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Article: Leave no stone unburned.(Defense Dept.'s Integrated Data Base of military targets)(Column)
- Article from:
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- Article date:
- July 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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U.S. and Russian nuclear-tipped missiles, it is proudly said, have been "detargeted." Given the ease of retargeting, it is mostly spin for public consumption. Meanwhile, targeting remains a prosperous business.
The motherlode of targeting is the Defense Department's Integrated Data Base, which contains every place of potential significance to the United States, both active and inactive--some 450,000 bases, factories, airfields, and other objects of military interest worldwide that might be attacked by conventional or nuclear weapons.
As one would expect, the targets are densely clustered in the territories of former adversaries (such as Russia) or in ...