US military aircraft and monitoring centers scrambled yesterday to determine the size and type of the weapon that North Korea detonated in what is believed to be the reclusive regime's first test of a nuclear bomb.
Four years after the leaders of the world's eight largest economies vowed to raise $20 billion over 10 years to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear materials, only $3.5 billion has been donated -- and far less has been used to secure enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon.
The CIA and the Pentagon would for the first time be required to assess the national security implications of climate change under proposed legislation intended to elevate global warming to a national defense issue.
The Pentagon is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars to test weapons in space, marking the biggest step toward creating a space battlefield since President Reagan's long-defunct ''star wars" project during the Cold War, according to federal budget documents.
A recently declassified U.S. intelligence estimate, reveals a surprising truth about U.S. nuclear arms policy over the past three decades: The US government believed that dramatic increases in the number of nuclear actors on the world stage were ''inevitable."
The United States may have no choice but to restart nuclear testing to certify that its stockpile of nuclear weapons is safe and reliable, especially if new warhead designs are developed in the coming years, according to a senior government nuclear scientist and adviser.
U.S. officials and private experts are increasingly concerned a developing Iranian nuclear power industry might demand more attention at the same time the United States wrestles with nuclear crises in Iraq and North Korea. They contend that Iran?s efforts to build a nuclear power plant and other nuclear fuel cycle facilities could provide Iran with valuable nuclear expertise and materials.
The U.S. Defense Department has launched a crash research program to develop new sensors to rapidly identify ? in less than 60 seconds ? biological agents dispersed in aerosol form.
Due to a severe disadvantage in conventional military capability, Iran will probably continue to develop weapons of mass destruction during the next decade, but will be unlikely to use them unless directly threatened by the United States, according to a new 10-year forecast for the Persian Gulf region.
The new U.S. strategy for combating weapons of mass destruction marks a significant departure from long-standing U.S. policy by publicly advocating a nuclear response in the face of a chemical or biological attack, according to government officials and private analysts.