Report on Weapons

Report on Weapons Content:  Tectonic weapon  Biological warfare  Nuclear weapon  Non-lethal weapons

Tectonic weapon: A tectonic weapon is a hypothetical device or system which could create earthquakes, volcanoes, or other seismic events in specified locations by interfering with the Earth's natural geological processes. It was defined in 1992 by Aleksey Vsevolovidich Nikolayev, corresponding member Russian Academy of Sciences: "A tectonic or seismic weapon would be the use of the accumulated tectonic energy of the Earth's deeper layers to induce a destructive earthquake". He added "to set oneself the objective of inducing an earthquake is extremely doubtful".

Concept:

Theoretically, the tectonic weapon functions by creating a powerful charge of elastic energy in the form of deformed volume of the Earth's crust in a region of tectonic activity. This then becomes an earthquake once triggered by a nuclear explosion in the epicentre or a vast electric pulse. As to the question of whether a nuclear explosion can trigger an earthquake, there was the analysis of local seismic recordings within a couple of miles of nuclear tests in the 1960s at Nevada that showed nuclear explosions caused some tectonic stress.

Pethanaraja Subramanian

REPORT ON WEAPONS

An account provided by a member of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, also claimed that a 1968 underground nuclear test called Faultless successfully induced an earthquake. The United States Geological Survey stated that it produced fresh fault rupture some 1200 meters long. There is also a theory that 1998 earthquake in Afghanistan was triggered by thermonuclear tests conducted in Indian and Pakistani test sites 2-20 days prior.

Biological warfare: Biological warfare (BW) also known as germ warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with the intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war.

Biological weapons may be employed in various ways to gain a strategic or tactical advantage over the enemy, either by threats or by actual deployments. Like some of the chemical weapons, biological weapons may also be useful as area denial weapons.

Biological warfare and chemical warfare overlap to an extent, as the use of toxins produced by some living organisms is considered under the provisions of both the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Toxins and psychochemical weapons are often referred to as midspectrum agents.

Nuclear weapon: A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or from a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb). Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic")

Pethanaraja Subramanian

REPORT ON WEAPONS

bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to 20,000 tons of TNT (84 TJ).

Nuclear weapons have been used twice in war, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a uranium gun-type fission bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" over the Japanese city of Hiroshima; three days later, on August 9, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a plutonium implosion-type fission bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. These bombings caused injuries that resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel. The ethics of these bombings and their role in Japan's surrender are subjects of debate.

Non-lethal weapons: NATO definition of non-lethal weapons include new responsive technologies—like lasers, kinetic and acoustic devices. Examples of non-lethal weapons are counter-personnel and radio-frequency vehicle stopping technologies. The United States Department of Defense's current and future non-lethal weapons programs include active denial, counter-personnel capability that creates a heating sensation, quickly repelling potential adversaries with minimal risk of injury in such missions as force protection, perimeter defense, crowd control, patrols/convoys, defensive and offensive operations.

Report by Pethanaraja Subramanian

Pethanaraja Subramanian

REPORT ON WEAPONS