Curbing the spread of nuclear weaponsWith the 2005 Review Conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the background, this book provides a fully detailed but accessible and accurate introduction to the technical aspects of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons for the specialist and non-specialist alike. It considers nuclear weapons from varying perspectives, including the technology perspective, which views them as spillovers from nuclear energy programmes; and the theoretical perspective, which looks at the collision between national and international security – the security dilemma – involved in nuclear proliferation. It aims to demonstrate that international security is unlikely to benefit from encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons except in situations where the security complex is already largely nuclearised. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 73
... bomb manufacture. Plutonium produced in reactors fuelled with natural uranium contains fewer of the other, unwanted, isotopes (mainly because it is not left inside the reactor for as long) that reduce its value for bomb purposes ...
... bomb can be made by assembling two subcritical, shaped masses of uranium, at either end of what is essentially a stout gun barrel, and detonated by firing one mass at the other. A plutonium bomb cannot be made as simply and normally ...
... bombs (also termed hydrogen bombs) have been tested that give explosive yields a thousand times greater than the sorts of fission (or atom) bomb just described. They employ plutonium or uranium bombs as igniters, usually in the form of ...
... bomb (reactors based on fusion seem to be theoretically possible but a fully working prototype has yet to be demonstrated). Inside a reactor, fissile material is not normally present in the same concentrations that are common in bombs ...
... bomb production but it is not accorded the description 'weapons-grade', since the design of an effective bomb becomes much more difficult, partly because the presence of other plutonium isotopes increases the risk of premature ...
Contents
The International Atomic Energy Agency and safeguards | |
Understanding nuclearfree zones | |
United States policy on nonproliferation and the Nuclear Non | |
Bargaining for test ban treaties | |
A The Baruch Plan | |
B Atoms for Peace | |
Treaty of Tlatelolco documentation and texts | |
E Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean | |