During the Second World War, the United Kingdom faced severe shortages of essential raw materials. To keep its armaments factories running, the British government enlisted millions of people in efforts to recycle a wide range of materials for use in munitions production. Recycling not only supplied British munitions factories with much-needed raw materials - it also played a key role in the efforts of the British government to maintain the morale of its citizens, to secure billions of dollars in Lend-Lease aid from the United States, and to uncover foreign intelligence. However, Britain's wartime recycling campaign came at a cost: it consumed items that would never have been destroyed under normal circumstances, including significant parts of the nation's cultural heritage. Based on extensive archival research, Peter Thorsheim examines the relationship between armaments production, civil liberties, cultural preservation, and diplomacy, making Waste into Weapons the first in-depth history of twentieth-century recycling in Britain.

Weapons of Mass Deception reveals: How the Iraq war was sold to the American public through professional P.R. strategies. "The First Casualty": Lies that were told related to the Iraq war. Euphemisms and jargon related to the Iraq war, e.g. "shock and awe," "Operation Iraqi Freedom," "axis of evil," "coalition of the willing," etc. "War as Opportunity": How the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq have been used as marketing hooks to sell products and policies that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. "Brand America": The efforts of Charlotte Beers and other U.S. propaganda campaigns designed to win hearts overseas. "The Mass Media as Propaganda Vehicle": How news coverage followed Washington's lead and language. The book includes a glossary — "Propaganda: A User's Guide" — and resources to help Americans sort through the deceptions to see the strings behind Washington's campaign to sell the Iraq war to the public.

Why are certain weapons acquired in the United States and others not? Theo Farrell addresses this question by examining the strategic, institutional and budgetary issues surrounding four major weapon programmes. Extensive use is made of primary sources in analysing the origins, development and outcomes of these programmes. This book presents alarming evidence to show how the military services manipulate weapons acquisition to suit their own ends rather than national security. It also analyses how Congress, motivated by concerns over cost, comes to play a greater role in shaping programme outcomes once weapons enter production.

Whether one is interested in learning about anthrax, sarin, the neutron bomb—or any other weapon of mass destruction—this thorough and detailed reference is the place to find answers. The threat posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD), whether nuclear, radiological, chemical, or biological, is the number-one topic of concern for the intelligence community, first responders, policymakers, and myriad non-governmental organizations—and many members of the general public. This authoritative reference will serve all of those parties by covering the full spectrum of mass-casualty weapons. The guide will not only enable people to educate themselves, but also to separate the truth from the spurious information that abounds. The book offers an A-to-Z listing of major topics, making finding information about concepts, scientific theories, and realities of WMD fast and easy. While the framework of WMD goes back centuries, the major focus of this reference is on weapons that date from the use of chemical warfare in World War I. The book also covers WMD from the early nuclear era (World War II), the Cold War, and the present (Syria, North Korea, etc.). Each entry is written in a clear, accessible style and includes crucial background information, making this book an essential resource for both lay readers and specialists. Armed with this portable database, readers will have the confidence to deal with, discuss, or write about WMD of all kinds based on an understanding of relevant concepts, policies, and scientific fundamentals.

Technē’s Paradox—a frequent theme in science fiction—is the commonplace belief that technology has both the potential to annihilate humanity and to preserve it. Advocating Weapons, War, and Terrorism looks at how this paradox applies to some of the most dangerous of technologies: population bombs, dynamite bombs, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, and improvised explosive devices. Hill’s study analyzes the rhetoric used to promote such weapons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By examining Thomas R. Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population, the courtroom address of accused Haymarket bomber August Spies, the army textbook Chemical Warfare by Major General Amos A. Fries and Clarence J. West, the life and letters of Manhattan Project physicist Leo Szilard, and the writings of Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski, Hill shows how contemporary societies are equipped with abundant rhetorical means to describe and debate the extreme capacities of weapons to both destroy and protect. The book takes a middle-way approach between language and materialism that combines traditional rhetorical criticism of texts with analyses of the persuasive force of weapons themselves, as objects, irrespective of human intervention. Advocating Weapons, War, and Terrorism is the first study of its kind, revealing how the combination of weapons and rhetoric facilitated the magnitude of killing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and illuminating how humanity understands and acts upon its propensity for violence. This book will be invaluable for scholars of rhetoric, scholars of science and technology, and the study of warfare.

The Nat. Nuclear Security Admin. (NNSA) is responsible for pit manufacturing (PM), a key component in a nuclear warhead. It lost its ability to PM in 1989 with the closing of the Rocky Flats Plant. In 1996, the Los Alamos Nat. Lab. was directed to reestablish a PM capability, starting with a limited number of pits for the W88 warhead. In recent years, NNSA has considered ways to increase its PM capacity, incl. building a new, large-scale PM facility. It has also proposed producing pits for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. This report determines the: (1) extent to which NNSA achieved its major goals for reestablishing its PM capability; (2) factors that currently constrain its ability to increase its PM capacity; and (3) status of its plans for future PM. Tables.