Reports & Papers

120 Items

A member of the Czech Army takes part in an anti-terrorism drill at the Temelin nuclear power plant near the town of Tyn nad Vltavou, Czech Republic, April 11, 2017.

REUTERS/David W. Cerny

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Revitalizing Nuclear Security in an Era of Uncertainty

| January 2019

Nuclear security around the world has improved dramatically over the last three decades—which demonstrates that with focused leadership, major progress is possible. But important weaknesses remain, and the evolution of the threat remains unpredictable. The danger that terrorists could get and use a nuclear bomb, or sabotage a major nuclear facility, or spread dangerous radioactive material in a “dirty bomb,” remains too high. The United States and countries around the world need to join together and provide the leadership and resources needed to put global nuclear security on a sustained path of continuous improvement, in the never-ending search for excellence in performance.

Paper - Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy

Stabilizing Sino-Indian Security Relations: Managing the Strategic Rivalry After Doklam

| June 21, 2018

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.

Report - International Panel on Fissile Materials

China’s Fissile Material Production and Stockpile

| January 2018

China began producing highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium for nuclear weapons in the 1960s and is believed to have halted production the 1980s. Despite the passage of thirty years there has been no official policy declaration in this regard. This report uses newly available public information from Chinese sources to provide an improved reconstruction of the history of China’s production of HEU and plutonium for nuclear weapons. This allows improved estimates of the amount of HEU and plutonium China has produced and of its current stockpiles.

Paper - Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Interpreting the Bomb: Ownership and Deterrence in Ukraine's Nuclear Discourse

| December 2017

Nuclear deterrence thinking has become so entrenched in U.S. academic and policy circles that it only seems natural that other states regard nuclear weapons in the same terms. Yet is it necessarily so? In this working paper, Polina Sinovets and Mariana Budjeryn examine the case of Ukraine to understand how its leaders interpreted the value of the nuclear weapons deployed on Ukrainian territory in 1990–1994.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Security Science, July 2015

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Discussion Paper - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

When Did (and Didn’t) States Proliferate?

| June 2017

In this Project on Managing the Atom Discussion Paper, Philipp C. Bleek chronicles nuclear weapons proliferation choices throughout the nuclear age. Since the late 1930s and early 1940s, some thirty-one countries are known to have at least explored the possibility of establishing a nuclear weapons program. Seventeen of those countries launched weapons programs, and ten acquired deliverable nuclear weapons.

Paper - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

Iran and a New International Framework for Nuclear Energy

| November 2016

As early as the end of the Second World War it was recognized that nuclear fuel cycle technologies developed for military purposes—specifically, uranium enrichment and reprocessing—had major potential for peaceful applications but remained inherently dual-purpose, and if not controlled appropriately, could be diverted to military use. The very first issue considered by the newly founded United Nations was “the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy.”

When It Is Unfamiliar To Me: Local Acceptance Of Planned Nuclear Power Plants In China In The Post-Fukushima Era

IAEA

Paper - Energy Policy

When It Is Unfamiliar To Me: Local Acceptance Of Planned Nuclear Power Plants In China In The Post-Fukushima Era

| October 2016

Many contributions have been made in the studies of the factors that influence public acceptance of nuclear power. However, previous studies seldom focused on nuclear power plants in the planning stage. Actually public perception is usually more sensitive at the preliminary planning stage of a nuclear power station. Mainly utilizing questionnaire survey and focus group methods, we have identified the factors that are correlated with local acceptance of planned nuclear power plants in China.

Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Their Impact on Stability

Pixabay

Paper - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Their Impact on Stability

| June 30, 2016

The flight-testing of the 60-kilometer (or 37-mile) Hatf-IX, or Nasr, ballistic missile in April 2011 has renewed controversy and debate about strategic stability and nuclear weapons in South Asia. Official statements issued by Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR) claim that the Nasr was developed “to add deterrence value to Pakistan’s Strategic Weapons Development programme at shorter ranges.” The Nasr could carry “nuclear warheads of appropriate yield with high accuracy,” and had shoot-and-scoot attributes—essentially a “quick response system” that addressed “the need to deter evolving threats.”