Review Essay

Potentially limitless in its military destructiveness and boundless in its ability to provide carbon-free power, nuclear energy all but begs viewing through the conjectural political lenses of infinity and zero. As a result, much of what passes for sound policy and insight regarding its management is not just reckless and self-defeating but technically impracticable. Sir Michael Quinlan (1930–2009), with whom I had the good fortune to work, understood this. An intelligent, modest, and religiously curious man, Quinlan helped shape much of the British nuclear weapons policy

Present Danger: Nuclear Power Plants in War

After Russia’s unprecedented seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhya, the United States needs to adjust its military planning and policies to cope with hostile military forces’ targeting, seizure, and garrisoning of armed forces at large, operating nuclear plants and clarify its policies regarding possible US targeting of such plants. This article is the first to analyze these concerns. It compares Russia’s assaults with previous strikes against research reactors and nonoperating nuclear plants in the Middle East and clarifies what new military measures and policies will be needed to cope with military operations against large, operating nuclear plants. US Army and Pentagon officials, as well as militar

Present Danger: Nuclear Power Plants in War

After Russia’s unprecedented seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhya, the United States needs to adjust its military planning and policies to cope with hostile military forces’ targeting, seizure, and garrisoning of armed forces at large, operating nuclear plants and clarify its policies regarding possible US targeting of such plants. This article is the first to analyze these concerns. It compares Russia’s assaults with previous strikes against research reactors and nonoperating nuclear plants in the Middle East and clarifies what new military measures and policies will be needed to cope with military operations against large, operating nuclear plants. US Army and Pentagon officials, as well as military and civilian staff, will discover ways to mitigate and reduce future military harm to civilians in war zones and understand the operational implications of military assaults on and seizures of civilian nuclear facilities

Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (Second Edition)

https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1937/thumbnail.jp

Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran

As Iran edges closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb and its missiles extend an ever darker diplomatic shadow over the Middle East and Europe, Iran is likely to pose three threats. First, Iran could dramatically up the price of oil by interfering with the free passage of vessels in and through the Persian Gulf as it did during the l980s or by threatening to use terrorist proxies to target other states\u27 oil facilities. Second, it could diminish American influence in the Gulf and Middle East by increasing the pace and scope of terrorist activities against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Israel, and other perceived supporters of the United States. Finally, it could become a nuclear proliferation model for the world and its neighbors (including many states that otherwise would be more dependent on the United States for their security) by continuing to insist that it has a right to make nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then withdrawing once it decides to get a bomb. To contain and deter Iran from posing such threats, the United States and its friends could take a number of steps: increasing military cooperation (particularly in the naval sphere) to deter Iranian naval interference; reducing the vulnerability of oil facilities in the Gulf outside of Iran to terrorist attacks, building and completing pipelines in the lower Gulf region that would allow most of the non-Iranian oil and gas in the Gulf to be exported without having to transit the Straits of Hormuz; diplomatically isolating Iran by calling for the demilitarization of the Straits and adjacent islands, creating country-neutral rules against Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty state members who are suspected of violating the treaty from getting nuclear assistance from other state members and making withdrawal from the treaty more difficult; encouraging Israel to set the pace of nuclear restraint in the region by freezing its large reactor at Dimona and calling on all other states that have large nuclear reactors to follow suit; and getting the Europeans to back targeted economic sanctions against Iran if it fails to shut down its most sensitive nuclear activities.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1726/thumbnail.jp

Speaking Truth to Nonproliferation: Improving the Intelligence and Policy Nexus

Performer: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) Project Lead: Henry Sokolski Project Cost: $92,000 FY15-16Objective: The success of U.S. nonproliferation efforts has most often resulted from actions beneath the public radar. Policy makers have acted on early indications of proliferation and were able to take modest measures that proved effective. It is important to know how policy is influenced by intelligence and intelligence-led policy. This two-year project will produce detailed histories of how U.S. intelligence officers and policy makers have worked together on several challenging proliferation cases. It will distill practical lessons for the improvement of future collaboration in this area. The project will also include research to evaluate past U.S. intelligence and policy collaboration aimed at countering proliferation in India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, and a set of other nuclear and missile cases.PASC

Civilian nuclear power in the Middle East

Henry Sokolsk

Taming the Next Set of Strategic Weapons Threats

Missile defense and unmanned air vehicle related technologies, are proliferating for a variety of perfectly defensive and peaceful civilian applications. This same know-how can be used to defeat U.S. and allied air and missile defenses in new ways that are far more stressful than the existing set of ballistic missile threats. Unfortunately, the Missile Technology Control Regime is not yet optimized to cope with these challenges. Nuclear technologies have become much more difficult to control since new centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities and relatively small fuel reprocessing plants can now be built and hidden much more readily than nuclear fuel-making plants that were operating when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the bulk of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections procedures were first devised 30 or more years ago. This volume is designed to highlight what might happen if these emerging threats go unattended and how best to mitigate them.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1026/thumbnail.jp