Pol 179: the Atomic Enterprise: Nuclear Physics, History, Strategy, Policy Spring 2009; MW 7-8:45 PM, Cowell 134 Instructor: Ronnie D

Pol 179: The Atomic Enterprise: Nuclear Physics, History, Strategy, Policy Spring 2009; MW 7-8:45 PM, Cowell 134 Instructor: Ronnie D. Lipschutz (459-3275; [email protected]) Office: 234 Crown Office Hours: Tues, 2-3; Wed, 1-2, or by appointment

(The on-line version of this syllabus is at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/syl.pdf )

The goal of this course is to inform and educate about the world that atomic energy made. "The Atomic Enterprise" is that panoply of science, technology, projects, events, policies, health effects, industry and controversies related to the discovery, development, deployment, and domestication of nuclear fission and fusion. At the outset of the Atomic Era, the atomic bomb was regarded as a great success, and the future of atomic power (to be followed by fusion) as almost unlimited; today, much of the enterprise is in figurative (and often literal) ruins. We will examine the various stages and aspects of the Enterprise, beginning with the discovery of fission, continuing with weapons, power, health, and radwaste, moving on to politics and policy, economics, management, and organizations and movements in opposition. This course will be supplemented by an optional 2-unit tutorial focused more closely that will allow students to pursue specialized topics and projects. Course materials will include readings, guest speakers and historical videos. Course requirements include regular attendance and a series of writing assignments (details will be provided).

Required texts (at Baytree and on reserve): Gerard DeGroot, The Bomb—A Life, 2004. Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons

Recommended: Ronnie Lipschutz, Cold War Fantasies: Film, Fiction and Foreign Policy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).

Useful internet resources: AtomicArchive.com, at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/index.shtml Nuclear Designs, at: http://www.learnworld.com/ZNW/NuclearDesigns.html Federation of American Scientists, at: http://www.fas.org Project on Defense Alternatives, at: http://www.comw.org/pda/index.html The Atomic Age (UCSB), at: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/pmccray/105/105.htm Conelrad, at: http://www.conelrad.com/index.php Internet Movie Archive, at: http://www.archive.org/index.php The Bomb Project, The Bomb Project, http://www.firstpulseprojects.net/bombproject/Index.html

Writing assignments

There will be no midterms or final exams in this class; your grade will be based on your writing assignments (see: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Writing%20Assignments.pdf). If you wish to use this class as either a “12th class option” or to fulfill the “W” requirement, please consult with me.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introduction to the class

3/30: Bookkeeping

4/1: Film: The Atomic Cafe

Week 2: Basics

4/6: Atomic Physics. Nuclear vs. chemical energy; atoms; protons; neutrons; Periodic Table; uranium; plutonium; thorium; transuranics; atomic number and weight; isotopes; fission vs. fusion; fissionable elements; radioactive decay; radiation; half-life; fission products Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.lec1.S09.pdf Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.lec2.S09.pdf

Required: DeGroot, ch. 1; Cirincone, Preface & ch. 1; Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, at: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/pdf/smyth01.pdf ; “A is for Atom” (1953 animated video) at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCRtvPWdAHk

4/8: Atomic bombs. Fissionable isotopes; critical mass; slow and fast neutrons; uranium bomb; plutonium bomb; yield; boosting; effects (blast, fire, radiation); radius of destruction; Manhattan Project; German and Japanese bomb projects; cost; complexity; fsion; hydrogen, deuterium, tritium, lithium; physics and conditions for fusion; thermonuclear reactions; containment; trigger; design; focus; casing; signature of detonation; yields; effects; boosting; neutron bomb; cost; complexity. Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.lec3.S09.pdf

Required reading: Federation of American Scientists, “Nuclear Weapons Primer,” at: http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/index.html; “How Nuclear Bombs Work,” at: http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb.htm, parts 1-5.

2 Further reading: Nuclear Threat Initiative, “A Tutorial on Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear-Explosive Materials: Nuclear Weapons Design & Materials” at: http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/technical2.asp ; “The Atomic Bomb Project,” at: http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/atombombtech.htm; Cary Sublette, “Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions,” at: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html

Recommended film: Them! (1954)

Week 3: Atomic Production

4/13: The Atomic fuel cycle & proliferation. Uranium; composition; mining; milling; gasification; enrichment; methods; nuclear fuel; reactor operation; types of reactors (research; power; military—tritium); CANDU; breeders; normal operation; refueling; reprocessing; separation; wastes; radioactivity; storage; disposal options; risks. Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.lec4.S09.pdf

Required reading: Federation of American Scientists, “The Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” at: http://www.fas.org/ssp/fc/ ;World Nuclear Association, http://world-nuclear.org/how/how.html; Henrik Eriksson, “Control the Nuclear Power Plant,” at http://www.ida.liu.se/~her/npp/demo.html ; Nuclear Reactor types, at: http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/nuclear- power/reactor-types.html

4/15: The Atomic Infrastructure. Atomic labs. Production sites. Transportation. organization; locations; procedures and processes; privatization and management; corporations; economics; costs; impacts

Required reading: Alice Buck, “A History of the Atomic Energy Commission,” 1983, at: http://www.atomictraveler.com/HistoryofAEC.pdf; The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project, http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/related.htm

Further reading: Frank Settle, “Nuclear Chemistry and the Community,” at: http://chemcases.com/nuclear/index.htm; Anthony V. Nero, Jr., A Guidebook to Nuclear Reactors, UC Press, 1979; Ronnie D. Lipschutz, Radioactive Waste—Politics, Technology and Risk, Ballinger, 1980; Esmail Hosseinzadeh, The political economy of U.S. militarism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Stephen Schwartz (ed.), Atomic Audit—The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, Brookings, 1998; John L. Boies, Buying for Armageddon : business, society, and military spending since the Cuban missile crisis, Rutgers, 1994.

3 Recommended Film: The China Syndrome (1979)

The complete comic can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Easel/4942/che_y1.htm)

Week 4: Atomic History

4/20: Making the Bomb and Dropping It. Manhattan Project; German & Japanese atomic projects; Los Alamos; atomic diplomacy; decision to drop the bomb; espionage; international control of atomic energy. Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec5.pdf

Required reading: DeGroot, ch. 2-7; Cirincione, ch. 2; Bernard M. Baruch, Control of atomic energy: United States plan, address delivered at the open session of the International Atomic Energy Commission, June 1946, http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/BaruchPlan.shtml; Barton J. Bernstein, “The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered,” Foreign Affairs (Jan./Feb. 1995), at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Bernstein.pdf

4/22: Buildup! Soviet test; NSC-68; Korean War, H-bomb decision, Atoms for Peace; Berlin crisis; battlefield strategies and weapons; planning for World War III; Civil Defense) Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec6.pdf

Required: DeGroot, ch. 8-10; Cirincione, ch. 3;

Further reading: The Acheson-Lilienthal Report, Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy, March 16, 1946, http://www.learnworld.com/ZNW/LWText.Acheson-Lilienthal.html; The International control of atomic energy : growth of a policy : an informal summary record of the official declarations and proposals relating to the international control of atomic energy, Washington, D.C. : U.S. G.P.O., [1946]; Truman Library, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/index.php; Bennett Boskey, “Inventions and the Atom,” Columbia Law Review 50, #4 (April 1950): 433-47; Philip L. Cantelon, Richard G. Hewlett, and Robert C. Williams (eds.), The American atom : a documentary history of nuclear policies from the discovery of fission to the present /. 2nd ed. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991; Richard Rhodes, Dark sun: the making of the hydrogen bomb, Simon & Schuster, 1995

Recommended films: Day after Trinity (1981); Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Week 5: Atomic strategy, deterrence, psychology.

4/27: Psyching out the bomb: Theorizing weapons utility; nuclear deterrence; delivery systems; accuracy; targeting cities vs. military facilities; use on the battlefield; tactical and battlefield nukes; the “Super” and the strategic buildup; Strategic Air Command; missiles; ballistic missile defense; protection and civil defense; targeting strategies; brinksmanship; Massive Retaliation

Required: DeGroot, ch. 11-12; Freedman, ch. 1-3; Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” Signs 12, #4 (Summer 1987): 687-718, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Cohn.pdf Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec7.pdf

4/29: Using it without losing it:; Mutual Assured Destruction; No Cities; Counterforce; Limited Nuclear Options; theories and ladders of escalation; Flexible Response; extended deterrence; precision; cruise missiles; bunker busters; conventionalization of low-yield nuclear weapons; SDI

Required: Freedman, ch. 5-7; Bernard Brodie, “The Development of Nuclear Strategy,” International Security (Spring 1978): 65-83, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Brodie.pdf; Joachim Krause, “Enlightenment and Nuclear Order,” International Affairs 83, #3 (2007): 483- 99, at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/117960003/PDFSTART Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec8.pdf

Further reading: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/jp3_12fc2.pdf#search=%22%22Doctrine%20for%2 0Joint%20Nuclear%20Operations%22%22 ; Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, “Nuclear” Strategy,” at: http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/history/cold-war/strategy/index.htm; Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the missile age. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1959; Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Palgrave, 2003.

Recommended Film: Dr. Strangelove (1964)

5 Week 6: Atomic Effects

5/4: Effects of Radiation & Nuclear Weapons: Radiation; health effects; effects of nuclear detonations and nuclear war; nuclear aftermath & nuclear winter; would the survivors envy the dead?

Required reading: DeGroot, ch. 13, 17; atomicarchive.com, “Effects of Nuclear Weapons,” at: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/index.shtml; US EPA, “Radiation Protection: Health Effects,” at: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/health_effects.html; John Walker, “Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer,” on-line edition, at: http://www.fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/

Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec9.pdf

5/6: The Atomic war at home: uranium miners in Europe and America; watch dial radium painters; survivors of attacks and tests; “Downwinders,” environmental impacts; indigenous peoples; fallout & Strontium 90; mill tailings; exposures

Required: Bill Kovarik, “The Radium Girls,” Mass Media and Environmental Conflict (2002), at: http://www.radford.edu/%7Ewkovarik/envhist/radium.html; R J Roscoe, J A Deddens, A Salvan, and T M Schnorr, “Mortality among Navajo uranium miners,” Am J Public Health. 1995 April; 85(4): 535–540, at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1615135; : Margaret Hiesinger, “The House that Uranium Built: Perspectives on the Effects of Exposure on Individuals and Community,” Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 87:7 (2002), at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Hiesinger.pdf; Mary Dickson, “Richard Miller: Charting the Far-Reaching Shadow of Nuclear Fallout,” Catalyst (April 2003), at: http://www.idealist.ws/022/022.htm;

Further Reading: “What to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent,” http://www.ki4u.com/guide.pdf ; Jeannie Peterson (ed.), The Aftermath: The Human and Ecological Consequences of Nuclear War, Pantheon/Ambio, 1983; William J. Schull, Effects of atomic radiation : a half-century of studies from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wiley-Liss, c1995; Report on search for human radiation experiment records, 1944-1994 / Department of Defense. [Washington, DC?] : Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs ; Springfield, VA : Available from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Technical Information Service, [1997]; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce; Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, "The forgotten guinea pigs" : a report on health effects of low-level radiation sustained as a result of the nuclear weapons testing program conducted by the United States Government : report prepared for the use... Washington : U.S. Govt. Print. Off.; Valerie Kuletz, The tainted desert : environmental ruin in the American West, Routledge, 1998; U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, The Effects of Nuclear War (Washington, DC: US GPO, 1979), at: http://www.nuclearpathways.org/Docs/pdfs/7906.pdf ; “Nuclear Slide Rules,” at: http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/sliderules/sliderules.htm

Recommended film: On the Beach (1959)

6 Week 7: Banning the Bomb: Atomic Abolition and Opposition

5/11: Ethical Qualms: early questions; Federation of Atomic Scientists; Oppenheimer and the AEC; Pugwash; debates

Required: Federation of Atomic Scientists, Founding Statement, Journal of Applied Physics 17, #2 (February 1946):108, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/FAS.pdf; Pugwash Online, at: http://www.pugwash.org/about.htm; “A Brief History of CND,” at: http://www.cnduk.org/pages/binfo/hist.html; bbc.co.uk, “1960: Thousands protest against H- bomb,” at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/18/newsid_2909000/2909881.stm; bbc.co.uk, “1983: CND march attracts biggest ever crowd,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/22/newsid_2489000/2489209.stm

5/13: Banning the Bomb: CND; Test-Ban Movement; missile debates; anti-nuclear power movements; Nuclear Freeze; European movements; contemporary opposition; Greenham

Required: Victoria L. Daubert and Sue Ellen Moran, Origins, goals, and tactics of the U.S. anti- nuclear protest movement, RAND, 1985, at: http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/2005/N2192.pdf; Paul Boyer, “From Activism to apathy: The American People and Nuclear Weapons, 1963-1980, Journal of American History 70, #4 (March 1984): 821-44, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Boyer.pdf . Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec10.pdf

Further reading: Richard S. Lewis, The nuclear-power rebellion; citizens vs. the atomic industrial establishment, Viking Press, 1972; Thomas R. Rochon and David S. Meyer (eds.), Coalitions & political movements : the lessons of the nuclear freeze, L. Rienner, 1997; Herbert London, Armageddon in the classroom : an examination of nuclear education University Press of America, 1987.

Recommended film: Silkwood (1983)

7 Week 8: Regulating the Bomb: Atomic Control or Disarmament?

5/18: Managing atomic impacts: international institutions; disarmament; arms control; Cuban Missile Crisis and its consequences; Atmospheric Test-Ban; SALT and START; arms races and their effects; ballistic missile defense; intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe; IMF negotiations; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; control failures.

Required: U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Nuclear Safeguards and the International Atomic Energy Agency, April 1995, ch. 1-2; at: http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9530/9530.PDF ; Arms Control Association, “U.S.- Soviet/Russian Nuclear Arms Control,” June 2002, at: http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_06/factfilejune02.asp; Charles Glaser, “The Flawed Case for Nuclear Disarmament," Survival, Spring 1998, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Glaser.pdf;

Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec11.pdf

5/20: Uninventing the Bomb? materials diversion and proliferation; Atoms for Peace & its fallout; how other countries got the bomb; who could build one, who has one?

Required: DeGroot, ch. 16; Cirincone, ch. 4; Freedman, ch. 4; REPORT of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Jan. 1997, at: http://www.dfat.gov.au/cc/index.html; Waldo Stumpf, “Birth and Death of the South African Nuclear Weapons Programme,” 1995, at: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/rsa/nuke/stumpf.htm

Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec12.pdf

Further reading: Edward Teller, The Constructive uses of nuclear explosives, McGraw-Hill, 1968; Martin van Crevald, Nuclear proliferation and the future of conflict, Free Press, 1993; Dan Wirls, Buildup : the politics of defense in the Reagan era, Cornell, 1992; Federation of American Scientists, Star Wars web site, at: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/

Recommended film: Thirteen Days (2000)

Week 9-10: The New Atomic Landscape

5/25: Memorial Day holiday

5/27: Moving Toward Life in a Nuclear-Armed Crowd? nuclear proliferation; national weapons programs; Iran; North Korea; India- Pakistan; Israel; loose nukes?

Required: Cirincione, ch. 5; Albert Wohlstetter et al., “The Military Potential of Civilian Nuclear Energy: Moving Towards Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd?” Minerva, XV, 3--4 (Autumn-Winter 1977), pp. 387-538, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Wohlstetter.pdf; Alvin Weinberg, “the Use of the Breeder Reactor,” Minerva 16, #4 (Dec. 1978): 531-85, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Weinberg.pdf ; Sigfried Hecker, “Report on the North Korean Nuclear Program,” Nov. 15, 2006, at: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/nuke/hecker1106.pdf ; “Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism,” The CQ Researcher 14, #13 (April 2, 2004), at: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/cqr_proliferation.pdf ; James Acton, “The Problem with Nuclear Mindreading,” Survival 51, #1 (Feb.-March, 2009): 119-42, at: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/acton_survival20090201.pdf

Lecture slides: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Pol179.S09.lec13.pdf

Further reading and resources: The Online NewsHour, “Tracking Nuclear Proliferation,” at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/military/proliferation/index.html ; Gaurav Kampani, “Proliferation Unbound: Nuclear Tales from Pakistan,” Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Feb. 23, 2004, at: http://cns.miis.edu/stories/040223.htm; World Nuclear Association, “Safeguards to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation,” March 2009, at: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf12.html; Amory Lovins, “Nuclear Weapons and Power-Reactor Plutonium,” Nature 238 (28 Feb. 1980): 817-23, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Lovins.pdf;

Recommended film: The Sum of All Fears (2002)

9 6/1: America’s New Nuclear Strategies: nuclear posture review; pre-emptive strikes; reliable replacement warhead;

Required reading: Jeffrey Record, “Nuclear Deterrence, Preventative War and Counterproliferation,” Policy Analysis 519 (Cato Institute), at: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa519.pdf#search=%22%22nuclear%20deterrence%22%22; Hans M. Kristensen, “US National Security Strategy and pre-emption,” Défense nationale (July 2006), at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/pol179/Kristensen.pdf ; GlobalSecurity.org, “Reliable Replacement warhead,” at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/rrw.htm; Jonathan Medalia, “Nuclear Weapons: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program,” Congressional Research Service, updated Sept. 12, 2008, at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32929.pdf ;

6/3: Is there a Nuclear Future?

Required reading: Arjun Makhijani, “Nuclear Isn’t Necessary,” Nature, Oct. 2, 2008, at: http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.103.html

Further reading & resources: U.S. Department of Defense, “Nuclear Posture Review (excerpts),” 8 Jan. 2002, at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm; National Nuclear Security Administration, http://nnsa.energy.gov/ ; Arms Control Association, at: http://www.armscontrol.org/subject/