Fall In, Fallout: When the US Military (Almost) Brought Radiological Weapons to the Battlefield
Al Mauroni | September 22, 2020
Reid Kirby, Radiological Weapons: America’s Cold War Experience (2020)
When the United Nations crafted the first definition of weapons of mass destruction in 1948, it included “atomic explosive weapons, radio-active material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above.†This definition always confused me in that I had never heard of any nation developing radioactive material weapons. In fact, my readings on arms control confirmed that the United States and Soviet Union were never really worried about that class of unconventional weapons to the point of trying to regulate them through any bilateral or global agreement. I probably should have known better than to believe that someone in the US military had not at least thought about this issue, and Reid Kirby has now written a short book confirming that suspicion.
https://mwi.usma.edu/fall-in-fallout-when-the-us-military-almost-brought-radiological-weapons-to-the-battlefield/
