Nuclear Proliferation: A Civilian and a Military Dilemma

The danger of nuclear proliferation is growing in proportion to
the number of new nuclear power stations all over the world.
There is no insurmountable division between the civil and military use of this technology in spite of the efforts on the part of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to regulate
this. The most recent example is Iran. At the end of the day
anyone who does not want to be regulated cannot be forced to
do so. With the expansion of nuclear energy there is a growing necessity to build reprocessing plants and fast breeders inorder to produce nuclear fuel. Both give rise to the circulationof plutonium leading in turn to the creation of huge amounts offissile material capable of making bombs – a horror scenario!
With the run-up to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
Review Conference in May of 2010, major states have focused
as never before on reducing existing U.S. and Russian nuclear

Rue d’Arlon 15, -1050 Brussels, Belgium
T +32 2 743 41 00 F 32 2 743 41 09
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weapons stockpiles, reversing Pyongyang’s nuclear buildup, andstopping Iran’s nuclear weapons-related activities. The hopeis that each of these efforts will be mutually reinforcing andthat progress in reducing existing nuclear weapons will persuade the world’s nonnuclear weapons states to do more to stayclear of dangerous civilian nuclear fuel-making activities. Thisset of nuclear hopes, however, is unlikely to be fully realised.
Barring regime change in either North Korea or Iran, neither
Pyongyang’s renunciation of its nuclear arsenal nor Iran’s cessation of nuclear weapons-related activities is all that probable.
Meanwhile, the odds of China, India, Pakistan, North Korea,
and Israel agreeing to nuclear warhead reductions seem evenmore remote. Assuming that current nuclear trends continue,
then the next two decades will test international security as it
has never have been tested before.

Nuclear Proliferation:

A Civilian and a Military Dilemma

TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Preface: Nuclear Energy – a Dead End 

3

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution? 
By Otfried Nassauer

5Introduction 

6

1. Non-proliferation efforts – a quick overview	
2. Civilian nuclear installations – a quick overview	811

3. States as a proliferation risk

16

4. Non-state actor risks 
4.1 Nuclear weapons in terrorist hands 
4.2 Dirty bombs in terrorist hands 
4.3 Nuclear materials smuggling 
4.4 Non-state actors and fuel cycle safety 
4.5 Other proliferation risks 

19
20
20
21
22
22

5. Instruments to control and contain proliferation 
5.1 Important treaties 
5.2 Non-proliferation through safeguards 
5.3 Non-proliferation by export controls 
5.4 Non-proliferation by cooperation 
5.5 Coercive non-proliferation and military counter-proliferation 

24
24
27
29
30
31

6. A contradictory approach – non-proliferation policy under Barack Obama 
6.1 The New START Treaty 
6.2 The Nuclear Security Summit 
6.3 The Nuclear Posture Review 
6.4 Words and actions – problems and contradictions 

33
34
35
36
38

7. A world in search of energy 

40

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction:  45
How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.
By Henry D. Sokolski
1. Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Prevention: The Next 20 Years	
2. A packed nuclear-armed crowd?	46

3. Making the most of zero 

54Conclusion

61

Glossary and list of abbreviations 63

Biographies Otfried Nassauer and Henry D. Sokolski 

64

48

With the support of theHeinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Published by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, European Union, Brussels
Printed in Belgium, September 2010
© The authors, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, European Union, Brussels
All rights reserved
Authored by Otfried Nassauer:
Translation: Translation Agency LUND Languages / LUND Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
English proof-reading and language editing: Yazgülü Zeybek, Alexander Tietz
Coordination and final editing: Annett Waltersdorf
Authored by Henry D. Sokolski:
English proof-reading and language editing: Yazgülü Zeybek, Alexander Tietz
Coordination and final editing: Annett Waltersdorf
Print production: Micheline Gutman
Cover picture:
Gisela Giardino/ Original photo: unknown author
www. giselagiardino.com.arSome rights reserved for the pictures of pages 24, 33, 48. They are attached to the following Creative
Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
D/2010/11.850/7
This publication can be ordered at:
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, European Union, Brussels
15 Rue d’Arlon
B-1050 Brussels
Belgium
T (+32) 2 743 41 00
F (+32) 2 743 41 09
E brussels@boell.eu
W www.boell.eu3

Preface: Nuclear Energy – a Dead End

Anyone following the statements expressedfrom time to time about the renaissance of nuclear energy could get the impression that the
number of new nuclear plants was increasing at
an immense and steady rate. In fact, more recent
statistics show 60 plants in the process of being
built, the majority in China and others in Russia,
India, South Korea and Japan. The USA is only
shown as having one actual building project.
However, this list (the VGB Power Tech) includes
numerous ancient projects that were never completed and are therefore de facto building ruins.
Moreover, there are at the present time proposals for about 160 new nuclear power plants
up to the year 2020, 53 of these in China alone
and 35 in the USA, followed by South Korea andRussia. In Europe, the UK heads the list witheight proposed new projects, followed by Italy,
Switzerland, Finland, Rumania and Lithuania.
France, that would like to bless the world withnew nuclear power stations, is itself only planning one new plant. Most European states are notentertaining any concrete nuclear plans.
As a matter of fact the number of nuclear power plants in the world is continually decreasing.
At the present time there are still 436 reactors inoperation. In the next 15 to 20 years more ageing
plants will go offline than new ones coming into
operation. By no means will all declarations ofintent be implemented. The more energy markets
are opened up to free competition, the smaller
the chances are for nuclear energy.
The costs for new plants are also exploding. For example, the building cost of the new
nuclear power plant in Finland’s Olkiluoto has
already increased from 3 to around 5.4 billion
Euros although not even the shell of the building
is standing yet. In addition, there are the unsolved
problems of waste disposal and the high susceptibility of the technology to failure. Today, no
privately run energy conglomerate risks building
a new nuclear power station without government

subsidies and guarantees. It is noticeable thatnew nuclear power stations are built particularly
where the government and the energy industry
form an unholy alliance.
Up to now, nuclear power plants have been
funded by massive public subsidies. For Germany
the calculations roughly add up to over 100 billion Euros and this preferential treatment is stillgoing on today. As a result the billions set aside
for the disposal of nuclear waste and the dismantling of nuclear power plants represent a tax-freemanoeuvre for the companies. In addition theliability of the operators is limited to 2.5 billion
Euros – a tiny proportion of the costs that would
result from a medium-sized nuclear accident. All
things considered nuclear energy proves to bejust as expensive as it is risky.
In addition to the routine arguments about
nuclear energy, there are some new ones. Firstly,
the danger of nuclear proliferation is growing in
proportion to the number of new nuclear power
stations all over the world. There is no insurmountable division between the civil and military use ofthis technology in spite of the efforts on the partof the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
to regulate this. The most recent example is Iran.
At the end of the day anyone who does not want
to be regulated cannot be forced to do so. With
the expansion of nuclear energy there is a growing necessity to build reprocessing plants and fast
breeders in order to produce nuclear fuel. Both giverise to the circulation of plutonium leading in turnto the creation of huge amounts of fissile material
capable of making bombs – a horror scenario!
Secondly, an extension of the life span of existing nuclear energy stations, and even more so
the building of new plants, would act as a massive
brake on the development of renewable energies.
The claim that nuclear energy and renewableenergies complement each other is a myth since
not only do they compete for a meagre amountof investment capital and power-lines but at the

4same time nuclear plants limit the growth potential particularly of wind energy owing to theirinflexible continuous operation. On windy andlow-consumption days the energy demand inGermany is already covered to a large extent by
the wind energy supply. As the output of existing nuclear power stations (as well as the big
coal-fired power stations) is not reduced at short
notice for economic reasons, the surplus energy
has to be exported to other countries at a loss.
There is method in this madness.
Whatever way you look at it, nuclear energy has
neither the potential to make a decisive contribu-

tion to climate change nor is it necessary in order toguarantee energy supply. The exact opposite is true.
Those who want to promote the development of
renewable energy with the aim of producing 100%of the power demand should oppose the buildingof new nuclear plants as well as the life span extension of older ones. Despite the claims about nuclear
energy it is not a suitable interim strategy leading
towards the age of solar energy.

Berlin, January 2010
Ralf Fücks(Chairman of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung)publication series on ecology

Nuclear Weapons andNuclear Energy – Siamese Twinsor Double Zero Solution?
By Otfried Nassauer

6

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

INTRODUCTION

As a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power
to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States
has a moral responsibility to act. (…). So today,
I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world
without nuclear weapons. I'm not naive. This goal
will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in mylifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But
now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell usthat the world cannot change. We have to insist,“Yes, we can.” (…) together we will strengthen the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a basis forcooperation. The basic bargain is sound: countries
with nuclear weapons will move towards disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will
not acquire them, and all countries can accesspeaceful nuclear energy. (…) We must harness thepower of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts tocombat climate change, and to advance peace opportunity for all people.1
Barack Obama in Prague, 05.04.2009

A year ago, U.S. President Barack Obama
revived the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. During a speech in Prague, he announced his
commitment to achieving this aim and promised
to use his time in office to take the first steps along
the road to such a world and to seek progress with
nuclear disarmament and improvements in thearea of non-proliferation. One year later, the topic
is once again setting the agenda for the Americanpresident. The following developments stood atthe very forefront of public attention in April 2010:
the signing of a new agreement for the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons between the
USA and Russia (New START);

the publishing of the Nuclear Posture
Review, a report in which the U.S. Government
must outline its future policy on nuclear weapons
to the Congress;
an international conference on the security of weapons-grade fissile materials to which
the U.S. President had invited countries to attend
in Washington;a conference of the NATO foreign ministers, where the future of nuclear weapons in
NATO and in Europe would be discussed;
and the next review conference for the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In addition, there were attempts to impose stricter sanctions through the UN Security
Council on Iran because of their nuclear programme.
The public debate about nuclear technology
has, therefore, been determined by the following
topics: the future of nuclear weapons, the continued reduction of their numbers and the future of
nuclear non-proliferation. Another topic always
accompanies discussions on the subject: the future of nuclear energy.
Moreover, this situation has not arisen bychance but because the military and civilian
uses of nuclear technology are closely related
or connected. Knowledge, materials and technology gained from the civilian use of nuclear
technology can also be of use in a military nuclear
programme. Therefore, comprehensive nuclear
programmes – even when they are declared to besolely civilian – almost always evoke substantial
proliferation fears. The debate about the nuclear
programme in Iran that has been rumbling now
for many years is a current example of this issue.

1	http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered
The manuscript for this article was finalised in the middle of April 2010. All links to sources on the internet were lastchecked on 13.04.2010.



Driven by the world’s growing energy demands, particularly for electrical energy, andefforts to battle an imminent catastrophic change
in climate through a reduction in CO2 emissions,the civilian utilisation of nuclear energy may well
be about to undergo a renaissance in the coming decades. Barack Obama expressly alluded toits possible contribution to holding back climatechange in his speech in Prague. He has sincemade state-funded credit to the tune of morethan 50 billion dollars available as an incentive
for the construction of new nuclear power plants.
Its proponents argue that nuclear energy enables
the production of large amounts of electrical energy without the production of CO2 emissions at
the same time. In terms of climate policy, this iscertainly an incentive. Yet does this advantagebalance out the security policy risks that are associated with the use – and particularly with thefurther proliferation – of nuclear energy? Is the useof nuclear energy in an ever increasing number ofcountries – even if it is for the purpose of climate
policy – worth the associated proliferation risks?
Or do the growing security risks outweigh the alleged climate benefits of such a policy?
Central elements of the civilian nuclear fuelcycle confront mankind with security risks that arecharacteristic of nuclear technology. Enrichment
technology, for example, can be used for generating fuel for nuclear reactors but can also be used

7

for the purpose of producing the materials fromwhich a nuclear weapon is built. The differencein use is of a more gradual nature rather thanfundamental. A number of types of reactor enable both the recovery of nuclear weapons-grade
plutonium and the production of electricity. In
reprocessing facilities, weapons-grade plutonium can be separated in the same way as reactor
plutonium – the latter is not as useful for building nuclear weapons. Nuclear technologies, theassociated know-how and nuclear materials
can be proliferated. Nuclear experts can travelor migrate. The very existence of a wide range of
specific export controls, reliability tests for employees and a special non-proliferation policy
show that the danger of nuclear proliferation is tobe taken seriously.
The following chapters will illustrate – without
going into too much technical detail or specificexamples – how closely civilian and military usesof nuclear technology are intertwined and interwoven. They are in fact similar to Siamese twins.
As a result, there is a risk of proliferation of nuclear technology for military use. In the end, only therejection of both uses of nuclear technology – adouble zero solution2 – is likely to allow the realisation of a world free of nuclear weapons because
only under these conditions it can be guaranteed,
controlled and monitored that no military use of
nuclear technology is taking place.

2	A ‘double zero solution’ refers to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987. This first nuclear
disarmament treaty eliminated two classes of nuclear missiles from NATO stocks and those from the Warsaw pact:
intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles. The signatory states of Russia and the USA are now no longer
allowed to possess ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

© iStockphoto

8

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

1. Non-proliferation efforts – a quick overview
During the Cold War period, proliferation
fears were focused primarily on those countries
that were suspected to have an interest in thematerials, technology or knowledge required fornuclear weapons. In the 1960s and the early 1970s,
these countries included, for example, the Federal
Republic of Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Switzerland and Sweden. In the mid-1970s and the
beginning of the 1980s, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt,
India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan,
and South Africa were amongst those countries
whose nuclear ambitions were judged to be acause for concern. Since the beginning of the
1990s, it has been primarily Iraq, Iran, Pakistan
and North Korea. Almost all non-nuclear weapons states that have operated comprehensive
nuclear research or nuclear energy programmes
were viewed with suspicion at an early stage in thedevelopment of these programmes and closely
examined with a focus on their nuclear intentions.
However, up until the end of the Cold War,the number of countries that actually acquired
nuclear weapons remained surprisingly small:this situation can be mainly attributed to theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Further contributions were made by
the efforts of the International Atomic Energy

Agency, whose tasks include the monitoringof civilian nuclear facilities. In addition, there
have been multilateral or national technology
and export controls, the voluntary self-restraintof non-nuclear weapons states, security assurances from the nuclear powers and – when thedanger of the military use of nuclear technology
was regarded as being particularly serious – diplomatic pressure and sanctions imposed by theinternational community.
After the NPT had been signed, the fivenuclear powers, the United States, Russia, theUnited Kingdom, France and China, were only
joined by Israel, India and South Africa as new
nuclear weapons states during the Cold War
period. In the cases of India and Israel, the USA
was already quite certain during the negotiations
for the treaty that it would not be able to preventthese two countries from developing nuclear
weapons. This view was proved to be correct a
few years later. South Africa with its apartheid
regime was, therefore, the only country where it
was more or less a surprise that they managed tobuild nuclear weapons despite the existing nonproliferation regime during this period. It was not
until after the end of the Cold War that Pakistan
and – according to their own claims – North Korea

1. Non-proliferation efforts – a quick overview

became the first non-nuclear members of the
NPT regime to build nuclear weapons.
Triggered by the end of the Cold War, at the
beginning of the 1990s, for a short period there
existed some hope that nuclear disarmamentand strengthened non-proliferation efforts could
perhaps still free the world from the danger ofnuclear destruction. The USA and Russia signed
up in quick succession to contractually agreed
reductions to their ‘heavy throw’ nuclear missiles Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)
and in the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives also
to mutual, unilateral reductions in their tactical nuclear weapons. South Africa gave up its
nuclear weapons at the end of apartheid. Belarus,
Kazakhstan and the Ukraine agreed – when also
put under pressure – to renounce their nuclear
weapons inherited from the Soviet Union andto enter the NPT as non-nuclear members. Twoother non-nuclear members signed up to thetreaty were Brazil and Argentina – both had long
been counted amongst those states feared to havemilitary nuclear intentions. In 1995, it was possible to agree an open-ended extension to the
NPT – initially only agreed for a period of 25 years– that was not tied to any conditions.
The situation has changed significantly inthe meantime. Proliferation is once again seen
by many governments as one of the greatest risks
for international security. A variety of factors
have contributed to this situation. The nuclear
powers have not reduced their nuclear weapons arsenals as quickly as many non-nuclear
weapons states had hoped and expected following the end of the Cold War. The nuclear powers
speak more frequently of the need to modernise
their nuclear arsenals and in this way clearlysignal that they aim to hold on to their nuclear
weapons for decades to come. The break-up of
the Soviet Union and the resulting weakening of
Russia brought new and serious concerns into
the general consciousness: would the emerging

9and crisis-ridden successor states of the Soviet
Union be able to provide sufficient security forthe nuclear weapons, nuclear material, technology and expert knowledge in their territories?
After the Gulf War in 1991, international inspectors also discovered a secret nuclear weapons
programme in Iraq. In 1998, Pakistan – as alreadyexpected for some time – had to be added to thelist of nuclear powers because it successfully
tested nuclear weapons for the first time. Finally,
after a long waiting game, North Korea became
the first country to leave the NPT in 2003 andsubsequently declared that it possessed nuclear
weapons.
Since the 9/11 attacks, public awareness of theproliferation risks has been growing rapidly. The
USA, as the victim of these terrorist attacks, added
a whole new group of proliferation actors andrecipients of proliferation to prominent positionsin their security policy threat analysis: transnational non-state actors such as terrorists, organised
criminals, religious extremists or transnational
corporations. Although a number of experts hadthese actors on their radar already for a number of
decades, it was only after the terror attacks on New
York and Washington that politics and the wider
public as a whole became recognisably worriedby these groups. What if terrorists used a nuclear
weapon or even only a dirty bomb made fromradioactive materials and conventional explosives
in a major terrorist attack in future?
A large proportion of this new attention canactually be traced back to politicians, think tanks
and industry in the United States and elsewhere.
These actors have tried extremely successfully
to turn the threat of terrorism – especially terrorism with weapons of mass destruction – into
sales arguments for their own products, services
and interests, as well as to guarantee access tothe appropriate financial resources. Under the
George W. Bush administration they found ready
and willing support.3 Nevertheless, this much

3	Also under Barack Obama, who has elevated the prevention of nuclear terrorism to one of his priorities with the
Nuclear Posture Review 2010, such structural patterns continue to be found right through to the world of academic
study. cf. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/al-qaeda-wmd-threat.pdf and as a criticism of this:
http://sitrep.globalsecurity.org/articles/100126542-the-busted-watch-of-us-wmd-thr.htm

10

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

remains true: transnational non-state actors, suchas terrorists, may indeed attempt to gain accessto nuclear materials, technology or the relevant
know-how. Should these groups actually plan
to build, steal or acquire dirty, primitive or evenelaborate nuclear explosive devices then merely
the possibility of them achieving some successrepresents a serious problem.
As proliferation has once again found its way
to the very top of the agenda in international
security policies, those risks arising from civilianor military nuclear programmes are also gaining
additional attention. The current debate about
the Iranian nuclear programme is a good example: Iran is not only mistrusted because it has kept
part of its nuclear technology secret and violated
some of its obligations as a non-nuclear memberof the NPT under the control of the IAEA, butalso because of the experiences gained dealing
with Iraq and North Korea. The Iraqi example
made clear that it was possible for a country topress ahead with a military nuclear programme
under the cloak of a civilian programme and hide
it from IAEA safeguards. North Korea was alsoable to turn what was initially a ‘civilian’ nuclear

programme into a military one. Although North
Korea was suspected at an early stage and strict
sanctions were imposed against the country later
on, it reached the stage where the possibility ofdeveloping a functioning nuclear weapon was so
close that North Korea was willing to risk withdrawing from the NPT and claim ownership ofnuclear weapons. A few years later, North Korea
demonstrated their willingness to undertake thecountry’s first tests using nuclear explosives.4 As aconsequence, it is often argued that Iran must be
prevented from becoming a ‘second North Korea’.
Even if the Iranian nuclear programme, as well as
the country’s intentions, were of an entirely civilian nature, as the government in Tehran claims,
it would be necessary to mistrust Iran due to theexperiences with North Korea. All new civilian
nuclear programmes going beyond the operationof imported light-water reactors and having theaim of mastering large parts of the fuel cycle are
met by a much higher level of scepticism than in
the past. Iran is the first country to be confronted
by this new political climate in non-proliferation
policy. It could set a precedent for dealing withother states in the future who wish to enter into
the comprehensive use of nuclear technology.

4	Most experts do not yet regard the North Korean test explosions as successful nuclear weapons tests.

© Hemera

Overview and Trends

11

2. Civilian nuclear installations – a quick overview

According to data from the IAEA, 32 of the
193 countries in the world were operating a totalof 438 commercial nuclear reactor blocks for thegeneration of electricity in 2009. A further 54
facilities were under construction last year. Fivereactor blocks were shut down for reconditioning purposes.5 The reactors currently in operation
provided less than 5 % of the world’s total energy
requirements, although in 2007 they were still
producing around 14 % of the world’s available
electricity.6 The vast majority of all commercial nuclear reactors are operated by countries
in the industrialised world. In 2008, the USA

had 104 reactors, France 59, Japan 55, Russia 31
and Great Britain 19. Germany had 17 reactors,
Canada 18 and the Ukraine 15. South Korea had
20 nuclear power plants, India 17 and China 11.
Taiwan operates six; Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan
and South Africa operate two facilities each.7
New reactor blocks are being built primarily by
China (21), Russia (9), India (6) and South Korea(6).8 Iran has nearly completed its first reactor in
Bushehr and plans to build further reactors. Mostof the world’s reactors are pressurised water reactors (264). There are also heavy-water reactors(44), boiling water reactors (94), light-water-

5	IAEA: Nuclear Power Reactors in the World, Reference Data Series No 2, 2009 Edition, Vienna, 2009,http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/RDS2-29_web.pdf
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/index.html
As well as monitoring nuclear non-proliferation in the military arena, the IAEA also has the task of promoting andsupporting civilian use of nuclear technology. Therefore, it is not possible for the IAEA to provide a fundamental
critical analysis of civilian use. The data that is provided by the organisation might also occasionally have a ‘positive
tint’ due to its job definition. This becomes clear, for example, when the pessimistic forecasts from the IAEA about
future use of nuclear energy appear to be consistently higher than the optimistic forecasts of the International
Energy Agency or the U.S. Department of Energy. However, the IAEA data is issued on a regular basis and therefore
available for comparison. The data is based on the information provided by the member states, as well as the findings
from the IAEA about the worldwide monitoring of nuclear facilities. There is no other comparatively large and highquality data pool publically available elsewhere.
6 In 2004 it was still 16%. http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2008/np2008.html
7 IAEA: Loc.cit., pp.10/11.
8 IAEA, loc.cit. updated through: http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.opercap.htm

12

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

cooled graphite-moderated reactors (16) andgas-cooled graphite-moderated reactors (18). The
overwhelming majority of nuclear power plants
use low-enriched uranium (LEU) that contains
between two and 5 % U-235. Some facilities, suchas a number of heavy-water reactors, can be operated using natural uranium. There are only two
fast breeder reactors in operation to date.9
Most of the countries operating nuclear
power plants do not possess a completely closed
fuel cycle but either have just the reactors or additional individual facilities used in the fuel cycle.
Therefore, these countries operate an open fuelcycle.10 Closed fuel cycles are operated, in particular, by those countries that have or used tohave a nuclear weapons programme or otherwise
have the ability to build such a programme. The
largest nuclear weapon country, the USA, has anopen civilian fuel cycle because its government
decided in 1980 to dispense with the reprocessing of spent civilian fuel elements from nuclear
reactors. The uranium11 used as fuel in thesereactors comes from two major sources. Almost
two-thirds comes from uranium mines, currently located in 19 countries producing between
40,000 and 50,000 tonnes of natural uranium per
year. The biggest suppliers are Canada, Australia
and Kazakhstan. They jointly provided almost
60 % of the newly mined uranium in 2007. Other
major suppliers are Nigeria, Russia, Namibia andUzbekistan.12 Iran has also been mining uranium
for its own needs for a number of years. Back in
2003, 46 % of the global uranium supply for civilian reactors came from secondary sources suchas the re-enrichment of depleted uranium, thereprocessing of spent fuel, and the downgradingof highly enriched uranium (HEU) from former
military stocks. However, today the figure is only
a little more than 30 %.13 How high the proportionof secondary supply sources will be in the future isunclear. It is dependent, for example, on whether
the nuclear weapons states continue to provide
HEU from military stocks for ‘downblending’14 in
future or if the worldwide reprocessing capacities
are increased significantly.
At current rates of consumption the IAEA andthe Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment expect that the demand for uranium
can be met through known deposits for another83 years. The figure will be correspondingly
shorter should there be increased consumption.15
The OECD, which expects an increase in demand
for newly mined uranium from 2020, lists a totalof 43 countries possessing exploitable uranium
resources. Both organisations anticipate that theuse of nuclear energy will significantly increase.
Uranium enrichment can be achieved byusing different technologies. The most common
technology is enrichment with the help of gas

9 IAEA, Loc cit. p.61.
10 A closed fuel cycle is a cycle in which reactor fuel is produced out of natural uranium, fed into the reactor, then‘burned’ in the reactor and afterwards is beeing reprocessed for use as new nuclear fuel. An open fuel cycle exists
when the fuel passes through the reactor only once. The spent fuel elements are not reprocessed afterwards but stored
instead.
11 A great deal of useful information about uranium, the fuel cycle and uranium processing facilities across the world
can be found on the internet site of the uranium project from WISE. cf. www.wise-uranium.org
12	http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Reports/Anrep2008/fuelcycle.pdf
The data is based on the so-called Red Book, which the IAEA and the OECD publish every two years. The source
named above is based on the 2008 edition because the new 2010 edition has not yet been published. Data from the‘Red Books’ is also available online in a good, regularly updated form at: http://www.wise-uranium.org/umaps.html
13 Ibid.
14 ‘Downblending’ - in simple terms – is when highly enriched uranium is mixed with other uranium until it becomes
low-enriched uranium.
15 In their optimistic forecasts before the financial crisis in 2008, the IAEA anticipated that electricity production
through nuclear reactors could be doubled from 372 GW(e) in 2008 to 748 GW(e) by 2030. A massive increase in
the construction of new reactors is expected. cf. Ibid. p. 26 The IAEA’s second role of promoting the use of nuclear
energy is reflected in such optimistic scenarios for the future of nuclear energy, as well as in the ever more optimistic
statements regarding the economically recoverable uranium reserves and, therefore, about the perspectives foravailable nuclear fuel.

2. Civilian nuclear installations – a quick overview

centrifuges. Gaseous diffusion, electromagnetic
isotope separation and the so-called Becker
Process are other techniques used. The five traditional nuclear powers, the United States, Russia,
the United Kingdom, France and China, operate enrichment facilities for civilian purposes
and have also operated these types of facilities
for military uses.16 Pakistan also carries out theenrichment process for both military and civilian purposes.17 Germany, the Netherlands, Japan,
and South Africa operate commercial enrichment facilities for civilian purposes. Laboratory
research as well as testing or smaller enrichment
facilities are found in countries such as Australia and South Korea. Iran is currently involved
in developing its uranium enrichment capabilities, consisting of a number of different facilities
which are suspected to be used in future to servea military nuclear programme.18 North Korea issuspected of having an undeclared enrichment
programme for military purposes. In May 2006,
Brazil started operating their first centrifuges ina small commercial uranium enrichment facility,
configured in such a way that it can enrich uranium up to a level of 5%; the facility is, however,capable of being converted to the production ofhighly enriched uranium. There has been conflictwith the IAEA, who monitor the facility, about
the extent to which Brazil must guarantee theorganisation access to the technology used for the13

centrifuges operated there.19 The facility has been
operating in the trial phase since 2009.
Spent fuel that has been used in reactors caneither be stored for a long period20 or reprocessedin commercially operated facilities in Great Britain,
France and Russia. Since 2008, Japan has become
the first non-nuclear state to operate a commercial reprocessing facility.21
Reprocessing facilities use a modern versionof the PUREX process, which enables, amongst
other things, uranium to be recycled from thespent fuel elements and the separation of thereactor plutonium created in the process. Military
reprocessing facilities for the separation of plutonium for nuclear weapons do not only exist in thefive recognised nuclear weapons states but also in
Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
Some countries that operate civilian nuclear
power stations, such as Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, send their spent
nuclear fuel abroad for reprocessing. The reactor plutonium that is separated in the process iseither sent back, temporarily stored in trust or
sent to another facility to be converted into mixed
oxide fuel (MOX). Separated reactor plutonium isstored by a number of developed nations either
on their own territory and/or on the territories

16 China, France, Great Britain, Russia and the USA no longer carry out the enrichment of uranium
for military purposes.
17 India and Israel established test programmes for enrichment; their nuclear weapons were, however,created based on plutonium.
18 Iran initially built a testing facility that has since been used to test three different types of centrifuge. A larger
enrichment facility is currently in the construction phase in which up to 50,000 centrifuges will be operated. Several
thousand centrifuges have already been used there to enrich uranium to less than 5%. In the future, uranium will
be enriched here to 20% in order to provide fuel for an Iranian research reactor. In addition, Iran has announced
its intention to build up to 10 further smaller facilities, one of which is currently under construction. It is unclear inview of the fierce debate surrounding the Iranian nuclear programme whether the construction of numerous smaller
facilities, which actually makes neither economic nor technical sense, is due to Tehran’s desire to make the destructionof their nuclear facilities through air strikes more difficult.
19	Brazil is allegedly worried about industrial espionage because it wants to develop centrifuges that will be able toenrich uranium significantly more efficiently and less expensively. It argues that the IAEA can perform its monitoring
activities without having to know all of the technical details about the centrifuge technology.
cf. http://www.giga-hamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/publikationen/pdf/gf_lateinamerika_0606.pdf
For the current situation cf. http://www.swp-berlin.org/common/get_document.php?asset_id=6948
20 The fuel cycle remains open and the process is called ‘once through’.
21 cf. http://www.sckcen.be
The reprocessing facility in Rokasho-Mura can process 800 tonnes of fuel per year. To prevent the risk of proliferation,
the separated plutonium will be converted on-site into mixed oxide (MOX).

14

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

of countries reprocessing spent fuel for them.22
Storage in non-nuclear weapons states is subject
to the ‘safeguards’ of the IAEA.23 This also applies
to facilities for MOX production. Nuclear facilities in the nuclear weapons states are only subject
to international monitoring when the country inquestion expressly agrees to it. Most developing
countries that operate nuclear power plants do
not carry out reprocessing. Instead, their spent
fuel is kept in storage or sent back to the supplying country. Spent fuel makes up the majority of
the reactor plutonium that currently exists in theworld. Without making a decision about what will
happen to this highly radioactive and dangerous
waste material in the future, it is difficult to assess
for certain whether this constitutes a new type oflong-term proliferation risk.
Belgium, France, Great Britain, India andJapan produce commercial MOX fuel. On the one
hand, the use of MOX enables a limitation of thestocks of separated reactor plutonium; while on
the other hand, it allows additional plutonium tofind its way into the fuel cycle. Countries using thistype of fuel include Belgium, Germany,24 Sweden
and Switzerland. China is known to be consider-ing its use. Japan and Russia intend to operate fast
breeder reactors using MOX in future. Germany
planned at one time to use large-scale MOX production but has since dismantled both the pilot
facilities and the commercial facilities for MOX
production. Russia and the USA are entering into
the production of MOX to reduce their stocks of
weapons-grade plutonium.
HEU fuel was still used in around 130
research reactors in 2004 and the figure hasremained approximately the same up to 2010.25
This includes the only German research reactor
Garching II,26 which is currently operated withuranium enriched up to 93%. The use of HEU fuelin such reactors has caused security and proliferation fears for some time because HEU is relatively
easy to handle with comparatively limited risks
and many research reactors do not have elaborate
security systems. Substantial amounts of used
HEU fuel are also still stored in or near to shutdown research reactors. More than half of theapproximately 380 decommissioned reactors up
to 2004 had not been completely deconstructed
up to this point in time.27

22 Because the available reprocessing facilities only process around one third of all spent fuel elements each year andthe available MOX facilities have an even lower capacity, the overwhelming amount of reactor plutonium is present in
the form of temporarily stored fuel elements. This amount continues to grow, together with the levels of separated andstored reactor plutonium.
23 In the EURATOM member states, EURATOM carries out the safeguard measures in civilian nuclear facilities and not
IAEA. Therefore, these countries carry out self-regulation through multilateral cooperation.
24 The prerequisite for the use of this method for disposing of plutonium is the existence of operational light-water
reactors or fast breeder reactors suitable for MOX. The remaining operational life of the German reactors suitablefor MOX is unlikely to be sufficient to completely use up the already available reactor plutonium by the time ofthe politically agreed withdrawal from the nuclear energy programme, meaning that additional possibilities andtechnologies for final storage must be examined.
25	cf. http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/ResearchReactors/security20040308.html
Current data about the status of individual research reactors is offered by the IAEA here:
http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/rrdb/
There appears to be a similar number (about 130) in operation in 2010. cf. the discussion about the number of
research reactors in: Matthew Bunn: Managing the Atom 2010, Harvard University/Nuclear Threat Initiative,
April 2010, pp. 43/44. cf. http://www.nti.org/e_research/Securing_The_Bomb_2010.pdf
26 Against the specific requests of the USA the Garching II reactor has been operated since 2004 with up to 93%
uranium that has been imported from Russia. During 2010, the reactor should – where technically possible – beconverted. As no alternative fuel is currently available that allows a comparatively intense neutron source, the reactor
will continue to be operated using HEU. Research continues to be carried out with a uranium-molybdenum fuel with alower enrichment level (up to 60%). It is now assumed that this will, if possible, be put into use around the end of thedecade for the first time.
27	cf. http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/ResearchReactors/security20040308.html
Current data about the status of individual research reactors is offered by the IAEA here:
http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/rrdb/

2. Civilian nuclear installations – a quick overviewThe most important elements of civilian fuelcycles contributing to proliferation are:technologies and facilities to enrich uranium;
HEU fuel for research and naval reactors;
research reactors and nuclear power
plants capable of producing plutonium;
reprocessing plants allowing separationof plutonium and the technologies used in such
facilities;

15

storage facilities for separated military
plutonium and reactor plutonium, as well as forhighly enriched uranium;
research and processing facilities for the
production of other materials suitable for nuclear
weapons, such as tritium or polonium-210.

© Hemera

16

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

3. States as a proliferation risk
The proliferation risks of civilian nuclear
fuel cycles can be divided into two groups. The
first group contains risks originating from a lossof control within a civilian nuclear programme.
Nuclear materials, technology or know-how canbe stolen and transferred abroad to support a
nuclear weapons programme in another country.
Abdul Q. Kahn’s theft of centrifuge technology
for uranium enrichment from Urenco (Uranium
Enrichment Company) in the Netherlands in1974 is the best-known example. His network’slater activities in supplying Iran, Libya and North
Korea with nuclear know-how, technology andmaterials, show how a recipient of proliferation
can also become a proliferator.28 In addition: notonly nuclear materials, technology and knowhow can ‘migrate’, but also well-trained specialist
personnel (the keyword here is “brain drain”).
The different types of proliferation risk can not

only occur individually but also in combination
with each other.
The second form of proliferation risk is basedon the same components: nuclear materials,
nuclear technology, know-how and specialists.
An existing civilian nuclear programme can beused to additionally develop a nuclear weapons
programme. In this case, a state follows the military nuclear option and uses mainly its national
supply sources. Only those resources that are notavailable in their own countries and therefore
cannot be manufactured are imported.
To develop the ability to build nuclear weapons the interested parties can follow two different
paths. They can try to build either a uranium ora plutonium-based weapon. In both cases, theyneed a significant amount of fissile material. The

28 cf. Egmont R. Koch: Atombomben für Al Qaida (Atom Bombs for Al Qaida), Berlin 2005.

3. States as a proliferation risk

IAEA surmises that 25 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU, containing 90 % or more U-235) oreight kg of plutonium is the minimum amountrequired to build a simple but functioning nuclear
weapon.29
Countries who have built nuclear weaponsof both types are the United States, the Soviet
Union, Great Britain, France, China and Pakistan.
Israel, India and possibly North Korea have built
their first nuclear weapons following the plutonium path. The only country which exclusively
used uranium to successfully build a first nuclear
weapon was South Africa. Iran has been accusedof wanting to also follow this path.
Plutonium is a by-product that is createdthrough the irradiation of uranium in different
types of reactors. Depending on the reactor type
and the length of time the nuclear fuel is irradiated there, different amounts of weapons-grade
plutonium (it contains more than 95 % of thefissile isotope Pu 239 and Pu 241) and/or reactor plutonium (containing ‘only’ around 67 % of
these isotopes) can be produced. In principle,
both can be used to build weapons, although thereactor plutonium to a ‘lesser’ extent. The plutonium needs to be separated from the irradiatedreactor fuel in chemical reprocessing facilities
before it can be used for building a nuclear bomb.
In contrast, HEU is produced in enrichment
facilities using different technologies. Centrifuge
enrichment has become the most commonlyused method today.
The programmes for building nuclear weapons can be divided into two categories. Firstly,
there are the nuclear programmes which had
a military purpose from the outset. The UnitedStates, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China
acquired their nuclear weapons in this way.

17

Secondly, there are those that started out withcivilian programmes and the military aspect waseither implicitly pursued from the very beginningor came along later in a concealed fashion. In
the early phases of civilian nuclear programmes,
it is often difficult to judge whether it is serving
military or exclusively civilians goals. Countries
that seemingly started their nuclear weapons
programmes under a civilian guise include, forexample, France, India, Israel, North Korea, andSouth Africa.
Depending on which path countries takein gaining the ability to build nuclear weapons,
their requirement for individual facilities used in
the fuel cycle is defined in their own countries. A
country that wants to build a uranium weapon
will require an enrichment facility, but not necessarily a reprocessing plant with the possibility for
isolating plutonium. It will also not necessarily beon the lookout for reactor types that are particularly well suited for producing weapons-grade
plutonium such as heavy-water reactors. In contrast, countries who want to build a plutonium
weapon are more likely to develop these sorts ofreactors and reprocessing facilities, while they
will not necessarily want a facility for uranium
enrichment because they can gain the plutonium
required from suitable reactors e.g. even fromnatural uranium. Therefore, countries who want
to develop a nuclear weapon capability using
only one of the two paths can limit themselves tooperating an open fuel cycle, while countries trying to keep both options open will mainly focus
on a closed fuel cycle. In the past, many countries
have tried to develop both paths or to keep the
option open.
Shortly after the United States introduced
the “Atoms for Peace” programme for civilian
nuclear cooperation, concerns were expressed

29 All experts agree that these amounts are far too large if an actor has access to the modern technology for building an
advanced nuclear explosive device. 4 kg is considered sufficient for a plutonium device. The U.S. State Department
also works on the basis of this amount, as it reported on the occasion of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington
in 2010 that the USA and Russia had agreed a new protocol that expanded an existing agreement about the future
non-military use of 34 tonnes of plutonium per country that is superfluous for military use. The total 68 tonnes of
plutonium is an amount equivalent for 17,000 nuclear warheads, according to the press release from 13.04.2010.
(cf. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/04/140097.htm).

18

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

that nuclear technology could become too widelydistributed and provide too many countries
with the opportunity to seek the developmentof nuclear weapons. In 1963, the U.S. Ministry of
Defense headed by Robert McNamara estimatedthat eleven additional countries could acquire
nuclear weapons within a decade and many more
shortly thereafter. As the Non-Proliferation Treaty
was negotiated in the second half of the 1960s, thegoal was to prevent a situation developing where
the world had 20 or 30 nuclear powers – an argument used in justifying the need for the treaty thatis equally popular today.
In view of the numerous national nuclear
programmes with a civilian, but also potentiallya military objective, the Non-Proliferation Treaty
in combination with the controls of the IAEA,
the export control regime of the Nuclear Suppliers Group30 and the Zangger Committee,31 as wellas the use of diplomatic pressure and security
policy guarantees, has proved itself to be surprisingly effective. Alongside Israel and India who
had already resolved to build nuclear weapons at
the time the Non-Proliferation Treaty came into
force, only South Africa,32 Pakistan and possibly
North Korea have managed to develop nuclear
weapons to date.
The national and international efforts used
so far to keep further countries33 from building
nuclear weapons make it clear that this is no easytask. Although the risk of proliferation has beenstemmed, it has not been possible to remove it
altogether. The discovery of the secret nuclear
programme in Iraq and the experience gainedwith North Korea show that an improved monitoring regime will be required in the future if the
non-proliferation regime is to retain its proliferation inhibiting effect. The experiences gained
from successful and controlled military nuclear
programmes show:
firstly: the important proliferation risks
are currently found in the area of technologies
for uranium enrichment, reprocessing and plutonium separation, production of plutonium andHEU powered reactors.
secondly: civilian nuclear programmes
repeatedly played a role in proliferation both as acover up and as support to military programmes.
They make it particularly difficult to judge a country’s real intentions.
thirdly: the security and export controls
developed in the 1960s and 1970s, and further
developed to a limited extent in the 1990s are
insufficient today to adequately prevent a country’s transition from a civilian to a military nuclear
programme.
fourthly: all countries that pursue nuclear
activities train personnel over time and possess
the technical abilities that allow them to rely
increasingly on their domestic capabilities andless on help from the outside world. Technological progress contributes to this development as
more and more countries can produce nuclear
related equipment to standards that only industrialised countries could meet in earlier decades.
fifthly: the concept of preventing theproliferation of nuclear technology for military
purposes while promoting the civilian use of
nuclear energy finds itself in a deepening crisis.

30 The group of most important countries for the supply of nuclear materials and technology – currently 45 countries.
31 The Zangger Committee, established by the IAEA, has developed lists of fissile materials and nuclear relevant goods
since 1974 whose export requires safeguards being applied in the recipient countries.
32 South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons later.
33 Information about national nuclear programmes:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/index.html; http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/index.html

© iStockphoto

Overview and Trends

19

4. Non-state actor risks

Non-state actors were already considered amajor proliferation and security concern as early as
the late 1960s. Experts understood that it was possible to build a crude nuclear weapon on the basis of
publicly accessible information.34 In 1975, a study by
the CIA stated: “The possibility of terrorists getting
hold of nuclear weapons poses the most severe limitation on political efforts to manage proliferation.
This is the most puzzling and extreme aspect of thepotential diversification of nuclear actors. The same
increasing availability of nuclear materials andtechnology which made nuclear explosives accessible to developing states can also be expected sooner
or later to bring them within the reach of terroristgroups. (...) Because nuclear terrorists would, by
definition, operate outside of official governmental
processes, they are largely immune to international
political controls. IAEA safeguards, for example, do
not include any provisions against terrorists stealingmaterials from a reactor complex.”35

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union,
this concern has been articulated more loudlyin public. In view of the huge nuclear infrastructure there the fear grew that massive proliferation
risks could result from these developments.
While the authoritarian Soviet Union had kept
its nuclear material, know-how and technicians
under the strictest of control – closed cities,
rigid travel restrictions and surveillance by the
military and the KGB – it seemed unlikely thatthese measures would remain effective after the
break-up of the Soviet Union or that the successor states of the Soviet Union would be able tomaintain them. Therefore, a considerably greaterlevel of attention has been given since 1991 to thedangers arising from the possibility that nuclear
materials, technologies or even complete warheads could fall into the hands of terrorists ororganised criminals.36

34 University of California, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory: Summary Report of the Nth Country Experiment, UCLR
50249, Livermore, CA, March 1967 (original classification: SECRET, partially released under FOIA, 4.1.1995).
35 Central Intelligence Agency: Managing Nuclear Proliferation: The Politics of Limited Choice. Research Study. Langley
VA, 1975 (original classification SECRET/NOFORN, partially declassified 21.8.2001), p. 29.
36 cf. Siegfried Fischer, Otfried Nassauer (Hg): Die Satansfaust, Berlin 1993, P. 315ff. Graham T. Allison et al.:
Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy, Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material,
Cambridge/London 1996. Jessica Stern: The Ultimate Terrorists, Cambridge/London 1999.

20

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

4.1 Nuclear weapons in terrorist hands
In theory, terrorists could also obtain nuclear
weapons. They would have to either build, purchase, steal or receive them as a gift. If it was theirintention to build a nuclear weapon then theywould have to try to produce, purchase or steal
the required materials.37 To produce the materials themselves they would be faced with the samedifficulties as a state trying to become a nuclear
power. Since non-state actors are not countries
with their own territory, they would need a state
to host them and the necessary infrastructure,
whose cooperation was provided either willingly
or because the state is not able to completely
control its territory. There are large obstacles on
this path to building a nuclear weapon. Even if
a terrorist group could obtain the necessary fissile nuclear materials by buying or stealing them,
they would still need a weapons design, working
precision fuses, and several other componentsthat are difficult to source. It is rather unlikelythat terrorists would manage to quickly overcome
the diverse nature of these problems. Thus theoption that terrorist groups could try to produce
a nuclear bomb from materials which they themselves have produced is currently rather remote.
Terrorists would be most likely to succeed if they
cooperated with a state (or its intelligence services) that already has either nuclear weapons
or weapons-grade nuclear materials. Access tonuclear know-how and the cooperation withwell-trained nuclear personnel could also makethis task easier for terrorists. However, if a nuclear
power was already prepared to work closely
together with a terrorist organisation then thisraises a further question: why would that state not

be willing to hand over a complete weapon to theterrorist organisation in the first place?38
Terrorists finding themselves in the possession of a real nuclear weapon would represent
an enormous danger. However, the experts arelargely in agreement that the likelihood of terrorists possessing a functioning nuclear weapon or
being able to get hold of one is relatively low.

4.2 Dirty bombs in terrorist hands
A scenario in which terrorists or organised
criminals could build and use a dirty nuclear
bomb is more likely. A dirty bomb contains
radioactive material which is spread by using a
conventional explosive device. No uncontrolled
chain reaction is involved. One could imagine a
conventional car bomb mixed with a few dozen ora hundred grams of a radioactive substance. There
would be injuries and deaths as a result of the
explosion, as well as radioactive contaminationin the area surrounding the site of the detonation;
the main effect of a dirty bomb however wouldbe psychological.39 A simulation, which investigated the effects of an explosion involving a dirty
bomb containing two tonnes of explosive in central Washington DC, concluded that an area thesize of one block would suffer severe and possibly
even permanent damage. Other simulations concluded that the damage would stretch to multiple
blocks of buildings or even a whole district.
However, a major obstacle to building such a
weapon results from the difficulties in handlingthe radioactive material involved. Since the effectof such a weapon – alongside the immediate effect37 HEU operated research facilities and their reserves of not yet irradiated HEU are therefore regarded as an important
security risk.
38 The risk that the role of the state providing nuclear materials and know-how to terrorists can be proven would, in viewof the possibilities of modern nuclear forensics, only be insignificantly smaller than the risk that it could be proventhat they have provided terrorists with a nuclear weapon. Nuclear forensics makes it possible to determine the facility
in which the nuclear material used was produced or processed.
39 The explosion of a dirty bomb in a comparatively well-secured economic and political decision-making centre would
create serious doubts about the capabilities of the government and state authorities to be able to fulfill one of theirmost important tasks: guaranteeing the safety of its people. In addition, the result – independent of the actual limited
damage – would be to evoke an enormous level of insecurity because radioactive contamination is not perceptible but
can still be highly dangerous.

4. Non-state actor risks of the explosion – is considerably dependent on theradioactivity and the toxicity of the materials used,
the radioactive material presents a correspondingly high risk for those who build, handle or use
the bomb. The level of danger faced by terrorists
increases to the same degree as the radioactive
and/or toxic effectiveness of the weapon they wantto build. This is probably amongst the main reasons
why no dirty nuclear weapon has yet been used.
It is relatively unlikely that terrorists would
use radioactive material taken from one of the
facilities used in a civilian nuclear fuel cycle forbuilding such a bomb. Procuring the materials is
not always easy; handling is often relatively difficult and in most cases highly dangerous. There
are a variety of other materials that are much easier to acquire and which are equally as suitable forthe requirements of a dirty bomb or perhaps evensignificantly better than low-enriched uranium,
HEU or even reactor plutonium. Radioactive
material like caesium 137, cobalt 60, strontium
90, crypton 85 or americum 241 is significantly
easier to get hold of and better suited for the purpose because they are used widely in civilian life
within for example hospitals, industry, material
and leakage testing or in smoke alarms.

4.3 Nuclear materials smuggling
Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union,
there have been reports about a large numberof cases of lost and found nuclear materials andcorresponding cases of smuggling. Ordinarycriminals, members of organised crime, terrorists
and also intelligence services and police authori-

21

ties have shown a great interest in this topic – aswell as the media. This has made it difficult todifferentiate between actual attempts to conduct
illegal trafficking, fraudulent and decoy operations or cases of nuclear smuggling that weremisreported. Analysing media reports does nottell us much about the real relevance of smuggling for nuclear proliferation. A more reliable
source for an assessment of illegal nuclear tradeis the illicit trafficking database established by the
IAEA in 1995. Over 650 incidents were officiallyconfirmed by the agency between 1993 and 2004.
More than 60 % of the incidents involved nonfissile radioactive materials, such as caesium-137,
strontium-90, cobald-60, or americium-241. Mostof these materials raise concerns because of their
possible use in terrorist or criminal operations,since they could be used in radioactive dispersal
devices or a dirty bomb. Around 30 % of all cases
involved nuclear materials such as natural uranium, depleted uranium, thorium and LEU.
However, weapons-grade nuclear material was present in 18 cases. These are the mostimportant cases from a proliferation standpoint.
Seven incidents involved plutonium, six of thesein quantities of less than one gram up to 10 grams.
The seventh incident, involving more than 363.4
grams of plutonium, occurred at Munich Airport in August 1994. The case involved both theRussian authorities and German intelligence.40
Eleven cases involved highly enriched uranium
in quantities of less than one gram up to morethan 2.5 kilograms. In most of these incidents,
samples for larger follow-up deals seem to havebeen seized.41 The number of confirmed cases of

40 After the magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ had printed the case as a title story in August 1994
(cf. http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/index-1994-34.html ), the magazine reported in April 1995 the development of
the BND /Federal Intelligence Service) under the title “Panic made in Pullach”.
cf. http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-9181696.html. The German Parliament set up an inquiry to investigate the case.
cf. http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/13/013/1301323.asc.
41 The IAEA provided a detailed overview of such cases in the past up until 2004 at http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/RadSources/Fact_Figures.html. This list is no longer available. Important parts of comparable data can befound today at: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/RadSources/PDF/fact_figures2005.pdf
The figures for 2004 are taken from these sources.
A current representation of the situation from 2009 containing information that is not directly comparable can beviewed at: http://www-ns.iaea.org/downloads/security/itdb-fact-sheet-2009.pdf
The figures are not directly comparable because firstly, the reporting method used for the database was changed from2006 and secondly, because the number of states reporting incidents has risen over the years to 192.
The latest information contained in this paragraph comes from the source named above.

22

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

unauthorised possession, loss or theft and otherillegal incidents involving nuclear materials hadrisen by the end of 2008 to 1562 cases. Plutonium or highly enriched uranium was involvedin 15 of these cases. Most of them involved small
amounts, although in a few cases the amounts
were in kilograms. The IAEA no longer reports thedetails of these cases but acknowledges that the
majority of well-known cases were ‘supply cases’
in which no purchaser was found. Naturally, thepossibility that there have been successful casesof nuclear smuggling and illegal nuclear trafficking that have not been discovered or reported
must be taken into account.

4.4 Non-state actors and fuel cycle safety
Terrorists might indeed pose severe risks tothe security of civilian nuclear installations. However, there is no known systematic public study
into these dangers. Some spotlights have been
directed at individual parts of the problem. In the
1990s, the United States simulated 75 attacks onsome of their own reactors. The results showedsome serious deficiencies in security. In 27 cases,
the attacks could have led to damage to the reactor core and the release of radiation.42 Greenpeace
succeeded in breaking into the British nuclear
power plant Sizewell in 2003, without meeting
any resistance.43 Research reactors at universities,
which are operated using highly enriched uranium, are a particularly serious problem becausea large number of people often require access tothem and these facilities have comparatively limited security measures in place.
When serious security problems occur inindustrialised countries who have the resources
and capacity available to invest in the security ofthese sensitive areas of infrastructure, then it canbe assumed that in those countries with more

limited financial power a significantly greater risk
exists that nuclear materials from reactors, laboratories and nuclear facilities will go missing.
The risks posed by terrorist attacks on such
facilities must also not be ignored. They could
lead to the release of huge amounts of radioactive
material, although not to a nuclear explosion. The
likelihood of a terrorist attack on civilian nuclear
facilities must be regarded as significantly higher
than that of nuclear weapons falling into terrorist
hands and it is also likely that it is higher than therisk of the use of a dirty bomb. The fact that there
have been discussions about the protection ofreactor blocks from attacks using aircraft in recent
years shows that people are slowly beginning totake this problem seriously.

4.5 Other proliferation risks
In 1977, it became known that the U.S. Department of Energy had already successfully carriedout an underground test with a nuclear weaponthat had been made from reactor plutonium
back in 1962. This made it evidently clear that it
was possible in principle to build nuclear weapons from ‘civilian’ sources – namely from reactor
plutonium. A study conducted at the Los Alamos
National Laboratories came to the conclusion in1990 that states terrorist groups who attempted tobuild nuclear weapons from reactor plutonium
would face difficulties differing to those faced bygroups with access to weapons-grade plutonium
only in their degree but not in their essence.44
The 2003 war against Iraq revealed anotherconsiderable proliferation risk: while U.S. troops
were occupying Iraq they did not properly protect
the main nuclear research facility in the country
from being looted. IAEA seals in the facility werebroken, nuclear material was lost and docu-

42 Union of Concerned Scientists: Backgrounder on Nuclear Reactor Security, Cambridge (MA) 2002.
43	Greenpeace UK: Greenpeace Volunteers Get into Top Security Nuclear Control Centre, Press release,London 13.01.2003. Also in: Daily Mirror, 14.01.2003.
44	U.S. Department of Energy: Non-proliferation and Arms Control Assessment of Weapons-Usable Fissile Material
Storage and Excess Plutonium Disposition Alternatives, Washington 1997, pp. 37-39. National Academy of Sciences:
Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium, Washington 1994, pp. 32-33.

4. Non-state actor risks ments were stolen. In the meantime, the IAEA
has secured and safeguarded all of the materials
it was able to recover.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union also
showed that ‘failing states’ could pose proliferation risks for the international community. Therecan be no guarantee that all of the countries who
operate research reactors or civilian nuclear programmes will never become instable or collapse– losing temporary or permanent control overtheir nuclear facilities and nuclear material in23

the process. While it has been widely acknowledged that ‘failing states’ pose a general security
problem, it is less well known that they may hidesignificant proliferation risks. The collapse of
the nuclear power Pakistan, for example, would
cause serious problems. Pakistan and the ‘nuclear
supermarket’ of the Khan network including
Malaysia also make it apparent that an increasing
number of developing states can now deliver thetechnology required for nuclear programmes andnuclear weapons.

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

Florian24

5. Instruments to control and contain proliferation
5.1 Important treaties
The Non-Proliferation Treaty, which cameinto force in March 1970, is the foundation stoneof the international non-proliferation system.
Almost all of the countries in the world havesigned the agreement. Only Israel, India, and Pakistan have never become members. North Korea
withdrew from the Treaty in 2003.45
In Article 2, the NPT commits non-nuclear
states, “not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or othernuclear explosive devices or of control over such
weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire
nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices; and not to seek or receive any assistancein the manufacture of nuclear weapons or othernuclear explosive devices”.46

Vice versa, nuclear weapons states commit
themselves in Article 1 not to help non-nuclear
states to circumvent these commitments directly
or indirectly. Article 4 guarantees the nonnuclear weapons states the right to use nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes and to retain any
relevant technology: “Nothing in this Treaty shallbe interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of
all the Parties to the Treaty, to develop, research,
produce and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. (...) All the Parties to the Treaty undertaketo facilitate, and have the right to participate in
the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information
for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”
Therefore, the treaty makes a distinction
between states who continue to be authorised
to possess nuclear weapons (‘Haves’) and states
who are not (‘Have Nots’). It also contains two
provisions signalling that this distinction was andis not intended to exist forever. The first provision

45 Because North Korea made a faux pas in withdrawing from the NPT it continues to be treated as a non-nuclear
member of the regime.
46 The text of the treaty, as well as many documents about international non-proliferation efforts, can be read accessed
in: Federal Foreign Office: Preventing the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Key Documents, 2nd Edition,
Berlin 2006.

5. Instruments to control and contain proliferation 

is contained in Article 6 and commits the nuclear
weapons states “to pursue negotiations in goodfaith on effective measures relating to cessationof the nuclear arms race at an early date and to
nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict andeffective international control.”The second provision is contained in Article
10 and reads: “Twenty-five years after the entry
into force of the Treaty, a conference shall be
convened to decide whether the Treaty shall continue in force indefinitely (…).”
In 1995, this review conference for the treaty
was held. It agreed to extend the treaty unconditionally and indefinitely. This decision was madepossible because a “Principles and Objectives”
document was agreed upon at the same time andfurther supplemented by a document containing
13 practical steps created during the next review
conference in 2000. This document contained forthe first time concrete aims and a working plan forstrengthening both non-proliferation and disarmament by the nuclear weapons states.
These decisions showed the equally important factor of a ‘trade off’, which had also been
apparent during the negotiations for the NPT:
strict regulations for non-proliferation were formany non-nuclear states only acceptable whenadvances were also made with nuclear disarmament at the same time – with the ultimate goal ofabolishing all nuclear weapons. Progress in theimplementation of these obligations between
1995 and 2000 developed as a result at a considerably slower pace than most countries had
expected. During the next review conference in
May 2005, the situation deteriorated even further:
the USA under the George W. Bush administration
made it clear that they no longer felt committed
to the “Principles and Objectives” and the agreed
thirteen step process that was developed with thecooperation of the previous administration underBill Clinton. The U.S. government now concentrates more on unilateral initiatives to strengthen

25

non-proliferation and no longer accepts further
obligations in terms of the disarmament of thenuclear weapons states. This has placed a fundamental question mark over the whole idea ofa ‘trade off’, which had been established by the
NPT and its extension agreements. The conference ended without any new agreements and left
a difficult problem for the future. Is it possible torevive the multilateral non-proliferation regime
and if so, how?
In addition, the treaty already has several
weaknesses that are relevant for proliferation:
the distinction between ‘Haves’ and ‘Have
Nots’ is unique under international law, where
all sovereign states are normally treated as equal.
The open-ended extension of the NPT ‘perpetuates’ this difference in status, when the goal of
nuclear disarmament to a level of ‘zero’ weapons
has been lost sight of in the process. Therefore,
many non-nuclear states have reacted with growing criticism as the U.S. government withdrew
its support for the “Principles and Objectives”
and the document containing the ‘13 step’ process, viewing this as an unwillingness to disarm.
This conflict has the potential to fundamentally
undermine the NPT.
the treaty guarantees all members theright to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. It commits nations in possession of suchtechnologies to allow access to these technologies by nations who do not possess them, but who
want to use them for civilian purposes, such as
electricity production. According to the NPT, it iscompletely legal for a non-nuclear weapon state
to operate a closed fuel cycle.47 This includes anumber of facilities that possess a high inherent
proliferation risk. Proposals for additional safeguards and export restrictions for these elementsof the fuel cycle – often made or supported by the
nuclear ‘Haves’ states – increase the divide mentioned above. Non-nuclear weapons states fear asort of ‘nuclear apartheid’ with regard to the civilian use of nuclear energy and access to advanced
technology.

47 All nuclear facilities that for example Iran possesses and – as far as it is known – plans, are permissible according to
the NPT for exclusively civilian use if monitoring by the IAEA is allowed.

26

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

Israel, India, and Pakistan never signed
the treaty, but still acquired nuclear weapons.
Since the treaty does not allow for new nuclear
weapons states to become members, a decision
to give up nuclear weapons would be a precondition for any of these states to join the treaty. This isunlikely to happen. Therefore, many non-nuclear
weapons states are becoming increasingly critical about these nuclear weapons states being
tolerated as de facto nuclear weapons statesoutside the treaty or being indirectly recognised.
The most important piece of evidence cited forthis trend is the bilateral agreement between
the USA and India, which was negotiated under
the George W. Bush administration and should
enable cooperation between the two states on
civilian nuclear projects,48 as well as Washington's policies towards Israel.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
is a further multilateral treaty potentially having an impact on proliferation. In February 1963,
Robert McNamara wrote in a memorandum to
President John F. Kennedy: “A comprehensive
test ban agreed to by the USA, USSR and UK will
work in the direction of slowing diffusion (ofnuclear weapons). It is probably not an exaggeration to say that it is a necessary, but not sufficientrequirement for keeping the number of nuclear
countries small.”49
However, it was not until after the Cold War
that such a treaty could be agreed. Since 1996,
182 countries have signed the treaty and 151
have ratified it, this includes nuclear weapons
states such as Russia.50 However, it still remains
unclear whether it will ever come into force. All 44
countries with a civilian or military nuclear programme must ratify the treaty before it comes into

effect. Many of the countries – including the People’s Republic of China, India*, Pakistan*, North
Korea*, Indonesia, Israel, Iran and the USA have
not yet ratified the treaty; three countries have noteven signed it.51
If this treaty were to come into force it would
make an important contribution to non-proliferation. Countries building nuclear weapons forthe first time would not know for certain whether
their nuclear weapon design functions asplanned. This is particularly true of weapons
based on reactor plutonium.
The goal of the proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off treaty is to freeze the amount of
weapons-grade materials worldwide, ban the
production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons and in this way enable the ultimate reductionof these materials. Although the idea has alreadyexisted for decades and resolution 1148 of the UN
General Assembly called for an end to the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials as
early as 1957, serious negotiations in the UN Disarmament Conference, which was charged withdrafting the treaty, have still not begun. However,informal discussions about possible elementsof such a treaty are now taking place there. The
appointment of a working group on this topic
was entered into the work plan for the Disarmament Conference last year. Nevertheless, it did
not result in any significant progress. There are
65 countries taking part in the UN Disarmament
Conference who must reach a consensus. Consequently, a willingness on the part of even thesmallest nuclear powers, which are still building
up their nuclear weapon stocks and have not yet
joined the NPT, is a prerequisite for making substantial progress.

48 Since then, China and Pakistan have signed a similar agreement.
49 Secretary of Defense: Memorandum for the President, Subject: The Diffusion of Nuclear Weapons with and withouta Test Ban Agreement, Washington DC 12.2.1963, p. 3 (original classification: SECRET).
50 For a general insight, cf. http://www.ctbto.org/
http://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/status-of-signature-and-ratification/ for the status of countries who have signed
or ratified the treaty.
51 States marked with a * have neither signed nor ratified the treaty. cf. http://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/status-ofsignature-and-ratification/?states=4&region=63&submit.x=17&submit.y=4&submit=submit&no_cache=1(Status: Dec 2009). Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. government considered withdrawing their agreement
to the CTBT which they had already signed. President Obama has announced he will seek ratification of the treaty,
but he does not yet have the required majority in the U.S. Senate.

5. Instruments to control and contain proliferation 

In the nuclear weapons states, this sort ofagreement would limit the amounts of available
fissile weapons-grade materials to the alreadyexisting stocks, and also serve as an additional
security measure in the non-nuclear weapons
states by making the accumulation of such stocks
a violation of international law. In combination
with the already existing undertakings, such as
the agreement between Russia and the USA toblend down 500 tonnes of Russian weaponsgrade uranium to low-enriched uranium and theagreement to each make 34 tonnes of plutonium
unusable for military purposes, the reserves ofavailable weapons-grade fissile materials would
be reduced in the long term.52
Furthermore, there is a proposal for a “Fissile
Material Treaty” which would also include existing potential weapons-grade nuclear materials
and legally bind all nuclear powers to reduce theirstocks of these materials.
In many regions of the world, Nuclear
Weapon Free Zone Treaties have been established in accordance with Article 7 of the NPT.
They constitute regional confidence-building
measures against the possible proliferation of
nuclear weapons and technology, which aresupported on behalf of the nuclear powers bypolitically binding so-called ‘negative security
assurances’. These assurances promise in a political, although not legally binding, form that thenuclear weapons states will neither threaten
nor attack the member states in the nuclear-freezones with their weapons.53
Other multinational agreements are concerned with the security of weapons-grade
materials and specific interrelated issues. These
include, for example:27

the international “Convention on the
Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials”54 from1980, which came into force in 1987 and was
initially only concerned with the security of theinternational transport of nuclear materials. Thisagreement has so far been signed by 142 states.
In 2005, it was supplemented by an additional
agreement containing obligations for the securityof civilian nuclear facilities, nuclear materials andstorage, as well as the transport aspect;55
the “International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism” from 2005;56
technical implementation agreements
for the protection of nuclear materials and facilities on behalf of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, which are currently in the final revisionphase (INFCIRC 255/Rev.4 (1999) and Rev.5(2010)).57

5.2 Non-proliferation through safeguards
International safeguards against proliferation
are based on Article 3, paragraph 1 of the NonProliferation Treaty. The basic principle is that
non-nuclear states will only be entitled to receive
nuclear materials and corresponding technology
if they allow the IAEA to verify that their nuclear
programmes are for peaceful purposes only.
Therefore, the main focus of the controls is to prevent nuclear materials from a civilian fuel cycle
finding their way into military channels.
The monitoring system existing today wasdeveloped in two phases. During the first phase,a framework for the implementation of safeguard
agreements was initially created and in the second, detailed guidelines were then negotiatedfor the conduct of IAEA inspections. Agreementon this document, Information Circular 153(INFCIRC 153), was reached in 1972. Based on

52 www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke_industry/co-operation/8364.html
http://www.nti.org/c_press/analysis_ Holgate_INMM%20Paper_061005.pdf
53 However, in the form (political but not legally binding) and content of these assurances the nuclear power states keep
the option open to ultimately withdraw this guarantee.
54 cf. http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/inf274r1.shtml
55 cf. http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC49/Documents/gc49inf-6.pdf
56 cf. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/Res/59/290
57 All information circulars (INFCIRC) from the IAEA can be seen at the following internet address:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/index.html

28

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

these foundations, agreements on safeguards
between the IAEA and individual states wereconcluded and published. The agreements regulate when and to what extent non-nuclear states
are obligated to provide the IAEA with certain
information about their nuclear facilities, materials and programmes. They entitle the IAEA toverify the correctness of the information received
through inspections carried out inside the member state. In cases where the IAEA judges that acountry has fully cooperated with the IAEA andonly worked on civilian nuclear projects, thiscountry can continue to receive nuclear materials, technology, etc. However, if the IAEA judgesthat there are doubts or open questions abouta country’s nuclear programme, it is entitled to
begin additional special investigations with the
purpose of either clearing the country of existing suspicions or reporting possible violations ofthese obligations to the UN Security Council andthe UN General Assembly for a decision on further action. At the beginning of 2008, there were
163 agreements in force between the IAEA andindividual countries.58
Following the Gulf War of 1991, IAEA inspectors revealed that the non-nuclear state of Iraq
had been running a secret nuclear weapons programme for many years. The UN Security Council
authorised the IAEA to carry out further inspections after the end of the war. Uncovering the Iraq
nuclear programme led to the conclusion that theexisting agreements about safeguards were notsufficient to prevent a country from establishinga secret nuclear weapons programme and that
additional, more comprehensive controls wererequired to deal with such challenges. By 1997, the
IAEA members had negotiated a voluntary “Model
Additional Protocol” (INFCIRC 540) on extended
safeguards. Those countries who accept this protocol enable the IAEA, amongst other things, tocarry out additional, short-notice inspections ortake environmental samples. In addition, the protocol commits members to inform the nuclear
energy authorities earlier and in greater detailabout newly planned nuclear facilities and to provide the IAEA with additional information so that,for example, declarations about all imports andexports of goods listed in the “Nuclear SuppliersGroup Trigger List” are included. At the end of
2008, this additional protocol was in force for 88
countries.59 Other states have signed the protocol
but have not yet ratified it.60
The additional protocol is of specific value if
a country is under suspicion of violating its commitments under the NPT or the safeguards. Whenthe Islamic Republic of Iran came under such suspicion in 2003, the IAEA and many member states
put Iran under pressure to sign the additional
protocol so that Iran granted the IAEA the additional rights contained within. In November 2003,
Iran signed the protocol. However, while the Iranian government initially behaved as though theprotocol were in force, the Iranian parliament has
since voted against its ratification. In February
2006, the Iranian government informed the IAEA
of the parliament’s decision that Iran would nolonger recognise the protocol due to the escalating dispute about its nuclear programme, but has
initially abided by some of the obligations thatgrew out of this protocol in practice.
The objective of the safeguards is to prevent theuse of civilian nuclear capacities for military purposes in non-nuclear weapons states. They neither
deal with military installations in nuclear weapons states nor with civilian nuclear installations inthese countries, unless the nuclear weapons states
specifically agree to place certain installations ormaterials under IAEA safeguards (INFCIRC 66).61
Safeguard agreements can also be concluded fornuclear facilities in states who are not members of
the NPT. This has seen Israel, India and Pakistan

58 cf. http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Reports/Anrep2008/safeguards.pdf
59 Ibid.; a more current individual overview about which safeguard agreement with which country had which status in
December 2009 is offered by the IAEA here: http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf
60 About the situation in December 2009 cf. http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf
61 The nuclear weapons states make use of this opportunity to varying extents. For example, U.S. President Barack
Obama issued Congress on the 6th May 2009 with a 267 page list of all nuclear facilities that Washington had
reported to the IAEA.

5. Instruments to control and contain proliferation 

now allowing the IAEA to carry out limited monitoring of safeguards on their territory.62
Although IAEA inspections have been
repeatedly criticised for being costly, time-consuming and insufficient, they are clearly much
more effective than their critics claim. In Iraq, the
IAEA inspectors (and the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection, UNMOVIC)
discovered the Iraq nuclear programme. During
the dispute in 2003 in which the USA and GreatBritain sought the required support of the United
Nations for a renewed war against Iraq, they cameto the correct conclusion that this programme
had not been resumed.
Current suggestions to strengthen IAEA
safeguards include calls to make the additional
protocol universal and mandatory for non-nuclear
states seeking to import nuclear-related goods. In
addition, the idea of introducing a new generationof safeguards is once again being considered.

5.3 Non-proliferation by export controls
Multilateral export control measures havesupplemented the IAEA safeguards since theearly 1970s. They are based on Article 3, paragraph 2 of the NPT, which commits all member
states to only supply nuclear materials or technologies if they are subject to the IAEA safeguards
in the recipient country.
Those states capable of supplying nuclear technology began to hold informal meetings in 1971.
Later, these discussions were institutionalised
and became known as the Zangger Committee.
The members of the committee developed a list of
nuclear export goods (‘trigger list’), which required
the introduction of controls and established three
conditions for countries who wanted to receive
such goods: the recipient must have a safeguard
agreement in place, use all his imports for peaceful purposes, and apply these two conditions topotential recipients of re-exports.

29

Those countries who were in a position to
supply nuclear materials or technology alsoestablished the informal Nuclear Suppliers Groupin 1975. The group also agreed on an extensive‘trigger list’ of nuclear materials, technologies,
and equipment that should be subject to national
export controls, as well as on a list of important
technologies that could be used for both militaryand civilian purposes (‘dual use’). These lists are
updated from time to time in order to keep pacewith developments in technology.
Both lists are part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines, which are politically but
not legally binding. However, if member states
are committed to including the goods in theirnational export-control system, the guidelines dothen become legally binding.
In recent years some new initiatives have beenlaunched to strengthen control over the supply of
nuclear technology. Based on a proposal from theUSA, the G8 Summit in June 2004 agreed on an
extendable one-year moratorium on new transfers of uranium enrichment and reprocessing
technologies to states not already in possessionof such technologies. This moratorium continues to be followed by the eight countries up until
today,63 because it has not yet been possible for
the Nuclear Suppliers Group to agree on a common policy. In 2009, the IAEA Board of Governors
voted with a majority of 23 to 8 votes for a Russian
proposal in which Russia should hold a reserve of
120 tonnes of lightly enriched uranium for international use by states with electricity producing
reactors. Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia andSouth Africa amongst others voted against this
proposal. This increased the scepticism, withwhich many non-nuclear weapons states continue to regard the safeguards, export controls
and visits, about nuclear relevant exports being
dependent on whether the recipient country fulfils additional requirements. They fear that theseregulations are being used in a discriminatory
manner and they could impede or prohibit legiti-

62 cf. http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf
63 This happened in a slightly unnoticed manner through repeated affirmations of paragraph 8 of the G8 communiquéfrom L’Aquila.

30

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

mate access to modern nuclear technology, as
guaranteed by the NPT.
If this problem is to be resolved then proposals must be put into effect for the components ofthe fuel cycle relevant to proliferation to be ‘multilateralised’. For example, uranium enrichment
or reprocessing to be carried out for multinationaluse only and furthermore in facilities controlled
by the IAEA. This would have the effect of increasing resistance to proliferation.

5.4 Non-proliferation by cooperation
The break-up of the Soviet Union and the concern about the huge nuclear legacy led to a wide
range of cooperative non-proliferation measureswith the successor states. The United States was thequickest to take the initiative and is now involvedin the financing and implementation of such activities in a whole range of countries.64 In addition,
many of the programmes developed in this context
have now proved useful in other countries.
Various projects aim at a more centralised andtechnically secure storage of nuclear materials andweapons in Russia and the other successor statesof the Soviet Union. Others aim at securing thenuclear fuel from decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines. Projects such as the International
Science and Technology Center Programme, theNuclear Cities Initiative, the Russian Transition
Initiative, and the Proliferation Prevention Initiative focus on creating employment for nuclear
scientists in order to avoid a so-called brain drain,– preventing proliferation that could result fromscientists seeking employment abroad. Other programmes focus on the improvement of border andexport controls in Soviet successor states, whilesome attempt to cooperatively end weapons-gradefissile material production in Russia and reduce
fissile material stockpiles in the country.
Under the Trilateral Initiative in 1996 forexample, the United States, Russia and the IAEA
agreed to place weapons-grade fissile material that
had been deemed surplus to requirements (bothplutonium and uranium) under IAEA control. In
1993, the United Sates purchased 500 tonnes ofhighly enriched uranium from Russia, which was
downblended and used as fuel in U.S. nuclear
power stations. According to data from the companies employed in the process, 382 tonnes ofhighly enriched uranium, the equivalent of 15,294
nuclear warheads, had been converted into lowenriched uranium within the framework of the“Megatons to Megawatts” programme.65
The Plutonium Disposition Agreement from2000, in which the USA and Russia initially agreed
to each convert 34 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium either into mixed oxide fuel or to immobilise
it by mixing it with nuclear waste to make it storable and non-harmful, has been significantly lesssuccessful to date because its implementation has
been consistently delayed.66 The agreement wasamended with an additional protocol in April
2010. Henceforth, Russia is allowed to completely
convert its weapons-grade plutonium into MOX
fuel and use it to power reactors and fast breeder
reactors, which are subject to special non-proliferation controls.67
Since 2002, there has been the “Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materialsof Mass Destruction” from the G8. The G8 member
states committed themselves to spend 20 billion
dollars over a ten-year period on this initiative.

64 An overview can be gained on the following internet pages: http://www.ransac.org/
http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/NonProliferation/index.htm
65 http://www.usec.com/megatonstomegawatts.htm
66 The agreement was based on unilateral declarations from the governments of Clinton (1995) and Yeltsin (1997) toeach declare 50 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium as superfluous to military requirements. A bilateral commission
developed options in 1996/97 for dealing with surplus weapons-grade plutonium that was used as a basis for theframework agreement in 1998 and the aforementioned agreement in 2000 between both states; see:
http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/fissmat/plutdisp/puovervw.htm. The USA plans to make use of both options,
Russia views the weapons-grade uranium as a recyclable material and wants to process the complete stock into MOX.
Neither Russia nor the USA possessed facilities for MOX processing at the time the agreement was concluded.
67 For the contents of the amendment cf. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/04/140097.htm

5. Instruments to control and contain proliferation 

In May 2004, the “Global Threat Reduction Initiative” was launched jointly by Russia, the UnitedStates and the IAEA. This initiative aims, amongst
other things, to better secure fissile materials
originating from the USA and Russia found in
more than forty countries around the world andto repatriate it to its country of origin. The initiative is primarily interested in highly enricheduranium currently used in research reactors thatwas mostly originally supplied by either the Soviet
Union or the USA. HEU is to be banished as a reactor fuel in civilian nuclear programmes. Research
reactors powered by HEU are to be shut down orconverted to using less-enriched uranium as afuel source. The initiative had been joined by 90
states by 2007. Even before this initiative cameinto being, weapons-grade fissile materials from
Serbia, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan had been transferred to the United States or Russia. During the
Nuclear Security Summit in April 2010, a host ofother states expressed their willingness to no longer use HEU in these sorts of reactors in future.
Many of the bilateral initiatives established by
the USA and Russia have now become multilateral.
These include help and support for countries tocarry out the proliferation-reducing export controls
effectively, as well as projects to create alternative
employment for nuclear specialists and scientists,
and to help secure nuclear facilities and materials.
Discussions about safety and security deficiencies
in the former Soviet Union have also contributed
toward initiatives within the IAEA aimed at increasing the security of civilian nuclear operations.

5.5 Coercive non-proliferation andmilitary counter-proliferation
During the George W. Bush administration,
the USA focused more strongly on unilateralcoercive measures to prevent proliferation. Two
examples: in May 2003, the USA launched theProliferation Security Initiative. Its aim was bothto legitimise and make the interception of nuclear,biological or chemical weapons transport by airor sea easier. It also set its sights on missile systems and technology, processing technology and68 cf. http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm

31materials for all of these weapons. The idea was
met with scepticism from many countries because
its implementation would have placed it in violation with a host of international treaties, whichguarantee the unrestricted passage of aircraft andships. However, after the Bush administration
had modified and limited the initiative to accommodate these legal concerns, other nations began
to show more interest. Over 90 countries are participating in the initiative today.68
Counter proliferation operations are the second form of measures that should be mentioned.
The purpose is to reverse or delay proliferation
through the use of military force. This approach
includes the possibility of using, for example, sabotage operations using special forces, military air or
sea strikes and even interventions or strikes using
nuclear weapons. There are also wide ranging andto some extent serious problems with internationallaw in connection with these operations.
For example, should a state be prevented frombuilding a nuclear weapon then such military
operations would be in violation of internationallaw as long as there was no UN mandate for thisaction. If a non-state actor attempting to build anuclear warhead is tackled then the problems withinternational law become even greater. The military action would affect the territory of the state inwhich the non-state actor is located, completely
independent of whether this state approves or isincapable of preventing the activities of the nonstate actor. These types of missions can be carriedout as preventative or pre-emptive actions, as well
as retaliatory measures. In most cases, they imply asevere violation of international law, since from alegal point of view they are acts of aggression.
In addition, such actions to fight against proliferation are in many cases probably organised
in secret to increase the element of surprise andthe chances of success. Therefore, no attempt will
have been made in advance to receive legitimacy
for the action under international law. Indeed, it
is possible that the operation is even carried out
in secret or not even made public subsequently.

32

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

This also prevents action being taken under thelegitimacy of international law. Under George W.
Bush, the United States made this type of action
an integral part of their published National Security Strategy. States such as Russia or France show
a certain level of willingness to also consider theuse of these types of operation. Even under President Obama, these operations have not been
ruled out as a matter of principle. However, it has
been emphasised that they should be carried out
whenever possible using conventional methods.
In contrast, George W. Bush kept open the optionof even using nuclear weapons in such cases.
Most of these operations known to haveoccurred so far have taken place as part of existing
wartime operations, such as Allied attacks andsabotage operations during World War II against
the German controlled heavy water production
plant, Norsk-Hydro, in Norway or the Japanese
nuclear laboratory in Tokyo. Outside of wartime
operations, other known occurrences included
the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in
Osirak in 1981 and the Israeli air strike in 2007 ona suspected nuclear reactor in Syria.
In the case of the Iraq War in 2003, a whole
war was justified to a large extent by the need tofight against the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. However, in hindsight it turned outthat much of the supposed ‘evidence’ with which
the U.S. government justified its open engagement
was untenable or even misleading. This highlights
a further problem: the supposed requirement for
secrecy and the alleged need to act swiftly becauseof imminent risk does not allow in many cases forthe timely verification or rebuttal of the reasonsthat are used as a justification for military inter-

vention in the field. This is not only true in the
public arena but also for the responsible legislative
authority whose role it is to control their executive government intent on war. Even internationalorganisations like the United Nations generally
have no opportunity to carry out such checks ina timely manner. Alleged or believed proliferation therefore can be used as a justification for war
instead of verifiably detected proliferation andin extreme cases even as a contrived pretext forwars,69 which are to be carried out for completely
different reasons. When the findings of intelligence
services play an important role, their source isoften not revealed. In these situations, a timely verification or rebuttal of the accusations before theuse of military force is virtually impossible. It may
follow on at a later point in time but by then it is
too late. What has come to pass cannot be undone.
Assessing the effectiveness of military intervention in eliminating or delaying nuclear
programmes is extremely difficult. As far as it is
known, their effect in the past has been rather
limited or even counterproductive. It appears
apparent that Iraq decided after the Israeli attackon its reactor to develop nuclear weapons. The
many years of public debate about possible military intervention by the USA or Israel against
Iranian nuclear facilities sheds new light on thecomplexity, the uncertainty of success and theuncertain nature of a military operation to destroy
Iranian nuclear facilities.70 In addition, it remains
to be seen what type and extent of influence a
military attack would have on future decisions in
Iran for the direction of their nuclear programme.
It cannot be ruled out that those forces in Tehran who advocate a military nuclear programme
would be strengthened by such action.71

69 The ‘Iraqi example’ in 2003 can only serve as a lesson that there can be no similar ‘Iranian example’ with similarly
meagre ‘evidence’.
70	Experts question whether Israel has the military means to destroy the most important Iranian nuclear facilities
without foreign assistance. The U.S. forces are believed by most to be capable of this but there are military experts
who also doubt the ability of the USA to completely eliminate these facilities without warning or they advise against it
because Tehran has too many options for retribution.
71 In the argument so far about nuclear weapons the government and opposition parties in Tehran have made every effort
in their various roles to avoid giving any impression that Iran has reacted or yielded to outside pressure. Should thisapproach continue it cannot be excluded that the fears that Tehran wants to build nuclear weapons will become aself-fulfilling prophecy, although the future military direction of the Iranian programme at the beginning of the
dispute was yet undecided or not planned.

33David Drexler

Overview and Trends

6. A contradictory approach – non-proliferation
policy under Barack Obama
The presidency of Barack Obama in the USA
marks a new turning point in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament policies. After just threemonths in office, Obama held a speech on April 5,2009 in Prague in which he not only declared he wasstriving for a nuclear free world but also committed
himself to taking the necessary steps on behalf of
the USA. Obama announced that he would:“reduce the role of nuclear weapons in
our national security strategy and urge others to
do the same”;“negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia” that would set out thelimitation and reduction of strategic nuclear
weapons in both countries;“immediately and aggressively pursue
U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty”;“seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the
production of fissile materials intended for use instate nuclear weapons”;
strengthen “the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty as a basis for cooperation”; there needs to be
more “resources and authority” to strengthen inter-national inspections, “immediate consequences
for countries caught breaking the rules”, and there isa need for a “new framework for civil nuclear cooperation” including an international fuel bank fornuclear power plants, which countries can accesswithout increasing the risks of proliferation.72
At the same time, Obama explicitly emphasisedthat every non-nuclear state had the right to unrestricted civilian use of nuclear technology as longas they kept to their obligations within the the NonProliferation Treaty and in dealings with the IAEA.
This would, according to Obama, make a contribution to holding back climate change.
The announcements by Obama were quite
clearly aimed at signalling the willingness of the
USA to take part in multilateral non-proliferation
policies. The timing and the content of his speech
were important factors in the context of the forthcoming NPT review conference in May 2010. Thisconference should not be allowed to collapse as
happened five years earlier. All of the important
topics dealt with in the NPT were addressed and thefundamental principles of the ‘deal’ reaffirmed: the72 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered

34

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

nuclear powers should disarm; non-nuclear statesshould accept stricter non-proliferation controls
and the right of all members abiding by the treaty
to pursue the civilian use of nuclear technology
was once again confirmed. According to Obama,
the USA would be ready to take on a leading roleon this path.
One year later in April 2010, Obamaendeavoured to demonstrate the first practicaldevelopments and show that his actions matched
his words. Within a period of seven days, he signed
the Nuclear Posture Review – a blueprint for the
future nuclear policy of the USA in the military arena– and returned to Prague to sign a “New START
Treaty” alongside his Russian colleague Dmitri
Medvedev. Lastly, he organised a summit conference for nuclear security in Washington with 47
different participating countries. All three projects
had the goal of strengthening the implementationof the NPT. Yet can they actually deliver on this goal?

6.1 The New START Treaty
The New START Treaty, signed on the 8th April
2010,73 limits the number of strategic nuclear missile systems of both parties to 800 each, of which
700 are allowed to be active, and the number of
deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each.
Washington and Moscow also emphasisedthat the number of missile systems therefore had
been reduced by more than half in comparison
to the START treaty that expired in December
2009. The number of warheads was 74 % lower
and in comparison to the newer Moscow Treaty– the SORT Treaty from 2002 – the figure was 30 %lower. However, what at first glance appears to bea major new commitment to disarmament is infact a rather small step.

Neither Russia nor the USA still possess anuclear potential today that is anywhere near as
great as that allowed at the time of the old START
Treaty. If a comparison is drawn with the current
active potential of both sides then it becomes clear
that: the USA must only scrap a few dozen strategic missiles and place a further 100 missiles outof service. Russia does not have to do anything.
As Russia only has 566 active missiles available,
it could in theory even add an additional 200 systems to its arsenal – if it could afford them.
A similar picture emerges when looking at the
number of warheads. According to estimates fromthe Federation of American Scientists and the
Natural Resources Defense Council, the USA hadaround 2,200 warheads deployed on active missile
systems in 2009 and held around a further 150 inreserve.74 Russia possessed around 2,500 to 2,600
active warheads.75 Therefore, at first glance thetreaty seems to make somewhat more significant
reductions: the U.S. government was required – ifbased on the absolute maximum figure from the
Moscow SORT Treaty of 2,200 warheads in theyear 2012 – to scrap 650 active warheads and theRussian government at least 950 warheads.76 Yet
appearances are deceiving. This seemingly significant disarmament step is for the most part theresult of a clever trick with the figures and must not
actually take place in reality. One detail of the New
START Treaty makes this clear: strategic bombers will be generally counted in future as a single
nuclear weapon; under the old START Treaty incontrast they counted as ten weapons if they wereable to carry cruise missiles and only regarded as
one weapon if they were only able to carry nuclear
bombs. There was no revision of the agreements on
this question in the Moscow SORT Treaty. In fact,
these bombers can actually carry 6, 12, 16 or even
20 weapons each. This has two consequences:

73 The treaty can be seen here: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140035.pdf And the accompanying protocol
here at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140047.pdf
74 Hans M. Kristensen und Robert S. Norris: U.S. Nuclear Forces 2009, in: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
March/April 2009, pp.59-60.
75 Hans M. Kristensen und Robert S. Norris: Russian Nuclear Forces 2010, in: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
January 2010, p.76-77.
76 The SORT Treaty obligated both states to disarm to a level of 1,700-2,200 warheads each by 2012.
If the lower limit is taken as the basis then the USA has a nominal disarmament obligation of 150 warheads andRussia a requirement to scrap 500 warheads.

6. A contradictory approach – non-proliferation policy under Barack Obama

firstly, only a few hundred weapons have to be
disarmed on paper and secondly, both parties areallowed to retain a few hundred more weapons
than the officially agreed 1,550 warheads.77
In addition, there is the fact that the New
START Treaty like its predecessor does not impose
any restrictions on how many warheads both parties are allowed to hold in reserve. This includes
weapons that could be reactivated in a crisis situation and those that had not been delaborated. Evenin the past, this was significantly more weapons
then allowed according to the treaty. In 2010, bothsides still possess considerably more than 20,000
non-delaborated nuclear weapons between them.
The limited disarmament obligations in the
New START Treaty were played out in the USA
against a background of domestic policy restraints.
These resulted in binding restrictions placed on the
President by the U.S. Congress in the Finance Bill2010 for his negotiations on the New START Treaty.
The Obama administration was not allowed, forexample, to enter into any contractual agreements to limit the development of the missile
defense system in the USA or the development anddeployment of conventionally armed long-range
weapons. Because Washington had focused on thebuilding of land and sea-based conventional longrange weapons, this limitation forced Obama’s
negotiators into adopting a very conservative
approach when discussing strategic missile systems. In addition, the New START Treaty requires
the votes of at least 8 Republicans in the U.S. Senate
to become ratified, many of whom fundamentally
reject arms control agreements. Whether it will gain
the required two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate
for ratification due to the negligible encroachmentsof the treaty into the current nuclear weapons
potential of the USA remains to be seen.

35

The limited scope of the newly agreed disarmament obligations is unlikely to be sufficient for
the vast majority of member states within the NPT
and therefore hardly convincing enough for themto agree to significantly improved non-proliferation regulations during the review conference.

6.2 The Nuclear Security Summit
Barack Obama invited selected representatives
from the international community to a Nuclear
Security Summit in Washington on April 12 and 13,
2010. The invitation went out to a total of 47 states.
The goal of the summit was to initiate a process inwhich the countries taking part made a commitment to stricter security measures for restricting
or renouncing the use of weapons-grade fissile
materials on their territories. The summit agreed
a communiqué78 and a working plan.79 Both documents were non-binding but rather politicalexpressions of good will on a voluntary basis. The
agreements focussed on the voluntary commitments of the member states:
to strengthen international agreements,
such as the conventions for the physical protectionof nuclear materials and the prevention of acts ofnuclear terrorism, through their quick and successful implementation as well as through an increased
promotion of their universalisation; the same isalso true of the UN Security Council resolution
1540,80 whose goal it is, amongst other things, tokeep weapons of mass destruction out of the handsof non-state actors;
to implement and strengthen a number of
initiatives from the IAEA that serve the improved
security of nuclear materials and facilities, suchas the updated INFCIRC 225, the Nuclear Security
Plan 2010-2013 and the planned new technicalguidelines for Nuclear Material Accountancy Systems at Facilities;81

77 How many weapons this would amount to in the final reckoning is dependent on how many strategic bombers bothsides declare in future as strategic missile systems. Russia and the USA both intend to modernise their stock of
nuclear air-based cruise missiles.
78 cf. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/communiqu-washington-nuclear-security-summit
79 cf. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/work-plan-washington-nuclear-security-summit
80 cf. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/328/43/PDF/N0432843.pdf?OpenElement
81 The continued operation of the research reactor in Garching with HEU is guaranteed with this wording because
the development of alternative uranium-molybdenum fuel has not yet reached the stage where the conversion of thereactor is technically feasible.

36

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

to secure nuclear materials, particularly
those used for weapons, and nuclear facilities ina suitable manner and to keep access to the information and technology required to use nuclear
materials for dangerous purposes out of thehands of non-state actors;
to promote measures with which highly
enriched uranium and separated plutonium(weapons-grade and reactor plutonium) canbe secured and documented, to consolidate thestorage of these materials and to promote theconversion of highly enriched uranium reactors
to low-enriched uranium, “where this is technically and economically possible”, as well as
replacing HEU targets with other materials where
this is possible;
to strive for the prevention of nuclear
smuggling and for an improved exchange of information, as well as to achieve increased expertisein the area of nuclear forensics;
to improve measures for the secure utilisation of radiological resources and to consider
what further steps can be taken in this regard.
The Nuclear Security Summit was able toinitiate the desired process of continuous cooperation. A further summit will now take place in
two years in Seoul. Barack Obama was able tosignal his willingness for broadly based multilateral non-proliferation initiatives and make it
clear in the process that he was not – in contrast
to his predecessor George W. Bush – intent onfollowing a unilateral approach. Ultimately, thesummit can be evaluated as having sent a signal
to all members of the NPT that the security of
nuclear materials and facilities is being afforded
an increasing level of attention by a large group ofcountries. However, no substantial new initiatives
resulted from the summit.
Nevertheless, the summit was associated witha very ambivalent signal: the Obama government
placed – as in its Nuclear Posture Review (see6.3) – the prevention of terrorist attempts to gain
access to nuclear materials, technology or evenweapons clearly at the forefront of its arguments.
By emphasising this threat in the risk analysis
and in the arguments used to promote a process
of voluntary commitments, it was comparatively
easy to win the support of a relatively large number of states or to make it more difficult for themto maintain opposition. But this approach also
has a flipside: the risk that terrorists will try togain access to weapons-grade nuclear materials
is lower than the risk that other states will try to do
this. If the voluntary commitments were also consequently applied to all state actors, who are after
all affected by many of the measures endorsed oragreed, then it is to be expected that some state
actors will view these demands as discriminatory.

6.3 The Nuclear Posture Review
The Nuclear Posture Review,82 presented on
the April 6, is a report requested by the U.S. Congress in which President Obama defined all of theimportant aspects of his future nuclear policies. It
covers the areas of nuclear politics, nuclear strategy and doctrine, nuclear weapons potential andits future, as well as conceptual statements about
the future of military nuclear industrial complexes.83 The future of the civilian use of nuclear
energy is not part of this report. Only those
aspects of the report are handled here that are ofparticular importance to the future of the nonproliferation regime.
The document contains for the first time theexplicit goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. It
describes the danger of terrorists gaining access tomaterials for building a nuclear weapon, or possibly even using a nuclear weapon, as the greatest
threat of our time, followed by the proliferation of
nuclear weapons to other states and it declares,
therefore, that the revival and strengthening of
the NPT regime is one of the priorities of Obama’s
nuclear policies. This is also the first time that thishas appeared in a document for strategic nuclear
policy in the USA. The maintenance of a deterrent and of strategic stability against other nuclear

82 http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report.pdf
83 A comprehensive collection of documentation and studies on this topic can be found here:
http://www.bits.de/main/npr2001.htm

6. A contradictory approach – non-proliferation policy under Barack Obama

powers like Russia and China ranks only third inorder of priority. The review highlights the factthat the new administration wants to regard theuse of nuclear weapons with significantly greater
restraint than all of the country’s previous administrations. In particular, it sets itself clearly apartfrom the politics of George W. Bush. According
to the Nuclear Posture Review, the USA can also
confront many of those risks for which the Bushadministration kept open the use of nuclear weapons – such as the use of chemical and biologicalweapons by non-nuclear states – by using conventional measures. The “fundamental task and role”
of nuclear weapons is to “deter a nuclear attack on
the USA, its allies and partners”. The review presents the goal of further reducing the role of nuclear
weapons so that the deterrent of a nuclear attack
will become the “only role” of nuclear weapons
in future. However, the option of using nuclear
weapons must be kept open until this is achieved“to protect under extreme circumstances the vitalinterests of the USA, its allies and partners”.
The report also provides a new and clearersummary of the important negative security
guarantees for non-nuclear states that are relevant under the NPT regime: the “United States
will not threaten states with the use of nuclear
weapons or use nuclear weapons against states
who are non-nuclear members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and who fulfil their obligations interms of nuclear non-proliferation.”84 This guarantee is also explicitly given for a situation where
one of these states uses biological or chemical
weapons.85 Therefore, only those nuclear powers and states that do not fulfil their obligations
under the NPT are faced with the threat of nuclear

37

weapons from the U.S.. At the present time, thismeans primarily North Korea and Iran. The U.S.
government also retains the right to use nuclear
weapons in response to such states using biological and chemical weapons – a clear indicationthat Washington continues to keep the right tothe first use of nuclear weapons. This right is nolonger explicitly mentioned in the new Nuclear
Posture Review.
However, two very problematic aspects
remain unresolved: who decides whether a state
has fulfilled its obligations to the NPT or not? The
United Nations, the IAEA or the U.S. President?86
In addition, it is also unclear whether this decision will be taken based on clear proof or on
assumptions believed to be true. Both of these
aspects were highlighted in a disreputable anddisturbing way in the war against Iraq in 2003.
In the area of declaratory policies, the role ofnuclear weapons under Barack Obama has beensignificantly limited and reduced. Nevertheless,
it is likely to take a number of years until thesechanges are reflected in the strategic planning,
operational planning and contingency planningof the U.S. armed forces. Until that is the case,planning will continue to follow the rules laid out
during the George W. Bush administration.87 It
also remains to be seen to what extent and how
quickly the armed forces will implement Obama’s‘political’ guidelines. They may retain the hopethat a future Republican president will change thedeclaratory policy of the USA once again.
In terms of the future of American nuclear
forces, the Nuclear Posture Review envisages

84	By way of comparison: under George W. Bush this was formulated in 2002 as: “The United States will not use
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces
or other troops, its allies or on a state toward which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by sucha non-nuclear weapon state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.” This highlights that the role ofnuclear weapons under George W. Bush had a much broader scope.
85 In the event that there is a technical breakthrough in terms of the use and effectiveness of biological agents, theObama administration reserves the right in the Nuclear Posture Review to a return to the previous policy.
86 In Washington, the answer to this question is so self-explanatory that it does not even need to be posed in the firstplace. The President decides and can gain international support for this position but is not required to do so.
87 This is shown e.g. in the OPLAN 8010-08 “Strategic Deterrence and Global Strike” in the version from February
2009; cf. Hans M. Kristensen: Obama and the Nuclear War Plan, Federation of the American Scientists Issue Brief,
February 2010.

38

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

only minimal changes. It remains unequivocallyconservative in retaining existing structures.
Naturally, the New START Treaty should be
implemented. Preliminary investigations into
further discussions with Russia should also be
carried out. However, the USA will retain its triadof nuclear missile systems and only make limitedchanges. The already initiated reduction to thenumber of warheads on intercontinental ballistic
missiles (from 3 to 1) is to be completed; in two
years the decision will be made about whether
to relinquish two strategic submarines. It wasalso possible to reduce once again the number oflong-range bombers with nuclear capability. Yet
these changes are not really significant.
In contrast, a clear signal can be taken fromthe decision to continue with all important modernisation projects in the area of nuclear missile
systems and to develop and introduce theirreplacement systems. Approval has been given,for example, to the development of a new longrange cruise missile, a new bomber and a newgeneration of submarines for strategic missiles,
which will be built from 2019 onwards and are toguarantee an “uninterrupted strategic deterrence
right up to the 2080s”.88
Similarly, the Nuclear Posture Review also
approves continued modernisation of the nuclear
warheads for the trident missiles (W76-1), a comprehensive modernisation programme for the B61
family of bombs (B61-12)89 and preparations forthe modernisation of the warheads used for intercontinental missiles (W78). In order to be able toimplement these projects, substantial investment
has been approved for military nuclear industry
complexes to enable the modernisation or the
new construction of many facilities.
The ‘New Triad’ concept introduced by George
W. Bush and a deterrence that in future will consist
in future of a nuclear component, missile defense
system and conventional long-range weapons for‘prompt global strikes’ has been maintained by the
new administration. It is also planned to transfer
this strategy to regional deterrence systems, forEurope and NATO, the Middle East, as well as the
Far East (South Korea, Japan).
These decisions about the future of military
nuclear hardware are in clear contrast to thechanges in declaratory policies. They give theimpression that the vision of a nuclear weapon
free world is at best a vision for the 22nd century.
Therefore, they have a counterproductive effectin terms of the requirements for a promising,
improved nuclear non-proliferation policy.

6.4 Words and actions – problems
and contradictions
In comparison to the announcements in his
speech in Prague, the verdict on Obama’s actual
policies is mixed. The President has endeavoured
to agree a new disarmament treaty with Russia
and realised this goal – but has not yet managed
to push the agreement through the U.S. Senate. The Obama administration has not beenable to achieve the promised ratification of the
Test Ban Treaty because it feared it would fail topass through the U.S. Senate; a danger that also
exists to a significantly lesser extent with the New
START Treaty. The promise to reduce the role ofnuclear weapons in the administration’s security strategy has been honoured even when it did
not go far enough for many people. His efforts torevive multilateralism and to strengthen the NPT
regime to enable the implementation of stricter
non-proliferation regulations are clear. The decision for the conservative restructuring of thecountry’s nuclear weapons potential and to support practically all of the existing modernisation
planning introduced under George W. Bush inthis area may well have been necessary due todomestic political concessions but will however
prove a great hurdle to significantly improving
non-proliferation policies.

88 cf. http://www.senate.gov/~armed_services/statemnt/2010/03%20March/Johnson%2003-17-10.pdf
89 Two tactical versions, the B61-3 and the B61-4, are deployed in Europe.

6. A contradictory approach – non-proliferation policy under Barack Obama

In addition, Obama’s nuclear policies are
extremely contradictory on two particular points.
Both represent considerable risks: firstly, theObama administration regards nuclear terrorism
and the danger of proliferation to non-state actors
as the greatest threat in the future.90 Therefore, itaims to make non-proliferation policies and thestrengthening of the NPT regime its priorities.
This requires strong signals of the United States’
willingness for nuclear disarmament, which
when the consequences are drawn from Obama’srisk analysis, should lead to much deeper cuts inthe country’s existing nuclear potential than havebeen so far planned. In contrast, the decisions
about the future of the U.S. nuclear potential signal something completely different: the scope andconfiguration of the nuclear forces are primarily
and unambiguously oriented towards remaining
on at least an equal footing with other nuclear
powers, or holding a superior position in the longrun. In addition, they signal that the United States
aims to retain a strong, modern nuclear force far
into the second half of this century and to possess
the ability and the infrastructure to also modernise this force further. There is a high probability
that this will be a major hurdle in combating thedangers of proliferation because it undermines
the willingness of many other states to accept
stricter non-proliferation regulations for the purpose of strengthening the NPT regime.

39

The second contradiction in Barack Obama’s
nuclear policies shows that he is a prisoner ofthe inherent inconsistencies of the NPT: Obamaemphasises again and again the right of nonnuclear states to comprehensively utilise nuclear
energy for civilian purposes. In support of thisview, he points out that nuclear power plants
could play an important role in the reductionof CO2 emissions and in holding back climatechange. Obama has indicated that the UnitedStates will build new nuclear power plants itself
and is promoting this ideal through the provision of favourable loans to the value of 54 billion
dollars. Finally, his administration has indicatedthat they will provide major support to efforts
for building and developing a new generation of
nuclear power plants, which are as proliferation
resistant as possible, for the purpose of export.
This may all be understood as a well intended
signal for non-nuclear states that want to and –according to Obama – should use civilian nuclear
energy. In practice, this approach can only befollowed by those who are prepared to accept
significantly greater proliferation risks than thosethat currently exist.

90 It is doubtful, however, whether terrorism actually represents the greatest nuclear threat. It is possibly only the mostopportunistic. “The creation of further nuclear weapons states and ‘multidirectional deterrent systems’, which may
fail much more easily, are seen by many experts as the greatest risk”.

© Hemera40

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

7. A world in search of energy
Concerns are growing about whether today’s
most important sources of primary energy – oiland natural gas – will continue to meet the growing demands of the world’s population. Despite
the financial crisis, the worldwide demand forenergy continues to grow rapidly. Since Asia hastaken over much of the labour and energy intensive production processes, which were previously
located in the now de-industrialising Westernworld, the demand for energy in this region has
risen dramatically. A sufficient supply of energy
and electricity has become one of the basic
requirements for development. However, theearth’s reserves of both oil and gas are limited andthey can only be supplied at an affordable pricein limited quantities at any one time and to any
one place. Sooner or later bottlenecks are to be
expected due to the differences between supply
and demand, the depletion of reserves recoverable at economic prices or resulting from regional
conflicts. In parallel, awareness is growing thatfossil fuels contribute to a large extent to climaticchange and their increased use is not compatible with limiting the risks resulting from thisclimate change. Thus searching for alternative

and additional sources of energy has become amajor trend – in both the Western world and indeveloping nations. Nuclear energy – alongside
the undeniably important renewable energies– is one of the alternatives being looked at withincreasing intensity.
Various studies assume that it is possible tolimit proliferation while at the same time continuing to export civilian nuclear technology.91 The
policies of the new U.S. government also appear
to be motivated by this point of view. However,the political proposals for non-proliferation thathave been offered for this purpose are likely tobe about as promising and effective as those thatwere proclaimed in the 1960s and 1970s. They
make it possible to buy a little time until gaps
and loopholes once again manifest themselves
through the first cases of proliferation. When nonstate actors begin to become actively engaged inthis field then most parts of the non-proliferation
regime – created to prevent proliferation between
states – will only have a limited effect or evenmore loopholes will be seen appearing than
before. What is overlooked by those who advocate

91 cf. e.g.: The Atlantic Council: Proliferation and the Future of Nuclear Power, Washington DC 2004.

7. A world in search of energy

the export of nuclear technology despite proliferation and security issues, is that they are largely
denying the existence of a central problem: it is
not possible on the one hand to strive for maximum protection from proliferation, while on theother promoting the economic advantages of theexport of civilian nuclear technology. Despite allof the safety precautions, nuclear proliferation
will continue to represent a problem for international security in the future.
With all likelihood, it is not an exaggeration
to claim that based on the current and foreseeable state of technology it is impossible to makethe civilian use of nuclear energy 100% resistantto proliferation. It is certainly possible to increase
the hurdles and to limit the problems. However,
all measures proposed to date and which could
be undertaken with the aim of containing the
problem are likely to lose some of their effectiveness over time. Technological advances and a
growing level of access to increasingly high quality technologies will at some point make it easier
to attempt to circumvent even improved nonproliferation measures.
Even in the best case scenario, it is to be
assumed that the proliferation risks will increase
should the number of countries using nuclear
energy for electricity production also increase.
With each nation joining the civilian nuclear
club, there are additional places where nuclear
materials need to be safeguarded, additional scientists and experts with specialised training andknowledge who require employment and can further develop the technology, as well as additional
locations with installations vulnerable to terrorist
attacks.
The risk of proliferation will most probably
continue to rise for a variety of reasons:firstly: uranium is – like gas and oil– a finitely available raw material for energy
provision. The world’s reserves of uranium willdefinitely come to an end, no matter whether
they last for another 60, 80 or 100 years at a constant level of consumption. Institutions claiming

41

that the reserves of uranium have a long lifespanalso mostly assume a rapidly growing numberof nuclear power plants in future and, therefore,
an equally rapid growth in the consumption of
uranium. If uranium is to become a long-term,
sustainable energy source then this would require
closed fuel cycles and associated technologies like
reprocessing and plutonium separation in orderfor the raw material to be used multiple times.
However, reprocessing technology is connected
to significantly greater proliferation risks, in particular, when an increasing number of countries
build and operate the appropriate facilities.
secondly: a spin-off of globalisation is theweakening of the monopoly held by states on theuse of force. This phenomenon is often dealt withusing the terms ‘failing states’ or ‘failed states’. In
these states, the governments have lost control
of certain parts of their territory in which theyshould be able to maintain security. They canno longer guarantee security there. When thesefailing states house nuclear facilities, irrelevantof whether they are civilian or military, thenthis creates a serious proliferation problem. The
break-up of the Soviet Union has brought many
aspects of this problem to the world’s attention
that are characteristic of this sort of situation. Can
we be sure that Pakistan will never become a failing state or even disintegrate? Is this also true forall of the African states who are currently increasingly considering the use of nuclear energy?
thirdly: there will be an increasing numberof countries who can deliver nuclear technology
because they will be operating civilian nuclear
facilities. This increases the number of technology
sources, the scope and quality of the technology
transfer and a growing number of countries will
gradually find themselves in a position where they
can build individual components themselves andalso export them. The economic incentives of thistype of export business are from experience inmany cases quicker to emerge than the construction of an effective export control system and therealisation of improved security standards. The
de-industrialisation of the West and the industrialisation of the South will become, therefore,a severe test for today’s attempts to control, limit,
or deny nuclear technology exports. Some of the42

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy – Siamese Twins or Double Zero Solution?

potential future nuclear supplier states may havea different understanding of the legitimate civilian use of nuclear technology than the traditional
nuclear powers and their close allies. We need
only remember the accusation of ‘nuclear apartheid’, which has been used to describe the export
policies of the Northern hemisphere. This would
mean, however, that the systems for controlling
nuclear export would also face considerable newchallenges. Once new suppliers begin competingfor market shares for the first time it is entirely
possible that industries in Western nations willturn once again to an old and dangerous argument, which helped to fuel nuclear proliferation
during earlier decades: “If we don’t sell it, thensomeone else will. Therefore, it’s better for us tosell it ourselves.”
A study from the Stockholm International
Peace Research institute as far back as 1979 cameto the conclusion, when examining the proliferation risks of nuclear energy, that a fuel cycle
based on multilateral enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities would represent probably themost effective security against proliferation.92 The
study urged that the two or three decades won by
the NPT and other non-proliferation measures
should be energetically used to develop such afuel cycle. Three decades have passed without
any significant progress having been made on this
proposed path. National economic interests consistently stood in the way. It is only in the last few
years – triggered by the debate surrounding Iran– that there has been increased consideration ofmultilateralism once again.93 However, it is hard
to imagine even today that future proliferation
risks will be dealt with in a forward-looking way.
Nuclear energy is still viewed in many countries as a highly valuable, complex and modern
technology. Mastering it is seen as proof of technological development and expertise. Therefore,

it is regarded in many countries as an importantpart of development and modernisation. Not all
countries possess the economic resources to takethis route. But those who do have the means canchoose to follow the nuclear option. As long as
western countries, who are interested in the profitable export of nuclear facilities and technology,
continue to portray nuclear energy as a modern,climate-friendly and inexpensive energy source
then this will contribute to other countries starting to use nuclear technology. By acting in thismanner, it is inevitable that the risk of proliferation will increase.94
The NPT and the non-proliferation regime,
created between the 1960s and the beginningof the 21st century, are still underpinned by thesame concept of a ‘trade off’. The nuclear weapons states promise to disarm their weapons
arsenals and the non-nuclear weapons states
undertake to not even develop such weapons in
the first place – and the unrestricted right to thecivilian use of nuclear technology is granted to allmember states together. Naturally, it is possible
to strengthen non-proliferation or the mechanisms used to prevent proliferation. However, thisrequires the necessary political will. Whether thispolitical conviction will exist continues to dependon the visible progress made with nuclear armaments control and disarmament. It will also be
dependent on whether the civilian use of nuclear
technology can be limited or even renounced incountries. This also requires political will. But
this has been lacking up to now both in terms ofthe continued civilian use and also the military
use of nuclear technology. The extent to which
this political will is lacking is also revealed by
the discussions in Germany about extending thelifespan of existing nuclear power stations or evena withdrawal from the already agreed phasing out
of nuclear energy.

92 Frank Barnaby et al. (editors): Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation. London, Stockholm 1979.
93 Under the supervision of the IAEA, a small multilateral fuel reservoir is to be created upon which member states can draw.
94 It is worth looking at the possibility of portraying nuclear energy increasingly as an outdated technology and making
it clear: in an increasing number of countries, the best technicians, engineers and scientists tend to be working today
on increasing energy efficiency or on renewable energies rather than on nuclear technologies.

7. A world in search of energy

The civilian and military use of nuclear technology can be considered as Siamese twins.
Ultimately, one cannot exist without the otherand both hold their own major risks. Only if bothwere renounced would there be the realistic perspective of turning the vision of a world without
nuclear weapons into reality and making thisvision permanent. The best and most resistantsolution to proliferation would be a ‘double zero
solution’ – the elimination of nuclear weaponsand nuclear energy. The most powerful argument
against this vision of a nuclear-free world that has
been used to date – ‘Nobody can guarantee andmonitor that no actor continues to build nuclear
weapons’ – would then cease to be so popular.
The elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear

43

energy is much easier and more efficient to monitor than the exclusive renouncement of nuclear
weapons.95
The German Physical Society, the oldest andlargest national physics association on earth,published a resolution on April 6, 2010.96 To markthe occasion of the review conference for the NPT
in May 2010, the scientists suggested in the resolution that negotiations should be initiated about
a nuclear weapons agreement: a treaty shouldbe achieved by 2020 that prohibits and forbids
nuclear weapons. A similar initiative in terms of
nuclear energy would also be required because it
is high time for the phasing out of nuclear technology and it will also take time to implement.

95 If only the military use of nuclear technology was exclusively banned then the knowledge, expertise and technicalrequirements would ‘live on’ in the civilian sector; if both uses of nuclear technology were eliminated then theexpertise and the experts would slowly ‘die out’.
96 cf. http://www.dpg-physik.de/presse/pressemit/2010/dpg-pm-2010-12.html

publication series on ecology

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,
Energy Security, and Carbon
Emission Reduction: How toOvercome the Civilian-Military
Nuclear Dilemma.
By Henry D. Sokolski
Washington D.C., March 2010© U.S. Departement of Defense

46

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction. How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

1. Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Prevention:
The Next 20 Years
With the run-up to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in May of2010, major states have focused as never before on
reducing existing U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, reversing Pyongyang’s nuclear
buildup, and stopping Iran’s nuclear weaponsrelated activities. The hope is that each of these
efforts will be mutually reinforcing and lead to
additional nuclear weapons reduction agreements
between not only the United States and Russia, but
the world’s other nuclear weapons states. Finally, it
is hoped that progress in reducing existing nuclear
weapons will persuade the world’s non-nuclear
weapons states to do more to stay clear of dangerous civilian nuclear fuel-making activities and toopen their civilian nuclear facilities to more intrusive international inspections.

This set of nuclear hopes, however, is unlikely
to be fully realized. Barring regime change ineither North Korea or Iran, neither Pyongyang’s
renunciation of its nuclear arsenal nor Iran’s cessation of nuclear weapons-related activities is allthat probable. As for further reductions in existing nuclear arsenals, there may be some strategic
weapons reductions (perhaps to as low as 1,000
to 500 warheads) after the United States andRussia agree to the current follow-on to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), but further
agreements that might capture Russia’s muchlarger number of tactical nuclear weapons areunlikely to come easily or quickly. Russia sees its
conventional military capabilities falling further
and further behind those of NATO and China.
As a result, Moscow is more likely to increase
its security reliance on its thousands of tactical
nuclear weapons than it is to eliminate or reducethem. Meanwhile, the odds of China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel agreeing to nuclear
warhead reductions seem even more remote.
Assuming that current nuclear trends continue, then the next two decades will test international security as it has never have been tested
before. Before 2020, the United Kingdom will findits nuclear forces eclipsed not only by those of
Pakistan, but of Israel and of India. Soon thereafter, France will share the same fate. China,
which already has enough separated plutonium
and highly enriched uranium to triple its current stockpile of roughly 300 nuclear warheads,
will likely expand its nuclear arsenal, too. Meanwhile, Japan will have ready access to thousandsof bombs’ worth of separated plutonium. U.S. andRussian nuclear weapons-usable material stocks

1. Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Prevention: The Next 20 Years

47– still large enough to be converted back into
many tens of thousands of weapons – will decline
only marginally, whereas similar nuclear storesin Japan and other nuclear weapons states could
easily double.1 Compounding these developments, even more nuclear weapons-ready states
are likely to emerge: As of 2010, at least 25 states
had announced their desire to build large reactors – historically, bomb starter kits – before 2030.

of the world’s spent or fresh fuel – materials thatcan be used as feed for nuclear enrichment andreprocessing-making plants to accelerate theproduction of weapons-usable materials. These
nuclear fuel-making plants, moreover, can be
hidden from inspectors and, even when declared,
be used to make weapons-usable fuel without
nuclear inspectors necessarily detecting suchactivity in a timely fashion.2

None of this will bolster the cause of nuclear
weapons abolition. Compounding these worrisome trends is the growing popularity of“peaceful” nuclear energy. Although almost
every nuclear supplier state is now claiming thatexporting new power reactors will strengthen
nonproliferation, since it will come with theapplication of “enhanced” nuclear inspections, inmany of the most worrisome cases, even enhanced
inspections are too unreliable to effectively deteror prevent significant military diversions. As itis, international nuclear inspections are failingto maintain continuity of inspections over mostSeveral of these points are beginning toreceive attention in the United States. The debate
over these matters, though, should be broadened.
Indeed, even if Washington’s and the EU’s favorite
nuclear control initiatives (START follow-ons, aComprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT),
Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), civilian
nuclear fuel banks, and intrusive nuclear inspections) are all adopted and avoid running the risks
noted above, the United States and its allies will
still face a series of additional, major nuclear proliferation dangers.

1	International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Materials Report 2008 (October 2008), available at
http://www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr08.pdf [these and all subsequent urls accessed May 7, 2009]; Andrei Chang,“China’s Nuclear Warhead Stockpile Rising”, UPIAsia.com (April 5, 2008), available at
http://www.upiasia.com/Security/2008/04/05/chinas_nuclear_warhead_stockpile_rising/7074
2	See, e.g., Henry S. Rowen, “This ‘Nuclear-Free’ Plan Would Effect the Opposite”, Wall Street Journal(January 17, 2008). For additional technical background, see David Kay, “Denial and Deception Practices of
WMD Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond”, in Weapons Proliferation in the 1990s, ed. Brad Roberts (MIT Press,
1995); Victor Gilinsky, et al., “A Fresh Examination f the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors”(Washington, DC: NPEC, 2004), available at http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20041022-GilinskyEtAl-lwr.pdf;
and Andrew Leask, Russell Leslie, and John Carlson, “Safeguards As a Design Criteria –Guidance for Regulators”, (Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office, September 2004), available at
http://www.asno.dfat.gov.au/publications/safeguards_design_criteria.pdf

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction. How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

By Antônio Milena (ABr), via Wikimedia Commons48

2. A packed nuclear-armed crowd?
The first of these dangers is that as the UnitedStates and Russia incrementally reduce their
nuclear weapons deployments, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel are likely to incrementally increase
theirs. Currently, the United States is planning
to reduce U.S. and Russian strategic weapons
deployments to as low as 1,000 warheads each.
As a result, it is conceivable that in 10 years’ time,

the nuclear numbers separating the United States
and Russia from the other nuclear weapons statesmight be measured in the hundreds rather than
the thousands of weapons (see figure below). In
such a world, relatively small changes in any state’s
nuclear weapons capabilities would be likely tohave a much larger impact on the perceived balance of power than it does today.

Figure 1: Coming Nuclear Congestion3
Operationally Deployed Strategic Warheads
3,000

2,500

U.S.
RussiaFranceChina
Uk
IsraelIndia
Pakistan

2,000

1,500

1,000

500

0
2009

2016

2020

2. A packed nuclear-armed crowd?

Compounding the international volatility that
this set of trends could produce are the large andgrowing stockpiles of nuclear weapons-usable
materials (i.e., of separated plutonium and highly
enriched uranium) that are being held in several
states. These stockpiles already exceed tens of
thousands of crude bombs’ worth of material in49

the United States and Russia and are projected to
grow in Pakistan, India, China, Israel, and Japan.
This will enable all of these states to increase theircurrent nuclear deployments much more quickly
and dramatically than was ever previously possible (see figures below for these states’ current
holdings).

Figure 2: National stocks of highly enriched uranium as of mid-20094

The numbers for the United Kingdom and United States are based on their publications. The civilian highly-enriched uranium stocks
of France, the United Kingdom are based on their public declarations to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Numbers withasterisks are non-governmental estimates, often with large uncertainties. Numbers for Russian and U.S. excess HEU are for June
2009. HEU in non-nuclear weapon (NNW) states is under IAEA safeguards. A 20% uncertainly is assumed in the figures for total
stocks in China, Pakistan and Russia, and for the miitary stockpile in France, and 50% for India.

3

Data for this chart drawn from the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Russian Nuclear Forces 2007”,
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March/April 2007), available at http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/
d41x498467712117/fulltext.pdf; Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, Eliminating Nuclear Threats:
A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers (Canberra, Australia: International Commission on Nuclear
Nonproliferation and Disarmament, 2010), p. 20; and Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “U.S. Nuclear
Forces, 2008”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March/April 2008), available at
http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/ pr53n270241156n6/fulltext.pdf
4	Frank Von Hippel, et al., International Panel on Fissile Material, Global Fissile Material Report 2009,
pp.13 and 16, available at http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/gfmr09.pdf

50

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

Figure 3: National Stocks of Separated Plutonium5

Civilian stocks are based on the most recent INFCIRC/549 declarations for January 2008 and are listed by ownership, not by current location. Weapon stocks are based on non-governmental estimates except for the United States and United Kingdom whose
governments have made declarations. Uncertainties of the military stockpiles for China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan and Russia
are on the order of 20%. The plutonium India separated from spent heavy-water power-reactor fuel has been categorized by India
as “strategic”, and not to be placed under IAEA safeguards. Belgium holds 1.4 tons of foreign-owned plutanium, but not stockpile ofits own (Appendix 1C).

Finally, in 20 years, there could be more
nuclear weapons-ready states – countries that
could acquire nuclear weapons in a matter ofmonths, like Japan and Iran. In addition, morethan 25 states have announced plans to launchlarge civilian nuclear programs. If they all realize

5

Ibid.

their dreams of bringing their first nuclear powerreactors on line by 2030, it would constitute a near
doubling of the 31 states that currently have suchprograms, most of which are in Europe (see figures
4 and 5).

2. A packed nuclear-armed crowd?

51

Figure 4: Today’s States or Regions with Nuclear Reactors6

Figure 5: Proposed Nuclear States (2008)7

6
7

Graphs developed for NPEC by Sharon Squassoni. Available at http://www.npec-web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Projects
Ibid.

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Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

If this civilian nuclear expansion is realized,
it could have major military implications. Everycurrent weapons state first brought a large reactor on line prior to acquiring its first bomb. The
United Kingdom, France, Russia, India, Pakistan,and the United States all made many of their initial bombs from reactors that also provided power
to their electrical grids. The United States still uses
a power reactor, a ‘proliferation resistant’ lightwater reactor operated by the Tennessee Valley
Authority, to make all of its weapons-grade tritium for its nuclear arsenal.
Other plants besides large power reactors, ofcourse, would be needed to chemically separate
out weapons-usable plutonium from the spent
power-reactor fuel or to enrich the uranium used
to power such machines. Yet, as the recent casesof Iran and North Korea demonstrate, such fuelmaking plants can be built – and in ways thatcan be difficult to detect – and operated to maketimely detection of illicit production unlikely.
Certainly, if all of the announced civilian nuclear
power programs are completed as planned, theworld in 2030 would be far less stable. Insteadof there being several confirmed nuclear weapons states (most of which the United States canclaim are either allies or strategic partners) there
could be an unmanageable number of additional
nuclear weapons-capable states – armed or weapons-ready (i.e., able to acquire weapons in 12 to 24
months) – to contend with, as figures 6 and 7.

Figure 6: Current Nuclear States

Current proliferation seems manageable(with DPRK disarming and Iran non-nuclear)
2009

Figure 7: Nuclear-ready States by 2015

Overview and Trends

In such a world, the United States, its allies andthe EU might know who their friends and potential adversaries might be but they would havedifficulty knowing what such states might do in acrisis – close ranks, go their own way developing
weapons options, or follow the lead of some othernuclear-capable nation. As for possible adversaries, the United States, its allies and the EU would
have difficulty determining just how lethal theseadversaries’ military forces might be.
Finally, these nuclear trends would surely
aggravate the prospects for nuclear terrorism. Not
only would there be more opportunities to seize
nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials,
there would be more military and civilian nuclear

53

facilities to sabotage. In addition, the potential
for miscalculation and nuclear war could rise to apoint where even non-nuclear acts of terror could
ignite larger conflicts that could turn nuclear.
This sort of international volatility is similar to that which preceded World War One andTwo. These were periods in which overly ambitious arms-control objectives were pursued whilestates completed major covert and overt military
preparations that heightened tensions and subsequently were employed in unrestricted warfare. The difference would be that over the next
20 years, the ammunition in these conflicts would
not just be highly explosive, but nuclear.

© United States Department of Energy

54

Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

3. Making the most of zeroAll of this raises the question of whether or not
we can avoid or mitigate these trends. The shortanswer is yes, but only if we attend more closely toseveral basic principles.
First, as nuclear weapons deployments
decline, more care must be taken to ensure military reductions or additions actually work to
decrease the chances for war.
If American and NATO nuclear security-guarantees are to continue in the immediate and midterm to neutralize the nuclear weapons yearningsof key U.S. allies and NATO members, it is criticalthat Washington and NATO avoid doing anything
to undermine the correlation of forces they currently enjoy against their key nuclear competitors. In addition to making roughly equal nuclear
reductions with Russia, then the United States
and NATO in the near to mid-term will have tokeep other nuclear-armed states, such as China
and India, either from trying to catch up with theUnited States or – as in the case of India and China,
Pakistan and India, and Japan and China – witheach other.
This means that additional nuclear restraints,
either in the form of nuclear weapons reductions

or further limits on the production or stockpilingof weapons-usable fuels, will need to be reached
not only with Russia, but with China, India, andPakistan. As a practical matter, this also means that
other nuclear weapons-ready or virtual weapons
states (e.g., Israel and Japan) will have to be asked
to curtail or end their production of nuclear weaponsusable materials or to dispose of some portionof what they currently have.
To date, neither the United States nor the EU
have detailed how best to do this. President Barack
Obama has called for the negotiation of a Fissile
Material Cut-off Treaty. But most versions of thisagreement allow “civilian” nuclear fuel production, which is virtually identical to military fuelproduction. Also, after decades of fruitless negotiations in Geneva, it is unclear if any such agreement
could ever be brought into force. Negotiations are
currently being held up by the Pakistanis.
There are, however, ways to restrain fissile production outside of negotiating an FMCT. Specifically,some officials, including those advising Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton, have suggested a complementary approach known as the Fissile Material Control
Initiative. Instead of a binding treaty, both Non-Proliferation Treaty weapons states and nonweapons

3. Making the most of zero

55

states would simply identify what portion of theirseparated plutonium and highly enriched uranium
stocks were in excess of either their military or civilian requirements and secure or dispose of them.8
One could also make it more difficult for states toaccess the surpluses they declare by requiring theprior consent of all parties participating in the initiative for access to be granted.9

other nuclear-supplying states and ask that theysuspend civilian nuclear assistance until India’s
unsafeguarded nuclear weaponsusable material
production declines. Here, the logical place tomake this request would be the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Such vigilance should also be matchedwith efforts to keep Pakistan from expanding its
nuclear weapons capabilities as well.

Yet another practical idea, which would havedirect bearing on India’s nuclear weapons activities, would be to ensure that the implementationof the U.S. civilian nuclear cooperative agreementwith New Delhi does nothing to help India makemore nuclear weapons-usable fuels than India wasproducing when the deal was finalized late in 2008.
Under the NPT, the states that had nuclear weapons in 1967 – the United States, Russia, France, theUnited Kingdom, and China – swore not to everhelp any other state to acquire them directly or
indirectly. Meanwhile, under the Hyde Act, whichauthorized the civilian U.S.-Indian nuclear deal,
the White House is routinely required to report toCongress on just how much uranium fuel India
is importing, how much it is using to run its civilian reactors, how much uranium it is producing
domestically, and the extent to which the operation of its unsafeguarded reactors is expanding its
stockpiles of unsafeguarded plutonium with either
the direct or indirect help of NPT weapons states.10

As for trying to maintain the relative parity
in the forces of competing nuclear-armed states
through non-nuclear military assistance or buildups, the challenge will be to substitute conventional arms for nuclear ones in a manner thatavoids increasing one or both side’s interests inacquiring more nuclear weapons. Unfortunately,
simply deploying more advanced non-nuclear
systems to compensate for forgone nuclear systems will not necessarily assure this.

If India’s unsafeguarded plutonium stockpiles grow faster per year than was the case prior
to the nuclear cooperative agreement’s finalization in 2008, and it can be shown to be related
to Indian uranium imports from one or more of
the NPT weapons states, the later would be implicated in violating Article I of the NPT. To prevent such a violation or, at least, limit the harm
it might do, the United States should alert all

8Consider long-range precision strike andadvanced command control and intelligence systems in the case of India and Pakistan. Pakistanbelieves it must threaten to use its nuclear weapons first to deter India’s superior conventional
forces. Precision strike systems, however, could
conceivably target Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. As
a result, one could imagine that arming India withsuch weapons would only put Pakistan on an evenhigher nuclear alert and encourage Islamabad toacquire even more nuclear weapons to assurethat their nuclear forces could not be knocked out
by precise Indian conventional strikes. Exporting
the wrong kinds of advanced non-nuclear weapons systems in India or helping it to build them indisproportionate numbers could adversely influence Pakistan’s nuclear weapons plans.
Ballistic missile defenses could also be tricky.
Under the right circumstances, having such

See, e.g., Robert Einhorn, “Controlling Fissile Materials and Ending Nuclear Testing”, presentation before
the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, Oslo (February 26–27, 2008), available at
http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/External_Reports/paper-einhorn.pdf
9 See Albert Wohlstetter, “Nuclear Triggers and Safety Catches”, in Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writingsof Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter, eds. Robert Zarate and Henry Sokolski (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College
Strategic Studies Institute, 2009).
10 	See the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006,
Implementation and Compliance Report, available at
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi bin/getdoc cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h5682enr.txt.pdf

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Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

defenses could afford a non-nuclear form of
deterrence that might facilitate reducing thenumbers of deployed nuclear weapons. Insteadof “neutralizing” a possible opponent’s missiles
by targeting them with nuclear or non-nuclear
offensive weapons, active missile defenses might
be used to counter them after launch. They also
could be useful as a form of insurance against
cheating on any future nuclear-capable ballistic
missile reduction agreements. As already noted,
to secure these benefits, more than their mere
deployment may be necessary.
Again, consider the Indian and Pakistanicase. While Pakistan insists it must use its nuclear
weapons first in any major war against India, New
Delhi is hoping to use its conventional forces tocapture enough of Pakistan from a “cold start” to
get Islamabad to quickly sue for peace. India has
also begun to develop missile defense systemsof its own to counter both Pakistani and Chinese
offensive missile threats.

implemented, they might be effective enough toattenuate the perceived stability risks of deploying more advanced, discriminate, non-nuclear
military systems.11
Elsewhere, other measures might be required.
As China increases its nuclear and non-nuclear
missile superiority over Taiwan and its capability
to target U.S. carrier battle groups with advanced,
conventional ballistic missiles, the United Statesand its Pacific allies must worry that Beijing may
be able to overwhelm the missile defenses they
are now working on. China, meanwhile, is developing ballistic missile defenses of its own to counter possible U.S. nuclear and precise conventional
intercontinental ballistic missile attacks. Countering offensive Russian ballistic missiles may
also be a Chinese concern. All of these missile
worries suggest that diplomatic efforts might usefully be focused on reaching offensive ballistic
missile limits in Asia to assure that whatever missile defenses are deployed there will not immediately be overwhelmed.

Under these circumstances, having equalamounts of missile defenses between India andPakistan would only give India yet another nonnuclear military edge against Islamabad. This,in turn, risks encouraging Pakistan to beef up
its offensive nuclear missile forces even more.
The only way to counter this and help to secure
the benefits of missile defense for both countries
would be to address the underlying conventional
asymmetry between them.

Here, several precedents exist. START, which
limits U.S. and Russian strategic ballistic missile
delivery systems, is one. The Intermediate Nuclear
Forces Treaty, which covers Russian and NATOmissiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, is another. The Missile Technology Control
Regime (MTCR), which limits commerce in missiles capable of lifting 500-kilogram payloads atleast 300 kilometers in range, is another still.

One reason regional security experts havelong favored creating low, medium, and highconventional deployment zones on both sidesof the Indo-Pakistani border is to equalize eachside’s ability to launch “quick” conventional
attacks against one another. A key element ofthese proposals is that both sides eliminate their
existing short-range ballistic missiles, since theiruse could mistakenly prompt nuclear reactions. If
such military confidence-building measures were

The trick in reaching new additional ballistic
missile limits is to make sure they are aggressive
enough to capture the ballistic missiles that matter so as to reduce the need or desire to deploy
more nuclear warheads without creating new categories of permissible missiles. It certainly would
make little sense to eliminate ballistic missiles
above 500 kilometers range only to end up legitimizing slightly lower-range missile systems thatare above the limits restricted by the MTCR.

11	On these points, see Peter Lavoy, “Islamabad’s Nuclear Posture: Its Premises and Implementation”,
in Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Worries beyond War, ed. Henry Sokolski (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,2008), pp. 129–66; see also General Feroz Khan, “Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War in South Asia”,
September 15, 2008, available at http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20090813-khan%20final.pdf

3. Making the most of zeroYet another related concern in limiting offensive ballistic missiles while cutting out a space forthe deployment of missile defense systems that
employ ballistic missile technology themselves is
to make sure the proliferation of missile defenses
does not itself result in the further spread of large
ballistic missiles or related technology. Here, one
might start by prohibiting the export of ballistic missile-based defensive systems that employ
rockets in excess of the MTCR’s category-one
missile limits (i.e., on missiles capable of lifting
500 kilograms more than 300 kilometers). Alternatively, agreements might be reached to encourage states to move away from the employment of
missile defense systems that rely on large ballistic
missile systems toward alternatives (e.g., dronebased boost phase, space, and directed energybased systems).
This brings us to the second general principle.
Reducing existing nuclear weapons andnuclear-capable delivery systems should be
related more closely to preventing their further
spread to additional states.
Currently, the connection between reducing nuclear arms and preventing their spread ismostly symbolic. As the U.S. and Russia reduce
their nuclear deployments, other nuclear-armed
states, it is argued, ought follow and this, in turn,should persuade non-nuclear weapons states tosubmit to much more intrusive inspections of
their civilian nuclear activities.12 Putting aside thehard cases of Iran and North Korea, this line ofreasoning, however, ignores several key technicaldevelopments and turns on several questionable
political assumptions.
First, after the International Atomic Energy
Agency failed to detect the covert nuclear programs in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, it isan open question of whether “enhanced” international nuclear inspections will ever be able toreliably detect future illicit nuclear activities. This57

is especially so if, as some believe, large civilian
nuclear programs spread in regions like the Middle East.
Second, not only the United States but Israel,
Japan, NATO, India, Russia, and China are planning to deploy ballistic missile defense systems– each for very different reasons. Yet, U.S. andallied approaches to controlling nuclear strategic
threats has been practically silent as to whether
these defense programs should be promoted or
restricted and, if so, how. Nor has there been, outside of strategic reduction talks with Russia, muchdiscussion as to whether or how other states’
development of ballistic missiles (both nuclear
and non-nuclear) should be approached.
Then there are political questions. How likely
is it that Russia will agree to further nuclear cuts
beyond the current START negotiations? Will
there be yet another START agreement to lower
numbers to 1,000 strategic deployed warheads?
Will Russia agree to limit its nonstrategic nuclear
weapons? What demands will Moscow make forsuch reductions? Will Russia demand the UnitedStates and NATO cripple their conventional andmissile defense plans? Finally, when, if ever, mightsuch agreements be reached? The success ofAmerica’s and the EU’s arms control and non-proliferation policies depend on the answers to thesequestions being favorable to the United States.
Related to the political issues noted aboveis the questions of enforcement. If there are no
new penalties or risks for developing nuclear
weapons-related capabilities, how likely is it thatstates without nuclear-capable missiles or atomic
weapons will keep clear of trying to acquire them?
Certainly, the greater Middle East is watching
what, if anything, the United States and its allies
might do to penalize Iran’s nuclear misbehavior.
Most states in the region are already hedging their
nuclear bets by acquiring “peaceful” nuclear programs of their own. Similar dynamics are in playin the Far East in relation to North Korea’s nuclear

12	See, e.g., Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi, Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global
Policymakers (Canberra, Australia: International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, 2010),
pp. 3-36.

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Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

weapons program. Beyond these two cases,
there is the general worry that the enforcementof nuclear nonproliferation-limits lack any teeth.
What, if anything, will be done to prevent further
nonproliferation violations?
These many questions all suggest the need foran additional set of arms control and nonproliferation measures to complement the set of arms
control measures that the United States and the
EU are currently pushing. Why not complement
these efforts (which may or may not succeed) bypromoting more immediate, incremental limits?
Here, it would be most useful to link efforts
to constrain existing nuclear arsenals with preventing their further spread and to link both toefforts of reducing and constraining nuclearcapable ballistic missiles. Several initiatives here
would qualify. Instead of waiting for Iran, Pakistan, India, North Korea, and Egypt to ratify the
CTBT, why not use the implicit ban on nuclear
testing contained in the NPT to secure an immediate agreement among civilian nuclear supplierstates to block nuclear trade with any NPT nonweapons state that tests? Once agreement on thishas been reached, an additional agreement might
be sought to expand such trade restrictions to
nuclear weapons states as well.
Why not proceed with the Fissile Material
Control Initiative, which would have an immediate (albeit initially modest) impact both on nuclear
weapons states and nonweapons states, while
pushing the Fissile Material Cut-Off treaty, which
would only affect nuclear weapons countries?
Currently, violators of the NPT and IAEA safeguards and states that withdraw from the NPT
while still in violation are not prohibited fromreceiving nuclear-capable missile technology andassistance from missile technology-supplying
states. Why not eliminate this loophole with the
adoption of an automatic cutoff to goods controlled by the MTCR to these nuclear violators?
States that flaunt the nuclear rules, such as
North Korea, are also free to test nuclear-capable
missiles outside of their borders. Under current

international law, all of this is legal. Yet, such
missiles are ideal for carrying nuclear warheads
and their development and testing are inherently destabilizing. Should there not be an international norm – as there is with piracy and slave
trading – giving states the technical power to shootsuch objects out of international air space (e.g.,the United States, Russia, Israel, and soon Japan,
NATO, and China) as with “outlaw” objects? If
progress is made on creating additional limits onballistic missile deployments (e.g., a global Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty), should violators of these understandings not also be banned
from receiving controlled missile and controlled
nuclear goods and be subject to similar missile
testing restrictions?
Of course, nuclear proliferation to additional
states will continue so long as nuclear inspections
are seen as a solution to preventing such spreadwhen, in many important cases, they cannot be
relied upon. To do better, a third principle willneed to be applied.
International nuclear inspectors should
be encouraged to distinguish between nuclear
activities and materials that they can reliably safeguard against being diverted to makebombs and those that they cannot.
The NPT is clear that all peaceful nuclear activities and materials must be safeguarded – that is,inspected in a manner that can reliably prevent
them from being diverted to make nuclear weapons. Most NPT states have fallen into the habit ofthinking that if they merely declare their nuclear
holdings and allow international inspections,they have met this requirement.
This is dangerously mistaken. After the nuclear
inspection gaffes in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North
Korea, we now know that the IAEA cannot reliably detect covert nuclear activities early enoughto allow others to intervene to prevent possible
bomb-making. We also now know that inspectors annually lose track of many bombs’ worth of
nuclear weapons-usable plutonium and uranium
at declared nuclear fuel-making plants. Privately,
IAEA officials admit that the agency cannot assure3. Making the most of zerocontinuity of inspections for spent and fresh fuelrods at more than half of the sites that it inspects.
Finally, we know that declared plutonium andenriched uranium can be made into bombs andtheir related production plants diverted so quickly(in some cases, within hours or days) that noinspection system can offer timely warning ofa bomb-making effort. Yet, any true safeguard
against military nuclear diversions must reliably
detect them early enough to allow outside powers to intervene to block a bomb from being built.
Anything less is only monitoring that might, atbest, detect military diversions after they occur.
In light of these points, it would be useful for
the IAEA to concede that it cannot safeguard allthat it inspects against possible military diversions.
This would finally raise first-order questions about
the advisability of producing or stockpiling plutonium, highly enriched uranium, plutonium-based
reactor fuels, and believing that these materials
and activities can be safeguarded. At the very least,
it would suggest that nonweapons states ought
not to acquire these materials or facilities beyond
what they already have. These points are importantenough to raise before, during, and after the May
2010 NPT Review Conference. In this regard, theUnited States and other like-minded nations might
independently assess whether or not the IAEA canmeet its own inspection goals; under what circumstances (if any) these goals can be met; and, finally,
whether these goals are high enough. The U.S.
House of Representatives last year approved legislation to require the executive to make such assessments routinely and to report their findings. Similar
legislation has been proposed in the Senate.13

59

Finally, to assure safe, economically competitive forms of clean energy, greater attention
should be paid to comparing costs and discouraging the use of government financial incentives for commercialization projects, especiallynuclear power.
Supporters of nuclear power insist that its
expansion is critical to prevent global warming. Yet, they generally downplay or ignore thenuclear weapons proliferation risks associatedwith this technology’s further spread. That said,
it may be impossible to prevent the spread of
nuclear power if it turns out to be a cheap andconvenient way to provide low-carbon energy.
Given the security premium associated with thefurther spread of nuclear power technologies,
though, no government should pay extra to promote it and no government should support othergovernments doing so.14
Certainly, creating new, additional government financial incentives specifically geared
toward building more commercial nuclear plants
and their associated fuel-making facilities will
only increase the difficulty of accurately comparing it with non-nuclear alternatives. Not only dosuch subsidies mask nuclear power’s true costs,
they tilt the market against less subsidized, potentially sounder alternatives. This is troubling since
nuclear power continues to enjoy massive government support and the most dangerous formsof civilian nuclear energy – nuclear fuel-making
in most nonweapons states and large power reactor projects in war-torn regions like the Middle
East – turn out to be poor investments as compared to much safer alternatives.15

13	See Section 416 of the House State Authorization Act of 2010 and 2011 “Implementation of`Recommendations ofCommission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism”, available at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2410
14 As the re-launch of German export credits (“Hermes”) for nuclear power generation in Brazil, Russia,
and China or President Sarkozy’s proposals to finance nuclear power with development funds and loans.
15 See, e.g., Peter Tynan and John Stephenson, “Nuclear Power in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey –how cost effective?” February 9, 2009, available at
http://www.npec-web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PDFFile= Dalberg-Middle%20Eastcarbon&PDFFolder=Essays; “Frank von Hippel, “Why Reprocessing Persists in Some Countries and Not in Others:
The Costs and Benefits of Reprocessing”, April 9, 2009, available at http://www.npec-web.org/Frameset.asp?
PageType=Single&PDFFile=vonhippel%20%20TheCostsandBenefits&PDFFolder=Essays; Doug Koplow,“Nuclear Power as Taxpayer Patronage: A Case Study of Subsidies to Calvert Cliffs Unit 3”, available at
http://www.npecweb.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PDFFile=Koplow%20-%20CalvertCliffs3&PDFFolder=Essays

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Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

There are several ways to avoid this. The firstwould be to get as many governments as possible to open up all large civilian energy projects intheir countries to international competitive bidding. This is already done in a number of countries. The problem is that when states want tobuild large civilian nuclear reactors, they limit thecompetition to nuclear bids rather than open thecompetition to any energy option that could meeta given set of environmental and economic criteria. Limiting the competition in this way ought tobe discouraged internationally.
Most advanced nations, including the UnitedStates, claim to back the principles of the Energy
Charter Treaty and the Global Charter on Sustainable Energy Development. These international agreements are designed to encourage allstates to open their energy sectors to international bidding to assure that all energy options are
considered and that as many subsidies and externalities associated with each are internalized andreflected in the price of what is being proposed.
Promoting adherence to these rules is essential
if the United States and other states are serious
about reducing carbon emissions in the quickest,
least costly manner.
Here, one might reference and enforce theprinciples of the Energy Charter Treaty and the
Global Charter on Sustainable Energy as a partof any follow-on to the understandings reachedat Kyoto and Copenhagen. In addition, states thatchoose to build a nuclear plant when less-costly
non-nuclear alternatives would clearly makemore sense ought to be flagged by an economic

competitiveness monitoring body (e.g., the World
Trade Organization) that might assume responsibility for overseeing large international energy
project transactions. Finally, such uneconomic
nuclear picks (e.g., several proposed Middle Eastern nuclear projects) might also be referred to
the IAEA for further investigation regarding the
project’s true purpose.16
As a complementary effort, the world’s advanced
states could also work with developing countries
to create non-nuclear alternatives to address theirenergy and environmental needs. In the case of
the United States, this would entail implementing
existing law. Title V of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 requires the executive branch to
do analyses of key countries’ energy needs andidentify how these needs might be addressed with
non-fossil, non-nuclear energy sources. Title V also
calls on the executive branch to create an alternative energy cadre to help developing nations explore
these alternative options. To date, no U.S. president
has chosen to implement this law. The U.S. Congress has indicated that it would like to change thisby requiring Title V country energy analyses (andoutside, nongovernmental assessments of theseanalyses) to be done as a precondition for the U.S.
initialing of any new, additional U.S. nuclear cooperative agreements.17 The United Nations, meanwhile, has an alternative, renewable (non-nuclear)energy initiative of its own aimed at assisting developing states. As with most of the other suggestions
already made, the United States and other states canemphasize these initiatives without waiting for any
international treaty agreement.

16 For more on these points, see Henry Sokolski, “Market Fortified Non-proliferation”, in Breaking the
Nuclear Impasse (New York, NY: The Century Foundation, 2007), pp. 81–143, available at
http://nationalsecurity.oversight.house.gov/documents/20070627150329.pdf
For more on the current membership and investment and trade principles of the Energy Charter Treaty and the Global
Energy Charter for Sustainable Development, go to http://www.encharter.org and http://www.cmdc.net/echarter.html
17 See Letter from Members of Congress Brad Sherman, Edward Markey, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton April 6, 2009 available at
http://bradsherman.house.gov/pdf/NuclearCooperationPresObama040609.pdf

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Conclusion

With states’ growing concerns about energy
security and reducing carbon emissions, governments have again gravitated toward supporting the expansion of civilian nuclear power. The
United States, France, Russia, China, Japan, South
Korea, India, Pakistan, Brazil, and a host of otherdeveloping states in the Middle East and Asia
are now planning on exporting or buying powerreactor programs using state funds and financing.
Yet, in all this, far too little attention has been
paid to how one can increase the amount of large
reactor programs without also spreading themeans to make nuclear weapons. Technically,
what is required to boil water with nuclear energy
is virtually identical to the means required tomake scores of bombs’ worth of weapons-usable
plutonium.
As a practical matter, one cannot train thehundreds of engineers and technicians required
to build and operate such programs without running the risk that they might also learn how tomake the fuel necessary by recycling their spent
fuel. Nor is it possible to verify effectively thepledges that states might make to forswear making nuclear fuel. Not only has the IAEA failed in
the past to find covert nuclear fuel-making plants,
but it has repeatedly discovered that it missed
accounting for many bombs’ worth of separated
plutonium and enriched uranium well after it was
produced. No proposed system of inspections,
including the additional protocol, sufficiently
addresses these problems. As a result, unless
one is convinced that a state is out of the bombmaking business, transferring to it the means to
conduct a large nuclear reactor program runs thesignificant risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
If it was clear that states had no choice but
to acquire large nuclear reactors to meet theirenergy security or scientific research demands
while reducing their carbon footprints, one would
have to be resigned to these risks. Ever morestates would become nuclear weaponsready andinstead of moving closer to zero nuclear weapons

and reducing the threats of nuclear use, the world
would drift ever closer to realizing them.
Fortunately, there are several plausible, clean,economically competitive non-nuclear energy
options and nuclear threat-reduction measures
beyond those being currently promoted thatoffer hope that we can avoid this civilian-military
nuclear dilemma. New discoveries of natural gas
are making this relatively clean and inexpensive
fuel a possible bridge to more complicated, andcurrently more expensive, alternative energy
options. The costs of these non-nuclear alternatives, moreover, are dropping. Finally, energy
efficiencies, new modes of electrical storage, anddistribution systems promise significant reductions in the amount of energy required to produce
a given unit of gross domestic product.
The key trick in promoting these non-nuclear
energy options over nuclear power will be tocompete them economically in open bidding for
all large energy projects internationally. Insteadof holding competitions for specific energy programs – for example, calling for international bids
for a nuclear power plant or a carbon sequestration program – states should be encouraged tohold competitions that only specify the amountof power needed and the environmental requirements that must be met. What we are interested inis promoting the quickest, least costly (assuming
the costs of government subsidies, a range of possible prices on carbon, etc., are internalized) way
to meet the stated requirements.
Finally, it is imperative that the states mostconcerned about reducing existing nuclear
threats complement their existing list of formal
treaty efforts – which may take years, if ever, to berealized – with more practical steps that can betaken now. Among these are encouraging states
to reduce their production of weapons-usable fissile materials for civilian or military purposes by
getting them to announce that some amount of
their existing holdings is in excess of their civilianor military requirements and then getting them

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Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, Energy Security, and Carbon Emission Reduction: How to Overcome the Civilian-Military Nuclear Dilemma.

to dispose of this material or make it far moredifficult to access. Also, more should be doneto assure civilian nuclear fuel sales to non-NPT
states, such as India, so that they do not end
up fueling nuclear competitions like the one
between Pakistan and India.
Nuclear supplier states should also encourage greater candor about the shortcomings ofthe IAEA nuclear safeguards system and help inclarifying that which nuclear inspections cannot be expected to detect reliably. Finally, it isimperative that greater care be taken regarding
the deployment of non-nuclear systems to reducestates’ interests in acquiring or relying on nuclear
ones. Here, more should be done to limit offensive, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
The advantage of these recommendations isthat they can be acted upon now. On the other
hand, there are no deadlines for their implementation. In these matters, as with any important
problem set, all that is required is to begin.

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63

Glossary and list of abbreviations
BWR

Boiling water reactor

CCGT

Combined cycle gas turbine

CEGB

Central Electricity Generating Board

COL

Construction and Operating License

CTBT

Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty

DOE

U.S. Department of Energy

EIA

Energy Information Administration

EPACT

Energy Policy Act

FBRFast breeder reactor

GCR

Gas-cooled reactor

GDA

Generic Design Assessment program

HWR

Heavy water reactor (including Candu)

IAEA

International Atomic Energy Agency

IDC

Interest during construction

MTCR

Missile Technology Control Regime

NII

Nuclear Installations Inspectorate

NINA

Nuclear Innovation North America

NPT

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

NRC

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

O&M

Operations and maintenance

Overnight cost 	The construction cost of a nuclear plant including the costof the first fuel load but excluding any financing charges
PIU

Performance and Innovation Unit

PWR

Pressurized water reactor

RBMK(Russian reactor design using graphite and water)

START

Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

Turnkey

A fixed price contract covering the design and construction of the entire plant

WWER

Russian Pressurized water reactor

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Otfried Nassauer who studied theology in Hamburg is a freelance journalist and peace researcher. Since 1991
he has directed the Berlin Information Centre for Transatlantic Security (Berliner Informationszentrum fürTransatlantische Sicherheit). Nassauer has focussed on security policy and international security policy organisations (NATO, WEU, EU, OSZE, UN), arms control and exports, disarmament, nuclear weapons and proliferation.
Amongst his recent works are nuclear policy analyses of the U.S., Russia, Iran and NATO. He has authored andedited numerous books. Contact: www.bits.deHenry D. Sokolski is the Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), a
Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policy-makers, scholars and the media. He currently serves as an
adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., and as a member of the Congressional
Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Mr Sokolski has
authored and edited numerous books and publications.

Nuclear Proliferation: A Civilian and a Military Dilemma

The danger of nuclear proliferation is growing in proportion to
the number of new nuclear power stations all over the world.
There is no insurmountable division between the civil and military use of this technology in spite of the efforts on the part of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to regulate
this. The most recent example is Iran. At the end of the day
anyone who does not want to be regulated cannot be forced to
do so. With the expansion of nuclear energy there is a growing necessity to build reprocessing plants and fast breeders inorder to produce nuclear fuel. Both give rise to the circulationof plutonium leading in turn to the creation of huge amounts offissile material capable of making bombs – a horror scenario!
With the run-up to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
Review Conference in May of 2010, major states have focused
as never before on reducing existing U.S. and Russian nuclear

Rue d’Arlon 15, -1050 Brussels, Belgium
T +32 2 743 41 00 F 32 2 743 41 09
E brussels@boell.eu W www.boell.eu

weapons stockpiles, reversing Pyongyang’s nuclear buildup, andstopping Iran’s nuclear weapons-related activities. The hopeis that each of these efforts will be mutually reinforcing andthat progress in reducing existing nuclear weapons will persuade the world’s nonnuclear weapons states to do more to stayclear of dangerous civilian nuclear fuel-making activities. Thisset of nuclear hopes, however, is unlikely to be fully realised.
Barring regime change in either North Korea or Iran, neither
Pyongyang’s renunciation of its nuclear arsenal nor Iran’s cessation of nuclear weapons-related activities is all that probable.
Meanwhile, the odds of China, India, Pakistan, North Korea,
and Israel agreeing to nuclear warhead reductions seem evenmore remote. Assuming that current nuclear trends continue,
then the next two decades will test international security as it
has never have been tested before.

Nuclear Proliferation:

A Civilian and a Military Dilemma