Topic Explorer

The Topic Explorer uses the same search and topic filters for all of the different resources on this site. It is meant to allow easy cross-examination of different issues.

Topics

1940s (29) 1950s (32) 1960s (43) 1970s (21) 1980s (17) 1990s (8) 2000s (5) 2010s (24) Bush, George W. (1) Carter, James (6) Chain of command (15) Civilian-military divide (22) Clinton, William J. (2) Congress (21) Congressional Research Service (4) Constitutionality (6) Custody (22) Cybersecurity (3) Directives (6) Doctrine (20) Early warning systems (17) Eisenhower, Dwight D. (20) Ford, Gerald R. (2) France (12) India (11) Israel (7) Johnson, Lyndon B. (11) Kennedy, John F. (24) Law of war (9) Missiles (6) NATO (21) News Media (18) Nixon, Richard M. (11) Non-Use (8) North Korea (10) Nuclear accidents (17) Nuclear football (17) Nuclear launch procedure (32) Nuclear safety (34) Nuclear war plans (31) Obama, Barack (8) Oral history (1) Overseas deployment (19) Pakistan (17) People's Republic of China (15) Permissive Action Links (23) Predelegation (17) Presidential nuclear control (57) RAND Corporation (4) Reagan, Ronald (8) Remedies (5) Russian Federation (16) South Africa (1) Soviet Union (23) Succession (3) Truman, Harry S. (21) Trump, Donald J. (18) Two-man rule (9) United Kingdom (19) United States of America (126) US Air Force (21) US Atomic Energy Commission (15) US Department of Defense (28) US Department of Energy (5) US Joint Chiefs of Staff (17) US National Security Council (7) US Secretary of Defense (11) US Strategic Air Command (15) US Strategic Command (15) World War II (8)

Primers

Two-man rule: A regulation that requires at least two people to be present at many stages of nuclear weapons operations and maintenance.

Documents

Date ▲	Title	File
1958-10-15	Ikle (RAND), "On the Risk of an Accidental or Unauthorized Nuclear Detonation"	URL
1963-03-22	NSA, Assignment of Highest National Priority to Project PAL (Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO)	PDF
1963-05-29	NSA, Secret Memorandum from Jerome Bert Wiesner, Science Adviser to President Kennedy	PDF
1963-08-10	NSA, Permissive Link for Minuteman	PDF
1963-11-13	NSA, National Security Action Memorandum No. 272	PDF
1964-07-22	DDRS, Letter to McGeorge Bundy from the Deputy Secretary of Defense regarding the modified installation of permissive action link (PAL) devices on various weapons systems.	PDF
1964-12-01	DDRS, Briefing to the Gilpatric Committee by William J. Howard	PDF
1975	NSA, Categories of DOE designed PAL systems	PDF
1975-06	IDA, "The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning, 1945-1972"	PDF
1975-12-01	CRS, "Authority to order the use of nuclear weapons"	PDF
1987-08-21	National Security Decision Directive 281	PDF
1987-08-21	Reagan- U.S. Command and Control Directive	PDF
1998-06-08	The History of Nuclear Weapon Safety Devices	PDF
2010-04-06	2010 Nuclear Posture Review	PDF
2010-04-08	New START	PDF
2013-04-23	USAF, Air Force Instruction 91-104 (Two-Person Concept)	PDF
2015-05-19	USAF, Annex 3-72 Nuclear Operations	PDF
2017-11-14	DOD Instruction 5210.42: DOD Nuclear Weapons Personnel Reliability Assurance	PDF

Bibliographies

Abrams, Herbert L. "Human Reliability and Safety in the Handling of Nuclear Weapons." Science & Global Security 2 (1991): 325-34.

Ambinder, Marc. "Failure Shuts Down Squadron of Nuclear Missiles." The Atlantic. October 26, 2010. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/.

Blair, Bruce G. The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993.

Conley, Jerome M. "Nuclear Command and Control in the Twenty-First Century: Trends, Disparities, and the Impact on Stability." In Debating 21st Century Nuclear Issues, edited by Owen Price and Jenifer Mackby, 226-250. Washington, D.C.: Center for International and Strategic Studies, 2007. https://www.csis.org/analysis/debating-21st-century-nuclear-issues.

Curry, Dan. Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control & Survivability. Documentary. Sandia National Laboratories, 2010.

Ellsberg, Daniel. The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017.

Feaver, Peter D. "Command and Control in Emerging Nuclear Nations." International Security 17, no. 3 (Winter 1992/93): 160-187.

Feiveson, Harold A (ed). The Nuclear Turning Point: A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-Alerting of Nuclear Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999.

Futter, Andrew. "The double-edged sword: US nuclear command and control modernization." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. June 29, 2016. https://thebulletin.org/2016/06/the-double-edged-sword-us-nuclear-command-and-control-modernization/.

Futter, Andrew. Hacking the Bomb: Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2018.

Giles, Gregory F. "Safeguarding the Undeclared Nuclear Arsenals." The Washington Quarterly 16, no. 2 (spring 1993): 173-186. https://doi.org/10.1080/01636609309443403.

Lavoy, Peter R., Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz (eds). Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.

Podvig, Pavel. "Risks of Nuclear Command and Control Accidents." In Understanding Nuclear Risks, edited by John Borrie, Tim Caughley, and Wilfred Wan, 53-59. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), 2017. http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/understanding-nuclear-weapon-risks-en-676.pdf.

Schlosser, Eric. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013.

Smith, Alice K. A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America: 1945-47. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.