Two players simultaneously decide whether or not to acquire new weapons in an arms race game. Each player’s type determines his propensity to arm. Types are private information, and are independently drawn from a continuous distribution. With probability close to one, the best outcome for each player is for neither to acquire new weapons (although each prefers to acquire new weapons if he think...

The enormous destructive power of present stocks of nuclear weapons poses the greatest threat to public health in human history. Technical changes in weapons design are leading to an increased emphasis on the ability to fight a nuclear war, eroding the concept of deterrence based on mutually assured destruction and increasing the risk of nuclear war. Medical planning and civil defence preparati...

Dr. Harald Müller is Director of the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt. An earlier draft of this paper was prepared for the Aspen Strategy Group Workshop on the “Challenges of Nuclear and Biological Weapons Proliferation,” Aspen, Colorado, August 10-15, 1996. All nuclear weapons programs that concern us today date back to the time of the East-West conflict. The same applies to chemical and ...

Until 1997, the subject of bioterrorism was not discussed within the medical community and deliberately ignored in national planning efforts. Biological weapons were regarded as "morally repulsive." This complacency stemmed from a 1972 Biological Weapons Convention where all countries agreed to cease offensive biological weapons research. In the 1990s, however, the Soviet Union was discovered t...

In t roduct ion Recent revelations about the biological weapons programs of Iraq and the former Soviet Union and attempts by cults and other groups to develop biological weapons have elevated the threat of a deadly bioterrorist attack. A major diplomatic effort aimed at strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention is underway to help reduce this threat and public health authorities are scram...

Since its inception, the Small Arms Survey has compiled information on various aspects of small arms and light weapons, including total weapons numbers, the value of overall trade, and the specific impacts of weapons misuse. There is one indicator, however, that has not yet been systematically collected—price. Prices communicate information: they contain detail on valuation and scarcity. Since ...

This study presents two practical approaches to assisting military staff analyse effects produced on the battlefield. First, a calculator tool for the effects of known indirect-fire weapons systems upon targets is provided. The method in which effects are calculated is based on Australian and United States military doctrine. Using this tool, staff are able to evaluate the effects produced upon ...

Dr. Mark Wheelis is Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of California (UC), Davis, where he has been teaching in the field since 1970 and is also Director of the Program in Nature and Culture. He has authored numerous pieces on the history of biological warfare and the control of biological weapons, including two chapters on biological warfare in Biological and Toxin Weapons: Rese...

PREFACE The contents of this document are not be construed as an official Department of the Army position unless so designated by other authorized documents. Opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect doctrine. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank the investigators and staff of the Toxinology Division, USAMRIID for providing the backdrop for the accumulation of the in...