Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - US and nuclear issues

Expanded and Accelerated HEU Downblending: Designing Options to Serve the Interests of All Parties

Matthew Bunn — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:23:27 -0500

Accelerating and expanding the downblending of highly enriched uranium (HEU) beyond the current 500-ton U.S.-Russian HEU Purchase Agreement would have significant security benefits. Russia will still have large quantities of HEU not needed for military purposes after 500 tons of HEU has been blended to low-enriched uranium (LEU). But no agreement to expand and accelerate the downblending of Russian or U.S. excess HEU will succeed unless it is structured in a way that serves the interests of all sides. Russia has made clear that it has no interest in extending the HEU Purchase Agreement on its current terms. This paper outlines key Russian, U.S., and industry interests relating to expanded and accelerated HEU downblending.

Why U.S. Could Lose Out on India Nuclear Trade

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:00:31 -0500

Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent, was interviewed by Brajesh Upadhyay for BBC News on July 11 regarding the implications of the U.S.-India nuclear deal for international trade.

The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn’t: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s—A Research Note

Pavel Podvig — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:12:31 -0500

The Soviet strategic modernization program of the 1970s was one of the most consequential developments of the Cold War. Deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the dramatic increase in the number of strategic warheads in the Soviet arsenal created a sense of vulnerability in the United States that was, to a large degree, responsible for the U.S. military buildup of the late 1970s and early 1980s and the escalation of Cold War tensions during that period. U.S. assessments concluded that the Soviet Union was seeking to achieve a capability to fight and win a nuclear war. Estimates of missile accu¬racy and silo hardness provided by the U.S. intelligence community led many in the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union was building a strategic missile force capable of destroying most U.S. missiles in a counterforce strike and of surviving a subsequent nuclear exchange. Soviet archival documents that have recently become available demonstrate that this conclusion was wrong. The U.S. estimates substantially overestimated the accuracy of the Soviet Union's missiles and the degree of silo reinforcement. As the data demonstrate, the Soviet missile force did not have the capability to launch a successful first strike. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that the Soviet Union never attempted to acquire a first-strike capability, concentrating instead on strategies based on retaliation.

Divining Nuclear Intentions: A Review Essay

William C. Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:31:18 -0500

Although projections of nuclear proliferation abound, they rarely are founded on empirical research or guided by theory. Even fewer studies are informed by a comparative perspective. The two books under review—The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, by Jacques Hymans, and Nuclear Logics: Alternative Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen, are welcome exceptions to this general state of affairs, and represent the cutting edge of nonproliferation research. Both works challenge conventional conceptions of the sources of nuclear weapons decisions and offer new insights into why past predictions of rapid proliferation failed to materialize and why current prognoses about rampant proliferation are similarly flawed. While sharing a number of common features, including a focus on subsystemic determinants of national behavior, the books differ in their methodology, level of analysis, receptivity to multicausal explanations, and assumptions about decisionmaker rationality and the revolutionary nature of the decision. Where one author emphasizes the importance of the individual leader’s national identity conception in determining a state’s nuclear path, the other explains nuclear decisions primarily with regard to the political-economic orientation of the ruling coalition. Notwithstanding a tendency to overinterpret evidence, the books represent the best of contemporary social science research and provide compelling interpretations of nuclear proliferation dynamics of great relevance to scholars and policymakers alike.

Safety, Security, Safeguards: Enabling Nuclear Energy Growth

Matthew Bunn — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:36:35 -0500

Matthew Bunn presented "Safety, Security, Safeguards: Enabling Nuclear Energy Growth" to the Global Nuclear Future Workshop at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Cambridge, Mass.

Next Steps to Strengthen the National Nuclear Security Administration's Efforts To Prevent Nuclear Proliferation

Matthew Bunn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:28:39 -0500

Matthew Bunn testified to the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations, United States Senate about critical issues for U.S. and world security — nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and what more the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) can do to prevent them.

Actions Now for the Day After: Findings of the Preventive Defense Day After Project

Dr. Ashton B. Carter — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:56:55 -0500

PDP Co-Director Ashton B. Carter testifies before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

PDP Co-Director Carter testifies before Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:17:09 -0500

PDP Co-Director Dr. Ashton B. Carter testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at its hearing on "Nuclear Terrorism: Confronting the Challenges of the Day After."

The Risk Of Nuclear Terrorism — And Next Steps To Reduce The Danger

Matthew Bunn — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:20:43 -0500

Dr. Bunn’s testimony to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the United States Senate urges a global campaign to ensure that every nuclear weapon and every cache of potential nuclear bomb material worldwide is secured against the kinds of threats terrorists and criminals have demonstrated they can pose. Bunn highlights the good and bad news about the risk of nuclear terrorism, and assesses the probability of a nuclear terrorist attack. Bunn then proposes several steps to reduce the risk of a nuclear terrorist attack

Review Panel on Future Directions for Defense Threat Reduction Agency Missions and Capabilities to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction

Dr. Ashton B. Carter and The Honorable Robert G. Joseph — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:52:37 -0500

PDP Co-Director Ashton B. Carter and the Honorable Robert G. Joseph co-chaired a Review Panel on Future Directions for DTRA Missions and Capabilities to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Expanding Nuclear Energy, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism

Matthew Bunn — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:28:03 -0500

March 13, 2008

Matthew Bunn presented "Expanding Nuclear Energy, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism" to the Energy & Security Search Seminar on March 13, 2008.

New Iran IAEA Report: Reading Between the Lines

Graham Allison — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:08:14 -0600

February 28, 2008

With the International Atomic Energy Agency scheduled to release its much-anticipated report on Iran within the next few days, Graham Allison offers his insight and analysis — as well as questions that remain unanswered.

New Iran IAEA Report: Be Cautious

Joshua Gleis — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:48:32 -0600

One should not expect much benefit to come out of the impending IAEA report discussing Iranian nuclear activity, Joshua Gleis writes.

Following START: Risk Acceptance and the 1991-92 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives

Matthew Fuhrmann and Bryan Early — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:58:46 -0600

The article explains why in September 1991, shortly after the attempted putsch against Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush launched the unilateral Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs). The PNIs were measures that led to the largest reductions in the American and Soviet/Russian nuclear arsenals to date The article argues that an explanation rooted in prospect theory and a focus on Bush as an individual decision-maker offers the most explanatory power.

Exchanging Rhetoric for Reason with Iran

Jason Notte and Martin B. Malin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0600

According to Martin B. Malin, executive director of the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the National Intelligence Estimate's not-so-shocking revelation may give the United States and its European allies greater latitude in their discussions with the Iranian government.

Matthew Bunn Wins 2007 Hans Bethe Award

Matthew Bunn — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Matthew Bunn was awarded the Hans Bethe Award for science in service of a more secure world from the Federation of American Scientists, on December 3, 2007 in Washington D.C.

Offshore Balancing or International Institutions? The Way Forward for U.S. Foreign Policy

G. John Ikenberry and Stephen M. Walt — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600

G. John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, participated in a debate at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University on May 8, 2007. Christopher Lydon hosted the debate.

Global Fissile Materials Report 2007

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Over the past six decades, our understanding of the nuclear danger has expanded from the threat posed by the vast nuclear arsenals created by the superpowers in the Cold War to encompass the proliferation
of nuclear weapons to additional states and now also to terrorist groups. To reduce this danger, it is essential to secure and to sharply reduce all stocks of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium, the key materials in nuclear weapons, and to limit any further production.

The mission of the IPFM is to advance the technical basis for cooperative international policy initiatives to achieve these goals.

Disposition of Excess Highly Enriched Uranium

Matthew Bunn and Anatoli Diakov — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500

This chapter describes the progress of the Russian and U.S. HEU disposition programs and how they could be expanded and accelerated. It also provides a brief update on the progress of the international programs to clean out and dispose of civilian HEU. The quantities of HEU involved are much smaller than those in the weapons programs but civilian sites are typically much less secure than military ones. Cleaning them out may therefore contribute more to reducing the overall danger of nuclear theft.

Disposition of Excess Plutonium

Matthew Bunn and Anatoli Diakov — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500

This chapter describes disposition options and assesses the Russian and U.S. programs. The discussion is also relevant to the problem of disposing of the world's growing stocks of separated civil plutonium —especially in the United Kingdom, which currently has no disposition plan.

Bombs We Can Stop

Matthew Bunn — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500

"William Langewiesche has the reputation of being one of America's best investigative reporters. Unfortunately, he has written a very bad book on nuclear proliferation." Matthew Bunn reviews The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor, by William Langewiesche.

Securing the Bomb 2007

Matthew Bunn — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Managing the Atom Senior Research Associate Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of efforts to secure and remove vulnerable nuclear stockpiles around the world, and a detailed action plan for reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. Securing the Bomb 2007 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available on the NTI website.

Tend to Turkey

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall's article in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City

Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Dr. William J. Perry and Dr. Michael M. May — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Failure to develop a comprehensive contingency plan, such as the one proposed here, and inform the American public, where appropriate, about its particulars will only serve to amplify the devastating impact of any nuclear attack on a U.S. city

Growing Links for US and India

Xenia Dormandy — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0500

July 19, 2007

As the centerpiece of the transformed relationship, there is enormous political will to complete the deal, but the devil is in the details.

The Lobster Summit

Graham Allison — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0500

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush's decision to award President Vladimir Putin the unique distinction of a weekend in Kennebunkport with two American presidents flummoxed supporters and critics alike. Over the past year, no international leader has been more critical of the president than his Russian guest.

Fast Action Needed to Avert Nuclear Terror Strike on U.S.

Graham Allison — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Before 9/11, most Americans found the idea that international terrorists could mount an attack on their homeland and kill thousands of innocent citizens not merely unlikely but inconceivable. After nearly six years without a second attack on U.S. soil, some skeptics suggest that 9/11 was a 100-year flood. The view that terrorists are preparing even more deadly assaults seems as far-fetched to them as the possibility of terrorists crashing passenger jets into the World Trade Center did before that fateful Tuesday morning in 2001. And yet the danger of a nuclear attack by terrorists is not only very real but disturbingly likely.

No Loose Nukes: Preventing a Terrorist Nuclear Attack on the U.S.

Graham Allison — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Before 9/11 most Americans found the idea that international terrorists could mount an attack on their homeland and kill thousands of innocent citizens not just unlikely but inconceivable.

After the Bomb

Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Dr. William J. Perry and Dr. Michael M. May — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0500

June 12, 2007

Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry, and Michael May call on the United States government to formulate contingency plans that may save thousands of lives and billions of dollars, prevent panic and promote recovery should a nuclear weapon go off in an American city.

The Day After: Action in the 24 Hours Following a Nuclear Blast in an American City

Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Dr. William J. Perry and Dr. Michael M. May — Thu, 31 May 2007 00:00:00 -0500

May 31, 2007

The Preventive Defense Project convened a workshop of leading federal government civilian and military officials, scientists, policy experts, and journalists in Washington, D.C. to address "The Day After: Action in the 24 Hours Following a Nuclear Blast in an American City."