Reports & Papers

How much nuclear material has leaked, and is it in the hands of terrorists, in storage somewhere, or still in circulation? No one knows for sure, but the task of cleaning up the nuclear black market amounts to an Armageddon test for global intelligence. The standard for success is unforgiving: all nuclear material must be recovered before it finds its way into an improvised nuclear device.

"The efforts that the Center has made in addressing the nuclear challenges of the post-Cold War era are anchored in the books that it has produced on the major dimensions of the problem."

The cooperative U.S.-Russian effort to ensure that Russian bomb material does not fall into hostile hands - known as the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program, managed by the Department of Energy (DOE)-is absolutely crucial to U.S. national security, playing a fundamental role in the global effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. Precisely because of the urgency and importance of the task, however, it is essential to ensure that it is being carried out in a manner that will reduce the security threat posed by insecure nuclear material as quickly and effectively as practicable.

This report provides an assessment of the current MPC&A program and makes recommendations designed to accelerate and strengthen the effort, including steps toward the difficult goal of achieving sustainable security for nuclear material in the former Soviet Union over the long term.