• Proliferation Analysis

Fissile Facts

• Ben Bain
• December 15, 2005

A compilation of information on fissile material around the world.

• Proliferation Analysis

Experts' Advice on the India Nuclear Deal

• Caterina Dutto
• December 07, 2005

• Proliferation Analysis

Year End Nuclear Progress Report

• Ben Bain
• December 06, 2005

As 2005 comes to a close, there is good news to report on several government efforts aimed at stemming the spread of nuclear weapons. We are moving in the right direction, though not as fast nor as far as we could.

• The Nunn-Lugar program has destroyed 6,760 nuclear warheads and thousands of missiles and launchers.  “The experience of Nunn-Lugar shows that, with determination and hard work, we can deny terrorists access to these devastating weapons,” says Senator Lugar.  Carnegie experts in their report, Universal Compliance, recommend accelerating the program, “in partnership with Russia, to fully protect Russian nuclear weapon-usable material by 2008.”
  
• The Global Threat Reduction Initiative program has now secured 122kg of highly-enriched uranium from research reactors in 7 nations.  This program, too, should be accelerated, to completely secure the tons of nuclear material by the end of 2008.
  
• The Megatons to Megawatts program this year passed the halfway point in its goal to downblend 500 tons of Russian HEU.  Too much material remains in uncertain security, however, and “Russia and the United States should agree to double the pace from 30 to 60 metric tons of HEU per year,” according to the Carnegie report. (Read More)

• Proliferation Analysis

Coming Up Short

• Joshua Williams
• November 18, 2005

Earlier this week the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, an extension of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, reported on efforts to protect America from terrorists that seek nuclear weapons and materials.  Their verdict was not a happy one.  Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton cited “insufficient progress” in the race against time to prevent the world’s most dangerous people from getting the world’s most dangerous weapons.  In short, they wrote, “the size of the problem still dwarfs the policy response.”

Kean and Hamilton reported that less than half of Russia’s nuclear material has received security upgrades.  In real terms, this means that more than 300 tons of loose nuclear material remains unguarded in Russia and the former Soviet states.  That is enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium for tens of thousands of crude nuclear bombs.  In the past year, moreover, security improvements were completed twice as slowly as expected.  The Department of Energy’s nuclear security administration now estimates that this work will not be complete until 2020.  Securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union is an essential front in the war on terror.  We must progress at a faster rate. (Read More)

• Testimony

The U.S.-India ''Global Partnership'': How Significant for American Interests?

• Ashley J. Tellis
• November 17, 2005

United States and India today are happily confronted by an unprecedented convergence of interests, values, and inter-societal ties in a way never experienced before in the close to sixty-year history of the bilateral relationship. Given India’s importance to the United States, the president should continue working with New Delhi toward a full partnership.

• Op-Ed

Should the U.S. Sell Nuclear Technology to India? Part II

• Ashley J. Tellis
• November 10, 2005
• YaleGlobal Online
• • 中文

Mechanisms to Increase Nuclear Fuel Cycle Guarantees

• Pierre Goldschmidt
• November 08, 2005
• November 8

At Carnegie's 2005 International Nonproliferation Conference, Pierre Goldschmidt discusses a mechanism that he says could form the basis of a guaranteed fuel supply concept to deal particularly with cases in which a state is found in non-compliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement while ensuring against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

• Event

Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference

• November 07, 2005

The 2005 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference attracted over 800 experts, officials, and journalists from around the world. The conference provided an open forum for informed discussion on the most pressing nonproliferation issues facing the world today, including Iran, North Korea, and the nuclear fuel cycle.  Visit our conference website to catch up on anything you may have missed, including video and audio, transcripts, presentations, guest bloggers and photo galleries of this amazing two-day event.

• Proliferation Analysis

Nonproliferation Turns 60

• Jane Vaynman
• November 01, 2005

Building the bomb was a feat of engineering and physics; controlling it would take politics and cooperation. This was clear to Harry S Truman when he tabled the first international nonproliferation proposal 60 years ago this November.

On November 15, 1945, President Truman joined with Prime Minister Clement Attlee of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister William Mackenzie King of Canada in a proposal for the future of atomic energy. The two-page statement called for careful planning by a new international atomic energy commission to be established by the United Nations. The statement itself also explicitly foreshadows the tension between energy needs and security imperatives that continues unresolved decades later. (Read More)

• Op-Ed

Lessons Lost

• Joseph Cirincione
• October 31, 2005