5. Deterrence, Détente, 9/11 and Dirty Bombs

Nuclear technologies have passed through several phases: the initial moves to fission and fusion nuclear weapons, deterrence, the development of civil nuclear electricity systems, the emergence of détente and the SALT treaties in the face of possible mutually assured destruction, the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, and perhaps most recently a diverse range of threats from well-resourced, technically able and suicidal terrorists. Each phase has raised its own set of issues for the social sciences.

The risk of subnational organizations possessing nuclear weapons, perhaps as a result of a nuclear weapon state becoming a failed state, is a current concern. Our security resides in the difficulty in obtaining both fissile materials, including the cannibalization of diverted nuclear weapons to improvise a new weapon,10 and prerequisite nuclear know-how. While important pieces of know-how appear to remain undisclosed, Allinson warns that talented undergraduates, such as John Aristotle Philips at Princeton University in 1977, can apparently design a workable nuclear weapon from purely public-domain information (Allinson [2004], pp. 87–9).

Fears of nuclear proliferation have led the United States, via the Bush Doctrine following 11 September 2001, to reassess its notions of a just war, in contexts of weapons of mass destruction proliferation, to permit pre-emptive strikes. In a world of proliferation fears, it is important to remember ...

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