1993 Number 21 Los Alamos Science As we look back on the fifty-year history of Los Alamos National Laboratory, we can be justifiably proud of the accomplishments that are the foundation of our rich heritage. While the nation faced World War II and then the Cold War, we developed nuclear and thermonuclear explosives. In the early years we were also instrumental in developing the manufacturing te...

One of the most impressive historical transformations in state nuclear weapons policies has been Australia’s switch from active supporter of the development and spread of the bomb in the 1950s and 1960s, to world leader in the effort to rein it in from the 1970s to the present day. There is a wide gap, to say the least, between 1950s-era Australia’s hospitable welcome to British nuclear tests o...

The question of what effects nuclear weapons have on an actor’s success in coercive diplomacy is in part a function of how nuclear weapons change the perceived costs of conflict. We argue that states will be able to prevail in improving their allotment of a good or in convincing an opponent to back down, and have shorter crises, if their opponents have greater expected costs of crisis. Noting, ...

D eterrence is once again a topic of discussion and debate among US defense and policy communities. Although the concept has received comparatively little attention since the end of the Cold War, it seems poised to take center stage in America's national security policy during the coming decades. With two ongoing wars already straining the military , concerns about a recalcitrant and militarize...

Climate science and nuclear weapons testing have a long and surprisingly intimate relationship. The global networks that monitored the Fukushima radiation plume and forecasted its movement are the direct descendants of systems and computer models developed to trace fallout from weapons tests. Tracing radioactive carbon as it cycles through the atmosphere, the oceans, and the biosphere has been ...

T terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 concentrated minds on the potential of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), combining a timeless tactic with the most destructive weaponry. Th e margins of international tolerance of non-compliance with the WMD nonproliferation and disarmament norms and obligations narrowed dramatically after that date. Affi rming WMD proliferation as a thre...

For years to come, the Russian nuclear weapons production complex will remain responsible for missions that are central to international security and nonproliferation, including: • dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons; • support to Russia’s operational nuclear warhead stockpile to assure its safety, security, and reliability; • safe and secure storage, management, and disposition of hundred...