Nuclear Issues

This article describes the status of China’s military and civilian nuclear programs, fissile material production and associated nuclear facilities, and the Chinese nuclear experts and officials’ perspectives on the nuclear terrorism threat. It gives details of China’s nuclear security practices, attitudes, and regulations, as well as identifying areas of concern. The article recommends ways to strengthen China’s nuclear material protection, control, and accounting systems and suggests opportunities for increased international cooperation.

Through structured interviews and a literature review, we assess which approaches to protection against insider thefts in the casino and pharmaceutical industries could be usefully applied to strengthen protections against insider theft in the nuclear industry, where insider thefts could have very high consequences.

The risks posed by the proliferation of cyber weapons are gaining wide recognition among security planners. Yet the general reaction of scholars of international relations has been to neglect the cyber peril owing to its technical novelties and intricacies. This attitude amounts to either one or both of two claims: the problem is not of sufficient scale to warrant close inspection, or it is not comprehensible to a non-technical observer. This seminar challenged both assertions.

"Nuclear proliferation is a crime that pays well. Those involved in the Khan network were made very wealthy for their efforts, and the inability of the international community to effectively punish them has resulted in a missed opportunity to provide a deterrent against future black-market salesmen."

Project on Managing the Atom's Matthew Bunn discusses United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540—a major new tool for combating nuclear terrorism and proliferation that is little used.

Failure to develop a comprehensive contingency plan, such as the one proposed here, and inform the American public, where appropriate, about its particulars will only serve to amplify the devastating impact of any nuclear attack on a U.S. city

Article in The Nonproliferation Review

Article by Dr. Ashton B. Carter in Daedalus

Policymakers and scholars agree that North Korea’s nuclear program heightens the risk of nuclear transfer to the global black market. Althuogh the North Koreans engage in illicit activity primarily to acquire hard currency, broader economic and ideological factors may also contribute to a decision to export nuclear materials. North Korea also risks losing control over its smuggling networks as it relies more and more on nonstate criminal actors. The United States, then, must seek to develop and employ new strategies to pursue and dismantle these networks as well as offer economic incentives to the regime. In the case of North Korea, countersmuggling and counterproliferation could go hand in hand.