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The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material

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The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Bunn, Matthew G. 2000. The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom. Published Version http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/1753/ next_wave.html Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:29914164 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps To Control Warheads and Fissile Material Matthew Bunn A Joint Publication of Harvard University's Project on Managing The Harvard Project on Managing the Atom the Atom and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace April 2000 © 2000 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Harvard University The co-sponsors of this report invite liberal use of the information provided in it for educational purposes, requiring only that the reproduced material clearly state: Reproduced from Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material, March 2000, co-published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Harvard Project on Managing the Atom. Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: (202) 939-2296 Fax: (202) 483-1840 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ceip.org/npp Harvard Project on Managing the Atom Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Fax: (202) 495-8963 Email: [email protected] Web: www.ksg.harvard.edu/bcsia/atom This report is available on the Web at both the addresses above. _____________________________ This report expands on a chapter originally written for a forthcoming study on the non- proliferation regime, Repairing the Regime, edited by Joseph Cirincione and published by Routledge and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. FOREWORD The risk of nuclear proliferation increased dramatically with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. The long standing strategy of denying would-be proliferants access to nuclear materials was put at grave risk when the Soviet system disintegrated and Russia's nuclear security infrastructure was undercut. As the threat of deliberate superpower nuclear exchanges became a thing of the past, the danger that small states or terrorist groups might exploit the lack of effective nuclear safeguards over material and personnel in the former Soviet Union to acquire nuclear weapons became a menacing reality. The United States government, while finally recognizing the scope of the overall risks posed by the current situation, was slow to understand the large-scale and long-term effort that would be needed to address these complex and serious threats. Few have worked as tirelessly or doggedly as Matthew Bunn in assessing these threats and in helping governments develop realistic and practical steps to deal with them. From the security of nuclear weapons and materials, to ending the production of weapons-usable materials, to disposing of excess plutonium and highly enriched uranium, to helping to develop plans for the commercial employment of Russian nuclear scientists, Matthew Bunn has enriched the understanding of these issues and contributed materially to their solution. In calling attention to the still urgent need to do more, he is again providing a valuable service. The Carnegie Endowment's Non-Proliferation Project and Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs are pleased to join in producing this valuable assessment of how far US-Russian cooperative efforts to address nuclear security have progressed and how far we have yet to go. Both programs are dedicated to improving the public's understanding of these issues, and to producing constructive and practical research to help policy makers address the national security threat now facing the United States as a result of nuclear insecurity in the former Soviet Union. Jessica Mathews President Carnegie Endowment For International Peace CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY v I. III NTRODUCTION 1 Structure of the Report 4 Obstacles to Nuclear Security Cooperation 4 II. THE THREAT 9 Insecurity 9 Nuclear Materials 9 The Demand for Black Market Fissile Material 14 Sizing the Problem 18 Nuclear Weapons 19 Underfunding an Oversized Complex 22 Secrecy 23 Russia’s Closed Nuclear Cities 25 Excessive Stockpiles and Continued Production 26 III. T HE CURRENT RESPONSE 29 Control of Fissile Material: How Much Are We Doing So Far? 30 Preventing Theft and Smuggling 31 MPC&A 31 Mayak Storage Facility 36 Nuclear Warhead Security 37 Removing Material From Vulnerable Sites 38 Nuclear Smuggling Interdiction 39 Stabilizing Nuclear Custodians 41 The HEU Purchase Agreement and Commercial Deals 42 Science and Technology Cooperation Programs 42 Nuclear Cities Initiative 44 Monitoring Stockpiles and Reductions 45 The Transparency That Never Happened 47 Ending Further Production 51 Enormous Excess Stockpiles—And Still Larger Remaining Military Stocks 54 Reducing Fissile Material Stockpiles 57 Russian Perspectives on Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium 58 Disposition of U.S. Fissile Material 61 The Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative 62 Disposition of Russia’s Excess HEU: The HEU Purchase Agreement 65 Disposition of Russia’s Excess Plutonium 67 Budgets for Warhead and Fissile Material Control 68 DOE’s Proposed Long-Term Nonproliferation Initiative for Russia 70 IV. THE NEXT WAVE: URGENTLY NEEDED NEW STEPS 75 Preventing Theft and Smuggling 76 An Agenda for Action: Summary of Key Proposals 77 Consolidation 77 Purchasing Vulnerable HEU Stockpiles 78 Upgrades 80 Sustainable Security 81 Generating New Revenue for Nuclear Security 86 Nuclear Smuggling 89 Stabilizing Nuclear Custodians 90 Private Sector Job Growth 91 Nonproliferation and Arms Control 92 Nuclear Remediation, Energy, and Environmental Technologies 93 Shrinking the Russian Nuclear Weapons Complex 94 Monitoring Stockpiles and Reductions 95 Nuclear Material Stockpile Data Exchanges 95 International Monitoring of Excess Fissile Material 96 A Major Transparent Warhead Reductions Offer, With Assistance for Transparent Warhead Dismantlement 96 Ending Further Production 98 Reducing Excess Stockpiles 99 Highly Enriched Uranium 99 Plutonium 102 Deeper Reductions in Fissile Material Stockpiles 106 V. CONCLUSION: A TIME FOR LEADERSHIP 107 A Senior Coordinator 107 A Strategic Plan 108 ABOUT THE AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE MANAGING THE ATOM PROJECT About the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Nothing could be more central to U.S. and world security than ensuring that nuclear warheads and their essential ingredients—plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU)—do not fall into the hands of terrorists or proliferating states. If plutonium and HEU become regularly available on a nuclear black market, nothing else we do to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons will succeed. Similarly, unless stockpiles of nuclear warheads and fissile materials can be secured, monitored, and verifiably reduced, it will be impossible to achieve deep, transparent, and irreversible reductions in nuclear arms. Measures to control warheads and fissile materials, therefore, are central to the entire global effort to reduce nuclear arms and stem their spread. The tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and hundreds of metric tonnes of plutonium and HEU that remain in the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles represent a deadly legacy of the Cold War, and managing them securely must be a top U.S. security policy priority. Urgent Security Threats Today, there remains a clear and present danger that insecure nuclear materials could be stolen and fall into hostile hands. This danger is particularly acute in the former Soviet Union, where a security system designed for a single state with a closed society, closed borders, and well-paid, well-cared-for nuclear workers has been splintered among multiple states with open societies, open borders, desperate, underpaid nuclear workers, and rampant theft and corruption—a situation the system was never designed to address. As a result, there have been multiple confirmed cases of theft of real weapons-usable nuclear materials. As recently as 1998, a group of conspirators at a major Russian nuclear weapons facility attempted to steal enough material for a nuclear bomb at a single stroke. While there is no evidence that enough material for a bomb has yet fallen into the hands of states such as Iran, Iraq, or North Korea, such a proliferation disaster could occur at any moment. At the same time, virtually none of the measures that would be required to verifiably reduce stockpiles of nuclear warheads and materials to low, agreed levels are in place—and those measures will have to be developed by the states with the largest stockpiles, the United States and Russia. Current Programs to Address the Threats Since the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States has undertaken dozens of programs costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year to cooperate with the
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