Bomboozled: How the U.S. Government Misled Itself and Its People into Believing They Could Survive a Nuclear Attack

Bomboozled: How the U.S. Government Misled Itself and Its People into Believing They Could Survive a Nuclear Attack, by Susan Roy. Pointed Leaf Press, 2011. 176 pages, $45.     

PART II: CONTINUING TO QUESTION THE RELIABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Responding to Derrin Culp's critique, the author argues that distinguished nuclear theorists may be wrong because groups of experts have been wrong in the past, that city attacks are central to nuclear deterrence theory because killing civilians en masse is what nuclear weapons do best, and that understanding how effective city attacks would be in war is crucial to understanding how well they would work as threats. Moreover, while it is undeniable that nuclear deterrence works some of the time, this simply is not good enough. Because any failure of nuclear deterrence could end in catastrophic nuclear war, nuclear deterrence must be perfect or almost perfect. This is a very difficult standard to reach.     

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ON THE ROAD TO NUCLEAR ZERO

The disappointingly slow pace of progress on efforts to prevent proliferation, reduce nuclear weapons, and eliminate nuclear risks has many causes. The factor that might be easiest for individuals in the arms control and nonproliferation community to change stems from their own ambivalence about major questions that must be addressed on the road to reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world to zero. This essay explores how ambivalence about four key issues—strategic stability, alliance relations, institution-building, and nuclear energy—often leads community members to take positions that play well at home and within their like-minded group but raise unintended impediments to achieving their own long-term goals. The author suggests alternative ways to handle these questions to improve the prospects for domestic and international agreement on practical measures that would eliminate, not perpetuate, nuclear risks.     

PART III: CHALLENGING THE UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM ON DETERRENCE

In reply to Ward Wilson's response, the author notes that Wilson's current position about the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence is relatively agnostic compared to his original essay and that he now uses a much finer brush to define his qualms about nuclear deterrence. The perfectibility, rather than the existence of nuclear deterrence, is the paramount issue. The author also contends that in remaining fixated on civilian deaths and using Hiroshima and Nagasaki as his litmus test, Wilson fails to adequately consider whether there are other potential nuclear harms—fundamentally different in scale, scope, and moral and existential ramifications—that potentially can terrify societies enough to make nuclear deterrence a perfect or nearly perfect mode of security.     

POLITICAL SURVIVAL AND NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen. Princeton University Press, 2007. 404 pages, $26.95.     

The Requirements of Nuclear Stability in South Asia

While recent history arguably demonstrates a high level of nuclear stability in South Asia, this article argues that this stability has historically been a function of India's relative weakness. It argues that, as India becomes stronger, attention must be paid to the technical and political requirements of nuclear stability: the reliability of weapons and command and control and the political conditions that underpin stable relations between nuclear-armed states. It concludes by recommending the United States aim to modify the perceptions of regional elites about their various intentions and decision-making processes and the role of the United States as crisis manager.     

China's Nuclear Forces and Their Significance to India

The Indian nuclear program is a response to a perceived politico-strategic threat from China as opposed to a military-operational one that New Delhi began after perceiving an “ultimatum” from China in 1965. Consequently, India is in the process of acquiring an assured second-strike capability vis-à-vis China to meet the requirements of general deterrence. While India has always been concerned about the Sino-Pakistani nuclear/missile nexus, China has become wary of the growing military ties between the United States and India in recent years, especially because of the military implications of the US-India civil nuclear deal. Given the growing conventional military gap between the two states, India is not lowering its nuclear threshold to meet the Chinese conventional challenge. Instead, India is upgrading its conventional military strategy from dissuasion to deterrence against China. While the overall Sino-Indian nuclear relationship is stable, it will be challenged as China acquires advanced conventional weapons that blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear conflict.     

Is the Indian Nuclear Tiger Changing Its Stripes?

Sixteen years after stepping out of the nuclear closet, India's nuclear posture, some of its operational practices, and hardware developments are beginning to mimic those of the original five nuclear weapon states. Several proliferation scholars in the United States contend that India's national security managers are poised to repeat the worst mistakes of the superpowers’ Cold War nuclear competition, with negative consequences for deterrence, crisis, and stability in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. This article takes a contrarian view. It dissects the best available data to show why the alarmist view is overstated. It argues that not only are the alarmists’ claims unsupported by evidence, their interpretation of the skeletal and often contradictory data threatens to construct the very threat they prophesize.     

核裂变过程动态模拟计算的动力学系数

本文利用(c,h,a)三参数旋转体模型计算了形变核的相对表面能、相对库仑能及相对转动能。这些相对能量与具体核无关,具有普适性,可以用于核裂变动态过程的模拟计算。利用这些结果,计算了一些核的形变位能随三参数变化的情况,给出了裂变位垒高度,与实验结果符合较好。对~(236)U的形变位能曲面作了较详细的分析,得出一些有益的结论。用Werner—Wheeler方法计算了形变核的惯性质量和粘滞张量随三参数变化情况,对断点线方程作了深入讨论,为核裂变动态过程的计算机模拟准备了必要的系数。     

核电磁脉冲模拟器的电场特性及等离子体阵列的防护性能

强电磁脉冲通过电子设备表面耦合进入内部将产生显著的破坏作用,而等离子体作为一种特殊的电磁介质,具有屏蔽强电磁脉冲的能力,因此基于等离子体的强电磁脉冲防护研究具有重要意义。利用CST软件仿真分析了核电磁脉冲模拟器工作空间的电场分布。进行了核电磁脉冲对单片机的干扰和破坏效应辐照研究,得到了其对MF-51-1型单片机的干扰和破坏阈值分别在10 kV/m和18 kV/m左右。实验研究了单层等离子体阵列对核电磁脉冲的防护性能,能量衰减均在10 dB以上。实验结果表明,等离子体具有强电磁脉冲防护的能力。