Printer Friendly Page

Controlling Loose Nukes
Kenneth N. Luongo
President, Partnership for Global Security
August 18, 2009

A prerequisite for the abolition of nuclear weaponry is that international leaders must effectively and comprehensively address the evolving global nuclear dangers of the 21st century. Thus, they should launch a Nuclear Security Initiative, that would include a comprehensive suite of next-generation nuclear security policies and tools.

The new realities are that non-traditional influences, including global energy demand, climate change concerns, new economic development forces and technological advances are increasingly reshaping the nuclear security environment.  Adapting nuclear proliferation prevention strategies and programs to this new environment will require significantly increasing programmatic budgets, creating a robust globalized agenda, harmonizing US and international programs, establishing new partnerships with nongovernmental partners, removing legal impediments to action and utilizing new tools to defeat new threats. 

In the short-term, the core international nuclear security programs, including the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, should be strengthened with new metrics, expanded authorities, and increased budgets. The budget ramp-up should be occurring now to support President Obama's efforts "to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years" and prevent nuclear terrorism. Also, the US agencies participating in global nuclear security activities should be assigned specific roles and responsibilities so that the agency best suited to carry out a particular task can do so as rapidly and successfully as possible. These agencies also need some unrestricted funding and the latitude to quickly reprioritize their activities based on changing conditions. Furthermore, US programs should be able to accept non-US contributions for nuclear nonproliferation activities and have the legal flexibility to address nuclear challenges in all foreign countries. 

The Global Nuclear Security Initiative also needs to incorporate new stakeholders.  For instance, a Nonproliferation Enterprise Fund could be created to allow government programs to partner with the nongovernmental and university communities to provide fresh nonproliferation analyses. Part of this Fund could also be dedicated to the development of the next generation of nuclear security and nonproliferation experts who would perform a period of government service in exchange for educational and training support. 

There is also a need to more robustly engage the private sector. For example, the nuclear energy industry could be asked to contribute a portion of the cost of each new nuclear plant built to a fund that supplements the IAEA safeguards budget or other nonproliferation activities. Establishing such a fund could yield millions in new funding  for global security enhancements, recognize explicitly the security implications of the expansion of nuclear power, and provide a reputational benefit to the nuclear industry.  

In addition to the administration's goals to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiate a follow-on to START, there are a number of other internationally-focused nonproliferation and disarmament opportunities that the US could lead as part of its global nuclear security strategy.  In advance of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, the US could coordinate an official statement by the five NPT nuclear weapon states announcing that they have ended the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.  This would formalize the unofficial moratorium that is already observed and could be a first step toward a global fissile material cut off treaty. 

Another option to consider is to extend the G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction for another 10 years and reconceptulize it to have global and operational focus.  For example, given the unpredictable nature of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) crises, establishing a multilateral WMD rapid reaction force under the G-8 (with provisions for the participation of non-G-8 nations just as the Global Partnership currently allows) could lay the groundwork for effective, coordinated multilateral action to quickly and effectively respond to a WMD crisis or disarmament opportunity anywhere on the globe. 

The Obama administration and other international leaders must think beyond the incremental expansion and adaptation of existing arms control and threat reduction programs as they work to develop a next-generation suite of nuclear security and nonproliferation policies. The Global Nuclear Security Initiative could serve as an effective and robust element in any nuclear weapons elimination strategy.