South Asia

The historical record does not support the idea that nuclear energy programs increase the odds of proliferation.

Professor Matthew Bunn gave a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University offering approaches to assessing the proliferation-resistance and terrorism-resistance of nuclear energy systems.

At 6:00 PM on October 3, 2013, George Perkovich, Vice President for Studies and
Director of the Nuclear Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, gave the 2013 Robert McNamara Lecture on War and Peace, titled "Preventing Nuclear War in South Asia: Unprecedented Challenges, Unprecedented Solutions."

Assessing the risk of nuclear attack-by-proxy turns on the question of whether a state could sponsor nuclear terrorism and remain anonymous. A leader could rationalize such an attack—and entrust terrorists with a vitally important mission—only if doing so allowed the sponsor to avoid retaliation. After all, if a leader did not care about retaliation, he or she would likely conduct a nuclear strike directly. Giving nuclear weapons to terrorists makes sense only if there is a high likelihood of remaining anonymous after the attack.

The historical growth in the number and variety of Japanese nuclear veto players has made the country an extreme case of stasis in fundamental nuclear policies. Japan is not the only country to experience this phenomenon, however. In many advanced industrialized democracies, the old Manhattan Project model of top-down, centralized, and secretive nuclear institutions has gradually given way to more complex arrangements. And as a general rule, the more numerous the veto players, the harder the struggle to achieve major nuclear policy change.

Matthew Bunn presented "Expected – or hoped for – outcomes of the Seoul nuclear security summit" to the 10th Annual RoK-UN Joint Conference on Disarmament and Nonproliferation in Jeju, Republic of Korea.

Matthew Bunn presented "The threat of nuclear terrorism: What’s new? What’s true?" at a conference in Seoul, 3-5 November, 2011.

Matthew Bunn presented "Next Steps to Strengthen Nuclear Security and Prevent Nuclear Terrorism" at the Fissile Materials Working Group event in Vienna, Austria on the occasion of the 1-year anniversary of the Nuclear Security Summit.

Matthew Bunn presented "Next Steps to Strengthen Nuclear Security and Prevent Nuclear Terrorism" at the XVIII Edoardo Amaldi Conference on “International Security and the Role of Scientific Academies” Rome, Italy in November 2010.