Radiological Weapons Control: A Soviet and US Perspective. Occasional Paper 29.

Two international diplomats from the Soviet Union and the United States focus on the need for a treaty to ban the use of radiological weapons. Radiological weapons are those based on the natural decay of nuclear material such as waste from military or civilian nuclear reactors. Such devices include both weapons and equipment, other than a nuclear explosive, designed to cause destruction or injury by dissemination of radioactive material. They are generally considered one of many so-called "weapons of mass destruction." As yet undeveloped, radiological weapons have been the subject of investigation both in the Soviet Union and in the United States and could conceivably be perfected for military use in the future. It was with this possibility in mind that the United States and the Soviet Union proposed in 1979 a joint draft of a Radiological Weapons Treaty to the Geneva-based Committee on Disarmament. A Radiological Weapons Treaty would be a modest achievement at best. However, under the current circumstances of heightened cold war rhetoric and mushrooming military budgets of the two superpowers even a modest agreement to ban a potentially highly destructive new weapons system assumes an added significance. It suggests the two major nuclear-weapon states have concluded that arms limitation progress must proceed and that more substantive agreements may be possible in the future. (Author/RM)