South Asia

10 Items

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

Nuclear Disarmament: The Legacy of the Trilateral Initiative

| March 23, 2015

In 1996, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United States and the Russian Federation entered into a cooperative effort – the Trilateral Initiative – aimed at investigating the feasibility and requirements for a verification system under which the IAEA could accept and monitor nuclear warheads or nuclear warhead components pursuant to the NPT Article VI commitments of both States. Although the Initiative ended in 2002, the Model Verification Agreement produced could still serve as the basis for bilateral or multilateral agreements between the IAEA and nuclear-weapon States.

In this paper, Thomas E. Shea and Laura Rockwood examine the potential role for international verification of fissile material in relation to nuclear disarmament, what was accomplished under the Trilateral Initiative and, more importantly, what should be done now to preserve its legacy and take concrete steps towards such verification.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant is the only U.S. serial  production facility.

NNSA

Report - Nuclear Threat Initiative

Innovating Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks

    Author:
  • Verifying Baseline Declarations of Nuclear Warheads and Materials Working Group
| July 2014

Part of NTI's Innovating Verification reports series, Verifying Baseline Declarations of Nuclear Warheads and Materials analyzes how baseline declarations can contribute to near- and long-term arms control and non-proliferation goals and how to verify them without compromising sensitive information.

Paper

Strengthening Global Approaches To Nuclear Security

| July 1, 2013

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 paper 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.

Paper - American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Nuclear Collisions: Discord, Reform & the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime

    Authors:
  • Wael Al-Assad
  • Jayantha Dhanapala
  • C. Raja Mohan
  • Ta Minh Tuan
| April 2012

Nearly all of the 190 signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree that the forty-two-year-old treaty is fragile and in need of fundamental reform. But gaining consensus on how to fix the NPT will require reconciling the sharply differing views of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Strengthening the international rules is increasingly important as dozens of countries, including some with unstable political environments, explore nuclear energy. The result is an ever-increasing distribution of this technology. In this paper, Steven E. Miller outlines the main points of contention within the NPT regime and identifies the issues that have made reform so difficult.

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

Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and Applied Questions

    Author:
  • Andrei A. Kokoshin
| June 2011

In the Foreword to this paper by Andrei Kokoshin, Belfer Center Director Graham Allison writes: "The global nuclear order is reaching a tipping point. Several trends are advancing along crooked paths, each undermining this order. These trends include North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons program, Iran’s continuing nuclear ambitions, Pakistan’s increasing instability, growing doubts about the sustainability of the nonproliferation regime in general, and terrorist groups’ enduring aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons. Andrei Kokoshin, deputy of the State Duma and former secretary of Russia’s Security Council, analyzes these challenges that threaten to cause the nuclear order to collapse in the following paper."

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

Limiting Transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing Technology: Issues, Constraints, Options

Fred McGoldrick authored a report, entitled "Limiting Transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing Technology: Issues, Constraints, Options" that provides an informed analysis and set of recommendations on how to strengthen restraints on the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies in a manner that would be acceptable to all Nuclear Suppliers Group members, and would be credible to the major exporting states and industry.

Report - International Panel on Fissile Materials

The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy

    Editor:
  • Frank N. von Hippel
    Authors:
  • Anatoli Diakov
  • Ming Ding
  • Tadahiro Katsuta
  • Charles McCombie
  • M.V. Ramana
  • Tatsujiro Suzuki
  • Susan Voss
  • Suyuan Yu
| September 2010

In the 1970s, nuclear-power boosters expected that by now nuclear power would produce perhaps 80 to 90 percent of all electrical energy globally. Today, the official high-growth projection of the Organization for Economic Co‑operation and Developments (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) estimates that nuclear power plants will generate about 20 percent of all electrical energy in 2050. Thus, nuclear power could make a significant contribution to the global electricity supply. Or it could be phased out — especially if there is another accidental or a terrorist-caused Chernobyl-scale release of radioactivity. If the spread of nuclear energy cannot be decoupled from the spread of nuclear weapons, it should be phased out.

Paper

Beyond Optimism and Pessimism: The Differential Effects of Nuclear Proliferation

| November 2009

Matthew Kroenig examines the effect of the spread of nuclear weapons on international politics in a Managing the Atom Working Paper.  He observes that the spread of nuclear weapons threatens some states more than others, and proposes a theory of nuclear proliferation that examines the differential effects of proliferation.  He argues that the threat nuclear proliferation poses to a particular state depends on that state’s ability to project military power.  The spread of nuclear weapons is worse for states that have the ability to project conventional military power over a potential nuclear weapon state because nuclear proliferation constrains their conventional military freedom of action.

Report

Funding for U.S. Efforts to Improve Controls Over Nuclear Weapons, Materials, and Expertise Overseas: A 2009 Update

| June 2009

Andrew Newman and Matthew Bunn assess the Obama administration's fiscal year 2010 budget request for programs to improve controls over nuclear weapons, materials, and expertise worldwide. Funding for U.S. Efforts to Improve Controls Over Nuclear Weapons, Materials, and Expertise Overseas: A 2009 Update concludes that the request is a "steady as you go" budget and recommends that Congress and the administration work together to establish a $500 million contingency fund that could be used flexibly on a range of nuclear security programs.