10nfl1-Nukes-Cover
RUSSIA AND PAKISTAN HAVE A HIGH INTEREST IN KEEPING THEIR
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| RUSSIA AND PAKISTAN HAVE A HIGH INTEREST IN KEEPING THEIR WEAPONS SECURE. John Mueller 2007 (Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon Center Professor of Political Science, "REACTIONS AND OVERREACTIONS TO TERRORISM Prepared for delivery at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, August September 3, 2007, http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller/APSA2007.PDF. It might be added that Russia has an intense interest in controlling any weapons on its territory since it is likely to be a prime target of any illicit use by terrorist groups, particularly, of course, Chechen ones with whom it has been waging an vicious on-and-off war for over a decade. Officials there insist that all weapons have either been destroyed or are secured, and the experts polled by Linzer (2004) point out that "it would be very difficult for terrorists to figure out on their own how to work a Russian or Pakistan bomb" even if they did obtain one because even the simplest of these "has some security features that would have to be defeated before it could be used" (see also Langewiesche 2007, 19; Wirz and Egger 2005, 502). One of the experts, Charles Ferguson, stresses You'd have to run it through a specific sequence of events, including changes in temperature, pressure and environmental conditions before the weapon would allow itself to be armed, for the fuses to fall into place and then for it to allow itself to be fired. You don't get off the shelf, enter a code and have it go off. Download 1.23 Mb. Share with your friends:
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