After the Soviet Union's collapse, the newly independent nations that emerged from its wreckage were immediately confronted by a myriad of environmental problems, and continue to be plagued by them nearly a decade later. In a microcosm of the shortsighted planning, reckless development and lack of ecological concern that epitomized the Soviet era, 70 decommissioned nuclear submarines are currently moored in ports along the Kola Peninsula. Obsolete, damaged, or banned by strategic arms reductions treaties, they have been largely abandoned after being stripped of their offensive armament. Manned by skeleton crews, these toothless sharks hold within their poorly maintained hulls a total of nearly 30 times the amount of nuclear fuel that was in Chernobyl Reactor Number Four when it exploded in 1986. Reporters and ecologists (from Russia and elsewhere) have made a connection between that disaster and one they see unfolding in Russia's northwest, depicting the submarines as "floating Chernobyl" and "a Chernobyl in slow motion." This illustrates the irony of shifting perceptions in NATO countries about how these submarines threaten them. In their Cold War glory, these vessels were meticulously watched in the West. The threat they represented was defined in terms of the throw weights of the nuclear warheads they carried aboard. A decade after the Soviet implosion, these submarines are largely ignored. The threat they now pose is measured in metric tons of the spent fuel and radioactive waste carried within their decaying hulls.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is the premier public resource on scientific and technological developments that impact global security. Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists, the Bulletin's iconic "Doomsday Clock" stimulates solutions for a safer world.

Contains a diverse compilation of major speeches, congressional testimony, policy statements, fact sheets, and other foreign policy information from the State Dept.

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States

An essential guide offers a comprehensive collection of edited and annotated arms-control documents, dating from the late-19th century to the present day. Sometimes successful and sometimes not, arms-control agreements are strenuously negotiated by the parties involved, yet they quickly become obsolete as technology advances and new weapons come on the scene. Thus, such agreements are best understood strategically, not as ends in themselves, but rather as one essential avenue of securing national and global security—an important means of allowing countries around the world to work out their differences at the negotiating table instead of on the battlefield. Arms Control and Global Security: A Document Guide offers an unprecedented and comprehensive collection of arms-control documents dating from the late-19th century to the present. The book includes documents addressing the control of weapons of mass destruction, the banning of biological and chemical weapons, the weaponization of space, regional arms control, and bilateral agreements, as well as the limitations of conventional weaponry. The documents are edited and annotated for nonspecialists, and charts, tables, and sidebars provide additional information throughout.

When German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman first split the uranium atom in 1938, they might have little imagined the potential power their experiments had unleashed. Since the United States successfully detonated the first atomic weapons in 1945, the entire world has lived in fear of annihilation. Technological advances in weaponry and, importantly, their delivery systems have only heightened the sense of dread. Yet, since the end of World War II, world governments have been unable to agree on a strategy for nuclear disarmament. This led first to the Cold War and ultimately to the proliferation of nuclear weapons throughout the world. This work examines the nuclear question within the framework of international law. The advent of the nuclear age and its impact on postwar peace and law is first covered. This is followed by analyses of the initial United Nations disarmament initiatives and the reasons they were doomed from the start. The globalization of the Cold War, the expansion of the nuclear arms race, and the START treaties and the legacy of 1970s-era detente efforts in the years leading up to the end of the Cold War are then detailed. How the United Nations reacted to the end of the Cold War and the prospects for disarmament in the 21st century are the subjects of the concluding section.