Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from January 1994

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from January 1994

North Korea and the "worst-case" scare-nario. (North Korea's nuclear capabilities)
January 1, 1994... Ominous public pronouncements about the North Korean nuclear threat grew by leaps and bounds in 1993. In late February, CIA Director R. James Woolsey told the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs that there was "a real possibility" that...

Congress turns down the radio. (ban on construction of Ground Wave Emergency Network towers)
January 1, 1994... A U.S. Air Force program left over from the Cold War was grounded for another year when President Clinton signed the 1994 defense appropriations bill on November 11. The bill retains an amendment by Cong. Martin Sabo, a Minnesota Democrat, that...

Whoops, the series. (plans to recycle half-built, abandoned nuclear reactors)
January 1, 1994... Who should be allowed to produce and sell electricity in the United States? After a decade of graudal deregulation, Congress voted in fall 1992 to end the last vestiges of the government/utility monopoly on building power plant and producing...

Ducking the big debate. (1994 military budget)
January 1, 1994... At a March 1993 press briefing, Defense Secretary Les Aspin let slip the remakr that the Pentagon was "treading water" on procurement and research and development decisions vis-a-vis the fiscal 1994 budget that was then being presented to...

The Bill and Boris show. (Bill Clinton's relations with Russia)
January 1, 1994... President Bill Clinton inherited a messy situation in Europe when he took office last January. The bloodletting in the former Yugoslavia contained unabated, as did a host of nasty little wars in the former Soviet Union. Outgoing President...

The price of freedom. (former Soviet Union)
January 1, 1994... In the next 43 pages, journalists from 10 "new" countries describe their nations' costly struggles. Even Mikhail Gorbachev, "architect of perestroika," "godfather of glasnost," and "hope of the West," could not have imagined the...

The Transcaucasus: blood ties.
January 1, 1994... The "gateway to Asia" has never been peaceful. The Greeks knew the Transcaucasus as the land of the Golden Fleece. According to legend, the Greek god Prometheus, who gave people fire, was chained to the Caucasus Mountains. The Old...

Georgia: "Damn this war....' (includes related article about Georgia's agreement to join the Commonwealth of Independent States)
January 1, 1994... "When God was giving lands to different nations, he gave Georgia to happy and cheerful people who know how to work, drink wine, and be generous hosts," my 80-year-old grand-father, an old vine-grower, lover of life, and epicurean, told me. My...

Azerbaijan: malicious mapmaking.
January 1, 1994... The war in Nagorno-Karabakh plays into Russia's plans. When Azerbaijan declared its independence in August 1991, the political landscape was dizzying: there was a kaleidoscopic change of leaders, a real threat of civil war, and continued...

Armenia: until there are no more trees. (fuel shortage in Armenia)(includes related article on plans for a pipeline through Armenia)
January 1, 1994... Preparing for winter means collecting anything that burns. Residents of my building discovered one day this summer that the huge wooden outside door to the building was missing. It turned out that a first-floor neighbor had taken the door...

Ukraine: not so Western after all. (includes related article on Ukrainian military)
January 1, 1994... The new nations facing Europe--Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova--have had to shed a few illusions. In the two years since Ukraine declared its independence, living here has been like taking a voyage in a hot air balloon--a trip the crew took...

Belarus: neutrality, maybe.
January 1, 1994... A return to Russia's common economic zone may be the only hope for Belarus. When the new republics first emerged from the former Soviet Union, Belarus had a reputation as the most stable. This stability was achieved to a great extent by...

Moldova: a three-way split.
January 1, 1994... Separatists have fractured the tiny country into three regions with their own budgets, their own armies, and their own governments. "Independence has always been costly for all nations," remarked the prime minister of Moldova, Andrei...

Turkmenistan: a kind of prosperity.
January 1, 1994... If anything could have homogenized Central Asia, it would have been 70 years of Soviet domination. Instead, each republic has set out on its own path. With the encouragement of Russian bayonets, Turkmenistan was hitched to the Russian Empire...

Uzbekistan: Tamerlane v. Marx.
January 1, 1994... President Karimov believes that freedom and rights are not suited to an Asian country. Those familiar with life in Uzbekistan before the disintegration of the Soviet Union would be stunned by how different it is today. Stores are empty....

Kirgizstan: grappling with democracy.
January 1, 1994... In Kirgizstan, free speech and democracy are getting a real test. "If the Kirgiz were exposed to some European idea, it would cause the kind of dissonance and confusion that would not have been there had the idea remained unknown," wrote...

Tajikistan: another Afghan war? (includes related article on peacekeeping efforts)
January 1, 1994... The mujahaddin are eager to penetrate the Tajik border, weapons in hand. For almost four years, Tajikistan has been going through an economic and political struggle that has turned into civil war. Varying estimates put the loss of life in...

One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953.
January 1, 1994... The runaway atom, part I One World or None by Lawrence S. Wittner is a perceptive account of the effort to control nuclear weapons in the years following World War II. It is the first of three volumes in an ambitious work that tells...

The Fermi Solution: Essays on Science.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1994... Book Note This collection of essays is named for physicist Enrico Fermi's often rough-and-ready methods for solving physics problems. Many readers are familiar with the story of Fermi's method for rapidly estimating the energy of the...

New base in the Mediterranean? (naval base may be built at Haifa, Israel)
January 1, 1994... Amid delicate Middle East peace negotiations, the United States and Israel are drifting toward the creation of a naval base at Haifa. Such a base would be "a practical and financial arrangement with enormous political fallout," according to...

U.S. strategic forces, end of 1993.
January 1, 1994... As a result of submarines retirements and a new emphasis on conventional missions for the bomber force, the number of strategic nuclear weapons has decreased by about 500 from a year ago. Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missiles...