South Asia

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

As the growth of nuclear industry during the coming decade is considered to increase, the number of cylinder shipments will expand accordingly. Beyond that, new vendors with less experience will enter the uranium conversion and enrichment market. Under such a scenario, there is no reason to discount the disappearance of interest to nuclear proliferation or illicit trafficking of nuclear material. Thus an enhanced system to track UF6 movements is a must. Better to be safe than sorry.

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.

Despite substantial progress in improving nuclear security in recent years, there is more to be done.  The threats of nuclear theft and terrorism remain very real. This presentation recommends learning from the much stronger national and international efforts in nuclear safety, and in particular, taking steps to build international understanding of the threat; establish effective performance objectives; assure performance; train and certify needed personnel; build security culture and exchange best practices; reduce the number of sites that need to be protected; and strengthen the international framework and continue the dialogue once leaders are no longer meeting regularly at the summit level. Matthew Bunn presented this talk, based on a recent paper, on July 3rd, 2013 at the International Conference on Nuclear Security in Vienna.

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.

New Harvard Kennedy School research finds that energy research, development, and demonstration (ERD&D) funding by governments and 100 percent government-owned enterprises in six major emerging economies appears larger than government spending on ERD&D in most industrialized countries combined. That makes the six so-called BRIMCS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, China, and South Africa—major players in the development of new energy technologies. It also suggests there could be opportunities for cooperation on energy technology development among countries.

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.