Nuclear Issues

This Policy Brief compares and contrasts the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review with past reviews and its Obama predecessor. It concludes that this review offers a much harsher assessment of the security environment; it posits a more expansive role for nuclear weapons; and proposes a substantial de-emphasis on arms control.

The Project on Managing the Atom joined the Netherlands government, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in convening a research symposium on the sidelines of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) 2015 review conference. The symposium, Fresh Ideas for the Future, took place on April 28 in the UN headquarters in New York City.

Matthew Bunn is a professor of practice at Harvard Kennedy School and co-principal investigator for the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom. Bunn’s research focus is on nuclear theft terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and innovation in energy technology. During the Clinton administration, Bunn served as an advisor to the White House Office of Science Technology Policy, where he played a major role in U.S. policies related to the control and disposition of weapons-usable nuclear materials in the United States and the former Soviet Union. We asked Bunn about the current crisis in U.S.-Russian relations and its impact on nuclear security.

Last fall, experts from around the world gathered to identify ways to strengthen nuclear security cooperation between the United States and Russia and the United States and China. In this Policy Brief, Nickolas Roth summarizes that conversation and provides policy recommendations based on it.

The Stanley Foundation convened a group of experts and policymakers from the United States and abroad to address these issues October 15–17, 2014, at its 55th annual Strategy for Peace Conference. The group discussed overcoming challenges to nuclear security cooperation faced by the United States, Russia, and China, and next steps in ensuring that countries put in place effective and sustainable nuclear security measures with strong security cultures. This policy memo offers highlights of the discussion and recommendations of roundtable participants.

In the dead of night on July 28, 2012, three senior citizens, including an 82-year-old Catholic nun, Sister Megan Rice, broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, site of the US Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF). This self-proclaimed “Fort Knox of uranium” is America’s central repository for weapons-grade uranium.

....The security failings revealed by the nun and her fellow protesters are legion. The protesters were on the site for over an hour and 20 minutes, trekking about seven-tenths of a mile as the crow flies, but far longer as they traversed a steep ridge. They pierced fences equipped with sophisticated sensors. Yet the Y-12 Protective Force failed to spot them until they enjoyed unimpeded access to the exterior of the HEUMF forabout 20 minutes. Had these individuals been well-armed, well-equipped terrorists, instead of Bible-toting peace protesters, the incident would have been far more dire.

In October, 2012, at the foot of a rocky hillside in eastern Kazakhstan, a group of American, Russian, and Kazakh nuclear scientists and engineers gathered for a ceremony marking the completion of a secret 17-year, $150 million operation to secure plutonium in the tunnels of Degelen Mountain—an abandoned site of Soviet underground nuclear testing.

While the United States and Russia have a responsibility to draw down their arsenals, these bilateral nuclear reductions will be increasingly difficult if other nuclear powers do not join in....[I]t is time to engage the so-called "second tier" nuclear powers, especially China. The evolution of the US-China strategic relationship can affect the next stages of international arms control, even if China does not directly participate.

When President Barack Obama hosted nearly 50 heads of state in Washington, D.C. for the first global Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, the Belfer Center made available to the leaders and their sherpas a range of relevant background materials and information. With the arrival of the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, the Center created www.nuclearsummit.org – an online Nuclear Security Summit dossier.

Researchers from the United States and Russia issued in June a joint assessment of the global threat of nuclear terrorism, warning of a persistent danger that terrorists could obtain or make a nuclear device and use it with catastrophic consequences.