Nuclear Detonations

This chapter describes Article XXVI of the Colorado Constitution, which concerns nuclear detonations. A citizens’ initiative added the article in 1974 in response to detonations of nuclear devices in Colorado for the purpose of releasing natural gas. Citizens argued that the people of Colorado have the right to make the ultimate decision in a matter as important and controversial as nuclear detonations in the state. Sections 1 and 2 prohibit placement in the ground or detonation of any nuclear device unless approved by voters at a general election. Section 3 requires, before any nuclear detonation, a state agency or official must certify that sufficient financial resources exist to compensate for any damage caused by the detonation.

Nuclear ROK and US’ Military Retrenchment: Changes of Approach toward Korean Peninsula Crisis

North Korea has conducted sixth nuclear device tests by 2017. But the United States and South Korea persist on their current approach, that is pressure and sanction. The ways in which the United States and South Korea manage the Korean Peninsula crisis beg us to rethink, since the objective thereof, namely denuclearization, has not come into fruition. There are three problems to discuss. First, why North Korea keeps developing its nuclear weapons program. Second, why the current approach of the United States and South Korea seemingly fails. Third, what kind of changes the United States and South Korea need to have. This article argues, South Korea needs to acquire and develop its own nuclear weapons, and the United States needs to perform military retrenchment by retracting United States Forces Korea from the Peninsula. To examine the argument, neorealist theory, Waltz’s proposition on the further spread of nuclear weapons, and theory of military retrenchment, all provide necessary framework.Keywords: Korean Peninsula crisis, nuclear ROK, US military retrenchment, neorealist theory

The Nuclear Non-Issue

Whereas the objective of halting Israel’s progress toward nuclear weapons was central to Egyptian and Soviet motives for instigating the 1967 war, afterward the issue receded from both countries’ strategic planning as well as their public statements. Even Nasser’s presence in Moscow during the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in July 1968 was not used to blame Israel for not acceding. Israel’s failure, while under threat in May-June 1967, to use or demonstrate the nuclear device which it had reportedly just completed appears to have convinced Moscow and Cairo that the “Samson option” would be activated only in case of an invasion of the Israeli heartland. It therefore was not expected to be triggered by a campaign to recapture only Sinai, the Soviets’ approved goal, and was not accounted for in planning and preparations for the cross-canal offensive – a calculation that proved dangerously flawed in October 1973.

Unconventional Weapons

The chapter deals with the Iraqi efforts to develop and produce weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear. It describes the various projects in each field, their history, the foreign assistance they got, the infrastructure the Iraqis built for them, their achievements and types of weapons the Iraqis produces and their arsenals, especially of the Chemical and Biological weapons. The efforts of the U. N. supervisory commissions (UNSCOM) and the international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to disarm Iraq from those weapons and capabilities to renew the development and production of them by Iraq after 1991. The use of chemical weapons by the Iraqis against the Kurds and the Iranian forces during the war between the two countries, and the possibility of using them against coalition forces during the wars in 1991 and 2003. The Iraqi efforts to achieve a nuclear device in a crash program before the war in 1991.