NEUTRON BOMB 19 •in the Gulf, all took place before the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan. This process of shedding the Vietnam-induced inhibitions on American adventures abroad, the generation of cold war hysteria aganist the Soviet Union, blatant interventionism in the Third World acquired a new dimension with the storming of the White House by "cowboy" Reagan and his Californian "mob". Under Reagan, the US military budget soared to dizzy heights—a total of 1.3 trillion dollars to be spent by 1985. It is in this context of the militaristic efforts of Reagan to fit the world of 1980s into a vision of 1950s—a kind of "forward march into the past" — in the context of his drive to take the world on to the nuclear precipice that the debate on neutron bomb must be located. Technology of the Neutron Bomb The neutron bomb has been described as the weapon which "kills people and leaves property intact"; for this reason, some of the peace groups have called it the "ultimate capitalist weapon". These descriptions are a bit misleading. The neutron bomb, or more correctly the enhanced radiation warhead, is the most recent development in the US military's search for a "cleaner" and more usable nuclear weapon. The enhanced radiation warhead is designed to kill more enemy soldiers per kiloton of explosive yield detonated over the battlefield than the types of nuclear weapons currently deployed for that purpose. The proponents of the neutron bomb claim that in a European battle the neutron bomb, while killing the Soviet soldiers, particularly the tank crews, would minimize the collateral damage to buildings, the countryside, friendly soldiers and nearby non-combatants. The US dream is that in the European theatre, with the neutron bomb, the NATO forces can immobilize the superior tank force of Warsaw Pact, minimize the damage to Western population, and move in their troops victoriously. It must be noted that there is nothing new about neutron bombs. The US military has been considering them ever since nuclear weapons graduated from fission (uranium and plutonium) to fusion (hydrogen) bombs. The Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California worked on neutron warheads throughout the 1950s and the 1960s. The neutron bombs are basically small hydrogen bombs, meant for battlefield use. In a hydrogen bomb, the fusion of two heavy hydrogen isotopes—deuterium and tritium—into an atom of helium releases a large number of neutrons, with vast amounts of emergy, flying in all directions. They easily penetrate tank armour and house walls. Passing through the human body, they destroy its cells, causing quick or slow death, depending on the amount of neutron radiation absorbed. The technological novelty of the neutron bomb is rooted in the