The nuclear club: Old weapons die hard as new ones are born 
By OLLI HEINONEN • 8/3/15 12:01 AM
Two flashes, one in Hiroshima and the other in Nagasaki, extinguished the lives of 200,000 people, made equally large by the amount of suffering resulting from the consequences that the blast and radiation generated. This was also the start of the nuclear armament race, first between the United States and the then-Soviet Union, soon followed by the United Kingdom, France and China.
The two Cold War adversaries and environment the Cold War generated held the nuclear aspirations of the allies at bay. The warning by President Kennedy of a nightmare scenario of several dozen states gaining nuclear weapons in the coming age unless steps were taken did not materialize. Security guarantees by the U.S. and Soviet Union to their allies, access to peaceful nuclear technology and the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968 were medicines to curb nuclear proliferation.
The treaty entered into force in 1970, assigning the verification task to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since then, IAEA safeguards have played a pivotal role in providing assurances that states live up to their treaty commitments. Today, the treaty and the IAEA continue to remain as foundations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and preventing proliferation. Yet since the treaty and international safeguards were imposed, it has been far from a static story.
The first shock to the nuclear non-proliferation regime came with the 1974 nuclear test by India. As it turned out, India did not use its safeguarded facilities for its nuclear weapons program, but bells were already ringing among the technology providers to put additional constraints on nuclear trade. This did not stop India’s march toward acquiring nuclear weapons, drawing Pakistan in the late 1970s to a regional race that culminated in the 1998 tests by both countries.
Today, both nations are forging ahead and diversifying their nuclear assets by developing second-strike capabilities with their submarine-launched missile programs. Later, history showed that South Africa and Pakistan did not circumvent IAEA safeguards at declared facilities to divert nuclear materials, but built parallel nuclear programs for military purposes to avoid any problems with the IAEA safeguards.
Over the years, various multilateral regimes have been put in place and other existing institutions strengthened to allow for peaceful nuclear use with a guard against proliferation concerns. Still, even with an uptick of control measures and agreements adopted, the world evolved in such a way that continues to tug against the tide to curb proliferation, from the circumvention of nuclear export controls to the rise of clandestine nuclear networks and selling of nuclear know-how on the black market. And within regimes that seek to constrain proliferation, exceptions have been made.
Charged with ensuring that nuclear energy is used for only peaceful purposes, the IAEA also evolved due to a number of events. In 1991, Iraq was discovered to have a clandestine nuclear program, where much of the work had taken place at undeclared facilities using undeclared nuclear material. This, together with proliferation in North Korea and South Africa, led to a substantive overhaul of the IAEA safeguards verification system.
The IAEA’s focus began to shift from nuclear material accounting and verifying a state’s declared nuclear declarations toward providing assurances that all nuclear material in a state had, indeed, been submitted to IAEA safeguards. In other words, this came to include the agency’s ability to provide credible assurances that the declarations of a state were correct and complete with regard to the inventories of nuclear material and facilities declared.
In addition, to boost inspection authorities, the IAEA developed additional protocol in 1997, which provides additional access to information including sites and locations not using nuclear material.
Under the new environment to promote a more rigorous safeguards approach and getting states to sign on to the additional protocol, the IAEA faced its next challenge in 2002 with the revelation of Iran’s clandestine enrichment program, and a year later, with Libya’s enrichment program. As with the case of Iraq, these countries had mainly taken advantage of processing undeclared nuclear materials at unreported locations.
The new element here was the extensive use of clandestine nuclear markets to obtain enrichment technology and equipment. Information that emerged on Iran’s covert nuclear program, however, was not entirely bolts out of the blue. There had been a number of indications on possible unreported activities in Iran, which the IAEA had tried to address through attempted “transparency” visits, but ultimately did not dig deep enough into the matter.
On July 14 this year, Iran and six world powers concluded a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is planned to contain Iran’s current nuclear program with specific provisions put in place that trade sanctions relief with a reduction in Iran’s centrifuges and stockpiles that puts it at least a year away from possessing fissile material for one nuclear bomb. The plan also includes, inter alia, IAEA’s investigations into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, and verification to ensure that Iran has submitted all nuclear materials and activities under the IAEA safeguards.
The fundamental aspect of this containment is a rigorous verification system with enforcement actions such as snapping back sanctions if Iran is found in non-compliance with its undertakings. Because of the history of distrust in Iran-U.S. relations, Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and its nuclear non-compliance, the nuclear deal with Iran has generated a wide range of views on the plan’s provisions from American legislators and the American public. The agreement has several milestones, which are meant to give time for diplomacy to work further with the hope that Iran will change its nuclear and political course, particularly during the next 15 years.
Still, the nuclear safeguards system was not yet done, with surprises after Iran’s nuclear transgressions were brought before the international community over a decade ago. In 2007, the destruction of a graphite moderate reactor under construction at Al Kibar in Syria revealed the reactor’s existence that was not on the IAEA’s radar. Both in Iran and Syria, the IAEA faced — unlike in the Libyan case — denial, deception and obstruction, which has lead to the situation where the IAEA has not been able to confirm that all nuclear material has been submitted to the IAEA safeguards.
The IAEA has also not been able to obtain satisfactory clarifications regarding its concerns on possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran, in particular, followed the example of North Korea by instead furthering its nuclear capabilities and ignoring the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions.
Nuclear disarmament
The non-proliferation treaty divided countries into nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states. By foregoing nuclear weapons, the non-nuke states assured that they have the inalienable right to all aspects of peaceful nuclear energy and support to that end. At the rosy dawn of the nuclear age, this was a promising bargain, which led quickly to necessary ratifications of the treaty that entered into force in 1972.
Many non-nuclear states feel that the nuclear states had not upheld their end of their bargain. There are several reasons for that. Five nuclear states recognized by the non-proliferation treaty and four other states (India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea) with nuclear weapons see that weapons are a fundamental pillar of their security arrangements. During this decade, the number of nuclear warheads in Pakistan and India will exceed stocks of those in the U.K. and France.
There have been other attempts to curb the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, which has been resisted by India and Pakistan, which are still building and diversifying their nuclear assets. This has stalled negotiations in the Disarmament Conference on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty that requires consensus on the work plan of the conference. Still, the five nuclear states have declared a moratorium in fissile material production.
But as a legacy from the Cold War, they all still have substantial inventories of weapons-grade materials. It has turned out that the dismantling of nuclear stocks is expensive and time-consuming. While uranium can be burned fairly easily in power reactors, manufacturing of plutonium fuel is much more costly and economically unattractive, leading to soaring costs and looking for alternative ways to dispose plutonium, which is likely equally costly.
What does the nuclear non-proliferation future look like in a changing world?
The nuclear technology acquisitions by Syria, Libya, North Korea and Iran have demonstrated that one can achieve nuclear weapons capability with low technology enrichment or reactors. It also shows that proliferation today can be understood not as the capacity to amass a huge nuclear arsenal, but at the very least seeking to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities or towards amassing a small number of nuclear weapons.
These pose policy challenges as well as other additional challenges to the export control regime
. From the safeguards angle, for the IAEA to keep ahead of the game, it has to further develop its safeguards analytical culture and rely increasingly on information derived from additional open sources, satellite imagery and novel technologies to carry out better verification.
Nuclear disarmament is facing tremendous challenges. While the U.S. and Russia appear more willing to move ahead, the U.K. and France want to keep their stocks at current levels, when the rest of nuclear weapon-owning states, perhaps with the exception of Israel, are continuing to diversify and increase their nuclear assets. As for the four nuclear weapons late-comers to the game — Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — dynamics in the region and security concerns appear to have hardened resolve to hold on to and, in most cases, increase their inventory.
The old nuclear weapons states need to proceed in years to come with their nuclear weapon modernization programs to keep them safe, which will draw additional criticism from those who see that the weapons should instead be entirely eliminated.
North Korea and Iran have brought to the table again the question of nuclear threshold states, where a state by having reprocessing or enrichment capacity can break out in a short period of time and manufacture nuclear weapons. With much of the technologies being open and available, dual-use equipment and raw materials traded for other purposes achieving this threshold capacity is lower than ever since the 1960s. It appears that in coming decades, with regional tensions remaining, we are going to live in a world where nuclear weapon stocks increase and threshold states are born in less stable regions.
By OLLI HEINONEN • 8/3/15 12:01 AM
Two flashes, one in Hiroshima and the other in Nagasaki, extinguished the lives of 200,000 people, made equally large by the amount of suffering resulting from the consequences that the blast and radiation generated. This was also the start of the nuclear armament race, first between the United States and the then-Soviet Union, soon followed by the United Kingdom, France and China.
The two Cold War adversaries and environment the Cold War generated held the nuclear aspirations of the allies at bay. The warning by President Kennedy of a nightmare scenario of several dozen states gaining nuclear weapons in the coming age unless steps were taken did not materialize. Security guarantees by the U.S. and Soviet Union to their allies, access to peaceful nuclear technology and the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968 were medicines to curb nuclear proliferation.
The treaty entered into force in 1970, assigning the verification task to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since then, IAEA safeguards have played a pivotal role in providing assurances that states live up to their treaty commitments. Today, the treaty and the IAEA continue to remain as foundations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and preventing proliferation. Yet since the treaty and international safeguards were imposed, it has been far from a static story.
The first shock to the nuclear non-proliferation regime came with the 1974 nuclear test by India. As it turned out, India did not use its safeguarded facilities for its nuclear weapons program, but bells were already ringing among the technology providers to put additional constraints on nuclear trade. This did not stop India’s march toward acquiring nuclear weapons, drawing Pakistan in the late 1970s to a regional race that culminated in the 1998 tests by both countries.
Today, both nations are forging ahead and diversifying their nuclear assets by developing second-strike capabilities with their submarine-launched missile programs. Later, history showed that South Africa and Pakistan did not circumvent IAEA safeguards at declared facilities to divert nuclear materials, but built parallel nuclear programs for military purposes to avoid any problems with the IAEA safeguards.
Over the years, various multilateral regimes have been put in place and other existing institutions strengthened to allow for peaceful nuclear use with a guard against proliferation concerns. Still, even with an uptick of control measures and agreements adopted, the world evolved in such a way that continues to tug against the tide to curb proliferation, from the circumvention of nuclear export controls to the rise of clandestine nuclear networks and selling of nuclear know-how on the black market. And within regimes that seek to constrain proliferation, exceptions have been made.
Charged with ensuring that nuclear energy is used for only peaceful purposes, the IAEA also evolved due to a number of events. In 1991, Iraq was discovered to have a clandestine nuclear program, where much of the work had taken place at undeclared facilities using undeclared nuclear material. This, together with proliferation in North Korea and South Africa, led to a substantive overhaul of the IAEA safeguards verification system.
The IAEA’s focus began to shift from nuclear material accounting and verifying a state’s declared nuclear declarations toward providing assurances that all nuclear material in a state had, indeed, been submitted to IAEA safeguards. In other words, this came to include the agency’s ability to provide credible assurances that the declarations of a state were correct and complete with regard to the inventories of nuclear material and facilities declared.
In addition, to boost inspection authorities, the IAEA developed additional protocol in 1997, which provides additional access to information including sites and locations not using nuclear material.
Under the new environment to promote a more rigorous safeguards approach and getting states to sign on to the additional protocol, the IAEA faced its next challenge in 2002 with the revelation of Iran’s clandestine enrichment program, and a year later, with Libya’s enrichment program. As with the case of Iraq, these countries had mainly taken advantage of processing undeclared nuclear materials at unreported locations.
The new element here was the extensive use of clandestine nuclear markets to obtain enrichment technology and equipment. Information that emerged on Iran’s covert nuclear program, however, was not entirely bolts out of the blue. There had been a number of indications on possible unreported activities in Iran, which the IAEA had tried to address through attempted “transparency” visits, but ultimately did not dig deep enough into the matter.
On July 14 this year, Iran and six world powers concluded a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is planned to contain Iran’s current nuclear program with specific provisions put in place that trade sanctions relief with a reduction in Iran’s centrifuges and stockpiles that puts it at least a year away from possessing fissile material for one nuclear bomb. The plan also includes, inter alia, IAEA’s investigations into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program, and verification to ensure that Iran has submitted all nuclear materials and activities under the IAEA safeguards.
The fundamental aspect of this containment is a rigorous verification system with enforcement actions such as snapping back sanctions if Iran is found in non-compliance with its undertakings. Because of the history of distrust in Iran-U.S. relations, Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and its nuclear non-compliance, the nuclear deal with Iran has generated a wide range of views on the plan’s provisions from American legislators and the American public. The agreement has several milestones, which are meant to give time for diplomacy to work further with the hope that Iran will change its nuclear and political course, particularly during the next 15 years.
Still, the nuclear safeguards system was not yet done, with surprises after Iran’s nuclear transgressions were brought before the international community over a decade ago. In 2007, the destruction of a graphite moderate reactor under construction at Al Kibar in Syria revealed the reactor’s existence that was not on the IAEA’s radar. Both in Iran and Syria, the IAEA faced — unlike in the Libyan case — denial, deception and obstruction, which has lead to the situation where the IAEA has not been able to confirm that all nuclear material has been submitted to the IAEA safeguards.
The IAEA has also not been able to obtain satisfactory clarifications regarding its concerns on possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran, in particular, followed the example of North Korea by instead furthering its nuclear capabilities and ignoring the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions.
Nuclear disarmament
The non-proliferation treaty divided countries into nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states. By foregoing nuclear weapons, the non-nuke states assured that they have the inalienable right to all aspects of peaceful nuclear energy and support to that end. At the rosy dawn of the nuclear age, this was a promising bargain, which led quickly to necessary ratifications of the treaty that entered into force in 1972.
Many non-nuclear states feel that the nuclear states had not upheld their end of their bargain. There are several reasons for that. Five nuclear states recognized by the non-proliferation treaty and four other states (India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea) with nuclear weapons see that weapons are a fundamental pillar of their security arrangements. During this decade, the number of nuclear warheads in Pakistan and India will exceed stocks of those in the U.K. and France.
There have been other attempts to curb the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, which has been resisted by India and Pakistan, which are still building and diversifying their nuclear assets. This has stalled negotiations in the Disarmament Conference on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty that requires consensus on the work plan of the conference. Still, the five nuclear states have declared a moratorium in fissile material production.
But as a legacy from the Cold War, they all still have substantial inventories of weapons-grade materials. It has turned out that the dismantling of nuclear stocks is expensive and time-consuming. While uranium can be burned fairly easily in power reactors, manufacturing of plutonium fuel is much more costly and economically unattractive, leading to soaring costs and looking for alternative ways to dispose plutonium, which is likely equally costly.
What does the nuclear non-proliferation future look like in a changing world?
The nuclear technology acquisitions by Syria, Libya, North Korea and Iran have demonstrated that one can achieve nuclear weapons capability with low technology enrichment or reactors. It also shows that proliferation today can be understood not as the capacity to amass a huge nuclear arsenal, but at the very least seeking to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities or towards amassing a small number of nuclear weapons.
These pose policy challenges as well as other additional challenges to the export control regime
. From the safeguards angle, for the IAEA to keep ahead of the game, it has to further develop its safeguards analytical culture and rely increasingly on information derived from additional open sources, satellite imagery and novel technologies to carry out better verification.
Nuclear disarmament is facing tremendous challenges. While the U.S. and Russia appear more willing to move ahead, the U.K. and France want to keep their stocks at current levels, when the rest of nuclear weapon-owning states, perhaps with the exception of Israel, are continuing to diversify and increase their nuclear assets. As for the four nuclear weapons late-comers to the game — Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea — dynamics in the region and security concerns appear to have hardened resolve to hold on to and, in most cases, increase their inventory.
The old nuclear weapons states need to proceed in years to come with their nuclear weapon modernization programs to keep them safe, which will draw additional criticism from those who see that the weapons should instead be entirely eliminated.
North Korea and Iran have brought to the table again the question of nuclear threshold states, where a state by having reprocessing or enrichment capacity can break out in a short period of time and manufacture nuclear weapons. With much of the technologies being open and available, dual-use equipment and raw materials traded for other purposes achieving this threshold capacity is lower than ever since the 1960s. It appears that in coming decades, with regional tensions remaining, we are going to live in a world where nuclear weapon stocks increase and threshold states are born in less stable regions.
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