Nuclear Issues

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the contemporary Sino-Indian conventional ground and nuclear force balances and carefully reconstructs how mutual developments in these areas are perceived by both New Delhi and Beijing.

The abstracts in this booklet summarise the research presented at an academic symposium convened on the sidelines of the 2015 NPT Review Conference. As we write this, journalists and seasoned experts in the nuclear policy field have been speculating about the particularly difficult challenges facing the Review Conference this year. To address those challenges, we would urge all concerned to consider the ideas and analyses presented at this symposium. Experts would be hard-pressed to find a better collection of fresh ideas and approaches for assessing and strengthening the NPT.

A long-standing goal of diplomacy with Iran is persuading Iran to suspend its enrichment operations while it clarifies its past activities and while negotiations proceed on a more permanent resolution to the nuclear crisis. However, there is problem in using suspension of nuclear material production as a negotiating step: The technical details of suspension have never been clearly defined. The international community needs to be aware of the diversion risks during a suspension of enrichment activities and should mitigate these risks by including the necessary verification measures during negotiations and signing of any agreement on suspension.

"The military buildup by China, its Asia-Pacific neighbors and the United States is creating a classical security dilemma that is increasing the potential for military conflict in the region. Although history is replete with conflicts between existing and rising powers, conflict between China and the United States is not preordained. Opportunities exist in both the diplomatic and military arenas for both countries to actively engage the other in open and direct communication to increase transparency, reduce tensions, and improve understanding. It is in the best interest of the United States, China and countries around the world to confront the reality that is a rising nuclear-armed China and, in doing so, manage its accession into the regional and world order without conflict."

Illicit trade from the international marketplace plays a direct role in sustaining the nuclear and missile programs of several countries, including Iran, in defiance of UN sanctions. This paper sets out what measures the private sector should take in order to manage the legal, financial and reputational risks associated with involvement in proliferation-related trade, and makes recommendations to national authorities for how for how to help the private sector identify and prevent potential proliferation.

Nearly all of the 190 signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree that the forty-two-year-old treaty is fragile and in need of fundamental reform. But gaining consensus on how to fix the NPT will require reconciling the sharply differing views of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Strengthening the international rules is increasingly important as dozens of countries, including some with unstable political environments, explore nuclear energy. The result is an ever-increasing distribution of this technology. In this paper, Steven E. Miller outlines the main points of contention within the NPT regime and identifies the issues that have made reform so difficult.

China's recent nuclear energy ambitions have put it in the forefront of research and development in the nuclear industry.This paper will first discuss the status of China's current spent fuel management methods and storage capability. Second, this paper will estimate and calculate the accumulated spent fuel and required spent fuel storage up to 2040 based on three different nuclear development scenarios. Third, future spent fuel management scenarios from now to 2040 are designed and financial costs and proliferation risks are evaluated and discussed associated with each scenario. Last, policy recommendations will be provided for the future spent fuel.

Matthew Kroenig examines the effect of the spread of nuclear weapons on international politics in a Managing the Atom Working Paper.  He observes that the spread of nuclear weapons threatens some states more than others, and proposes a theory of nuclear proliferation that examines the differential effects of proliferation.  He argues that the threat nuclear proliferation poses to a particular state depends on that state’s ability to project military power.  The spread of nuclear weapons is worse for states that have the ability to project conventional military power over a potential nuclear weapon state because nuclear proliferation constrains their conventional military freedom of action.

When do states attack or consider attacking nuclear infrastructure in nonnuclear weapons states? Despite the importance of this question, relatively few scholarly articles have attempted to identify the factors that lead a state to attack another state's nuclear facilities. This paper conducts the first large-n analysis on when states use force as a way to control proliferation.

This paper challenges existing arguments that states are deterred from attacking nuclear programs by the prospect of a military retaliation from the proliferating state or concerns about international condemnation. Instead, it finds that states are more likely to attack nuclear programs when they believe that the proliferating state might use nuclear weapons or engage in other offensive behavior. States are willing to accept substantial costs in attacking if they believe that a particular country's acquisition of nuclear weapons poses a significant threat to their security.