Browsing by Subject "nuclear weapons"
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Item Nuclear and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)(University of St. Thomas, 2004-06-25) Andregg, Michael M.Nuclear, and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Michael Andregg. St. Paul, Minnesota. June 25, 2004. Weapons of Mass Destruction (often reduced to WMD) are the most terrible weapons yet invented, but they are often neglected by peace activists because they involve many technical issues (which are hard) a lot of secrecy (which is frustrating) and grossly terrifying consequences (which are scary). But serious students must attend these issues anyway, because neither peace nor justice can be achieved unless we master them. The general term "Weapons of Mass Destruction" conveys the broad concepts that such weapons are: a) extremely destructive, and b) not very "discriminate." For example, a bullet can be aimed to kill or incapacitate one very bad guy with guns who is a threat to a community. A nuclear weapon employed in the same setting will kill every one and most living things for miles around. This does not discriminate between the innocent and dangerous killers. WMD come in four categories ranked here by degree of danger they present: Nuclear, biological, chemical, and a group of exotic and emerging technologies which I will lump under the term "information warfare." Most of this essay will deal with nuclear weapons because of space and time constraints, so we'll go over the others briefly first.Item Nuclear Security Issues: 2017 and long term(2017-11-16) Andregg, Michael M.This is a 30-slide PowerPoint presentation on nuclear security issues originally created for Minnesota Great Decisions groups at the U of MN, Grand Marais and Mankato, then modified slightly (updated mainly) for the Air Force ROTC detachment at the University of St. Thomas.Item Weapons of Mass Destruction: From Worst Case Scenarios to Reality(2009-11-17) Andregg, Michael M.This is a 48 slide, PowerPoint review of every aspect of nuclear weapons that first responders should know about that can be packed into a 90 minute time period. It covers elementary weapons effects, inventories around the world including allies, enemies and troublesome third parties, numbers relevant to an SS-18 attack on Minnesota, and responses that could mitigate effects. It also covers biological and chemical WMDs, but in less detail since they are much less liable to end civilization as we know it, which the nuclear arsenals certainly could.Item Why Asia Should Lead a Global Push to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons(2019-11-23) Andregg, Michael M.The purpose of this chapter is to explicate reasons why Asia is especially well positioned to lead a global push to eliminate, or greatly reduce, nuclear weapons inventories worldwide, and why Mongolia might be catalytic to that effort. The threat of any general, thermonuclear war is existential to civilization itself. No one understands that better than Japan. North and South Korea want to unify, but they cannot while they are clients of opposing major powers, China and the USA. Nuclear weapons complicate that tragically, at great expense and risk to everyone. Meanwhile, Pakistan is destabilizing, which scares everyone in South Asia and many worldwide, because of its long feud with nuclear-armed India, including four conventional wars. The risk that Pakistani nuclear explosives could find their way to Islamic terrorist groups terrifies others. Many analysts therefore consider South Asia the most likely place for a nuclear war to start today. Russia is a declining power, and is frightened by both NATO and a fast-rising China, while China has considerable capital it could devote to a noble, global cause like nuclear arms control. Israel is a wild card, which motivates Iran to be one too. The former has a complete nuclear triad, and Iran could build nuclear weapons over several years if allowed to. Meanwhile, the USA is paralyzed on this topic by our weapons industry (among other factors), and everyone who now possesses nuclear weapons is modernizing. Europe in general is quite alarmed by US abandonment of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Arms Treaty (INF) and by Russian threats to use “small” nuclear weapons in tactical situations. Therefore, the EU would probably support any Asian effort to bring sanity to this situation before any more large wars get fought over their territories. No European nation wants to become a battleground for major powers fighting with nuclear weapons. At the end, we will discuss some solutions well aware that the countries that already possess nuclear weapons are extremely reluctant to eliminate, or even to limit them.Item Why Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Still Matter(International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, 2018-11-04) Andregg, Michael M.