1. Weapons of Mass Destruction
Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Weapons
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2. WMD: General Characteristics
• Enormous potential lethality
• Small size
• Modest cost
• Relative lack of discrimination
• Can be deployed on ballistic missiles
• Potential for proliferation
• Deterrence
• Equalizers
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3. Nuclear Weapons: Fission
 Atomic bombs or A-bombs
 One type of atom is split (fissioned) into new
types with less total mass
 Lost mass is transformed into energy; E=mc2
 Fissionable material=U-235 or plutonium
 Crude and low yield
 Less sophisticated
 Within the capacity of many states
 1-200 kiloton
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4. Nuclear Weapons: Fusion
 Thermonuclear, hydrogen bombs, or H-bombs
 Two small atoms (variants of hydrogen) fuse together
into a larger atom  energy
 Extremely expensive and technologically demanding
 1-20 megatons
 Too powerful and largely irrelevant
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5. Nuclear Weapons: Effects
• 50% Blast
Shock wave radiating outward
Produces sudden changes in air pressure and high winds
Most damage
• 35% Thermal radiation
Heat wave traveling at ~ speed of light
Flash blindness
Skin burns when closer to explosion
Fires
• 15% Nuclear radiation
• Fallout
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6. New York City Example
• Assumptions:
▫ 150 kiloton bomb is detonated in Manhattan
▫ No warning
▫ Clear weather
▫ Daytime – population density =125K/sm
▫ Shock wave spreads uniformly
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7. NYC: 1 Second After Detonation
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8. NYC: 4 Seconds After Detonation
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9. NYC: 6 Seconds After Detonation
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10. NYC: 10 Seconds After Detonation
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11. NYC: 16 Seconds After Detonation
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12. NYC: Long-Term Fallout Pattern
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13. NYC: Summary
• Manhattan is an island  help from the outside is
slow in coming
• Most of Manhattan is without utilities for weeks
• Tunnels and bridges are gone  rescue and recovery
is difficult
• 900,000 people injured  beyond the ability of the
medical system to respond
• 800,000 killed
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14. Nuclear-Armed States
Country Active Warheads Total Warheads
United Sates (1945) 2626 9400
Russia (1949) 4650 12000
United Kingdom (1952) <160 185
France (1960) ~300 300
China (1964) ~180 240
India (1974) - 60-80
Pakistan (1998) - 70-90
North Korea (2006) - <10
Israel (19??) - 80
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15. Nuclear Deterrence
• In deterrence, the effort is merely to dissuade
another state, through the threat of force, from
doing something it has not yet undertaken; it is
not actually required to change a course of
action.
• Extended deterrence - threats designed to
protect allies.
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16. Minimum / Finite Deterrence
• Requires only a small # of weapons that can be used against
an adversary
• Nukes are used to threaten attack against an adversary,
typically against population centers
• Cannot realistically choose to engage in actual warfighting
against another nuclear power
• Not enough weapons to destroy or substantially weaken
enemy’s warfighting capabilities
• Based on a threat of punishment should another country
undertake aggression
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17. Problems with Minimum/Finite Deterrence
• Breakdown of deterrence could maximize human
costs of nuclear war
• Decision makers under pressure may fail to evaluate
the situation / launch on warning
• Offensive forces must survive an attack first
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18. Second-Strike Capability
• A country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear
attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the
attacker.
• Beyond numbers, measures that increase survivability
include:
▫ Hardening (fortifying or shielding warheads)
▫ Mobility (aircraft, submarines)
▫ Dispersion (spreading bases and launchers)
▫ Diversification (aircraft, land-based missiles, submarine-
launched missiles)
▫ Strategic defense (antiaircraft and antimissile defense)
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19. Mutually Assured Destruction
• Full-scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two sides
would result in the mutual destruction of both the
attacker and the attacked.
• For the mutual destruction to be assured both sides
ought to poses second strike nuclear capability, which
would guarantee that neither adversary could survive
an all-out-war.
• Fear of retaliation is sufficient to prevent an attack
• Deterrence depends of mutual vulnerability
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20. Problems with MAD
1. No prevention of the second strike by the first strike
2. No false positives
3. No camouflage-launching
4. No means of delivery that do not have characteristic of
long range missile delivery (detectable before detonation)
5. Perfect rationality (rogue states/commanders)
6. Perfect attribution
7. No anti-missile technology / shelters
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