is whether or not an attack on such facilities, in actual practice, can be supposed effectively to damage the war effort of the attacked country. If so, these facilities do provide a military target, and their protection would resemble building castles in the air. If not, legal protection seems to be a reasonable option. The answer is not as obvious as it appears to be at first sight. The categories of nuclear facilities which do pose a mass destruction risk are limited in number. Relevant facilities are nuclear-electricity-generating reactors, reprocessing plants, spent-fuel storages, waste-storages and certain large research reactors . It is obvious that the first type of facility, the nuclear-electricty- generating reactor, will in many cases make a direct contribution to the war effort of a given country, namely through its electricity supply. It therefore represents a credible military target. In that case, given the high precision of modern weaponry, depriving the other side of its electricity supply could be achieved without attacking the reactor itself but instead, for instance, by attacking the transformer station linked to it. Legal protection of this type of reactor therefore is perfectly feasible, and indeed does exist already to a certain extent under the additional Protocol I of 1977- Reprocessing plants, which can produce plutonium for weapons purposes, seem to pose a more serious problem. In principle, of course, this type of facility can make a direct contribution to the war effort of a given country. Nonetheless, at least in the East-West context, this consideration seems to be rather of an academic nature. We should realize that there is a considerable time-lag between plutonium production and subsequent nuclear weapons production. Also, the — unfortunately — large nuclear weapons arsenals available to each side, make it hard to see that any real military advantages could be gained by attacking a 
**Analysis**
The text discusses the legal protection of nuclear facilities and whether they can be considered military targets. It highlights the differences between nuclear-electricity-generating reactors, reprocessing plants, and other types of facilities in terms of their potential to contribute to a country's war effort. The discussion is centered around the concept of military targets and the feasibility of legal protection. This suggests that the text is related to the field of international law, security, and military strategy.

**Category**
Science and technology, Industry