query: Dennis Quaid refused to ever be an actor.

pos: Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid ( born April 9 , 1954 ) is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles . First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s , his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder . Some of his notable credits include Breaking Away , The Right Stuff , Wyatt Earp , The Rookie , The Day After Tomorrow , Traffic , Vantage Point , Footloose , Frequency , The Parent Trap , Yours , Mine & Ours and Soul Surfer . For his role in Far from Heaven ( 2002 ) he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor and several other accolades .

neg: The NeverEnding Story (film) The NeverEnding Story is a 1984 American epic fantasy film based on the novel of the same name by Michael Ende , about a boy who reads a magical book that tells a story of a young warrior whose task is to stop a dark storm called the Nothing from engulfing a fantasy world . The film was produced by Bernd Eichinger and Dieter Giessler and directed and co-written by Wolfgang Petersen ( his first English-language film ) and starred Noah Hathaway , Barret Oliver , Tami Stronach , Patricia Hayes , Sydney Bromley , Gerald McRaney , Moses Gunn , and Alan Oppenheimer as the voices of both Falkor and Gmork ( as well as other characters ) . At the time of its release , it was the most expensive film produced outside the United States or the Soviet Union . The film was the first in The NeverEnding Story film series and later followed by two sequels .   Ende felt that this adaptation 's content deviated so far from the spirit of his book that he requested that production either be halted or the film 's title be changed ; when the producers did neither , he sued them and subsequently lost the case . Ende called the film a `` gigantic melodrama of kitsch , commerce , plush and plastic '' -LSB- Ein `` gigantisches Melodram aus Kitsch , Kommerz , Plüsch und Plastik '' -RSB- . The film only adapts the first half of the book , and consequently does not convey the message of the title as it was portrayed in the novel . The second half of the book would subsequently be used as the rough basis for the second film , The Next Chapter . The third film , Escape from Fantasia , features a completely original plot .

neg: Hugh Grant Hugh John Mungo Grant ( born 9 September 1960 ) is an English actor and film producer . Grant has received a Golden Globe , a BAFTA , and an Honorary César for his work . His films have earned more than US$ 2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide . Grant first received attention after earning the Volpi Cup for his performance in James Ivory 's Maurice ( 1987 ) but achieved international success after appearing in the Richard Curtis-scripted Four Weddings and a Funeral ( 1994 ) . Grant used this breakthrough role as a frequent cinematic persona during the 1990s , delivering comic performances in films such as Mickey Blue Eyes ( 1999 ) and Notting Hill ( 1999 ) . One of the best known figures in 1990s British popular culture , Grant was in a high-profile relationship with Elizabeth Hurley , which was the focus of much attention in the British and international media .   By the turn of the 21st century , Grant had established himself as a leading man , skilled with a satirical comic talent . Grant has expanded his oeuvre with critically acclaimed turns as a cad in Bridget Jones 's Diary ( 2001 ) , About a Boy ( 2002 ) , and American Dreamz ( 2006 ) . Grant later played against type with multiple cameo roles in the epic sci-fi drama film , Cloud Atlas ( 2012 ) . He 's also known for appearing in period pieces such as The Remains of the Day ( 1993 ) , Sense and Sensibility ( 1995 ) and Florence Foster Jenkins ( 2016 ) .   Within the film industry , Grant is cited as an anti-star who approaches his roles like a character actor , and attempts to make his acting appear spontaneous . Hallmarks of his comic skills include a nonchalant touch of irony/sarcasm and studied physical mannerisms , as well as his precisely-timed dialogue delivery and facial expressions . The entertainment media 's coverage of Grant 's life off the big screen has often overshadowed his work as an actor . Grant has been outspoken about his antipathy towards the profession of acting , and in his disdain towards the culture of celebrity and hostility towards the media . In a career spanning 30 years , Grant has repeatedly claimed that acting was not his true calling , but rather a career that unintentionally developed by happenstance .

neg: Herbert Marshall Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall ( 23 May 1890 -- 22 January 1966 ) was an English stage , screen and radio actor who , in spite of losing a leg during the First World War , starred in many popular and well-regarded Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s . After a successful theatrical career in the United Kingdom and North America , he became an in-demand Hollywood leading man , frequently appearing in romantic melodramas and occasional comedies . In his later years , he turned to character acting .   The son of actors , Marshall is best remembered for roles in Ernst Lubitsch 's Trouble in Paradise ( 1932 ) , Alfred Hitchcock 's Murder ! ( 1930 ) and Foreign Correspondent ( 1940 ) , William Wyler 's The Letter ( 1940 ) and The Little Foxes ( 1941 ) , Albert Lewin 's The Moon and Sixpence ( 1942 ) , Edmund Goulding 's The Razor 's Edge ( 1946 ) , and Kurt Neumann 's The Fly ( 1958 ) . He appeared onscreen with many of the most prominent leading ladies of Hollywood 's Golden Age , including Greta Garbo , Marlene Dietrich and Bette Davis .   From 1944 to 1952 , Marshall starred in his own radio series , The Man Called ` X ' . Often praised for the quality of his voice , he made numerous radio guest appearances and hosted several shows . He performed on television as well . The actor , known for his charm , married five times and periodically appeared in gossip columns because of his sometimes turbulent private life . During the Second World War , he worked on the rehabilitation of injured troops , especially aiding amputees like himself . Marshall received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 .

neg: Golden Boot Awards The Golden Boot Awards is an American acknowledgment of achievement honoring actors , actresses , and crew members who have made significant contributions to the genre of Western television and movies . The award is sponsored and presented by the Motion Picture & Television Fund . Money raised at the award banquet is used to help finance various services offered by the Fund to those in the entertainment industry .   Actor Pat Buttram conceived the idea of the Golden Boot Award , and the first ones were presented in 1983 . The awards appear to have been discontinued since 2007 .

neg: Nigel Humphreys Nigel Humphreys ( born 1951 in Bognor Regis , Sussex ) is a British actor who is best known for his television work .   His most prominent roles include Dickie Fleming in Coronation Street and PC Pete Dodds in Softly , Softly : Taskforce .   Other television credits include : Dixon of Dock Green , Z-Cars , The Expert , Warship , The Sweeney , Blake 's 7 , The Professionals , Minder , The Gentle Touch , Doctor Who ( in the serial Warriors of the Deep ) , All in Good Faith , Pulaski , No Job for a Lady , The Bill and Birds of a Feather . His film credits include Danny Jones ( 1972 ) , Joseph Andrews ( 1977 ) , Scum ( 1979 ) , The Great Riviera Bank Robbery ( 1979 ) , The Long Good Friday ( 1980 ) , Breaking Glass ( 1980 ) , Who Dares Wins ( 1982 ) and Lamb ( 1985 ) .

neg: Roger Allam Roger William Allam ( born 26 October 1953 ) is an English actor , known primarily for his stage career , although he has performed in film , television and radio .   He has played Inspector Javert in the original London production of the stage musical Les Misérables , Douglas Richardson in the award-winning radio series Cabin Pressure , and DI Fred Thursday in the TV series Endeavour . He is also known for his roles as Illyrio Mopatis in the HBO series Game of Thrones and as Peter Mannion MP in The Thick Of It .

neg: Hollywood blacklist The Hollywood blacklist -- as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known -- was the practice of denying employment to screenwriters , actors , directors , musicians , and other American entertainment professionals during the mid-20th century because they were accused of having Communist ties or sympathies . Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy with the Communist Party USA or refusal to assist investigations into the party 's activities . Even during the period of its strictest enforcement , the late 1940s through the late 1950s , the blacklist was rarely made explicit or verifiable , but it directly damaged the careers of scores of individuals working in the film industry .   The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25 , 1947 , the day after ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee . A group of studio executives , acting under the aegis of the Association of Motion Picture Producers , fired the artists -- the so-called Hollywood Ten -- and made what has become known as the Waldorf Statement .   On June 22 , 1950 , a pamphlet entitled Red Channels was published . Focused on the field of broadcasting , it identified 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of `` Red Fascists and their sympathizers . '' Soon , most of those named , along with a host of other artists , were barred from employment in most of the entertainment field .   The blacklist lasted until 1960 , when Dalton Trumbo , a Communist Party member from 1943 to 1948  and member of the Hollywood Ten , was credited as the screenwriter of the highly successful film Exodus , and later publicly acknowledged by actor Kirk Douglas for writing the screenplay for the movie Spartacus . A number of those blacklisted , however , were still barred from work in their professions for years afterward .

neg: Undercover (1983 film) Undercover is a 1983 Australian film .   It was based on an original idea by Miranda Downes , who wanted to make a film based on Australian underwear manufacturer Fred Burley . David Stevens was attracted to the movie because it gave him the chance to make a movie that was fun and glamorous , which said something about Australia .   The investors insisted on an American actor in the cast . Dennis Quaid was originally meant to play the American lead but his involvement was objected to by Actors Equity . Equity did not like Stevens ' second choice for the role but approved his third , Michael Pare .

neg: The Damned United The Damned United is a 2009 British biographical sports drama film directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace 's bestselling novel The Damned Utd , a largely fictional book based on the author 's interpretation of Brian Clough 's ill-fated tenure as football manager of Leeds United in 1974 . It was produced by BBC Films and Left Bank Pictures with additional funding from Screen Yorkshire and Columbia Pictures . Sony Pictures Entertainment distributed the film .   The film was originally proposed by Stephen Frears but he pulled out of the project in November 2007 . Hooper took his place and film was shot from May to July 2008 . The film marks the fifth collaboration between screenwriter Peter Morgan and actor Michael Sheen who plays Clough . The film was released in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2009 and in North America on 25 September . The film grossed $ 4.1 million worldwide against a $ 10 million production budget . The film received nominations for the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor , the ALFS Award for British Supporting Actor of the Year , the Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture , Drama and Best Actor in a Supporting Role and the Writers ' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Feature Film Screenplay .

neg: Green Card (film) Green Card is a 1990 romantic comedy film written , produced , directed by Peter Weir and starring Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell . The screenplay focuses on an American woman who enters into a marriage of convenience with a Frenchman so he can obtain a green card and remain in the United States . Depardieu won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor . The film won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture -- Musical or Comedy , and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay .

neg: BAFTA Award for Best Film The BAFTA Award for Best Film is given annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and presented at the British Academy Film Awards . It has been given since the 1st BAFTA Awards , representing the best films of 1947 , but until 1969 it was called the BAFTA Award for Best Film From Any Source . It is possible for films from any country to be nominated , although British films are also recognised in the category BAFTA Award for Best British Film and ( since 1983 ) foreign-language films in BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language . As such , there have been multiple occasions of a film being nominated in two of these categories .   There has been one tie for the Best Film award when , in 1962 , Ballad of a Soldier tied with The Hustler for Best Film from any Source . Until 1981 , the award was given to the director , except in 1976 and 1977 , when it was given to the producers . From 1981 to 1985 , it was given solely to the producers , and then in 1986 , it was shared between the Director and Producer . In 1998 , it was once again given to only the producers .   In the following lists , the titles and names in bold with a dark grey background are the winners and recipients respectively ; those not in bold are the nominees . The years given are those in which the films under consideration were released , not the year of the ceremony , which always takes place the following year .

neg: Robert Stanton (actor) Robert Lloyd Stanton ( born March 8 , 1963 ) is an American film , television and stage actor , director and playwright . He may be best known for his role in the 1993 film Dennis the Menace as Henry Mitchell , the title character 's father .

neg: Worst Episode Ever `` Worst Episode Ever '' is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons ' twelfth season . It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 4 , 2001 . In the episode , Bart and Milhouse are banned from The Android 's Dungeon after stopping Comic Book Guy from buying a box of priceless Star Wars memorabilia for $ 5 . However , when Comic Book Guy suffers a massive heart attack after Tom Savini 's show , he hires Bart and Milhouse as his replacements while he leaves his job to make friends .   `` Worst Episode Ever '' was written by Larry Doyle and directed by Matthew Nastuk . The series ' staff found it hard to make Comic Book Guy seem likable , since he is usually portrayed as sarcastic and unfriendly . The episode features actor and makeup artist Tom Savini as himself . In its original broadcast , the episode was seen by approximately 10 million viewers , finishing in 27th place in the ratings the week it aired . Since its broadcast , the episode received positive reviews from critics , and Hank Azaria won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his performance as Comic Book Guy in the episode .

neg: FilmAid International FilmAid International is a non-profit humanitarian organization that uses film to educate and entertain displaced people around the world . FilmAid was founded during the Balkan crisis in 1999 by producer Caroline Baron ( Capote , Monsoon Wedding ) to assist with refugee communities in Macedonia suffering the effects of war , poverty , displacement and disaster .  Since 1999 , FilmAid has worked in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR ) and other global aid organizations to help bring information and training to more than two million people worldwide .  FilmAid produces and distributes community-based films on public health and safety issues such as maternal health , HIV , cholera , gender-based violence and conflict resolution .  Using inflatable screens and other ` Mobile Cinema ' units , FilmAid screenings aims to overcome language and literacy boundaries .  FilmAid currently works in Kenya , in the large refugee camps of Dadaab and Kakuma as well as informal settlements in Nairobi and Mombassa , with Burmese refugees in Thailand and also in Haiti .  FilmAid is a global federation of nonprofit , charitable organizations . Members include FilmAid International ( the founding organization ) , FilmAid Asia , FilmAid Kenya , and FilmAid U.K.

neg: Aaron Eckhart Aaron Edward Eckhart ( born March 12 , 1968 ) is an American film and stage actor . Born in Cupertino , California , he moved to the UK at age 13 , when his father relocated the family . Several years later , he began his acting career by performing in school plays , before moving to Sydney , Australia for his high school senior year . He left high school without graduating , but earned a diploma through an adult education course , and graduated from Brigham Young University ( BYU ) in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film . For much of the mid-1990s , he lived in New York City as a struggling , unemployed actor .   As an undergraduate at BYU , Eckhart met director and writer Neil LaBute , who cast him in several of his own original plays . Five years later Eckhart made a debut as an unctuous , sociopathic ladies ' man in LaBute 's black comedy film In the Company of Men ( 1997 ) . Under LaBute 's guidance he worked in the director 's films Your Friends & Neighbors ( 1998 ) , Nurse Betty ( 2000 ) , and Possession ( 2002 ) .   Eckhart gained wide recognition as George in Steven Soderbergh 's critically acclaimed film Erin Brockovich ( 2000 ) , and in 2006 received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of Nick Naylor in Thank You for Smoking . Another mainstream breakout occurred in 2008 when he starred in the blockbuster Batman film The Dark Knight as District Attorney Harvey Dent . Other key roles include The Pledge ( 2001 ) , The Core ( 2003 ) , Rabbit Hole ( 2010 ) Battle : Los Angeles ( 2011 ) , Olympus Has Fallen ( 2013 ) , I , Frankenstein ( 2014 ) , Olympus '' ' sequel , London Has Fallen and Sully '' ( both 2016 ) .

neg: Dennis Chun Dennis Chun ( born March 18 , 1952 ) is an American actor , he is the son of actor Kam Fong Chun , and best known for his role as Sgt. Duke Lukela in Hawaii Five-0 .

neg: Everything but the Truth Everything but the Truth is a 1956 film comedy directed by Jerry Hopper . It stars Maureen O'Hara and John Forsythe .

neg: David Yelland (actor) David William Yelland ( born 1947 ) is an English film , stage and television actor .

neg: The Singing Detective The Singing Detective is a BBC television serial drama , written by Dennis Potter , which stars Michael Gambon and was directed by Jon Amiel . The six episodes were `` Skin '' , `` Heat '' , `` Lovely Days '' , `` Clues '' , `` Pitter Patter '' and `` Who Done It '' .   The serial was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC1 in 1986 on Sunday nights from 16 November to 21 December with later PBS and cable television showings in the United States . It won a Peabody Award in 1989 . It ranks 20th on the British Film Institute 's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes , as voted by industry professionals in 2000 . It was included in the 1992 Dennis Potter retrospective at the Museum of Television & Radio and became a permanent addition to the Museum 's collections in New York and Los Angeles . There was co-production funding from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . It was released on DVD in the US on 15 April 2003 and in the UK on 8 March 2004 .

neg: The Deep (unfinished film) The Deep is an unfinished film directed by Orson Welles and based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles Williams , which would later be adapted into the film of the same title . Welles produced and wrote the film , and also played the role of Russ Brewer opposite Jeanne Moreau and Laurence Harvey .   Welles worked on the film from 1966 to 1969 . The film is incomplete ; several major scenes were never shot , and portions of the soundtrack remain unrecorded . The original negative has been lost and the film exists in two work prints , one in black and white and the other in color ( the way the film was intended to be shown ) .


query: The United States was the first country to develop nuclear weapons.

pos: United States The United States of America ( USA ) , commonly known as the United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a constitutional federal republic composed of 50 states , a federal district , five major self-governing territories , and various possessions .  Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico . The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America , bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west . The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean . The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea . Nine time zones are covered . The geography , climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse .   At 3.8 million square miles ( 9.8 million km2 ) and with over 324 million people , the United States is the world 's third - or fourth-largest country by total area , third-largest by land area , and the third-most populous . It is one of the world 's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations , and is home to the world 's largest immigrant population . The capital is Washington , D.C. , and the largest city is New York City ; nine other major metropolitan areas -- each with at least 4.5 million inhabitants and the largest having more than 13 million people -- are Los Angeles , Chicago , Dallas , Houston , Philadelphia , Miami , Atlanta , Boston , and San Francisco .   Paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago . European colonization began in the 16th century . The United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast . Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the Seven Years ' War led to the American Revolution , which began in 1775 . On July 4 , 1776 , during the course of the American Revolutionary War , the colonies unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence . The war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain , representing the first successful war of independence against a European power . The current constitution was adopted in 1788 , after the Articles of Confederation , adopted in 1781 , were felt to have provided inadequate federal powers . The first ten amendments , collectively named the Bill of Rights , were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties .   The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century , displacing Native American tribes , acquiring new territories , and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848 . During the second half of the 19th century , the American Civil War led to the end of legal slavery in the country . By the end of that century , the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean , and its economy , driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution , began to soar . The Spanish -- American War and confirmed the country 's status as a global military power . The United States emerged from as a global superpower , the first country to develop nuclear weapons , the only country to use them in warfare , and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council . The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world 's sole superpower . The U.S. is a founding member of the United Nations , World Bank , International Monetary Fund , Organization of American States ( OAS ) , and other international organizations .   The United States is a highly developed country , with the world 's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP . Though its population is only 4.3 % of the world total , Americans hold nearly 40 % of the total wealth in the world . The United States ranks among the highest in several measures of socioeconomic performance , including average wage , human development , per capita GDP , and productivity per person . While the U.S. economy is considered post-industrial , characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy , the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world . Accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP and a third of global military spending , the United States is the world 's foremost economic and military power . The United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally , and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations .

neg: History of nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons possess enormous destructive power from nuclear fission or combined fission and fusion reactions . Starting with scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s , the United States , the United Kingdom and Canada collaborated during World War II in what was called the Manhattan Project to counter the suspected Nazi German atomic bomb project . In August 1945 , two fission bombs were dropped on Japan , and stands to date as the only use of nuclear weapons in combat . The Soviet Union started development shortly thereafter with their own atomic bomb project , and not long after that both countries developed even more powerful fusion weapons known as `` hydrogen bombs '' .

neg: Cash and carry (World War II) Cash and carry was a policy requested by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a special session of the United States Congress on September 21 , 1939 , subsequent to the outbreak of war in Europe . It replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1936 . The revision allowed the sale of materiel to belligerents , as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash , assuming all risk in transportation . However , the sale of war materials was not allowed .   Though `` Cash and Carry '' concepts had been introduced in the Neutrality Act of 1936 , it only pertained to materials that could not be used in war efforts , which allowed them to aid warring countries . Originally presented to Congress by Senator Key Pittman ( D-NV ) earlier in 1939 , the bill was designed to replace the Neutrality Act of 1937 , which had lapsed in May 1939 . The bill had been defeated repeatedly by the Senate and the House on more than one occasion as Isolationists feared that passing the bill would draw the US into the conflict in Europe . However , President Roosevelt felt that further help was needed in Europe after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 . The bill passed in late October , gaining approval from the House on November 5 , 1939 . The President gave his signature the same day .   The purpose of this policy was to maintain neutrality between the United States and European countries while giving aid to Britain by allowing them to buy non war materials . Various policies , such as the Neutrality Acts of 1935 , 1936 , and 1937 , forbade selling implements of war or lending money to belligerent countries under any terms . The U.S. economy was rebounding at this time , following the Great Depression , but there was still a need for industrial manufacturing jobs . The cash and carry program helped to solve this issue and in turn Great Britain benefited from the purchase goods .   This program also prevented US businesses interests backing the success or failure of any warring nation . Because of the conclusion of the Nye Committee , which asserted that United States involvement in World War I was driven by private interests from arms manufacturers , many Americans believed that investment in a belligerent would eventually lead to American participation in war .   U.S. shipping interests were forbidden from entering into conflict zones and US passengers traveling on foreign ships did so at their own risk .   The `` cash and carry '' legislation enacted in 1939 effectively ended the arms embargo that had been in place since the Neutrality Act of 1936 . It paved the way for Lend-Lease .

neg: Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons ( intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles ) . The system , which was to combine ground-based units and orbital deployment platforms , was first publicly announced by President Ronald Reagan on March 23 , 1983 . The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction ( MAD ) . The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization ( SDIO ) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative .   Reagan was a vocal critic of MAD doctrine . SDI was an important part of his defense policy intended to end MAD as a nuclear deterrence strategy , as well as a strategic initiative to neutralize the military component of the Soviet Union 's nuclear defenses .   The ambitious initiative was criticized for allegedly threatening to destabilize the MAD-approach and to possibly re-ignite `` an offensive arms race '' . SDI was nicknamed largely in the mainstream media as `` Star Wars '' , after the popular 1977 film by George Lucas . In 1987 , the American Physical Society concluded that a global shield such as `` Star Wars '' was extremely ambitious and with existing technology not directly feasible for operational status , and that about ten more years of research was needed to learn about such a comprehensive and complex system to set up and make it fully operational .   Under the SDIO 's Innovative Sciences and Technology Office , headed by physicist and engineer Dr. James Ionson , the investment was predominantly made in basic research at national laboratories , universities , and in industry ; these programs have continued to be key sources of funding for top research scientists in the fields of high-energy physics , supercomputing/computation , advanced materials , and many other critical science and engineering disciplines -- funding which indirectly supports other research work by top scientists , and which was most politically viable to fund within the budget environment .   Laser research funded by the SDI office was disclosed at laser conferences that also included panel discussions on the subject with the participation of James Ionson , Edward Teller , and other prominent advocates of SDI .   During the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993 , the SDIO 's name was changed to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization ( BMDO ) and its focus shifted from national missile defense to theater missile defense ; and its scope from global to more regional coverage . It was never truly developed or deployed , though certain aspects of SDI research and technologies paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today . BMDO was renamed to the Missile Defense Agency in 2002 . This article covers defense efforts under the SDIO .   Today , the United States holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through years of extensive research and testing . The US and the UK also have both laser weapons and 360 degree laser shields in development , which are expected to be ready for military use as early as 2020 . Many of the obtained technological insights were transferred to subsequent programs and would find use in follow-up programs .

neg: Deadline (science fiction story) `` Deadline '' is a 1944 science fiction short story by American writer Cleve Cartmill , first published in Astounding Science Fiction . The story described the then-secret atomic bomb in some detail . At that time the bomb was still under development and top secret , which prompted a visit by the FBI .   In 1943 , Cartmill suggested to John W. Campbell , the then-editor of Astounding , that he could write a story about a futuristic super-bomb . Campbell liked the idea and supplied Cartmill with considerable background information gleaned from unclassified scientific journals , on the use of Uranium-235 to make a nuclear fission device . The resulting story appeared in the issue of Astounding dated March 1944 , which actually appeared early in February of that year .   By March 8 it had come to the attention of the Counterintelligence Corps , who saw many similarities between the technical details in the story and the research currently being undertaken in great secrecy at Los Alamos . Gregory Benford describes the incident as told him by Edward Teller in his autobiographical essay `` Old Legends '' :   Coming three years later in the same magazine , Cleve Cartmill 's `` Deadline '' provoked astonishment in the lunch table discussions at Los Alamos . It really did describe isotope separation and the bomb itself in detail , and raised as its principal plot pivot the issue the physicists were then debating among themselves : should the Allies use it ? To the physicists from many countries clustered in the high mountain strangeness of New Mexico , cut off from their familiar sources of humanist learning , it must have seemed particularly striking that Cartmill described an allied effort , a joint responsibility laid upon many nations .  Discussion of Cartmill 's `` Deadline '' was significant . The story 's detail was remarkable , its sentiments even more so . Did this rather obscure story hint at what the American public really thought about such a superweapon , or would think if they only knew ?  Talk attracts attention , Teller recalled a security officer who took a decided interest , making notes , saying little . In retrospect , it was easy to see what a wartime intelligence monitor would make of the physicists ' conversations . Who was this guy Cartmill , anyway ? Where did he get these details ? Who tipped him to the isotope separation problem ? `` and that is why Mr. Campbell received his visitors . ''   Fearing a security breach , the FBI began an investigation into Cartmill , Campbell , and some of their acquaintances ( including Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein ) . It appears that the authorities eventually accepted the explanation that the story 's material had been gleaned from unclassified sources , but as a precautionary measure they requested that Campbell should not publish any further stories about nuclear technology for the remainder of the war .   Campbell , in the meantime , had guessed from the number of Astounding subscribers who had suddenly moved to the Los Alamos area , that the US government probably had some sort of technical or scientific project ongoing there . He declined to volunteer this information to the FBI .

neg: Public opinion on nuclear issues Public opinion on nuclear issues is the aggregate of attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population concerning nuclear power , nuclear weapons and uranium mining .   Surveys about nuclear power use have been conducted internationally for four decades . Surveys originally examined public opinion on building new nuclear power plants . In the U.S. , support has declined over the period from the mid-1970s through 2000 . The Japanese were more supportive of nuclear power expansion during this time .

neg: United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan The United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan is a bilateral agreement aimed at putting in place a framework for the joint research and development of nuclear energy technology . The agreement was signed on April 18 , 2007 . Japan also has agreements with Australia , Canada , China , France , and the United Kingdom and is discussing agreements with other nations .   Under the plan , the United States and Japan will each conduct research into fast reactor technology , fuel cycle technology , advanced computer simulation and modeling , small and medium reactors , safeguards and physical protection , and nuclear waste management . The work is to be coordinated by a joint steering committee .   An initial report on progress was due in April 2008 .

neg: WASH-740 WASH-740 was a report published by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission ( USAEC ) in 1957 . This report , called `` Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants '' ( also known as `` The Brookhaven Report '' ) , estimated maximum possible damage from a meltdown with no containment building at a large nuclear reactor .   The conclusions of this study estimated the possible effects of a `` maximum credible accident '' for nuclear reactors then envisioned as being 3400 deaths , 43,000 injuries and property damage of $ 7 billion ( $ 57bn adjusted for inflation in 2012 since 1957 ) . The estimate of probability was one in a hundred thousand to one in a billion per reactor-year . When WASH-740 was revised in 1964-65 to account for the larger reactors then being designed , the new figures indicated that there could be as many as 45,000 deaths , 100,000 injuries , and $ 17 billion in property damage ( $ 125bn adjusted for inflation since 1964 ) .   However ; the assumptions underlying the results were unrealistic ( including the worst meteorological conditions , no containment building , and that half the reactor core is released into the atmosphere as micrometre-sized pellets without any examination of how this might occur ) . These were due to conservatism ( estimating the maximum possible damage ) and the need to use atomic bomb fallout data , which had been collected from tests ( computers in 1955 being greatly insufficient to do the calculations ) .   As knowledge , models and computers improved the conclusions of this report were replaced by those of first WASH-1400 ( 1975 , The Rasmussen Report ) , then CRAC-II ( 1982 ) , and most recently NUREG-1150 ( 1991 ) . Now all of these studies are considered obsolete ( see the disclaimer to NUREG-1150 ) , and are being replaced by the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses study .

neg: We begin bombing in five minutes On August 11 , 1984 , United States President Ronald Reagan , while running for re-election , was preparing to make his weekly Saturday radio address on National Public Radio . During a sound check before the address , Reagan made the following joke to the radio technicians : `` My fellow Americans , I 'm pleased to tell you today that I 've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever . We begin bombing in five minutes . '' The joke was a parody of the opening line of that day 's speech : `` My fellow Americans , I 'm pleased to tell you that today I signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they 've too long been denied -- the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours , just as other student groups are allowed to do . ''   Contrary to popular misconception , this microphone gaffe was not broadcast over the air , but rather leaked later to the general populace . But the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported in October 1984 that the Soviet Far East Army was placed on alert after word of the statement got out and that the alert was not withdrawn until 30 minutes later . An unnamed aide to US Representative Michael Barnes ( D-Md . ) confirmed that the Pentagon was aware of the alert . There was no report of any change in the DEFCON level for the United States . The Soviet reaction , and mild confusion it created , was covered by NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw .   This was not the first time Reagan had joked before giving a speech or address . The Soviet official news agency , TASS , condemned the joke , declaring that `` The USSR condemns this unprecedented and hostile attack by the US President '' and that `` this kind of behavior is incompatible with the great responsibility borne by heads of nuclear states for the destinies of their own people and mankind '' .

neg: Axis of evil The term axis of evil was used by U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 29 , 2002 , and often repeated throughout his presidency , to describe governments that his administration accused of sponsoring terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction . Iran , Iraq , and North Korea were portrayed by Bush during the State of the Union as building nuclear weapons . The notion of such an axis was used to pinpoint these common enemies of the United States and rally the American populace in support of the War on Terror .

neg: Mark 21 nuclear bomb The Mark 21 nuclear bomb was a United States nuclear gravity bomb first produced in 1955 . It was based on the TX-21 `` Shrimp '' prototype that had been detonated during the Castle Bravo test in March 1954 . While most of the Operation Castle tests were intended to evaluate weapons intended for immediate stockpile , or which were already available for use as part of the Emergency Capability Program , Castle Bravo was intended to test a design which would drastically reduce the size and costs of the first generation of air-droppable atomic weapons ( the Mk 14 , Mk 17 & Mk 24 ) . At 12 ft long , 56 in in diameter , and weighing 15000 lb , the Mk-21 was half the length and one-third the weight of the Mk-17 / 24 weapons it replaced . Its minimum yield was specified at four megatons .   Quantity production of the Mk-21 started in December 1955 and ran until July 1956 . Three marks were produced ; the Mk-21C was proof tested as the Operation Redwing Navajo shot , with a yield of 4.5 megatons . Starting in June 1957 all Mk-21 bombs were converted to the more powerful Mk-36 , which was removed from service in 1962 .

neg: National security National Security is a concept that a government , along with its parliaments , should protect the state and its citizens against all kind of `` national '' crises through a variety of power projections , such as political power , diplomacy , economic power , military might , and so on .   The concept developed all in the United States after World War II . Initially focusing on military might , it now encompasses a broad range of facets , all of which impinge on the non-military or economic security of the nation and the values espoused by the national society . Accordingly , in order to possess national security , a nation needs to possess economic security , energy security , environmental security , etc. . Security threats involve not only conventional foes such as other nation-states but also non-state actors such as violent non-state actors , narcotic cartels , multinational corporations and non-governmental organisations ; some authorities include natural disasters and events causing severe environmental damage in this category .   Measures taken to ensure national security include :  using diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats  marshalling economic power to facilitate or compel cooperation  maintaining effective armed forces  implementing civil defense and emergency preparedness measures ( including anti-terrorism legislation )  ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure  using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage , and to protect classified information  using counterintelligence services or secret police to protect the nation from internal threats   There is no single universally accepted definition of national security . The variety of definitions provide an overview of the many usages of this concept . The concept still remains ambiguous , having originated from simpler definitions which initially emphasised the freedom from military threat and political coercion to later increase in sophistication and include other forms of non-military security as suited the circumstances of the time .   A typical dictionary definition , in this case from the Macmillan Dictionary ( online version ) , defines the term as `` the protection or the safety of a country 's secrets and its citizens '' emphasising the overall security of a nation and a nation state . Walter Lippmann , in 1943 , defined it in terms of war saying that `` a nation has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate ínterests to avoid war , and is able , if challenged , to maintain them by war '' . A later definition by Harold Lasswell , a political scientist , in 1950 , looks at national security from almost the same aspect , that of external coercion : `` The distinctive meaning of national security means freedom from foreign dictation . ''   In 1960 , Arnold Wolfers , while recognising the need to segregate the subjectivity of the conceptual idea from the objectivity , talks of threats to acquired values : `` An ambiguous symbol meaning different things to different people . National security objectively means the absence of threats to acquired values and subjectively , the absence of fear that such values will be attacked . '' The 1996 definition propagated by the National Defence College of India accretes the elements of national power : `` National security is an appropriate and aggressive blend of political resilience and maturity , human resources , economic structure and capacity , technological competence , industrial base and availability of natural resources and finally the military might . ''   Harold Brown , U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981 in the Carter administration , enlarged the definition of national security by including elements such as economic and environmental security : National security then is the ability to preserve the nation 's physical integrity and territory ; to maintain its economic relations with the rest of the world on reasonable terms ; to preserve its nature , institution , and governance from disruption from outside ; and to control its borders.In 1990 , Harvard University history professor Charles Maier defined national security through the lens of national power : `` National security ... is best described as a capacity to control those domestic and foreign conditions that the public opinion of a given community believes necessary to enjoy its own self-determination or autonomy , prosperity and wellbeing . '' According to Prabhakaran Paleri , author of National Security , Imperatives and Challenges , national security may be defined as : The measurable state of the capability of a nation to overcome the multi-dimensional threats to the apparent well-being of its people and its survival as a nation-state at any given time , by balancing all instruments of state policy through governance , that can be indexed by computation , empirically or otherwise , and is extendable to global security by variables external to it .  A concise working definition by Premaratne that paraphrases the aspects of the definitions of Brown , Romm and Paleri defines national security as  Safeguarding the sovereignty , territorial integrity , citizenry and socioeconomic functionality of a nation from an aggressor intent on undermining a particular valued aspect of a nation through violent or unjust means

neg: 1953 Soviet nuclear tests The Soviet Union 's 1953 nuclear test series was a group of 5 nuclear tests conducted in 1953 . These tests followed the 1949-51 Soviet nuclear tests series and preceded the 1954 Soviet nuclear tests series .   -RCB- 279 m + 30 m  | air drop , weapons development  | RDS-6s  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  | aka RDS-6s . First thermonuclear explosion . Used `` sloika '' Layer-cake method , where primary is wrapped in shells of lithium and tamper . It worked , but could not be scaled up to megaton yields .  | -  ! 5 Tatyana ( Joe 5 )  | 02:00 : ??  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 289 m + 600 m  | air drop , weapons development  | RDS-4  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  | Test of first production tactical weapon , used on Tu-4 and Tu-16 jets .  | -  ! 6 ( Joe 6 )  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 280 m + 255 m  | air drop , weapons development  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  |  | -  ! 7  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 280 m + 220 m  | air drop , weapons development  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  |  | -  ! 8 ( Joe 7 )  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 280 m + 260 m  | air drop , weapons development  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  |  | -RCB-

neg: Nuclear weapons and Israel Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons and to be the sixth country in the world to have developed them , allegedly having built its first deliverable nuclear weapon in December 1966 based on scientific and industrial cooperation with pre-nuclear France . It is one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) ; the others being India , Pakistan , and North Korea . Israel maintains a policy known as `` nuclear ambiguity '' ( also known as `` nuclear opacity '' ) . Israel has never officially denied nor admitted to having nuclear weapons , instead repeating over the years that it would not be the first country to `` introduce '' nuclear weapons to the Middle East , leaving ambiguity as to whether it means it will not create , will not disclose , will not make first use of the weapons or possibly some other interpretation of the phrase . The `` not be the first '' formulation goes back to the Eshkol-Comer ( sic ) memorandum of understanding made between Israel and the United States on March 10 , 1965 , which contained Israel 's written assurance for the first time that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East . Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite international pressure to do so , and has stated that signing the NPT would be contrary to its national security interests .   Additionally , Israel has made extensive efforts to deny other regional actors the ability to acquire their own nuclear weapons . The counter-proliferation , preventive strike Begin Doctrine added another dimension to Israel 's existing nuclear policy . Israel remains the only country in the Middle East believed to possess them .   Israel started investigating the nuclear field soon after its founding in 1948 and with French support secretly began building the Negev Nuclear Research Center , a facility near Dimona housing a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in the late 1950s . Israel is alleged to have built its first nuclear weapon in December 1966 , but it is not publicly confirmed . In 1986 , Mordechai Vanunu , a former Israeli nuclear technician , provided explicit details and photographs to The Sunday Times of a nuclear weapons program in which he had been employed for nine years , `` including equipment for extracting radioactive material for arms production and laboratory models of thermonuclear devices . '' In 1987 , an unclassified US DoD report ( released in February 2015 in response to a FOIA request ) stated that `` As far as nuclear technology is concerned , the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. -LSB- w -RSB- as in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960 . It should be noted that the Israelis are developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs . ''   Estimates as to the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal vary between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads . It is estimated that the Israel nuclear deterrent force has the ability to deliver them by intermediate-range ballistic missile , intercontinental ballistic missile , aircraft , and submarine-launched cruise missile . The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Israel has approximately 80 intact nuclear weapons , of which 50 are for delivery by Jericho II medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 are gravity bombs for delivery by aircraft . Former U.S. officials Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell have stated that Israel has 200 ( Powell ) or more than 300 ( Carter ) nuclear warheads .

neg: History of the United States The date of the start of the history of the United States is a subject of debate among historians . Older textbooks start with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on October 12 , 1492 and emphasize the European background of the colonization of the Americas , or they start around 1600 and emphasize the American frontier . In recent decades American schools and universities typically have shifted back in time to include more on the colonial period and much more on the prehistory of the Native Americans .   Indigenous people lived in what is now the United States for thousands of years before European colonists began to arrive , mostly from England , after 1600 . The Spanish built small settlements in Florida and the Southwest , and the French along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast . By the 1770s , thirteen British colonies contained two and a half million people along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian Mountains . After the end of the French and Indian Wars in the 1760s , the British government imposed a series of new taxes , rejecting the colonists ' argument that any new taxes had to be approved by them ( see Stamp Act 1765 ) . Tax resistance , especially the Boston Tea Party ( 1773 ) , led to punitive laws ( the Intolerable Acts ) by Parliament designed to end self-government in Massachusetts . American Patriots ( as they called themselves ) adhered to a political ideology called republicanism that emphasized civic duty , virtue , and opposition to corruption , fancy luxuries and aristocracy .   Armed conflict began in 1775 as Patriots drove the royal officials out of every colony and assembled in mass meetings and conventions . In 1776 , the Second Continental Congress declared that there was a new , independent nation , the United States of America , not just a collection of disparate colonies . With large-scale military and financial support from France and the military leadership of General George Washington , the American Patriots won the Revolutionary War . The peace treaty of 1783 gave the new nation the land east of the Mississippi River ( except Florida and Canada ) . The central government established by the Articles of Confederation proved ineffectual at providing stability , as it had no authority to collect taxes and had no executive officer . Congress called a convention to meet secretly in Philadelphia in 1787 . It wrote a new Constitution , which was adopted in 1789 . In 1791 , a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee inalienable rights . With Washington as the first president and Alexander Hamilton his chief political and financial adviser , a strong central government was created . When Thomas Jefferson became president he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France , doubling the size of the United States . A second and final war with Britain was fought in 1812 .   Encouraged by the notion of Manifest Destiny , federal territory expanded all the way to the Pacific . The U.S. always was large in terms of area , but its population was small , only 4 million in 1790 . Population growth was rapid , reaching 7.2 million in 1810 , 32 million in 1860 , 76 million in 1900 , 132 million in 1940 , and 321 million in 2015 . Economic growth in terms of overall GDP was even faster . However , compared to European powers , the nation 's military strength was relatively limited in peacetime before 1940 . The expansion was driven by a quest for inexpensive land for yeoman farmers and slave owners . The expansion of slavery was increasingly controversial and fueled political and constitutional battles , which were resolved by compromises . Slavery was abolished in all states north of the Mason -- Dixon line by 1804 , but the South continued to profit off the institution , producing high-value cotton exports to feed increasing high demand in Europe . The 1860 presidential election of Republican Abraham Lincoln was on a platform of ending the expansion of slavery and putting it on a path to extinction .   Seven cotton-based deep South slave states seceded and later founded the Confederacy four months before Lincoln 's inauguration . No nation ever recognized the Confederacy , but it opened the war by attacking Fort Sumter in 1861 . A surge of nationalist outrage in the North fueled a long , intense American Civil War ( 1861 -- 1865 ) . It was fought largely in the South as the overwhelming material and manpower advantages of the North proved decisive in a long war . The war 's result was restoration of the Union , the impoverishment of the South , and the abolition of slavery . In the Reconstruction era ( 1863 -- 1877 ) , legal and voting rights were extended to the freed slave . The national government emerged much stronger , and because of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 , it gained the explicit duty to protect individual rights . However , when white Democrats regained their power in the South during the 1870s , often by paramilitary suppression of voting , they passed Jim Crow laws to maintain white supremacy , and new disfranchising constitutions that prevented most African Americans and many poor whites from voting , a situation that continued for decades until gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and passage of federal legislation to enforce constitutional rights .   The United States became the world 's leading industrial power at the turn of the 20th century due to an outburst of entrepreneurship in the Northeast and Midwest and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers from Europe . The national railroad network was completed with the work of Chinese immigrants and large-scale mining and factories industrialized the Northeast and Midwest . Mass dissatisfaction with corruption , inefficiency and traditional politics stimulated the Progressive movement , from the 1890s to 1920s , which led to many social and political reforms . In 1920 , the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed women 's suffrage ( right to vote ) . This followed the 16th and 17th amendments in 1913 , which established the first national income tax and direct election of US senators to Congress . Initially neutral during World War I , the US declared war on Germany in 1917 and later funded the Allied victory the following year .   After a prosperous decade in the 1920s , the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset of the decade-long worldwide Great Depression . Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the Republican dominance of the White House and implemented his New Deal programs for relief , recovery , and reform . The New Deal , which defined modern American liberalism , included relief for the unemployed , support for farmers , Social Security and a minimum wage . After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 , 1941 , the United States entered World War II along with Britain , the Soviet Union , China , and the smaller number of Allied nations . The U.S. financed the Allied war effort and helped defeat Nazi Germany in the European theater . Its involvement culminated in using the newly invented nuclear weapons on Japanese cities that helped defeat Imperial Japan in the Pacific theater .   The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers after World War II . During the Cold War , the US and the USSR confronted each other indirectly in the arms race , the Space Race , proxy wars , and propaganda campaigns . US foreign policy during the Cold War was built around the support of Western Europe and Japan along with the policy of containment , stopping the spread of communism . The US joined the wars in Korea and Vietnam to try to stop its spread . In the 1960s , in large part due to the strength of the civil rights movement , another wave of social reforms were enacted by enforcing the constitutional rights of voting and freedom of movement to African-Americans and other racial minorities . Native American activism also rose . The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union officially dissolved in 1991 , leaving the United States as the world 's only superpower .   After the Cold War , the United States focused on international conflicts around the Middle East in response to the Gulf War in the early 1990s . The beginning of the 21st century saw the September 11 attacks by Al-Qaeda in 2001 , which would later followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . In 2008 , the United States had its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression , which has been followed by slower than usual rates of economic growth during the 2010s .

neg: United States Navy in World War II The United States Navy grew rapidly during World War II from 1941 -- 45 , and played the central role in the war against Japan , and ( after the British Royal Navy ) a major role in the European war against Germany and Italy .   The U.S. Navy grew into a formidable force in the years prior to World War II , with battleship production being restarted in 1937 , commencing with the . It was able to add to its fleets during the early years of the war while the US was still neutral , increasing production of vessels both large and small , deploying a navy of nearly 350 major combatant ships by December 1941 and having an equal number under construction .   The Imperial Japanese Navy ( IJN ) sought naval superiority in the Pacific by sinking the main American battle fleet at Pearl Harbor , which was built around its battleships . The December 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor did knock out the battle fleet , but it did not touch the aircraft carriers , which became the mainstay of the rebuilt fleet .   Naval doctrine had to be changed overnight . The United States Navy ( like the IJN ) had followed Alfred Thayer Mahan 's emphasis on concentrated groups of battleships as the main offensive naval weapons . The loss of the battleships at Pearl Harbor forced Admiral Ernest J. King , the head of the Navy , to place primary emphasis on the small number of aircraft carriers .   The U.S. Navy grew tremendously as the United States was faced with a two-front war on the seas . It achieved notable acclaim in the Pacific Theater , where it was instrumental to the Allies ' successful `` island hopping '' campaign . The U.S. Navy fought six great battles with the Imperial Japanese Navy ( IJN ) : the Attack on Pearl Harbor , Battle of the Coral Sea , the Battle of Midway , the Battle of the Philippine Sea , the Battle of Leyte Gulf , and the Battle of Okinawa .   By war 's end in 1945 , the United States Navy had added nearly 1,200 major combatant ships , including 27 aircraft carriers and 8 battleships , and had over 70 % of the world 's total numbers and total tonnage of naval vessels of 1,000 tons or greater .

neg: Middle East nuclear weapon free zone The Middle East nuclear weapon free zone ( MENWFZ ) is a proposed agreement similar to other nuclear-weapon-free zones in other regions . Steps towards the establishment of such a zone began in the 1960s led to a joint declaration by Egypt and Iran in 1974 which resulted in a General Assembly resolution ( broadened in 1990 through the Mubarak Initiative to cover all weapons of mass destruction ) . Following the 1995 NPT Review Conference , the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) held a series of meetings involving experts and academics to consider ways to advance this process .   Such a zone would strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) , would help to promote global nuclear disarmament and would also help the Middle East peace process as substantial confidence-building measures .   The United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 ( the ceasefire ending the Gulf War ) recognizes the goal of establishing the MENWFZ ( para 14 ) .   For the Egyptian government ( until the political changes of 2011 ) , a MENWFZ was seen as a central source of pressure on Israel to relinquish its ambiguous nuclear policy , and to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) . Until the Iranian nuclear program , Israel was believed to be the only Mideast country to have a nuclear deterrence capability , developed in the 1960s . As Avner Cohen , Gerald Steinberg and other experts have noted , Israeli policy has emphasized the link between nuclear demilitarization and a comprehensive peace settlement including Palestinian issues and with countries and potential threats in the region , including Syria and Iran . Israel maintains a veil of `` studied ambiguity '' ( `` amimut '' ) about its nuclear arsenal , and has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty .   Four countries in the Middle East have been found in non-compliance with their IAEA safeguards obligations under the NPT : Iraq , Libya , Iran , and Syria . Of these cases , Iran and Syria remain unresolved .   Following pressure from Egypt and the Arab League , the 2010 NPT Review Conference called for holding a conference on a MENWFZ which would primarily press Israel to end its policy of a ambiguity . Finland planned to host such an event in 2012 . However , no agreement was reached on the agenda and other issues , and the conference was called off in November 2012 .   An international group of concerned citizens , including former members of the Israeli Knesset , responded to the lack of progress in official talks by organizing an International Conference For A WMD-Free Middle East . It was held in Haifa in December 2013 .

neg: History of the United States National Security Council 1953–61 This article is about the history of the United States National Security Council during the Eisenhower Administration , 1953 -- 1961 .   Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower , the National Security Council system evolved into the principal arm of the President in formulating and executing policy on military , international , and internal security affairs . Where Harry S. Truman was uncomfortable with the NSC system and only made regular use of it under the pressure of the Korean War , Eisenhower embraced the NSC concept and created a structured system of integrated policy review . Eisenhower had a penchant for careful staff work , and believed that effective planning involved a creative process of discussion and debate among advisers compelled to work toward consensus recommendations .   The genesis of the new NSC system was a report prepared for the President in March 1953 by Robert Cutler , who became the President 's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs . Cutler proposed a systematic flow of recommendation , decision , and implementation that he later described as the `` policy hill '' process . At the bottom of the hill , concerned agencies such as State and Defense produced draft policy recommendations on specific topics and worked for consensus at the agency level . These draft NSC papers went up the hill through the Planning Board , created to review and refine the recommendations before passing them on for full NSC consideration . The NSC Planning Board met on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and was composed of officials at the Assistant Secretary level from the agencies with permanent or standing representation on the Council , as well as advisers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Central Intelligence Agency . Hundreds of hours were spent by the Board reviewing and reconstructing proposed papers for the NSC . Cutler resigned in 1958 in exhaustion . The top of the foreign policy-making hill was the NSC itself , chaired by the President , which met regularly on Thursday mornings .   The Council consisted of the five statutory members : the President , Vice President , Secretaries of State and Defense , and Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization . Depending on the subject under discussion , as many as a score of other senior Cabinet members and advisers , including the Secretary of the Treasury , the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , and the Director of Central Intelligence , attended and participated . The agenda included regular briefings by the Director of Central Intelligence on worldwide developments affecting U.S. security , and consideration of the policy papers advanced by the Planning Board . The upshot of the discussions were recommendations to the President in the form of NSC Actions . The President , who participated in the discussion , normally endorsed the NSC Action , and the decision went down the hill for implementation to the Operations Coordinating Board .   President Eisenhower created the Operations Coordinating Board ( OCB ) to follow up on all NSC decisions . The OCB met regularly on Wednesday afternoons at the Department of State , and was composed of the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs , Deputy Secretary of Defense , the Directors of the CIA , the United States Information Agency , and ICA , and the Special Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs and Security Operations Coordination . The OCB was the coordinating and implementing arm of the NSC for all aspects of the implementation of national security policy . NSC action papers were assigned to a team from the OCB for follow-up . More than 40 interagency working groups were established with experts for various countries and subjects . This 24-person staff of the OCB supported these working groups in which officials from various agencies met each other for the first time .   The President 's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs , a post held under Eisenhower by Cutler , Dillon Anderson , William Harding Jackson , and finally Gordon Gray , oversaw the flow of recommendations and decisions up and down the policy hill , and functioned in Council meetings to brief the Council and summarize the sense of discussion . The Special Assistant was an essential facilitator of the decision-making system , but , unlike the National Security Adviser created under Kennedy , had no substantive role in the process . The NSC staff managed by the Special Assistant grew during the Eisenhower years , but again had no independent role in the policy process .   President Eisenhower had great confidence in the efficacy of covert operations as a viable supplement or alternative to previous normal foreign policy initiatives . The seeming clear success of the operations to overthrow Iranian populist leader Mossadegeh in 1953 , and overthrow the democratically elected , left-leaning President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in Guatemala in 1954 was not without their crisis moments in the White House . In 1954 NSC 5412 provided for the establishment of a panel of designated representatives of the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense to meet regularly to review and recommend covert operations . Gordon Gray assumed the chairmanship of the `` 5412 Committee '' as it was called , and all succeeding National Security Advisers have chaired similar successor committees , variously named `` 303 '' , `` 40 '' , `` Special Coordinating Committee , '' which , in later Presidential administrations , were charged with the review of CIA covert operations .   President Eisenhower also created the position of staff secretary with the responsibility to screen all foreign policy and military documents coming to the President . While Colonel Andrew Goodpaster held this position , he tended to eclipse the Special Assistant for National Security .   The strength of the NSC system under Eisenhower was that it provided for regular , fully staffed , interagency review of major foreign and national security issues , culminating in discussion and decision at the highest level of government . The resulting Presidentially approved NSC papers provided policy guidance at every level of implementation . Eisenhower felt that the regular policy discussions kept his principal advisers fully informed , in step with one another , and prepared to react knowledgeably in the event of crisis . His commitment to the system was such that he chaired every Council meeting he could attend ( 329 of a total of 366 ) . The NSC meetings , including prior briefings and subsequent review of NSC Actions , constituted the largest single item on his weekly agenda .   Secretary of State John Foster Dulles , on the other hand , had reservations about the NSC system . He was the strongest personality in the Eisenhower Cabinet and jealously guarded his role as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy . He had constant , direct access to the President and did not feel that some of the most sensitive issues should be discussed in groups as large as were involved in most NSC meetings . He drew a sharp line between the NSC policy review process and the day-to-day operations of foreign policy , which he maintained were the province of the Department of State . Dulles and his deputies also were not comfortable with the scope the NSC review system gave to Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey , another strong figure in the Cabinet , to intrude budgetary limitations into policy considerations . Dulles successfully resisted a proposal to substitute the Vice President for the Under Secretary of State as chairman of the OCB , arguing that such a change would impinge on his role as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy .   Critics of the Eisenhower NSC system have argued that it was inflexible , overstaffed , unable to anticipate and react to immediate crises , and weighed down by committees reporting in great detail on long checklists of minor policy concerns . The most thorough critique of the system emerged from the hearings conducted in 1960 ( 1961 by the Senate Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery , known as the Jackson Subcommittee for its chairman , Senator Henry Jackson . Cutler and NSC Executive Secretary James Lay testified in support of the effectiveness of the system , but their testimony was offset by that of former Truman administration officials such as George Kennan , Paul Nitze , and Robert Lovett . They argued that foreign policy was being made by a passive President influenced by a National Security Council rendered virtually useless by ponderous , bureaucratic machinery . Basically , they argued , the NSC was a huge committee , and suffered from all the weaknesses of committees . Composed of representatives of many agencies , its members were not free to adopt the broad , statesmanlike attitude desired by the President , but , rather , were ambassadors of their own departments , clinging to departmental rather than national views . To make matters worse , critics added , the NSC system by its very nature was restricted to continuing and developing already established policies and was incapable of originating new ideas or major innovations . The critics suggested replacement of the formal , `` over-institutionalized '' NSC structure with a smaller , less formal NSC which would offer the President a clear choice of alternatives on a limited number of major problems .   Eisenhower was certainly not a passive President , dominated by his Secretary of State on foreign policy and national security issues . In fact , Eisenhower was actively in command of his administration 's foreign policy , and the established NSC system met his instincts and requirements to the extent he used them . Although there is substance in the criticism that the Eisenhower NSC became to some extent the prisoner of a rigidly bureaucratic process , the criticism misses the point that Eisenhower and Dulles did not attempt to manage fast-breaking foreign policy crises or day-to-day operation through the NSC apparatus . An examination of several of the major foreign policy decisions that confronted the Eisenhower administration reveals that the NSC system was used to manage some , but was essentially bypassed in others . The established NSC process was used when the question involved a policy debate between departments with strongly held , contending positions , as it did in the case of the debate between the Departments of State and Defense in 1956/1957 over whether to introduce a more modern generation of weapons into Korea , where it focused debate and produced the necessary agreed-upon decision after discussion of three draft policy papers .   In fast-breaking crisis situations however , including the concurrent Suez crisis and Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , the first and Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1955 and 1958 , and the 1958 Lebanon crisis , these were typically managed through small meetings with the President in the White House , normally involving Dulles and other concerned advisers , and through telephone conversations between Eisenhower , Dulles , and other principal advisers . Eisenhower sometimes used trusted NSC staffers to serve as an intermediary to gain information outside the chain of command as he did with Colonel Goodpaster during the straits crisis in 1955 . There was great similarity between this process of crisis management and that adopted by subsequent Presidents , such as Kennedy , Johnson , and Nixon , except for the fact that the ad hoc meetings in the Eisenhower White House did not involve a National Security Adviser as a substantive participant . And in the event that aspects of crisis management depended on contact with the critical man-on-the-spot , as it did in 1958 when Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy was dispatched to Lebanon to attempt to defuse the crisis , his instructions came from the Department of State and he reported to the Secretary of State rather than directly to the White House , as became the practice during the height of the Vietnam War .   When Eisenhower briefed President-elect Kennedy on the NSC system , as when Gordon Gray briefed his successor McGeorge Bundy , they both emphasized the importance of the established NSC machinery in the management of foreign policy and national security affairs . They might have been more persuasive in maintaining the system had they pointed to the fact that the NSC apparatus was essentially limited to policy review , but was not used by them to manage foreign policy crises or day-to-day decisions .

neg: List of nuclear weapons This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin , and then by type within the states .

neg: Mutual Defense Assistance Act The Mutual Defense Assistance Act was a United States Act of Congress signed by President Harry S. Truman on 6 October 1949 . For US Foreign policy , it was the first U.S. military foreign aid legislation of the Cold War era , and initially to Europe . The Act followed Truman 's signing of the Economic Cooperation Act ( the Marshall Plan ) , on April 3 , 1948 , which provided non-military , economic reconstruction and development aid to Europe . The Act was reauthorized in 1950 , but in 1951 , it and the Economic Cooperation Act were succeeded by the Mutual Security Act , and its newly created independent agency , the Mutual Security Administration , to supervise all foreign aid programs , including both military assistance programs and non-military , economic assistance programs that bolstered the defense capability of U.S. allies .   About the same time , the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act of 1951 , also known or referred to as the Battle Act , ( 65 Stat . 644 ; 22 U.S.C. 1611 et seq. ) was also passed ; it banned U.S. assistance to countries doing business with the Soviet Union and was so-named after its sponsor , Representative Laurie C. Battle of Alabama . Strong motivation for this ` control ' act also came from export control concerns , following their tightening by the Export control Act of 1949 over Soviet advances ; export controls were used for both domestic policy and later as an instrument of foreign policy . This is exemplified by the restrictions on export of certain strategic or military items to the Soviet bloc or to other countries which it felt , if permitted , would be detrimental to the foreign policy program of the US . This latter motive became so strong that it brought legislation directing the President to enlist the cooperation of other nations in enacting controls on trade with the Soviet block to parallel those of the United States . The benefits of the various economic and military aid programs were to be withheld from non-cooperating nations . The act covered a wide range of materials needed for the production of weapons , and was especially focused on anything that could aid atomic weapons research and construction .   As the Cold War developed , these acts were part of the American policy of containment of Communism . They importantly provided defense assistance to any ally that might be attacked by the Soviet Union or one of its allies , while other programs provided non-military economic assistance . In Asia the programs expanded with the newly established Maoist People 's Republic of China , and other areas , with the development of specific country missions , including ones in Austria ( 1947 -- 50 ) , China ( 1946 -- 48 ) , Ireland ( 1948 -- 51 ) , and Trieste ( 1947 -- 52 ) .

neg: Special Relationship The Special Relationship is the unofficial term for the exceptionally close political , diplomatic , cultural , economic , military and historical relations between the United Kingdom and the United States . It was used in a 1946 speech by Winston Churchill . Although both the United Kingdom and United States have close relationships with many other nations , the level of cooperation between them in economic activity , trade and commerce , military planning , execution of military operations , nuclear weapons technology , and intelligence sharing has been described as `` unparalleled '' among major powers .   The United Kingdom and United States have been close allies in numerous military and political conflicts throughout the 20th and 21st centuries including World War I , World War II , the Korean War , the Cold War , the Gulf War , and the War on Terror .