RUSSIA AND FORMER SOVIET UNION
November 18, 2008
Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: An Agenda for the Next President
Report
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Andrew Newman, Former Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, August 2008–February 2011
Matthew Bunn and Andrew Newman outline specific steps that President-elect Obama should take to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism to a fraction of its current level during his first term in office. This paper summarizes the recommendations in Securing the Bomb 2008 and provides additional detail on organizing the U.S. government to prevent nuclear terrorism and on steps that should be taken during the transition and the opening weeks of the new administration.
AP Photo
October 7, 2008
"A Working Relationship"
Op-Ed, Baltimore Sun
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Andrew Newman, Former Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, August 2008–February 2011
"Today, the United States and Europe must respond to Russia's military behavior in Georgia and elsewhere in its former empire. But they must also maintain a working relationship with Russia to continue vital cooperation between Russian and U.S. experts to reduce nuclear weapons and keep them out of terrorists' hands....Preventing nuclear terrorism must be a top priority of U.S. national security policy, and securing global stockpiles of nuclear weapons and materials is the most effective way to achieve this."
DOE
September 30, 2008
Internationalization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Goals, Strategies, and Challenges
Report
"This report is intended for all those who are concerned about the need for assuring fuel for new reactors and at the same time limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. This audience includes the United States and Russia, other nations that currently supply nuclear material and technology, many other countries contemplating starting or growing nuclear power programs, and the international organizations that support the safe, secure functioning of the international nuclear fuel cycle, most prominently the International Atomic Energy Agency."
Professor Matthew Bunn served on the Committee on Internationalization of the Civilian Nuclear Fuel Cycle, a National Academy of Sciences–Russian Academy of Sciences joint committee which produced this report.
Michael Bronner
August 16, 2008
"When the War Ends, Start to Worry"
Op-Ed, New York Times
"EVEN as Russia and Georgia continue their on-again, off-again struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a frenzied tea-leaf reading about the war's global political ramifications has broken out across airwaves and think-tank forums. But as the situation on the ground recedes inevitably to some new form of the pernicious "frozen conflict" that has plagued the region since Georgia's civil wars of the early 1990s, few are paying attention to a less portentous but equally critical international threat: an increase in the longstanding, rampant criminality in the conflict zones that is likely to further destabilize the entire Caucasus region and at worst provide terrorist groups with the nuclear material they have long craved."
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
July 17, 2008
Expanded and Accelerated HEU Downblending: Designing Options to Serve the Interests of All Parties
Conference Paper
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Accelerating and expanding the downblending of highly enriched uranium (HEU) beyond the current 500-ton U.S.-Russian HEU Purchase Agreement would have significant security benefits. Russia will still have large quantities of HEU not needed for military purposes after 500 tons of HEU has been blended to low-enriched uranium (LEU). But no agreement to expand and accelerate the downblending of Russian or U.S. excess HEU will succeed unless it is structured in a way that serves the interests of all sides. Russia has made clear that it has no interest in extending the HEU Purchase Agreement on its current terms. This paper outlines key Russian, U.S., and industry interests relating to expanded and accelerated HEU downblending.
June 2008
100 Grams (and Counting...): Notes from the Nuclear Underworld
Report
This report on the 2006 seizure of weapon-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) in Georgia, by journalist Michael Bronner, provides new insights on both nuclear smugglers and those trying to stop them.
January 2008
"Following START: Risk Acceptance and the 1991-92 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives"
Journal Article, Foreign Policy Analysis, issue 1, volume 4
By Matthew Fuhrmann, Former Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, January–August 2009; Former Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program, 2008–December 2009 and Bryan Early, Former Research Fellow 2008-2009, The Dubai Initiative
The article explains why in September 1991, shortly after the attempted putsch against Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush launched the unilateral Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs). The PNIs were measures that led to the largest reductions in the American and Soviet/Russian nuclear arsenals to date The article argues that an explanation rooted in prospect theory and a focus on Bush as an individual decision-maker offers the most explanatory power.
October 2007
"Disposition of Excess Highly Enriched Uranium"
Book Chapter
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Anatoli Diakov
This chapter describes the progress of the Russian and U.S. HEU disposition programs and how they could be expanded and accelerated. It also provides a brief update on the progress of the international programs to clean out and dispose of civilian HEU. The quantities of HEU involved are much smaller than those in the weapons programs but civilian sites are typically much less secure than military ones. Cleaning them out may therefore contribute more to reducing the overall danger of nuclear theft.
October 2007
"Disposition of Excess Plutonium"
Book Chapter
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Anatoli Diakov
This chapter describes disposition options and assesses the Russian and U.S. programs. The discussion is also relevant to the problem of disposing of the world's growing stocks of separated civil plutonium —especially in the United Kingdom, which currently has no disposition plan.
October 2007
Global Fissile Materials Report 2007
Book
Over the past six decades, our understanding of the nuclear danger has expanded from the threat posed by the vast nuclear arsenals created by the superpowers in the Cold War to encompass the proliferation
of nuclear weapons to additional states and now also to terrorist groups. To reduce this danger, it is essential to secure and to sharply reduce all stocks of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium, the key materials in nuclear weapons, and to limit any further production.
The mission of the IPFM is to advance the technical basis for cooperative international policy initiatives to achieve these goals.
