Glossary

• Anthrax - Often fatal infectious disease communicated through spores. Incubation period is short, disability is severe. Used as a biological weapon.
• Axis of Evil - Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as classified by US President George Bush in 2002 as state sponsors of terrorism
• Ballistic Missile - Rocket-powered delivery system for use against ground targets. Called "ballistic" because most of the flight is in freefall.
• Binary weapons - Weapons using separate containers to isolate two subtances that are dangerous when combined. When armed or fired, the two substances combine.
• Bioassay - quantitative evaluation of potency of a substance through assessment of effects on tissues, cells, live experimental animals, or humans.
• Biological warfare - Deliberate use of viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms or toxins to cause death or disease in humans, animals, or plants
• Biological Weapons Convention - Officially known as the "Convention on the Prohibition of Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Destruction."
• Bio-terrorism - The illegal release of biological agents with the intention of intimidating or coercing a government to further political or social objectives.
• Blister Agents - Toxic substances that cause wounds to the skin and mucous membranes. Also known as vesicants.
• Blood Agents- Substances that are absorbed into the body through inhalation. Also known as cyanogen agents.
• Centrifuge - Rotating device used for uranium enrichment. Click here to read more about enrichment.
• Chemical Agent - Toxic substances intended to be used for operations to debilitate, immobilize, or kill military or civilian personnel.
• Choking Agents - Heavier gases that create fluid buildip in lungs and cause death from lack of oxygen
• Communicable disease - A disease resulting from a specific infectious agent that arises through transmission from an infected person, animal, or reservoir to a susceptible host, either directly or indirectly through an intermediate plan or animal host, vector, or the inanimate environment.
• Contamination - The presence of an infectious agent on a body surface; also in or on clothes, bedding, toys, surgical instruments or dressings, or other inanimate articles or substances including water, milk and food.
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - Recently drafted, calls for a complete ban on nuclear testing anywhere on Earth or in space. The US Senate blocked accession, which stalled the ratification process in many other nations.
• Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) - A UN standard that prohibits the use of certain conventional weapons considered excessively deleterious or kill indiscriminately.
• Criticality - The least amount (critical mass) of fissionable material that can achieve a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
• Cyber terrorism - Attacks on computer networks or systems, generally by hackers working with or for terrorist groups. Some forms of cyber terrorism include denial of service attacks, inserting viruses, or stealing data.
• Disease epidemic - The occurrence of a number of cases of a disease, known or suspected to be of infectious or parasitic origin, that is unusually large or unexpected for the given place and time. An epidemic often evolves rapidly, so that a quick response is needed. See also disease; epidemic; threatened epidemic.
• Deuterium - An isotope of hydrogen with one proton and one neutron in the nucleus, making this isotope about twice as heavy as normal hydrogen which does not have a neutron. In normal water a deuterium atom occurs in 1 in 6,500 hydrogen atoms.
• Diffusion - A technique for uranium enrichment in which the lighter U235 isotopes in UF6 gas move through a porous barrier more rapidly than the heavier U238 isotopes.
• Dirty bomb - A makeshift nuclear device that is created from radioactive nuclear waste material. While not a nuclear blast, an explosion of a dirty bomb causes localized radioactive contamination as the nuclear waste material is carried into the atmosphere where it is dispersed by the wind. See also Radiological dispersal device.
• Electromagnetic pulse - A sharp pulse of energy radiated instantaneously by a nuclear detonation, which may affect or damage electronic components and equipment (FEMA definition.)
• Endemic - A disease that is present in a human population, or in a animal population that is transmittable to humans, but has a very low morbidity rate.
• Enrichment - The process of increasing the concentration of a desired element in a certain quantity, such as uranium-235
• Epidemic - The occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specific health-related behavior, or other health-related events clearly in excess of normal expectancy.
• Fallout - The descent to the earth's surface of particles contaminated with radioactive material from a radioactive cloud. The term can also be applied to the contaminated particulate matter itself.
• Geneva Protocol of 1925 - Banned the use of "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare."
• Half-life - Time required for one-half of the nuclei of a radioactive mass to decay.
• Hazardous material - Any substance or material that when involved in an accident and released in sufficient quantities, poses a risk to people's health, safety, and/or property. These substances and materials include explosives, radioactive materials, flammable liquids or solids, combustible liquids or solids, poisons, oxidizers, toxins, and corrosive materials (FEMA definition).
• Heavy Water - Water that contains a heavier isotope of hydrogen (commonly deuterium), used as a moderator in some nuclear reactors
• Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) - Uranium with 20% U-235 concentration or above, usually 90% or more. Used in nuclear weapons and in some research and submarine propulsion reactors.
• IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) - the international nuclear "watchdog" mandated by the NPT to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and provide for the peaceful transfer of nuclear weapons
• ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) - a very long-range (greater than 5,500–km or 3,500 miles) ballistic missile typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery. ICBMs have no guidance system after their rockets burn out-they rely soley on the laws of ballistics. ICBMs have long enough range to go from one continent to another, but are very expensive.
• IRBM - Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles
• Irritant Agents (harassing agents) - chemical substances that affect the senses. Unless taken in large quantities, they usually are not lethal.
• Lethal Agents - chemical substances that cause death
• Manhattan Project - US project started in 1942 with the goal of developing the atomic bomb
• MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicles) - collections of nuclear missiles all carried on the same intercontinental ballistic missile
• Mustard Gas - Chemical blister agent used extensively during World War I, known for its mustard-like smell.
• Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) - the doctrine of military strategy in which a full scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender.
• Nerve agent - Modern, deadly type of chemical weapon. Only a small quantity inhaled or absorbed through the skin is necessary to inflict substantial damage, used first by the Nazis. Examples: VX, sarin, soman, and tabun.
• Nuclear detonation - An explosion resulting from fission and/or fusion reactions in nuclear material, such as that from a nuclear weapon (FEMA definition).
• Neutron initiator - Trigger that introduces neutrons into a supercritical mass, starting a nuclear chain reaction.
• Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) - As classified under the NPT, countries that do not have nuclear weapons but may possess nuclear energy for peaceful purposes
• Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - 1968 - The foremost and most universal treaty on the non-proliferation of nucler weapons. Maintains that non-nuclear states will not attempt to acquire nuclear arms while the nuclear states will assist the non-nuclear states in the developmetn of peaceful nuclear technologies.
• Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) - As classified under the NPT, countries that are formally declared possessors of nuclear weaponry and internationally accepted for their claims
• OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) - Established in 1997 under the Chemical Weapons Convention, the OPCW's purpose is to eventually dismantle all chemical weapons.
• Pandemic - An epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries, and usually affecting a large number of people. See also epidemic.
• Partial Test Ban Treaty - 1963 - Treaty that banned the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater
• Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976 - Treaty between the US and Soviet Union restricting nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes
• Plutonium - Man-made element produced when uranium is irradiated in a reactor. Plutonium-239 is the most suitable isotope for constructing nuclear weapons.
• Plutonium pit - The core element of a nuclear weapon's "primary" or fission component. Pits are made of plutonium-239 and surrounded by some type of casing.
• Radionuclide - Certain natural and man-made atomic species with unstable nuclei that can undergo spontaneous breakup or decay and, in the process, emit alpha, beta, or gamma radiation.
• Reactor - A facility that contains a controlled nuclear fission chain reaction. Can be used to generate electricity, conduct research, and produce isotopes and man-made elements such as plutonium
• SPETSNAZ Personnel - Special Forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense
• Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I and II) - Two rounds of bilateral negotiations of arms control treaties held between 1969 and 1979 between the Soviet Union and the United States.
• Stategic Arms Reduction Treaty I and II (START I and II) - Negotiations between the USA and the USSR/Russia calling for a reduction of nuclear weapons. START I was successful while START II was not.
• Terrorism - The use of--or threatened use of--criminal violence against civilians or civilian infrastructure to achieve political ends through fear and intimidation, rather than direct confrontation. Emergency management is typically concerned with the consequences of terrorist acts directed against large numbers of people (as opposed to political assassination or hijacking, which may also be considered "terrorism") (FEMA definition). The U.S. State Department defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience."
• Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974 - Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union that prohibited nuclear tests of more than 150 kilotons, equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT
• Vector - An organism that carries germs from one host to another, or an insect or any living carrier that transports an infectious agent from an infected individual or its wastes to a susceptible individual or its food or immediate surroundings