Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from March 2001

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from March 2001

Creative writing.(reports about international threats made to obtain more money for military spending)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... IT'S BEEN A BOUNTIFUL SEASON FOR IMPENDING DOOM. IT'S THAT TIME of year when reports to Congress and the president are filled to bursting with creative writing--stuffed with reasons to punch up the defense budget or face certain ("not if, but...

Letters.
March 1, 2001... Move beyond the logic of the Cold War ALTHOUGH I AGREE WITH WILLIAM ARKIN that the U.S. nuclear-weapon targeting list, the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SLOP), is "forever immoral" ("Last Word," September/October 2000 Bulletin), I am...

Daddy was a submariner.(Cold War recognition certificate program)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... In 1999, the Bulletin reported on the U.S. Army's Cold War recognition certificate program, established by the 1998 Defense Authorization Act ("What Did You Do in the Cold War, Daddy?" September/October 1999), The program, which honors the 22...

Changing tactics.(Ballistic Missile Defense Organization recommends increasing security but is rebuffed)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... In the November/December 2000 issue, the Bulletin took a look at government secrecy. Since then, at least one government agency--the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO)--has suggested increasing the classification of government...

The 50-kiloton test that no one noticed.(rumors of 1964 atomic bomb test examined)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... MOST ACTIVISTS RELY on published facts to bolster their messages. But sometimes a published "fact" isn't a fact at all. Best intentions aside, that doesn't always stop the story from spreading. Ad nauseam. Take the case of a December 8,...

In Brief.(news about various military topics)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Local color When farmers in Montgomery County in western Pennsylvania complained that their pigs were turning purple, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to investigate. But the cause, according to the EPA, was not radiation...

It came from Ohio.(evidence that Air Force researched building flying discs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Anyone who's watched more than a few episodes of the X-Files knows that not all UFOs are flown by aliens. In the show's first season, FBI agents discovered that the air force had its own fleet of aircraft that can hover silently and perform...

A loaded deck.(Nuclear War card game)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... How did this one get by without notice? "Nuclear War"--the card game, not an international snafu--has remained at the top of the gaming charts ever since Doug Malewicki came up with the idea in 1965. In 1984, Games Magazine called Nuclear War...

The restaurant at the end of the suburb.(Mars 2112 restaurants in Chicago, Illinois and New York, New York)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... IF YOU LIVE IN A LARGE metro area, it's hard enough to get out of the city--let alone off the planet. And since the United States has dropped the ball on manned exploration of space (see opposite page), it may be a long time before visiting the...

Stuck in orbit.(International Space Station not likely to provide benefits that are claimed)
March 1, 2001... I DIDN'T SEE 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY WHEN IT WAS FIRST RELEASED in theaters 32 years ago because I was busy preparing to be born. My generation may have slept, cried, or breast-fed our way through the moon landings, but many of us took Stanley...

Guilty until proven innocent.(arrest and trial of scientist Igor Sutyagin for alleged espionage in Russia)
March 1, 2001... FOR IGOR SUTYAGIN, THE MORNING of October 27, 1999, must have seemed like the beginning of another busy day. An arms control specialist at the U.S.A.-Canada Institute, Sutyagin had a full schedule ahead of him. In 24 hours, he was to catch a...

Non-aggressive weapons?
March 1, 2001... DURING HIS CONFIRMATION HEARING before the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of "bringing the American military successfully into the twenty-first century." Of course. Any defense secretary-designate would...

And now for the really big one.
March 1, 2001... THE IDEA OF USING A NUCLEAR-powered submarine to haul cargo under the ice-covered Arctic is as old as the nuclear submarine itself. Back in 1958, as the USS Nautilus was crossing the Arctic to become the first ship to reach the North Pole, a...

Israel's decision time.
March 1, 2001... EIGHT YEARS AGO, SHIMON PERES, then foreign minister, declared "a farewell to chemical arms" as Israel became one of the first countries to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention (w), the treaty that prohibits the development, production,...

The ones to watch.
March 1, 2001... AS GEORGE W. BUSH TOOK OFFICE on January 20, a fearsome foursome took charge of the top national security positions in the new administration. Their names were Cheney, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld. Only hours after the inaugural ceremonies,...

The generals' discontent.
March 1, 2001... IN DECEMBER 1999, THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) GAVE THE GREEN LIGHT TO TURKEY'S EVENTUAL membership. But Turkey's powerful generals, who favor nearly all possible alliances with the West, are apparently balking at the idea of taking this ultimate...

Defending the "revolution".
March 1, 2001... LAST YEAR, THEN-BULLETIN EDITOR MIKE MOORE ARGUED IN THESE PAGES THAT THE "REVOLUTION IN MILITARY affairs" (RMA) was so advanced in the United States as to produce great loathing among smaller nations ("Unintended Consequences,"...

Magical THINKING.
March 1, 2001... another go at transmutation BAD IDEAS SELDOM DIE: THEY SIMPLY GO INTO hibernation, ready to burst forth when conditions ripen. A decade ago, the transmutation of high-level nuclear waste was widely seen as a dead end. It was too...

WHILE NO ONE WAS LOOKING.
March 1, 2001... The U.S. government said it would never use commercial reactors to produce weapon material. Guess what? IN THE WANING WEEKS OF 1998, lights burned late into the night around the Mall in Washington, D.C. At the east end, congressional...

Setting the scene.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... WEAPONS DESIGNERS ARE STARTING TO DISCUSS WHAT IS, for many in the arms control community, the unthinkable: the resumption of nuclear testing. But maybe it shouldn't come as a gigantic surprise. For the last decade, talk of smaller--and more...

Beware the old story.
March 1, 2001... NOW THAT THE LONG AND BITTER NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL election is finally over, and conservative Republicans have once again seized the executive branch, we can expect advocates of resumed nuclear testing--undoubtedly led by James Schlesinger,...

Defining reliable.
March 1, 2001... WHEN WEAPONS SCIENTISTS TALK ABOUT THE "RELIABILITY" of nuclear weapons, they may not mean what you think they mean. Reliability refers to the ability of an individual warhead or an entire class of weapons to deliver explosive power exactly as...

Germs ON THE LOOSE.
March 1, 2001... BIOWEAPONS TESTS TAINTED SITES AROUND THE GLOBE. Will the mess ever be cleaned up? IN 1988, SOVIET SCIENTISTS were scrambling to destroy their secret stockpile of anthrax, which they had manufactured in violation of the Biological and...

Mission impossible.
March 1, 2001... Described as "preventive defense" or "extended deterrence" by its supporters--but decried as "a new form of gunboat diplomacy" by its detractors--a new program called the "Counterproliferation Initiative" was unveiled in December 1993 by...

Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda.(Review)
March 1, 2001... Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda By Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein Scribner, 2000 352 pages; $26.00 LAST NOVEMBER, THE BULLETIN'S ELECTRONIC BulletinWire ran a short news...

While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today.(Review)
March 1, 2001... While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today By Donald Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan St. Martin's Press, 2000 435 pages; $32.50 YOU MAY THINK 2001 IS A YEAR OF NO particular significance, except that...

The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA.(Review)
March 1, 2001... The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA By Ted Gup Doubleday, 2000 390 pages; $25.95 THERE WERE MANY HEROES BEFORE Achilles, an ancient author once wrote, but they had no Homer to tell their tales and so their names...

Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide.(Review)
March 1, 2001... Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide By Peter Andreas University Press, 2000 158 pages; $26.00 ON MAY 20, 1997, 18-YEAR-OLD Esequiel Hernandez was shepherding his family's goat herd near the small Texas border town of Redford. The...

Technical Fouls: Democratic Dilemmas and Technological Change.(Review)
March 1, 2001... Technical Fouls: Democratic Dilemmas and Technological Change By John Kurt Jacobsen Westview Press, 2000 196 pages; $21.00 MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, THE Modern Prometheus, was published in 1818, at the dawn of British industrialization...

U.S. nuclear forces, 2001.
March 1, 2001... Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). A four-part program to upgrade Minuteman missiles continues: First, missile-alert facilities were updated with Rapid Execution and Combat Targeting consoles. Second, the ongoing Guidance...

The praetorian guards.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... IN LATE APRIL, THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF (JCS) will begin its annual assessment of a very elite team--the "nuclear battlestaff." During two top-secret exercises--"Praetorian Guard" and "Crystal Monarch"--the battlestaff will be put through its...