©2003 EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY ORGANIZATION EMBO reports VOL 4 | special issue | 2003 S53 The First World War left millions dead on the battlefields of Europe, and the survivors returned home with the experience of the first industrial-style war fresh in their minds. It was particularly because of the horrors created by the use of chemical weapons and the mutilation that these gases caused th...

Together, the world’s eight acknowledged nuclear powers—the United States (US), Russia, United Kingdom (UK), France, China, India, Pakistan, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—have amassed an arsenal of almost 30,000 nuclear weapons since 1945. In addition, Israel is believed to be a nuclear power while Iran (and possibly Syria as well) is also suspected of developing n...

1993 Number 21 Los Alamos Science As we look back on the fifty-year history of Los Alamos National Laboratory, we can be justifiably proud of the accomplishments that are the foundation of our rich heritage. While the nation faced World War II and then the Cold War, we developed nuclear and thermonuclear explosives. In the early years we were also instrumental in developing the manufacturing te...

Contemporary world is faced with numerous threats and dangers. None of them can be solved by war, military action and economic sanctions. Neither disagreement nor conflicts can be solved by war. Humans are “eusocial” species (the technical term for displaying altruistic behaviour), like ants. Humans are cooperative and competitive, selfish and altruistic. Even if we accept that humans may have ...

n engl j med 360;16 nejm.org april 16, 2009 1588 of potential victims, supports the assessment that executions have been applied systematically and strategically to civilians in Iraq.5 Certainly, different perpetrators can use similar weapons in different ways, with different effects on civilians. Nevertheless, our findings regarding the rates of Iraqi civilian death resulting from different ty...

The World Health Organization and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Nobel Peace Prize 1995) have been involved in questions concerning chemical and biological arms since the early 1950s. This memoir reviews a number of milestones in the efforts of these organizations to achieve the elimination of these weapons through international treaties effectively monitored and enforced...

The history of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) demonstrate that peaceful nuclear energy is a myth. As our January 2007 Briefing, “Civil Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation”, explains promoting ‘peaceful’ nuclear power has accelerated nuclear weapons proliferation. Nuclear reactors in India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Kore...

Chemical weapons, like all military technology, are associated with activities of scientists and engineers. However, chemical weapons differ from any other military technology because they were invented, and their first mass use directly developed by famous chemists. The active contribution of engineers and scientists and their organisations in the negotiations on chemical disarmament, includin...

A big power is facing a small power that may have developed weapons of mass destruction. The small power can create strategic ambiguity by refusing arms inspections. We study the impact of strategic ambiguity on arms proliferation and welfare. Strategic ambiguity is a substitute for actually acquiring weapons: ambiguity reduces the incentive for the small power to invest in weapons, which reduc...

OF THE NINE COUNTRIES known to have nuclear weapons, six are located in Asia and another, the United States, borders the Pacific Ocean. Russia and China were the first Asian nations with nuclear weapons, followed by Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Most of the world’s nuclear powers are reducing their arsenals or maintaining them at historic levels, but several of those in Asia—India, ...