The Trident sysem consists of the Ohio-class ballistic-missile-carrying submarines (SSBNs), the C-4 and D-5 submarine-launched-ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and the reentry vehicles (RVs) and thermonucler warheads comprising the Mk4/W76 and Mk5/W88 systems.  Trident is America's premiere strategic nuclear weapon because of its ability to evade detection and its capacity to rapidly destroy a wide range of important targets.

This study examines several technical questions bearing on Trident safety, and it enumerates important issues and options. The secrecy surrounding nuclear weapons restricts this effort, and, as a result, our study cannot be definitive. Moreover, no one can provide a reliable quantitative analysis of the probability of a serious accident. Nevertheless, in any situation that involves a small, yet finite, chance of a catastrophic event, the hazard must be weighed against the costs of reducing risk. 

"The 35-year goal of achieving a comprehensive test ban can best be attained, without compromising the integrity of the regime, by not defining precisely what constitutes a nuclear explosion."

This paper examines technical and institutional possibilities for improving the ability of the international safeguards regime to prevent or slow the spread of nuclear weapons. It relies strongly on the experience of the recently uncovered Iraqi nuclear-weapons program and the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in the discovery of the program's extent and scope.

The Iraqi program and its exposure following the Gulf War surprised and disturbed much of the international community. However, the shock generated by the extent and the size of an effort that had been suspected but remained grossly underestimated and misunderstood has given a strong political impetus to the will of the international community for strengthening the non-proliferation regime.

This paper makes a number of suggestions based on a review of the Iraqi effort and on an assessment of possible future attempts by other nations to acquire nuclear weapons.

What guidance does international law provide in determining who succeeds to the treaty obligations of a large nation-state when it splits up? This Article will consider, first, the general rules of inheritance in such a case and, second, what has happened so far in four concrete areas.

This book is essentially a series of case histories of U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control negotiations, as seen from the American side. It describes the processes of governmental decisionmaking for arms control in Washington, D.C., and the techniques for joint U.S.-Soviet decisionmaking at the negotiating table.

As general counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and member of U.S. delegations to disarmament conferences for eight years, the author was in a unique position to assess the difficulties of fashioning an arms control treaty that could pass muster within the executive branch of the U.S. government, be approved by U.S. allies, be successfully negotiated with the Soviets, and then win the approval of the U.S. Senate. This process will be even more complex now that the United States will face at least four nuclear powers from the former U.S.S.R.

The book has three purposes. The first is to add to the recorded history of the following negotiations: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, the ABM Treaty of 1972 and its companion SALT Interim Agreements, and the 1987 INF Treaty. The author asks in each case, What did the president and his assistants do (or fail to do) to negotiate a successfulu agreement?

The second purpose is to use the case book approach, common in law schools and business schools, as a teaching device for those who wish to learn how the American government made decisions about arms control negotiations, how U.S.-Soviet negotiators reached decisions, and what the results of the decisions have been.

The book's third purpose is to generalize about what works and what does not work in the complex world of arms control negotiations, including information on the impact of negotiating committees and comparisons of the process for negotiating arms control treaties with that for achieving arms limits through action and reaction, without written agreement. The concluding chapter looks to the future: What changes will occur in the arms control process given the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union?

The dissolution of the Soviet Union has brought new nuclear non-proliferation dangers and opportunities. Both revolve around the approximately thirty thousand nuclear weapons and the fissile materials for perhaps ninety thousand nuclear bombs in the former Soviet Union. The weapons are now deployed in only four of the newly independents states - most in Russia, but some still in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. "Loose Nukes" is the colloquial description of one aspect of the new threats.

New positive and negative assurances from all five permanent members of the UN Security Council are now vitally important, not only to provide support to Ukraine and every other non-nuclear-weapons state's legitimate concerns, but to advance the vital goals of nuclear non-proliferation prior to the critical 1995 NPT review and extension conference.

This analysis argues that the basic purpose of NPT safeguards—to verify compliance with an obligation not to "manufacture" nuclear weapons—could be easily thwarted if a non-nuclear-weapon party is able to produce nuclear-explosive material and build bombs in facilities that are not declared to the IAEA and inspected by IAEA inspectors.  The language of the NPT, its negotiating history, and the subsequent agreement applying its safeguards provisions all support the conclusion that non-nuclear-weapon NPT parties agreed to permit inspection of activities.

The problem of accidental or inadvertent nuclear war has been couched largely in terms of superpower confrontations during a crisis. Whether the focus is on the major powers, or on developing nations with ballistic missiles and probable nuclear weapons capability, stability in those who handle weapons and effective safeguards on use are essential preventive measures. The United States and the USSR have been careful to guard against unauthorized launch. All nuclear nations have been concerned with retaining ultimate control of nuclear weapons in civilian hands; with monitoring the reliability and stability of the forces that handle the weapons; and with preventing weapons from coming into the possession of outsiders. In 1986, an analysis of the sources of human instability in those who handle nuclear weapons concluded that thousands of unstable individuals were involved in "minding our missiles."1 The present paper serves as an update on the problem and links it to potential areas of increasing risk as the world changes.