Middle East & North Africa

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.

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

"The International Atomic Energy Agency drew several important conclusions in the report it released last week on the weapons-related elements of Iran's past nuclear activities..."

In this new report, Trevor Findlay provides the first comprehensive study of the IAEA's handling of states not complying with their non-proliferation obligations. The report finds that none of the cases have followed the non-compliance process outlined in the Agency's Statute and safeguards agreements. Rather, each case has posed unique challenges to the non-proliferation regime. The report concludes that creativity and deft statecraft are key to the handling of complex non-compliance cases.

A historic deal aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear production capability in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions has been reached in Vienna. The deal comes following almost two years of multi-lateral negotiations which intensified over the past several weeks. In this Q&A with Doug Gavel, Director of Media Relations for the Harvard Kennedy School, Matt Bunn was asked for his perspectives on the most significant elements of the deal, how this deal came together, and whether the deal goes far enough.

In this new oped for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, MTA Associate Aaron Arnold and colleague Nikos Passas consider the role of banks in monitoring and verifying proliferation-related transactions. He outlines steps that the P5+1 and Iran can take in a final agreement that will allow them to remain vigilant about proliferation financing.

"Plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) are the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons. They do not exist in appreciable quantities in nature and are quite difficult to produce. But with such materials in hand, most states—and potentially even some particularly sophisticated terrorist groups—would be able to make at least a crude nuclear explosive. Hence controlling those materials and the means to make them is a critical element of regulating the path to the bomb..."

On April 28, the Project on Managing the Atom joined the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, The Netherlands government, and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in convening nuclear nonproliferation experts from around the world at the United Nations to participate in a Symposium on the 2015 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

This report proposes a framework for IAEA verification of steps toward nuclear disarmament, premised on IAEA verification of fissile material, in any form, whether classified or not, submitted by any state possessing nuclear weapons. It identifies technical, legal, and financial solutions to the challenges posed by such verification, and offers a way forward to the implementation of the proposed framework. The tool that Rockwood and Shea offer is ready for any state with nuclear weapons to take up, finish the final details, and implement.