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Mutually assured destruction (MAD) holds that if two rational parties hold nuclear weapons neither will ever rationally use them. There has, however, been a consistent and underlying rationality to the production of nuclear weapons.ĭeveloped extensively around the time of the fast growth of nuclear weapons, Game Theory underpins the cold logic behind storing stockpiles of deadly world-destroying weapons. If they could kill one innocent person with their own two hands, then they'd truly have better insight into understanding the gravity of killing millions more innocent people in a faraway land. If the president wanted to use nuclear weapons they'd first have to ruthlessly hack out the codes from the stomach of the volunteer before they could launch. What if the launch codes to a nuclear weapon were surgically implanted inside the chest of a volunteer? In 1981, Harvard law professor Roger Fisher proposed a thought experiment. Nuclear warfare would fill the heart of the world with fear and regret and would define the decade and the Cold War to follow.Ī single individual with great power could now decide to take away the lives of millions in a matter of hours. If a Hydrogen bomb were to be dropped on South Korea an estimated 2 million residents of Seoul would be instantly killed. The United States tested a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in 1954 (below) that was more than 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima less than 10 years earlier. The hydrogen bomb, developed soon afterwards, would use lots of hydrogen fuel that a nearby atomic core would ignite. Powered by a nuclear fission reaction triggering a nuclear fusion reaction, they were much more deadly. These used thermonuclear fuel around or inside the atomic core to greatly increase the power of the weapon. Soon afterwards more-advanced 'boosted', or 'layered' atomic bombs began being developed. The atomic bombing of Nagasakiįar more powerful weapons were just around the corner though. These immensely powerful processes provide the science behind the technology of nuclear weapons. This produces an enormous amount of binding energy - it's the process of fusion that that powers active stars. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, is where two or more nuclei fuse together. This is where the nucleus of an atom is split into smaller nuclei, producing a huge amount of energy - a concept which underpins all nuclear weapons. The story of nuclear warfare arguably starts in 1789 with the discovery of the chemical element uranium.īut it wasn't until nearly 150 years later that nuclear fission was first achieved. Much of the world fears Iran or North Korea developing them and the capability to deliver them. But less powerful countries have also long had ambitions to hold nuclear weapons. The paranoia of the Cold War, it would seem, may not be a thing of the past. Russia followed soon after.īetween them, the two superpowers hold the vast majority of the world's nuclear weapons. The United States was the first country to develop nuclear weapons. In an act of incomparable bravery, he dismissed the missile and the subsequent four missiles that were to follow as malfunctions of the missile detection system. Should he alert his superiors or dismiss the attack as a false alarm? It was and still is the policy of Russia to launch a second-strike attack, meaning that if Stanislav had reported the incident to his superiors they would have almost certainly retaliated with their own nuclear strike. It would prove to be a fateful duty for Stanislav because shortly after midnight the computers in the station detected an American missile heading towards the Soviets. The man in question was Stanislav Petrov, who was on duty in the Soviet's nuclear early warning command centre.Ĭode-named 'Oko', meaning eye, it collated information from multiple satellites in geosynchronous orbits that endlessly monitored the skies for ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads on their way to attack the Soviet Union.
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On the evening of September the 26th, 1983, the actions, or possibly inactions, of a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces would change the course of history. As increased resources are announced for nuclear weapons under the Integrated Review, here, BFBS explores a weapon that changed the world and the course of history - the Atomic Bomb.