RUSSIA AND FORMER SOVIET UNION
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
July 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; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project
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.
Summer 2008
"The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn’t: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s—A Research Note"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By Pavel Podvig
The Soviet strategic modernization program of the 1970s was one of the most consequential developments of the Cold War. Deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the dramatic increase in the number of strategic warheads in the Soviet arsenal created a sense of vulnerability in the United States that was, to a large degree, responsible for the U.S. military buildup of the late 1970s and early 1980s and the escalation of Cold War tensions during that period. U.S. assessments concluded that the Soviet Union was seeking to achieve a capability to fight and win a nuclear war. Estimates of missile accu¬racy and silo hardness provided by the U.S. intelligence community led many in the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union was building a strategic missile force capable of destroying most U.S. missiles in a counterforce strike and of surviving a subsequent nuclear exchange. Soviet archival documents that have recently become available demonstrate that this conclusion was wrong. The U.S. estimates substantially overestimated the accuracy of the Soviet Union's missiles and the degree of silo reinforcement. As the data demonstrate, the Soviet missile force did not have the capability to launch a successful first strike. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that the Soviet Union never attempted to acquire a first-strike capability, concentrating instead on strategies based on retaliation.
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.
AP Photo
March 14, 2008
The Transfer of Power in Russia
Memorandum
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
Though the outcome of the presidential election in Russia was a foregone conclusion, many questions remain about when and how which powers will be transferred from whom to whom. Also included below are speculations from Russian colleagues about what the new administration and cabinet may look like.
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, Affiliate, Project on Managing the Atom and Bryan Early, Research Fellow, 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
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.
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; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project 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; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project 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.
September 26, 2007
Securing the Bomb 2007
Book
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project
Managing the Atom Senior Research Associate 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 2007 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.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/
September 26, 2007
"Thwarting Terrorists: More to Be Done"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project
"...much progress has been made toward upgrading security for nuclear stockpiles. The bad news is that the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons exist in hundreds of buildings in more than 40 countries, and terrorists are actively trying to get a nuclear bomb or the materials to make one."
