US AND NUCLEAR ISSUES
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
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.
AP Photo
July 11, 2008
"Why U.S. Could Lose Out on India Nuclear Trade"
Media Feature
Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent, was interviewed by Brajesh Upadhyay for BBC News on July 11 regarding the implications of the U.S.-India nuclear deal for international trade.
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.
Summer 2008
"Divining Nuclear Intentions: A Review Essay"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By William C. Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova
Although projections of nuclear proliferation abound, they rarely are founded on empirical research or guided by theory. Even fewer studies are informed by a comparative perspective. The two books under review—The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, by Jacques Hymans, and Nuclear Logics: Alternative Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen, are welcome exceptions to this general state of affairs, and represent the cutting edge of nonproliferation research. Both works challenge conventional conceptions of the sources of nuclear weapons decisions and offer new insights into why past predictions of rapid proliferation failed to materialize and why current prognoses about rampant proliferation are similarly flawed. While sharing a number of common features, including a focus on subsystemic determinants of national behavior, the books differ in their methodology, level of analysis, receptivity to multicausal explanations, and assumptions about decisionmaker rationality and the revolutionary nature of the decision. Where one author emphasizes the importance of the individual leader’s national identity conception in determining a state’s nuclear path, the other explains nuclear decisions primarily with regard to the political-economic orientation of the ruling coalition. Notwithstanding a tendency to overinterpret evidence, the books represent the best of contemporary social science research and provide compelling interpretations of nuclear proliferation dynamics of great relevance to scholars and policymakers alike.
May 5-6, 2008
"Safety, Security, Safeguards: Enabling Nuclear Energy Growth"
Presentation
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Matthew Bunn presented "Safety, Security, Safeguards: Enabling Nuclear Energy Growth" to the Global Nuclear Future Workshop at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Cambridge, Mass.
AP Photo
April 30, 2008
"Next Steps to Strengthen the National Nuclear Security Administration's Efforts To Prevent Nuclear Proliferation"
Testimony
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Matthew Bunn testified to the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations, United States Senate about critical issues for U.S. and world security — nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and what more the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) can do to prevent them.
AP Photo
April 15, 2008
Actions Now for the Day After: Findings of the Preventive Defense Day After Project
Testimony
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project, Harvard & Stanford Universities
PDP Co-Director Ashton B. Carter testifies before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
April 15, 2008
PDP Co-Director Carter testifies before Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Press Release
PDP Co-Director Dr. Ashton B. Carter testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at its hearing on "Nuclear Terrorism: Confronting the Challenges of the Day After."
NESCA
April 2, 2008
"The Risk Of Nuclear Terrorism — And Next Steps To Reduce The Danger"
Testimony
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Dr. Bunn’s testimony to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the United States Senate urges a global campaign to ensure that every nuclear weapon and every cache of potential nuclear bomb material worldwide is secured against the kinds of threats terrorists and criminals have demonstrated they can pose. Bunn highlights the good and bad news about the risk of nuclear terrorism, and assesses the probability of a nuclear terrorist attack. Bunn then proposes several steps to reduce the risk of a nuclear terrorist attack
March 2008
Review Panel on Future Directions for Defense Threat Reduction Agency Missions and Capabilities to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
Report
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project, Harvard & Stanford Universities and The Honorable Robert G. Joseph, Senior Scholar, National Institute for Public Policy
PDP Co-Director Ashton B. Carter and the Honorable Robert G. Joseph co-chaired a Review Panel on Future Directions for DTRA Missions and Capabilities to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
