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The present and the past: Nuclear weapons in 2015

By Bulletin Staff | December 27, 2015

Over the past year, the Bulletin's extensive cast of top experts analyzed current and historical events in a panoply of wide-ranging articles across the nuclear weapons landscape. Here is a far-from-complete list that includes some of their best efforts:

The Bulletin's 70th anniversary issue

A stellar lineup of top authors looks forward on the Bulletin's 70th birthday. Among them are Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes and best-selling author and investigative journalist Eric Schlosser—and the list of great authors goes on from there. Not all of the articles in the issue relate to nuclear weapons; all are worth a revisit.

The experts assess the Iran agreement of 2015

The Bulletin asked top international security experts with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds to respond to the historic nuclear agreement between six major powers and Iran, immediately after it was signed in the summer of 2015. Their analyses make for compelling reading now, as implementation of the agreement begins.

The harrowing story of the Nagasaki bombing mission

By Ellen Bradbury and Sandra Blakeslee

A typhoon was coming, the fuel pump failed, they had to switch planes, things were wired incorrectly, they missed their rendezvous, they couldn’t see the primary target, they ran out of gas on the way home, and they had to crash-land. And the crew members of the plane tasked with the second atomic bombing of Japan had to deal with one other problem: The Fat Man atomic bomb started to arm itself, mid-flight.

What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan?

By Steven Starr, Lynn Eden, and Theodore A. Postol

Three top experts explain in overpowering detail what would happen if a standard Russian nuclear missile warhead exploded over New York City: At least 90 square miles of firestorm would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything. And that's not to mention the radioactive fallout.

Iran’s invisible opportunity

By Amory B. Lovins

The cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute explains how energy efficiency and renewable energy could move Iran from the nuclear path—and maybe even reinvigorate the Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

How the next US nuclear accident could happen

By Hugh Gusterson

When an 82-year-old nun with a heart condition and two confederates old enough to be AARP members can breach security at a supposedly impregnable storage facility for highly enriched uranium, you know you have a problem. Nuclear culture expert Hugh Gusterson on how America’s tech-reliant security culture might lead to disaster.

William J. Perry on nuclear war and nuclear terrorism

The former US defense secretary's powerful address at the Bulletin's 70th anniversary Doomsday Clock Symposium, held in November in Chicago.


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