Word: nrc
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...band of pre-eminent scientists and war-fighters has concluded that the nation's military might isn't powerful enough for the 21st Century; and so the National Research Council (NRC), an independent, congressionally-chartered body charged with assessing scientific issues, is urging the Pentagon and Congress to get cracking on developing a weapon capable of hitting any target in the world within an hour of being launched...
...NRC's Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability believes that there are threats (like nuclear terrorism) that the Pentagon's fleets of attack planes and missiles cannot handle and which have to be stopped with the immediacy of the push of a button by a future U.S. President. It's not quite a "death ray" but it's the closest existing technology can get to that fantasy weapon. Still, skeptics roll their eyes and say that the report's authors are like a bunch of junior high school boys who have seen all the James Bond movies and believe...
...capability. Unfortunately, it's nuclear, which renders it worthless for anything but Armageddon. But for about $1 billion, over the next three years, the nation could convert some Trident missiles - now limited to carrying nuclear warheads in their submarine launchers - to non-nuclear weapons. The plan favored by the NRC panel would replace two of the 24 nuclear missiles on each of the Navy's 12 Trident subs with conventional-armed missiles...
...years, Congress has blocked Bush Administration plans to develop such a weapon. Lawmakers are concerned that Russia, and soon China, might mistake the launch of a conventionally-armed Trident with the start of a nuclear war against them - and respond in kind before realizing they were mistaken. The NRC panel dismissed this concern, saying various steps - including informing Moscow and Beijing of conventional launches - could be taken to minimize such an error...
...subtle study, dealing in moods, not discourse. It is, after all, titled In Europe, not On Europe, and throughout, it is more interested in images and events than ideas. Mak spent 1999 criss-crossing the Continent in a rattling blue camper van, sending dispatches to the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad. These reports, collected here, create a journey through the last century, with Mak breaking up what is essentially traditional, narrative history with short, contemporary portraits of historical settings. So Mak settles down to write about World War I from a farm in Ypres. He tells us about Hitler's disastrous...