Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from November 1996

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from November 1996

Options.(India opposes Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)(Editorial)
November 1, 1996... In 1954, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India called for a "standstill agreement" on nuclear testing. It would be, he said, the first step toward a ban of all nuclear weapons. On September 24, some 42 years after Nehru's proposal, a...

Clinton policies destructive.(Clinton administration defense policies)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 1996... John Isaacs's article on defense spending ("Debatable, But Not Debated," July/August 1996) misses the main reason for the size of the U.S. military: What is the purpose of the American armed forces? Defense spending is a function of defense...

Even the generals disagree.(need for nuclear disarmament)(Column)
November 1, 1996... The long and frustrating negotiations over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly in September, suggest that the five "declared" nuclear powers have no intention of giving up their nuclear arsenals in the...

Reading between the party lines.(military and foreign policies in 1996 political party platforms)
November 1, 1996... Pundits may lament that political party platforms no longer carry the weight they once did--but this may be or the best. If the presidential candidates had to run on the wish lists of their parties' "true believers," we might all be in trouble....

Good news, bad news.(worldwide military spending)
November 1, 1996... The 1996 edition of World Military and Social Expenditures, Ruth Sivard's handbook of military and social spending statistics, is as superb a resource as earlier versions. A special feature of this year's edition is a chapter titled "The...

Morning in Dubrovnik.(Dubrovnik, Croatia, begins recovery from Bosnia war)
November 1, 1996... Five years ago nobody in Dubrovnik would have believed the city was about to endure another medieval siege. After all, the last siege of any sort had ended 185 years earlier, when a joint Montenegran-Russian force failed to dislodge the...

Right wing targets treaty.(Conservative Republicans postpone Senate vote on Chemical Weapons Convention)
November 1, 1996... Shortly before he left office in January 1993, President George Bush signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, which his administration--and the Reagan administration before it--had negotiated. Nearly four years later, the decisive ratification...

India's nuclear brownout.(decline of nuclear power in India)
November 1, 1996... Although it won a rare bureaucratic victory that reversed Indian policy on the comprehensive nuclear test ban, India's Department of Atomic Energy is fighting desperately for its future. Like most other Indian science and technology...

A parade of troubles.(problems of the Russian army)
November 1, 1996... The Russian army is not only plagued by economic problems, it is also held hostage to power politics and corruption in the Kremlin. As a child in Kiev, I loved to watch Soviet military parades. Rows of young men in khaki uniforms marching...

Brazil: the meek want the earth now.(Landless Workers Movement)(Cover Story)
November 1, 1996... Millions of poor Brazilians, led by the Landless Workers Movement, want to settle on idle land. Could it lead to civil war? When hundreds of Brazilian demonstrators protesting the glacial pace of government-sponsored land reform blocked...

The in-comprehensive test ban.(Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)
November 1, 1996... The Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB) Treaty was signed September 24 at the United Nations in New York, capping months of high uncertainty about the fate of the long-sought treaty. More than 90 nations signed the CTB in its first week, and many...

CTB: next steps.(Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and nuclear disarmament)
November 1, 1996... For most of the year, the arms control world has focused on finally achieving the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban (CTB) Treaty, a task that was accomplished in September with great agony, if not angst. Completion of the treaty was welcome...

A boost for abolition.(Canberra Commission report on nuclear abolition)(includes related articles on cost of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and on Australia's role on the Canberra Commission)
November 1, 1996... An international commission sponsored by the government of Australia has presented the United Nations with a comprehensive road map for abolishing nuclear weapons, although it refrained from setting deadlines, however hypothetical, for...

Take a hard look at subcritical tests.(subcritical tests of nuclear weapons)
November 1, 1996... In October 1995, the Energy Department announced a series of experiments to study the impact that aging plutonium and new methods of producing replacement warhead components will have on the reliability of the nuclear stockpile. It is not clear...

Weapons plutonium: just can it.(disposing of surplus weapons plutonium)
November 1, 1996... Of all the dilemmas plaguing the U.S. Energy Department as it tries to deal with the aftermath of 50 years of manufacturing nuclear weapons, choosing a way to dispose of surplus warhead plutonium should be one of the simplest to resolve. ...

The way it was.(Soviet Union thermonuclear program)
November 1, 1996... In May, a remarkable conference was held in Dubna, 60 miles north of Moscow on the River Volga. In this green and peaceful town, founded in the late 1940s as a center of research in nuclear and high-energy physics, over 130 papers were...

The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age.
November 1, 1996... by John Horgan Helix Books, 1996 309 pages; $24.00 In crafting the theory of The End of Histo? a few years ago, political theorist Francis Fukuyama used a highly specialized definition. He meant history as "the human struggle to find the most...

British, French, and Chinese nuclear forces,
November 1, 1996... We estimate the current British stockpile at about 260 warheads of two types. The British stockpile peaked in the mid-1970s at some 350 warheads. We believe it will increase slightly to about 275 warheads of only one type by the turn of the...

The six-hundred million dollar mouse.(Air Force Space Command's REACT command system)(Column)
November 1, 1996... Nuclear war in Windows! That's how a light-headed air force officer described the REACT command system installed in the last of 50 launch control centers at Max, North Dakota, this August. "Crews love it," says Lt. Gen. Patrick Caruana....