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No-first-use
In nuclear ethics and deterrence theory, No first use (NFU) refers to a type of pledge or policy wherein a nuclear power formally refrains from the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in warfare, except for as a second strike in retaliation to an attack by an enemy power using WMDs. Such a pledge would allow for a unique state of affairs in which a given nuclear power can be engaged in a conflict of conventional weaponry while it purposefully foregoes any of the strategic advantages of nuclear weapons, provided the enemy power does not possess or utilize any such weapons of their own. The concept is primarily invoked in reference to nuclear mutually assured destruction but has also been applied to chemical and biological warfare, as is the case of the official WMD policy of India. China and India are currently the only two nuclear powers to formally maintain a No First Use policy, adopting pledges in 1964 and 1998 respectively. Both NATO and a num ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
India possesses nuclear weapons and previously developed chemical weapons. Although India has not released any official statements about the size of its nuclear arsenal, recent estimates suggest that India has 160 nuclear weapons and has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for up to 200 nuclear weapons. In 1999, India was estimated to have of separated reactor-grade plutonium, with a total amount of of civilian plutonium, enough for approximately 1,000 nuclear weapons. India has conducted nuclear weapons tests in a pair of series namely '' Pokhran I'' and '' Pokhran II''. India is a member of three multilateral export control regimes — the Missile Technology Control Regime, Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group. It has signed and ratified the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. India is also a subscribing state to the Hague Code of Conduct. India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-emptive Nuclear Strike
In nuclear strategy, a first strike or preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's strategic nuclear weapon facilities (missile silos, submarine bases, bomber airfields), command and control sites, and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce. Overview During the Cold War period, both superpowers, NATO and the Eastern Bloc, built massive nuclear arsenals, aimed, to a large extent, at each other. However, they were never used, as after a time, leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain realized that global thermonuclear war would not be in either power's interest, as it would probably lead to the destruction of both sides, and possibl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Warfare
Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons (often termed "bio-weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio-agents") are living organisms or replicating entities ( ''i.e.'' viruses, which are not universally considered "alive"). Entomological (insect) warfare is a subtype of biological warfare. Offensive biological warfare is prohibited under customary international humanitarian law and several international treaties. In particular, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) bans the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons. Therefore, the use of biological agents in armed conflict is a war crime. In contrast, defensive biological research for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes is not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weapons Of Mass Destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natural structures (e.g., mountains), or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of warfare-related technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear warfare. Early uses of this term The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the aerial bombing of Guernica, Spain: At the time, nuclear weapons had not been developed. Japan conducted research on biological weapons (see Unit 731), and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Ethics
Nuclear ethics is a cross-disciplinary field of academic and policy-relevant study in which the problems associated with nuclear warfare, nuclear deterrence, nuclear arms control, nuclear disarmament, or nuclear energy are examined through one or more ethical or moral theories or frameworks. In contemporary security studies, the problems of nuclear warfare, deterrence, proliferation, and so forth are often understood strictly in political, strategic, or military terms. In the study of international organizations and law, however, these problems are also understood in legal terms. Nuclear ethics assumes that the very real possibilities of human extinction, mass human destruction, or mass environmental damage which could result from nuclear warfare are deep ethical or moral problems. Specifically, it assumes that the outcomes of human extinction, mass human destruction, or environmental damage count as moral evils. Another area of inquiry concerns future generations and the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a Federation, federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, fifteen national republics; in practice, both Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, its economy were highly Soviet-type economic planning, centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Saint Petersburg, Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kyiv, Kiev (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR), Minsk (Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Byelorussian SSR), Tas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pokhran-II
The Pokhran-II tests were a series of five nuclear bomb Nuclear weapons testing, test explosions conducted by India at the Indian Army's Pokhran#Pokhran Nuclear Test Range, Pokhran Test Range in May 1998. It was the second instance of nuclear testing conducted by India; the first test, code-named ''Smiling Buddha'', was conducted in May 1974. The tests achieved their main objective of giving India the capability to build Fission bomb, fission and thermonuclear weapons with yields up to 200 kilotons. The Rajagopala Chidambaram, then-Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India, Indian Atomic Energy Commission described each one of the explosions of ''Pokhran-II'' to be "equivalent to several tests carried out by other nuclear weapon states over decades". Subsequently, India established computer simulation capability to predict the yields of nuclear explosives whose designs are related to the designs of explosives used in this test. ''Pokhran-II'' consisted of five detonatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Research Development Corporation
The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) was a non-departmental government body established by the British Government to transfer technology from the public sector to the private sector. History The NRDC was established by Attlee's Labour government in 1948 to meet a perceived need at the time to exploit the many products that had been developed during World War II by the Defence Research Establishments. It was set up by the Board of Trade under the Development of Inventions Act 1948 and the first managing director was Lord Giffard. The NRDC was established in India in 1953 to help develop and promote technologies developed at various national R&D institutions. The first commercial size hovercraft, the SR.N1, was built under a contract let by the NRDC to Saunders-Roe in 1958. In 1981, the NRDC was combined with the National Enterprise Board ('NEB') to form the British Technology Group ('BTG'). Operations Typically the NRDC would patent the product for commercial e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2001–2002 India–Pakistan Standoff
The 2001–2002 India–Pakistan standoff was a military standoff between India and Pakistan that resulted in the massing of troops on both sides of the border and along the Line of Control (LoC) in the region of Kashmir. This was the second major military standoff between India and Pakistan following the successful detonation of nuclear devices by both countries in 1998, the first being the Kargil War of 1999. The military buildup was initiated by India responding to a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on 13 December 2001 (during which twelve people, including the five terrorists who attacked the building, were killed) and the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on 1 October 2001 in which 38 people were killed. India claimed that the attacks were carried out by two Pakistan-based terror groups fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir—Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, both of whom India has said are backed by Pakistan's ISI< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Credible Minimum Deterrence
Credible minimum deterrence is the principle on which India's nuclear strategy is based. It underlines no first use (NFU) with an assured second strike capability and falls under minimal deterrence, as opposed to mutually assured destruction. India's tentative nuclear doctrineHosted at www.pugwash.org - Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine'' was announced on August 17, 1999 by the secretary of the National Security Advisory Board, Brajesh Mishra. Later, the draft was adopted with some modifications when the Nuclear Command Authority was announced on January 4, 2003. A significant modification was the dilution of the NFU principle to include nuclear retaliation to attacks by biological and chemical weapons. See also *Minimal deterrence In nuclear strategy, minimal deterrence, also known as minimum deterrence and finite deterrence, is an application of deterrence theory in which a state possesses no more nuclear weapons than is necessary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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