Attacks on Nuclear Reactors
The Implications of Israel’s Strike on Osiraq
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10375692 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bennett Ramberg (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 97 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 653-669 |
| Publication date | 1982-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Science Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0032-3195 • E-ISSN: 1538-165X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2149782 |
| OpenAlex | W2334269861 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Israel's surprise attack in Iraq's Osiraq nuclear research center shattered the world's atomic agenda in unforeseen and potentially dangerous ways. Until then, few observers had imagined that a nation might try to stop the spread of nuclear weapons by bombing an adversary's reactors, but the June 1981 raid set such a precedent. Whether Israel was right to have launched its strike against Iraq is in some ways irrelevant. The fact remains that the vulnerability of nuclear facilities to military destruction is itself a new and volatile element in world politics. Such vulnerability is significant because of the nature of the target. Installations with large radioactive inventories that can be released into the environment are themselves potential weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately, the world was spared this radiation specter in the Israeli attack because Iraq's facility was not yet fueled, and even if it had been in operation, contamination resulting from destruction might not have been significant given the small size of the plant. ' Had the destroyed installation been a nuclear power
Adversary · Business · Computer security · International trade · Nuclear engineering · Nuclear ethics · Nuclear physics · Nuclear power · Nuclear weapon · Physics · Political science · Politics · Shut down · Sociology · Surprise · Vulnerability (computing · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Nuclear Issues and Defense
| Citations per year | 0.1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1995 - 1998 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |