Science & Technology

As the policy community prepares to assess an agreement between the U.S. and its P5+1 partners and Iran, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker asked me to review the history of analogous agreements for lessons that illuminate the current challenge. In response to his assignment, I reviewed the seven decades of the nuclear era, during which the U.S. negotiated arms-control treaties, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968; strategic arms limitation talks and agreements from SALT to New Start; the North Korean accord of 1994; the agreements that helped eliminate nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus in the early 1990s; and the pact that eliminated the Libyan nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Among many lessons and clues from this instructive history, five stand out

"In the dark days at the turn of the year, all but a few bits of U.S.-Russian cooperation to strengthen nuclear security in Russia came to a halt.  No longer, for now at least, will U.S. experts work with counterparts at major Russian nuclear facilities to implement better means to prevent insiders from stealing fissile material, or to improve accounting, so a theft would be quickly detected..."

"Last weekend, the New York Times published a debate on whether, as a result of tension over Ukraine, the United States should cut off nuclear security cooperation with Russia. As the Times reported before the debate, Russia may be bringing nearly all of this cooperation to an end–but there are some in the United States saying the U.S. government should act to end it whether or not Russia is willing to continue. Given the deteriorating relationship between the two countries, this issue should be debated now. We are continuing the debate on Nuclear Security Matters and welcome readers to send us their thoughts..."

In this Q&A with The Tehran Times, Matthew Bunn is interviewed about the  “painful compromises” that Iran and the 5+1 countries will need to make if a final deal is to be struck on Iran's nuclear program.

In this op-ed for the International New York Times, William H. Tobey, Matthew Bunn, and Nickolas Roth make the case for continuing nuclear security cooperation with Russia and continuing to fund international nuclear security efforts.

"The Chinese government has taken significant steps to develop and apply approaches to nuclear security and nuclear accounting in the aftermath of 9/11. One driver of Chinese improvements has been international cooperation, in particular with the US. Since the 9/11 attacks, China has actively cooperated with the US to improve its nuclear security in the civilian sector. Such cooperation should continue and grow stronger. More importantly, China-US cooperation should extend to the military sector that has custody of the largest stocks of weapon-usable fissile materials and all nuclear weapons."

Speaking at West Point last month, President Obama warned that “if nuclear materials are not secure, that poses a danger to American citizens.” Contrarily, recently proposed budget cuts could hamper work being done to ensure nuclear material never falls into the wrong hands. In his National Interest op-ed, Matthew Bunn makes the case that preventing nuclear danger should remain a top priority for Congress.

The most significant achievement to emerge from the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit was a pledge by 35 countries to observe the terms of a joint agreement, known as Strengthening Nuclear Security Implementation. Promoted strongly by the chairs of all three nuclear summits—the United States, South Korea, and the Netherlands— the 2014 initiative is an important step towards creating a robust global security system designed to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Yet China, along with Russia, India, and Pakistan, did not join the pledge. Beijing has not offered any explanations. China not only can join the new initiative, it should join it—because joining is in China’s own national interest.

It is reported that the construction of Taohuajiang Nuclear Power Plant in Hunan Province, China's first inland nuclear power plant, is about to be restarted, after being halted by the State Council which suspended all approvals of the construction of nuclear power plants in March 2011. But public concerns are still the biggest barriers....