FULL PUBLICATION LIST
June 9, 2010
William Tobey selected as new Director for the US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is pleased to announce that William Tobey has been selected to be the Director of the US Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism.
April 2010
Securing the Bomb 2010
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Project on Managing the Atom Co-Principal Investigator Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of global efforts to secure and consolidate nuclear stockpiles, and a detailed action plan for securing all nuclear materials in four years. Securing the Bomb 2010 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available for download on the NTI website.
November 18, 2008
Securing the Bomb 2008
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Project on Managing the Atom Co-Principal Investigator Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of efforts to secure and remove vulnerable nuclear stockpiles around the world, and a detailed action plan for reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. Securing the Bomb 2008 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available on the NTI website.
2008
The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
In this tome, Arbatov and his co-authors address various aspects of nuclear terrorism including legal, technical and political issues. The authors suggest measures needed to enhance international cooperation.
August 9, 2004
Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Graham Allison, founding dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a former top official at the Pentagon, and one of America’s leading scholars of nuclear strategy and national security, presents the evidence and argument that led him to two provocative conclusions: a nuclear terrorist attack on an American city is inevitable on our current course and speed, but preventable if we act now.
2002
Could Terrorists Produce Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons?
"...potential nuclear terrorists would encounter no serious technical problems in constructing a simple low-yield (in the order of few tons of TNT equivalent) and low-weight (in the order of a hundred kilograms) gun-type nuclear explosive device using weapons-grade or reactor-grade plutonium."
2002
Nuclear Terrorism
"Although nuclear weapons are complicated technological devices, it is generally agreed that a determined, well-trained subnational group could in time build a crude nuclear device with yields on the order of a few to tens of kilotons. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less than 20 kilotons."
NNSA Production Office
December 14, 2012
"Defining and Implementing Best Practices in Nuclear Security"
By William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
This paper analyzes the contribution that best practices can make to the field of nuclear security by doing the following:
- Defining what is meant by best practice
- Specifying a methodology for deriving it
- Understanding the resulting characteristics of the method
- Comparing its pros and cons to other methods contributing to security, such as guidelines and regulations
AP Photo
March 2012
What Happened to the Soviet Superpower’s Nuclear Arsenal? Clues for the Nuclear Security Summit
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Twenty years ago Russia and fourteen other newly-independent states emerged from the ruins of the Soviet empire, many as nations for the first time in history. As is typical in the aftermath of the collapse of an empire, this was followed by a period of chaos, confusion, and corruption. As the saying went at the time, “everything is for sale.” At that same moment, as the Soviet state imploded, 35,000 nuclear weapons remained at thousands of sites across a vast Eurasian landmass that stretched across eleven time zones.
Today, fourteen of the fifteen successor states to the Soviet Union are nuclear weapons-free. This paper will address the question: how did this happen? Looking ahead, it will consider what clues we can extract from the success in denuclearizing fourteen post-Soviet states that can inform our non-proliferation and nuclear security efforts in the future. These clues may inform leaders of the U.S., Russia, and other responsible nations attending the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit on March 26-27, 2012. The paper will conclude with specific recommendations, some exceedingly ambitious that world leaders could follow to build on the Seoul summit’s achievements against nuclear terrorism in the period before the next summit in 2014. One of these would be to establish a Global Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism.
AP Image
August 7, 2009
"The Armageddon Test"
By Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
How much nuclear material has leaked, and is it in the hands of terrorists, in storage somewhere, or still in circulation? No one knows for sure, but the task of cleaning up the nuclear black market amounts to an Armageddon test for global intelligence. The standard for success is unforgiving: all nuclear material must be recovered before it finds its way into an improvised nuclear device.
