Coming Together for Nuclear Security

“We must ensure that terrorists never acquire a nuclear weapon. This is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security...So today I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years...And we should start by having a Global Summit on Nuclear Security.”

— President Barack Obama,

Prague, Czech Republic, April 5, 2009

Since President Obama’s Prague Speech, three nuclear security summits have taken place, with Belfer Center experts contributing significantly to each. In preparation for the March 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands, Center efforts included planning assistance, briefings, reports on nuclear security progress and vulnerabilities, and Nuclear Security Matters, a website of key resources on nuclear security.

President Obama’s 2009 announcement of a new international effort to prevent nuclear terrorism highlighted an issue that has long been central to Belfer Center concerns and actions. The Center has played a critical role in supporting the aims of the 2010, 2012, and 2014 nuclear security summits to improve the security of nuclear weapons and materials.

Center Executive Director for Research and former fellow Gary Samore was the lead organizer for the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. as the then White House coordinator for WMD counter-terrorism and arms control. Samore worked on the 2010 and 2012 summits with another Belfer Center alumnus Laura Holgate, senior director for WMD terrorism and threat-reduction. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, also a Center alumna and coordinator for defense policy, countering WMD, and arms control, led the U.S. planning efforts for the 2014 summit, working with Holgate.

For each of the three summits, Belfer Center experts helped with planning, briefed policymakers, sherpas, and others, made presentations and took part in panels, and provided extensive assessments of progress and vulnerabilities through reports and analysis.

In support of these efforts, researchers at the Belfer Center developed a special website for each summit with a wealth of facts, key documents, analysis, and other resources devoted to the summits and issues related to  nuclear security.

2014 Nuclear Security Summit

Beginning soon after the 2012 nuclear summit in Seoul, Belfer Center nuclear experts Matthew Bunn, Gary Samore, and William Tobey began meeting with Dutch Summit organizer Piet de Klerk on various aspects of the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit. In the months leading up to the Summit, Graham Allison and Trevor Findlay, along with Samore, Bunn, and Tobey, conducted briefings in the U.S. and around the globe to help prepare for the 2014 Summit and follow-on steps.

Nine Belfer Center nuclear experts—Allison, Bunn, Findlay, Samore, Tobey, Martin Malin, Steven Miller, Nickolas Roth, and Hui Zhang—traveled to the Netherlands in February and March to take part in and to provide analysis of various aspects of the Summit. Samore and Miller spoke at side events of the Summit, looking at progress and next steps. Findlay met with officials to discuss the possibility of the IAEA continuing summit goals after 2016.

Nuclear Security Matters Website

Key resources and commentary on the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit and security issues are available atNuclear Security Matters, a Belfer Center website developed by the Project on Managing the Atom with the Center’s communications team.

Seenuclearsecuritymatters.org

Summit Takeaways and Next Steps

The 2014 Nuclear Security Summit was attended by more than 50 heads of government and representatives. Summit successes included Japan’s announcement that it would ship to the U.S. and UK 50-70 bombs-worth of HEU and plutonium, and a pledge by 35 countries to adhere to nuclear security standards recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Belfer Center commentary and analysis of the Summit and the best next steps are available at Nuclear Security Matters. See some Belfer Center perspectives below.

Graham Allison, Director

“What is the single most significant takeaway from the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague? It is that contrary to business as usual in government, President Obama and his colleagues were able to distinguish between the urgent and the important.

When asked by reporters at The Hague how, with Russia’s action in Crimea, he and the others there could be talking about nuclear security, President Obama said aptly, ‘Russia is a problem. A nuclear weapon exploding in Manhattan would be a catastrophe.’”

Matthew Bunn, Professor of Practice

“Despite being overshadowed by Ukraine, the third nuclear security summit delivered the goods, including a broad commitment by the majority of participants to follow IAEA recommendations and accept periodic reviews of their nuclear security arrangements; a Japanese pledge to eliminate some of the most dangerous nuclear material that existed in any non-nuclear-weapon-state; and a new initiative to improve security for radioactive sources.  Leaders’ desire to have something to announce again created a much-needed forcing function.”

Gary Samore, Executive Director

“Like Washington in 2010 and Seoul in 2012, the 2014 Hague Nuclear Security Summit provided a useful mechanism to focus attention on the threat of nuclear terrorism and mobilize efforts to strengthen nuclear security in the form of the Summit Communiqué, collective commitments by coalitions of countries, and actions by individual states.   The big challenge now—as President Obama identified—is how to intensify international efforts in the run up to 2016, which is likely to be the final summit.”

William Tobey, Senior Fellow

“The 2014 Nuclear Security Summit recorded important accomplishments.  Japan’s decision to relinquish hundreds of kilograms of plutonium and highly enriched uranium will ensure that this material will be invulnerable to theft. The joint commitment by 35 nations to strengthened nuclear security was significant, although it also highlighted the refusal to subscribe by other nations holding half the world’s stocks of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material—including Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Belarus, and South Africa. We must do better.”

New Reports on Nuclear Security from Project on Managing the Atom