6
Nuclear Proliferation
On October 13, 1960, John F. Kennedy warned, “There are indications because of new inventions, that ten, fifteen, or twenty nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious…. I think the fate not only of our own civilization, but I think the fate of the world and the future of the human race, is involved in preventing a nuclear war.” He said this at a time when only a few countries had the financial and technical resources to create their own nuclear arsenals, but he knew that the spread of peaceful nuclear technology meant it was only a matter of time before the nuclear club grew to alarming size. And it wasn’t just opportunity—motive also played a role in proliferation. With tensions between the superpowers at a fever pitch, how certain could any country be that it would not turn into the next battleground between capitalism and communism? Having nuclear weapons of one’s own would be a powerful motivation for the superpowers to find another place to compete.
Fortunately, Kennedy’s pessimistic projection did not come to pass. Only a few countries have chosen to develop nuclear weapons, a result of concerted efforts between the nuclear states and the United Nations to create powerful disincentives for would-be nuclear weapons builders.
During and immediately following the Second World War, American and Soviet nuclear technology was surrounded by security barriers intended to keep its secrets from as many as possible for as long as possible. The hope was that only a few technologically advanced countries could duplicate the feats of the superpowers and that every effort should be made to keep the Pandora’s box of nuclear know-how firmly shut. By the early 1950s, President Eisenhower realized that this policy would ultimately fail. For one thing, the United States and the Soviet Union did not have a lock on scientific talent—as the war-ravaged world rebuilt its industrial plant, it would also rebuild its research and development capability, including areas touching on nuclear energy. Eisenhower sensed the futility of trying to keep nuclear technology a secret in perpetuity and decided on a radically different course, one that traded the ephemeral assurance of secrecy for the transparency of international cooperation. In a 1953 address at the United Nations, he announced his “Atoms for Peace” program, which promised nuclear technology to any nation that promised to forswear the development of nuclear weapons. He thought it better to have countries inside the tent where they could be observed than to have them outside working on their own secret projects. What became the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established to enable worldwide monitoring of nuclear facilities.
The United States State Department was working behind the scenes to convince countries that it was in their best interests not to develop nuclear weapons. American military planners created the notion of a “nuclear umbrella” for Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and other countries to assure them that, in the event of attack, all means would be used for their defense, including the use of nuclear weapons. In Europe, nuclear weapons were stationed on the border separating East and West Germany, creating a “use them or lose them” mentality that made the development of indigenous weapons unnecessary. It is a tribute to American diplomacy that so many countries that might otherwise have gone nuclear were convinced to remain under the nuclear umbrella of the United States.
Such assurances have not always been enough. In the past decades we have seen the nuclear club expand its membership by the addition of India, Pakistan, North Korea, and, it is widely believed, Israel. Each of these countries chose to deploy weapons for reasons associated with its own national security. India and China were at war several times in the twentieth century and continue to have border disputes. Pakistan, a Muslim state partitioned out of mainly Hindu India, fears an escalation of decades-long border disputes involving Kashmir. North Korea has sought respect on the world stage and has used its nuclear program as a bargaining chip for aid and assurances that it will not be attacked. Israel is surrounded by Arab states bent on its elimination, countries with chemical warheads and ballistic missiles able to reach Israeli cities. Some countries, particularly those whose borders are in dispute, view nuclear weapons as symbols of national legitimacy, a guarantee against the loss of territory in disputes whose origins date back to colonial rule or before.
Critics of American nuclear policy claim that continued support for a large nuclear arsenal is an incentive for other countries to construct their own weapons, but history demonstrates that countries act in their own national interest, with only secondary consideration given to what America does or does not do. None of the nuclear proliferants said that they developed nuclear weapons because America maintained a much larger arsenal or because we had been slow in carrying out arms reduction agreements.
This is not to say that American actions have no influence in the international community. For example, if the United States were to publicly announce that we were embarking on a massive expansion of our nuclear forces, then we could count on swift and commensurate reactions from Russia, China, and perhaps other countries. However, if the United States were to announce just the opposite—that we were going to dismantle all our nuclear weapons and allow other countries free access to all our facilities to see for themselves—I doubt that all other countries would follow suit. Even if every country were to promise to eliminate all its nuclear weapons, the wide availability of nuclear technology means that we could never be sure that somewhere, some country was not keeping one or a few weapons in reserve, a capability that could shift the strategic balance in the event of conflict. Nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented. Their permanence challenges us to handle them in a way that maximizes their deterrent value while minimizing the probability that they will ever be used. If this sounds like a contradiction, it only recognizes that international affairs seldom follow a clean, logical path in which choices are unambiguously clear.
PROLIFERATION HAS NOT stopped with India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Iran continues to defy international pressure to open its nuclear program to comprehensive inspections and seems to be pursuing uranium enrichment to much higher levels than would be required for a civilian power program. After the North Korean nuclear test of 2006, some Japanese wondered if their country, the only one to have experienced nuclear attacks, should have its own arsenal.
It is encouraging that some countries that started down the nuclear path chose to reverse course. Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, and Brazil all flirted with nuclear programs, and all decided to abandon them. South Africa, which actually produced atomic bombs, elected to dismantle its weapons and the industrial plant that produced them. The reasons for these reversals are complex, ranging from the economic impact of an expensive nuclear weapons program to a desire to be seen as a responsible country willing to live in peace with its neighbors. Nuclear proliferation is not unidirectional—given the right conditions and incentives, it is possible for a nation to give up its nuclear aspirations. Lecturing—particularly by countries such as the United States and Russia who have no intention of giving up their own nuclear arsenals anytime soon—will certainly not convince a determined proliferant. A country must understand that it is safer and more secure without nuclear weapons than with them. This argument must involve as many nations as possible so as to lessen the fear that a compliant state would be caught unawares—and at a severe disadvantage—should one of its neighbors decide to renege on its promises. The United Nations can and must take a leading role in these discussions.
THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION TREATY (NPT) of 1970 tried to give just this type of worldwide assurance. It was designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons while making the peaceful benefits of nuclear technology available to all nations—the same goal as the Atoms for Peace program that President Eisenhower instituted almost two decades before. Article V of the NPT obligates nuclear states to assist other countries by providing nuclear reactors for energy, for the production of special isotopes for medical diagnostics and treatment, and for industrial uses. In return, signatories agree not to use that technology for weapons development.
An inspection regime is included in the NPT to allow verification visits to nuclear facilities, including continuous closed-circuit television monitoring of key areas to ensure that they are not being used for military purposes. It is led by the International Atomic Energy Agency and involves experts from many nations to help reduce the perception that bigger countries are simply imposing their will on the nuclear have-nots.
Each party to the Treaty undertakes to take appropriate measures to ensure that, in accordance with this Treaty, under appropriate international observation and through appropriate international procedures, potential benefits from any peaceful applications of nuclear explosions will be made available to non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty on a nondiscriminatory basis and that the charge to such Parties for the explosive devices used will be as low as possible and exclude any charge for research and development. Non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty shall be able to obtain such benefits, pursuant to a special international agreement or agreements, through an appropriate international body with adequate representation of non-nuclear-weapon States. Negotiations on this subject shall commence as soon as possible after the Treaty enters into force. Non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty so desiring may also obtain such benefits pursuant to bilateral agreements.
Article VI
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
Articles V and VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty. Article V promises the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology to any country that forswears the development of nuclear weapons. Article VI pledges the nuclear powers to work toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Inspections can calm many fears, but they are not the only answer. Russia built a major nuclear power plant in Iran that, while completely within the bounds of the treaty, raises concerns about whether its real purpose was to train Iranians in nuclear technology. Critics charge that there is little reason for Iran, which has some of the richest oil and gas deposits in the world, to spend scarce national treasure on nuclear power plants. They note that Iran wastes more energy by burning off gas from oil wells than this nuclear power plant will produce.
Article VI of the NPT commits countries to work toward the eventual dismantling of their nuclear arsenals and constitutes an agreed-upon path to a nuclear weapons–free world. Every five years there is a conference to discuss the status of the NPT, attended by all the signatories. Successive conferences have seen increasingly vocal calls for the nuclear weapons states to honor this aspect of the treaty. To date, none of the “permanent five”—the United States, Russia, Great Britain, China, and France—have provided a timeline for the elimination of their nuclear forces, and it is difficult to imagine them doing so anytime soon. All have plans to maintain and modernize their weapons systems at least through 2040.
Nuclear technology has spread from its secretive beginnings to a point where most major universities in the United States and those in many other countries have a nuclear reactor for research purposes. Most of these reactors are small and contain limited amounts of low-enriched uranium (not suitable for nuclear weapons), but in combination they represent a massive amount of nuclear materials that must be protected and monitored. More serious threats for proliferation are nuclear power reactors, which contain much greater quantities of uranium and plutonium. Materials from these reactors are regularly shipped around the world for reprocessing and disposal, a growing security concern given the potential for hijacking and piracy. What if a nation-state, unwilling to spend the time and money to develop its own nuclear materials production plant, were to try a shortcut by diverting materials from peaceful uses, perhaps by the use of clever accounting or perhaps by simply withdrawing from the NPT, as was done by North Korea? Because nonproliferation consists of not doing something—not turning a peaceful nuclear program into one intended to produce weapons—all responsible countries must be constantly vigilant to ensure its success.
Nuclear experts who appear on news programs are fond of pointing out that both of the fundamental concepts of nuclear weapons design—the gun-assembly method and the implosion method—can be found in any encyclopedia and that more still can be found on the Internet. What these experts often fail to mention is that, as with most sophisticated technologies, the devil is in the details. Thankfully, it is not easy to make a nuclear explosive, and the checkered experience of all nuclear nations stands as testimony to the difficulty of the enterprise.
There are three distinct challenges associated with constructing a nuclear weapon. The first is to gather the required amount of highly enriched fissionable material. Uranium 235 and plutonium 239 are the common choices, although other, more exotic, heavy elements might be used. (Considerable difficulties accompany the use of some of these nonstandard materials—there are reasons why they are not used by the existing nuclear powers.) Uranium is a naturally occurring element found around the world, but most of the metal found in mined ore consists of the isotope U238 rather than weapons-usable U235. To obtain the latter it is necessary to separate the two isotopes, a challenging task since the two have identical chemical properties, preventing them from being separated by simple industrial processes. The most common way to achieve separation is to convert the uranium metal into a gas, typically uranium hexafluoride, and inject it into a series of ultrahigh-speed centrifuges. The heavier U238 will concentrate around the outer edge of the centrifuge, enabling the lighter U235 to be extracted from the interior and processed into metal. Many hundreds of centrifuges are needed to get appreciable quantities of weapons-grade material, and a separation facility that will produce several weapons’ worth of enriched uranium per year is typically warehouse-sized. Many countries understand the basic principles of centrifuge operation, but relatively few have the technological sophistication to actually make them. High-strength steel, machined to the most exacting standards, must be used to keep the centrifuge rotors perfectly balanced as they rotate at many thousands of rpm. Reliable electrical supplies are required to avoid even momentary shutdowns of the complex machinery.
Plutonium presents its own set of challenges, principal among them that it does not exist in nature—it needs to be created atom by atom in a nuclear reactor. Uranium rods are inserted into the reactor, and radiation converts a small fraction of the uranium into plutonium. When enough plutonium has been accumulated, the rods are removed, and after a cooling-off period, dissolved so that chemical processes can separate the plutonium. Uranium can be handled with standard industrial safety precautions, but plutonium separation involves the disposition of highly radioactive waste that could kill or disable workers if adequate precautions are not taken.
Once they are separated to the required purity, uranium and plutonium must be machined to tight tolerances to ensure a fit with the other components of the weapon. Each of these materials presents its own set of unique engineering problems. Uranium is one of the hardest materials known—it is used in armor-piercing ammunition—and is exceptionally difficult to machine. Plutonium is radioactive, both on its own and because of inevitable impurities that accompany its creation in a nuclear reactor, and it must be handled with special care lest the machinists die from exposure. Even those willing to suffer martyrdom face daunting challenges in handling this unique metal. Plutonium can exist in several different solid phases whose densities vary enough to cause significant deviations in weapon performance. Extraordinary care must be taken at each step of the fabrication process to ensure that the metal does not jump from one phase to the other during processing, ruining the component. One must also be careful to avoid corrosion. Left exposed to air, plutonium will oxidize before your eyes, and other chemicals can cause it to crumble into dust. All the nuclear weapons nations have solved these problems, but only through expensive and time-consuming trial and error.
The second challenge in nuclear weapons development is the construction of a workable “device,” the euphemism given to a prototype nuclear explosive intended to verify the basic operation of the design. While some nuclear weapons experts claim that making a primitive nuclear explosive is as simple as shooting two slugs of uranium against each other in an old artillery barrel, in reality it is much more complicated. Device performance is very sensitive to the tolerances of the parts—if the slugs fit too tightly in the barrel, they are likely to jam upon being shocked by the explosives. If the gaps are too big, there is the possibility that explosive gases will get around the slugs, creating a cushion between them that will prevent any chain reaction from occurring. The yield of the explosion will depend on how fast the slugs come together, the thickness of the barrel used, and many other details of the design. It is entirely possible to design a simple gun-assembled nuclear device that fails to work. While it is true that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a gun-assembled design that had not been previously tested, that device was the product of some of the greatest physics and engineering minds in the world, and its success should not be used as a demonstration of the ease with which a nuclear weapon might be created.
IMPLOSION DESIGNS ARE much more complicated than gun-assembled weapons. They require that the high explosive surrounding the plutonium be detonated nearly simultaneously around its outer surface to create the pressure pulse needed to compress the nuclear core. Most commercial detonators are not made with anywhere near the required precision, so special technologies need to be developed and tested with accurate measurement equipment. Also, to obtain a symmetric implosion the explosive has to be made to a level of purity much higher than is needed for commercial or military applications. Finally, the issue of gaps and tolerances must be considered. Different materials expand and contract differently with temperature. If you simply press them together, it is likely that one of them will break—much as freezing water will crack a copper pipe. Even advanced nuclear states have designed implosion devices that have failed their first tests.
The third major step in constructing a nuclear weapon is to make the “device” sufficiently rugged to endure the rigors of being dropped from an airplane or launched on a missile. It is one thing to make a handcrafted masterpiece; it is quite another to make that masterpiece strong enough to sustain wide swings in temperature, as one finds in a bomb carried under the wing of an airplane, or the strong vibrations associated with missile flight. The simple issue of mounting brackets on an implosion design can require extensive testing, since if they are too stout they can impair the performance of the weapon, and if they are too weak they could cause the nuclear explosive package to break loose or be damaged during flight.
All these technologies have been mastered by the nuclear states, and the inexorable spread of science and technology around the world means that more and more countries will be able to duplicate them in the future. However, nuclear weapons development still requires the resources of a nation-state. To think that a terrorist group, working in isolation with an unreliable supply of electricity and little access to tools and supplies, could accomplish such a feat is far-fetched at best. Even if they decided to dispense with the need for engineering the device for air delivery in favor of detonating their handmade weapon on the back of a truck, they would still need to overcome the daunting problems associated with material purity, machining, and a host of other issues that are not described in any encyclopedia or on any Internet Web site.
THE FACT THAT nuclear weapons are not easy to make is demonstrated by the setbacks that all the nuclear weapons states have experienced in their well-funded (typically several billion dollars per year) and nationally supported programs. As mentioned in chapter 2, French scientists had a difficult time creating a nuclear explosion despite the fact that they knew the general principles of weapons operation. Their early weapons were bigger and heavier than contemporary Russian or American designs because they could not figure out how to solve the myriad technical problems that distinguish a sketch from a blueprint. It was only after an extensive series of nuclear tests, conducted first in Africa and later at their Pacific test range near Tahiti, that they reached a level of sophistication comparable to that of the other nuclear powers.
India and Pakistan provide two more examples of the challenge of turning ideas into reality. While India conducted a “peaceful” nuclear explosion in 1974, the device was massive, much too large to fit on a rocket or small aircraft. Twenty-four years later, India conducted a series of tests, including what it claimed to be a successful hydrogen bomb. No photographs of the explosives were shown, and internationally measured yields of the tests were not consistent with what the Indian government announced. There is some doubt as to what was actually achieved.
Pakistan took a different route, reportedly receiving significant assistance from outside in the development of what is a small but apparently functional nuclear explosive. Little is known about the Pakistani device, but it is clear that the country has the capacity to produce a nuclear explosion and to measure at least some of its performance parameters.
While proliferation by India and Pakistan was unfortunate, far greater damage may have been done to international security in the 1980s by A. Q. Kahn—the so-called father of the Pakistani bomb—and his wholesale marketing of nuclear weapons technology. There are reasons to believe that Libya, Iran, and North Korea were Kahn’s eager customers, and it is likely that terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, expressed interest as well. The ultimate value of this information to the recipients will depend on their ability to turn sketches into hardware and to assemble and operate the complex equipment that is purchased as part of Kahn’s do-it-yourself kits.
KEY TO THE success of all nuclear powers has been the ability to conduct one or more nuclear tests. Nuclear testing is more than just a demonstration of success—it enables scientists to understand in detail the complex processes that occur during a nuclear detonation. Nuclear weapons operate at temperatures of many millions of degrees and pressures of millions of atmospheres, conditions well beyond what can be achieved in a laboratory. Scientists have theories of how materials behave under such conditions, but they are just that—theories that are not backed up by solid empirical data. One way to impede the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to keep them from being tested, either as entry-level gun-assembled devices or as more sophisticated hydrogen bombs.
Several treaties govern the testing of nuclear weapons. Responding to growing concerns about the effects of nuclear testing on public health, many countries signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 that prohibited nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, in space, or in the ocean; only underground tests in which most or all of the radiation was contained were allowed. The Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974 further constrained underground explosions to a maximum yield of 150 kilotons with provisions for confirmatory measurements by Russia on American tests and America on Russian tests. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush announced a moratorium on further nuclear tests by the United States, a temporary measure that has been honored ever since. The last U.S. nuclear detonation occurred on September 23, 1992.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) seeks to make the cessation of nuclear testing permanent and universal. While many countries have ratified the CTBT, the United States Senate refused to do so, citing concerns that America might not be able to fix unanticipated future problems in its nuclear stockpile or develop new weapons required to deal with changes in international relations. The Senate did not take this decision lightly, and the senators were well aware of the political implications of the United States declining to accept restrictions adopted by all the other nuclear nations. After intensive and highly technical discussions conducted at the highest security levels, they concluded that they were not yet confident that the United States could maintain its nuclear arsenal indefinitely without testing. Rather than place the country in the position of having to withdraw from a ratified treaty, they chose not to give their consent.
The CTBT illustrates a fundamental divide between groups discussing the future of nuclear weapons. Some believe that a proactive stance by America in the elimination of all nuclear weapons, or the reduction of our stockpile to as few as one hundred weapons, would provide an example for other nations to follow. They reason that the United States has little to fear from any military threat and that now is the time to reverse the course of nuclear armament. Others insist that countries pursue nuclear weapons for their own perceived needs and that disarmament by the United States might actually encourage others to develop a decisive strategic nuclear advantage, one that could be used to blackmail or even attack us. Altruism does not always guarantee success in international relations.
AN EASIER ROUTE to nuclear status is to buy, steal, or be given a weapon ready for use. Giving away a nuclear weapon may seem irresponsible, but Russia was willing to give China substantial help in the 1950s (although it stopped short of providing a detailed design) and China is reported to have provided key assistance to Pakistan in the 1990s. One of the parade floats celebrating the detonation of the first Pakistani atomic bomb in May 1998 was emblazoned with the phrase “The Islamic Bomb,” suggesting that some countries may not be afraid to help others gain membership in the nuclear club.
Another option for an aspiring nuclear state or group would be to steal a nuclear weapon, perhaps from one of the Russian storage sites that are reported to have poor to nonexistent security. Press photographs of broken fences guarded by hungry recruits with antiquated rifles are scary, but the truth is sometimes different from what is reported. One journalist quoted a Russian man as saying that he “jumped the fence” at the nuclear weapons laboratory at Sarov to visit his girlfriend. However, since the “fence” at the facility consists of a triple array of fences nearly twenty feet tall, regularly patrolled by well-armed guards with dogs and continuously monitored by sophisticated sensors, this individual was either lying or was an athlete of superhuman ability.
It is true that security at Russian nuclear storage sites needs improvement, but there are several programs actively working to improve the situation. The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, a joint effort between Russian and American technical experts, has built new fences, trained and equipped guards, and consolidated nuclear weapons at fewer locations that can be better defended. The CTR program has assisted the Russian government in disposing of dozens of long-range bombers, ballistic missiles, and nuclear submarines in a completely verifiable manner. While progress has been slower than many would like, it is encouraging that so much has been accomplished. Compared to how much money the United States spent on defending itself against these same weapons, the investment in the CTR program is surely one of the greatest defense bargains in history.
Stealing a nuclear weapon or a significant quantity of weapons-grade material from a Russian storage site still requires one to transport it within and presumably outside the country. Anyone who has ever traveled any distance in the Russian hinterland knows that this is not an easy task and requires considerable insider assistance. Bribes could be made, but the more people in on the deal, the higher the probability that they will be discovered.
In the mid-1990s American security became concerned about mafia activity in the secret Russian nuclear weapons city of Sarov. It seems that a Lincoln Continental was spotted next to what was presumed to be the laboratory director’s house. Where had the money come from for such a car at a time when residents of the city were having trouble putting food on their tables? During my next visit to Sarov I was able to verify that a Lincoln was indeed parked on the director’s street. But it belonged to someone else with a name similar to the director’s, someone who was indeed associated with “unofficial trading activity.” In discussions with representatives of Russian security, I learned that they had made a deal with the mafia. Fixed quantities of cigarettes, vodka, and gasoline could be brought into the city and sold, but mafia members would stay away from anything dealing with nuclear weapons. If they violated the agreement, they would be killed. In Russia, this was not an idle threat.
Rumors of missing or stolen Russian weapons or nuclear material were chronic during the 1990s and persist today. Alexander Lebed, a retired general and Russian presidential hopeful, claimed in 1996 that several “suitcase bombs” had gone missing from army storage facilities, a serious concern for every country in the world since it was also rumored that these small “atomic demolition munitions” did not have all the safety interlocks and code provisions of larger bombs and warheads. However, in a country in which nearly everything was a closely held state secret, Lebed was not on the list of people with access to nuclear weapons information. Apparently he was repeating a rumor that he had heard without accurate information to back it up.
Russians bristle at assertions that they do not take nuclear weapons security seriously. A senior official in the Russian nuclear weapons program once told me, “We are the ones surrounded by new countries, including those with unstable governments. If anyone has a fear of the use of nuclear weapons, it is Russia.” Improvements are certainly needed in security, and needed urgently, but exaggerated claims of poor security at Russian nuclear weapons sites could actually encourage terrorist groups to try to steal a nuclear weapon—the last thing that any responsible government would want.
TAKING POSSESSION OF a nuclear weapon does not imply that one has the capability to explode it. In contrast to what is shown in movies, nuclear weapons do not have a red button on their side with an LED display counting down the seconds to detonation. Most are tightly sealed packages with only a single electrical connector serving as their interface to the outside world. Looking at such a connector provides no indication of what wire does what—some send coded signals that prepare the weapon to detonate, but others might simply report details of weapon status. Dismantling the weapon (not always an easy task) would provide more insight, but here again, most subsystems are sealed in their own cases so that it is sometimes difficult even for an expert to identify what component does what. Of course, a weapon could be completely disassembled and then rebuilt with a new control system, but this would require extreme care, and in most cases an intimate knowledge of the weapon’s design in order to avoid destroying key components.
To explode a stolen nuclear weapon, one must have an experienced person who knows how to operate it. Such people are very rare. Weapons designers know how a weapon works, but few know the types of signals (timing, voltage, polarity, etc.) that must be sent to detonate a weapon. Weapons maintenance personnel are trained to perform only a limited set of functions and are often ignorant of the details of the device on which they are working. Only a few people in the world have the knowledge to cause an unauthorized detonation of a nuclear weapon.
THE DIFFICULTY INVOLVED in constructing a nuclear weapon or using one that is stolen does not mean that we can relax about the danger of nuclear proliferation. Nuclear weapons are difficult to make, but some countries are willing to invest the required resources. The inexorable spread of technology has made it impossible to prevent proliferation by simply protecting a set of nuclear secrets, a fulfillment of President Eisenhower’s fear. We must make every effort to assure that nuclear technology is used only for its intended peaceful purpose and to keep special nuclear materials away from those who would use them for illicit purposes. As difficult as this might seem, there are ways to accomplish this mission.
The starting point for containing the threat of proliferation is the uranium and plutonium that are the central components of any nuclear weapon. Security fears about Russian nuclear sites are sometimes overblown, but there is an urgent need to accelerate and complete needed upgrades to storage facilities. Squabbling between the U.S. and Russian bureaucracies has often slowed progress, as when security upgrades at one Russian nuclear site were delayed while Pentagon officials argued about how many flashlights and ladders could be bought with American money. Senior-level attention is needed on both sides to break such petty impasses and restore a sense of urgency to the protection of nuclear material.
The security of weapons in newly emerged nuclear states could be dramatically improved by the sharing of command and control technologies by the advanced nuclear nations. The United States’ initial refusal to recognize India as a nuclear weapons state had little meaning given that nation’s demonstrated capability to create a nuclear explosion. Rather than hope that India will voluntarily disarm, it would be better to recognize the existence of a nuclear India and provide technology to make its weapons safer and more secure. The same may be said of Pakistan. Care must be taken to avoid making weapons more usable or more effective, but ways can be found to improve security without giving away advanced weapons secrets.
Finally, the United States and Russia must remember their obligations under Article VI of the NPT—the one that commits them to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear weapons stockpiles. A goodwill gesture consisting of reduced numbers, greater transparency, and perhaps lower-yield weapons may be a step toward convincing other countries that they need not embark on a nuclear path of their own.