KIPP King Collegiate

Weapons of mass destruction prevention

Bryan James Santos

American Government

Period 7

Mr. Segado

27 February 2018
 Table of Contents

Problem Statement…………...2

Literature Review……………..4

Discussion of Findings………11

Abstract………………………13

Conclusion…………………...16

Works Cited…………………..19
 Works Cited

History.com Staff. “Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” ​History.com​, A&E Television

Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki.

“Nuclear Disarmament United States.” ​Nuclear Threat Initiative - Ten Years of Building a Safer

World​, 13 Feb. 2017, www.nti.org/analysis/articles/united-states-nuclear-disarmament/.

Haltiwanger, John. “U.S. military plans new nuclear weapons, making war with Russia and China

more likely, experts say.” ​Newsweek​, 16 Jan. 2018,

www.newsweek.com/us-military-new-nuclear-weapons-782853.

“Nuclear Powers Not Disarming Quickly Enough For Rest of World.” ​Nuclear Threat Initiative -

Ten Years of Building a Safer World​, 7 May 2012,

www.nti.org/gsn/article/nuclear-powers-not-disarming-quick-enough-rest-world/​.
 The United States and many other foreign countries such as Russia, North Korea, China,

and Pakistan have been near to or have created nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

According to google bombs or other inventions that classify under weapons of mass destruction

are ​nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological or other weapon that can kill and bring significant

harm to a large number of humans. The world’s first introduction to a Nuclear bomb was in 1945

on August 6th. This was the day the United States dropped the first ever nuclear bomb on enemy

soil. The Nuclear bomb called Little boy exploded 2,000 feet in the air and immediately killed

80,000 Japanese civilians and many more died later on due to radiation exposure. Three days

later the United States dropped another Nuclear bomb on Japan in Nagasaki killing about 40,000

people. Those were the first and last 2 Nuclear bombs ever used in a civilian populated area.

After this event every big nation in the world raced to acquire this Nuclear/Atomic bomb as they

wanted power and also feared what the United States had obtained and created. This later

became known as the Nuclear Arms Race (History.com).

Currently in the world there are eight countries who have nuclear weapons or are making

very fast progress to obtaining them. There are 14,955 nuclear bombs divided between these

countries. North Korea has around 60 nuclear weapons created while Israel has 80 nuclear

bombs in their arsenal. Following them India has 130 and pakistan has 140. The UK has 215,

China has 270 and France has 300 nuclear weapons. Finally the leaders in the nuclear bomb
arsenal are the United States and Russia. The United States has 6,800 shortly behind Russia

which has 7,000 nuclear weapons and missiles. This number will surely be increasing with talk

of Donald Trump wanting to expand the nuclear weapons stockpile by putting more funds and

resources towards it. On top of this North Korea has refused to stop trying to master a nuclear

bomb even after a treaty that the United States tried to make with them. On February 5, 2011 the

New Start Treaty came into play which essentially did what it was called, Make a new start for

Nuclear weapons. This treaty made the United States and Russia disarm from their nuclear

weapons and lower the amount of missiles on standby and stockpiled. Speaking on specific

numbers for these missiles the treaty made both nations agree to lower their amount of warheads

to no more than 1,550 and cannot send out no more than 700 ICBM, SLBM and heavy bombers.

This has made the United States dismantle 10,251 warheads. ​If the United States made no effort

to try and get other nations to dismantle their warheads and missiles then there would be nobody

else to spark that trend or bring up the topic. Essentially the United States is the one nation trying

to get everybody to dismantle their weapons and only a few countries are willing to cooperate

with these policies that the United States is trying to enforce. If the United States was not doing

this then there would be an enormous amount of nuclear bombs still active and assembled and

this makes everything a lot more dangerous for many many civilians around the world if a war

breaks out between two nations with lots of nuclear missiles. On top of this not only would there

be more but there would possibly be even more nations who previously didn’t have this

technology and could now have it. Currently the United States government has plans on creating

new nuclear weapons to keep up with Russia and China who are also creating more/new nuclear

weapons. Essentially the United States idea of creating more and new nuclear weapons is to
make the threat of Russia and China smaller. On the topic of trying to reduce threats to America

the rise of new nuclear weapons that foreign countries are creating is a very big threat to

everyday civilians of america simply because these bombs that are being created can kill several

thousands of civilians in less than a minute.

In John Halti-wanger’s article on the newsweek website he touches base on the United States

new efforts to try and keep up with nuclear advancements made by Russia and China. John also

debates if the effort to keep up is to make threats from russia and china less likely or does it

make nuclear war more likely. John brings to topic is that the president’s and government’s plan

to beef up their nuclear arsenal to make threats from foreign countries less likely is contradicting

itself. Lastly the author discusses how trump is all for nuclear advancements and using nuclear

weapons. For the main topic of Johns article he talks about the United States president, Donald

Trump’s plan to advance in nuclear weapons and put more of them into production. The

president and pentagon want to make new weapons because Russia and China have refused to

disarm and stop making nuclear weapons, In Fact they have done the complete opposite and have

been fastly advancing their nuclear weapons and creating more. The United States ideology

behind making and advancing in nuclear weapon technology is that “​The United States must be

capable of developing and deploying new capabilities, if necessary, to deter, assure, achieve U.S.

objectives if deterrence fails, and hedge against uncertainty” (Haltiwanger, second paragraph).

So the United States wants to Make more nuclear weapons to make threats from Russia and

China less likely and to make nuclear war less likely. They way they plan to beef up their nuclear

weapons is to actually make them smaller. Currently the United States nuclear armory has
nuclear weapons that are far too big to actually use being they could wipe out entire countries.

The plan is to make nuclear warheads smaller with smaller nuclear yield to be actually useable in

war and in attacks. John explains this by mentioning that “The Department of Defense contends

that developing low-yield systems gives it more flexibility for responding to Russian threats and

also increases the nuclear threshold––the point at which countries use or would use nuclear

weapons in a conflict”(Haltiwanger, fourth paragraph). The government made this especially

clear that this plan is not to enable nuclear war but to make nuclear missile deployments and

aggression less likely. John also talks about how this ideology and plan that the Government has

came up with is contradicting itself and has brought up a heated debate and statements from

different people. It is easy to see how this plan seemingly goes against itself and cannot make

sense. Making more weapons to make war less likely is really a confusing concept. John

mentions how people who reviewed this plan closely “Contend it has contradictory goals by

aiming to increase nuclear first-use options for deterrence while also endorsing ambiguity as a

nuclear strategy” (Haltiwanger, seventh paragraph). John also quotes Jon Wolfsthal when he says

“more options to use nuclear weapons that wouldn’t be as devastating, which in some ways

makes them more tempting” to use. The NPR “definitely makes the nuclear risks greater,”

Wolfsthal contended” (Haltiwanger, Tenth paragraph). This is a consultant who is very familiar

with the government and its policies and ideas and he mentions how the idea of making bombs

that the government is able to use and makes a little bit less damage is actually making nuclear

weapon use more tempting and accessible. Lastly at the end of this article john turns the article’s

focus onto trump and what he has to say about the idea and the topic of advancing nuclear

weapons. In this process John chooses evidence that shows trump is very open and very
interested and pro nuclear weapons and with progressing them. John states that “Trump has

made many controversial remarks on nuclear weapons, often implying he'd be willing to use

them if provoked.” (Haltiwanger Last paragraph). John provides evidence of trump being pro

nuclear weapons and using them. He also uses more evidence of a interview between trump and

a MSNBC interviewer where trump reportedly said “he might use nuclear weapons as president,

Matthews said, "Nobody wants to hear that about an American president." Trump replied, "Then

why are we making them? Why do we make them?" (Haltiwanger Last paragraph). Here we see

the true raw side of Trump's true opinion on nuclear weapons. He is very willing to put the

United States Nuclear weapons into use against foreign countries. He also believes if Nuclear

weapons are produced then they must be used.

In John Halitwanger’s Article about the United States new effort of Advancing nuclear weapons

on the Website Newsweek has many strengths and at the same time it has weaknesses in the final

publish. Starting off John Haltiwanger used many pieces of compelling evidence that helped his

article a lot. He provided evidence from credible sources and actual politicians and consultants

that are related to the United States government. He also talks about how many nuclear weapons

the U.S. has and how they intend to advance the nuclear weapons. He also does a good job of

getting all the sides to this topic. He gets the side that agrees with advancing and how it can help,

John gets the side who says this new wave is contradicting itself and he also gets the president's

opinion on the topic. The strongest point for this article that was useable on my topic and essay

was how he brought up how they exactly plan to advance and how Russia and China refuse to

stop advancing and how this can affect civilians living in america. On the other hand John did
have a certain amount of weaknesses that affected this article in a bad way. A weakness that was

noted was the amount of spelling mistakes that were not fixed when the article was published

and posted onto the website. When a article is published to the public it should not have any

errors or spelling mistakes and must be reviewed closely before the public can read it and get

information from it especially if they depend on this website to keep up to date on the news and

world events. Other than that the article was very good with facts and explanations. The

thesis/main idea of this article was weather or not if the United States advancement on nuclear

weapons to deter threats from foreign countries was actually going to help or make nuclear war

more likely. The author John Haltiwanger did a good job in discussing this topic and reaching its

main idea.

In the article created by the History.com staff touching base on the events that occured In japan’s

cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki they touch base on not many points but the ones that they do

carry a lot of important details and events. The article touches base on what happened before and

after hiroshima and pieces of world war 2 that involved japan and the united states. It also goes

into detail about specifics of time and dates and who what and where. Although this article

created by the History staff does not argue anything it does have a purpose and main idea and

point. This article is mainly to inform, With that being said one of the main points that the staff

came up with was how and where the first nuclear/Atomic bomb was created and tested and put

to use before ever using one behind enemy lines and in actual combat. The article goes on to

mention that the people who were responsible for creating and supervising the creation of this

weapon were the office of scientific research and Development and the War Department. The
creation and operation was later code named as “The Manhattan Project”. The article then

describes how a couple year later “the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an

atomic device–a plutonium bomb–at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo, New Mexico”

(History.com third paragraph). The atomic bomb was finally successful and a working weapon

that the United States has finally unlocked. Now that they have done this they were quick to put

it to use. The article later switches to the actual dropping of the two only atomic bombs ever

dropped and used on civilians in the whole world's history. The authors describe in crisp detail

that “​The plane dropped the bomb–known as “Little Boy”–by parachute at 8:15 in the morning,

and it exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT,

destroying five square miles of the city” (History.com sixth paragraph). Here is when the very

first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and devastated Japan. This was a very big and

groundbreaking moment in the worlds history. This affected many people's lives and also killed

many innocent civilians. Three days later after this event in “Nagasaki, where the plutonium

bomb “Fat Man” was dropped at 11:02 that morning. More powerful than the one used at

Hiroshima…”(History.com seventh paragraph). This is the second and last nuclear weapon ever

used on civilians and it was even bigger than the first one. The United States dropped both of

these on japan and this is essentially what put an end to world war 2. This event caused major

tragedy throughout japan.

This article on Hiroshima and Nagasaki created by the staff at History.com is full of strengths

and is a very strong and credible source. The strength they have in describing these events in

great detail can paint pictures to the reader and all the details they provide are accurate. Nothing
in this article is vague and left unanswered. The authors had hit the nail on the head with creating

this article and providing people with facts of what happened before and after the bombing on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This article came in handy for my essay because it provided many facts

to talk about and describe in it. On top of having many facts all of these facts were credible and

accurate nothing was questionable or seemed untruthful. As for weaknesses on this article they

could have talked just a little bit more on what japan did after and what america did after but

other than that everything was provided and self explanatory. The main idea of this article was to

provide people with information on what lead of to August 6th and 9th, and how it happened.

The authors of this article did this in a good way and successfully got to its main idea.

In Nuclear Threats Initiative’s article titled “​Nuclear Powers Not Disarming Quickly Enough For

Rest of World” the authors speak about how the United States, China, France and Russia created

a treaty making other smaller countries not to try and advance in nuclear weapons and not create

them at all and the countries listed above will in return disarm their nuclear weapons and not

have any. The authors also provide statistics of how many of these five nuclear powers have

nuclear bombs and how many they have and how fast they are disarming. In the beginning of the

article it starts off by saying all the current nuclear powers have been classified as moving too

slow according to certain countries in the UN. Later on it labels and defines who is part of the

five Nuclear powers saying Russia, China, France, United Kingdom and United States are all in

it and are all not following the treaty that they all created and agreed to. Later in the third

paragraph it goes in to a little detail about how in this pact/treaty certain countries are not

supposed to try and create or advance their nuclear weapons while all the five nuclear powers are
going to disarm themselves from their nuclear weapons. Now in the article it says the problem

with this is that “​The nuclear powers, though, have come under criticism for not moving fast

enough to meet their part of the bargain, even as they strenuously call for non-nuclear nations to

fulfill their treaty obligations (NTI.org third paragraph). Later in the article it brings up egypts

concern for the effort that the five nuclear power are putting in and that it’s not following the

treaties rules. Then the author gave a piece of evidence of what egypts representative said about

his “deep concern at the continued lack of meaningful progress in the field of nuclear

disarmament," and said the lack of arms control gains might jeopardize the integrity of the

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty” (NTI.org ninth paragraph). This is just to emphasize how

poorly the five powers are actually putting in effort to disarm and honor their treaty that they

agreed upon. Lastly in the article the authors mention how the United States have nuclear

warheads ready to deploy in europe and how the kremlin is not keen to the idea and wishes to

have the United States remove their warheads from that area.

The strengths of this article are that it has very good evidence and explanations after its evidence.

Also their evidence is very relevant and credible being that it is all on topic and the evidence is

based off of what officials say and statistics and treaties and policies that are currently present

and going on. This article was useful in the creation of my essay because I was able to use many

of its statistics and quotes of representatives. Some weaknesses of the article however though

we're not having very deep thought into what was actually going on it was in a sense a little

repetitive about what it was talking about. Through the good and despite the bad the authors of

this article were able to reach its main point which was people of the UN not comfortable about

how long they are taking to disarm themselves and how fast they are actually moving and if they
are taking the treaties they have agreed to seriously. So yes this article was able to reach its main

idea/point successfully.

To start off my topic and research question is What strategies have the us used to stop WMD

development in other nations? Which strategies are most successful and which are least

successful? Well to start off at the beginning of my essay and research i found many articles on

different types of treaties and policies that the UN and United States have came up with to try

and deter threats and stop other countries from developing nuclear weapons. For example the

New Start treaty was a treaty made for specifically the United States and Russia to disassemble

their Nuclear weapons to a certain number and both of them had to complete this task. Now this

treaty worked for some time as the number of nuclear weapons between both countries decreased

but it didn’t decrease in a major way that was groundbreaking. On top of this the United Nations

is creating treaties for smaller countries to not develop nuclear weapons and not advance in

nuclear weapon technology. In exchange for these small countries who would be capable of

advance the larger countries who already have nuclear weapon technology they will disarm

themselves and take apart their nuclear weapons. Now on the surface all of this seems like great

ideas and a great lay out to stop the development of weapons of mass destructions in not only

other nations but in our home nation the United States. The more I did more research and noticed

what was currently going on around me was that yes all of this would be great strategies and

plans only if these nations actually follow the plan that they created, instead it is the quiet

opposite. Like the treaty that makes all the five nuclear powers disarm so the smaller foreign

countries won’t develop nuclear weapons they are all moving in reverse of what they agreed
upon. As for the new start treaty that is also moving in reverse. So in reality all these treaties and

pacts are nothing but a front to the public to ease minds but also to keep other smaller countries

at bay as the five powers continue to thrive and grow their nuclear arsenal. I say all of this

because currently the president of the United States wants to advance the united States nuclear

weapons to supposedly deter threats from foreign countries and also keep up with Russia, China

and North Korea's constant growth in atomic bombs and nuclear weapons. So all that work to

disarm and bombs that were disarmed and numbers went down are just going to shoot back up

because Russia, China, North Korea and the United States are all trying to compete with each

other and keep up in this nuclear advancement race which could be much more deadly than the

cold war. So in a way these treaties and pacts do work but only to a certain extent because they

keep smaller countries at bay and retain them from having nuclear weapons but at the same time

the creators of these pacts are the ones who will advance no matter what. Thus calling for a

change. If these treaties just are not working then we need to come up with new strategies that

will work and stop everyone from creating nuclear bombs and weapons.

The purpose of the research paper that was created was to figure out how the United States is

trying to stop weapons of mass destruction from being created and what strategies are working

and which ones are not. Seeing there being much talk of current nuclear bomb problems with the

United States and foreign countries and more countries eager to try and attain this weapon it

seemed as the most relevant topic to write about as it applies to every nation in the worlds

civilians. Everyone in the world has seen what the nuclear bomb is capable of and the fact that

major nations are trying to create much more of these weapons is life threatening. So with that
being said we need to see what our nation is doing to stop these weapons from being created and

if what they are doing is actually making an impact on these weapons being created. This

research paper contained Articles from the History website that detailed the bombing of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki and both bombings combined there were 120,000 thousand deaths and

survivors who were left with physical scarring and radiation. It also involved articles from NTI

that detailed the treaties and pacts that the United Nations put together so smaller countries

would not attempt to create Nuclear weapons and in exchange the Five nuclear powers in the

world would dismantle their nuclear weapons. Other articles have proved that for some time this

had worked and nuclear weapons were being dismantled and the amount of nuclear weapons in

the world was decreasing but not as quick as it should have been according to the treaty that all

the United Nations had signed and created. So in a way this had stopped nuclear weapons from

being produced but as of recently things have turned in a very different direction. These studies

have indicated that yes treaties and pacts will work but only to a certain extent because now in

current day these Five powers are starting to create more and more weapons and rogue nations

are constantly conducting nuclear bomb tests even the United States is about to start producing

new nuclear weapons to keep up with Russia and other nations. Now that the world is aware of

what is going on there needs to be a new way to regulate and get these certain countries to halt

their nuclear weapons production and dismantle their nuclear weapons.

In the result of this research paper it is clear that treaties that are being created by the United

Nations are not working because the nuclear powers in the world are still continuing to produce

nuclear weapons or have plans on progressing their nuclear weapons. On top of this the treaties
in the past were never fully fulfilled and not completely followed by those who have signed on it.

Now this is dangerous because if there is something again like the Nuclear arms race where

many different countries and nations are competing to make the best and most nuclear weapons

every country is on edge and a war could easily break out and not just any ordinary war a nuclear

war. Nuclear war is the very last thing we as a world want because just two nuclear bombs ever

dropped on civilians killed 120,000 people. If the public does not press this issue and come to a

conclusion quickly on how to limit nuclear bombs and stop production completely this could end

very very badly for the entire world and many innocent people. As a consultant wisely said

“definitely makes the nuclear risks greater,” Wolfsthal contended. The plan increases "the risk of

nuclear first-use and increasing the cost and consequences of a nuclear arms race with

Russia…”(haltiwanger). We must all remember our history with nuclear weapons and what has

happened in the past and nothing but negative events came out of it. We must all put in an effort

to find new ways to try and slow down and if not stop completely weapons of mass production

from being created because our current ways of treaties is not working.
 Works Cited

History.com Staff. “Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” ​History.com​, A&E Television

Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki.

“Nuclear Disarmament United States.” ​Nuclear Threat Initiative - Ten Years of Building a Safer

World​, 13 Feb. 2017, www.nti.org/analysis/articles/united-states-nuclear-disarmament/.

Haltiwanger, John. “U.S. military plans new nuclear weapons, making war with Russia and China

more likely, experts say.” ​Newsweek​, 16 Jan. 2018,

www.newsweek.com/us-military-new-nuclear-weapons-782853.

“Nuclear Powers Not Disarming Quickly Enough For Rest of World.” ​Nuclear Threat Initiative -

Ten Years of Building a Safer World​, 7 May 2012,

www.nti.org/gsn/article/nuclear-powers-not-disarming-quick-enough-rest-world/​.