Ensuring security for weapons-usable nuclear material worldwide: expanding international cooperation, strengthening global standards

Conference · Wed Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:23142282

Bunn, Matthew ^[1]

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1. JFK School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK St., Cambridge MA 02138 (United States)

Limited access to fissile materials - the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons - is the principal technical barrier to nuclear proliferation in the world today. The potential effects of a theft of plutonium or HEU would threaten the entire international community, not just the state where the theft occurred, giving the international community an overwhelming interest in seeing that all such material is secure and accounted for. Today, a broad range of factors, from documented seizures of kilogram-quantities of stolen weapons-usable fissile material to the newly demonstrated capability and will of terrorists to use weapons of mass destruction, suggest that there is an unprecedented urgency to ensuring effective security for all weapons-usable material worldwide. The paper reviews current progress and status in expanding international cooperation in securing weapons-usable material and strengthening international security standards, and outlines a series of recommended further steps to move toward the goal of a world in which all weapons-usable nuclear material is secure and accounted for, with sufficient transparency that the international community can confirm that this is the case. Over the long term, the paper concludes, the goal should be to attempt to come as close as possible to the 'stored weapon standard' proposed by a committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1994 - that is to say, to protect and account for weapons-usable nuclear materials as rigorously as the nuclear weapon states protect and account for nuclear weapons themselves. The road to that objective is a long one, however, and can only be followed step-by-step.

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society - ANS, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 23142282
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
FISSILE MATERIALS
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
PLUTONIUM
PROLIFERATION