb. In an
extraordinary display of scientific and industrial might, the United States made two bombs ready
for use by August 1945. Germany was defeated by then, but President Harry S. Truman
decided to use the bomb against Japan.

The decision to use the atomic bomb has been a matter of intense controversy. Did Truman
decide to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order, as he claimed, to end the war with Japan
without further loss of American lives? Or did he drop the bombs in order to intimidate the Soviet
Union, without really needing them to bring the war to an end? His primary purpose was surely
to force Japan to surrender, but he also believed that the bomb would help him in his dealings
with Iosif V. Stalin. That latter consideration was secondary, but it confirmed his decision.
Whatever Truman’s motives, Stalin regarded the use of the bomb as an anti-Soviet move,
designed to deprive the Soviet Union of strategic gains in the Far East and more generally to
give the United States the upper hand in defining the postwar settlement. On August 20, 1945,
two weeks to the day after Hiroshima, Stalin signed a decree setting up a Special Committee on
the Atomic Bomb, under the chairmanship of Lavrentii P. Beriia. The Soviet project was now a
crash program.

B)Basice of nuclear technology, & nuclear energy

Nuclear power is a clean and efficient way of boiling water to make steam, which turns turbines
to produce electricity.

Nuclear power plants use low-enriched uranium fuel to produce electricity through a process
called fission—the splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor. Uranium fuel consists of
small, hard ceramic pellets that are packaged into long, vertical tubes. Bundles of this fuel are
inserted into the reactor.

A single uranium pellet, slightly larger than a pencil eraser, contains the same energy as a ton of
coal, 3 barrels of oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Each uranium fuel pellet provides up to
five years of heat for power generation. And because uranium is one of the world’s most
abundant metals, it can provide fuel for the world’s commercial nuclear plants for generations to
come.

Nuclear power offers many benefits for the environment as well. Power plants don’t burn any
materials so they produce no combustion by-products. Additionally, because they don’t produce
greenhouse gases, nuclear plants help protect air quality and mitigate climate change.

When it comes to efficiency and reliability, no other electricity source can match nuclear. Nuclear
power plants can continuously generate large-scale, around-the-clock electricity for many
months at a time, without interruption.

Currently, nuclear energy supplies 10 percent of the world's electricity and approximately 20
percent of the energy in the United States. A total of 30 countries worldwide are operating 440
nuclear reactors for electricity generation.

For decades, GE and Hitachi have been at the forefront of nuclear technology, setting the
industry benchmark for reactor design and construction and helping utility customers operate
their plants safely and reliably.

nuclear energy

Nuclear energy can be used to create electricity, but it must first be released from the atom. In
the process of nuclear fission, atoms are split to release that energy.

A nuclear reactor, or power plant, is a series of machines that can control nuclear fission to
produce electricity. The fuel that nuclear reactors use to produce nuclear fission is pellets of the
element uranium. In a nuclear reactor, atoms of uranium are forced to break apart. As they split,
the atoms release tiny particles called fission products. Fission products cause other uranium
atoms to split, starting a chain reaction. The energy released from this chain reaction creates
heat.

The heat created by nuclear fission warms the reactor's cooling agent. A cooling agent is
usually water, but some nuclear reactors use liquid metal or molten salt. The cooling agent,
heated by nuclear fission, produces steam. The steam turns turbines, or wheels turned by a
flowing current. The turbines drive generators, or engines that create electricity.

Rods of material called nuclear poison can adjust how much electricity is produced. Nuclear
poisons are materials, such as a type of the element xenon, that absorb some of the fission

products created by nuclear fission. The more rods of nuclear poison that are present during the
chain reaction, the slower and more controlled the reaction will be. Removing the rods will allow
a stronger chain reaction and create more electricity.

As of 2011, about 15 percent of the world's electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. The
United States has more than 100 reactors, although it creates most of its electricity from fossil
fuels and hydroelectric energy. Nations such as Lithuania, France, and Slovakia create almost
all of their electricity from nuclear power plants.

C)Effects of nuclear explosion.

A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy
from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear
fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based
weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion weapon remains a
hypothetical device. Nuclear explosions are used in nuclear weapons and nuclear testing.

Atmospheric nuclear explosions are associated with mushroom clouds, although

mushroom clouds can occur with large chemical explosions. It is possible to have an air-burst
nuclear explosion without those clouds. Nuclear explosions produce radiation and radioactive
debris that is harmful to humans and can cause moderate to severe skin burns, eye damage,
radiation sickness, radiation-induced cancer and possible death depending on how far from the
blast radius a person is. Nuclear explosions can also have detrimental effects on the climate,
lasting from months to years. In a 1983 article, Carl Sagan claimed that a small-scale nuclear
war could release enough particles into the atmosphere to cause the planet to cool and cause
crops, animals, and agriculture to disappear across the globe—an effect named nuclear winter.
Only two nuclear weapons have been deployed in combat—both by the United States against
Japan in World War II. The first event occurred on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the
United States Army Air Forces dropped a uranium gun-type device, code-named "Little Boy", on
the city of Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000
Korean slave laborers. The second event occurred three days later when the United States
Army Air Forces dropped a plutonium implosion-type device, code-named "Fat Man", on the city
of Nagasaki. It killed 39,000 people, including 27,778 Japanese munitions employees, 2,000
Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants. In total, around 109,000 people were
killed in these bombings. Nuclear weapons are largely seen as a 'deterrent' by most
governments; the sheer scale of the destruction caused by nuclear weapons has discouraged
their use in warfare.

Shockwaves and radiation

The dominant effect of a nuclear weapon (the blast and thermal radiation) are the same physical
damage mechanisms as conventional explosives, but the energy produced by a nuclear
explosive is millions of times more per gram and the temperatures reached are in the tens of
megakelvin. Nuclear weapons are quite different from conventional weapons because of the
huge amount of explosive energy that they can put out and the different kinds of effects they
make, like high temperatures and nuclear radiation.

The devastating impact of the explosion does not stop after the initial blast, as with conventional
explosives. A cloud of nuclear radiation travels from the hypocenter of the explosion, causing an
impact to life forms even after the heat waves have ceased. The health effects on humans from
nuclear explosions comes from the initial shockwave, the radiation exposure, and the fallout.
The initial shockwave and radiation exposure come from the immediate blast which has different
effects on the health of humans depending on the distance from the center of the blast. The
shockwave can rupture eardrums and lungs, can also throw people back, and cause buildings
to collapse.Radiation exposure is delivered at the initial blast and can continue for an extended
amount of time in the form of nuclear fallout. The main health effect of nuclear fallout is cancer
and birth defects because radiation causes changes in cells that can either kill or make them
abnormal.Any nuclear explosion (or nuclear war) would have wide-ranging, long-term,
catastrophic effects. Radioactive contamination would cause genetic mutations and cancer
across many generations.

Fission vs Fusion

Nuclear fusion and nuclear fission are two different types of energy-releasing reactions in
which energy is released from high-powered atomic bonds between the particles within the
nucleus.

The main difference between these two processes is that fission is the splitting of an atom
into two or more smaller ones while fusion is the fusing of two or more smaller atoms into a
larger one.

Nuclear Fission

*Fission reaction does not normally occur in nature

*Fission produces many highly radioactive particles
*The energy released by fission is a million times greater than that released in chemical
reactions; but lower than the energy released by nuclear fusion
*One class of nuclear weapon is a fission bomb, also known as an atomic bomb or atom bomb
*Fission is the splitting of a large atom into two or more smaller ones
*Critical mass of the substance and high-speed neutrons are required
*Takes little energy to split two atoms in a fission reaction
*Nuclear fission is the splitting of a massive nucleus into photons in the form of gamma rays,
free neutrons, and other subatomic particles. In a typical nuclear reaction involving 235U and a
neutron:
23592U + n = 23692U followed by 23692U = 14456Ba + 89 36Kr + 3n + 177 MeV

Nuclear Fusion

*Fusion occurs in stars, such as the sun

*Few radioactive particles are produced by fusion reaction, but if a fission “trigger” is used,
radioactive particles will result from that
*The energy released by fusion is three to four times greater than the energy released by fission
*One class of nuclear weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which uses a fission reaction to “trigger” a
fusion reaction
*Fusion is the fusing of two or more lighter atoms into a larger one
*High density, high temperature environment is required
*Extremely high energy is required to bring two or more protons close enough that nuclear
forces overcome their electrostatic repulsion
*Nuclear fusion is the reaction in which two or more nuclei combine together to form a new
element with higher atomic number (more protons in the nucleus). The energy released in
fusion is related to E = mc^2 (Einstein’s famous energy-mass equation). On earth, the most
likely fusion reaction is Deuterium–Tritium reaction. Deuterium and Tritium are both isotopes of
hydrogen. 2 1Deuterium + 3 1Tritium = 42He + 10n + 17.6 MeV
*Fusion of deuterium with tritium creating helium-4, freeing a neutron, and releasing 17.59 MeV
of energy

Unit – II:

Delivery systems
a) A: missiles, types & effects.

Missiles

missile, a rocket-propelled weapon designed to deliver an explosive warhead with great

accuracy at high speed. Missiles vary from small tactical weapons that are effective out to only a
few hundred feet to much larger strategic weapons that have ranges of several thousand miles.
Almost all missiles contain some form of guidance and control mechanism and are therefore
often referred to as guided missiles. An unguided military missile, as well as any launch vehicle
used to sound the upper atmosphere or place a satellite in space, is usually referred to as a
rocket. A propeller-driven underwater missile is called a torpedo, and a guided missile powered
along a low, level flight path by an air-breathing jet engine is called a cruise missile.

Propulsion, control, and guidance

Although missiles can be propelled by either liquid-fueled or solid-fueled rocket engines, solid
fuel is preferred for military uses because it is less likely to explode and can be kept
ready-loaded for quick launch. Such engines commonly propel tactical guided missiles—i.e.,
missiles intended for use within the immediate battle area—toward their targets at twice the

speed of sound. Strategic missiles (weapons designed to strike targets far beyond the battle
area) are either of the cruise or ballistic type. Cruise missiles are jet-propelled at subsonic
speeds throughout their flights, while ballistic missiles are rocket-powered only in the initial
(boost) phase of flight, after which they follow an arcing trajectory to the target. As gravity pulls
the ballistic warhead back to Earth, speeds of several times the speed of sound are reached.
Almost all missiles are steadied in flight by stabilizing fins. In addition, guided missiles contain
control systems to adjust their flight paths. The simplest control systems are aerodynamic,
making use of movable vanes or flaps that alter the flow of air past the stabilizing fins. A more
complicated system—used especially in ballistic missiles, which often travel beyond the Earth’s
atmosphere—is thrust vectoring. In this system the stream of gases from the rocket engine is
deflected by placing vanes within the exhaust nozzle or by swiveling the entire engine
The guidance system is the most important and sophisticated part of the missile. In tactical
missiles, electronic sensors locate the target by detecting energy emitted or reflected from it. For
example, heat-seeking missiles carry infrared sensors that allow them to “home” onto the hot
exhaust of jet engines. Antiradiation missiles home onto radar emissions, while one type of
optically homing missile may “lock” onto an image of the target that is captured by a television
camera. Upon receiving information through its sensor, the guidance system relays instructions
for course correction to the control mechanism through some type of autopilot contained within
the missile or through commands transmitted from the launch platform.

Ballistic missiles contain some type of inertial guidance system, which compares the missile’s
actual speed and position to the positions that it must assume in order to hit the target. The
guidance system then generates correcting commands to the control system. Inertial guidance
has become so accurate that the United States’ MX Peacekeeper ballistic missile, with a range
of more than 6,000 miles (more than 9,650 km), has a 50-percent chance of delivering its 10
nuclear warheads within 400 feet (120 m) of their targets

Types

Tactical guided missiles are generally categorized according to the location of the launch
platform and target. There are five types, air-to-air, air-to-surface, surface-to-air, antiship, and
antitank, or assault.

Ballistic missiles are most often categorized as short-range, medium-range, intermediate-range,

and intercontinental ballistic missiles (SRBMs, MRBMs, IRBMs, and ICBMs). SRBMs are
effective to 300 miles (480 km), MRBMs from 300 to 600 miles (480 to 965 km), IRBMs from
600 to 3,300 miles (965 to 5,310 km), and ICBMs more than 3,300 miles (5,310 km).

ICBMs are usually launched from silos, which are reinforced canisters sunk into the ground for
protection. Shorter-range ballistic missiles and some ICBMs are launched from railroad cars or
wheeled trailers that offer the protection of mobility. “Hot-launched” ballistic missiles are
launched directly from their canisters, while “cold-launched” missiles are ejected from the
canisters by compressed gas before the rocket engines ignite. Submarine-launched ballistic

missiles (SLBMs) are ejected in this manner to the ocean surface from tubes within the
submerged vessel. See also cruise missile; rocket; smart bomb; torpedo.

Types of Missiles in India

*Surface-To-Air Missiles – SAM

*Air-to-air missiles AAM
*Surface-to-surface missiles
*Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD)/Interceptor Missiles
*Cruise Missiles
*Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles
*Anti-Tank Missiles
List of Missiles in India

Air-to-Air missiles

Name of the Missile Type Range

(MICA) (Air-to-Air Missiles) ( 500 m to 80 km)

Name of the Missile Type Range

(Astra) (Air-to-Air Missiles) (80-110 km)

Name of the Missile -Type - Range

(Novator K-100 ) (Medium Range air-to-air missile ) (300–400 km)

Surface-To-Air Missiles

Name of the Missile -

Type
-Range

Trishul
Short-Range surface to air missile
9 km

Akash Missile
Medium-range surface-to-air missile

30-35km

Barak 8
Long-Range surface to air Missile
100 km

Surface-to-Surface Missiles

Name of the Missile

Type
Range

Agni-I
Medium-range ballistic missile
700-1250 km

Agni-II
Intermediate-range ballistic missile
2,000–3,000 km

Agni-III
Intermediate-range ballistic missile
3,500 km – 5,000 km
Agni-IV
Intermediate-range ballistic missile
3,000 – 4,000 km

Agni-V
Intercontinental ballistic missile
5000 – 8000 Km

Prithvi I
Short-Range Ballistic Missile
150 km

Prithvi II
Short-Range Ballistic Missile
350 km

Dhanush
Short-Range Ballistic Missile
350 – 600 km

Shaurya
Medium-Range Ballistic Missile
750 to 1,900 km

Prahaar
Short-Range Ballistic Missile
150 km

Cruise Missiles

Name of the Missile

Type
Range

BrahMos
Supersonic cruise missile
290 km

BrahMos II
Hypersonic cruise missile
300km

Nirbhay
Subsonic cruise missile
1,000 -1500 km

Defense Missile

Name of the Missile

Type of Missile
Range
Prithvi Air Defence
Exo-atmospheric Anti-ballistic missile

Altitude- 80km

Prithvi Defence Vehicle

Exo-atmospheric Anti-ballistic missile Altitude- 30km

Advanced Air Defence

Endoatmospheric Anti-ballistic missile
Altitude- 120km

Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles

Name of the Missile

Type

Range
Ashwin
Ballistic Missile
150-200km

Sagarika
Ballistic Missile
700 – 1900 Km

K-4
Ballistic Missile
3,500–5,000 km

K-5
Ballistic Missile
6,000 km

Anti-Tank Missile

Name of the Missile

Type

Range

Amogha
Anti-Tank Guided Missile
2.8 km

Nag
Anti-Tank Guided Missile
4km

Helina
Anti-Tank Guided Missile
7-8km
b) Triad

A nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure that consists of land-launched nuclear
missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines, and strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs and
missiles. Specifically, these components are land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers. The purpose of
having this three-branched nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an
enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack. This, in turn, ensures
a credible threat of a second strike, and thus increases a nation's nuclear deterrence

Triad power

India's nuclear weapons policy is that of "no first use" and "minimum credible deterrence," which
means that the country will not use nuclear weapons unless they are attacked first, but the
country does have the capability to induce the second strike. Before 2016, India already
possessed land-based ballistic missiles and aircraft that are nuclear-capable.India's land-based
arsenal includes the Prithvi-1 with a range of 150 to 600 kilometers, the Agni-1 with a range of
700 kilometers, the Agni-2 with a range of 2,000 kilometers, Agni-P with a range of 1,000 to

2,000 kilometres, Agni-3 with a range of 3,000, the Agni-4 with a range of 3,500 kilometers, and
the Agni-5 with a range of 5,000 kilometers.These are all intermediate-range ballistic missiles,
but the Agni-5 is an intercontinental range ballistic missile. An intermediate-range ballistic
missile has a range of 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers and intercontinental missiles are missiles with
the ability to travel farther than 5,500 kilometers.In addition, the 5,000–8000 km range Agni-V
ICBM was also successfully tested beginning April 2012and was expected to enter service by
2016

The country currently has four types of bombers that are capable of carrying nuclear bombs.
Land and air strike capabilities are under the control of Strategic Forces Command which is a
part of Nuclear Command Authority. Their inventory of aircraft includes the Sukhoi Su-30MKI,
Mirage 2000H, SEPECAT Jaguar and Rafale, which was purchased from France.

India completed its nuclear triad with the commissioning of INS Arihant in August 2016,
which was India's first submarine built indigenously.INS Arihant is a nuclear-powered ballistic
missile submarine armed with 12 K-15 missiles with a range of 750 km,which will later be
upgraded K-4 missiles with an extended range of 3500 km. In November 2017, it tested the
BrahMos missile from the Sukhoi-30 MKI platform.The INS Arihant was the first SSBN to be
completed under India's program. The INS Arighat is currently under construction and close to
completion. This would be the second SSBN of the three underway to be finished. 2 more
improved and bigger Arihant class submarines are under construction, and that will be followed
by three 13000 tonnes S5-class submarine planned.After the INS Arihant was completed, India
now contained air-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines and strategic
aircraft with nuclear bombs and missiles. This allows the country to join the nuclear triad

Traditional components of a strategic nuclear triad

While traditional nuclear strategy holds that a nuclear triad provides the best level of deterrence
from attack, in reality, most nuclear powers do not have the military budget to sustain a full triad.
While only the United States and Russia have maintained strong nuclear triads for most of the
nuclear age, there are other countries that have triad powers.These countries include China,
India, and France. Both the United States and Russia have had the strongest, and longest-living
triads. These triads include the following components:
*Bomber aircraft: Aircraft carrying nuclear bombs, or nuclear-armed cruise missiles, for use
against ground or sea targets.

*Land-based missiles (MRBMs or ICBMs): Delivery vehicles powered by a liquid or solid-fueled

rocket that primarily travel in a ballistic (free-fall) trajectory.

*Ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs): Nuclear missiles launched from ships or submarines.
They are classified under an umbrella of vessels and submarines that are capable of launching
a ballistic missile.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Tactical nuclear weapons, also called nonstrategic nuclear weapons, are generally designed for
battlefield use and have a shorter range than strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons, which
are designed to directly attack an adversary’s homeland.

Some analysts describe tactical nuclear weapons as intended to win a battle, while strategic
weapons are intended to win a war. Russia’s 2022 war on Ukraine raised serious questions
about these weapons, but the weapons themselves have existed since the beginning of the
Cold War and their dangers are well known.
Tactical nuclear weapons can have lower explosive “yield” than strategic weapons, meaning
they’re explosively less powerful. This may make them more militarily useful, and less politically
objectionable, and thus more likely to be used. However, many Russian and US tactical
weapons have yields far greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which instantly killed
more than 70,000 people.

While long- and medium-range nuclear systems have been constrained or eliminated by arms
control treaties, tactical nuclear weapons have never had verified limits. During the Cold War,
the US and Soviet Union built up massive numbers of these weapons in their arsenals, many
deployed in Europe. Today’s stockpiles are smaller but still capable of incomparable destruction.

Bottomline: there is no universal definition of tactical nuclear weapons. Indeed, then-US

secretary of defense James Mattis declared in 2018 “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a
‘tactical nuclear weapon.’ Any nuclear weapon used at any time is a strategic game changer.”

Use of any nuclear weapon would break the “nuclear taboo” that has held since 1945,
dramatically changing the course of history

Unit III: Nuclear Warfare Theories

Preemptive vs. Preventive war

Preemptive war is a strike to gain the advantage when an enemy strike is believed to
be imminent. The classic example in recent history is the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Israel was
aware that Egypt and Syria where about to invade. Instead of waiting, Israel struck first and
successfully destroyed Egyptian air power before they were able to get their planes in the air.
This preemptive strike was justified by Israel because war with the Arabs was virtually an
inevitability, and they wished to gain the upper hand.

Preventive war is something else altogether. It is war designed to prevent imagined

future war. It is based on a set of suppositions, hypotheses which could prove true or false. At
its heart is the idea — our enemies our strong now, but they will be even stronger in the future.
Better to attack them sooner rather than later. Better to defeat them before they get any
stronger.

This is the same argument used by Curtis LeMay during the Cuban Missile Crisis of
1962, to justify the use of force (rather than diplomacy) against Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Nuclear war was averted. And in fact we avoided war with
the Soviet Union from 1949 (when it first tested nuclear weapons) to its collapse in the 1990's, a
period of over 40 years.

Arthur Schlesinger has recently written eloquently about the difference. Several passages
stand out. Here's the first one. "Looking back over the Cold War, we can be everlastingly
grateful that the loonies on both sides were powerless. By 2003, however, they ran the
Pentagon."

And here's another. "The distinction between preemptive and preventive war is worth
preserving. It's the distinction between legality and illegality."

I would submit it's worse than that, that preventive war is an oxymoron. On its own
terms, it just makes no sense.

War does not prevent war. It creates more war. This is not, however, a thinly disguised
argument for pacifism. Only that preventive war never achieves the objective it sets out to
achieve.

The classic example is World War I, the war that Woodrow Wilson sold to the American
people as the "war to end all wars." Needless to say, it did not end war. On the contrary, it
ushered in a century of the worst carnage in human history. The loonies like LeMay were
pushed back in 1962.

b) massive Retaliation & Flexible Response.

Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military

doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in
the event of an attack.

In the event of an attack from an aggressor, a state would massively retaliate by using a force
disproportionate to the size of the attack.

The aim of massive retaliation is to deter another state from attacking first. For such a strategy
to work, it must be made public knowledge to all possible aggressors. The aggressor also must

believe that the state announcing the policy has the ability to maintain second-strike capability in
the event of an attack. It must also believe that the defending state is willing to go through with
the deterrent threat, which would likely involve the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale.

Massive retaliation works on the same principles as mutual assured destruction (MAD), with the
important caveat that even a minor conventional attack on a nuclear state could conceivably
result in all-out nuclear retaliation. However, when massive retaliation became policy, there was
no MAD yet since the Soviet Union lacked second-strike capability throughout the 1950s.

Flexible Response.
Flexible Response, also called Flexible Deterrent Options (FDO), U.S. defense strategy in which
a wide range of diplomatic, political, economic, and military options are used to deter an enemy
attack. The term flexible response first appeared in U.S. General Maxwell D. Taylor’s book The
Uncertain Trumpet (1960), which sharply criticized U.S. national security policy. Initially
designed to thwart communist expansion more effectively, the strategy has become a
fundamental principle of American military thinking.

c) C: Counter Value, Counter Force, MAD & MAS.

countervalue

In military doctrine, countervalue is the targeting of an opponent's assets that are of value but
not actually a military threat, such as cities and civilian populations. Counterforce is the targeting
of an opponent's military forces and facilities.
In warfare, particularly nuclear warfare, enemy targets can be divided into two general types:
counterforce military targets and countervalue civilian targets. Those terms were not used
during the Second World War bombing of civilian populations and other targets that were not
directly military.

The rationale behind countervalue targeting is that if two sides have both achieved assured
destruction capability, and the nuclear arsenals of both sides have the apparent ability to survive
a wide range of counterforce attacks and carry out a second strike in response, the value
diminishes in an all-out nuclear war of targeting the opponent's nuclear arsenal, and the value of
targeting the opponent's cities and civilians increases. That line of reasoning, however, assumes
that the opponent values its civilians over its military forces.

One view argues that countervalue targeting upholds nuclear deterrence because both sides
are more likely to believe in each other's no first use policy. The line of reasoning is that if an
aggressor strikes first with nuclear weapons against an opponent's countervalue targets, such
an attack, by definition, does not degrade its opponent's military capacity to retaliate.

The opposing view, however, counters that countervalue targeting is neither moral nor credible
because if an aggressor strikes first with nuclear weapons against only a limited number of a

defender's counterforce military targets, the defender should not retaliate in this situation against
the aggressor's civilian populace.

However, another position is that because it is the aggressor and so starts the conflict, it should
not be treated with a "gloves-on" approach, which would give a further incentive to be an
aggressor

counterforce

In nuclear strategy, a counterforce target is one that has a military value, such as a launch silo
for intercontinental ballistic missiles, an airbase at which nuclear-armed bombers are stationed,
a homeport for ballistic missile submarines, or a command and control installation.

The intent of a counterforce strategy (attacking counterforce targets with nuclear weapons) is to
conduct a pre-emptive nuclear strike which has as its aim to disarm an adversary by destroying
its nuclear weapons before they can be launched.That would minimize the impact of a
retaliatory second strike. However, counterforce attacks are possible in a second strike as well,
especially with weapons like UGM-133 Trident II.[clarification needed] A counterforce target is
distinguished from a countervalue target, which includes an adversary's population, knowledge,
economic, or political resources. In other words, a counterforce strike is against an adversary's
military, and a countervalue strike is against an adversary's cities.

A closely related tactic is the decapitation strike, which destroys an enemy's nuclear command
and control facilities and similarly has a goal to eliminate or reduce the enemy's ability to launch
a second strike. Counterforce targets are almost always near to civilian population centers,
which would not be spared in the event of a counterforce strike

MAD

Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy
which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed
defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the
attacker and the defender.It is based on the theory of rational deterrence, which holds that the
threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same
weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any
incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.term "mutual assured destruction", commonly
abbreviated "MAD", was coined by Donald Brennan, a strategist working in Herman Kahn's
Hudson Institute in 1962.[2] However, Brennan came up with this acronym ironically, 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 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 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 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 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. It 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, 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 the
other's nuclear missiles.[citation needed] 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.

Theory of mutually assured destruction

When the possibility of nuclear warfare between 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 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.[8] Even with the Cold War ending in
1991, about 30 years ago, deterrence from mutually assured destruction is still said to be the
safest course to avoid nuclear warfare.

Pre-1945

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 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 a perpetual stalemate

Unit 4

a) PTBT, NPT, ABM,

PTBT:

Start date: 5 August 1963

Location: Moscow
Effective: 10 October 1963

The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning
Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all
test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also
abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though
the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which
succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.

Negotiations initially focused on a comprehensive ban, but that was abandoned because of
technical questions surrounding the detection of underground tests and Soviet concerns over
the intrusiveness of proposed verification methods. The impetus for the test ban was provided
by rising public anxiety over the magnitude of nuclear tests, particularly tests of new
thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs), and the resulting nuclear fallout. A test ban was
also seen as a means of slowing nuclear proliferation and the nuclear arms race. Though the
PTBT did not halt proliferation or the arms race, its enactment did coincide with a substantial
decline in the concentration of radioactive particles in the atmosphere.

The PTBT was signed by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the
United States in Moscow on 5 August 1963 before it was opened for signature by other
countries. The treaty formally went into effect on 10 October 1963. Since then, 123 other states
have become party to the treaty. Ten states have signed but not ratified the treaty.
Much of the stimulus for the treaty was increasing public unease about radioactive fallout as a
result of above-ground or underwater nuclear testing, particularly given the increasing power of
nuclear devices, as well as concern about the general environmental damage caused by

testing.In 1952–53, the US and Soviet Union detonated their first thermonuclear weapons
(hydrogen bombs), far more powerful than the atomic bombs tested and deployed since 1945.In
1954, the US Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll (part of Operation Castle) had a yield of 15
megatons of TNT, more than doubling the expected yield. The Castle Bravo test resulted in the
worst radiological event in US history as radioactive particles spread over more than 11,000
square kilometers (4,200 sq mi), affected inhabited areas (including Rongelap Atoll and Utirik
Atoll), and sickened Japanese fishermen aboard the Lucky Dragon upon whom "ashes of death"
had rained.In the same year, a Soviet test sent radioactive particles over Japan.Around the
same time, victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima visited the US for medical care, which
attracted significant public attention. In 1961, the Soviet Union tested the Tsar Bomba, which
had a yield of 50 megatons and remains the most powerful man-made explosion in history,
though due to a highly efficient detonation fallout was relatively limited.Between 1951 and 1958,
the US conducted 166 atmospheric tests, the Soviet Union conducted 82, and Britain conducted
21; only 22 underground tests were conducted in this period (all by the US).

NPT:

Also Known A—Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty • NPT

Date —-July 1, 1968
Participants -—Soviet Union • United Kingdom • United States

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also called Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Treaty, agreement of July 1, 1968, signed by the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet
Union, and 59 other states, under which the three major signatories, which possessed nuclear
weapons, agreed not to assist other states in obtaining or producing them. The treaty became
effective in March 1970 and was to remain so for a 25-year period. Additional countries later
ratified the treaty; as of 2007 only three countries (India, Israel, and Pakistan) have refused to
sign the treaty, and one country (North Korea) has signed and then withdrawn from the treaty.
The treaty was extended indefinitely and without conditions in 1995 by a consensus vote of 174
countries at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty is uniquely unequal, as it obliges nonnuclear states to forgo

development of nuclear weapons while allowing the established nuclear states to keep theirs.
Nevertheless, it has been accepted because, especially at the time of signing, most nonnuclear
states had neither the capacity nor the inclination to follow the nuclear path, and they were well
aware of the dangers of proliferation for their security. In addition, it was understood in 1968
that, in return for their special status, the nuclear states would help the nonnuclear states in the
development of civilian nuclear power (although in the event the distinction between civilian and
military nuclear technology was not so straightforward) and also that the nuclear states would
make their best efforts to agree on measures of disarmament. In the 2005 Review Conference
of the Parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, this inequality was a major
complaint against the established nuclear powers. The treaty continues to play an important role
in sustaining the international norm against proliferation, but it has been challenged by a
number of events, including (1) North Korea’s withdrawal from the treaty in 2003 as it sought to

acquire nuclear weapons, (2) evidence of the progress Iraq made in the 1980s on its nuclear
program despite being a signatory to the treaty, and (3) allegations about uranium enrichment
facilities in Iran, yet another signatory to the treaty. The credibility of the nonproliferation norm
has also been undermined by the ability of India and Pakistan to become declared nuclear
powers in 1998 without any serious international penalty—and indeed by India establishing its
own special arrangements as part of a bilateral deal with the United States in 2008.

ABM

Also Known As ABM treaty

Date 1972
Participants Soviet Union • United States

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), in full Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile
Systems, arms control treaty ratified in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union to
limit deployment of missile systems that could theoretically be used to destroy incoming
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched by the other superpower. Negotiations to
prohibit ballistic missile defenses were first proposed by the United States in 1966 but did not
begin until late 1969, as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The ABM Treaty was
signed by U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev at a summit in Moscow
in May 1972, and it was ratified by both the U.S. Senate and the Supreme Soviet later that year.

The ABM treaty limited each side to only two ABM deployment areas, one to protect the
national capital and another to protect an ICBM launch site, with each ABM deployment area
limited to 100 launch systems and 100 interceptor missiles. A 1974 protocol reduced the
agreement to one ABM site apiece. The Soviet Union opted to maintain an established system
protecting Moscow; it was upgraded in the 1980s and is said to be still operational. The United
States opted to protect an ICBM site at Grand Forks, N.D., although the system deployed was
decommissioned in 1976. To prevent the deployment of a nationwide battle management
system, the treaty required all early-warning radars (usually large phased-array radars) to be
sited on the periphery of the country, oriented outward. In 1984 the United States claimed that a
Soviet radar system near the city of Krasnoyarsk, 800 km (500 miles) from the nearest border,
violated this provision, and in 1989 the Soviets acknowledged the violation and agreed to
dismantle the radar. In addition to traditional interceptor missiles, launchers, and radars, the
ABM treaty also covers systems based on other principles, such as lasers.

Under the terms of the treaty, neither party was able to defend more than a small fraction of its
entire territory, and both sides were thus kept subject to the deterrent effect of the other’s
strategic forces. This arrangement was seen to reinforce the concept of mutual assured
destruction (MAD), in which the prospect of annihilation for both sides would prevent either side
from “going nuclear” in the event of a conflict. The very concept of MAD was controversial,
however. During the 1980s, U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan promoted his Strategic Defense Initiative
(also known as Star Wars), based on an alternative concept of assured survival. Technology
existing at the time did not support this ambitious goal, though, and in any case the end of the

Cold War significantly lowered the risk of a massive nuclear exchange. During the course of the
1990s, attention turned to the risk of small-scale missile attacks from so-called “rogue” states,
such as North Korea or Iraq. With this in mind, a National Missile Defense (NMD) system was
proposed in the United States. Although it would involve no more than 100 interceptors, it was a
system designed to provide nationwide defense and so would be inconsistent with the ABM
treaty. For this reason, Russia publicly opposed the NMD. In order to mollify the Russians, the
administration of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton explored amending the ABM treaty during the 1990s to
permit the deployment of limited defenses that would clearly not be able to blunt a Russian
attack. The administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, however, saw no merit in trying to
preserve a treaty that it described as a “relic” of the Cold War era, and in December 2001 Bush
gave the required six-months notice of abrogation of the ABM treaty, which was the first time
that the United States had withdrawn from a major arms control agreement. Russia did no more
than describe this action as “mistaken".

SALT
SALT - I , SALT – II,

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and
corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold
War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and
SALT II.

Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, in November 1969.[1] SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic

Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries.

Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979 in Vienna, the US Senate chose not to ratify
the treaty in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which took place later that year.
The Supreme Soviet did not ratify it either. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985, and
was not renewed, although both sides continued to respect it.

The talks led to the STARTs, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, which consisted of START I,
a 1991 completed agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, and START II, a
1993 agreement between the United States and Russia, which was never ratified by the United
States, both of which proposed limits on multiple-warhead capacities and other restrictions on
each side's number of nuclear weapons. A successor to START I, New START, was proposed
and was eventually ratified in February 2011.

SALT1

SALT I is the common name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement signed on May
26, 1972. SALT I froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels and
provided for the addition of new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers only
after the same number of older intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and SLBM launchers had
been dismantled.SALT I also limited land-based ICBMs that were in range from the northeastern

border of the Continental United States to the northwestern border of the continental Soviet
Union.[3] In addition, SALT I limited the number of SLBM capable submarines that NATO and
the United States could operate to 50 with a maximum of 800 SLBM launchers between them. If
the United States or NATO were to increase that number, the Soviets could respond with
increasing their arsenal by the same amount.

The strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in
character in 1968. The total number of missiles held by the United States had been static since
1967 at 1,054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs but there was an increasing number of missiles with
multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads being deployed. MIRVs
carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV
defense by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive.[2] Both sides were also permitted
to increase their number of SLBM forces but only they disassembled an equivalent number of
older ICBMs or SLBM launchers on older submarines.

One of the terms of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of deployment sites
protected by an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system to one each. The idea of that system was to
prevent a competition in ABM deployment between the United States and the Soviet Union. The
Soviet Unions had deployed such a system around Moscow in 1966, and the United States
announced an ABM program to protect twelve ICBM sites in 1967. After 1968, the Soviets
tested a system for the SS-9 missile, otherwise known as the R-36 missile. A modified two-tier
Moscow ABM system is still used. The United States built only one ABM site to protect a
Minuteman base in North Dakota where the "Safeguard" Program was deployed. That base was
increasingly more vulnerable to attacks by the Soviet ICBMs because of the advancement in
Soviet missile technology
Negotiations lasted from November 17, 1969, to May 26, 1972, in a series of meetings
beginning in Helsinki, with the American delegation headed by Gerard C. Smith, director of the
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternated between Vienna and
Helsinki. After a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an
agreement was reached over ABM systems. Further discussion brought the negotiations to an
end in Moscow in 1972, when U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev signed both the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement
Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Certain
Measures With Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.

The two sides also agreed to a number of basic principles regarding appropriate conduct. Each
recognized the sovereignty of the other; agreed to the principle of noninterference; and sought
to promote economic, scientific, and cultural ties of mutual benefit and enrichment.

Nixon was proud that his diplomatic skills made him achieve an agreement that his
predecessors had been unable to reach. Nixon and Kissinger planned to link arms control to
détente and to the resolution of other urgent problems through what Nixon called "linkage".
David Tal argues:

The linkage between strategic arms limitations and outstanding issues such as the Middle East,
Berlin and, foremost, Vietnam thus became central to Nixon's and Kissinger's policy of détente.
Through employment of linkage, they hoped to change the nature and course of U.S. foreign
policy, including U.S. nuclear disarmament and arms control policy, and to separate them from
those practiced by Nixon’s predecessors. They also intended, through linkage, to make U.S.
arms control policy part of détente.His policy of linkage had in fact failed. It failed mainly
because it was based on flawed assumptions and false premises, the foremost of which was
that the Soviet Union wanted strategic arms limitation agreement much more than the United
States did.

The agreement paved the way for further discussion regarding international cooperation and a
limitation of nuclear armaments, as seen through both the SALT II Treaty and the Washington
Summit of 1973

SALT II

SALT II was a series of talks between American and Soviet negotiators from 1972 to 1979 that
sought to curtail the manufacture of strategic nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of the
SALT I talks and was led by representatives from both countries. It was the first nuclear arms
treaty to assume real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles
on both sides.

The SALT II Treaty banned new missile programs, defined as those with any key parameter 5%
better than in currently-employed missiles. That forced both sides to limit their new strategic
missile types development and construction, such as the development of additional fixed ICBM
launchers. Likewise, the agreement would limit the number of MIRVed ballistic missiles and long
range missiles to 1,320. However, the United States preserved its most essential programs like
the Trident missile, along with the cruise missiles President Jimmy Carter wished to use as his
main defensive weapon as they were too slow to have first strike capability. In return, the
Soviets could exclusively retain 308 of its so-called "heavy ICBM" launchers of the SS-18 type.

A major breakthrough for the agreement occurred at the Vladivostok Summit Meeting in
November 1974, when President Gerald Ford and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev came to
an agreement on the basic framework for the SALT II agreement. The elements of the
agreement were stated to be in effect until 1985.

An agreement to limit strategic launchers was reached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was
signed by Brezhnev and Carter at a ceremony held in the Redoutensaal of the Hofburg Palace.

Six months after the signing, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and in September, the United
States discovered that a Soviet combat brigade was stationed in Cuba. Although Carter claimed
that the Soviet brigade had been deployed to Cuba only recently, the unit had been stationed on
the island since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.In light of those developments, Carter

withdrew the treaty from consideration in January 1980, and the US Senate never consented to
ratification although terms were honored by both sides until 1986.

SALT II was superseded by START I in 1991

START

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) I was signed July 31, 1991, by the United States
and the Soviet Union. This was the first treaty that required U.S. and Soviet/Russian reductions
of strategic nuclear weapons. It was indispensable in creating a framework that ensured
predictability and stability for deep reductions.

In December 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, leaving four independent states in possession of
strategic nuclear weapons: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. This caused a delay in
the entry into force of the treaty. On May 23, 1992, the United States and the four
nuclear-capable successor states to the Soviet Union signed the Lisbon Protocol, which made
all five nations party to the START I agreement.

START I entered into force Dec. 5, 1994, when the five treaty parties exchanged instruments of
ratification in Budapest.

Reductions of nuclear weapons were completed by the deadline of December 5, 2001, seven
years after entry into force, and maintained for another eight years. States were verified by
on-site inspections and shared missile telemetry. Both the United States and the Russian
Federation continued reduction efforts even after reaching the START limits.

START I expired on Dec. 5, 2009. The United States and Russia signed START II in January
1993, but the treaty never entered into force. The 2002 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty
(SORT, or the Moscow Treaty) entered into force in 2003, followed by the 2010 New Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2011

CTBT

While widely understood to have only been used twice in wartime with terrible consequences,
nuclear weapons have also been “used” elsewhere—through more than 2,000 nuclear test
explosions by at least eight countries since 1945.

The world’s nuclear-armed states have used these nuclear test explosions to develop new
nuclear warhead designs and to demonstrate nuclear weapons capabilities. The tests,
particularly the atmospheric detonations, have negatively affected the lives and health of
millions of people around the globe. In response, ordinary citizens, scientists, legislators, and
government leaders have pursued a multi-decade effort to bring into force a global verifiable
comprehensive nuclear test ban, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Currently, the treaty has 186 signatories and 176 ratifications, though it still will not enter into
force until eight key states, including the United States, ratify it.

.Brief Overall History of the Test Ban Treaty

A global halt to nuclear weapons testing was first proposed in 1954 by Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru as a step toward ending the nuclear arms race and preventing nuclear
proliferation. A ban on nuclear testing has been a key national security objective of the United
States since the late-1950s, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower initiated U.S.-UK-USSR
comprehensive test ban negotiations.

In 1962-1963, President John F. Kennedy pursued comprehensive test ban talks with Russia,
but the two sides could not agree on the number of on-site inspections. Instead, the two sides
agreed to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear test explosions in the
atmosphere, outer space, and underwater.

Since the late-1960s, the conclusion of a comprehensive ban against nuclear testing has also
been understood to be an essential part of the nuclear weapon states’ commitment to fulfill their
nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Article VI nuclear disarmament commitments.

President Jimmy Carter again sought to negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty with Russia
from 1977-1980, but that effort also fell short as U.S.-Soviet relations soured after Moscow's
invasion of Afghanistan.

Under intense pressure from people in the then-Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan who were
outraged by the environmental and health effects of Soviet testing at the Semipalatinsk Test
Site, leaders in Moscow are compelled to shut down the facility on August 29, 1991. A month
later, on Oct. 5, 1991, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced a unilateral nuclear test
moratorium.
In response, later that year, legislation was introduced in the U.S. Congress for a reciprocal test
moratorium. The legislation, which overcame opposition for the George H. W. Bush
admistration, became law in 1992. It mandated a 9-month moratorium on nuclear weapon test
explosions. In July 1993, President Bill Clinton decided to extend the U.S. test moratorium.

From 1994-96, the world's nations came together to negotiate the CTBT, which prohibits all
nuclear test explosions and is intended to help curb the spread of nuclear weapons and impede
nuclear arms competition.

In 1995, during the NPT review conference, the parties agreed to indefinitely extend the NPT as
well as to conclude CTBT negotiations by no later than 1996.

On September 24, 1996, the United States was the first nation to sign the CTBT, which prohibits
all nuclear weapon test explosions or other nuclear explosions, but the Senate rejected
ratification in 1999 and the treaty has yet to enter into force.

In recent years, international support for the CTBT has grown. While the global test ban
monitoring and verification system established by the treaty has matured.

In 2009, President Barack Obama vowed to pursue ratification of the CTBT, saying, "After more
than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned."
Unfortunately, the Obama administration ultimately did not pursue ratification, though the United
States did pursue the first UN Security Council resolution supporting the treaty. The Trump
administration's 2018 Nuclear Posture Review noted that it would not seek ratification of the
CTBT, but would support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization and the International
Monitoring System (IMS) and International Data Center (IDC).

The following are key events in the history of nuclear testing and the nuclear test ban