The only other candidate as a nuclear explosive, enriched uranium, was (and remains) difficult to manufacture.
All of this helps to ensure that the nation will never have to return to nuclear explosive testing.
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"The application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the agency, " the report says.
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Since 1992, in the place of testing, the United States has relied for "stockpile stewardship" on a host of computer-modeling, other simulation techniques and non-nuclear explosive tests that have provided insights into the performance of an aging arsenal.
We also intend to mitigate the impact of binational disasters on communities by establishing procedures to manage land and maritime traffic in the event of a border area emergency, and enhance our collective preparedness for security threats of all types -- health, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive.
Still more dangerously, by treating nuclear weapons as just another explosive in the arsenal, rather than as a deterrent weapon of last resort, America would dangerously blur the line against nuclear use by anyone.
But there are two serious questions that worry genuine doubters: can America's nuclear weapons be kept safe and effective without explosive tests, and can the promise of a comprehensive test ban be comprehensively verified?
His decision to ban all nuclear tests would preclude the U.S. from conducting even extremely low-yield tests (for example, those that produce as little of a blast as the equivalent of four pounds of high explosive) as part of the nuclear stockpile stewardship program.
Ratification would effectively preclude the United States from ever validating its nuclear arsenal via the only tried-and-true means: actual explosive detonations.
By contrast, the first nuclear bomb tested by the U.S. in 1945 had an explosive force of about 18 to 20 kilotons.
By contrast, the first nuclear bomb tested by the U.S. in 1945 had an explosive force of approximately 18 to 20 kilotons.
Investors had been further spooked by an explosive bubble in the uranium market, the metal used to fuel nuclear reactors.
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