Reducing Nuclear Dangers

Ron Rosenbaum wants us to be worried. His book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III is intended as an urgent warning that the terrifying dangers of nuclear weapons did not disappear when the Cold War ended two decades ago. There are still many thousands of nuclear weapons in the world—about 95% of them in the U.S. and Russian arsenals—and thousands of them are constantly poised for launch within minutes

Beyond Crises: The Unending Challenge of Controlling Nuclear Weapons and Materials

Book abstract: At the height of the Cultural Revolution a Chinese long-range nuclear missile is fired within the country, and the nuclear warhead it is carrying detonates. A French nuclear device is exploded in Algeria during a coup there. The Soviet empire has collapsed, and shots are fired at a Russian crowd intent on rushing a nuclear weapons-laden plane straining to remove a stash of nuclear weapons to a safer locale. Pakistani civilian governments are routinely pushed aside by a powerful, nuclear-armed military that observers worry might yet itself fall prey to a faction willing to seize a portion of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. This volume reveals previously unknown details on each case and teases out what is to be learned. This book is ideal not only for policymakers and analysts, but for historians and teachers as well

Strengthening Global Approaches to Nuclear Security

Despite substantial progress in improving nuclear security in recent years, there is more to be done. The threats of nuclear theft and terrorism remain very real. This paper recommends learning from the much stronger national and international efforts in nuclear safety, and in particular taking steps to build international understanding of the threat; establish effective performance objectives; assure performance; train and certify needed personnel; build security culture and exchange best practices; reduce the number of sites that need to be protected; and strengthen the international framework and continue the dialogue once leaders are no longer meeting regularly at the summit level

Threat Perceptions and Drivers of Change in Nuclear Security Around the World: Results of a Survey

Leaders at the 2010 nuclear security summit agreed on the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material in four years. This goal implied that many countries would change their nuclear security policies. But the factors that drive changes in nuclear security policies, and that constrain those changes, are not well understood. We conducted a survey of selected nuclear security experts in countries with nuclear weapons, highly enriched uranium (HEU), or separated plutonium, to explore this issue. The survey included: (a) perceptions of which threats are credible; (b) approaches to nuclear security based on a design basis threat (DBT); (c) changes in nuclear security policy in the last 15 years; (d) factors causing and constraining changes in nuclear security policy; and (e) policy on how much information to release about nuclear security. This paper describes the survey, its results, and implications for next steps to strengthen global nuclear security

Consolidation: Thwarting Nuclear Theft

At the first nuclear security summit in April 2010, the assembled leaders agreed on the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material worldwide within four years, including consolidating plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) to fewer locations and minimizing the use of HEU “where technically and economically feasible.” Reducing the number of buildings and sites where nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material exist is a key element of preventing nuclear theft and nuclear terrorism, as the only way to completely eliminate the risk that nuclear material will be stolen from a particular location is to remove the material itself. States can achieve more effective nuclear security at lower cost if they have fewer places with nuclear weapons or weapons-usable nuclear material to protect. The fundamental goal must be to reduce the number of sites and transports as far and as quickly as possible, and provide highly effective security for those that remain. Over time, the civil use of HEU should be phased out, and HEU should be eliminated from all civil sites. This paper outlines the efforts the international community is already making to meet these objectives, and recommends a range of next steps. Today, nuclear weapons or their essential ingredients exist in hundreds of buildings and bunkers in dozens of countries, with widely varying levels of security. Fortunately, an array of national and international efforts to move nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material to fewer locations have been underway for years, and have made major progress. Since the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons have been removed from many countries and scores of nuclear weapon sites have been eliminated. Twenty countries have eliminated all the weapons-usable nuclear material on their soil – six of them since President Obama called for a four-year effort to secure nuclear materials in April 2009. All weapons-usable nuclear material has been removed from dozens of other sites around the world. Some 180 research reactors that once used HEU fuel have either shut down or converted to using low-enriched uranium that cannot be used in a nuclear bomb. The world is more secure as a result. But there is much more to be done. There are stocks of material and types of facilities that are not yet targeted for consolidation, and a range of political, bureaucratic, technical, and financial barriers to be overcome. There are potentially effective policy tools that have not yet been fully utilized. This paper (a) discusses how to set priorities among different stocks to be consolidated; (b) describes the scope and progress of existing consolidation efforts; and (c) suggests steps to complement and extend the existing programs. Our discussion of the next steps for consolidation will fall into two categories: covering additional stocks and facilities that are not yet effectively addressed, and using additional policy approaches to strengthen the effort

Preventing Insider Theft: Lessons from the Casino and Pharmaceutical Industries

Through structured interviews and a literature review, we assess which approaches to protection against insider thefts in the casino and pharmaceutical industries could be usefully applied to strengthen protections against insider theft in the nuclear industry, where insider thefts could have very high consequences. Among other measures, we suggest consideration of constant video surveillance of all vaults and insider-material interactions; frequent and rigorous material accounting; requiring everyone who touches material to sign for it; implementing an expanded two-person rule; rewarding attention to security; and establishing incident databases and experience sharing. While many of these measures are in place for some operations with weapons-usable material in some countries, they should be considered for more universal application

The Nuclear Weapons Complexes: Meeting the Conversion Challenge -- A Proposal for Expanded Action

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have undertaken a serious effort to convert their nuclear complexes to non-weapons work. However, it has been difficult to achieve significant progress toward this goal. Since the conversion process is very important for both countries, it seemed timely to review the successes and problems encountered to date and to evaluate and recommend new approaches for action. As a first step, the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (RANSAC) sought to identify more effective methods of facilitating conversion activities at five key Russian nuclear facilities. These included the two nuclear weapon design laboratories, Arzamas- 16 and Chelyabinsk-70, and the three plutonium production and separation facilities, Tomsk-7, Krasnoyarsk-26, and Chelyabinsk-65. A meeting on this subject was convened in Moscow on May 24 and 25, 1997. The goal of the meeting was to generate new ideas that would allow the U.S. and Russian governments to build on existing conversion efforts, perhaps as part of a new initiative launched under the auspices of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission (GCC). The principal participants from Russia included the First Deputy Minister of the Ministry for Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, the Directors of Arzamas-16, Chelyabinsk-70 and Tomsk-7, and the Chief Engineer of Krasnoyarsk-26. Additional details on the participants and the agenda are located in Annexes One and Two. A synopsis of the presentations made by the Russian participants is located in Annex Three

Progress on Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: The Four-Year Effort and Beyond

On the eve of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, a new study finds that an international initiative to secure all vulnerable nuclear stockpiles within four years has reduced the dangers they pose. But the new analysis, by researchers in Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom, also concludes that much will remain to be done to ensure that all nuclear weapons and material are secure when the current four-year effort comes to an end. “At the end of four years, the global risks of nuclear theft will be significantly lower than they were before,” said co-author Matthew Bunn, associate professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School. “But there will still be a great deal left to do to make sure that all the world’s stocks of nuclear weapons and the materials needed to make them are protected from the full range of plausible terrorist and criminal threats – in a way that will last.” The other co-authors of the report are Martin B. Malin, executive director of the Project on Managing the Atom in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Eben Harrell, research associate in the Managing the Atom project. The study, “Progress on Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: the Four-Year Effort and Beyond,” was released in advance of the Seoul summit on March 26-27, 2012, being attended by leaders or senior officials from 54 countries and four international organizations