Proliferation News 4/2/26
IN THIS ISSUE: How the Iran War undermines the nuclear nonproliferation regime, Risky commando plan to seize Iran’s uranium came at Trump’s request, As arms agreements fray, China secretly expands its nuclear weapons infrastructure, NASA space launch sets stage for nuclear power on the moon, What happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputer, Non-Proliferation as a Strategic Imperative
How the Iran War undermines the nuclear nonproliferation regime
George Perkovich | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, he cracked the brittle foundation of the global nonproliferation regime based on the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was not seen clearly at the time, so its implications could not be fully addressed. Now the ramifications are becoming clearer: The war on Iran raises doubt that the NPT can be a central pillar of international security.
Risky commando plan to seize Iran’s uranium came at Trump’s request
Ellen Nakashima, John Hudson, Alex Horton, and Karen DeYoung | The Washington Post
The U.S. military has given the president a plan to seize nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium in Iran that would involve flying in excavation equipment and building a runway for cargo planes to take the radioactive material out, according to two people familiar with the matter. The complex plan was briefed to the president in the past week after he asked for a proposal, they said, as were its significant operational risks. Trump’s request for the plan, previously unreported, signals his interest in contemplating what would be an unusually sensitive and high-stakes special operations mission.
As arms agreements fray, China secretly expands its nuclear weapons infrastructure
Tamara Qiblawi, Thomas Bordeau, Yong Xiong, and Gianluca Mezzofiore | CNN
When three villagers from China’s Sichuan province wrote to local officials in 2022 asking why the government was confiscating their land and evicting them from their homes, they received a terse reply: It was a “state secret.” That secret, a CNN investigation has found, centered on China’s covert plans to massively expand its nuclear ambitions. More than three years after the evictions, satellite images show, their village has been flattened and, in its place, new buildings erected to support some of China’s most important nuclear weapons production facilities.
NASA space launch sets stage for nuclear power on the moon
Rylan DiGiacomo-Rapp | E&E News
The White House wants a nuclear reactor ready for launch to the moon by 2030. Reliable lunar power is the linchpin in NASA’s plans for a “golden age” of space discovery — fueling a habitable moon base, missions to Mars and other space exploration under the agency’s Artemis program… The 2030 deadline to develop a launch-ready reactor is “aggressive but achievable,” said Sebastian Corbisiero, DOE’s national technical director of space reactor programs.
What happened when they installed ChatGPT on a nuclear supercomputer
Joshua Keating | Vox
In recent weeks… the partnership between the US military and leading AI companies has become a highly charged political topic. Less discussed has been the already extensive cooperation between these firms and the country’s nuclear weapons complex, under the supervision of the Department of Energy. Last year, the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) entered a partnership with OpenAI allowing it to install the company’s popular ChatGPT AI system on Venado, one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. As of August, Venado was placed on a classified network, meaning that the AI chatbot now has access to some of the country’s most sensitive scientific data on nuclear weapons.
Non-Proliferation as a Strategic Imperative
Cho Hyun | Asia-Pacific Leadership Network
The Republic of Korea is pursuing a set of nuclear policy initiatives: advancing efforts to modernize its nuclear fuel cycle and to introduce conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines… At a time when the international community approaches another NPT Review Conference, it is both timely and necessary to reaffirm what non-proliferation truly means—and why, for the Republic of Korea, commitment to non-proliferation is not a legal constraint but a strategic choice.
RELATED: Non-Proliferation as a Strategic Imperative: Experts respond to ROK Foreign Minister
Jun Bong-guen, Maria Rost Rublee, and Toby Dalton | Asia-Pacific Leadership Network
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