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7/28/2009 [Total Votes: 578, Hits: 681]Print

Hidden Treasures of Nuclear and missile Technologies
 

Salvin Paul
 

The nuclear and Missile technologies offer both challenges and opportunities to the world. This paper attempts to delve into issue of how the threat aspect has been overshadowed by the business opportunities ensured by such technologies. The scope of nuclear technology for the use weapon programme on the one side and its wide ranging use by countries for civil nuclear energy purpose in the contemporary scenario aggravate issue. In the similar vein, space technologies dual purpose for sending satellite and also for the missile programme appears to offer risk and prospect to humanity.
 

History of proliferation reveal that countries began their research and development in these technologies under the peaceful use of space and nuclear programme and later turned into strategical use of such technologies for deterrence and threat etc. Nuclear proliferation means the uncontrolled spread of the technology, equipment and fissile materials that would allow national or terrorist groups to fabricate and deliver nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation was more a theory and concern for many years until the revelations in 2003 that Dr. A. Q. Khan, the leading nuclear weapons researcher in Pakistan was single handedly suppplying the information and equipment that moved North Korea, Libya and perhaps Iran much closer to their own nuclear arsenal. Dr. Khan offered integrated nuclear information, sourced the centrifuges necessary for enrichment of Uranium to bomb quality and provided essential consulting services. 
 

The Hungarian scientist, Leo Szilard, an expatriate in the United States, alerted Albert Einstein just prior to World War II that the fission chemistry held the possibility of weapons of mass destruction, far beyond anything heretofore imagined. Under some conditions, the chain reaction might be condensed into a millisecond burst of fission, unleashing enormous energy.  Einstein's communications with President Franklin Roosevelt led to the "Manhattan Project" that demonstrated weapons feasibility and led to the use of two weapons on Japan.
 

Thus, Nuclear science began with Albert Einstein who recognized that matter and energy were equivalent with the famous equation: E=mc². Soon after the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick in 1932, scientists began to use neutrons as chemical bullets - firing them at atoms of other elements.  The element uranium, with an atomic number of 92, is mined in various locations around the world (near Moab, UT, for example).  The naturally occurring U consists of 99.3% of the isotope with atomic weight 238 and 0.7% of the isotope weighing 235. When neutrons are fired at Uranium, an unusual thing happened that was named nuclear fission:
 

²³⁵U₉₂ +  ¹n₀    -->   fission products + (about 2.5)¹n₀   +   Energy.
 

By the spring of 1945, Oak Ridge had shipped approximately 132 lbs. of enriched uranium (approximately 90% U-235) to Los Alamos, New Mexico. This was used in "Little Boy", the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The majority of fission weapons since that time have used plutonium. Uranium enrichment is currently used to produce fuel (3 to 4% U-235) for civilian nuclear reactors.
 

Nuclear Reactors
 

Mostly nuclear reactors used for power generation, but some can also produce plutonium for weapons and fuel. Two components are common to all reactors, control rods and a coolant. Control rods determine the rate of fission by regulating the number of neutrons. These rods consist of neutron-absorbing elements such as boron. The coolant removes the heat generated by fission reactions. Water is the most common coolant, but pressurized water, helium gas, and liquid sodium have been used. Today, most U.S. reactors used for generating electric power employ light water as both moderator and coolant. Light-water reactors are classified as either pressurized-water reactors (PWR) or boiling-water reactors (BWR), depending on whether the coolant water is kept under pressure or not.
 

Approximately 22% of the electricity used in the United States is generated by nuclear reactors, although no new reactors have been placed in operation since the 1970's. France leads the world in the generation of electricity with more than 70% coming from nuclear sources. France and Great Britain reprocess spent reactor fuel from commercial reactors. Concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation led President Carter to ban reprocessing of spent fuel rods in the United States in 1977. In 1981, President Reagan lifted this ban, but the nuclear power industry has shown little interest in reprocessing, as there are abundant reserves of uranium in this country.
 

To date, every nation that has developed nuclear weapons has also developed the capability for producing fissile materials. The first five nuclear weapon states (U.S., Russia, Great Britain, France and China) signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Since that time, India, Pakistan, and Israel have developed nuclear weapons, but are not NPT member states. It is thought that Iran, Iraq (until its liberation in 2003), Libya, and North Korea are seeking nuclear weapons. Algeria, Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Romania, South Africa, and the Ukraine have all renounced their programs to develop or maintain nuclear weapons. Twenty-one countries with nuclear facilities and a significant industrial base have signed the NPT as non-nuclear-weapons states and have accepted IAEA inspections.
 

Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programme under the peaceful purpose of nuclear programme unleash tremendous risk to the humanity. But such a move will enable the cascade of proliferation in the middles east and Korean peninsula to acquire nuclear weapon for deterrence purpose by other countries opening billion dollar business for those countries that offer such technologies. Thin margin between peaceful use of such technologies and weaponisation programmes are widely known to the world. From the inception onwards no technology never got a chance to reverse its pace but only advance. So Inspection and safeguards measures are only marketing principles to sell such technologies to aspirant countries.
 

The United Nations has already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which many say is geared towards building a nuclear bomb, although Tehran has consistently maintained that its enrichment of uranium is for peaceful purposes and in accordance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US has also imposed sanctions unilaterally. If North Korea and Iran could develop such technology under the international sanctions and surveillance, safeguards measures would be even more meaning less under the strategic partnership with the technologically advanced countries. The international community should make the case that Iran's sensitive nuclear work would undermine the nation's security by encouraging neighbouring states to pursue their own nuclear capabilities.
 

Both the U.S. and Russia reached the levels required by START at the beginning of the decade, so they set new requirements in the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), also known as the Treaty of Moscow, which was negotiated by the Bush administration. SORT required that both countries reduce their arsenals to levels of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads. The launch by the United States and Russia of negotiations on a new treaty on nuclear reductions has set the stage for a growing momentum of global nuclear disarmament. Deeper cuts in their nuclear arsenals and nurturing of mutual confidence on missile defense will revitalize nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
 

According to its 2009 START declaration, the U.S. has 550 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 432 sea-based missiles on 14 submarines and 216 bombers, which together can deliver 5,576 warheads. Russia possesses 469 nuclear-armed land-based ICBMs, 268 sea-based missiles on eight submarines and 79 nuclear-capable bombers, which together can deliver 3,909 warheads. "We agreed to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing [START] with a new, legally binding treaty," presidents of both countries said in a long joint statement. "We are instructing our negotiators to start talks immediately on this new treaty and to report on results achieved in working out the new agreement by July."
 

The international community should address the needs and concerns of countries pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. There is a growing interest in civil nuclear energy owing to concerns about energy security and the global warming. The major barrier to producing a nuclear device is obtaining weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that 25 kg of HEU (Highly Enriched Uranium, > 90% U-235) or 8 kg of plutonium are the minimum amounts required for a 20-kiloton explosion (equivalent to the Nagasaki bomb). However, a group with more sophisticated technology could build the same weapon with as little as 5 kg of HEU or 3 kg of plutonium. Uranium enrichment is a complex industrial process requiring huge facilities that house sophisticated equipment and consume large quantities of electricity. However experts generally concede that a nation or group that possesses an amount of HEU sufficient to make a nuclear weapon will be able to amass the engineering and scientific skills to actually build the weapon. Once a country achieve such technology for energy purpose can always further upgrade technology for weapon which is can be used for defensive deterrence.
 

Missiles
 

A missile is usually a weapon that is self-propelled after leaving the launching device. There are two primary categories of modern missiles; unguided and guided. All missiles, to be effective, must be directed in some sense, but those subject to no further control after leaving the launching device are usually classed as unguided. Missiles are classified in many ways. A common classification is according to the medium from which the missile is launched and to which it is directed. Thus, there are surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, air-to-surface missiles, and so on. They may also be classified according to range. Missiles are also classified according to flight profile. The two categories are aerodynamic missiles (sometimes called cruise missiles) and ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles usually have wings or enlarged fins to give lift and maneuverability. A ballistic missile has no wings. It must be aimed sufficiently high to permit it to fall freely under the influence of gravity until it reaches the target.
 

Ballistic missiles are sometimes confused with cruise missiles. A ballistic missile is one whose payload reaches its target by way of an initial powered boost and then a free flight along a high arcing trajectory. Part of the flight of longer-range ballistic missiles may occur outside the atmosphere and involve the "reentry" of a warhead or the missile. A cruise missile, as defined by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, is "an unmanned, self-propelled vehicle that sustains flight through the use of aerodynamic lift over most of its flight path." Such a missile may carry either a nuclear or conventional warhead. The U.S. National Air Intelligence Center further stipulates that cruise missiles are "usually categorized by intended mission and launch mode" e.g. anti-shipping cruise missile, land-attack cruise missile, air-launched cruise missile, submarine-launched cruise missile.
 

More and more countries—at least forty to date—are lofting their own satellites. In addition, various multinational organizations such as the Asia Satellite Corp., Arab Satellite Communications Organization, International Telecom Satellite Organization, and European Space Agency have launched their own satellites. But getting access to space no longer requires having your own satellite. A growing number of private firms such as Google, Digital Globe, and Space Imaging sell or give away high-resolution satellite photos via the Internet. The best of these offer imagery of sufficient quality to identify objects one and a half feet wide. The Israeli-owned Image Sat International offers customers the opportunity to redirect its EROS-A imaging satellite (launched in 2000 aboard a Russian rocket) and download its data in total secrecy with few if any restrictions. Its CEO boasts: “Our customers, in effect, acquire their own reconnaissance satellite ... at a fraction of the cost that it would take to build their own.” The private satellite industry is becoming so pervasive that the U.S. military now relies upon it to provide some of its own imaging (typically low-resolution pictures used for mapping) and much of its communications needs.
 

Targets identified from space could be attacked either with terrorist (or commando) missions or with the growing number of missiles spreading around the world. More than two dozen nations have ballistic missiles and by 2015 at least a dozen will have land-attack cruise missiles. Either type of projectile could be topped with chemical, biological, or nuclear warheads.
 

The threat of weapons of mass destruction delivered by ballistic and cruise missiles is potentially increasing everyday. The spread of ballistic missiles constitutes one of the most serious and complex non-proliferation challenges today. It pointed to the role ballistic missile proliferation could play in threatening new action-reaction arms instabilities of great complexity and unpredictability, the reaction part of this equation being the pursuit of ballistic missile defenses, in particular by the United States. These instabilities were likely simultaneously to limit nuclear disarmament and to stimulate nuclear proliferation, as well as to threaten peaceful uses of space.
 

So Missile Defence system is a common concern to many countries today to protect their countries from possible threats emerging from antagonistic neighbours and non-state actors. The idea of an anti-missile system has been around for 17 years, ever since Reagan announced to the nation his intention of implementing a program called the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI. This program was mostly a research program designed to test technologies needed for such a system. SDI was for the most part space-based, requiring space lasers, giant mirrors, railguns, ground-based interceptors, space sensors, and kinetic energy weapons (Boffey 98-9). Because of the fancifulness that many people saw the system as, SDI was dubbed Star Wars after the space fantasy movie trilogy of the same name.
 

Recently the idea of a National Missile Defense or NMD has risen again. Unlike Reagan’s SDI, this system would be largely land-based. The National Missile Defense system would use ground-based interceptors, X-band radar, early warning radar, and satellites (Pike). Together, they would defend the United States and Canada from small missile attacks from rogue nations.
 

More than 75,000 anti-ship missiles are owned by 70 countries. A few are ballistic, but most are of the cruise-missile variety. Their potency was proved in 1987 when French-made Exocets fired by an Iraqi aircraft crippled the frigate USS Stark, killing 37 sailors. Earlier, Argentina used Exocets to sink two British ships during the 1982 Falklands War. Newer anti-ship cruise missiles such as the Russian-made Yakhont, Sunburn, and Uran are even deadlier because they have faster speeds, greater stealth capabilities, and more accurate, GPS-enhanced targeting. Russia is selling these missiles to customers abroad and some nations like China are developing their own versions. Israel suffered the consequences during its recent Lebanon war when an Iranian-provided C-802 cruise missile crippled one of its warships off the coast of Lebanon.
 

A missile shield would provide cover against inter-continental ballistic missiles. The system features radar and anti-missile missiles, or interceptors, which are able to destroy incoming and possibly nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. The US is planning to build a $400 million sophisticated "spy blimp" that will float 65,000 feet above the earth and track enemy aircraft and troop movement on the ground. Flying at 65,000 feet, the giant airship would be nearly impossible to see, beyond the range of any hand-held missile and safe from most fighter planes, the officials said, adding it could be out of range of surface-to-air missiles. No one question or think that, does this programme not undermine the security and national interests of other countries?
 

Iran claims that it has entered into the global space race after launching the country's first domestically produced satellite into orbit by an Iran-made satellite carrier Safir." Iran becomes the 11th country to put a satellite into orbit since the Soviet Union launched the first in 1957. The Iranian president hailed the launch as a historic event aimed at "expanding monotheism, peace and justice". The satellite would increase telecommunications capabilities to improve phone and internet technology and to track natural disasters, Iran media reports.  Iran uses the same strategy used by its predecessors to pursue such technological programme. Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said, "Iran's satellite technology is for purely ‘peaceful purposes’ and to meet the needs of the country,". He further state that "The difference between our country and some countries which have these capacities is that we believe science belongs to all humanity. Some people believe that advanced technologies belong to some countries exclusively”.
 

No doubt that Iran has crossed the threshold stage both in nuclear and missile programme and the time has reached to lure Iran to the market ambitions of super powers. Great market opportunities are ahead as Iran published its future oriented space programme. Omid is expected to circle the Earth 15 times every 24 hours and to transmit data via two frequency bands and eight antennas to an Iranian space station. Satellite telemetry covers automatic measurement and transmission of data for recording and analysis. Iranian scientists have been working on a space program for at least a decade. Omid is the third Iranian-made satellite to be sent into space. Early efforts involved co-operation with Moscow. A Russian rocket launched Iran's first satellite, Sina-1, which carried photographic and telecommunications equipments in 2005.
 

Korean peninsula also attracts similar attention of peaceful use of space programme by North Korea and its repercussions and implications to South Korean and Japan. North Korea also violates the UN resolutions with its advancement either in space or in missile programme. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from engaging in any ballistic activity following a missile launch in 2006. North Korea could face additional sanctions if it violates the resolution. North Korea has claimed that it has launched a telecommunications satellite, the Kwangmyungsung No 2 or Lodestar-2, satellite into orbit aboard its Eunha-2 rocket. But South Korea, the United States and other countries believe it is actually test-fired the Taepodong-2, a long-range ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear weapon as far as Alaska. Development of missile capability, combined with nuclear capability, is the source of tensions and mistrust in various regions.
 

Black Market
 

Pakistan’s nuclear programme open up issues associated black market technology and its proliferation through A Q Khan’s network to Iran and North Korea. Ironically, such a black market at the cost of possible open market envisaged by technologically advanced countries would be a serious competitor and violator of disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control principles. Billion dollar business derives from nuclear and space technology would be a complex issue to the future policies cutting across political, strategical, economical milieu. Russia, France, US and China would be the major players of this billion dollar business. The cost of such business endeavours would be interesting to explore and study but who can guarantee the threat offered to humanity by such technologies and business transactions.
 

However, there are many other pressing issues besides reducing existing nuclear arsenals. North Korea, which has broken its commitment under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty by engaging in nuclear programs, poses a serious threat to the international community. North Korea should denuclearize itself in a verifiable manner as the international community demands. Iran needs to clear the concerns of the international community about the nature of its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment activities. In addition, international cooperation needs to be strengthened to secure vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials existing world-wide from terrorists.
 

Proliferation
 

China and the United States are not in a strategic weapons arms race. Nonetheless, their modernization and sizing decisions increasingly are framed with the other in mind. Nuclear weapons are at the core of this interlocking pattern of development. In particular, China is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council expanding its arsenal; it is also enhancing its arsenal. The basic facts of Chinese strategic modernization are well known, if the details remain frustratingly opaque. China is deploying road-mobile, solid-fueled missiles, giving it a heighted degree of security in its second-strike capability. It is beginning to deploy ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). It is researching a wide range of warhead and delivery systems technologies that will lead to increased accuracy and, more pointedly, increased penetration against ballistic missile defenses. The size of China's deliverable arsenal against the United States will undoubtedly increase beyond the few dozen that it possessed recently. The pace of growth thus far has been moderate, although China has only recently developed reliable, survivable delivery systems. The relevant issue, however, is not simply an evaluation of the Chinese modernization program, but rather an evaluation of the interaction of that modernization with U.S. capabilities and interests. U.S. capabilities are also changing. Under the provisions of START and SORT, the United States has continued to engage in quantitative reductions of its operational nuclear arsenal. At the same, there is ongoing updating of warhead guidance and fusing systems. Ballistic missile defense systems of a variety of footprints are being deployed. The U.S. SSBN force now leans more toward the Pacific than the Atlantic, reversing the Cold War deployment. Guam's capacity to support heavy bombers and attack submarines has been enhanced. Furthermore, advances in U.S. conventional weaponry have been so substantial that they too promise strategic effects: prompt global strike holds out the promise of a U.S. weapon on target anywhere in the world in less than an hour and B-2s with highly accurate weapons can sustain strategic effects over a campaign.
 

The U.S. revolution in precision guided munitions was followed by an emphasis on mobility in the Chinese missile force. U.S. missile defense systems have clearly spurred an emphasis on countermeasures in China's ICBM force and quantitative buildups in its regional missile arsenals. Beijing's new submarine-based forces further enhance the security of China's second-strike capability in the face of a potential U.S. strike but are likely to lead to increased attention to anti-submarine warfare in the United States. China's recent anti-satellite test provoked a U.S. demonstration of similar capabilities. Such reciprocal responses have the potential to move toward a tightly coupled arms race and certainly have already worsened threat perceptions on each side. Space and missile defense are increasingly intertwined with traditional nuclear issues. U.S. missile defense certainly complicates the calculus of potential adversaries, but it also greatly complicates traditional approaches to reducing dangers of strategic weapons.
 

International relations theory has trouble putting nuclear weapons and missile defense systems into an "offensive-defensive" dichotomy because most theorizing about nuclear weapons took place in the era of mutually assured destruction when the utility of nuclear weapons for anything other than retaliation made little sense. The space realm is clear in that area. Anti-satellite weapons are clearly offense dominant today: first-strike attacks against satellites confer great advantages, and defenses are costly and not currently deployed. The interaction of the U.S. shift in approach toward strategic weapons coupled with modernization of China's arsenal has much potential to destabilize the relationship. Further tightening of the interlocking moves by each side has the potential to lead to an arms race, at least in qualitative terms. Strategic nuclear competition between the two nations would be extraordinarily costly
 

"The nexus of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism poses one of the gravest risks to the national security of the United States and its global partners," according to the Country Reports on Terrorism 2008. "A successful major WMD terrorist attack could result in mass casualties and produce far-reaching economic and political consequences." While the Obama administration can take steps to reduce threats of nuclear proliferation and conflict, it is not yet possible to rid the world of nuclear weapons, says a report released yesterday by the Council on Foreign Relations. "The geopolitical conditions that would permit the global elimination of nuclear weapons do not currently exist,” according to the report issued by a panel led by former U.S. national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Defense Secretary William Perry.
 

The report praises moves by the United States and Russia to pursue further nuclear arsenal reductions in a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but warns that Washington and Beijing “are not yet ready to form a formal nuclear arms control agreement because of the significant asymmetry between their two arsenals.” Iran's nuclear work "poses the most significant challenge to strengthening the rules-based nonproliferation regime and preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” the report says. “The United States cannot form a more effective nuclear security system alone. It must work cooperatively with global partners," the report says.
 

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) regime came into existence in 1970 with the initiatives of USA and USSR during the cold war and discriminatorily classified the countries which are privileged to keep and pile up nuclear arsenal and countries which are underprivileged to obtain such technology in future. The superpowers succeeded in getting an international recognition to the regime by promising other countries to negotiate complete nuclear disarmament in good faith in return of not acquiring such capability. But one sided NPT, in initial years, not only failed to include Israel, then nuclear country, into its fold but also struggled to bring China and France under its surveillance. The cold war politics enabled the friends or allies to acquire nuclear capability with silent support of super powers in return of keeping good terms to their fold. In this manner, Pakistan, South Africa and Iraq gathered nuclear technology from western powers and later North Korea decided to follow them. Thus, sponsors of NPT not only failed to keep their promises on nuclear disarmament but also facilitated the transfer of nuclear technologies to their allies.
 

In the dynamic world of globalisation, debate on nuclear proliferation and use of nuclear energy for civilian purpose take central stage of national, regional and international level, due to its wide reaching implications. Does the world dream such a stage where all the nuclear bombs are disarmed for the sake of world security vis-à-vis national security and human security? When there are divergent national interests floating at international level, is it possible to achieve a universal nuclear disarmament or are we better able to regulate the nuclear proliferation? The potentiality of nuclear energy for civilian purpose can open up new avenues and can be a great solution to the energy scarcity that many of the countries of the world face today. But are we able to get rid those haunting experience that took place at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents when we are heavily going to depend on nuclear as an energy source? 
 

Related Tags:

Nuclear and Missile Technologies, Salvin Paul, NPT, Nonproliferation

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