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 enlarge | Author: Joseph Cirincione
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $12.35
You Save: $6.60 (35%)
New (22) Used (4) from $12.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 24985
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0231135114
Dewey Decimal Number: 355
EAN: 9780231135115
ASIN: 0231135114
Publication Date: July 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: New American book. Shipped within the US in 4-7 days (expedited) or about 10-14 days (standard). Standard can occasionally be slower so we advise using expedited if quicker delivery is important!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Pretty Good November 17, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read the book for entertainment... It was pretty informative. The only problem was the ink on the cover was a little smeared, not that it matters.
Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons November 1, 2007
The book begins with a brief and accurate history. See "The making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes that won a Pulitzer price for a complete history.
Future generations will wonder...what were they thinking? Why did Russia and USA build tens of thousands of Atomic bombs? Why does Israel, France, England, India and Pakistan want hundreds of bombs? What were they thinking?
Lugar and Nunn should get hero medals for their work in the 90's in finding and safely eliminating nuclear bombs and materials. But that great project stalled in recent years when Bush/Chenney requested funds to design and build a new generation Nuclear bombs. What were they thinking?
Today, Russia and the USA has manned missiles ready to fire at each other. Why?
Outstanding! July 10, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Bomb Scare" is full of credible and helpful data, as well as balanced in its assessments.
Early on readers learn that it takes about 80 generations of neutrons to fission a kilogram of material - this takes about 0.8 microseconds and creates a temperature of 10 billion Celsius. A gun design plug in an enriched uranium bomb has to travel at at least 1,000 ft./second to initiate a sustained chain reaction. The Hiroshima bomb gun barrel weighed about 1,000 lbs. and was 6 feet long; the bomb itself used 64 kilos of U-235. Today this could be accomplished with 25 kilos and put into a package about the size of a small melon. (Plutonium could not be used in a gun design - its neutrons are too fast.)
Implosion-type designs are used for plutonium bombs. About 6 kilos was used for the Trinity test and at Nagasaki. Modern weapons use about 5 kilograms - about the size of a plum. (So much for the debate on whether "suitcase" bombs are feasible.)
The first U.S. H-bomb had a yield of 10.4 megatons.
The U.S. total stockpile of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons reached around 20,000 by 1960, vs. 1,600 for the Russians. (So much for Kennedy's argument that the U.S. had a "bomb gap.") We recently learned that during the Cuban missile crisis the Russians had already positioned about 100 nuclear weapons in Cuba.
There are five main reasons states acquire nuclear weapons: Security, prestige, domestic politics, technology, and economics. Different sides of the same reasons are also why many nations choose not to acquire such weapons.
Cirincione sees Russia as the #1 potential source of nuclear weapons/material for terrorists. It has thousands of nuclear weapons at 150-210 sites and hundreds of nuclear materials at about 49 sites. Experts believe that it would be difficult for terrorists to acquire a completed bomb - they are well guarded and utilize complex security locks. On the other hand, experts also believe that terrorists could construct a bomb from enriched material with only 3-4 technically people.
Pakistan is seen as a close #2 potential source. USA Today reported in November of 2001 that at least 10 Taliban had contacted Pakistani scientists in the prior two years. Pakistan has enough highly enriched uranium to make 50-100 bombs.
There are also about 40 nations with civilian stockpiles for power reactors. While not sufficiently enriched for nuclear weapons, it would be a simple matter to extend the enrichment process to create such.
Potential nuclear powder-kegs involve U.S. and Russian weapons being on 15-minute alert, and situations involving Taiwan, or India-Pakistan. Adverse recent events include the U.S. invasion of Iraq (increased terrorist and nervous state motivation to acquire nuclear weapons), our support for increased Indian development of nuclear weapons, U.S. promulgation of new logic for nuclear weapon use ("bunker-busters," use against non-nuclear states), and a slowdown/stop in reduction programs involving Russia.
The good news is that the number of nuclear weapons in the world has been cut in half over the past 15 years, those seriously considering their acquisition or having them have declined from 23 to 10, there has been a two-thirds reduction in ICBMs, and both the U.S. and Russia have destroyed their chemical weapons.
Author's Bottom Line: Cirincione believes that efforts must not only be directed at reducing nuclear weapons and proliferation, but eliminating the underlying sources of conflict as well.
History, security analysis and theory blends in a general text for any student of world politics June 9, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
BOMB SCARE: THE HISTORY & FUTURE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS begins with the first atomic discoveries of the 1930s and covers the history of the growth of nuclear weapons through the decades, right up to the current crisis with Iran and the threat of worldwide proliferation. History, security analysis and theory blends in a general text for any student of world politics and military history, particularly at the college level.
USAF Vet Recommends Five Stars June 8, 2007
Those of us with a Top Secret "Q" Clearance during the Cold War are intimately familiar with the horrific realities of what a nuclear confrontation would mean for civilization. The author provides a concise, accurate, and up-to-date history of the nuclear threat. He also advances the best thinking related to diminishing the threats posed by nuclear arms in the 21st century, and putting the materials of decommissioned warheads to peaceful uses as fuel for nuclear reactors.
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