When experts discuss the prospects of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), they naturally focus on impending events. Will nonaligned nations tie their continued adherence to reaching a comprehensive test ban? Will North Korea, Algeria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, and Iran live up to their NPT obligations? Will some follow through on their threats to withdraw from the treaty? Is China, which is building more nuclear weapons and refused to agree to limit them, in violation of the treaty’s demand that nuclear weapons states limit their nuclear arms? Will the NPT’s inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), strengthen its inspection procedures? Can certain nuclear materials and activities ever be reliably inspected to detect and prevent their military diversion? The answers to these questions will determine not only the future of the NPT but the prospects for nuclear restraint.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published a piece by Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski that argues that after the interim agreement, which allows Iran to enrich to 5%, the U.S. will find it much more difficult to gain “gold standard” civilian nuclear agreements that require...
The traditional justification for accepting nuclear power activities around the world, despite their obvious technological overlap with military ones, is that they are covered by agreements restricting them to “peaceful uses,” and that any violations of these agreements would be detected in time by international...
In 1977, the U.S. declassified the fact that in 1962 it had successfully tested a nuclear weapon using reactor-grade plutonium. In 1994 additional information about this test was released. Though on the face of it this test would seem to definitively settle the issue about whether reactor-grade...
NPEC signed a letter with other notables to President Obama expressing concern that the U.S. will not pursue the “Gold Standard” in negotiations for civil nuclear cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Jordan, Vietnam, and other non-nuclear-weapon states. The letter urges President Obama to require the...
Two weeks ago, word leaked out that the Obama Administration was putting the finishing touches on a U.S. civilian nuclear cooperative agreement with Taiwan that required it to forswear making nuclear fuel, a process that can bring states to the very brink of making nuclear...
As speculation rises about if and when Israel might strike Iran’s nuclear program, it’s worth considering how Iran got to where it is now with its program. Iran started in earnest with its nuclear efforts by initiating a nuclear power reactor construction program at Bushehr....
NPEC recently commissioned a study, “How Well Will the IAEA Be Able to Safeguard More Nuclear Materials in More States?” by Patrick Roberts of Virginia Tech to examine the assumption that if the IAEA has proper access, it should be able to safeguard against diversions. Dr....
Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, presented this paper at a conference, “Reassessing the Assumptions Driving Our Current Nuclear Nonproliferation Policies,” hosted by NPEC on May 21, 2012. May 23, 2012 AUTHOR: Olli Heinonen IAEA Inspections...
François Heisbourg, chairman of IISS, presented a preliminary version of this paper at a conference, “Reassessing Nuclear Nonproliferation’s Key Premises,” cohosted by NPEC and the Legatum Institute in London, Great Britain, November 3-4, 2011. Apr 04, 2012 AUTHOR: François Heisbourg Nuclear Proliferation – Looking Back...
The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and the Foreign Policy Initiative worked together on a letter to the President asking him to reconsider his decision to abandon the “Gold Standard” in favor of a case-by-case review. The Gold Standard requires non-nuclear weapons states to forgo uranium enrichment as...
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