FIVE MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT: 

THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER 

OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS GRADE 

FISSILE MATERIALS 

Guy B. Roberts

INSS Occasional Paper 8 

Proliferation Series

February 1996 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

US Air Force Academy, Colorado 
ii

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air 

Force, the Department of Defense or the US Government. This report is approved 

for public release; distribution is unlimited. 

******** 

 Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be forwarded to: 

Director, Institute for National Security Studies, HQ USAFA/DFES, 2354 

Fairchild Drive, Suite 5L27, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO 

80840, 719-333-2717. 
iii
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

I. Introduction: What Is the Problem? 1 

A. Why is Controlling Fissile Materials So Important? 2 

B. Scope and Purpose 3 

II. The Growing Proliferation Risks of Fissile Materials 5 

A. Fissile Materials in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and 

the Breakdown of Societal Norms 5 

1. The Lack of Adequate Materials Control 7 

2. Initiatives to Stop the Leakage of Fissile Materials 10 

B. Nuclear Materials Trafficking: The Growing Threat of 

Illicit Fissile Material Diversions 13 

C. New Undertakings and Proposals to Combat Nuclear 

Materials Trafficking 17 

D. The Disposition Dilemma: Growing Stockpiles of 

Plutonium - A Legacy of the Cold War 20 

1. Possible Solutions 22 

E. The Inadequacy of IAEA safeguards 23 

F. Unabated Demand: Threshold States and Fissile 

Materials 26 

1. Common Factors in Roll Back States 29 

2. The South Asian Case 31 

III. The Non-Proliferation Regime as a Framework for 

Controlling Fissile Materials 33 

A. The Non-Proliferation Treaty - A Big Part of the Cure 33 

B. Strengthening Non-Proliferation Norms to Stop the 

Spread of Fissile Materials 38 

1. Strengthening IAEA Safeguards 38 

2. A Fissile Material Cut-Off Regime 41 

3. The Creation of Nuclear Weapon Free Zones 46 

4. Export Control Regimes and the Harmonization of 

Export Control Laws 47 

IV. Conclusion: No Easy Solution 51 

Endnotes 54 
v
vi

FOREWORD 

 We are pleased to publish this eighth volume in the Occasional Paper series 

of the US Air Force Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This 

monograph represents the results of research conducted under the auspices of an 

INSS grant during fiscal year 1995. 

 The paper focuses on the most intractable and pressing problem of nuclear 

weapons proliferation: the spread of nuclear weapons-usable fissile materials. It 

reviews recent initiatives and proposals to stop or slow that spread, and to impede 

the acquisition efforts of those that seek to acquire them. This is only part – albeit 

the most crucial – of the nuclear weapons proliferation problems. 

 There have been voluminous proposals regarding how the international 

community can strengthen non-proliferation norms, ranging up to and including 

the absolute ban on the possession of nuclear weapons – an approach Roberts 

judges to be impractical for the near term. He suggests several initiatives, 

however, that have the best chance for further enhancing the non-proliferation 

regime in the context of controlling and eventually stopping the spread of nuclear 

weapons-usable fissile materials. These initiatives may make the utility of such 

weapons as a coercive force less credible. 

 There are those who believe the effort is not worth it, that the continuing 

spread of fissile materials is inevitable. They are wrong, says the author. Tough 

“supply-side” controls can close the spigot to a slow drip while time and 

commonality of interests in non-proliferation change the political motivation to 

acquire nuclear weapons. Eventually a seamless web of measures will result in 

the international community as a whole exercising the political will to stop and 

ultimately end the threat of fissile material catastrophe. 

 INSS is co-sponsored by the National Security Negotiations Division, Plans 

and Operations Directorate, Headquarters US Air Force (USAF/XOXI) and the 

Dean of the Faculty, US Air Force Academy. The primary purpose of the Institute 

is to promote research done within the DOD community in the fields of arms 
vii

control, proliferation, national security, regional studies, the revolution in military 

affairs, information warfare, and environmental security. INSS coordinates and 

focuses outside thinking in various disciplines and across services to develop new 

ideas for USAF policy making. The Institute develops topics, selects researchers 

from within the military academic community, and administers sponsored 

research. We also host conferences and workshops which facilitate the 

dissemination of information to a wide range of private and government 

organizations. INSS is in its third year of providing valuable, cost-effective 

research to meet the needs of the Air Staff and our other sponsors. 

 We appreciate your interest in INSS and its research products. 

 JEFFREY A. LARSEN, Lt Colonel, USAF 

 Director, Institute for National Security Studies 
viii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 While weapons of mass destruction have been recognized as a “major threat 

to our security,” with nuclear weapons being the most potentially devastating, it is 

less understood that growing stockpiles of nuclear weapons grade fissile materials 

(plutonium and highly enriched uranium) are also a “clear and present danger” 

to international security. Much of this material is uncontrolled and unsecured in 

the former Soviet Union (FSU) 

 Fissile materials are the essential elements for nuclear bomb making. Access 

to these materials is the primary technical barrier to a nuclear weapons capability 

since the technological know-how for bomb making is available in the world 

scientific community. A determined proliferator will be capable of making a 

nuclear weapon irrespective of financial and political costs, as has been 

demonstrated in South Africa, Iraq, and North Korea. Strategies to convince 

proliferators to give up their nuclear ambitions are problematic since, for the most 

part, those ambitions are a part of larger regional security concerns. 

 The proliferation risks of fissile materials are great and there are no short 

term solutions. Of immediate concern is the breakdown of societal controls in the 

FSU and the huge amount of unsecured and uncontrolled fissile materials. There 

is no national material control and accounting in Russia. No one knows exactly 

how much fissile materials they have, and at most sites not only do they not know 

how much they have, they do not know if any is missing. A bankrupt atomic 

energy industry, unpaid employees and little or no security has created a climate 

in which more an more fissile materials will likely be sold in black markets or 

diverted to clandestine nuclear weapons programs or transnational terrorist 

groups. 

 Growing stockpiles of plutonium are another major proliferation risk. 

Plutonium is not an economically viable fuel and there are no good long-term 

solutions for its disposition. Plutonium is a by-product of nuclear reactors and it is 

expected that there will be enough for 70,000 Hiroshima-type bombs by the year 
ix

2010. Coupled with the inability of the International Atomic Energy Agency 

(IAEA) to adequately safeguard these materials, these growing stockpiles of 

plutonium are a serious long-term threat. 

 Despite the seemingly hopeless magnitude of the problem, a number of nonproliferation efforts have been taken to strengthen the international nonproliferation regime. The crown jewel of that regime is the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT). Measures to build on NPT have included nuclear 

weapon states agreeing to provide strengthened security assurances, establishing 

regional nuclear weapons free zones that include banning the production and 

reprocessing of fissile materials, harmonizing and expanding export controls, and 

negotiations on a fissile material cut-off regime that would cap the existing stocks 

of fissile materials. Other initiatives include enhanced cooperation with law 

enforcement to stop nuclear materials trafficking, the negotiation of a treaty 

making nuclear smuggling a crime against international law, endorsing IAEA 

proposals for strengthening safeguards, expanding material control and 

accounting efforts in the FSU, and funding for interim plutonium disposal options 

to lessen the risk of illicit diversion. 

 While unprecedented progress has been made, and the proposals for 

strengthening the non-proliferation regime contained here will hopefully be 

implemented, the problems of the FSU are diverse and complex to be solved 

overnight. Nor can anything be done about the continued growth of plutonium in 

the short term. Control over these materials will ultimately rely on the continuous 

and simultaneous exercise of several measures--ranging from building 

international regimes, regional conflict resolution, and the cooperative efforts to 

slow and eventually reverse the availability of these materials. While there may be 

little one can do now to stop a determined proliferator, over time international 

consensus and a strengthened non-proliferation regime will convince proliferators 

that the costs far outweigh the gains. 

 The US will have to take the lead -- because no one else can -- to meet this 
x

challenge through the entire range of political and economic tools discussed. The 

regime is not foolproof, but that does not mean that ongoing efforts and the 

proposals for enhancements are in vain. These efforts can close the proliferation 

spigot to a slow drip while time and the commonality of interest in nonproliferation change the political motivations to obtain these materials for illicit 

purposes. Eventually a seamless web of measures will result in the international 

community as a whole exercising the political will to stop and ultimately end the 

threat of nuclear weapons. 
1

FIVE MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT: 

THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS GRADE 

FISSILE MATERIALS 

The breakup of the Soviet Union left nuclear material scattered 

throughout the Newly Independent States and increased the potential 

for the theft of those materials, and for organized criminals to enter 

the nuclear smuggling business. As horrible as the tragedies in 

Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center were, imagine the 

destruction that could have resulted had there been a small-scale 

nuclear device exploded there. 

 

 - President William Clinton 

 U.S. Air Force Academy, May 31, 19951

I. Introduction: What Is the Problem? 

 A recent public opinion survey revealed that the American people 

believe that the danger from nuclear weapons is even greater today than during 

the Cold War.2 Indeed, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction3 may be the 

most important threat to US national and international security in the post-Cold 

War era.4

 The proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons of 

mass destruction, will likely continue over the next few decades in a limited 

number of countries, posing a real and immediate threat to US interests, friends 

and allies, and forces deployed around the globe. Nuclear weapons proliferation 

is clearly the most threatening and devastating of these mass destruction weapons. 

 Given the number of nuclear weapons in various world inventories and the 

relative availability of both technology and nuclear materials, the acquisition or 

fabrication of a nuclear weapon by a state or terrorist group with interests inimical 

to that of the US is alarmingly possible. And, given the already-prevalent 

availability of technology and information associated with building nuclear 

weapons, the greatest threat and challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation regime 
2

in the immediate future will be to control and limit the spread of nuclear weaponsusable fissile materials. The danger is so great and the threat so immediate that US 

policy-makers and the public need to recognize the illicit diversion of fissile 

materials as a critical and urgent national security priority, one that will require 

top-level attention, public education and sufficient resource allocation if we are to 

eventually prevail over this new security challenge. 

 Weapon-usable fissionable materials are principally highly enriched 

uranium (HEU) and plutonium.5

 The explosive power of nuclear weapons derives 

from either of these fissile materials.6

 And, as a recent US National Academy of 

Sciences report warned, excess fissile material inadequately controlled or 

accounted for poses “a clear and present danger” to international security.7

 

 A. Why is Controlling Fissile Materials So Important? 

 Fissile materials comprise the sine qua non of nuclear weapons making. 

Limits on access to fissile materials are the primary technical barrier to acquisition 

of nuclear weapons capability in the world today. But once these materials are 

acquired, construction of nuclear weapons should be assumed to be relatively 

straight-forward for sophisticated terrorists or proliferant states. Even relatively 

unsophisticated terrorist groups could make a crude but workable nuclear bomb in 

the 10-100 kiloton range.8

 At least one “terrorist” group has openly sought to 

acquire this capability.9

One highly acclaimed physicist involved in the Manhattan Project noted 

that “with modern weapons-grade uranium, the background neutron rate is so low 

that terrorists, if they had such material, would have a good chance of setting off a 

high-yield explosion simply by dropping one half of the material onto the other 

half. Most people seem unaware that if separated U-235 is at hand it's a trivial job 

to set off a nuclear explosion. . . [E]ven a high school kid could make a bomb in 

short order.”10 In any event, terrorists do not need the power or precision of a 

high-yield weapon. It has been reported that the United States conducted a 
3

successful nuclear blast using reactor-grade plutonium rather than weapons 

grade.11 A low-yield dirty device made from reactor-grade plutonium in a truck 

could easily serve a terrorist’s purposes, demolishing a small city and spreading 

radioactive fall-out far and wide. In a recent news account, for example, it was 

reported that Iraq, in addition to developing a nuclear bomb, worked on a 

“radiological” weapon, one that scatters deadly radioactive material without a 

nuclear explosion.12

 Admittedly, nuclear weapon development is costly and time-consuming. 

 But first-generation proliferators, using techniques and technologies available in 

unclassified literature and university classrooms, coupled with sufficient 

management and organizational skills and ample financial resources, will 

ultimately be successful in making nuclear weapons.13 Present day proliferators, 

relying on “primitive” but proven technologies, with access to sufficient quantities 

of fissile materials, will be able to take shortcuts not available to US nuclear 

physicists who designed the first bombs during the Manhattan Project (1942-

45).14 Those first bombs weighed thousands of pounds. Today’s proliferators, 

using desk top computers will be able to develop much smaller munitions using 

smaller amounts of fissionable materials that could soon be deliverable by ballistic 

missiles.15 For example, Iraq, using processes developed during World War II, 

was able to separate isotope U-235 from a “civilian” reactor and “enrich” it to 

weapons-grade HEU.16 

B. Scope and Purpose 

 The wide-spread prevalence of fissile materials, coupled with severe 

security and accountability problems resulting from the break-up of the former 

Soviet Union (FSU) and the continuing desire of some states to acquire a nuclear 

weapons capability, present different problems and varying degrees of risk to 

international peace and security. These problems and attendant risks are the 
4

focus here. The multi-faceted problem of fissile material proliferation will be 

investigated in inter-connected parts. 

First and foremost is the difficulties arising from the dissolution of the 

Soviet Union. A significant aspect of this problem is the trafficking in nuclear 

materials acquired from the FSU, and the concomitant lack of adequate controls 

and accounting of fissile materials. Second, is the growing stockpiles of 

plutonium resulting from both the dismantlement of nuclear weapons and the 

production of plutonium from reprocessed civilian reactor fuel. Third, the 

inadequacies of safeguards over nuclear technologies and materials have created 

unacceptable proliferation risks that will need to be addressed. Finally, strategies 

will have to be developed to address both those states not members of the NPT 

with unsafeguarded nuclear facilities and those with clandestine nuclear weapons 

programs. 

 This paper is focused on the most intractable and pressing problem of 

nuclear weapons proliferation; the spread of nuclear weapons-usable fissile 

materials and initiatives and proposals to stop or slow that spread and impede the 

acquisition efforts of those that seek to acquire them. It is understood that this is 

only part--albeit the most crucial--of the nuclear weapons proliferation problem. 

Although related, the problem of a “rogue” state acquiring an actual nuclear 

weapon through purchase or theft is not addressed nor are enforcement and 

counter-proliferation efforts discussed. Efforts to address enforcing nonproliferation norms are complex, beyond the scope of our work here, and have, in 

any event, been exhaustively examined by a number of authoritative sources.17 
5

II. The Growing Proliferation Risks of Fissile Materials 

A. Fissile Materials in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Breakdown 

of Societal Norms 

 

“Potatoes [are] guarded better than radioactive materials....” 

 - Russian Special Investigator18

 

The divisive political and deteriorating economic conditions in the 

Russian Federation and the newly independent states (NIS) of the FSU have 

created a dangerous recipe for the diversion of nuclear weapons materials and 

technology to clandestine nuclear weapons programs.19 The heightened potential 

for bankruptcy, instability, revolution or dissolution poses a deadly serious 

proliferation risk.20 While beyond the scope of this paper, the residual chaotic 

situation in the FSU has made problematic responsible state control over not only 

nuclear materials and the facilities used to produce them but also the expertise, 

information, and technology used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. The 

Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, has called nuclear smuggling “the greatest longterm threat to the security of the United States.”21 In 1990, political extremists 

attempted to take over a tactical nuclear weapons storage site near the capital of 

Azerbaijan.22 Continuing ethnic clashes in the Russian Federation, exploding into 

civil war, have occurred in Chechyna and North Ossetia as well as in the newly 

independent states of the FSU and will add significantly to the problem of 

controlling the illicit theft and diversion of fissile materials. 

 In Russia, growing criminal activity, blatant and pervasive corruption, 

and non-complying industries add to the proliferation concerns. For example, in 

1992, 4,000 verdicts of corruption were brought against Russian military officers, 

and the Russian defense ministry reported 4,000 cases of theft of conventional 
6

weapons, including tanks and aircraft, from military facilities in 1992 and nearly 

6,500 cases in 1993.23 Although there has been no documented case of organized 

crime involvement in nuclear materials trafficking, given the current climate of 

wide-scale climate where even Russian President Yeltsin called organized crime 

Russia’s number one problem,24 it is quite likely that if they are not now involved 

they soon will be.25

 Given the deteriorating economic situation in the FSU, terrorist groups 

or their state sponsors will likely have access to top-notch nuclear weapon 

designers, if the price is right.26 Media reports have tended to confirm that 

scientists working in nuclear weapons programs have been seeking and have been 

offered employment with potential proliferant states.27 Scientists and engineers 

working on nuclear weapons programs, once the elite of Soviet society, have 

steadily seen their privileges erode. As a result of the loss of incentives, decline in 

prestige, and the lack of funds for simple living expenses, let alone research, 

nuclear weapons specialists began to leave the FSU in search of employment 

opportunities in other countries. One report noted that in 1992 alone 9200 

Russian scientists found employment abroad.28 

 While efforts at improving their lot have begun, the situation has 

deteriorated even further over the last two years. For example, as recently as 

March 1995, a US source with established and regular contacts with the nuclear 

research institute Arzamas-16 (Kremlev) and Chelyabinsk-70 (Snezhinsk) 

reported that scientists at those institutes had not been paid since December 1994 

and that those scientists had sent a joint appeal to MINATOM [Ministry of 

Atomic Energy] Minister Mikhailov for economic relief. Due to a similar 

situation over two years ago, Arzamas-16 scientists took to the streets staging 

protests and threatening strikes--activities previously unheard of in closed cities.29

 It is the scientists, technicians and managers, in addition to security personnel, 
7

 that are best placed to take fissile materials with them when they leave for work 

at hard-currency-paying nuclear programs in states of proliferation concern. 

1. The Lack of Adequate Materials Control 

 If nuclear facility scientists, engineers and other workers have a motive 

for nuclear trafficking they also have the opportunity. Security is flimsier at most 

Russian nuclear facilities than at many ordinary office buildings in the US. The 

chairman of the National Academy of Sciences panel that studied the problem of 

plutonium disposition30 observed first hand the continuing deterioration of basic 

custodial and control arrangements over fissile materials, commenting that “Any 

day now we could wake up and read the morning newspaper that enough material 

for a dozen bombs really has been stolen....”31 A science advisor to President 

Yeltsin, Valery Menschikov, said that “Fissile materials have become a big 

commodity on the world market because we have not had the discipline or the 

money to create a system for protecting them.”32 Menschikov found one facility 

at the Tomsk complex in Siberia holding nuclear weapon cores protected by a 

single lock and one guard.33

 Anecdotal and ominous reports abound about the lax security and the 

opportunity for theft. Given the economic, social and political instability in the 

FSU, coupled with an erosion of moral standards, human reliability in physical 

protection of these materials has eroded substantially. As a consequence, “the 

primary threat to nuclear safeguards in Russia today is a knowledgeable and 

corrupt insider (or group of insiders) who have access to nuclear materials and 

may attempt to steal them for profit, for political reasons, or because they are 

coerced by a criminal organization.”34 One frustrated US official told how on a 

recent visit to a nuclear facility in Russia he noticed new motion detectors in one 

part of the facility. Later, when he inquired about them he was told the detectors 
8

were put in just for the US visit. They had not been permanently installed for fear 

that someone would steal them.35

 The facts about the magnitude of this problem are sobering: there is no 

national fissile material control and accounting in Russia. No one knows exactly 

how much plutonium or HEU they have, and at most sites not only do they not 

know how much they have, nor do they know if any plutonium or HEU are 

missing.

36 

 The deputy chairman of the nuclear oversight agency Gosatomnadzor 

(GAN), Yuri Zubkov, said that “Russia is facing a critical problem of establishing 

strict control and accounting for nuclear materials. We are just at the 

beginning.”37 GAN is ostensibly the inspectorate responsible for ensuring that 

sensitive nuclear materials are safeguarded in Russia, including military nuclear 

stockpiles. But the military has refused to cooperate, and GAN has been involved 

in a often bitter bureaucratic battle with MINATOM over tightening regulatory 

controls over Russia's nuclear archipelago.38 “It's impossible at this point to take 

everything under control,” Zubkov conceded in an interview.39 Rivalry between 

MINATOM and GAN will inevitably delay development of an effective and 

unified material control and accounting system. And while the system is slowly 

being built by a government beset with financial difficulties and rampant graft and 

corruption, struggling in an insecure world, it will be increasingly difficult for 

unpaid desperate employees to resist offers to pay a fortune for an unaccounted 

fistful of radioactive doom. 

 To understand the magnitude of the problem in trying to account for all 

the fissile material in the former Soviet Union one needs to understand that in the 

Cold War days, intimidation and strict control of physical movements in a policetype state were felt sufficient to ensure no theft or illicit diversion of fissile 

materials. These controls have largely disappeared. When the system collapsed 

there was nothing to take their place and no money to pay for any new physical 
9

security systems. One expert has noted that “there are 950 sites for enriched 

uranium and plutonium in the former Soviet Union from the Western borders to 

the eastern peninsula.”40 Unless the Russians are more forthcoming in sharing 

information, particularly their database showing the individual signatures of the 

fissile material stockpiles, it will be virtually impossible to determine where the 

fissile materials seized in trafficking cases came from.41

 It’s difficult to understand why the Russians have not been forthcoming 

on cooperating with the US and European states to stop nuclear materials 

trafficking. Russian and US experts alike agree that Russian nuclear facilities lack 

the basics used in the West for guarding nuclear sites and radioactive materials, 

such as closed-circuit cameras, sophisticated coded locks, fingerprint 

authorization and movement sensors. Just as significant, these facilities have no 

effective method for tracking their nuclear inventory during processing, a key 

point of vulnerability. For example, it has been reported that in Tomsk-7, a 

facility in Siberia where weapons-grade plutonium is produced, “several hundred 

kilograms of plutonium have been lost without being registered [accounted 

for].”42 MINATOM has been reluctant to acknowledge any major problems and 

despite some grudging progress its officials remain suspicious and closed-mouth – 

notwithstanding high level acknowledgment of the security and accounting 

problems. Instead, MINATOM officials would rather bargain than share 

information to develop cooperative programs with the West.43 Additionally, as 

one Department of Energy expert noted, nuclear facility44 managers in the former 

Soviet Union never put a high premium on accounting for inventories. 

Oftentimes, “surplus” plutonium was hoarded to ensure the “books were 

balanced.”45 This is because facility managers are held personally responsible for 

accidents or thefts involving nuclear materials.46 Consequently, there is a marked 

reluctance to cooperate with efforts to trace the path of diversion, particularly 

when the trail would lead to your facility, thus adversely impacting on one’s 
10

employment future. This, of course, assumes that the facility manager was not 

involved in the actual diversion or smuggling incident--another reason why 

cooperation would be lacking. 

2. Initiatives to Stop the Leakage of Fissile Materials

 An ongoing joint effort by the IAEA, the European Communities 

Atomic Energy Agency (EURATOM), the US and other Western powers is to 

assist the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the FSU47 in improving their 

systems for control of nuclear materials and relevant non-nuclear materials and 

equipment. The purpose of these “donor” programs is to substantially upgrade 

material control, accounting and physical protection systems at high risk facilities, 

and to engage responsible government authorities and facility personnel in a 

cooperative effort to achieve a national system of materials accountancy and 

physical protection. A number of the NIS have requested assistance from the 

IAEA and its members since the need for support in obtaining nuclear material 

control and physical protection systems is large and beyond their capabilities, in 

terms of both technology and finances, to institute a comprehensive system. 

 Although a number of donor countries have already executed bilateral 

agreements with individual recipient states, it quickly became apparent that in 

order to increase efficiency, avoid duplication of effort, and promote complete 

support, donor countries should coordinate their assistance and exchange 

information on technical requirements for support. The IAEA has served as a 

facilitator for this cooperative support effort, and as a result a number of 

“Coordinated Technical Support Plans” have been drafted and agreed to among 

donor and recipient states.48

 The objectives of each plan are to identify the needs to be addressed, 

identify the time scale over which the program of work will be undertaken, and 
11

identify areas of intended contribution by each donor country. These plans are 

comprehensive and emphasize the linkage between an effective state control 

system, nuclear materials accountancy, physical protection and export/import 

control; ensuring that each system is compatible with international requirements 

and guidelines. So far, this “donor” program is working well, although the US 

has appeared less willing than other donor countries to enter into cooperative 

assistance programs, preferring instead to focus on the bilateral relationships and 

implementing its material control and accounting programs with Russia.49 

Recently, the IAEA also met with Russian nuclear regulatory officials (GAN) to 

discuss ways in which Russia could also take advantage of the donor program, 

and MINATOM has also recently discussed with the IAEA possible cooperative 

material control and accounting projects.50

 US concern over the physical protection and control and accountancy of 

fissile materials in the FSU has resulted in the allocation of funds under the 

cooperative threat reduction program, also referred to as the Nunn-Lugar 

program, which was first authorized by Congress in November 1991,51 and a 

number of other cooperative programs to assist those states that have nuclear 

programs where fissile materials are either produced, stored or used. Obviously, 

since Russia has the largest amounts of these materials and concerns about illicit 

diversion or theft from stockpiled materials are greatest, the US has focused 

primarily on Russia. However, as will be briefly described here, the IAEA and 

other nations are actively participating in programs with other states of the FSU to 

reduce the proliferation risk. 

 The US has taken a two-pronged approach to addressing the problem of 

uncontrolled or unaccounted for fissile materials in the FSU. First, the US has 

negotiated agreements with Russia to purchase its excess HEU as a nonproliferation and commercial venture. Second, under the cooperative threat 

reduction program and a parallel laboratory-to-laboratory program the US strategy 
12

has been to provide monetary and technical assistance in improving facilities by 

deploying technology and instituting national standards and systems.52

 Also, in cases of clear proliferation concern, the Clinton Administration 

has demonstrated a willingness to buy outright fissile materials, as it did when it 

secretly purchased and transferred 600 kilograms of HEU from Kazakhstan in 

November 1994.53 Administration officials were worried that the material was 

poorly protected, and a cash-starved Kazakhstan might decide to sell the HEU to a 

proliferant country. There was sufficient HEU to make as many as 50-75 nuclear 

weapons. Consequently, the US paid “tens of millions of dollars”54 to ensure this 

material was not used for nuclear weapons. President Clinton said the success of 

this operation “means that one more threat of nuclear terrorism and proliferation 

has been removed from the world.”55

 A number of programs are moving forward to alleviate the security, 

control, and accountancy problems with Russia’s fissile materials. The 

Department of Energy (DOE) has provided funding to US nuclear laboratories to 

work with their Russian counterparts to develop, purchase and install up-to-date 

security systems. The DOE is funding about a half-dozen projects, and the US 

has been able to make some progress towards establishing a national material 

control and accounting system and helping individual facilities with their physical 

protection programs. One DOE official explained that the US strategy is to 

improve facility infrastructure and control over fissile materials, deploy 

technology to assist in bringing Russian facilities up to minimal IAEA standards, 

and institute national standards and systems for control and accounting of all 

fissile materials.56 To date the effort has successfully resulted in securing three 

bombs’ worth of nuclear material at the Kurchatov Institute and a cooperative 

program with the formerly secret nuclear facility Arzamas-16 to develop 

technology which will fingerprint nuclear material and follow it for a lifetime.57 

As a follow-on, the US has plans to assist Russian authorities in securing tons of 

weapons-useable fissile material at other facilities, deploying control, accounting 
13

and physical protection systems to additional facilities, and working with GAN to 

develop an agreement for cooperation which institutes national regulatory 

standards as well as control and accountancy systems. 

 This is an ambitious program whose major problem, besides 

MINATOM’s intransigence and resistance to change, is funding. Recently, the 

United States provided an additional $20 million under the Fiscal Year 1995 

Nunn-Lugar appropriation to buy sensors and other physical security equipment 

to help the Russians monitor highly enriched uranium and plutonium held in 

laboratories, research institutes and reprocessing facilities.58 Furthermore, 

beginning in fiscal year 1996, the DOE, which has been designated to manage all 

funding for these activities, has requested $70 million to carry out these programs. 

 The projected costs for the total program will be approximately $400 million and 

will stretch out over seven years.59 Unfortunately, as one Defense Department 

official recently estimated, a five year program to develop safeguards and 

protections to adequately guard against thefts by rogue states or leaders of breakaway republics would cost about $2 billion.60 In addition, MINATOM claims it 

needs $1.3 billion to ensure the nuclear industry keeps on working--double the 

amount slated for the agency in the draft 1995 Russian budget.61 Consequently, 

despite continuing efforts to remedy this problem, it is unlikely that adequate 

controls and safeguards will be satisfactorily implemented in the near term. We 

will have to live with the probability of theft or illicit diversion of uncontrolled 

and unsecured fissile materials for some time to come. 

B. Nuclear Materials Trafficking: The Growing Threat of Illicit Fissile 

Material Diversions 

 While nuclear materials trafficking is not a new phenomena, the scale of 

activity has increased dramatically since the break-up of the FSU. The potential 

exists, given the situation in the FSU, for trafficking in nuclear materials to totally 
14

overwhelm the current nuclear non-proliferation regime. Since 1991 the number 

of cases reported by Western European authorities has increased steadily. In 

1994, a report submitted to President Yeltsin by the Russian Counterintelligence 

Service, the FSK, estimated that in the second half of 1993 there were 900 thefts 

from military and nuclear plants, and 700 thefts of secret technology.62

 There have been sensational news accounts about the growing number 

of trafficking incidents.63 The US Department of Energy has also closely 

monitored the dramatic growth in the trafficking of nuclear materials. DOE has 

concluded that since 1966 (first reported incident), of the over 450 illegal 

trafficking cases reported most have been “nothing more than profit motivated 

scams involving bogus material, which were perpetrated by opportunists and conartists.”64 Nevertheless, the US government does acknowledge a number of 

significant characteristics of these trafficking cases--some disturbing--that can be 

summarized as follows: 

• The number of incidents will likely continue to rise with more 

incidents involving special nuclear weapons materials (plutonium 

and enriched uranium). 

• No material seized or reported stolen so far appears to have been 

stolen from nuclear warhead stocks. 

• While there is speculation as to who the buyers are, there is no 

concrete evidence yet to substantiate specific clients. 

• Smugglers are becoming steadily more sophisticated and the 

amounts being confiscated have risen from gram quantities to 

kilogram or greater quantities. 

• Renegade military officers and civilian nuclear technicians from 

Russia, Ukraine and Romania are the principal suspects in the thefts 

of materials. These thefts tend to be “targets of opportunity.” 

Contrary to media reports, there is no clear and convincing evidence 

yet that organized crime is directly involved in the diversion, 

smuggling, or sale of nuclear materials.65
15

 Government and police authorities in Western Europe have claimed that 

they are succeeding in their efforts to stop, catch and deter nuclear materials 

traffickers. It is fatuous to assume, however, that law enforcement activities in 

this area can be any more successful than they have against drugs or other forms 

of illegal trafficking or smuggling. Indeed, what we have seen happening in 

Europe could just be the tip of the iceberg. As one authority has noted: 

Even if intelligence agencies and law enforcement are remarkably 

more successful in interdicting nuclear material than in interdicting 

other illicit products, it would be presumptuous to assume that they 

are able to seize more than sixty to seventy per cent. The 

implication is that at least one-third of the nuclear material that is 

stolen and traded illegally escapes detection and seizure.66

 While no highly professional and sophisticated supply network has so 

far been discovered and no professional smuggling groups have been implicated, 

in all likelihood these groups have escaped detection and are using more direct 

routes to their prospective buyers in the Middle East.67 One US official is 

reported to have stated: “If I were in Teheran or Baghdad and I am looking for 

Russian plutonium, the last place I am going to make a pickup is the country in 

Western Europe with the most sophisticated criminal investigation network and a 

government not unwilling to use it.”68 The more likely routes would be across the 

relatively control-free borders of ex-Soviet republics bordering Iran, Afghanistan, 

or Turkey.69 

 The main customers for nuclear weapons-usable materials are those 

states with covert nuclear weapons programs. As previously described, the 

acquisition of fissile materials provides a time-saving and economical way to 

short circuit the nuclear weapons acquisition process. Despite strong measures to 

counter efforts to acquire these materials, a state determined to acquire them for its 
16

clandestine nuclear weapons program will in all likelihood succeed. The most 

obvious and recent example of this is South Africa. The South African nuclear 

weapons program was carried out under strong UN sanctions and an international 

embargo. And yet, in about 10 years, involving roughly 400 scientists and 

technicians, it was able to develop and produce six nuclear weapons at a cost of 

about $900 million.70 And as Iraq was to prove, a despot in search of nuclear 

weapons will let his people “eat grass” before he will give up those ambitions. 

 Consequently, despite either international legal commitments or 

international opprobrium, a number, albeit a small number, of “pariah” or “rogue” 

states, as well as transnational terrorist groups, will be in the market for weaponsusable fissile materials. Possible recipients of fissile materials smuggled across 

the porous borders of the FSU in Central Asia include Iraq, Pakistan, Iran and 

Libya.71 Former director of Central Intelligence Robert M. Gates told Congress 

that countries such as Cuba, Syria, Algeria and India were also among those most 

likely to attract either former Soviet nuclear experts or be in the market for 

weapons-grade fissile materials.72

 Next to Iraq and North Korea, Iran poses the greatest proliferation 

concern today. US intelligence officials believe that despite an embargo imposed 

by the West, Iran is aggressively pursuing the acquisition of nuclear weapons 

materials and technology and may have a nuclear capacity in as little as five years. 

 Former CIA Director James Woolsey stated that “Iran is pursuing the acquisition 

of nuclear weapons despite being a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation 

Treaty.”73 Surprisingly, the CIA’s Russian counterpart, the Foreign Intelligence 

Service (FIS), generally echoed the CIA’s assessment.74 Intelligence agencies are 

so overwhelmed by the scope of the Iranian smuggling operation that it is almost 

impossible to monitor, let alone stop. “The Iranians spread their acquisitions 

program over a huge area. We were able to stop one recent acquisition only 

because we obtained the key numbers of the component they wanted to build on a 
17

computer disk. Our best hope now is that we can delay the process. We will not 

be able to stop it,” said a senior German intelligence official.75 Indications are 

they are using old contacts and smuggling routes used in the past by the Pakistanis 

and the Iraqis to acquire nuclear weapons technology. The smuggling efforts are 

backed by Syrians and Pakistanis according to German intelligence officials.76 

Breaking up clandestine shipments and sending parts on long, twisted routes, to 

include transferring cargoes in the dead of night in international waters, make it 

difficult, if not impossible, to follow and stop. 

C. New Undertakings and Proposals to Combat Nuclear Materials 

Trafficking 

 Since 1991, the US and the member states of the European Union (EU) 

have undertaken a variety of new measures to respond to the clear and present 

danger of nuclear materials trafficking. In addition to assisting the states of the 

FSU in establishing effective material control, accounting and physical protection 

systems, 77 a number of cooperative and information sharing arrangements have 

been undertaken to stop and deter the growing trade in nuclear materials. 

 Germany, which has reported the most instances of nuclear trafficking, 

has established a 20-member “nuclear office” in November 1994, and has 

deployed radiation detectors at major airports.78 Yet currently, few European 

countries have the means to detect and halt radioactive materials at their borders. 

Consequently, the EU has recognized the need for greater cooperation and has 

already embarked on a program of information sharing and customs cooperation, 

authorizing the EU's new police intelligence agency, Europol, to investigate 

nuclear materials trafficking, along with drugs trafficking.79 Additionally, 

Interpol, the global police alliance, is also collecting data in search of trafficker 

networks, and it is reportedly working with border guards and customs officials in 

several countries on how to deal with nuclear materials.80 The IAEA has also 

established a data base to begin tracking and analyzing cases of trafficking and is 
18

providing technical support (to include materials analysis), training and guidance 

on the physical protection and handling of nuclear materials.81

 The United States has also developed a number of initiatives to track and 

respond to the trafficking threat. The CIA has formed a nonproliferation center 

and the Department of Energy has established a Threat Assessment Division to, 

among other things, track and analyze trafficking trends. The Department of 

Energy is also actively pursuing programs to cooperate with EU members, states 

of the FSU and others that request it in providing equipment to detect nuclear 

materials at border/customs points of entry, provide needed training and assistance 

to law enforcement agencies, and it is working on establishing a network of 

nuclear smuggling forensic laboratories.82

 Cooperative measures have also been implemented among European 

nations and the states of the FSU. Germany and Russia agreed last summer to 

cooperate more closely on nuclear smuggling. They have begun establishing 

points of contact for intelligence sharing and agreed on methods for analyzing 

seized radioactive material. Germany has also signed a number of cooperative 

agreements with other Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Estonia, 

Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.83 Because of bad publicity over nuclear 

smuggling incidents, coupled with Russian reluctance to cooperate in resolving 

these incidents, the Russians have become particularly sensitive to Western 

allegations that they are the sole source of nuclear materials on the black market. 

Subsequently, discussions on this issue have been undertaken in the G-7 forum 

and at the political level. Russia has been more willing to share sensitive 

information here than in other venues and it is able to use multilateral settings to 

present examples of possible fissile material thefts from other countries. The “G7 plus Russia” have agreed to provide guidance to anti-smuggling efforts, enhance 

members cooperation, and support strengthening safeguards.84 These 
19

arrangements portend increased law enforcement efficiency in detecting illicit 

diversions of fissile materials. 

 Interestingly, few countries have comprehensive laws controlling the 

trafficking of nuclear materials, and what laws do exist often are inadequate to 

deter would-be traffickers. In Germany, for example, the federal police invoke 

the war weapons control act to assert jurisdiction and seize nuclear materials. 

That act, however, controls the production, transport and trade of war materials. 

Although a case could be made for kilogram quantities of plutonium or highly 

enriched uranium, trade in gram quantities raise questions as to the efficacy of this 

law to effectively prosecute and punish traffickers since such small amounts 

would not be considered “war” materials. This issue was raised last summer in 

Germany when German police seized 0.8 grams of HEU near Munich. 

 Austria’s 1984 Foreign Trade law is used to prosecute smugglers, but 

only covers illicit transactions of nuclear materials indirectly. Poland’s 1993 

Export Control Law prohibits the unauthorized transit of fissile materials but the 

only remedy for violation is confiscation of the material. Turkey uses a 1918 law 

that governs vessels carrying hazardous materials for seizing nuclear materials. 

Other than confiscation, however, there are no criminal penalties. France, on the 

other hand, has strict laws on the possession and transport of nuclear materials. 

 To have any possibility of effectively stopping nuclear trafficking, the 

laws and regulations, to include penalties for traffickers, should be harmonized. 

This will prevent “jurisdiction shopping” by smugglers where, if caught, they 

would receive little or no punishment. One way to do this is for the IAEA to 

develop model legislation or, minimally, model provisions that all states could 

incorporate into their respective laws on smuggling. This could be done through 

convening of an international conference of interested states or regional 

organizations to help develop model legislation or provisions.85 The proposed 

legislation would include measures for strict accountability and protection of 
20

nuclear materials, licensing and regulatory requirements for the transportation and 

possession of such materials, and severe penalties for violation of any export 

control laws regarding nuclear materials. Convening an international conference 

to address this subject would also have the added benefit of improving 

consultation and information exchange among states, and would help 

“multilateralize” the process towards building a consensus on agreed measures to 

fight nuclear materials trafficking. 

D. The Disposition Dilemma: Growing Stockpiles of Plutonium - A Legacy 

of the Cold War86 

The plutonium we no longer need for weapons is a global 

security risk and an economic liability. 

 - Hazel O'Leary 

 US Secretary of Energy87

 The production and stockpiling of plutonium from civilian reactors is 

one of the world's sleeping disasters. While amounts depend on reactor types and 

sizes, all nuclear reactors produce plutonium.88 As one expert warned: 

The greatest long-term threat to the treaty and the world may yet 

lie in the production and use of nuclear explosive materials in 

civilian commerce. If under the auspices of the treaty, civilian 

plutonium programs proceed as planned around the world, more 

than 500 metric tons of plutonium will be separated from the 

spent fuel of nuclear power reactors by the year 2010, of which 

at least 300 tons will be stockpiled as surplus.89 

 Weapon-usable plutonium includes plutonium separated from the spent 

fuel of commercial nuclear power reactors (reactor grade) and plutonium from 

nuclear warheads (weapons grade). Only about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of 

weapon-grade or 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) of reactor grade plutonium are 

required to make a primitive nuclear explosive device.90 By 2010, there will be 

enough surplus plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads to make more than 
21

70,000 Hiroshima-size bombs--more than all the warheads currently in 

existence.91 In addition, growing stockpiles of civilian or reactor-grade plutonium 

in Western Europe and Japan alone will be sufficient for 47,000 bombs, and 

highly enriched uranium from dismantled warheads would be enough for an 

additional 65,000 bombs. According to one reliable source, most of the world's 

1,000 tons of plutonium are in civilian hands and yet only 30% (Britain, France, 

and the non-nuclear weapon states) is under international safeguards.92 And while 

plutonium use will be uneconomical for the next 30-50 years,93 billion dollar 

reprocessing plants in Britain and France continue to reprocess and separate on 

average 21 tons of plutonium a year.94 By 2010 a total of 545 tons will have been 

separated,95 mostly from Britain and France with Russia, China and possibly 

Japan also contributing.96 Compare this to the approximately 150 tons of 

plutonium expected to result from the dismantlement of nuclear weapons. The 

point is that there is probably considerably greater danger in the long term to the 

United States and the Western world from the existing fissile materials--

particularly plutonium--than there is from a covert acquisition program in a 

country of proliferation concern. 

 Recently, the National Academy of Science's Committee on 

International Security and Arms Control at the request of the National Security 

Council (NSC), established a panel and produced a study on the “Management 

and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium.”97 One of the Panel’s most 

important recommendations was “using the immediate need to deal with excess 

weapons materials as an opportunity to set a standard of improved security and 

accounting that would be applied to all fissile materials worldwide.”98 Another 

key point was that plutonium in spent fuel from civilian power plants can be made 

into weapons. The fuel must first be reprocessed and its plutonium is more 

difficult to fabricate into weapons than is weapons-grade plutonium, but it can be 

done.99 The most important protection against weapons use of civilian plutonium 
22

now embedded in spent fuel comes not from the plutonium's different isotopic 

composition, compared to weapon plutonium, but from the bulk and intense 

radioactivity of the spent fuel (making it difficult and dangerous to steal) and from 

the chemical-engineering sophistication needed to separate the plutonium from 

the fission products and the uranium while avoiding lethal radiation doses to the 

people doing it. 

 While the focus of US efforts has been primarily on weapons grade 

plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons, as one authority noted, it is not 

worthwhile to invest significant resources in safeguarding these materials, “unless 

and until society is also prepared to reduce further the accessibility of civilian 

plutonium in spent fuel.”100 What Dr. Panofsky and others are most concerned 

about is the continuing efforts on the part of the civilian nuclear energy industry to 

separate plutonium from spent fuel and store it for the possible--although highly 

unlikely--commercial use of the plutonium in civil reactors. Stopping 

reprocessing is one part of the solution equation. Addressing the stockpiles of 

plutonium from weapons and civil reactors even if not reprocessed is another 

problem. Long-term storage of excess plutonium at nuclear reactors or nuclear 

warhead sites is not practicable since it would entail significantly higher costs and 

pose a continuing risk of theft or damage.101

1. Possible Solutions 

 There are several approaches being proposed to address this problem, 

none of which is cheap or definitive.102 All solutions so far proposed ultimately 

involve disposing of plutonium in geologic repositories. Cost figures vary103 but 

they are hardly exorbitant sums in relation to the security benefits. There is no 

way to avoid paying a price for the processing and elimination of plutonium since 

to do nothing would have potentially catastrophic consequences both in terms of 

environmental contamination and proliferation risk. 
23

 Current options for disposition include vitrification, that is, commingling 

the plutonium with high-level radioactive wastes as these are melted into large 

glass logs for long-term underground storage.104 So configured, the plutonium 

would be inaccessible to subnational groups or terrorists, and even a technically 

sophisticated proliferator would need considerable time and resources to recover 

it. Another possibility is burial in deep boreholes. However, the only currently 

proposed repository is the Yucca Mountain site in the desert about 100 miles 

northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Environmental and safety concerns have 

delayed and may even derail the proposed 2010 opening of the repository that 

would have stored thousands of canisters of radioactive waste, including 

plutonium, in steel canisters for 10,000 years.105 Another possibility for 

disposition is to use Canada's civilian nuclear power reactor, the deuteriumuranium CANDU, to efficiently and safely burn up plutonium from tens of 

thousands of US and Russian nuclear warheads dismantled as a result of sweeping 

arms reduction agreements. While plutonium would still be a by-product of this 

process there would be only about 25% of the current amount requiring long-term 

storage. 

 Absent concerted political efforts to resolve this problem now rather 

than later, the world will face not only an increasing proliferation risk but the 

potential for an environmental or terrorist-initiated catastrophe as a result of 

inadequate handling, mismanagement, theft or accident. 

E. The Inadequacy of IAEA Safeguards 

There is no way you are going to get adequate warning [of 

diversion] when you are talking about reprocessing plants, 

enrichment plants, or stockpiles of plutonium or highly enriched 

uranium. 

 

 - Victor Gilinsky 

 Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Member106
24

 Since the implementation of the NPT,107 the IAEA has served as the 

leading agency for verification of nuclear non-proliferation.108 General IAEA 

safeguards include materials accountability, containment (restricting access to and 

preventing clandestine movement of nuclear materials), surveillance and on-site 

inspections. Primarily through on-site inspections, the IAEA currently conducts 

safeguards inspections and verifies use of fissile materials at over 1000 facilities 

in over 50 countries.109 

 The theoretical goal of IAEA safeguards is to enable “the IAEA to 

conclude for a given period that no significant quantity of nuclear material has 

been diverted or that no other items subject to safeguards have been misused by a 

State.”110 A “significant quantity” is the amount of fissile material for which “the 

possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded.”111 

For plutonium, a significant quantity is defined by the IAEA as eight kilograms; 

for highly enriched uranium (HEU) it is defined as twenty-five kilograms. It is 

well established, however, that this is much higher than needed to make a nuclear 

weapon. Modern nuclear weapons can be made from much less than that 

amount.112 Indeed, some physicists have argued that as little as one kilogram of 

plutonium (about the size of “one sixth of a soft drink can”) can be made into a 1-

kiloton nuclear bomb.113 Thus, the safeguards system is designed to meet criteria 

that are not sufficiently stringent to be fully effective, compounding the 

proliferation risk. 

 Unfortunately, for a number of technical and political reasons, the IAEA 

has not been able to meet the aspirations of its members concerned with the illicit 

diversion of fissile materials. A low point for the Agency was the post-Gulf War 

revelations of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program; in contrast to the August 1990 

finding by the Agency that Iraq was in complete compliance with its treaty 

obligations (the same month Iraq invaded Kuwait).114 For years doubts have been 

expressed about the IAEA's ability to detect illicit diversions of nuclear materials 
25

and the effectiveness of safeguards where substantial amounts of HEU or 

plutonium are involved.115 Today, not much has changed as numerous experts 

have questioned the ability of the IAEA to safeguard existing reprocessing 

facilities.116

 First, there are a number of technical problems with instituting 100% 

effective verification systems. As has been demonstrated time and again, it is an 

especially difficult task to apply safeguards at reprocessing plants with available 

technology only being able to account for 97 percent of plutonium throughput.117 

That leaves up to 3 percent of plutonium unaccounted for and subject to diversion 

for weapons purposes. As one expert has noted, in some facilities 3 percent is 

more than enough to make several nuclear devices per year, and: 

 Thus meeting the inspection goal at these facilities by taking 

physical inventories, material balances and other quantitative 

accountancy measures is not sufficient to ensure that the 

diversion of a significant quantity of nuclear material has not 

occurred. In other words, there can be no firm assurance that 

enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons has not been or 

will not be diverted into clandestine nuclear weapons 

programs.118

 

 Part of the problem has to do with the IAEA’s theoretical goal of 

verifying that within a given period “no significant quantity of nuclear material 

has been diverted or that no other items subject to safeguards has been misused by 

a State.”119 The IAEA has conceded it cannot meet this goal, partly because of 

unavoidable technical uncertainties in measuring input and outputs of materials at 

a nuclear facility (especially reprocessing plants), and additionally because of the 

inability to accurately measure the amounts of material “stuck” inside the 

facilities.120 As the IAEA has acknowledged, “due to measurement uncertainties, 

its material-accounting system cannot with confidence detect the diversion of 

bomb quantities of nuclear material.”121
26

 Second, the IAEA has been operating for over 10 years on a “zerogrowth,” fiscally constrained budget while the amount of fissile material under 

IAEA safeguards has been increasing at the rate of 10 percent per year. To quote 

one observer: 

Despite an 81 percent increase in the IAEA inspection force 

since 1980, the Agency’s 211 inspectors must apply safeguards 

to [over] 1000 installations, an increase of 20 percent since 1980. 

 During this period, the number of safeguards inspections a year 

increased nearly 100 percent, to about 2,200, and yet the Agency 

still cannot make as many inspection visits as it must to keep up 

with its workload and meet its own inspection goals.122

Consequently the IAEA’s full-scope safeguards regime is overburdened and 

understaffed. IAEA safeguards arrangements in non-NPT nations are under even 

greater pressure because the agency's inspectors, whose role is limited to 

verification of inventories that are declared for inspection, cannot seek out 

clandestine activities or stockpiles. 

F. Unabated Demand: Threshold States and Fissile Materials

I . . . think nuclear weapons have much less political utility than 

anyone thinks they do, particularly those who are trying to 

develop them. 

 - General Colin Powell 

 Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff123

Don’t fight the Americans without nuclear weapons. 

 - Indian Chief of Staff in response to a question 

 about the lessons of the Persian Gulf War124

It is interesting to note that the industrialized West has rarely addressed 

the “demand side” of nuclear proliferation. Yet it is submitted that only a sincere 

concern about demand promises an end to proliferation. Supply-side controls are 

bound to fail in the long run because of leakage. Good controls may slow the 
27

leaks, but they cannot stop them in an industrializing world. The main focus of 

US and international attention needs then to move beyond the symptoms of 

proliferation to its causes. It may seem easier to control supply, yet it is demand 

that raises the tide of proliferation. Supply side controls are small steps; they may 

be easy to implement but in the end supply side initiatives will only retard – not 

prevent – nuclear weapon proliferation. 

The demand side approach begins with serious attention to the needs and 

motives of nations that seek fissile materials and nuclear technology for their 

nuclear weapons programs.125 Clearly, there is no single motive that explains the 

proliferation decisions of every country. Likewise, no single policy prescription 

will address every motive. Nevertheless, once one understands the reasons and 

motives of a particular country as it pursues a strategy of acquiring a nuclear 

weapons capability, strategies can be crafted to attenuate or roll back the demand 

for nuclear weapons. In this regard, it is worth considering what Munir Ahmad 

Khan wrote in 1990: 

The nuclear states should attempt to understand the motivation 

for some developing countries to retain their theoretical nuclear 

option. ...[T]he basic driving forces behind a nation’s quest for 

nuclear weapons are its perceptions of security and national 

interests, as well as a sense of national pride, and we must 

appreciate that nation’s own point of view if we are to take any 

effective steps to mitigate its concerns. Clearly, the smaller states 

of the world, particularly in regions where they are 

overshadowed by one or two regional powers, would have the 

greatest reason to feel insecure. Unless these legitimate security 

concerns of threshold states are met and dealt with effectively, 

the political and psychological incentives for them to retain a 

nuclear option will remain.126

 

 Nuclear weapons may also serve as a symbol of military supremacy and 

technological achievement. It has not escaped the notice of less-powerful 

countries that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, for 
28

example, are also the five nuclear weapon states. If one possesses nuclear 

weapons or even is suspected of having a program then the result is more careful 

international attention to its interests (witness North Korea), and the attention of 

regional powers that comes with raw military power. The shortest route to 

regional respect may be through nuclear weapons. 

 It could be argued that “self-image” concerns motivated -- at least in part 

-- India to believe that a large country with an illustrious history should naturally 

have what other great nations have, including nuclear weapons. For example, the 

NPT and the non-proliferation norm it represents poses serious implications for 

India. Numerous opinion polls in India “confirm the overwhelming support 

among the India elite for giving up its nuclear weapons only when all other 

countries agree to do so at the same time.”127 This attitude will make it 

increasingly difficult for India to join the NPT or seek accommodation within the 

NPT. Certainly if it should choose to go overtly nuclear India would risk courting 

international opprobrium, further isolating it. India’s recent denunciation of the 

indefinite extension of the NPT as “perpetuating nuclear discrimination,” and 

“conferring legitimacy on these double standards” is reflective of this attitude.128 

That may explain why India has tied further progress on a comprehensive test ban 

treaty to a set timetable for the elimination of all nuclear weapons while at the 

same time continuing its own nuclear weapons test program.129

 States may decide that acquiring a nuclear weapon capability would be a 

useful bargaining chip to gain concessions. It may also give pause to outside 

powers to come to the aid of a victim of a nuclear armed aggressor. Even when 

both sides to a regional dispute have nuclear weapons, outsiders will likely be 

dissuaded from entering, concluding that a nuclear armed defender can take care 

of itself. Similarly, if nuclear proliferation increases the power and influence of 

any state, it must be expected that this will also increase the attractiveness of 

nuclear weapons for others. This may take the form of seeking alliances with 
29

recognized nuclear states, but as additional states continue to develop the 

capability to manufacture technologically sophisticated products, making nuclear 

weapons easier to obtain, threatened nations may feel less inclined to accept the 

uncertainties of protection by allies, and the number of nuclear powers could thus 

become very large.130

1. Common Factors in Rollback States

 Since the advent of the nuclear age only six countries have voluntarily 

renounced their efforts to obtain a nuclear weapons capability. Two of these cases 

-- South Korea and Taiwan -- involved a special vulnerability to US diplomatic 

pressure. While all these cases differ in countless details, as well as in their 

historical and geographical settings, the other four cases -- Argentina, Brazil, 

South Africa, and Sweden -- had a number of common causal factors that may 

have utility as models for future “roll back” scenarios. When several of these 

factors appear in a proliferation problem country, it is reasonable to suspect that 

that country may be susceptible to efforts to cap, reduce, or cease some of the 

weapons-related nuclear activities in which it may be engaged.131

 Argentina and Brazil132 recently signed and ratified a bilateral agreement 

which established a joint nuclear materials accounting and inspection system 

administered by a new Argentine-Brazilian Agency for Accounting and Control 

of Nuclear Materials (ABACC). Subsequently, both Argentina and Brazil have 

ratified the NPT and have ratified the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the Latin American 

Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.133 This is in stark contrast to the previous 20 years 

when Argentina and Brazil were not only engaged in a arms race and had 

clandestine nuclear weapons programs, but had often been among the harshest 

critics of nuclear weapons states (and the US in particular) with regards to the 

discriminatory nature of the non-proliferation regime enshrined in the NPT. What 

brought about this rather dramatic change in just a few short years?134
30

1. The return of civilian leadership in both nations provided impetus to 

nuclear rapprochement and to the evolution of their relationship to the 

nonproliferation regime. The leadership in both nations came to 

appreciate the potential benefits of reducing tensions generated by their 

respective nuclear programs. 

2. The economic penalties of rejecting non-proliferation norms and the 

NPT, including denial of access to advanced Western technology, 

stimulated increased internal opposition to independent nuclear policies, 

particularly since both societies wanted to open their economies to 

foreign investment. 

3. A number of international events occurred that seemed supportive of 

reversing course. These included US-Russian disarmament initiatives 

(such as INF, START), adherence to NPT by France and China, and the 

dramatic reversal on nuclear weapons by South Africa. 

4. Most importantly, the decision “grew out of the realization by the 

leadership of both nations that, whatever their differences, no rationale 

for possessing nuclear weapons existed, and that even the possession of 

so-called peaceful nuclear explosives would disrupt bilateral relations 

and destabilize the peace and security of the entire region.” External 

pressure exerted by nuclear supplier states and the IAEA influenced the 

process, but only at the margins; it was never the determining factor.135

 One lesson from this case is that external influences exerted by advanced 

nations are likely to be most effective in the form of incentives rather than 

penalties. Another lesson is also important, both symbolically and substantively: 

the value of bilateral or regional machinery. Both nations strongly opposed the 

basic tenets of the nonproliferation regimes, especially the NPT and full-scope 

IAEA safeguards. But “[t]he development of a bilateral nuclear accounting and 

control system, as administered by ABACC, assured the necessary political 

insulation for the overt policy reversal.”136 The ABACC thus fulfilled a very real 

objective of providing mutual transparency to the nuclear programs of two highly 

competitive rivals. Such an organizational model could prove particularly 
31

attractive to nations that, for whatever reason, distrust and resist IAEA safeguards 

or other international vice regional arrangements. 

 The Argentine-Brazil example represents a model for rolling back a 

nuclear weapons acquisition program but, if anything, the lesson is that absent a 

political climate conducive to change there is little likelihood that potential 

proliferators will emulate Argentina and Brazil. 

2. The South Asian Case

 India and Pakistan both can be considered de facto nuclear weapon 

states; India because it has exploded a nuclear device and has admitted that it 

could produce nuclear weapons in a few weeks if required,137 and Pakistan 

because senior government officials have acknowledged it had the components 

and capability to assemble nuclear weapons.138 India’s presumed purpose in 

possessing nuclear weapons is to deter China and to maintain military superiority 

over Pakistan.139 India is capable of extracting uranium and reprocessing spent 

nuclear fuel to separate plutonium, in addition to manufacturing explosives for 

nuclear weapons.140 

 Pakistan is also presumed to have sufficient weapons-usable fissile 

material to assemble at least ten nuclear weapons, perhaps in a matter of weeks.141

 Pakistan has developed this capability to counterbalance India’s greater nuclear 

capability, to deter India’s growing conventional superiority, and to gain 

international prestige by being the first Islamic state to acquire a nuclear 

weapon.142 Pakistan has also been enriching uranium to produce HEU, is soon to 

begin (if it has not done so already) separating plutonium from spent fuel,143 and it 

has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with China in which the Chinese are 

reportedly assisting in nuclear bomb designs and providing fissile materials.144

Pakistan is of particular concern for two reasons. First, it lacks the technical 

capability to fulfill its ambitious nuclear-weapon acquisition program since it 
32

cannot produce sufficient quantities of weapons-usable fissile materials.145 It will 

have to acquire them from foreign sources, either covertly from the FSU or 

directly from either China or possibly North Korea. Second, Pakistan has sought 

and continues to seek support for its confrontation with India from other Islamic 

states, especially Saudi Arabia.146 It is possible that Pakistan in seeking financial 

aid could agree to share fissile materials, nuclear technology or information with 

other proliferant states in return for financial assistance.147

 At present, it is unlikely that efforts on the part of the US and other 

Western states to halt or rollback either India or Pakistan’s nuclear weapons 

program will produce positive results. Both acquisition networks will remain 

viable despite non-proliferation controls. As long as Pakistan has a security 

incentive for nuclear weapons (India’s overwhelming conventional superiority 

and nuclear weapons program) there is little likelihood of successfully rolling 

back or stopping the program. India’s acquisition program is also driven by 

security considerations, and as long as India perceives a Sino-Pakistani threat US 

efforts to quell India’s nuclear weapons acquisition plans will have minimal 

effect. 

 One major distinction in South Asia, not present in South America, is 

India’s perception that it must maintain a credible deterrent against a nucleararmed China. India will not roll back its nuclear weapons acquisition program as 

long as it feels threatened by China’s nuclear weapons capability. Additionally, in 

both Pakistan and India nuclear programs enjoy strong support. While both 

governments have leaders committed to economic liberalization and seek foreign 

aid and investment, it is uncertain whether they would be amenable to the same 

kind of incentives offered Argentina and Brazil.148 US efforts to have Pakistan 

and India agree to “cap” their programs have been pushed into the multilateral 

arms control arena.149 A US proposal for both India and Pakistan--which actually 

proposed it first--to come to a five-power (US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan) 

conference on non-proliferation has been stymied by India’s refusal to attend, 
33

claiming to prefer an international solution to a clearly regional proliferation issue. 

 India has also expressed little interest in establishing a regional NWFZ (except in 

the sense of prohibiting or restricting US presence), preferring to push global 

disarmament as a way to address its security concerns. US economic incentives 

and political “good offices” may push the process along but it will have only 

marginal effects in addressing regional proliferation concerns until larger regional 

security concerns are addressed. 

 While rollback remains possible and efforts should continue, the lesson 

here is that it is highly unlikely that US or other nation’s efforts will succeed in the 

short term. Ultimately, it will be a combination of strengthened and expanding 

non-proliferation norms, along with enhanced “supply-side” initiatives, that will 

have the best long-term chance for success. 

III. The Non-Proliferation Regime as a Framework for Controlling Fissile 

Materials 

 We intend to weave nonproliferation more deeply into the fabric 

of our relationships with the world's nations and institutions. We 

seek to build a world of increasing pressures for nonproliferation, 

but increasingly open trade and technology for states that live by 

accepted international norms. 

 - President William Clinton 

 UN General Assembly, 27 September 1993150

A. The Non-Proliferation Treaty - A Big Part of the Cure 

 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) established a global norm 

against the further proliferation of nuclear weapons. That norm is formalized in a 

binding treaty signed by most nations of the world. Remaining outside this treaty 

will increasingly bring on significant consequences in the form of political 
34

isolation. Even though such consequences are “only” political, they become 

increasingly difficult to ignore--as witnessed by the fact that the NPT now has 

more than 175 members, the largest number of any arms control agreement.151

 The recent agreement by the states parties to indefinitely extend the 

NPT152 signifies, in part, the recognition by the non-nuclear, non-aligned states 

that the NPT is not just a lever for moving the nuclear weapons states (NWS) 

towards disarmament. It is rather a protective shield to ward off regional arms 

races and nuclear dangers. It is certainly not something the non-nuclear weapon 

states (NNWS) bestow on the nuclear weapon states, but rather something they 

need every bit as much as anyone else. Nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear 

weapon states alike have concluded that their own security interests are better 

served by an international regime in which it is preferable to have regional 

adversaries agree not develop or acquire a nuclear weapons capability than retain 

the option of developing such weapons themselves. The advantages gained from 

maintaining and being a part of this important international norm are many and 

include: 

• The security of knowing that their neighbors and regional rivals are 

not nuclear armed and will not be able effectively to pursue nuclearweapons ambitions; 

• the fiscal savings and sanity that come from avoidance of regional 

arms races; 

• the lessening of the risk that nuclear weapons somewhere will be 

used (with tragic consequences to human life and the global 

environment); 

• the meaningful security guarantees and assurances that stem from 

participation in treaties, security arrangements, regional regimes and 

global norms; 

• access to trade in the fullest range of nuclear-related commodities 

and technologies. 
35

 The greatest benefit is, however, derived from normal political and 

economic relations by belonging to a global norm of nonproliferation. Such 

pressure can be very strong in a world that is becoming ever more interdependent, 

ever more tightly bound together by trade, politics, communications, the 

environment, security and other relationships. 

 Admittedly, the NPT is not perfect. For example, the NPT does not 

forbid a NNWS from possessing nuclear weapons. It forbids the acquisition of 

nuclear weapons but in theory a state that already has nuclear weapons could sign 

the NPT and not give up the weapons already in its possession.153 But it has 

turned the development of a nuclear bomb into a violation of an almost universal 

norm, subject to international condemnation. Certainly, without the NPT there is 

little doubt that nuclear weapons would be much more prevalent than they are 

today. And, as former defense secretary James Schlesinger has pointed out, the 

“distinction” between NNWS and NWS “is not going to be eliminated.... It is in 

the interest of all the nations that desire stability for the United States to continue 

to have a deterrent sufficiently impressive to deter weapons use by other 

states.”154 

 Much of this criticism comes from friendly and not-so-friendly nations 

habituated to flagellating the United States in disarmament conferences. These 

criticisms arise not because they fear the US’s nuclear weapons but rather out of 

resentment over “nuclear imperialism” on the part of the US, and a desire to avoid 

the much more difficult problems associated with their own region’s political 

instability. Nuclear weapon states as a whole are also taken to task for supposedly 

not seriously pursuing complete nuclear disarmament and ending the arms race. 

 A strong case, however, can be made that the NWS--certainly the US 

and Russia--have ended the nuclear arms race as called for by Article VI of the 

NPT. Both the US and Russia have decided to both unilaterally and cooperatively 
36

(under the START I and as-yet-to-be-ratified START II agreements) withdraw 

and dismantle thousands of nuclear weapons. Over 2000 nuclear weapons are 

being dismantled every year and it will take at least until the year 2003 to achieve 

agreed reductions. Recently, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin reaffirmed their 

commitment to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating 

to nuclear disarmament, which remains [the] ultimate goal.”155 This “build down” 

process, however, has been generally ignored or criticized as too little and too late 

by those states that repeat the “discrimination” mantra, oftentimes in an effort to 

deflect world scrutiny over their own programs or acquisition efforts. 

 In discussions with nuclear energy officials and diplomats from lesser 

developed countries,156 a number of complaints were made about the 

discriminatory nature of the safeguards regime, managed by the International 

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the agency responsible for ensuring peaceful 

nuclear energy programs are not used for weapons development.157 Specifically, 

the complaint is that the US and other NWS do not undergo IAEA safeguards 

inspections which includes onerous licensing, regulating and inspecting 

requirements. While from their point of view this argument may have some merit, 

it is more political posturing than real complaint. It was again raised during the 

NPT negotiations.158

 The US has a voluntary offer agreement in which it has agreed to put all 

civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards.159 From a list of about 230 

eligible facilities the IAEA has selected about three each year for safeguarding. 

Recently, however, resource constraints have prevented the IAEA from actually 

applying safeguards in the US. For the IAEA to inspect all US facilities would be 

inordinately expensive and require almost the entire current IAEA safeguards 

budget to implement. The US already has a comprehensive safeguards and 

physical protection regime required by law,160 and the US spends close to a billion 

dollars a year ensuring material control and accounting and physical protection. 
37

 The real issue is more likely the disappointment expressed by some on 

the lack of technology, materials and information they expected to flow their way 

to help them develop nuclear energy and other nuclear-related activities once they 

signed up to the NPT and executed a IAEA safeguards agreement.161 There is 

also frustration over the West’s concern for implementing and strengthening 

IAEA safeguards at the perceived expense of providing direct assistance, or 

funding IAEA projects for nuclear research and resource development in lesser 

developed countries. This complaint also lacks substantive merit. The majority of 

the IAEA budget goes not to safeguards but to technical assistance and 

cooperation programs.162 And the US and other developed countries have 

contributed over $40 million through the IAEA for specific technical assistance 

and cooperation efforts, directly supporting over 3000 such projects.163 This does 

not include US-only programs for technical assistance to countries other than the 

FSU. Over 27 countries have technical cooperation agreements with the US, and 

the US has funded training and scientific and educational programs in almost 50 

countries.164 These cooperative efforts are only limited by US law that requires 

states to have all their peaceful nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards in order 

to receive US exports of fissionable materials, reactors and technology.165

 One of the main criticisms of the NPT by its supporters is that it allows 

some civilian nuclear programs that “can serve as the foundation of a nuclear 

weapons program.”166 Article IV of the NPT affirms the “inalienable right” of 

states to have research and production facilities to separate plutonium and enrich 

uranium. Therefore, it is argued that since there is currently no economically 

viable reason for separating plutonium, and given the disposition problems and 

proliferation risk, the Treaty should be amended or reinterpreted to ban production 

and reprocessing facilities. While these proposals are laudable it is unlikely any of 

the NWS would be willing to risk an amendment conference, particularly since it 

would invite other objectionable amendments that might dilute the non- 
38

proliferation regime. The better approach would be to propose banning 

reprocessing and production in other non-proliferation measures such as nuclear 

weapons free zones.167

 

B. Strengthening Non-Proliferation Norms to Stop the Spread of Fissile 

Materials 

The policy of prevention through denial won't be enough to cope 

with the potential of tomorrow's proliferators. 

 - Les Aspin 

 Former Secretary of Defense168

 There have been voluminous proposals regarding how the international 

community can strengthen non-proliferation norms, ranging up to and including 

the absolute ban on the possession of nuclear weapons. Whatever the merits of 

proposals banning nuclear weapons, it is judged here to be impractical for the near 

term. The following, however, are initiatives that have the best chance in the near 

term (5-20 years) for further enhancing the non-proliferation regime in the context 

of controlling and eventually stopping the spread of nuclear weapons-usable 

fissile materials. These initiatives, either in place or proposed, are not necessarily 

intended or expected to convince proliferant states that they should give up 

pursuing nuclear weapons. Rather, the idea is that it may make the utility of such 

a weapon as a coercive force less credible since other states will regard the use of 

such weapons as anathema and thus inviting a more credible threat of 

retaliation.169

1. Strengthening IAEA Safeguards 

 The IAEA has certainly recognized that gaps exist in the current 

safeguards system, particularly since the Iraqi experience. IAEA officials have 

indicated that with the indefinite extension of the NPT and expanding nuclear 
39

disarmament and arms control measures, all countries will demand that 

verification of compliance has high credibility.170 Accordingly, it has undertaken a 

number of reform measures to strengthen the safeguards/verification regime since 

the disclosure of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Probably the most 

significant is the IAEA Board of Governor’s decision in February 1992 to 

approve the IAEA’s ability to conduct “special” inspections on short notice at 

suspected sites of diversion or other illicit, unsafeguarded nuclear activities.171 

Also decided and reaffirmed were members’ authority and responsibility to share 

information on suspect activities that are in violation of either a member’s NPT or 

safeguards agreement obligations. 

 Another significant event in strengthening the IAEA’s verification 

capabilities occurred in December 1993 when the IAEA’s Secretariat introduced a 

development program for a strengthened and cost-effective safeguards system. 

Called “Program 93+2,” the aim of the program is to evaluate the technical, legal 

and financial implications for strengthening safeguards. The subsequent reports 

by the Director General of the IAEA contain a number of recommendations that 

will significantly strengthen the IAEA’s ability to give assurances of nondiversion or take action in the event of non-compliance.172 The proposed 

recommendations are detailed, technical and voluminous. If fully implemented 

they would address essentially all the criticisms leveled at the current IAEA 

safeguards system within today’s technological capabilities. The 

recommendations were to be approved at the March 1995 Board of Governors 

meeting. The Board, however, after hearing concerns raised by some members 

over recommendations that included no-notice inspections at “undeclared” 

facilities, and involving greater physical access to declared sites, approved the 

report but deferred on the recommendations in order to consider them 

separately.173 

 A number of states, complaining of discrimination between NWS and 

NNWS, have expressed strong reservations about allowing the IAEA to look at 
40

undeclared activities and then having reports and information found during these 

inspections made available to the NWS. If the IAEA is to be given the needed 

access to heighten confidence in a state’s compliance with it safeguards 

agreement, then a way will have to be found to overcome these objections. One 

possibility would be for the IAEA to start with inspecting undeclared activities 

only at declared sites. This has deterrence value against proliferators since so far 

all the known clandestine weapon programs started at declared sites.174

 Nevertheless, if the IAEA is to implement the proposed measures to 

strengthen safeguards it will require a budget increase. Despite a previous 

consensus by the Board of Governors to agree to increase the contributions of 

members by 6 percent, a number of states have indicated reluctance to support any 

increases, claiming poverty because of stagnant economic growth at home. The 

Clinton Administration has committed to providing fund increases, and if the 

IAEA is to ever have a chance at becoming something other than the “dimwitted, 

toothless watchdog” it is accused of being,175 measures to increase its ability to 

detect diversions of fissile materials must be implemented. 

 Yet even if the necessary funding is made available and the measures in 

“Program 93+2” are fully implemented, the problems with control and 

accountability of fissile materials in the FSU will remain. In addition, no matter 

how intrusive inspections or verification regimes may be, a determined proliferant 

state will still be able to clandestinely pursue nuclear weapons. As one of the 

inspectors of Iraq’s program commented: 

The failed efforts of both the IAEA safeguards inspectors and 

national intelligence authorities to detect prior to the Persian Gulf 

War a nuclear weapons program of the magnitude and advanced 

character of Iraq’s should stand as a monument to the fallibility 

of on-site inspections and national intelligence when faced by a 

determined opponent. The Iraqi [case]. . . is an experience rich in 

lessons that, if correctly understood may help in detecting other 

cover weapons programs and, equally important, US 
41

understanding of the limits of its ability to guarantee timely 

detection.176

 2. A Fissile Material Cut-Off Regime 

In his September 27, 1993 speech before the UN, President Clinton 

indicated that the US would press for a multilateral convention banning the 

production of fissile materials for nuclear explosives or outside international 

safeguards. Subsequently, the UN General Assembly adopted by consensus a 

resolution calling for the negotiation of a “non-discriminatory, multilateral and 

international effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material 

for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” 177 The US has strongly 

supported this initiative in international fora and has urged the other NWS to 

support the concept. 

 The purpose of a “cut-off” treaty would be to strengthen nuclear nonproliferation norms by adding a binding international commitment to existing 

constraints on nuclear weapons-usable fissile material. As stated in the UN 

resolution, the proposed treaty would ban the production of fissile material for 

nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. It would not address 

stockpiles. It would be applied to fissile materials, and not to non-fissile materials, 

like tritium.178 And finally, the current proposal would apply only to fissile 

material for explosive purposes and not to plutonium and HEU for non-explosive 

purposes. Thus, the convention would prevent the introduction of new fissionable 

materials to replace those removed from the US and Russian military weapons 

programs as warheads are destroyed. Such a cutoff could be verified relatively 

easily, and would not impose any significant burden on either the US or Russia. 

 The US has already discontinued the production of both plutonium and 

HEU, with the last plutonium production reactor being closed down in 1988, and 

has no plans to produce either material in the future. The Russians stopped 

producing HEU in 1989 and have agreed to close its last plutonium production 
42

reactor down by the end of the century.179 Russia has also announced its support 

for a cut-off treaty to cap the accumulation of fissile materials for nuclear 

weapons purposes.180

 The primary goal of the cut-off treaty is to obtain the participation of 

those states who have unsafeguarded enrichment and reprocessing facilities (for 

example India, Pakistan, and Israel). The proposed treaty would also prohibit the 

transfer of fissile materials from the civilian nuclear cycle to the military cycle (in 

the case of NWS) or to unsafeguarded civilian cycles (for non-nuclear weapon 

states not parties to the NPT). It would require all parties to accept IAEA 

safeguards on facilities and materials concerned in order to verify the “nonproduction” of these materials. In sum, the proposed convention is addressed to 

nuclear powers and “threshold” nuclear states alike. For the former, it would 

involve a solemn undertaking, through a legally binding instrument, not to 

produce the material concerned, and thereby to participate in a disarmament 

measure. For the latter, it would lead to the freezing of their production and to the 

acceptance of safeguards on relevant facilities. Coupled with a comprehensive test 

ban treaty a fissile materials cutoff ratified by the eight states concerned, would be 

an effective brake on further “vertical” as well as “horizontal” proliferation and 

would give significant impetus to maintaining progress in both the disarmament 

and nonproliferation fields. In other words, a fissile material cut-off treaty would 

support nuclear disarmament by NWS, reiterate non-proliferation commitments 

by NPT parties, and encourage threshold states to move closer to adhering to the 

non-proliferation regime. 

 Recently, the UK announced that it, too, had ceased the production of 

fissile material for explosive purposes despite having more limited quantities of 

such materials than the US or Russia.181 The other nuclear weapons states, 

however, have been more equivocal. Both France and China have indicated a 

desire to maintain the possibility of production for national security purposes, and 
43

are lukewarm about an extension of further international controls within their 

territories.182

 In view of the consensus resolution in the UN, the Geneva based 

Conference on Disarmament (CD)183 began work on developing a mandate for a 

committee to negotiate the cut-off treaty. After protracted debate the CD, on 23 

March 1995, agreed to a mandate to begin negotiations. Unfortunately, the 

sometimes heated debate over a mandate has highlighted how difficult it will be to 

achieve a cut-off treaty anytime soon. 

 First, any cut-off regime will require extensive and intrusive verification 

measures that will be expensive. The IAEA estimates that comprehensive 

verification measures implemented in the eight states of concern (China, France, 

India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, and the US) will cost approximately $140 

million per year.184 This is in comparison to the $67.5 million expended each year 

by the IAEA to conduct safeguards inspections. Dollar costs aside, a more 

difficult and politically explosive question is to what extent the NWS and 

threshold states will assume new obligations beyond traditional safeguards 

commitments to adequately verify their treaty commitments. Assuming the IAEA 

would be the inspecting and verifying body (a logical choice for expertise and 

cost reasons), the extent to which these states would allow a comprehensive 

verification regime (e.g. challenge inspections, visits to undeclared sites, extensive 

materials accounting) will need to be assessed, particularly since many IAEA 

member states have expressed serious reservations over current proposals to 

authorize IAEA access to undeclared sites.185

Second, some threshold states and others186 have insisted that any fissile 

material control regime include banning all existing stockpiles and not just cap 

fissile material production.187 This proposal will almost certainly delay, and 

possibly doom, the negotiations for a cut-off treaty. All of the NWS will oppose 

it, and India has already stated it will not accept expanding the scope to include 
44

stockpiles.188 Indeed, this was one of the issues that held up agreement on a 

mandate for negotiations. However, it is almost certain that Pakistan will propose 

this in the first meeting of the negotiating committee.189 The reason Pakistan does 

not just want to cap existing stocks is because it wants to put pressure on India to 

either reduce their stocks or be allowed to build up to perceived Indian levels of 

fissile materials. Further, given the current view in Pakistan that the US is 

maintaining discriminatory policies against Pakistan in contrast to its relationships 

with India or Israel, any attempt to give in to US pressure will be seen as a sell-out 

by the Pakistan government.190 Israel has not taken a position on a cut-off 

regime,191 and it has never admitted to the production of fissile material for 

explosive purposes. It is possible that Israel would agree in the near term to 

freezing the production of fissile materials and placing its only nuclear reactor at 

Dimona under IAEA safeguards. That, however is unlikely to satisfy the Arab 

countries which are more likely to be interested in the materials produced at 

Dimona over the last 30 years. 

 Third, there is the “legitimization” conundrum. Specifically, if the 

proposed treaty places no limits on previously produced fissile materials, it would 

be taken to indicate acceptance of past nuclear-weapon activities of the threshold 

states. Also, if the emphasis is on capping, rather than rolling back, these 

programs then that might be viewed as a weakening of opposition to nuclear 

proliferation. The proposed treaty, however, should not be seen as an alternative 

to the NPT or a regional non-proliferation regime for the threshold states. Its 

purpose is to cap the unsafeguarded production of fissile materials, not to 

legitimize the unsafeguarded production of these materials, nor to confer quasinuclear weapon-state status to threshold states. The cut-off treaty could be viewed 

as an interim arrangement or be portrayed as a commitment to future negotiations 

on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Alternatively, the treaty could call 

for the gradual placement of previously produced stocks of fissile materials under 

IAEA safeguards. 
45

 For example, the US has committed itself to submitting all excess fissile 

material to inspection and safeguarding by the IAEA.192 In 1994, 10 tons of 

HEU and a small quantity of plutonium were submitted to IAEA inspections, and 

the Clinton Administration has recently declared an additional 200 tons of fissile 

materials as excess, some of which will ultimately be subject to IAEA 

inspections.193 This amount represents almost 20 percent of all the fissile material 

produced in the US weapons complex.194 As an additional openness and 

transparency measure, it would be useful for all NWS to declare the total amount 

of existing stocks. This would be further evidence of their intent to pursue their 

legal obligations under Article VI of the NPT to work towards nuclear 

disarmament. Additionally, the US and Russia have agreed to take a variety of 

bilateral steps aimed at expanding the coverage of safeguards on existing fissile 

materials and ensuring the transparency and irreversibility of the disarmament 

process. Negotiations are currently underway to develop a bilateral regime to 

inspect fissile materials from dismantled nuclear weapons.195 

 There is no doubt that a cut-off treaty that included the nuclear weapon 

and “threshold” states would facilitate further progress on both global and 

regional non-proliferation and disarmament measures. However, it is highly 

unlikely that there will be much progress made over the next few years. In 

addition to the seemingly intractable regional problems in South Asia and the 

Middle East that will preclude threshold state cooperation, most of the other lesser 

developed NNWS that are members of the Conference on Disarmament are at 

best ambivalent towards the idea of a cut-off treaty. Most states have pinned their 

security on the global non-proliferation norm or their own efforts at creating a 

regional nuclear weapon free zone rather than substantial progress toward a cutoff regime that would, at most, simply freeze existing fissile material stockpiles. 
46

 That does not mean, however, that the US should give up in its efforts. 

Like other non-proliferation initiatives the best opportunity for a cut-off treaty will 

come in the context of progress in other initiatives. It is more than possible that a 

gradual process of unilateral steps by the NWS, US-Russia bilateral arms control 

initiatives, and forward movement in a multilateral framework on issues like a 

comprehensive test ban will perhaps create a climate that will result in the 

successful negotiation of a treaty. 

3. The Creation of Nuclear Weapon Free Zones 

Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZs) strengthen nonproliferation 

norms and are a useful supplement to the NPT’s verification structure and the 

IAEA safeguard system by allowing regional member states to call for inspections 

of another party if a treaty violation is suspected. For these reasons, the United 

States has long supported the concept of NWFZs as a disincentive to nuclear 

proliferation.196 For example, the US has firmly supported the Latin American 

nuclear-free zone treaty,197 subsequently signing and ratifying two treaty protocols 

to the treaty: first agreeing to apply the provisions of the treaty to all US territories 

within the zone of application;198 second, by providing a codified negative 

security assurance to all Latin American states-parties.199 

 NWFZs have been proposed for various geographical areas since at least 

the mid-1950s. Yet so far the Treaty of Tlatelolco (Latin America) and the Treaty 

of Rarotonga (South Pacific)200 are the only established nuclear free zones in 

populated areas.201 Although there is some disagreement over the essential 

elements of NWFZs, such zones usually combine: (1) commitments by the parties 

not to acquire, develop or possess nuclear explosive devices; (2) undertakings by 

nuclear weapons states (NWS) not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons 

against states in the zone; and (3) agreement by both the parties and the NWS not 

to station nuclear weapons in the zone.202 
47

 The US has supported efforts to establish effective NWFZs in regions of 

real non-proliferation concern, such as the South Asian subcontinent, the Korean 

peninsula, Africa, and the Middle East.203 This is in part because the US views 

such zones as a viable method of limiting the spread of fissile materials. For 

example, President Bush’s Middle East Arms Control Initiative of May 1991 

called on regional states “to implement a verifiable ban on the production and 

acquisition of weapons-usable nuclear material.”204 The US has also supported 

and encouraged the inclusion of a fissile material production ban in the December 

1991 North and South Korea agreement, as yet to be implemented, to ban nuclear 

weapons on the Korean peninsula.205

 NWFZs are an effective supplement to international efforts to prevent 

the spread of fissile materials for nuclear weapons programs and can help roll 

back proliferation where it has already occurred. The US should continue to 

encourage the inclusion of provisions banning the production or stockpiling of 

fissile materials in the proposed NWFZs. This is far preferable to risking 

protracted and politically risky efforts to amend the NPT at some future 

conference. 

4. Export Control Regimes and the Harmonization of Export Control Laws 

We seek to build a world of increasing pressures for 

nonproliferation, but increasingly open trade and technology for 

those states that live by accepted international rules. 

 - President Clinton 

 UN General Assembly, September 1993206

 One way the US and its Western allies have attempted to limit the spread 

of weapons usable fissile materials and technology is through multilateral export 

control arrangements. Although it is conceded that even the most stringent of 

export controls will not succeed against a determined proliferator,207 these 

multilateral arrangements do keep the costs of acquiring a nuclear weapons 

capability high. While supply-side barriers can be overcome, they add a 
48

substantial economic price, and also a penalty, because states suspected of 

embarking on nuclear weapons programs are denied the technology that might 

have been used quite legitimately for civilian purposes. States have also been 

denied financial aid, and, if sufficient information of proliferation exists, suffered 

economic sanctions. Although of questionable effectiveness, these penalties can 

clearly be very painful to a country to which they are applied; witness the current 

situation in Iraq.208

 During the Cold War, the US and its partners used the Coordinating 

Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) as the principal forum for 

reaching agreement upon restrictions on trade in nuclear materials and “dual-use” 

goods and technologies with communist countries. With the demise of the Soviet 

Union, there was no longer a rationale for CoCom and it ceased to exist on 31 

March, 1994. While negotiations continue to develop a successor multilateral 

export control regime that would help prevent the transfer of nuclear weapons 

technology and materials to proliferant states or terrorists,209 the primary 

multilateral arrangement for coordination of effort in this area continues to be the 

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).210 In serving as the coordinating body for 

controlling the supply of nuclear materials, equipment and technology, the NSG is 

a fundamental component of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. 

 The present agreement of the NSG centers around a “trigger” list of 

materials and equipment requiring full-scope safeguards as a condition for export, 

together with a supplemental list of 65 duel-use items added in 1992.211 The NSG 

has adopted a set of supplier guidelines212 that now includes requiring IAEA 

inspections and accounting of all fissile material in the recipient country, and the 

recipient country agreeing not to transfer such materials without the permission of 

the exporting country. These guidelines--more stringent than that required by 

NPT membership--are a key part of ensuring that fissile materials are not diverted 
49

from those states that legitimately possess them for peaceful purposes to those that 

do not. 

 It is important, however, to also recognize the limitation of a voluntary 

export control arrangement like the NSG. The regime has been criticized in the 

wake of events in Iraq and North Korea, but in fact it does what it is designed to 

do: allow parties to keep track of what is going on and give, in most cases, timely 

warning of illicit diversions. 

 Because the NSG serves as a confidential information exchange forum 

to assist members in ensuring potential proliferators do not circumvent export 

controls, and because the guidelines restrict exports of nuclear materials and 

technologies to states that include non-nuclear weapons states and less developed 

countries, considerable resentment among potential client states has arisen. Some 

have decried the “discriminatory” nature of the guidelines and claimed that the 

NSG is nothing more than a cartel designed to ensure that “have not” states do 

not acquire the needed equipment and technology to develop a nuclear energy 

industry and to inhibit their ability to cooperate in nuclear science and technology 

programs. 

 One possible solution to these complaints would be to have the NSG set 

up a consultative committee for prospective recipient states. This committee 

would be a forum for states to air their complaints officially to members of the 

NSG. The NSG would then respond to these complaints confidentially or 

publicly, as the case may be, to explain the rationale for their resulting actions. In 

certain instances, the NSG could make exceptions to its guidelines, if warranted, 

or change them if an injustice has been done. This committee would not be a 

negotiating forum between importing and exporting states. It would simply be a 

forum for passing information and raising issues for discussion by the NSG, with 

possibly an obligation on the part of the NSG to respond to any demands or 

questions put to them by the importing state.213
50

 Surprisingly, despite years of cooperation in controlling sensitive 

technologies and nuclear materials, states participating in these multilateral 

regimes have not enacted export control laws that are either standardized or 

sufficient for their NSG commitments. Ineffective export control laws in Europe 

and elsewhere have unwittingly assisted nuclear weapon aspirants in obtaining the 

materials and technology needed for their clandestine programs. For example, 

one study discovered the striking disparity in the structure, implementation and 

enforcement of the nonproliferation export controls of the FRG [Germany], the 

UK, France, Italy and Japan. Part of the reason for this is that export control 

groups, such as the NSG, operate on voluntary restraints. Unfortunately, these 

“gaps” have been exploited by fissile material traffickers and agents of proliferant 

states searching for materials, equipment and technology to advance clandestine 

weapons programs, thus undermining the entire multilateral cooperative 

arrangement.214

 While European Union members have made progress in harmonizing 

lists of controlled items and countries to be excluded from nuclear and dual use 

transfer, eastern European states and those of the FSU have lagged behind in 

developing adequate export control laws and regulations. Western states, 

including the US, have developed programs of assistance to slowly bring those 

states where nuclear technology, expertise, and materials exist into compliance 

with NSG guidelines, and most of these states have professed an eagerness to do 

so. Trade and sharing technology are the primary incentives. It should be noted 

that the US government has also been criticized the failing to adequately 

investigate potential recipients of dual use nuclear items, or follow up to ensure 

such exports are not diverted to develop nuclear weapons.215 This is due, in part, 

to the extremely complex nature of trying to control and regulate a vast 

interconnected network of trade and commerce. While export controls on items 

other than fissile materials are beyond the scope of this paper, one should 
51

recognize that if gaps exist in export control regimes it is all the more likely that 

the illicit diversion of fissile materials could occur undetected. 

 Another way to deter smuggling and accelerate coordination efforts 

would be to negotiate an international convention or treaty making the smuggling 

of fissile materials a crime against international law.216 A treaty regime would 

have several advantages over and augment the NSG export control mechanism. It 

would be non-discriminatory and universal. It would create an international legal 

norm that would reflect world opprobrium over this activity. As with most 

treaties that address criminal or terrorist activities,217 it could include a “prosecute 

or extradite” provision; states parties would be obligated to criminalize smuggling 

activities and prosecute smugglers or extradite them to a state that will. States 

would be obliged to return smugglers to other states where they might have 

committed criminal activities even though they had not committed any crimes in 

the state where they reside. Finally, a treaty regime would open up additional 

avenues for cooperation and information sharing among states to interdict and 

stop smuggling and possibly inhibit their clients from choosing this method of 

acquiring fissile materials. 

 

V. Conclusion: No Easy Solution 

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save 

our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled 

catastrophes. 

 - Albert Einstein218

 A number of experts in this area confided that it may very well require 

some catastrophic event similar to the Oklahoma City bombing disaster in order to 

energize the international community to work in concert to eliminate this problem. 

It is an unfortunate fact that the US government, as well as other governments and 

the American people, tend to react to situations rather than anticipate them. The 
52

danger is so great and the threat so immediate that US policy-makers and the 

public need to recognize the illicit diversion of fissile materials as a critical and 

urgent national security priority, one that will require top-level attention, public 

education and sufficient resource allocation if we are to eventually prevail over 

this new security challenge. One can only hope that a tragedy will not be 

necessary for galvanizing the world to action, and that we will achieve progress 

toward an international consensus that it is in nobody's interest to acquire these 

materials for illicit purposes. 

 The US needs to start now exercising the requisite political leadership to 

begin building a system of regional security institutions capped by the United 

Nations, that would promote essential habits of cooperation among the nuclear 

weapon states and that could lower the incidence of armed conflict in the world. 

Enhancing the existing norms through strengthened security assurances, 

cooperative export control arrangements, and binding agreements on capping 

fissile material production could push forward the frontiers of the international 

legal order. 

 In examining current efforts and an exhaustive list of “new ideas” on 

how to stop the proliferation of fissile materials, it is hard to see how any strategy, 

no matter how clever the conception or assiduous the implementation, could do 

more than ameliorate the fundamental problem. The problems of the FSU are too 

diverse and complex to solve overnight, nor can the US buy up all the fissile 

material that is of proliferation concern, although it would be wiser and in the long 

run cheaper to try, rather than spending trillions later to defend against potential 

future use of these materials in weapons. And, since no country can hope to 

match the US in conventional arms, US success in the Persian Gulf War had the 

unexpected consequence of sowing the seeds of future nuclear proliferation, even 

as it uprooted one of the more dangerous threats. 

 Of course, that is not to imply that our non-proliferation efforts are of no 

avail. In many respects the non-proliferation regime has been successful, 
53

particularly when one evaluates it against the likely result of its absence. A 

number of countries, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa being the most recent, 

have given up their nuclear ambitions. There is no denying, however, that a 

number of states are actively, if covertly, seeking the wherewithal to manufacture 

nuclear weapons. One needn’t be a pessimist to understand that through a 

combination of regional factors, gaps in the non-proliferation regime, and, at 

times, an indifference to the problem by Western--and most other—states, have 

all contributed to the likelihood that within the near future (five to ten years) there 

will be a political crisis involving a newly-armed nuclear state or terrorist group. 

While unprecedented progress has been made in global and regional nonproliferation measures, we must not allow that progress to blind us to the fact that 

in an imperfect world no amount of effort will stop a determined proliferator. 

Consequently, the US--as the only state capable of doing so--must be prepared to 

respond effectively when those proliferation threats do occur. Ultimately there 

will be no “silver bullet” to stop the spread of fissile materials. No system is 

foolproof. Control over nuclear weapons in general and fissile materials in 

particular will require the continuous and simultaneous exercise of several 

measures, ranging from national intelligence gathering to international regime 

building, regional conflict resolution and selective coercive measures--to include 

in limited instances the use of force.219 Recent experiences with Iraq and North 

Korea demonstrate the necessity of being adequately prepared to respond to 

proliferation threats. 

Those that believe the effort is not worth it, that the continuing spread of 

fissile materials is inevitable, are wrong. Tough “supply-side” controls can close 

the spigot to a slow drip while time and commonality of interests in nonproliferation can change the political motivation to acquire nuclear weapons. 

Eventually, it is hoped that a seamless web of measures will result in the 

international community as a whole exercising the political will to stop and 

ultimately end the threat of a fissile material catastrophe.
54

ENDNOTES 

1

 William J. Clinton, “Remarks by the President at U.S. Air Force Academy Graduation Ceremony,” 

White House Office of the Press Secretary, May 31, 1995, p. 5. 

2

 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, Kerry G. Herron, and Richard P. Bark, Public Perspectives of Nuclear 

Weapons in the Post-Cold War Environment, SND94-1265 (Sandia National laboratories, Albuquerque, 

N.M., April 1994). 

3

 The term traditionally refers to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the means to deliver 

them. 

4

 The US Department of Defense’s Bottom-Up Review of October 1993 viewed the proliferation of 

weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as the most urgent and direct threat to US security in the emerging 

era. President Clinton’s recent A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (February 

1995) called WMD “a major threat to our security and that of our allies and other friendly nations.” 

Ibid., 13. 

5

 Highly enriched uranium (HEU)-235 is for use in bombs and some research and submarine reactors. 

U-235 is an isotope of uranium that is easiest to split in a reactor or bomb. It comprises only about 0.7 

percent of natural uranium, but isotope separation via gaseous diffusion or centrifugation commonly 

“enrich” it to more than 90 % thereby creating “weapons-grade” concentrates. Plutonium, an element 

that exists in only trace amounts in nature, is manufactured in reactors by bombarding atoms of uranium 

isotope U-238 until they absorb a neutron and become Plutonium 239. PU-239 is the best isotope for 

making bombs but any isotope of plutonium, while less efficient, can be used for bombs. 

6

 Unless otherwise indicated, the terms “fissile materials” or “weapons-usable fissile materials” refers to 

weapons-grade HEU or plutonium. The term “nuclear materials” include all materials, including fissile 

materials, associated with the production (to include by-products) of nuclear programs for energy and/or 

weapons. 

7

 Dr. Richard Garwin, National Academy of Sciences, Statement Before the Panel on Military 

Application of Nuclear Energy, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives; Hearings on 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, H.A.S.C. No. 103-39 (Washington: U.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1994), 568. 

8

 See J. Carson Mark et al., “Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons?,” in Paul Leventhal & Yonah 

Alexander, eds., Preventing Nuclear Terrorism (Lexington MA: Lexington Books 1987): 60-62. 

9

 Marilyn Greene, “Japan Cult Shopped for Nuclear Weapons,” USA Today, 1 November 1995, p. 1. 

10 Luis Alvarez, Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (New York: Basic Books 1987): 125. 

11 William J. Broad, “Experts in U.S. Call plutonium Not Arms-Level, New York Times, 17 August 

1994, p. A1. See also William J. Broad, “Blix Says IAEA Does Not Dispute Utility of Reactor-Grade Pu 

for Weapons,” Nuclear Fuel, 12 November 1990, p. 8; J. Carson Mark, Reactor-Grade Plutonium's 

Explosive Properties (Nuclear Control Institute, August 1990). 

12 “U.N. Official: Iraq Worked on Radiological Arms,” The Washington Post, 8 November 1995, p. 25. 

13 Office of Technology Assessment, Washington D.C., U.S. GPO: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass 

Destruction: Assessing the Risks, August 1993, pp. 10-11, 33, and Technologies Underlying Weapons 

of Mass Destruction, December 1993: 119-120, 126. 

 
55

 

14 See Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster 1986): 886. 

15 See Peter D. Zimmerman, “Proliferation: Bronze Medal Technology is Enough,” Orbis (Winter 

1994): 67. 

16 Ibid. While reactor designs vary considerably, they all have common characteristics; among them 

being they consume only a part of the nuclear fuel that powers them. The spent fuel typically contains 

isotope U-235 at higher concentrations than the original uranium plus plutonium. See Fissile Material 

Cutoff Treaty Negotiator’s Databook (U.S. Government: Department of Energy 1994) Chapters 3-5. 

17 See The Defense Counterproliferation Initiative, Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense, 

December 9, 1993; Report on Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation Activities and Programs, 

Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, May 1994; Zachary S. Davis, Non-Proliferation Regimes: 

A Comparative Analysis of Policies to Control the Spread of Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological 

Weapons and Missiles, Congressional Research Service, Washington D.C., February 18, 1993; George 

H. Quester and Victor A. Utgoff, “Toward an International Nuclear Security Policy,” The Washington 

Quarterly, (Autumn 1994): 5-18. For opposing views on US Counterproliferation efforts see Harald 

Muller and Mitchell Reiss, “Counterproliferation: Putting New Wine in Old Bottles,” The Washington 

Quarterly (Spring 1995): 143; David Fischer, “Forcible Counterproliferation: Necessary? Feasible?” in 

Mitchell Reiss and Harald Muller, eds, International Perspectives on Counterproliferation, Working 

Paper No. 99 (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center, January 1995). 

18 Quoted in Oleg Bukharin and William Potter, “Potatoes were guarded better,” Bulletin of Atomic 

Scientists, (May/June 1995): 48. 

19 For an excellent analysis of the conditions resulting from the breakup of the Soviet Union see Susan 

B. Chodakewitz and Jill L. Jermano, Regional Instability, Proliferation and the Former Soviet Union,

Defense Nuclear Agency Technical Report, DNA-TR-92-199, December 1992. 

20 Approximately twenty-two countries possess or control separated plutonium either for military or 

commercial use. See David Albright, Berkhout and Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly 

Enriched Uranium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 

21 Charles J. Hanley, “World Fears Spread of Nukes,” Associate Press [Online], 28 March 95. 

Available NEXIS Library. 

22 Jonathan Dean, “The Final Stage of Nuclear Arms Control,” The Washington Quarterly (Autumn 

1994): 39. 

23 “Russia’s Yard Sale,” Time, 18 April 1994, p. 28. See also Michael R. Gordon “Russian Controls on 

Bomb Material Are Leaky,” New York Times, 18 August 1994, p. A1; Graham H. Turbiville, Jr., Mafia 

in Uniform: The ‘Criminalization” of the Russian Armed Forces, (Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. 

Leavenworth, Kansas, July 1995). 

24 Alexander Rossolimo, “Nuclear Blackmail; What’s the Response,” Commentary (International 

Strategy Associates, 1994): 7. 

25 Ibid. The author cites a report in the Russian newspaper Izvestia claiming 70-80% of all private 

enterprises are victims of extortion, and quotes FBI Director Louis Freeh in testimony before the U.S. 

Senate in May 1994 in which he said that Russian criminal organizations are more than capable of 

stealing and selling nuclear weapons-grade materials. 

 
56

 

26 The so-called “brain drain” problem and US and other Western powers efforts to find productive 

work for nuclear weapons scientists and engineers is well documented. See e.g. Elaine Sciolino, “Soviet 

Brain Drain Poses Atomic Risk, U.S. Report Warns,” New York Times, 1 January 1992, p. 1; John R. 

Deni and Anne M. Harrington, “Beyond Brain Drain: The Future of 'Nonproliferation Through Science 

Cooperation' Programs,” Paper presented at the Conference on New Frontiers in Arms Control, Center 

for International and Security Studies at Maryland School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, 

30-31 March 1995. As noted previously, this paper does not address the possibility of the theft of sale 

of a nuclear weapon to a proliferant state. While some believe that Russian nuclear weapons remain 

under close control and are adequately secured (See e.g. Leonard S. Spector, Testimony to the 

Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights of the 

Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings on Russian Organized Crime and Nuclear Security, U.S. 

House of Representatives, June 27, 1994), a number of US Government officials have indicated to the 

author that there are serious security and management problems at Russian nuclear weapon storage 

facilities. See Doyle McManus, “Unwanted Russian Warheads, A Prize Waiting to Fall into Wrong 

Hands,” Los Angeles Times, 9 May 1994, p. 14. 

27 See Ian Glover-James, “Third World Dictators Woo Soviet Scientists,” The Sunday Times (London), 

13 October 1991, p. 20 (Syria, Libya, Iraq and North Korea actively trying to hire nuclear weapons 

scientists and engineers); “Exodus of Soviet Nuclear Scientists Assessed,” Soviet Union: National 

Affairs FBIS Report FBIS-SOV-91-200, 16 October 1991, 43-45; “Russian Ministry Opposes Scientists' 

Hiring,” INTERFAX, 21 January 1992; FBIS, SOV-92-014, p. 1 (Libya offered contracts to nuclear 

physicists at the Kurchatov Nuclear Research Institute). 

28 “President Report Views Brain Problem,” ITAR-TASS broadcast, 9 April 1993, FBIS Daily Report, 

FBIS-SOV-93-067, p. 39. 

29 Deni and Harrington, supra, note 24 at 5, see endnote 6. 

30 See infra notes 85-103 and accompanying text. 

31 Bette Hileman, “U.S. and Russia Face Urgent Decisions on Weapons Plutonium,” Chemical and 

Engineering News, 13 June 1994, p. 14. 

32 Charles J. Hanley, “Russian Nuke Security Examined,” Associated Press [Online], 28 March 95. 

Available NEXIS Library. 

33 Ibid.

34 Oleg Bukharin and William Potter, “Potatoes were guarded better,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 

(May/June 1995): 49. 

35 Interview by the author, March 15, 1995. 

36 Assessment by the author based on interviews and discussions with numerous DOD, DOS, ACDA 

and DOE officials confirms the author’s views. 

37 “A Look at Russia Nuke Watchdog,” Associated Press [Online], 26 March 1995: Available on 

NEXIS Library. 

38 GAN was created in 1992 as an independent nuclear oversight organization, similar to the US’s 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In an April 1993 decree, President Yeltsin reaffirmed GAN’s 

authority to inspect all nuclear facilities, including those controlled by both the Ministry of Defense and 

MINATOM. Both ministries have fought oversight by GAN and it is uncertain if President Yeltsin has 

the power to enforce his decree. See “Russian Energy, Defense Ministries Oppose Nuclear 

 
57

 

Inspections.” INTERFAX, April 28, 1993, cited in FBIS Daily Report, JPRS-TAC-93-004-L, May 3, 

1993, p. 2. 

39 “A Look at Russia Nuke Watchdog,” supra note 58. 

40 Jane Perlez, “Tracing a Nuclear Risk: Stolen Enriched Uranium,” New York Times, 15 February 1995, 

p. A3. 

41 Ibid.

42 Margaret Shapiro, “Russia Orders Tightened Security to Protect Nuclear Materials,” Washington 

Post, 24 February 1995, p. A15 (Russian officials acknowledge the need to modernize and tighten 

controls at nuclear research and production facilities). 

43 Ibid.

44 This includes laboratories, nuclear reactors and research and testing facilities. 

45 Interview by author, 14 March 1995. See also FBIS Daily Report: Central Eurasia, “Nuclear Expert 

Describes Security Measures as ‘Outdated’,” FBIS-WEU-94-186 (September 26, 1994), 14. 

46 Interview by author of Department of Energy (DOE) official, 14 March 1995. 

47 NIS does not include, by definition, the Russian Federation. As a nuclear weapon state, Russia has 

been resistant to IAEA assistance in developing a national material accounting and physical protection 

system. 

48 Plans have been drafted for Belarus, Latvia, Kazakstan, and Ukraine. Donor countries include 

Hungary, Sweden, Finland, Japan, UK and the US. 

49 Interview of IAEA Director of External Relations, 21 March 1995. 

50 Interviews with IAEA officials, 21 March 1995. 

51 Public Law 102-228. An excellent summary of the legislative history and its implementation of this 

law may be found in Theodore Galdi, “The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program for 

Soviet Weapons Dismantlement: Background and Implementation,” Congressional Research Service

93-1057F (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, December 29, 1993). In Fiscal Year 1994, the 

Nunn-Lugar funding became an additional line item in the DOD budget. 

52 In 1992 the US Enrichment Corporation was created by Congress to, among other things, oversee an 

agreement with Russia in which the US agreed to purchase 500 tons of HEU from Russia. Established 

by Congress as part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, this is a semi-autonomous corporation that will 

eventually become wholly private. The Corporation is empowered to set prices on uranium and sell it to 

users at rates it establishes. It is in effect a monopoly. See Atomic Energy Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §

2297b. The US and Russia signed an agreement on February 18, 1993 for the US to purchase about 500 

tons of HEU over the next 20 years. Arrangements were to be worked out to ensure that the HEU came 

from dismantled nuclear weapons. The HEU is to blended down to produce low-enriched fuel for 

nuclear reactors. See Oleg Bukharin, “Soft Landing for Bomb Uranium,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

(September 1993): 44. 

 
58

 

53 The operation was codenamed “Sapphire.” See Michael R. Gordon, “U.S., in a Secret Deal, 

Removes Bomb Fuel in Ex-Soviet Republic,” New York Times, 23 November 1994, p. A1. 

54 Steven Erlanger, “Kazakhstan Thanks U.S. on Uranium,” New York Times, 25 November 1994, p. 

A10. 

55 “Operation Sapphire,” Maclean’s, 5 December 1994, p. 35. Defense Secretary Perry is also quoted 

here as saying that “some of this material was in the form that could be used directly to make nuclear 

weapons.” 

56 Interviews with DOE officials, 13 March 1995; DOE Fact Sheet on Nuclear Material Protection, 

Control and Accounting Cooperation with the Russian Federation (undated). 

57 Ibid.

58 “More Aid to Russia for Nuclear Security,” New York Times, 25 January 1995, p. A6. 

59 Interviews with DOE, DOD, ACDA officials, 13-15 March 1995. Previous year funding for this 

effort has included $30 million (Nunn-Lugar) for the government-to-government program, and $17 

million for the lab-to-lab program ($2 million in FY 94 from DOE, and $15 million in FY 95 from 

Nunn-Lugar). DOE Fact Sheet, supra note 233. 

60 Susanne M. Schafer, “Pentagon: Five Years to Corral Former Soviet Nuclear Arsenal,” Associated 

Press News Service [Online] February 22, 1995: Available NEXIS Library. This is probably a 

conservative estimate. For example, in the last decade the US has spent $7 billion to enhance its own 

nuclear facility security. See William J. Broad, “U.S. Energy Chief Calls for Help for Russia on Atomic 

Security,” New York Times, 18 August 1994, p. A11. 

61 “Russia orders extra security at nuclear sites,” Rueters News Service [Online], 23 February 1995: 

Available LEXIS Library. 

62 FBIS JPRS Report: Proliferation Issues, “‘Secret Report’ on Nuclear Proliferation,” JPRS-TNT-94-

003-L (May 4, 1994), 20. The report also details the sorry state of Russian security and control 

measures to safeguard nuclear materials. 

63 For a detailed listing and assessment of these news accounts see Phil William and Paul N. Woessner, 

“Nuclear Material Trafficking: An Interim Assessment,” Ridgeway Viewpoints, 95-1, 1995. Cases of 

smuggling have continued unabated into 1995. See e.g. “Russian Uranium Simple to Steal, Court is 

Told,” Reuters World Service [Online], February 15, 1995: Available NEXIS Library (Reports that 

Russian authorities 8 kg of HEU stolen from nuclear plants in the past year); Jane Perlez, “Tracing a 

Nuclear Risk: Stolen Enriched Uranium,” New York Times, 15 February 1995, p. A3; Craig R. 

Whitney, “Smuggling of Radioactive Material Said to Double in a year,” New York Times, 18 February 

1995, p. A2; D’Vora Ben Shaul, “Exposed: Smuggling,” The Jerusalem Post, 20 March 1995, p. 7; 

Charles J. Hanley, “Part I: Nuclear Traffickers,” Associated Press [Online], March 24, 1995: Available 

NEXIS Library; “Police Confiscate Uranium Stash from Ex-Soldiers,” Associated Press [Online], 

March 22, 1995: Available NEXIS Library; “Slovak Uranium Seizure,” New York Times, 26 April 

1995, p. A13. 

64 U.S. Department of Energy, Black Market Trafficking in Nuclear Material: 1993 & 1994 

Transactions, Office of Nonproliferation and National Security, Threat Assessment Division, March 

1995. One scam deserves mention; offers of so-called “Red Mercury” claimed to be an essential 

ingredient in both nuclear weapons and weapons guidance systems. Experts are convinced the material 

is non-existent. Samples offered by sellers have been either mercuric oxide or mercuric iodide neither of 

which is radioactive, valuable or used in nuclear weapons. See e.g. Vladimir Orlov, “Black Holes of 

 
59

 

Red Mercury,” Moscow News, August 13, 1993, p. 11; FBIS JPRS Report: Proliferation Issues, “HighLevel Involvement in ‘Red Mercury’ Scam Alleged,” JPRS-TND-94-006-L (August 5, 1994), 30-34. 

The “red mercury” scam has had tragic consequences. It was reported that at least 78 people were killed 

in Namibia trying to dismantle conventional weapons supposedly containing red mercury worth up to 

$300 per kilogram. Department of Energy, Black Marketing Report, supra at 14. 

65 DOE Black Marketing Report, supra; Craig Whitney, “Smuggling of Radioactive Material Said to 

Double in a Year,” New York Times, 18 February 1995, p. 2; James Woolsey, Statement before the 

Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights of the 

Committee on Foreign Affairs, June 27, 1994. 

66 Williams and Woessner, supra note 61. 

67 But see Williams and Woessner, supra note 61, p. 9 (Reports that senior Russian Minister in the 

Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs told the US Congress in May 1994 that “criminal groups were 

becoming increasingly interested in nuclear energy facilities,” and were involved in 47 criminal cases 

concerning “nuclear materials.”) 

68 Quoted in Mark Hibbs, “Plutonium, Politics, and Panic,” The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,

(November-December 1994): 31. 

69 For a detailed description of likely professional smuggling networks operating out of the FSU see 

Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S. Forrest, “The New Nuclear Smuggling System,” Task Force on 

Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, House Republican Research Committee, U.S. House of 

Representatives, June 7, 1993. See also Andrew Borowiec, “Cash-rich Russians use Cyprus as base,” 

Washington Times, 20 May 1995, p. A6 (Russian smugglers of arms and components for nuclear and 

chemical warfare use Cyprus as gateway to the Middle East). 

70 Roger C. Molander and Peter A. Wilson, “On Dealing with the Prospect of Nuclear Chaos,” The 

Washington Quarterly, (Summer 1994): 19, 30. 

71 John Roberts, “Disarmament: “Nuclear Interpol” Needed to Combat Trafficking,” International Press 

Service [Online], February 16, 1995: Available NEXIS Library. 

72 Ibid., 8. 

73 “U.S., Russian Intelligence Agencies Offer Proliferation Assessments,” Arms Control Today, (March 

1993), 21. 

74 Ibid.

75 Chris Hedges, “Nuclear Trail--a Special Report: A Vast Smuggling Network Feeds Iran's Arms 

Program,” New York Times, 15 March 95, p. A1. 

76 Ibid.

77 See supra notes 45-59 and accompanying text on these efforts. 

78 Hanley, supra note 61. 

 
60

 

79 Commission of the European Communities, “The Illicit Traffic in Radioactive Substances and 

Nuclear Materials,” Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament

(Com(94) 383 final, Brussels, 7 September 1994); John Roberts, “Disarmament: ‘Nuclear Interpol’ 

needed to combat trafficking,” International Press Service, February 16, 1995. 

80 Interviews by author of EURATOM officials in Brussels on 27 March 1995 and IAEA Officials on 

21-22 March 1995; IAEA Board of Governors, “Measures Against Illicit Trafficking in Nuclear 

Materials and Other Radioactive Sources,” Progress Report by the Director General

(GOV/2773/Add.1), 6 March 1995; “Measures Against Illicit Trafficking in Nuclear Materials and other 

Radioactive Sources, Report by the Director General (GOV/2773), 24 November 1994. 

81 Ibid.

82 Interviews with DOE officials, 13 March 1995. The Department of Energy has developed a 

comprehensive program to assist Russia and the Newly Independent States in controlling and physically 

protecting its nuclear materials, and developing a number of measures to prevent, delay or interrupt 

black-marketing activities. These proposed measures are contained in a for official use only document 

entitled Nuclear Security: Countering Illicit Nuclear Material Transactions, dated February 1995. 

83 Interviews by author of numerous DOD, ACDA, DOE officials, 13-16 March, 18-19 May. 

84 Ibid.

85 The author has proposed this to the IAEA’s Legal Division and other IAEA officials and received a 

positive response. EURATOM has also expressed interest in working on model legislation. Interview 

with Mr. Bram Brands, Directorate Energy Policy, Commission of the European Communities, 27 

March 1995. 

86 Since HEU can be easily blended down into lower enriched uranium for use as nuclear reactor fuel 

the disposition problem with HEU is small, particularly in relation to plutonium, and for that reason is 

not addressed here. 

87 Matthew L. Wald and Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Treasures Plutonium, But U.S. Wants to Destroy 

It,” New York Times, 19 August 1994, p. A1. 

88 The characteristics of nuclear reactors are explained in Nuclear proliferation and Safeguards,

Appendix Vol. II, Part One, Washington D.C. Office of Technology Assessment, June 1977. Appendix 

V (Technical Description of Fuel Cycle Facilities and Evaluation of Diversion Potential). 

89 Paul Leventhal and Daniel Horner, “NPT Extension Should Not Ignore the Dangers of Plutonium,” 

Disarmament Times, 22 November 1994, p.1. 

90 It takes about 77 pounds (35 kilograms) of unprocessed civil plutonium to make an explosive device. 

 See “Uranium, plutonium, pandemonium,” The Economist, 5 June 1993, p. 98. 

91 Pat Coyne, “Do we need a nuclear Interpol to police the world's growing stocks of plutonium?” New 

Statesman & Society, 23 April 1993, p. 25 

 92 David Albright, Frans Berkhout and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly 

Enriched Uranium, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 

 

 
61

 

93 See Brian G. Chow and Kenneth A. Solomon, Limiting the Spread of Weapon-Usable Fissile 

Materials (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1993): 44-60. 

94 There is currently about 800 metric tons of civilian plutonium in spent fuel stored around the world, 

and the total is growing at about 70 metric tons per year. See John P. Holdren, “Dangerous Surplus,” 

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (May/June 1994): 39-40. 

95 Coyne, supra note 89. 

96 Great Britain stopped producing fissile materials for explosive purposes in April 1995 but it continues 

to produce plutonium “fuel) at its plutonium reprocessing plant at Sella field in Cumbria. See Barbara 

Crossette, “China Breaks Ranks With Other Nuclear Nations on Treaty,” New York Times, 19 April 

1995, p. A16. 

97 See “Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium: Excerpts From the Executive 

Summary of the National Academy of Sciences Report,” Arms Control Today (March 1994), 27. The 

Panel Chairman was Dr. Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky. 

98 Ibid. 

99 Bette Hileman, “Nuclear Arms Dismantling: NAS urges steps to safeguard plutonium,” Chemical & 

Engineering News, 31 January 1994, p.6. 

100 Dr. Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky quoted in “Nuclear Arms Dismantling,” Ibid.

101 John P. Holdren, “Dangerous Surplus, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (May/June 1994): 39. 

102 It is not the intent in this paper to reiterate or evaluate all options and recommendations for the 

disposition of plutonium but rather only to note the long term proliferation risks it poses, illuminate the 

lack of controls of this material in the former Soviet Union, recognize that solutions to this problem will 

not be easy technologically or inexpensive, and to highlight the need to address not only the weaponsgrade plutonium issue but the potentially much more severe and global problem of reactor-grade 

plutonium. For a discussion of plutonium disposition options see National Science Academy's study 

entitled “Management and Disposition of Excess weapons Plutonium,” excerpts of which are reported in 

Arms Control Today, March 1994, pp. 27-31; Brian G. Chow and Kenneth A. Solomon, supra note 91; 

Frans Berkhout et al., “Disposition of Separated Plutonium,” Science & Global Security (3-4, March 

1993): 161-214; George Perkovich, “The Plutonium Genie, Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993): 153; 

Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, “Safeguarding the Ingredients for Making Nuclear Weapons, Issues in 

Science and Technology (Spring 1994): 67; John P. Holdren, “Dangerous Surplus,” Bulletin of Atomic 

Scientists (May/June 1994): 39; Paul Leventhal, “What Should Be The Fundamental Basis of a National 

Plutonium Policy?” Nuclear Control Institute Paper, March 8, 1994. 

103 For example, the National Academy of Sciences estimates it will cost from $1 to $5 billion for 

processing 50 tons of weapons-grade plutonium. U.S. Congress, Hearings on National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives, HASC 

No. 103-39, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994, 567. Costs for storing weapons grade plutonium 

and ultimate disposition of plutonium-laced radioactive wastes vary but would not be much given the 

proliferation risks of not adequately safeguarding these materials. See Brian G. Chow and Kenneth A. 

Solomon, supra note 91 at 67-70. 

104 Frank von Hippel, Marvin Miller, Harold Feiveson, Anatoli Diakov and Frans Berkhout, 

“Eliminating Nuclear Warheads,” Scientific American (August 1993): 44. 

 
62

 

105 See e.g. “Nuclear Dump Site Proposal Decried as Dangerous,” Providence Sunday Journal, 5 

March 1995, p. A11. 

106 Hearings Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on IAEA Programs of Safeguards, 9th 

Cong., 1st Sess. 43 (1981) (Statement of Victor Gilinsky). 

107 For an exhaustive study on the IAEA, to include its history and activities see Lawrence Scheinman, 

The International Atomic Energy and World Nuclear Order (Washington D.C.: Resources for the 

Future, 1987). 

108 The IAEA’s role in the NPT evolved from Art. III of the NPT that states “Each non-nuclear-weapon 

State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept the safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be 

negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards 

system....” 

109 IAEA Highlights of Activities (IAEA Division of Public Information, September 1993), 45. 

110 IAEA Safeguards Glossary 87 Edition, (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1987), 3. 

111 Ibid., 23. 

112 See Thomas B. Cochran and Christopher E. Paine, “The Amount of Plutonium and Highly Enriched 

Uranium Needed for Pure Fission Nuclear Weapons,” Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, 

D.C. August 22, 1994; J. Carson Mark, “Some Remarks on Iraq's Possible Nuclear Weapon Capability 

in Light of Some of the Known Facts Concerning Nuclear Weapons,” Nuclear Control Institute, May 

16, 1991, p. 11 (Iraq could have built a nuclear weapon using about 12.3 kilograms of HEU); Steven 

Dolley and Paul Leventhal, Nuclear Control Institute Backgrounder, “Highly Enriched Uranium Seized 

in Czech Republic Reveals a Growing Risk of Nuclear Terrorism, December 22, 1994 (only 3 kilograms 

of HEU sufficient to produce nuclear bomb). 

113 The Natural Resources Defense Council has argued that the “significant quantities” standard should 

be lowered to 1 kilogram for plutonium and 3 kilograms for HEU since a 1-kiloton nuclear weapon can 

be made from these amounts. See “Tighter Nuclear Safeguards Needed to Stop Thefts,” Chemical and 

Engineering News, September 12, 1994, p. 17. However, given the degree of sophistication required to 

build so small a bomb, it is likely that much higher amounts would be used. Unsophisticated 

proliferators would use larger amounts of fissile materials than necessary in order to build simple, very 

high confidence weapons. Still, the NAS report, supra note 99, pointed out that 4 kilograms of 

plutonium was sufficient for a weapon. 

114 Robert Rudney, “A Toothless Watchdog: The International Atomic Energy Agency,” National 

Security Law Report, (American Bar Association Standing Committee On Law and National Security, 

January 1995), 1. 

115 See e.g. Albert Wohlstetter, et al., Moving Toward Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd? (ACDA/PAP263, PH 76-04-389-14) (April 22, 1976). 

116 General Accounting Office, Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and the Problems of Safeguarding Against 

the Spread of Nuclear Weapons iii-v, 30-34 (EMD-80-38, March 18, 1980); Paul Leventhal, ““IAEA 

Safeguards Shortcomings--a Critique, Nuclear Control Institute (September 12, 1994); Frank Gaffney, 

Jr., “The IAEA’s Dirty Little Secret, The International Economy, September/October 1994, p. 52;

Marvin Miller, “Are IAEA Safeguards on Plutonium Bulk-Handling Facilities Effective? “ Nuclear 

Control Institute (August, 1990). 

 
63

 

117 Paul Eavis, “The Case Against Reprocessing,” Frank Barnaby, ed., Plutonium and Security: The 

Military Aspects of the Plutonium Economy (London: MacMillian Academic and Professional Ltd, 

1992), 24. 

118 Ibid.

119 IAEA Safeguards Glossary, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1987, p. 3. 

120 Paul Leventhal, supra note 114 at 3. Richard Bolt, “Response to David Fischer on Safeguards 

Controversy,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (June 1989), 39. 

121 Paul Leventhal, supra note 114. 

122 Paul Leventhal, “Latent and Blatant Proliferation: Does the NPT Work Against Either?” Nuclear 

Control Institute, June 20, 1990. 

123 Quoted by Marc Dean Millot, “Facing the Emerging Reality of Regional Nuclear Adversaries,” The 

Washington Quarterly (Summer 1994): 53. 

124 Quoted by Patrick J. Garrity, Why the Gulf War Still Matters: Foreign Perspectives on the War and 

the Future of International Security, Report No. 16 (Center for National Security Studies, July 1993), p. 

xiv. 

125 It is not the intent of this paper to examine in detail all the motivations/reasons states may decide it is 

in their national security interests to pursue a nuclear weapons program. That has already been 

addressed exhaustively by a number of experts. See, for example, Mitchell Reiss, Without the Bomb

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Mitchell Reiss and Robert S. Litwak, eds. Nuclear 

Proliferation After the Cold War (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1994); Dean Wilkening 

and Kenneth Watman, Nuclear Deterrence in a Regional Context (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation 

1995). 

126 Munir Ahmad Khan, “Toward a Universal Framework of Nuclear Restraint,” in Joseph F. Pilat and 

Robert E. Pendley, eds. Beyond 1995: The Future of the NPT Regime (New York: Plenum Press, 1990), 

89. 

127 Aabha Dixit, “West Grabs Victory in NPT,” Defense News, 15-21 May 1995, p. 24. 

128 Sanjoy Hazarika, “India Denounces Extension of Treaty to Curb Atom Arms,” New York Times, 16 

May 1995, p. 8. On numerous occasion both at the UN First Committee (Arms Control and NonProliferation) and the Conference on Disarmament, the author has listened to public statements and 

talked with delegates from lesser developed countries who have railed against US “nuclear 

imperialism.” 

129 Barbara Crossette, “U.S. Pushes Treaty to Ban Nuclear Tests,” New York Times, 22 January 1996, p. 

5. 

130 Some states might be considered “virtual” nuclear weapon state by the fact that they have the fissile 

materials, technology, and infrastructure to relatively quickly develop nuclear weapons. Japan and 

Germany are the two most obvious examples. Concerns over Japan’s fissile material stockpile and 

reaction to a nuclear-armed North Korea in the face of a diminishing nuclear security umbrella from the 

US has heightened fears that Japan could “go nuclear.” See Selig S. Harrison, “A Yen for the Bomb?” 

Washington Post, 31 October 1993, p. C1; Michael Williams, “Japan Urged to Keep Potential for 

Nuclear Arms,” Wall Street Journal, 2 August 1994, p. 10. 

 
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131 Joseph A. Yager, Prospects for Nuclear Proliferation Rollback, Discussion Paper, July 6, 1992, 

Department of Energy, Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation. 

132 While there have been other cases of nuclear proliferation “roll back”; South Africa being the most 

recent example, the case of Argentina and Brazil present the best example of regional rivalry leading to 

both sides engaging in an arms race and nuclear weapons programs subsequently to be reversed by 

factors that may be relevant to other regions of proliferation concern. See Leonard Spector, Nuclear 

Ambitions (Boulder Co: Westview Press 1990 ); David Fischer, Stopping the Spread of Nuclear 

Weapons: The Past and the prospects (New York: Routledge 1992). 

133 John R. Redick, Julio C. Carasales, and Paulo S. Wrobel, “Nuclear Rapprochement: Argentina, 

Brazil, and the Nonproliferation Regime,” The Washington Quarterly (Winter 1995): 107-122. 

Argentina, Brazil and ABACC also ratified an agreement with the IAEA (Known as the Quadripartitie 

Agreement), which entered into force on March 4, 1994, for the application of fullscope IAEA 

safeguards to all nuclear materials and equipment. 

134 These factors are taken from Redick, et.al., supra. 

135 Ibid. at 118. 

136 Ibid. at 120. 

137 David Albright and Tom Zamore, “India, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: All the Pieces in Place,” 

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (June 1989): 24. 

138 David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Pakistan’s Bomb: Out of the Closet,” Bulletin of the Atomic 

Scientists, (July/August 1992), 38. See also Gregory Giles, “Safeguarding the Undeclared Nuclear 

Arsenals,” The Washington Quarterly (Spring 1993): 175. 

139 See Summit Ganguly, “South Asia After the Cold War,” The Washington Quarterly (Autumn 1992): 

174. 

140 David Fischer, supra note 138 at 205. According to unclassified estimates, India may have 

accumulated over 300 kilograms of weapons-usable fissile materials. See David Albright, Frans 

Berkhout, and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium, 1992, 

(New York: Oxford University Press 1993): 161. 

141 Albright and Hibbs, supra note 144 at 38-43. 

142 Albright and Hibbs, supra note 144 at 38; Yossef Bodansky, “Nuclear Weapons and Radical States 

Pose New Situations,” Defense & Foreign Affairs’ Strategic Policy (June 1992): 18. 

143 Albright and Hibbs, supra note 144 at 42. 

144 See e.g. Shirley A. Kan, “Chinese Missile and Nuclear Proliferation: Issues for Congress,” 

Congressional Research Service Report (7 December 1992). 

145 Giles, supra note 144 at 178. 

146 Spector, supra note 138 at 110. 

 
65

 

147 Indeed, one Pakistani official admitted to the author that Pakistan had been approached by “several 

unnamed” states with offers for financial assistance in return for a “cooperative” arrangement vis-à-vis 

nuclear weapons programs. Interview with the author, March 23, 1995. 

148 US offers of economic incentives to Pakistan are subject to two preconditions: (1) stopping 

production of HEU and weapons cores; and (2) destroying the cores already produced. This has been 

rejected by Pakistan unless India does the same. See Jeffrey Smith “Pakistan Official Affirms Capacity 

for Nuclear Device,” Washington Post, 7 February 1992, p. A18. 

149 See infra notes 175-193 and accompanying text regarding possibilities for a “cut-off” treaty. 

150 William J. Clinton, “Address to the 48th Session of the UN General Assembly,” White House Office 

of the Press Secretary, 27 September 1993. 

151 As of 14 April 1995 there are 178 states parties to the NPT. See Arms Control and Disarmament 

Fact Sheet, “Signatories and Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” (US 

ACDA Office of Public Affairs: Washington D.C.). 

152 Barbara Crossette, “U.S. Ready to Seek Worldwide Ban on Nuclear Arms Tests,” New York Times, 

15 May 1995, p. 7. The extension decision is reported in UN Document “Extension of the Treaty on the 

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” (NPT/Conf.1995/L.6, 9 May 1995). 

153 See Article II, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Other perceived deficiencies 

are that the treaty does not have any compliance or sanctions provisions, it does not preclude nuclear 

trade with non-NPT members, and it does not prohibit a NNWS from assisting another NNWS in 

acquiring fissile materials for a weapons program. 

154 Quoted in Stephen S. Rosenfeld, “How the Nuclear Haves Can Discourage Proliferation,” 

International Herald Tribune, 27 March 1995, p. 8. 

155 Joint Statement of Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin on Nonproliferation, 10 May 1995. See also the 

Joint Statement on the Transparency and Irreversibility of the Process of reducing Nuclear Weapons, 

10 May 1995 (fissile materials removed from nuclear weapons will not be used to manufacture new 

nuclear weapons, no new fissile materials for nuclear weapons will be produced and no fissile materials 

from civilian programs will be used in nuclear weapons). 

156 Interviews conducted by author of IAEA officials and Conference on Disarmament delegates, 20-25 

March 1995. 

157 For a description of the IAEA’s responsibilities see supra notes 105-120 and accompanying text. 

158 The loudest voices have often been those increasingly feeling isolated by not being part of the 

regime. For example, despite overwhelming approval by the states parties for indefinite extension, India 

continued to denounce the treaty as “perpetuating nuclear discrimination.” See Sanjoy Hazarika, “India 

Denounces Extension of Treaty to Curb Atom Arms,” New York Times, 16 May 1995, p. 8. 

159 Agreement Between the United States of America and the International Atomic Energy Agency for 

the Application of Safeguards in the United States (and Protocol Thereto), 32 U.S.T. 3059, T.I.A.S. 

9889. Signed November 18, 1977; entered into force December 9, 1980 (Provides for the application of 

IAEA safeguards to all peaceful nuclear activities in designated nuclear facilities in the United States). 

See also Agreement Between the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the 

Application of Safeguards in Connection with the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 

Latin America (US accepts full-scope safeguards for its territories in the Latin American Nuclear 

Weapons Free Zone); signed February 17, 1989; entered into force April 6, 1989; reported in 

 
66

 

Department of State, Treaties in Force, 1 January 1992, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing 

Office, 1993). 

160 See Atomic Energy Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2131-41 (licensing procedures), 2271-2284 

(enforcement). 

161 Interviews of Conference on Disarmament delegates, 24-25 March 1995. 

162 Highlights of Activities, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA Division of Public Information, 

September 1993), 54. Out of the almost $245 million budget for 1992, the IAEA spent approximately 

$70 million on safeguards activities. 

163 Ibid., 62; Arms Control and Disarmament Fact Sheet, The US Commitment to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, 1995, (Washington D.C.: US ACDA Office of Public Affairs), 15. 

164 Ibid., 13-18. 

165 See e.g. the US Atomic Energy Act, as Amended by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, 42 

U.S.C. § 2100 et. seq. 

166 Lally Weymouth, “Riches to Rogues,” Washington Post, 20 April 1995, p. A21. 

167 See infra notes 194-203 and accompanying text for a discussion of this proposal. 

168 “Remarks of Defense Secretary Les Aspin to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on 

International Security and Arms Control,” Federal News Service [Online], December 7, 1993: 

Available in LEXIS/NEXIS Library. 

169 See Wilkening and Watman, supra note 123 at 19. 

170 Interview with the author, March 21-22, 1995. 

171 Jon B. Wolfsthal, “IAEA to Implement ‘Suspect Site’ Inspection Powers,” Arms Control Today, 

(March 1992): 27. Although the IAEA Statute already authorizes such inspections (Art. XII A.6), the 

IAEA had never undertaken a special inspection. The Board action served to validate the IAEA’s 

powers and this authority was soon to be sorely tested by North Korea. 

172 “Strengthening the Effectiveness and Improving the Efficiency of the Safeguards Systems,” A Report 

by the Director General, IAEA Board of Governors, GOV/INF/759, 23 November 1994 and 

GOV/2784, 21 February 1995. These reports are detailed, comprehensive, and technical. The focus is 

on effectiveness and cost efficiency. 

173 Strengthening the Effectiveness and Improving the Efficiency of the Safeguards System: Proposals 

for a Strengthened and More Efficient Safeguards System, A Report by the Secretary General, IAEA 

Board of Governors’ Document, Gov/2807, 12 May 1995 (The Board of Governors noted the Director 

General’s plan to implement the less controversial provisions of “93+2” and deferred action on 

proposals for increased access amid complaints that intrusive inspections would unduly interfere “in a 

states’ economic and safe use of peaceful nuclear activities.” As of December 1995 the Board has still 

not acted on the proposals. 

 
67

 

174 Interview with IAEA Official, 21 March 1995. 

175 Rudney, supra note 112. 

176 David A. Kay, “Denial and Deception Practices of WMD Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond, The 

Washington Quarterly (Winter 1995): 85. 

177 UN General Assembly, 48th Session, Resolution 48/75L, adopted without a vote in December 1993. 

178 A naturally occurring, colorless, radioactive gaseous isotope of hydrogen used to enhance the effects 

of thermonuclear weapons. It is produced commercially from Lithium-6 by slow neutron bombardment 

in nuclear reactors. It also poses a radiation hazard from inhalation as particles in the lungs may be a 

long-term carcinogenic hazard. 

179 Ibid. The delay in closing the Russian reactors is due to the fact that some are dual-use; that is, they 

supply power to the local communities in addition to making plutonium. It will take time and financial 

resources the Russians do not have to develop alternative sources of energy. 

180 Statement by Russian Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, Grigori Berdennikov, 

“Setting the Context for the Cut-off Treaty,” to the Canadian Workshop on Fissile Materials, January 

17, 1995. 

181 Barbara Crossette, “China Breaks Ranks With Other Nuclear Nations on Treaty,” New York Times,

19 April 1995, p. A16. The statement did not say, however, that the UK had permanently ceased 

production. 

182 Therese Delpech, “A Convention on the Prohibition of the Production of Fissile Material: Uncertain 

Benefits for Non-Proliferation,” Research Paper No. 31, Halting the Production of Fissile Materials for 

Nuclear Weapons, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1994. 

183 The Conference on Disarmament has 35 member states and meets in almost continuous sessions to 

negotiate multilateral arms control agreements. This is the forum that is currently negotiating the 

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and successfully concluded in 1992 negotiations on the Chemical 

Weapons Convention. In addition to these negotiations, it also has committees on negative security 

assurances and radiological weapons (non-nuclear explosive devices containing radioactive materials). 

184 Vilmos Cserveny, “An IAEA Secretariat Working Paper on Different Alternatives for the 

Verification of a fissile Material Production Cut-off Treaty and Preliminary Cost Estimates Required for 

the Verification of these Alternatives,” Paper presented at the Canadian Workshop on a Cut-Off Treaty, 

Toronto, Canada, 17-18 January 1995. 

185 Interview of IAEA Deputy Director, Department of Safeguards, March 21, 1995. 

186 The German ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament has proposed putting all fissile material, 

civilian as well as military, under safeguards, and including undeclared stocks of the threshold states in 

the cut-off negotiations. Ambassador Wolfgang Hoffman, “Basic Obligations and Scope of the Cut-Off 

Convention,” Paper presented at the Canadian Workshop on Fissile Material Production Cut-Off, 

Toronto, January 17-18, 1995. Canadian officials have also raised concerns about any cut-off regime 

that would legitimize existing stockpiles in threshold states. Delpech, supra note 165. 

187 Interview First Secretary of Pakistani delegation to the Conference on Disarmament, March 24, 1995. 

188 Interview Indian delegate to the Conference on Disarmament, March 24, 1995. 

 
68

 

189 Given the priority of negotiating a CTBT in the Conference of Disarmament before April 1996 it is 

unlikely that there will be any meetings on substance until the Fall 1o 1996 at the earliest. 

190 Interview Pakistani delegate to the Conference on Disarmament, March 24, 1995. 

191 Although Israel is not yet a member of the Conference on Disarmament it has applied for 

membership and has observer status. When the author interviewed Israeli representatives on this matter 

in March 1995, the response was that the Israeli Government was still formulating its position and they 

were unwilling to speculate on the outcome. 

192 White House Fact Sheet On Non-Proliferation and Export Control Policy, Office of the Press 

Secretary, September 27, 1993. 

193 White House Fact Sheet on Excess Fissile Material, Office of the Press Secretary, March 3, 1995; 

Douglas Jehl, “Clinton Pledges to Reduce U.S. Nuclear Stockpiles by 200 tons,” New York Times, 2

March 1995, p. A6. Approximately 50 tons of HEU will be transferred to the US Enrichment 

Corporation, and some of the rest of the material will be considered for IAEA safeguards taking into 

account the need to protect sensitive information and other requirements. 

194 Ibid. The exact amount of material in the current US stockpile remains classified. 

195 Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin, Joint Statement on the Transparency and Irreversibility of the 

Process of Reducing Weapons, 10 May 1995. 

196 Jon Brook Wolfsthal, “Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones: Coming of Age? Arms Control Today (March 

1993): 3 (Explains and details criteria which the US has traditionally used to judge acceptance of 

proposed NWFZs). 

197 22 U.S.T. 762; TIAS 7137; 634 UN Treaty Series 281; entered into force April 22, 1969. The treaty 

is often referred as the Treaty of Tlatelolco. 

198 Additional Protocol I; 33 U.S.T. 1792; TIAS 10147; 634 UN Treaty Series 362; ratified on 

November 19, 1981. 

199 Additional Protocol II; 22 U.S.T. 754; TIAS 7137; 634 UN Treaty Series 364; ratified on May 8, 

1971. See the discussion, infra notes 198-99 for an explanation of negative security assurances. 

200 24 International Legal Materials 1440 (1986) (entered into force 11 December 1985). Protocols 2 

and 3 were ratified by China and the U.S.S.R. in 1988. 

201 Two other treaties prohibit nuclear weapons within their zone of application: The Antarctic Treaty 

and the Seabed Arms Control Treaty. The Antarctic Treaty, banning nuclear weapons on the Antarctic 

Continent, entered into force on June 23, 1961; 12 U.S.T. 794; TIAS 4780; 402 UN Treaty Series 71. 

The Seabed Arms Control Treaty, banning nuclear weapons on or under the seabed and the ocean floor, 

entered into force May 18, 1972; 23 U.S.T. 701; TIAS 7337; 955 UN Treaty Series 115. 

202 See e.g. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3472 B (XXX) [30th Session] of December 11, 1975. 

203 See e.g. “Voting Chart of Conference on Disarmament members on Disarmament Resolutions,” 

Disarmament Times, 20 December 1994, pp. 2-3. The US, however, has resisted ratifying the Treaty of 

Rarotonga’s protocols applicable to it principally because of its unwillingness to damage relations with 

France over its nuclear tests in the zone.203 In view of France’s apparent willingness to negotiate a 

comprehensive test ban and its statement in January 1993 that it will not test until the US or Russia 

resumes testing, the United States should reconsider its position. Given the attenuated security concerns 

in the region, the end of the Cold War confrontation and the immediate proliferation concerns the US 

 
69

 

would send a strong signal of commitment to regional nonproliferation and perhaps provide the impetus 

to advancing its non-proliferation goals in other regions. 

204 White House press Release, May 29, 1991. For a recent analysis of prospects for a NWFZ in the 

Middle East, see UN General Assembly, 45th Session, Establishment of a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone 

in the Region of the Middle East, 10 October 1990. 

205 That agreement, in addition to banning nuclear weapons, prohibits either side from possessing 

uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities. See Joint Declaration of South and North 

Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula; signed at Seoul and Pyongyang on 20 January 

1992, entered into force on 19 February 1992; reprinted in Harald Muller, David Fischer and Wolfgang 

Kotter, Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Global Order (New York: Oxford University Press 1994): 236. 

206 William J. Clinton, “Address to the 48th Session of the UN General Assembly,” White House Office 

of the Press Secretary, September 27, 1993, p. 6. 

207 “In the ninth century the King of France imposed the death sentence on anyone who sold a sword to a 

Viking. This did not prevent the Vikings from taking Normandy or, even worse, their children from 

conquering England.” David Fischer, “The London Club and the Zangger Committee: How 

Effective?” in Kathleen Bailey and Robert Rudney (eds.), Proliferation and Export Controls (Lanham, 

MD: University Press of America, 1993): 39. 

208 For a detailed explanation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group see Tadeusz Strulak, “The Nuclear 

Suppliers Group,” Non-Proliferation Review (Monterey Institute of International Studies, Fall 1993): 1. 

209 See Theresa Hitchens and Brooks Tigner, “Arms Control Formum May Lack CoCom’s Punch,” 

Defense News, December 18-24, 1995, p. 4. The scope of this paper is necessarily limited to the 

problem of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons-grade materials. While export controls 

traditionally included such materials the primary focus has been on dual-use technology, equipment, 

services and information. For proposals and recommendations for enhancing controls in this area see 

“Beyond COCOM: A Comparative Study of Export Controls: Germany, United Kingdom, France, 

Italy and Japan and the European Union Export Control Regulation,” Task Force on Nonproliferation of 

Weapons of Mass Destruction of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and 

National Security (September 1994). 

210 Established in 1975 (after the Indian nuclear test), the NSG is the outcome of an informal agreement 

to restrict the trade in nuclear materials and technology. 

211 See IAEA Document INFCIRC/254/Rev.1/Part 2, July 1992. A partial copy of this document is 

reprinted in Muller, Fischer and Kotter, supra note 203 at 236. 

212 See IAEA Document INFCIR/254/Rev.1/ Part 1, July 1992, and INFCIRC/254/Rev. 1/Part 1/Mod. 

1, July 1993. The NSG guidelines are reproduced in Muller, Fischer and Kotter, supra note 188 at 238 

and in Joseph Goldblat, Twenty Years of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: Implementation and Prospects, 

(Oslo: Peace Research Institute Oslo, 1990): 123-131. 

 
70

 

213 The author is indebted to Mr. Burrus Carnahan of the Science Applications International Corporation 

for this proposal. 

214 Harald Muller, “Europe’s Leaky Borders,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (June 1993): 27. 

215 “Studies Fault U.S. Controls Over ‘Dual-Use’ exports,” Arms Control Today (July/August 1994): 21. 

216 Burrus M. Carnahan and Jacqueline R. Smith, “A Treaty to Ban Nuclear Smuggling: the Next Step in 

Nuclear Material Control?” Arms Control Today, (October 1994): 14-17. 

217 See e.g. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft (Hijacking), 22 U.S.T. 

1641; TIAS 7192; entered into force October 14, 1971. 

218 Quoted in Ralph E. Lapp, “The Einstein Letter that Started it all,” New York Times Magazine, 2 

August 1964, p. 13. 

219 As noted at the beginning of this paper, the enforcement of non-proliferation norms and US 

counterproliferation efforts is not addressed, although its importance and utility as part of nonproliferation strategies is recognized and accepted.