2005 NPI Abstracts

“Nuclear History: The Neglected Discipline”

Robert Norris

Senior Research Associate, Natural Resources Defense Council

Understandably nuclear history has been a neglected discipline with more than its share of research obstacles.  The secrecy and classification levels that surround the topic have made it difficult for scholars to establish basic facts about nuclear weapons and assess their influence in the conduct of a nation’s domestic, foreign, and military policy.

The presentation will briefly describe how nine countries (the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and South Africa) successfully developed nuclear weapons with comments about the research difficulties encountered in each. The examples of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq will also be covered. Using the history and experience of the dozen countries the following questions will be addressed:

* How much help (overt and covert) did the countries receive from one another?

* How easy or how hard is it to develop a nuclear weapon?

* What do these lessons portend for the future?

Relevant “NRDC Nuclear Notebook” columns  in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists should be consulted, especially “Nuclear Pursuits” in the September/October 2003 issue. (www.thebulletin.org)

“History of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex”

Charles Loeber

Design Engineer and Program Manager (retired)

U.S. Department of Energy and Sandia National Laboratories

The Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) is a nationwide group of government-owned, contractor-operated laboratories and production plants that are administered by the National Nuclear Security Administration under the U.S. Department of Energy. The NWC is responsible for the design, development, production, modification, repair, assembly, disassembly and testing of all nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile.

This presentation provides a high level overview of the NWC from its origins during the Manhattan Project to its subsequent evolution during and after the Cold War. It explains the key scientific and political developments that drove this evolution.  It also explains the basic principles of operation for fission and fusion weapons, the methods for producing fissile materials, the wooden bomb concept, limited-life components, and the ongoing need for neutron generators and tritium reservoirs. It concludes with a description of the eight major sites in the current NWC, the weapon program management system, and the post-Cold War challenge.

“A New Nuclear Proliferation Policy”

Joseph Cirincione (Keynote)

Senior Associate & Director of the Nonproliferation Project
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The world is at a nuclear tipping point.  We now face some of the most serious proliferation crises in the 60-year history of the nuclear age.  We must deal with the quadruple threat of nuclear terrorism, new nuclear-weapon states, the dangers from existing nuclear arsenals, and the possible collapse of the nonproliferation regime.  Decisions made in the next few years will  decide whether we will continue the progress made over the past four decades in containing and reducing nuclear threats, or if we will enter the dangerous world President John F. Kennedy feared in 1960 of 20 or 25 nuclear  nations. Joseph Cirincione will assess the dangers and  discuss the current administration policies, the obstacles we must  overcome and the traps we need to avoid.  He will present the findings from the new Carnegie study, Universal Compliance:  A Strategy for Nuclear Security.

 
“Nuclear or Radiological Terror - Can We Stop It?”
Charles Ferguson

Science and Technology Fellow Council on Foreign Relations

Fears of nuclear or radiological terrorism were not born on September 11, 2001, although the terrorist attacks on that date sparked widespread concern that it may only be a matter of time before terrorists ratchet up the level of violence by launching unconventional nuclear or radiological attacks. How likely is it that terrorists will cross the nuclear threshold? How many terrorist groups are motivated to do this? What are the technical barriers to making improvised nuclear devices -- crude nuclear weapons -- or radiological dispersal devices -- one type of which is popularly known as a "dirty bomb"? Why haven't nuclear or radiological terrorist attacks taken place, to date? What can nations do to prevent and prepare for nuclear or radiological terrorism? Can nuclear terrorists be deterred? What is meant by deterring nuclear terrorists? Have the threats from nation-states, the nuclear black market, or illicit radioactive and nuclear materials trafficking aided terrorists? This presentation will attempt to answer these critical questions.

“Biological and Chemical Weapons: Analysis of the Issues”

Anna Johnson-Winegar

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense For Chemical

and Biological Defense Programs

Chemical and biological weapons have often been described as “the poor man ’s nuclear bomb” because of the relatively low expertise required to produce them and the small amount of funding needed to produce them.  Yet there have been very few documented cases where these types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been used, either by terrorist organizations, or state sponsored groups.  Chemical and biological agents are extremely diverse in many characteristics: time to take effect; duration of symptoms; survivability or persistence in adverse conditions; ease of production; methods of dispersion; and available countermeasures.  Interest in learning about these types of WMD peaked in the early 1990’s following the intelligence community’s analysis of Iraq’s stockpiles of sarin, anthrax, and other agents and subsequently took a civilian and public health perspective when the anthrax letters were delivered in the fall of 2001.  Although there are existing international treaties and conventions in place (along with national restrictions) which outlaw the production and use of these WMD, the dangers have not been totally eliminated.  Inspection efforts to control proliferation will continue to be hampered by limited means of detection, but more importantly they will be clouded by the issue of dual-use facilities and the inability to determine intent on the part of the suspected party.  Continued emphasis on a strong defensive posture for the United States is mandated by the understanding that chemical and biological weapons continue to pose a difficult technical challenge to the scientific community and    to the policy makers of this country.

“The Last Taboo: Israel’s Bomb Revisited”

Avner Cohen

Senior Research Scholar,

Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland School of Public Affairs,

University of Maryland

Israel, everyone agrees, is an established nuclear weapon state.  It was the sixth nation in the world – the first in the Middle East – to develop and acquire nuclear weapons.  Indeed while exact figures are speculative, Israel’s nuclear forces are believed to be more like those of France and the United Kingdom than India’s or Pakistan’s. Nearly 40 years after Israel crossed the nuclear threshold its leaders remain faithful to its  code of secrecy, nonacknowledgement, and censorship imposed at the time they initiated the program.  This makes the Israeli bomb conspicuous by its very absence.  The bomb is Israel’s last taboo.  Israelis call this taboo – this code of conduct and discourse – amimut, Hebrew for opacity or ambiguity.

The problem, from which the international community can no longer afford to look away, is whether Israel’s nuclear opacity today presents a barrier to reform of the global nonproliferation regime.  As the world confronts Iran’s nuclear ambitions and along with it the need to strengthen nonproliferation norms and enforcement, there are many in the international community who are asking, “And what about Israel?” Is it really possible to redesign and buttress the nonproliferation regime as the Iranian case requires, while leaving Israel’s nuclear capacity an untouched taboo?  Is it healthy for Israeli democracy or global security to continue with the path of nuclear opacity?

“The Economic, Environmental, and Public Health Costs of U.S. Nuclear Weapons”

Stephen Schwartz

Former Publisher/Executive Director Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Between 1945 and the early 1990s, the United States manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons to deter and if necessary fight a nuclear war.  As early as 1950, nuclear weapons were considered relatively inexpensive—providing “a bigger bang for a buck”—and were thoroughly integrated into U.S. forces on that basis. Yet this assumption was never validated. Indeed, for more than fifty years scant attention was paid to the enormous costs of this effort—nearly $6 trillion thus far—and its short and long-term consequences.  This presentation will delve into each aspect of the nuclear weapons program, including research, development, testing, and production; deployment; command, control, communications, and intelligence; and defensive measures. It also examines the costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, the management and disposal of large quantities of toxic and radioactive wastes left over from their production, compensation for persons harmed by nuclear weapons activities, nuclear secrecy, and the economic implications of nuclear deterrence.  It also explores how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentation of and overreaction to the Soviet threat, the desire to maintain nuclear superiority, bureaucratic and often arbitrary decisions, pork barrel politics, and excessive secrecy—all drove the acquisition of an arsenal far larger than what many civilian and military leaders deemed necessary.

“The North Korean Nuclear/Missile Crisis”

James Clay Moltz

Deputy Director and Research Professor Center for Nonproliferation Studies

North Korea's nuclear and missile programs represent the most dangerous proliferation problem in Northeast Asia, if not the world.  This presentation will examine the history of these programs, their political context, and their technical aspects.  Two main issues that will be discussed are: 1) what materials does North Korea have on hand to build nuclear weapons, and what route are they most likely to take (and how reliable would such a weapon)?; and 2) what are North Korea's missile

capabilities in terms of range, payload, and accuracy, and how much do we need to worry?   The presentation will also discuss the now-halted effort to build light-water reactors in North Korea under the 1994 Agreed Framework.  Finally, the talk will cover current political issues surrounding the Six-Party Talks and what other paths might exist to bring about a lasting settlement of this crisis.

“U.S. Nonproliferation Policy: Current and Alternative Approaches”

Randall Forsberg

Executive Director Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies

As the Cold War ended (1985-1995), the USA and the USSR/Russia took important steps to end the "nuclear arms race" and make deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals. Since the mid-1990s, however, nuclear cuts in the USA and Russia have leveled off. With the 2000 election of George W. Bush, the United States has adopted a new approach: that is, to rely on "counter-proliferation" actions, rather than international arms control agreements, to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. This session will look at the pros and cons of the counter-proliferation and arms control approaches, and assess the actual and potential impact of each approach on recent and prospective proliferators: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. 

“Nuclear Threats and Targeting as Engines of Proliferation: A Historical Survey”

Arjun Makhijani

President and Senior Engineer,

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

From World War II  to the post Cold War era, nuclear targeting and nuclear threats and more subtle nuclear diplomacy have been a prime engine of nuclear proliferation.  Hiroshima was the trigger for the Soviet crash program for the bomb, U.S. nuclear threats to China (and later Soviet threats) were a prime motivation for the Chinese arsenal, and so on.  Indeed, the potential Nazi nuclear threat was the main motive for the U.S. to start nuclear weapons research.   At the same time targeting policies have also been linked to deterrence policies.  The talk will explore the historical connections between nuclear targeting, nuclear threats, nuclear deterrence, and nuclear proliferation.
 

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