Nuclear Issues

20 Items

Book - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center and Nuclear Threat Initiative

Securing the Bomb 2010

| April 2010

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Project on Managing the Atom Co-Principal Investigator Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of global efforts to secure and consolidate nuclear stockpiles, and a detailed action plan for securing all nuclear materials in four years.  Securing the Bomb 2010 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available for download on the NTI website.

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Book - Cornell University Press

Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

| April 2010

Matthew Kroenig's book, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons, was published by Cornell University Press. Kroenig argues that nearly every country with a nuclear weapons arsenal received substantial help at some point from a more advanced nuclear state. Understanding why states provide sensitive nuclear assistance not only adds to our knowledge of international politics but also aids in international efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons.

Book - MIT Press Quarterly Journal: International Security

Going Nuclear: Nuclear Proliferation and International Security in the 21st Century

The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the twenty-first century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa.

Book Chapter - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Preface to Going Nuclear

| January 2010

"Concern over nuclear proliferation is likely to increase in the coming years. Many observers believe that the spread of nuclear weapons to one or two more states will trigger a wave of new nuclear states. More states may turn to nuclear power to meet their energy needs as other sources of energy become more costly or undesirable because they emit carbon that contributes to global climate change. As more nuclear reactors are built, the world's stock of nuclear expertise and fissionable materials is likely to grow."

Heavy concrete blocks over steel security doors help protect nuclear warhead storage at Pantex.

Department of Energy

Book Chapter - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Nuclear Terrorism: A Strategy for Prevention

| January 2010

"On the night of November 8, 2007, two teams of armed men attacked the Pelindaba nuclear facility in South Africa, where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) were stored. One of the teams opened fire on the site security forces, who reportedly fled. The other team of four armed men went through a 10,000-volt security fence, disabled the intrusion detectors so that no alarms sounded—possibly using insider knowledge of the security system—broke into the emergency control center, and shot a worker there in the chest after a brief struggle. The worker at the emergency control center raised an alarm for the first time. These intruders spent forty-five minutes inside the secured perimeter without ever being engaged by site security forces...."

Book - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center and Nuclear Threat Initiative

Securing the Bomb 2008

| November 18, 2008

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Project on Managing the Atom Co-Principal Investigator Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of efforts to secure and remove vulnerable nuclear stockpiles around the world, and a detailed action plan for reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. Securing the Bomb 2008 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available on the NTI website.

Book - International Panel on Fissile Materials

Global Fissile Materials Report 2007

October 2007

Over the past six decades, our understanding of the nuclear danger has expanded from the threat posed by the vast nuclear arsenals created by the superpowers in the Cold War to encompass the proliferation
of nuclear weapons to additional states and now also to terrorist groups. To reduce this danger, it is essential to secure and to sharply reduce all stocks of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium, the key materials in nuclear weapons, and to limit any further production.

The mission of the IPFM is to advance the technical basis for cooperative international policy initiatives to achieve these goals.

Book Chapter

Disposition of Excess Highly Enriched Uranium

| October 2007

This chapter describes the progress of the Russian and U.S. HEU disposition programs and how they could be expanded and accelerated. It also provides a brief update on the progress of the international programs to clean out and dispose of civilian HEU. The quantities of HEU involved are much smaller than those in the weapons programs but civilian sites are typically much less secure than military ones. Cleaning them out may therefore contribute more to reducing the overall danger of nuclear theft.