Nuclear Threats and Nuclear Technology: (A Knowledgeable Assessment)

by Alexander Devolpi

This second volume of “Nuclear TheCold War Legacy” identifies and evaluates residual consequences of the half-century Cold War, especially those related to nuclear weapons and their evolution. This is a knowledgeable assessment of current risks and future potential for peaceful nuclear technology and inherited nuclear weapons. Whereas Volume 1 provided a history of nuclear weapons development and evolution during the Cold War, this second Volume "Nuclear Threats and Nuclear Technology" addresses resultant status and role of the nuclear legacy as this new millennium is evolving. With regard to nuclear accidents at Fukushima (Japan), Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island reactors, a comparative assessment has been added to Volume 2. Here are the respective roles of the three volumes in "Nuclear Insights": Volume 1 is an insider history of nuclear weapons development and public dissent during the Cold War; Volume 2 reports on and examines nuclear power, technology, peaceful applications, and proliferation risks; and Volume 3 is a technically informed perspective about nuclear reductions, arms control, and counter-terrorism. All three volumes are unique, having originated with a written collaboration by four nuclear scientists and engineers, from both sides of the Cold War Iron Curtain, all of whom had hands-on experience with nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. Volume 2 is about what the Cold War left us to deal with. Befitting its focus on Nuclear Power and Nuclear Technology, this Volume contains two Chapters, one dealing with specific legacies of the Cold War, the other with continuing trends in contemporary national security. Chapter V describes present-day radiation and institutional legacies, raises questions about nuclear security in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union, and then addresses the capabilities of other nations becoming a nuclear armed. The Chapter also reviews the beneficial impact of nuclear technology. Chapter VI addresses contemporary security/insecurity trends regarding nuclear equilibrium, other nuclear-weapons states, and conventional forces. National security has become a function of robust mutual-security arrangements, sufficient but affordable military development and spending, while fending off potential nuclear hazards and proliferation. A special supplement in Volume 2 includes a review of the consequences of nuclear accidents at Fukushima, Japan; Chernobyl, Ukraine; and Three Mile Island, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

426 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 24, 2011