NUCLEAR STOCKPILE SECURITY
Department of Energy
January 2010
"Nuclear Terrorism: A Strategy for Prevention"
Book Chapter
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
"On the night of November 8, 2007, two teams of armed men attacked the Pelindaba nuclear facility in South Africa, where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) were stored. One of the teams opened fire on the site security forces, who reportedly fled. The other team of four armed men went through a 10,000-volt security fence, disabled the intrusion detectors so that no alarms sounded—possibly using insider knowledge of the security system—broke into the emergency control center, and shot a worker there in the chest after a brief struggle. The worker at the emergency control center raised an alarm for the first time. These intruders spent forty-five minutes inside the secured perimeter without ever being engaged by site security forces...."
January 2010
Going Nuclear: Nuclear Proliferation and International Security in the 21st Century
International Security Reader
By Michael E. Brown, Editorial Board Member and Former Co-Editor, Quarterly Journal: International Security, Owen R. Coté, Editor, International Security, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, Editor, International Security; Series Editor, Belfer Center Studies in International Security and Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the twenty-first century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa.
U.S. NNSA
February 24, 2010
"Securing Nuclear Stockpiles in Four Years – Budget and Policy Requirements"
Presentation
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Matthew Bunn presented "Securing Nuclear Stockpiles in Four Years – Budget and Policy Requirements;" a briefing for congressional staffers about the nature of the nuclear threat and suggested steps lawmakers could take to help achieve the President Obama's objective of securing all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in 4 years.
AP Photo
January 2010
"Pakistan's Nuclear Posture: Implications for South Asian Stability"
Policy Brief
By Vipin Narang, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, 2008–2010
"...[E]xtremist elements in Pakistan have a clear incentive to precipitate a crisis between India and Pakistan, so that Pakistan's nuclear assets become more exposed and vulnerable to theft. Terrorist organizations in the region with nuclear ambitions, such as al-Qaida, may find no easier route to obtaining fissile material or a fully functional nuclear weapon than to attack India, thereby triggering a crisis between India and Pakistan and forcing Pakistan to ready and disperse nuclear assets—with few, if any, negative controls—and then attempting to steal the nuclear material when it is being moved or in the field, where it is less secure than in peacetime locations."
AP Photo
January 15, 2010
Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center Announces New Nuclear Security Fellows Program Funded by Stanton Foundation
Announcement
The Belfer Center's International Security Program (ISP) has been invited to participate in a new nuclear security fellowship program funded by the Stanton Foundation. These fellowships are for predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars and junior faculty. The purpose of the fellowships is to stimulate the development of the next generation of thought leaders in nuclear security by supporting research that will advance policy-relevant understanding of the issues. Nuclear Security Fellows will be joint International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) research fellows.
Applications for these fellowships for the 2010–2011 academic year will be accepted until February 15, 2010.
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"Reducing the Greatest Risks of Nuclear Theft & Terrorism"
Journal Article, Daedalus, issue 4, volume 138
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
"Keeping nuclear weapons and the difficult-to-manufacture materials needed to make them out of terrorist hands is critical to U.S. and world security — and to the future of nuclear energy as well. In the aftermath of a terrorist nuclear attack, there would be no chance of convincing governments, utilities, and publics to build nuclear reactors on the scale required for nuclear energy to make any significant contribution to coping with climate change."
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"The Minimum Deterrent & Beyond"
Journal Article, Daedalus, issue 4, volume 138
By Paul Doty, Director Emeritus, Center for Science and International Affairs; Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry, Emeritus
"...[A] primary goal in the next decades must be to remove this risk of near global self-destruction by drastically reducing nuclear forces to a level where this outcome is not possible, but where a deterrent value is preserved — in other words, to a level of minimum deterrence. This conception was widely discussed in the early years of the nuclear era, but it drowned in the Cold War flood of weaponry. No matter how remote the risk of civilization collapse may seem now — despite its being so vivid only a few decades ago — the elimination of this risk, for this century and centuries to come, must be a primary driver for radical reductions in nuclear weapons."
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"Nuclear Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?"
Journal Article, Daedalus, issue 4, volume 138
By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Scott Sagan, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 1981-1982; Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
Will the growth of nuclear power lead to increased risks of nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism? Will the nonproliferation regime be adequate to ensure safety and security in a world more widely and heavily invested in nuclear power? The authors in this two-volume (Fall 2009 and Winter 2010) special issue of Dædalus have one simple and clear answer to these questions: It depends.
Susan Lynch/Belfer Center
Summer 2009
"Q&A with Vipin Narang"
Q&A
By Beth Maclin, Former Communications Assistant, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Vipin Narang, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, 2008–2010
Vipin Narang, a research fellow with International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom, discusses nuclear security and terrorism.
November 19-20, 2009
"Protecting Stocks of Weapons-Usable Material Worldwide Against Global Terrorist Threats"
Presentation
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Evgeniy P. Maslin
Matthew Bunn and Evgeniy P. Maslin presented "Protecting Stocks of Weapons-Usable Material Worldwide Against Global Terrorist Threats" at the workshop on “Protecting Nuclear Programmes From Terrorism,” in Vienna, November 19-20, 2009, which was sponsored by World Institute of Nuclear Security and and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
