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Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials
Global Nuclear Security Standards
Status
![[ click here for larger photo ]](../../../images/cnwmphoto_std1_sm.jpg) The IAEA Director-General speaking on global nuclear security standards |
Terrorists and hostile states will steal nuclear weapons or materials wherever they are easiest to get. So vulnerable nuclear weapons and material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere – giving the international community an overwhelming interest in ensuring that each state where these materials exist secures them appropriately. Yet today, there are no binding international standards for how well such weapons and materials should be secured; that is left to the discretion of each state, with the result that security for stocks of potential nuclear weapons materials varies enormously, from excellent to appalling. |
Key Issues and Recommendations
Little prospect of progress toward formal negotiation of a stringent global nuclear security standard. It is now clear that the negotiations described above are extremely unlikely to lead in the near term to agreement on any stringent global standard for securing nuclear weapons and materials.
- Recommendation: The United States should join with a number of like-minded states with substantial nuclear activities – ideally including Russia – in making a politically binding commitment to: (a) meet a stringent, agreed standard for security and accounting for all their nuclear material and facilities, military and civilian; (b) report to the IAEA on their nuclear security regulations and procedures; (c) allow managed peer review of physical protection at selected facilities, to help confirm that they are fulfilling their commitment to stringent standards; and (d) encourage other states to make comparable commitments. Over time, these states could move to assist states that they supply with nuclear materials and technologies to meet the same stringent standards, and ultimately require them to do so as a condition of continuing supply.[15] Ultimately, effective security and accounting for weapons-usable nuclear material should be part of the "price of admission" for doing business in the international nuclear market.[16] The June, 2002, G-8 summit agreement on a "Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction," which included a commitment that all participants would provide "effective" and "appropriate" protection for nuclear materials,[17] could be the first step toward such a commitment to stringent standards.
Rule-based vs. performance-based standards. Ideally, a new global standard ought to be performance-based, centered on a minimum threat that nuclear security systems should be designed to be able to defeat. As threats of terrorism do differ from one country to another, it does not make sense to have a single "design basis threat" for all facilities with weapons-usable nuclear material throughout the world. But in this day of terrorist groups with global reach – as both Al Qaeda and the Japanese terror cult Aum Shinrikyo, which also sought nuclear weapons, have demonstrated themselves to be – it is very difficult to argue there is any country in which one to two small groups of well-trained, well-armed outside attackers, possibly in collusion with one well-placed insider, is not a plausible threat that facilities with kilograms or more of weapons-usable nuclear material should be able to defeat (and defeat reliably).
- Recommendation: The political commitment to an agreed standard suggested above should be centered around agreement on at least a minimum design basis threat that security systems for weapons-usable nuclear material in all participating states should be able to meet.[18]
Protection adequate to meet current threats. The attackers of September 11 demonstrated global reach, an ability to plan and collect intelligence for more than a year before an attack (and yet to strike without warning), and the ability to act as four independent, well-coordinated teams striking at once. This is a much more substantial threat than many nuclear security systems around the world were designed to cope with. Similarly, given that proliferating states have been willing to spend billions of dollars on their efforts to produce fissile material – and given that a single bomb could threaten tens of thousands of lives – the level of effort devoted to securing and accounting for stocks of even a few kilograms of weapons-usable material should be even higher than that devoted to protecting stores of millions of dollars worth of cash, gold, or diamonds. This is demonstrably not the case at many nuclear facilities with weapons-usable nuclear material today. In 1994, a committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences went farther, recommending that, because gaining access to weapons-usable material is by far the most difficult technical obstacle to producing a nuclear bomb, to the extent possible, all weapons-usable materials should be guarded and accounted for as rigorously as nuclear weapons themselves are – a goal the report called the "stored weapons standard."[19] Given the very strong resistance of many countries to even modest changes in international physical protection standards, however, a regime calling for such standards will likely take years, and a substantial amount of high-level political leadership, to achieve.
- Recommendation: A new set of standards, reached first in a political commitment as described above, should set standards that would provide effective protection against the most likely current threats. While a binding "stored weapon standard" regime should be the ultimate goal, the initial steps need not go that far – it is more important to begin taking large strides in the right direction than to agree on just how far to travel.[20]
Transparency and secrecy. For stringent international standards to have real teeth, there would have to be some means to confirm, or at least to build confidence, that the standards were being met. As Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) has argued, victory in the war to prevent catastrophic terrorism will not be achieved until all states have not only secured and accounted for their nuclear stockpiles to stringent standards, but done so "in a manner that is internationally verifiable."[21] In democratic societies, transparency is needed to provide the information required for an informed public debate as to what the threats really are and what should be done to address them. And a central repository of information on physical protection arrangements around the world is needed in order to best allocate resources for upgrading the most vulnerable sites.
But gaining broad agreement to such transparency will be difficult, as specific approaches to nuclear security are a closely guarded secret in almost every country. Many countries emphasize that maintaining secrecy about security arrangements, so that terrorists will not know what they are up against, is fundamental to effective security. Considerable creativity and high-level leadership will be needed to forge agreements on ways to exchange sufficient information among the states that have agreed to stringent standards to build confidence that those standards are being met, without making information available to potential terrorists and thieves. Measures toward this end could include exchanges of information about national nuclear security procedures and standards (allowing each country to exclude information it considered particularly sensitive), and bilateral or international visits or peer reviews at selected facilities, with managed access to protect sensitive information. In particular, the IAEA already has a system for keeping information from safeguards inspections confidential, and steps could be taken to strengthen that system for protecting nuclear security information.[22]
- Recommendation: New approaches should be developed to provide confidence that stringent nuclear security standards are in fact being met, while protecting secret nuclear security information from terrorists and thieves.
- Recommendation: Voluntary peer reviews of physical protection arrangements, such as have been organized in recent years by the IAEA’s International Physical Protection Advisory Service, should become, over time, a regular, normal part of doing business in major nuclear facilities – just as safety peer reviews have become. Toward that end, major nuclear states such as the United States, France, Japan, Britain, and Germany should not only provide greater funding for such peer reviews but should invite peer reviews at selected facilities of their own.
- Recommendation: New cooperation should be established between the IAEA’s safeguards inspectors and its physical protection experts. The IAEA’s safeguards inspectors should be instructed to provide relevant information observed during their inspections to the physical protection office (while keeping the information safeguards-confidential). The IAEA’s inspectors should be provided limited physical protection awareness training to facilitate this.
- Recommendation: Using information from all available sources, the IAEA physical protection office should work to establish a confidential data base on the state of physical protection for nuclear materials and high-consequence nuclear facilities around the world, with a view toward identifying the facilities most in need of security upgrades.[23]
National sovereignty and international concern. National sovereignty has been a fundamental issue in international discussions of physical protection standards. Security for nuclear materials and facilities has traditionally been seen as the sole responsibility of each state.[24] Yet given that theft of enough nuclear material for a nuclear bomb could result in a devastating new threat to every state around the world, the international community has an overwhelming interest in seeing that states secure their nuclear material appropriately. Just as, after the Chernobyl accident, states made commitments to the international community in the area of nuclear safety, which had traditionally been seen as a solely national responsibility, here, too, there is an essential need for balance between the legitimate prerogatives of sovereignty and the needs of the international community for security against uncontrolled nuclear proliferation.
- Recommendation: Through legal or political commitments to meet stringent, agreed standards for nuclear security, backed up with some form of agreed mechanisms to build confidence that those commitments are being fulfilled, new arrangements should balance sovereignty with responsibility to the international community.
Links
| Key Resources | |
 |
"Leading
Toward Stringent Global Nuclear Security Standards,"
excerpt from Matthew Bunn, John P. Holdren, and Anthony
Wier, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven
Steps for Immediate Action (Washington, D.C.: Nuclear
Threat Initiative and the Project on Managing the Atom,
Harvard University, May 2002). Download 164K PDF Download 507K PDF of Full Report |
| Chapter of 2002 report argues that stringent global standards are not likely to be achieved through formal treaty negotiations, and that the United States should lead a group of like-minded countries in making a political commitment to meet agreed, stringent standards for securing their weapons-usable nuclear material. | |
|
Charles Curtis,
"Reducing the Nuclear Threat in the 21st Century," address
to the IAEA International Symposium on Safeguards: Verification
and Nuclear Material Security, October 29-November 2,
2001. Download 42K PDF |
| The chief operating officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative outlines, in strong terms, the need for stringent global security standards and an effective safeguards system, and some needed steps in those directions. | |
|
Lawrence Scheinman,
"Transcending Sovereignty in the Management and Control
of Nuclear Material," address to the IAEA International
Symposium on Safeguards: Verification and Nuclear Material
Security, October 29-November 2, 2001. Download 26K PDF |
| Scheinman focuses on the need to overcome the notion that security for nuclear materials should be left to the sole discretion of each state, finding ways to balance national sovereignty and the international community’s compelling interest in ensuring that all weapons-usable nuclear material is secure and accounted for – and offers some specific recommendations. | |
|
Matthew
Bunn and George Bunn, "Reducing
the Threat of Nuclear Theft and Sabotage," address
to the IAEA International Symposium on Safeguards:
Verification and Nuclear Material Security, October
29-November 2, 2001. |
| Outlines the threat of nuclear terrorism and recommends a range of specific steps to improve security for nuclear material and facilities worldwide. A shortened version is available from the IAEA Bulletin, and an updated version from the Journal of Nuclear Materials Management. | |
|
George
Bunn and Lyudmila Zaitseva, "Guarding Nuclear Reactors
and Materials from Terrorists and Thieves," address
to the IAEA International Symposium on Safeguards: Verification
and Nuclear Material Security, October 29-November 2,
2001. Download 40K PDF |
| Calls for a revision of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material to improve the standards for countries in securing their material, and for some form of international oversight of countries’ implementation of such standards. Other post-September 11 articles on related topics from these authors and their colleague Fritz Steinhausler have appeared in Arms Control Today and in Nonproliferation Review. | |
|
Larry D.
Johnson,
"Treaties Against Nuclear Terrorism: The Global
Legal Framework Can Make a Difference," IAEA Bulletin 44,
no. 1 (2002). Download 34K PDF |
| This article by the former IAEA legal adviser makes the case that the CPPNM must be amended to make international peer review of countries’ physical protection arrangements mandatory, and also calls for putting physical protection requirements into the draft Nuclear Terrorism treaty being debated at the UN. "It is simply not serious," Johnson writes, "to rely on each country policing itself when it comes to making sure that material which can be used to make a weapon of mass destruction is safe and secure." | |
|
George Bunn,
"Raising International Standards for Protecting Nuclear
Materials from Theft and Sabotage," Nonproliferation
Review 7, no. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 146-156. Download 50K PDF |
| Bunn reports on the first steps in the process toward amending the CCPNM, and offers recommendations. | |
|
Bonnie D.
Jenkins, "Establishing International Standards for
Physical Protection of Nuclear Material," Nonproliferation
Review 5, no. 3 (Spring-Summer 1998), pp. 98-110. Download 72K PDF |
| Jenkins makes the case that international standards for nuclear material security are needed, and reviews the international agreements and documents that already exist. | |
|
George Bunn,
"U.S. Standards for Protecting Weapons-Usable Fissile
Material Compared to International Standards," Nonproliferation
Review6, no. 1 (Fall 1998), pp. 137-143. Download 34K PDF |
| In 1994, a committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommended that agreements be reached requiring that, to the extent practicable, weapons-usable nuclear materials be secured and accounted for essentially as rigorously as nuclear weapons themselves are – the so-called "stored weapons standard." Using unclassified U.S. regulations, Bunn explores what such a standard would entail. | |
|
Matthew Bunn, "Security for Weapons-Usable Nuclear Materials: Expanding International Cooperation, Strengthening International Standards," in Comparative Analysis of Approaches to Protection of Fissile Materials: Proceedings of a Workshop at Stanford California, July 28-30, 1997 (Livermore, Cal.: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Document Conf.-97-0721, 1998). |
| Makes the case that stringent and verifiable global standards for security of nuclear materials should be put in place, and makes a number of specific suggestions. A shorter 1999 update is also available. | |
| Agreements and Documents | |
|
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. |
| Convention includes requirements for physical protection during international transport, and makes theft of nuclear material an international crime that can be prosecuted in any state party to the treaty. The IAEA, the depository for the convention, also makes information available on its status, including which states are parties to the agreement. | |
|
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), The Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities, INFCIRC/225/Rev.4 (Corrected). |
| The IAEA’s recommendations on physical protection are much more detailed than the requirements of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, but they are purely advisory. The most recent revision (Rev. 4, dating from 1999) includes a recommendation that each state develop a "design basis threat" and require those licensed to have nuclear material to put in place security systems able to defeat that threat. (It does, not however, recommend any minimum level for what this threat should be.) This revision also treats protection from sabotage for the first time, though that treatment is quite brief. | |
|
International
Atomic Energy Agency, Communications from Certain Member
States Regarding Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear
Material, Equipment, and Technology, INFCIRC 254/Rev.
5/Pt.1 (Corrected). Download 4.7M PDF |
| Under these Nuclear Suppliers’ Group guidelines, the participants agree to require that states receiving major nuclear exports provide physical protection at least meeting agreed standards. This requirement is in paragraph 3 of the guidelines, and the agreed standards (quite similar to the vague standards of the CPPNM) are in Annex C. | |
|
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Regulations on "Physical Protection of Plants and Materials" (10 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 73). |
| The United States publishes more detailed information on its physical protection rules and regulations than any other country. These are the NRC’s regulations on security for commercial nuclear facilities, which are NRC-regulated. Security systems for nuclear power plants, for example, must be able to protect against attack by a single group of "several" well-trained terrorists, with weapons they can carry, possibly in collusion with a single insider. For theft of HEU or plutonium, the security system must be designed to defeat a threat that could include two such teams, and a conspiracy of insiders. (See Part 73.1(a)). Facility operators (the licensees) are responsible for providing security in conformance with the regulations, and the NRC is responsible for inspecting to ensure this has been done. The NRC regulations have been criticized as inadequate;[25] NRC has ordered heightened security after September 11, established a new "Office of Security," and is undertaking a "top to bottom review" of these security regulations;[26] and the both houses of Congress are considering legislation that would require changes in the regulations on security for U.S. nuclear power plants. | |
|
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), "Protection and Control of Safeguards and Security Interests," Order 5632.1C (Washington, D.C.: DOE, July 15, 1994). |
| DOE’s internal requirements for its own facilities (which include nuclear weapons facilities) in some cases call for protection against more substantial threats than do the NRC regulations for commercial facilities. DOE, however, uses a system for classifying the attractiveness of different types of nuclear material that assigns a low priority to securing material containing less than 10% by weight weapons-usable nuclear material, such as fabricated MOX fuel. The order is supplemented with a more detailed manual for its implementation. While DOE regulates itself, it has established the Office of Safeguards and Security Evaluations, independent of those responsible for providing security at the sites, to inspect facilities to ensure they are complying with DOE’s regulations. Like the NRC, DOE has beefed up security after September 11, and is considering changes to its regulations; while a new design basis threat is prepared, DOE is currently operating under post-September 11 "Interim Implementing Guidance" on what the design basis threat for DOE facilities should be.[27] | |
| FOOTNOTES | |
| [1] | Remarks by George Bunn, IAEA Symposium on Combating Nuclear Terrorism, November 2, 2001. |
| [2] | International Atomic Energy Agency, The Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, Information Circular (INFCIRC) 274 (Vienna, Austria: IAEA, 1980). |
| [3] | India joined the Convention after September 11, and Pakistan had joined shortly before – though with a reservation that would so undermine the Convention’s value that the European Union has objected to it (see Hughes Belin, "EU, Euratom Object to Pakistan’s Reserve on Physical Protection Text," Nuclear Fuel, October 29, 2001); for current status of parties, see "Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material" (Vienna, Austria: IAEA, May 7, 2002). Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea are among the important states who are not parties to the Convention. |
| [4] | International Atomic Energy Agency, The Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, INFCIRC 225 (Rev. 4) (Vienna, Austria: 1999). |
| [5] | In 1998, when the United States proposed amending the Physical Protection Convention to make it mandatory to provide a level of protection equivalent to that recommended in INFCIRC 225, there was nearly universal opposition to this from the other countries participating in the talks, who wanted the "flexibility" not to follow these recommendations – and ultimately the United States concluded not only that there was too much opposition for this proposal to be viable, but also that it would be too expensive to upgrade its own facilities to meet these recommendations. See, for example, Marshal D. Koehn and Joseph D. Rivers, "DOE’s Involvement in Negotiations on the Question of Whether to Revise the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material," Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (Northbrook, IL: INMM, July 2001). U.S. regulations are generally performance-based, rather than the entirely rule-based approach of INFCIRC 225, and generally have far more stringent security requirements than required by INFCIRC 225, but DOE regulations have a different categorization approach that provides for much lower levels of security than called for in INFCIRC 225/Rev. 4 for mixed materials containing less than 10% by weight plutonium or U-235, such as mixed-oxide fuel. A strong argument can be made, however, that this categorization approach should be changed, as any group capable of making a bomb from metallic plutonium or HEU would likely be capable of performing the less difficult task of separating plutonium or HEU from unirradiated mixed material. For discussion, see Oleg Bukharin, Matthew Bunn, and Kenneth N. Luongo, Renewing the Partnership: Recommendations for Accelerated Action to Secure Nuclear Material in the Former Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, August 2000), pp. 24-25. |
| [6] | The NSG Guidelines are contained in International Atomic Energy Agency, Communications from Certain Member States Regarding Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment, and Technology, INFCIRC 254(Rev. 5, Part 1, Corrected) (Vienna, Austria: IAEA, 2002); the physical protection discussion is in paragraph 3 of the guidelines and Annex C. |
| [7] | See discussion in Bonnie Jenkins, "Establishing International Standards for Physical Protection of Nuclear Material," Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer 1998. |
| [8] | For a discussion of the early stages of these talks, see George Bunn, "Raising International Standards for Protecting Nuclear Materials from Theft and Sabotage," Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2000. For reviews of more recent developments, see George Bunn and Fritz Steinhausler, "Guarding Nuclear Reactors and Material From Terrorists and Thieves," Arms Control Today, October 2001; Patricia A. Comella and Burrus Carnahan, "Revising the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material," in Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (Northbrook, IL: INMM, July 2001); Patricia A. Comella, "Revising the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material," in Proceedings of the 43nd Annual Meeting of the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (Northbrook, IL: INMM, June 2002); and Larry D. Johnson, "Treaties Against Nuclear Terrorism: The Global Legal Framework Can Make a Difference," IAEA Bulletin 44, no. 1 (2002). |
| [9] | Comella, "Revising the Physical Protection Convention," op. cit. |
| [10] | See, for example, Matthew Bunn and George Bunn, "Reducing the Threat of Nuclear Theft and Sabotage," address to the IAEA International Symposium on Safeguards: Verification and Nuclear Material Security, October 29-November 2, 2001. |
| [11] | See IAEA, "Measures to Improve the Security of Nuclear Materials and Other Radioactive Materials: Resolution adopted on 21 September during the tenth plenary meeting," GC(45)/RES/14 (Vienna, Austria: September 2001); for the text of the 12 principles, see IAEA, "Measures to Improve the Security of Nuclear Materials and Other Radioactive Materials," GC(45)/INF/14 (Vienna, Austria: September 14, 2001). |
| [12] | Comella, "Revising the Physical Protection Convention," op. cit. |
| [13] | Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, Art. 20. |
| [14] | See the draft text of the "International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism," as of the conclusion of working group meetings in 1998. There has been little change since then. (George Bunn, personal communication; see also the October, 2001, report of the relevant UN working group.) See also Larry D. Johnson, "Treaties Against Nuclear Terrorism: The Global Legal Framework Can Make a Difference," IAEA Bulletin44, no. 1 (2002); and Federation of American Scientists, "Suppression of Nuclear Terrorism Convention," no date. |
| [15] | There is some precedent for this approach. As noted earlier, under U.S. law the United States requires that countries receiving U.S. nuclear material follow IAEA recommendations in this area (though the checks on this are quite modest). Following the U.S. lead, the Nuclear Suppliers Group has adopted guidelines for physical protection of material originating within its member states. See International Atomic Energy Agency, Communications Received From Certain Member States Regarding Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment, or Technology, INFCIRC 254 (Vienna, Austria: IAEA, 1978). The approach advocated here would, in effect, make these physical protection requirements more stringent. |
| [16] | For discussion, see Matthew Bunn, John P. Holdren, and Anthony Wier, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven Steps for Immediate Action (Washington, D.C.: Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, May 2002). |
| [17] | See Statement by G8 Leaders, "The G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction," June 27, 2002; for a more detailed discussion of aspects of this declaration, see Christina Chuen, Michael Jasinski, and Tim Meyer, "The 10 Plus 10 Over 10 Initiative: A Promising Start, But Little Substance So Far," (Monterey, Cal.: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, August 12, 2002). |
| [18] | For discussion, see Bunn, Holdren, and Wier, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials, op. cit. |
| [19] | U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, Management and Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1994), pp. 31, 136-137. Holdren was, and remains, chair of this committee, while Bunn was the plutonium study director. |
| [20] | For discussion, see Bunn, Holdren, and Wier, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials, op. cit. |
| [21] | Sen. Richard Lugar, "NATO After 9/11: Crisis or Opportunity?" address to the Council on Foreign Relations, March 4, 2002. |
| [22] | For discussion, see Bunn, Holdren, and Wier, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials, op. cit. |
| [23] | For discussion of these and related recommendations, see Bunn and Bunn, "Reducing the Threat of Nuclear Theft and Sabotage," op. cit. |
| [24] | For two views, see Comella, "Revising the Physical Protection Convention," op. cit. (emphasizing the importance of sovereignty), and Lawrence Scheinman, "Transcending Sovereignty in the Management and Control of Nuclear Material," address to the IAEA International Symposium on Safeguards: Verification and Nuclear Material Security, October 29-November 2, 2001 (emphasizing the importance of the international community’s need to be protected from the threat of nuclear theft). |
| [25] | |