Jan -june_2009_six_month_report

CIVILIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY IN AN UNSTABLE,
CARBON-CONSTRAINED WORLD
NPEC SIX-MONTH REPORT
January 1, 2009 to June 30, 2009

CIVILIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY IN AN UNSTABLE,
CARBON-CONSTRAINED WORLD
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 2
NARRATIVE REPORT Page 20
REPORT CONTENT Page 26

CIVILIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY IN AN UNSTABLE, CARBON-
CONSTRAINED WORLD
Contents
I. NPEC’S 15TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
A. Attendees
B. NPEC’s New board of advisors
C. 15th
Year Anniversary testimonials from leading official and
national experts
II. THE NEXT ARMS RACE
A. Atoms for Peace, Atoms for War first chapter book review
event, Washington, DC - June 1, 2009
1. Attendee list
2. “Avoiding a Nuclear Crowd: How to Resist the
Weapon’s Spread,” by Henry Sokolski
B. Planning of NPEC, Naval War College and Carnegie
Endowment Washington Conference on Asia and Arms
Control
C. Correspondence with Martine Letts and Rory Metcalf of the
Lowy Institute on the Asian Nuclear Futures Conference
planned for February 2010 in Australia
D. NPEC Presentations
1. Aspen Institute Germany /American Institute for
Contemporary German Studies Conference on “Russia
and the West – Resetting the Relationship,”
Washington, DC - June 11, 2009
a. Invitation

b. “Nuclear Nonproliferation and Arms Control:
Working Well Together?”
2. Congressional Staff briefing “Is a Nuclear-Free World
Possible?” Washington, DC - June 11, 2009
a. Invitation
b. “Nuclear Nonproliferation and Arms Control:
Working Well Together?”
3. National Security Law Institute at the University of
Virginia Law School, Charlottesville, VA - June 4,
2009
a. Invitation
b. “Dealing With the Nuclear Threat in the Struggle
Against Terror”
4. The Center for Science, Technology, and Security
Policy at the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and the Nonproliferation
Policy Education Center, “Does the Spread of Nuclear
Power Mean the Spread of Nuclear Bombs?”
Washington, DC - May 12, 2009
a. Invitation
b. Presentations
i. Robert W. Selden - “Reactor Plutonium and
Nuclear Explosives”
ii. R. Scott Kemp - “Detection of Clandestine
Enrichment and Reprocessing”
5. Classified Naval War College and US Strategic
Command: Deterrence and Escalation Game, Newport,
RI, May 04 - 07, 2009
6. Carnegie Junior Fellows Conference “A New Nuclear
Order?” Washington, DC - April 23, 2009

a. Invitation
b. “Nuclear Abolition and the Next Arms Race”
7. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, National
response to Catastrophic & Disruptive Threats
Exercise, Quantico, VA - April 14, 2009
a. Invitation
b. “Nuclear Threats: The Next 30 Years”
8. Project On Nuclear Issues Spring Conference,
Annapolis, MD - March 26, 2009
a. Agenda and attendee list
b. “Nuclear Abolition and The Next Arms Race”
9. NPEC briefing of the Commission on the Strategic
Posture of the United States, Washington, DC - January
08, 2009
a. Presentation
E. Relevant meetings
1. Discussion on Korea, Russian rocket proliferation and
Iran Meeting with Bret Stephens, Foreign-Affairs
Columnist, and Editorial Board, The Wall Street
Journal, Washington, DC– June 18, 2009
2. Meeting with Congressman Fortenberry, member,
House Foreign Affairs Committee, on India, Iran, UAE
and possible hiring of NPEC fellow Robert Zarate,
Washington, DC – June 17, 2009
3. Meeting with Simon Limage, Chief of Staff to
designate Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher,
Department of State, possible initiative on strategic
arms and nonproliferation initiatives, Washington, DC–
June 10, 2009

4. Meeting with Matt Kaminski, member, Editorial Board,
The Wall Street Journal, strategic arms threats and
control options, Washington, DC – June 2, 2009
5. Nuclear nonproliferation roundup with Wendy
Anderson, Professional Staff Member, Senate
Homeland Security and Government Affairs
Committee, Washington, DC – April 22, 2009
6. Canadian Members of Parliament Foreign Affairs
Committee briefing on the costs and risks of Canada
investing in Nuclear power, Washington, DC – April
21, 2009
a. Invitation
7. Conference call with Professional Staff Member Aileen
Alexander of the House Armed Services Committee on
long term arms control agenda and emerging
proliferation threats, - April 16, 2009
F. Policy Outreach
1. Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United
States final recommendations
G. NPEC Publications
1. "How Not to Restrain Iran: The 'Realist' Case for
Allowing Tehran to Make Nuclear Fuel is Anything but
Realistic," National Review Online – June 24, 2009
a. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWFhNmYy
YzRmYmYwZWQ0Y2Q4NGM1OTM2MTQ4M
WVkZjE=
2. "Locking down the NPT,” by NPEC executive director
Henry Sokolski and former Nuclear Regulatory

Commissioner Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists - June 17, 2009
a. http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-
eds/locking-down-the-npt
3. “Avoiding a Nuclear Crowd: How to Resist the
Weapon’s Spread,” Policy Review - June 2, 2009
a. http://www.npec-web.org/Articles/sokolski-
Hooverpolicyreview-June2009.pdf
4. “Nuclear Blast Of Reality,” Forbes - May 25, 2009
a. http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/25/nuclear-
obama-iran-npt-terrorist-state-opinions-
contributors-north-korea.html
5. "What to Do about Pyongyang: Nuclear
Nonproliferation is on the Ropes--Does the U.S. Have
the Will to Act?" National Review Online - April 2,
2009
a. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWIwMzM3
YTNhZGNlY2ZlMmNmMmRkZjFiZmJlMzY0Y
mI
6. Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of
the United States publication, In the Eyes of the
Experts: Analysis and Comments on America's
Strategic Posture features article by executive director
Henry Sokolski, “Nuclear Abolition and the Next Arms
Race”
III. CIVILIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY IN AN UNSTABLE, CARBON-
CONSTRAINED WORLD
A. NPEC Events

1. Carnegie International Endowment for Peace and
NPEC co-sponsored conference on “Costing Nuclear
Power’s Future,” Washington, DC - February 11, 2009
a. Agenda
b. Attendee List
c. Presentations
i. Stephen Thomas - “The Current Financial
Crisis: Its Implications for Nuclear Power’s
Future”
ii. Jim Harding - “The Economics of New
Nuclear Power Plants and Proliferation
Risks”
iii. Sharon Squassoni - “Mapping Nuclear
Power’s Future”
iv. Dalberg Global Development Advisors -
“Nuclear Power in Turkey, North Africa and
the Gulf: How Cost Effective?”
v. Mycle Schneider - “The French Nuclear
Program”
vi. David Stellfox - ”European Nuclear
Programs, Markets and the UK”
vii.Amory Lovins - “Nuclear Power vs.
Competitors: Comparing Costs and Climate-
Protection Potentials”
viii. Doug Koplow - “State and Federal Subsidies
to Nuclear Power: Case of Calvert Cliffs
Unit III”
ix. Larry Parker - “Climate Change Legislation
and Nuclear Power: Good News, Bad News,
or No News”

x. Justin Falk - “Nuclear Power’s Role in
Generating Electricity”
xi. Stephen Kidd - “Nuclear Fuel - Myths and
Realities”
xii.Frank von Hippel - “Managing Spent Fuel in
the United States: The Illogic of
Reprocessing”
xiii. Chris Ford - “What Is Beneficial, Peaceful
Nuclear Energy under the NPT?”
xiv.Simon Carroll - “European Challenges to
Promoting International Pooling and
Compensation for Nuclear Reactor
Accidents”
2. Heritage and NPEC cosponsored meeting “Is
Subsidizing Commercial Energy Projects the Best Way
for America to Achieve its Energy Goals?”
Washington, DC - March 24, 2009
a. Invitation
b. Attendees
c. Video –
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev032409a.c
fm
d. Speakers
i. Peter Bradford
Board Member, Union of Concerned
Scientists and former NRC Commissioner
ii. Marlo Lewis
Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise
Institute

iii. Doug Koplow
Founder, Earth Track
iv. Ben Lieberman
Senior Policy Analyst, Energy and
Environment
The Heritage Foundation
3. NPEC and Physicians for Social Responsibility
sponsored dinner, “Can We Promote Nuclear Power
Without Subsidies: Lessons from Great Britain” - May
21, 2009
a. Presentation by Steven Thomas
b. Attendees
B. Policy Outreach
1. Letter to the members of the Senate and House
Appropriations Committees regarding the use of
nuclear weapons usable fuels for the production of
medical isotopes in the U.S. signed by NPEC’s
Executive director and 15 other nongovernmental
nuclear experts, June 15, 2009
a. http://www.npec-
web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PDFFile
=20090615-JointLetterToCongress-
Isotopes&PDFFolder=Letters
2. House Foreign Affairs Committee legislation reflecting
NPEC’s key nuclear recommendations to the
Congressional Commission on the Prevention of WMD
Proliferation and Terrorism – May 20, 2009
3. Letter sent to President Barack Obama from NPEC,
National Taxpayers Union, Taxpayers for Common
Sense, and the George Marshall Institute urging the
President not to request additional budget authority in

the FY 2010 budget for the Department of Energy
(DoE) loan guarantee programs. - January 16, 2009.
a. http://www.npec-
web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PDFFile
=20090116-JointLetter-
EnergyLoanGuaranteePrograms&PDFFolder=Lett
ers
4. House Foreign Affairs Committee legislates reporting
requirements in State Authorization Act
C. NPEC Presentations
1. Council on Foreign Relations workshop on “The
International Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime”,
Washington, DC - May 19, 2009
a. Invitation
b. Transcript
2. “Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons”, University of
San Diego, San Diego, CA - May 9, 2009
a. Invitation
b. “Nuclear Power and Proliferation in the Middle
East”
i. http://www.npec-
web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single&PD
FFile=20090509-Sokolski-
NuclearPowerProliferationMiddleEast&PDF
Folder=Presentations
3. “Peaceful, Beneficial Nuclear Energy”, a presentation
to Non-Governmental Organizations at the Third
Session of the Preparatory Committee of the 2010
Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, New
York, NY - May 08, 2009

a. “Peaceful, Beneficial Nuclear Energy”
4. “The United States and the Future of Global
Governance,” Council on Foreign Relations, New
York, NY - May 8, 2009
a. Invitation
b. Video -
http://www.cfr.org/publication/19381/strengthenin
g_the_nuclear_nonproliferation_regime.html
5. Monterey Institute of International Studies Panel
Discussion on “Nuclear Energy in the Middle East:
Clearing the Legal Hurdles” sponsored by The James
Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and The
Georgetown University Institute for International
Studies, Washington, DC - March 4, 2009
a. Invitation
b. “What’s to Keep Atoms for Peace in the Middle
East?” presented by Henry Sokolski -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43BEzZtcEvI
6. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace private
meeting in preparation for Italy’s chairmanship of the
G8 with Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini,
Washington, DC - February 27, 2009
a. Invitation
D. NPEC Publications
1. “Nuclear Dealing: A proposed agreement with a crucial
Middle East State deserves close scrutiny” National
Review Online - March 25, 2009
a. http://www.npec-web.org/Articles/sokolski-nro-
march2009.pdf

E. Relevant Meetings
1. Meeting with the Republican Senate Policy Committee
including Michael Stransky and others on UAE-123 -
June 09, 2009
a. Congressional memo
2. Atoms for peace in the middle east discussion with
Elaine Grossman, Reporter, Global Security Newswire,
Washington, DC - April 13, 2009
3. German nuclear policy issues discussion with Mr.
Walter Kolbow, Parliamentary State Secretary - Federal
Ministry of Defense of Germany, Washington, DC –
March 31, 2009
4. Discussion on Atoms for Peace and Iran with Tim
Morrison, Washington, DC - March 24, 2009
5. Conversation on atoms for peace in the middle east
Wall Street Journal editorial editor Melanie
Kirkpatrick, Deputy Editor, Editorial Board, The Wall
Street Journal, New York, NY, DC - March 19, 2009
6. Research exchange meeting with George Perkovich,
Vice President for Studies, Director of the
Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, Washington, DC - March 11,
2009
7. Nonproliferation roundup with Tim Morrison, Senior
Military Aide, Senator Jon Kyl, Washington, DC -
March 09, 2009
8. Atoms for peace discussion with former Ambassador
John Bolton, Washington, DC – February 25, 2009

9. Nonproliferation policy overview with Congressman
Royce, Ranking Member of the Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee,
10.Nonproliferation policy roundup with Doug Frantz
Chief Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Ed Levine, Senior Professional Staff
Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and
Anthony Weir, Professional Staff Member, Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC -
February 23, 2009
11.Critique of Democratic Nonproliferation Agenda with
Simon Limage Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Ellen
Tauscher, Member, House Armed Services Committee,
12.Discussion on the international nonproliferation
committee with Martine Letts, member of the Advisory
Board for the International Commission on Nuclear
Non-proliferation and Disarmament, Washington, DC -
February 16, 2009
13.Discussion of a variety of nonproliferation topics with
Doug Seay, Professional Staff Member, U.S. House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC -
February 09, 2009
F. Expanding Nuclear Power: Weighing the Costs and Risks
(forthcoming)
1. Table of Contents
a. Nuclear Power: An Economic, Environmental,
and Political Prospectus
i. Jim Harding, “The Economics of New
Nuclear power Plants” http://www.npec-

web.org/Essays/20070600-Harding-
EconomicsNewNuclearPower.pdf
ii. Sharon Squassoni, “Mapping Nuclear
Power’s Future Spread”http://www.npec-
FFile=Squassoni-
nuclearpowerhowmuch&PDFFolder=Essays
iii. Amory Lovins, “Nuclear Power Climate Fix
or Folly?” http://www.npec-
FFile=Lovins%20-
%20NuclearPowerClimateFixorFolly&PDFF
older=Essays
iv. Stephen Thomas, “The Credit Crunch and
Nuclear Power” http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20081112-Thomas-
CreditCrunchNuclearPower.pdf
v. Peter Bradford, “Taxpayer Financing for
Nuclear Power: Precedents and
Consequences” http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20080330-Bradford-
TaxpayerFinancingNuclearPower.pdf
b. Nuclear Power: North and South
i. Peter Tynan and John Stephenson, “Nuclear
Power in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia:
How Cost Effective?” http://www.npec-
web.org/Presentations/20080413-Dalberg.pdf
ii. James Acton and Wyn Bowen, “Civilian
Nuclear Power in the Middle East: The
Technical Requirements”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20080925-ActonBowen-
AtomsForPeaceInMiddleEast.pdf

iii. Mycle Schneider, “Nuclear Power in France:
Beyond the Myth?” http://www.npec-
web.org/Reports/20081200-Schneider-
NuclearPowerInFrance.pdf
iv. Stephen Thomas, “What Will Be Required of
the British Government to Build the Next
Nuclear Power Plant?”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20080310-Thomas-
NuclearSubsidies.pdf
v. Doug Koplow, “A Case Study of Subsidies to
Calvert Cliffs” http://www.npec-
FFile=Koplow%20-
%20CalvertCliffs3&PDFFolder=Essays
c. Making and Disposing of Nuclear Fuel
i. Steve Kidd, “Nuclear Fuel: Myths and
Realities”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20090306-Kidd-
NuclearFuelMythsAndRealities.pdf
ii. Frank Von Hippel, “The Costs and Benefits
of Reprocessing”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/vonhippel%20-
%20TheCostsandBenefits.pdf
d. Developing Economic Safeguards against Nuclear
Accidents and Proliferation
i. Antony Froggatt, “Nuclear Liability
Insurance Policies in
Europe”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/DRAFT-20071105-Froggatt-
NuclearThirdPartyInsurancePaper.pdf
ii. Simon Carroll, “The Case for a Single
European, Integrated, Nuclear Accident

Insurance Pool.”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20090201-Carroll-DRAFT-
EuroNuclearAccidentPooling_.pdf
iii. Henry Sokolski “Market Fortified
Nonproliferation”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20070806-Sokolski-
MarketFortifiedNonpro.pdf
iv. Christopher Ford, “Nuclear Rights and
Wrongs Under the NPT”http://www.npec-
web.org/Essays/20090601-Ford-
NuclearRightsAndWrongs.pdf
IV. PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR FUTURE
A. Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Worries beyond War (forthcoming)
1. Foreword
a. Henry Sokolski - “Pakistan’s Nuclear Plans:
What’s Worrisome, What’s Avertable?”
2. Chapters
a. Neil Joeck - “The Indo-Pakistani Nuclear
Confrontation: Lessons from the Past,
Contingencies for the Future”
b. Feroz Hassan Khan - “Reducing the Risk of
Nuclear War in South Asia”
c. Peter Tynan and John Stephenson - “Is Nuclear
Power Pakistan’s Best Energy Investment?
Assessing Pakistan’s Electricity Situation”
d. Shahid Javed Burki - “Pakistan’s Economy: Its
Performance, Present Situation and Prospects”

e. S Akbar Zaidi - “Surviving Economic Melt-down
and Promoting Sustainable Economic
Development in Pakistan”
f. Maya Chadda - “Alternative Pakistani Ethnic
Tribal Futures”
g. Craig Cohen - “Pakistan 2020: The Policy
Imperatives of Pakistani Demographics”
B. NPEC Presentations
1. Presentation at National Defense University, Industrial
College of the Armed Forces on India and Pakistan
proliferation issues Fort McNair, VA - February 9,
2009
a. Invitation
b. “India-Pakistan Nuclear Issues”
2. Defense Threat Reduction Agency Presentation, Fort
Belvoir, VA - April 21, 2009
a. Invitation
b. “Nuclear Abolition and the Next Arms Race”
C. Meetings
1. Discussion of nonproliferation policies in Pakistan with
Hamid Farooq, Regional Director, Catalyst Managerial
Group and Sam Black, Research Associate, The Henry
L. Stimson Center - April 20, 2009
V. RELEASE OF WOHLSTETTER EDITED VOLUME
A. "Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter's Writings and the Future of
U.S. National Strategy", Washington, DC - February 23, 2009.
1. Invitation
2. Attendee list

3. Video - under media clips
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hudson_
upcoming_events&id=659
4. Review in Foreign Affairs
VI. UNDERSTANDING THE NEXT PHASE OF U.S.-RUSSIAN NUCLEAR
RELATIONS: OPPORTUNITIES, RISKS AND CHOICES
A. Presentation of papers
1. How Should the U.S. and Russia Dispose of Excess
Weapons Plutonium?, Washington, DC - May 18, 2009
a. Invitation
b. Attendee list
c. “How Should the U.S. and Russia Dispose of
Excess Weapons Plutonium?” by Robert Zarate
2. U.S. - Russia Nuclear Threat Reduction Programs: The
Next Five Years, Washington, DC - March 23, 2009
a. Invitation
b. Attendee list
c. “U.S.-Russian Nuclear Threat Reduction &
Nonproliferation (NTR/N): The Next Five Years”
by Robert Zarate
VII. OUTREACH: IRAN
A. The Century Foundation roundtable on “The Iranian Nuclear
Issue Technical Assessments and Implications for Political
Engagement”, New York, NY - June 19, 2009
1. Invitation and attendee list
2. “After Iran’s Election: What Nuclear Deal?”
B. The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs and the Bipartisan Policy Center
National Strategy Forum on “Meeting the Challenge: US
Policy Toward Iran”, Chicago, IL - June 24, 2009

1. Invitation
2. Video -
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ju
f.org/uploadedImages/JUForg/Interactive/Video/irantal
k_062309_btn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.juf.org/intera
ctive/video.aspx%3Fid%3D27026&usg=__oNYFH2JH
yZr4PdkyFP2ExDSTHMw=&h=64&w=90&sz=6&hl=
en&start=65&tbnid=EF6J9gwTZn3yxM:&tbnh=55&tb
nw=78&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhenry%2Bsokolski%2
6ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1R2GGLL_en
%26sa%3DN%26start%3D60
C. Chicago World Affairs Council roundtable President’s Circle
Program Roundtable on the Middle East Meeting the
Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iran Presentation
1. Invitation
2. Presentation
VIII. NPEC WEBSITE PLAN
IX. NPEC WEBSITE VISITS
X. NPEC CALENDAR
XI. MEDIA CITATIONS

Narrative Report
During the grant period from January 1, 2009 through June 30, 2009, NPEC
achieved the following results regarding its stated objectives.
I. Objective: Take stock of the Center’s 15 years of operation and prepare
for the next 15 years.
Results: June 25th
, NPEC celebrated its 15th
year of operation with a
rooftop reception at the Beacon Hotel in downtown Washington D.C. Over
100 Congressional Staff, guild journalists, embassy officials, executive
branch staff, and think tank directors attended the event (see Appendix I, A
for a list of attendees). NPEC’s executive director announced seven new
NPEC advisory board members including former Chairman of UNSCOM
and Swedish Ambassador to the US Rolf Ekeus; former Nuclear Regulatory
Commissioner Peter Bradford; MIT professor of nuclear science and
engineering Richard Lester and former director of the Defence Department’s
Advanced Research Projects Agency Steve Lukasik (for a complete listing
an bios of the new advisory board members, go to Appendix I, B). In
addition, NPEC received over 20 testimonials from Democratic and
Republican leaders in the House and Senate, from nationally syndicated
columnists, former Clinton and Bush officials, a senior political appointee
working proliferation issues in the Obama State Department and leading
energy experts. Not only Ambassador Bolton and Bill Kristol, but
Congressman Ed Markey, Robert Einhorn, and Amory Lovins offered their
best wishes as did Senators Lugar and Akaka (for copies of the testimonials,
go to Appendix I, C).
II. Objective: Evaluate what the U.S. should focus on as it reduces its
own operational nuclear weapons, existing weapons states increase theirs,
and additional states edge toward acquiring nuclear weapons of their own.
Results: NPEC’s held the first of its planned book chapter review meetings
June 1 and commissioned four studies as a part of its new project on nuclear
abolition and the next arms race. The June 1 meeting focused on the first
chapter of a dedicated volume being written by NPEC’s executive director,
tentatively entitled, Atoms for Peace, Atoms for War (see Appendix II, A for
the attendees and the draft chapter). A version of this chapter was published

by Policy Review in its June/July issue (see Appendix II, F 3) and was
briefed by NPEC’s executive director to the Commission on the Strategic
Posture of the United States January 8, 2009 (see Appendix II, E). The
Commission plans to publish it as a part of an edited volume that will be
released this summer entitled In the Eyes of the Experts: Analysis and
Comments on America’s Strategic Posture. NPEC’s executive served on the
Commission’s Experts Work Group on proliferation (for this panel’s final
set of recommendations that reflect many of NPEC’s own to the
Congressional Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and
Terrorism see, Appendix II) NPEC’s executive director vetted this analysis
with groups of experts the Carnegie Endowment and the Aspen Institute of
Germany, with House and Senate Congressional staff, the National Security
Law Institute at the University of Virginia Law School, the Marine Corps
Command and Staff College, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the
Project on Nuclear Issues (for these meetings and presentations, see
Appendix II, E). NPEC’s analysis also benefited from the participation of
NPEC’s executive director in a classified war game held at the Naval War
College in New Port, Rhode Island. Also, as a part of this chapter’s
development, NPEC and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science co-hosted a major event for Congressional staff on Capitol Hill
(attendance exceeded 75), “Does the Spread of Nuclear Power Mean the
Spread of Nuclear Bombs?” This event featured presentations by one of the
nation’s best known nuclear weapons bomb designers, Robert W. Selden,
and by one of the youngest nuclear fuel making experts from Princeton, R.
Scott Kemp (for the presentations and invitation, see Appendix II, E). In
addition, NPEC’s executive director held a series of private meetings to
compare notes with key arms control officials in the Obama administration,
members of Congress, foreign officials, Congressional staff, and national
security columnists (for a listing of these meetings, see Appendix II, E).
Finally, in addition to Policy Review’s publication of the first chapter,
NPEC’s executive director wrote analyses of the Iranian and North Korean
nuclear crises in Forbes Online, National Review Online, and The Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists (for copies of these publication see, Appendix II, F).
NPEC is already planning its next two international conferences on the next
arms race and nuclear controls. The first of these will be held in Washington
DC shortly after Martin Luther King’s birthday and will be held at the
Carnegie Endowment with the assistance of the U.S. Naval War College.
The focus of this one and a half day conference will be on Asia and arms
control (for correspondence on this event and a draft agenda, see Appendix
II, C). The second planned international conference will be held with the

Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia. The focus of this event will be on
Asian nuclear dynamics (for correspondence on this event and a draft
agenda, see Appendix II, D)
III. Objective: Assess how the costs and risks of expanding the use of
nuclear power.
Results: NPEC held the last of its international conferences on civilian
nuclear power economics February 11, 2009 with the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace in Washington, DC. The conference featured 14
presentations on various aspects of civilian nuclear energy economics,
insurance and law and was attended by over 80 U.S. and foreign nuclear
energy experts. The keynote speaker was Amory Lovins. Overseas
speakers included Stephen Thomas, Mycle Schneider, David Stellfox of
Platts, Simon Carroll, and Stephen Kidd of the World Nuclear Association
(for the agenda and presentations along with the attendees see, Appendix III,
A). In addition, NPEC co-hosted an event March 24 with the Heritage
Foundation entitled “Is Subsidizing Commercial Energy Projects the Best
Way for America to Achieve its Energy Goals?” This event featured Doug
Koplow, an energy subsidies economist that has worked for Greenpeace;
Peter Bradford, who serves on the board of the Union of Concerned
Scientists; Marlow Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute; Ben
Lieberman and Jack Spencer of the of the Heritage Foundation. Although
they differed in their politics and their views regarding the immediacy of
global warming and the value of nuclear power, these energy experts all
agreed government subsidies for energy commercialization projects was a
bad idea. (for a video and list of attendees, see Appendix III, A). Yet
another NPEC event, cosponsored with the Physicians for Social
Responsibility, featured the economic analysis of a noted British nuclear
energy economist, Stephen Thomas His talk, “Can We Promote Nuclear
Power Without Subsidies: Lessons from Great Britain,” detailed the reasons
why a nuclear revival in the UK would face several serious challenges
unless the British and French governments assumed financial responsibility
for any future nuclear projects (for the presentation and attendees, see
Appendix III A). NPEC’s executive director was also asked to share
NPEC’s key project findings at the Council on Foreign Relations, the
Carnegie Endowment, the NPT Preparatory Committee at the UN in New
York, and at a week-long international energy conference held at the
University of California at San Diego. NPEC’s executive director also

shared the project’s findings with key members of the House, Congressional
staff, editorial writers and reporters, foreign arms control officials, and
Obama arms control staff appointees (for a complete listing of the meetings
referred to, see Appendix III, B). Together, the insights shared at these
meetings and the research NPEC commissioned for discussion will be
published this fall by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies
Institute of Expanding Nuclear Power: Weighing the Costs and Risks (for a
draft table of contents, along with URLs for each of the studies see,
Appendix III F). Already, the project’s findings have had a policy impact.
Several of the project’s key findings were unanimously adopted by the
bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of
Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Two of these, in turn, were
adopted by the Obama Administration. Consistent with the NPEC’s
Commission recommendation that the U.S. should discourage the use of
financial incentives in promoting civilian nuclear energy, NPEC’s executive
director helped draft a letter to President Obama signed by Taxpayers for
Common Sense, the Taxpayers Union, NPEC and the Marshall Institute.
The letter urged the President to reject the inclusion of $50 billion in federal
loan guarantees to promote nuclear power construction in the final stimulus
package early in 2009. The Heritage Foundation also received NPEC’s
analyses and put out an issue brief opposing new energy loan guarantees for
nuclear construction. The White House subsequently dropped these loan
guarantees from the stimulus package (for details, go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/02/02/AR2009020203162.html). Also consistent
with this project’s finding that reprocessing is uneconomical and
unnecessary for waste management. President Obama on June 29th
terminated the programmatic environmental impact statement proceedings
for a possible nuclear fuel recycling demonstration effort. The later was
originally proposed by the previous administration under the Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership. Also, NPEC’s analyses of the economics and risks
associated with the promotion of nuclear power in the Middle East have had
a direct impact on the Obama Administration’s drafting of a nuclear
cooperative agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Both the
Bush and Obama administration have promoted U.S – UAE nuclear
cooperation as a way to set a template or model for U.S. nuclear cooperation
with Arab states generally. After NPEC critiques of the draft text were
published in National Review Online, spotlighted on Lou Dobbs Tonight,
and presented at a Georgetown University forum March 4, 2009 (see
Appendix III), though, the Obama Administration went back and

renegotiated the UAE deal to incorporate two key NPEC recommendations.
The first of these was to condition American export or transfer of controlled
nuclear exports to the UAE upon the UAE first bringing the Additional
Protocol into force. The second was to require the UAE to clearly state that
it will not make nucelar fuel as long as it receives U.S. nuclear assistance.
Finally, an April 2009 letter was sent to President Obama from the Ranking
member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Chairman of the
House Subcommittee on Proliferation, Terrorism and Trade, and the
Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment asking
that President Obama to explain how the U.S. government intended to
implement Title V in the Middle East and what he was doing to
multilateralize the nonproliferation conditions of the UAE with Russia,
France, and other key nuclear supplier states. Congress also was attentive
to NPEC’s analyses. The House Foreign Affairs Committee legislated a
detailed reporting requirement in the State Authorization Act on all of the
key NPEC proposed recommendations (see Appendix III B). In addition,
consistent with previous NPEC recommendations that the U.S. end its use
and export of nuclear weapons usable highly enriched uranium (HEU),
NPEC signed a letter with 15 other nongovernmental organizations to the
key members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asking
them to fund a program that would produce all the medical isotopes the U.S.
needs without using HEU fueled reactors. Meanwhile, Senator Akaka’s
Governmental Affairs Committee staff asked NPEC to help it develop
companion legislation that would be even more ambitious. It would require
the Administration report if it has yet set a date by which it would end the
export and use of U.S. highly enriched uranium and to indentify precisely
how much the U.S. government used financial incentives to promote the
further development of nuclear energy here and abroad. It also would call
on the administration to specify what steps it is taking to implement Title V
of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 (i.e., the law that calls on the
executive to create an alternative energy peace corps).
IV. Objective: Develop a set of competitive strategies for keeping Pakistan
from using or losing its nuclear weapons.
Results: NPEC completed its edited volume of commissioned research on
Pakistan entitled Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Reigning in the Risks. The
volume, which the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute
plans to publish this fall, includes a detailed introduction by NPEC’s

executive director (for the contents and copies of each of book’s chapters, go
to Appendix IV, A). On the basis of NPEC’s work, the National Defense
University asked NPEC’s executive director to share some of NPEC’s key
research findings (for this presentation, go to Appendix IV B).
V. Objective: Highlight the key strategic insights of Albert and Roberta
Wohlstetter and demonstrate their relevance to current nuclear security
challenges.
Results: NPEC held a book release event with The Hudson Institute
February 23, 2009 for Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and
Roberta Wohlstetter. The event, which featured a panel of consisting of
Richard Perle, Henry Sokolski, Andrew Marshall, and Robert Zarate, was
filmed and subsequently broadcast by C-Span (for a list of attendees and to
view the video, go to Appendix V, A). The volume also received a
favorable review in Foreign Affairs by Lawrence Freedman (for a copy of
the review, go to Appendix V, A).
VI. Objective: Clarify the opportunities and risks associated with civilian
nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and Russia.
Results: NPEC held the last two of its planned workshops on the risks and
opportunities associated with civilian nuclear cooperation between the U.S.
and Russia. The first of these, held March 23rd
, focused on existing and
proposed U.S. – Russian nuclear threat reduction programs. The second,
held May 18, focused on how the U.S. and Russia should dispose of excess
weapons plutonium (for the invitations, attendee lists and actual presentation
papers, see Appendix V). The principle investigator for these workshops,
Robert Zarate, interned during this period in the Office of Congressman
Brad Sherman (D-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade. He subsequently was hired to work on strategic
arms proliferation issues by Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), co-chair
of the Nuclear Security Congressional Caucus and member of the House
Foreign Affairs Committee.
VIII. Objective: Conduct policy outreach on proliferation topics of
immediate concern, such as Iran.

Results: NPEC’s executive director was asked to give his analysis of the
Iranian nuclear threat and what to do about it by The Century Foundation,
The Jewish United Fund (JUF) of Chicago and the Chicago World Affairs
Council. The first presentation resulted in a column National Review Online
published and the second produced a video that was posted on the web. (for
the invitations and presentations, and a video of the JUF event see,
Appendix VII).

First Name Last Name Company Email
Ryan Alexander Taxpayers for Common Sense Ryan@taxpayer.net
Mumtaz Baloch Embassy of Pakistan mumtaz@embassyofpakistanusa.org
Rudy Barnes House Armed Services Committee rudy.barnes@mail.house.gov
John Barry Newsweek John.Barry@Newsweek.com
Peter Benda US Department of State bendapm@state.gov
Bryan Bender Boston Globe bender@globe.com
Jeff Berman NSIC jberman@strategycenter.org
Chris Bidwell DTRA Chris.Bidwell@dtra.mil
Dan Blumenthal AEI dblumenthal@aei.org
Michele Boyd PSR mboyd@psr.org
Peter Brookes Heritage Peter.Brookes@heritage.org
Simone Burford Simone.Burford@mac.com
Carol Castiel Voice of America ccastiel@voanews.com
Joe Cerami Bush School of Texas A&M Univ. jcerami@bushschool.tamu.edu
christy clark christyclark12@gmail.com
Michael Clauser Office of U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry Michael.Clauser@mail.house.gov
tom clements Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator Friends of the Earth tomclements329@cs.com
Ariel Cohen Heritage Ariel.Cohen@heritage.org
Elbridge Colby RAND Corporation elbridgeacolby@yahoo.com
Cathy Cook cookfuture@gmail.com
Susan Cornwell Reuters susan.cornwell@reuters.com
Steven Dachi
Paul Davies cookfuture@gmail.com
Tom Donnelly AEI tdonnelly@aei.org
Mark Downs
Jim Doyle Los Alamos Lab jdoyle@lanl.gov
Nicholas Eberstadt AEI eberstadt@hotmail.com
Paul Eckert Reuters paul.eckert@reuters.com
jack edlow edlow international jedlow@edlow.com
Michael Eisenstadt Washington Institute michaele@washingtoninstitute.org
Anthony Fainberg IDA tfainber@ida.org
Eric Fanning White House Eric.Fanning@sd.mil
Francesco Femia ffemia@connectusfund.org
Catharine Ferguson consultant cferguson6@verizon.net
Charles Ferguson Council on Foreign Relations cferguson@cfr.org
John Fialka Climate Wire jfialka@eenews.net
Chris Ford Hudson ford@hudson.org
Hillel Fradkin Hudson Institute hfradkin@hudson.org
Torrey Froscher CENTRA Technology tfroscher@yahoo.com
Corky Gardiner Kadix c.highsmith@techissues.net
ELDON GREENBERG GARVEY SCHUBERT BARER egreenberg@gsblaw.com
Elaine Grossman National Journal Group egrossman@nationaljournal.com
Event Response Details For NPEC 15 Year Anniversary held on June 25, 2009

Autmun Hanna Tay payers for common sense AUTUMN@TAXPAYER.NET
Brad Haynes Chevron Brad.haynes@chevron.com
Chip Highsmith c.highsmith@techissues.net
Hilary Hoagland-Grey
Milton Hoenig mmhoenig@comcast.net
Daniel Horner Arms Control dhorner@armscontrol.org
Jim Hosier jhosier@hotmail.com
Paula Hosier
Peter huessy huessyp@ndus.edu
Will Huntington Rep. Edward J. Markey will.huntington@mail.house.gov
David Isby SPARTA Inc dcisby@mindspring.com
Mark Jansson Center for Strategic and International Studies mjansson@csis.org
Kenneth Jensen ACFR kjensen@acfr.org
Neil Joeck NIO njoeck@yahoo.com
Jason Johnsrud Institute of World Politics johnsrud@iwp.edu
Dave Jonas NNSA DAve.Jonas@nnsa.doe.gov
Stan Kaplan Congressional Research Service skaplan@crs.loc.gov
Suzi Kaplan suzi.k@verizon.net
Paul Kerr Congressional Research Service pkerr@crs.loc.gov
Joe Kildea UANI
Bernadette Kilroy Clarium Capitol Management bkilroy@Clarium.Com
Jill Lancelot Tax Payers for Common Sense Jill@taxpayer.net
john Lauder Arete Associates jlauder@arete.com
Paul Lettow CFR paul.lettow@gmail.com
Edward Levine Senate Foreign Relations Committee edward_levine@foreign.senate.gov
Scooter Libby Hudson
Simon Limage Simon.Limage@mail.house.gov
nancy lubin JNA Inc
Steve Lukasik GNSL steve@gnsl.org
Edwin Lyman UCS elyman@ucsusa.org
Amir Maimon Embassy of Israel amirm@washington.mfa.gov.il
Michael Makovsky
James Mann Johns hopkins jmann12@jhu.edu
Andrew May OSD andrew.may@osd.mil
Adrian Mcdaid Irish Embassy adrian.mcdaid@dfa.ie
Jeff McKitrick Scitor jmckitrick@scitor.com
Josh Meyer La Times Josh.Meyer@latimes.com
richard miller house of reps richard.miller@mail.house.gov
Tim Morrison Senate Tim_Morrison@kyl.senate.gov
Michael Moses
joshua muravchik AEI jmuravchik@aei.org
Marianne Oliva DoD Public Affairs marianne.oliva@osd.mil
Chris Paine NRDC cpaine@nrdc.org
Doug Palmer Reuters doug.palmer@reuters.com
Patrick Pexton National Journal ppexton@nationaljournal.com
Dmitry Ponomareff OSD/Net Assessment dmitry.ponomareff@osd.mil

Stephen Rademaker BGR Group SRademaker@bgrdc.com
Walker Roberts BGR Group wroberts@bgrdc.com
Connie Rybka yetijabba@yahoo.com
Dan Sagalyn NewsHour DSagalyn@newshour.org
Alex Saltman Rep. Adam Schiff alex.saltman@mail.house.gov
Peter Sawczak Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter.Sawczak@dfat.gov.au
Gary Schmitt AEI gschmitt@aei.org
Andrew Schneider Kiplinger ASchneider@kiplinger.com
William Schneider International Planning Services K2UYG@aol.com
Doug Seay U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations doug.seay@mail.house.gov
Howard Segermark Howard Segermark Associates howard@segermark.com
Mary Sheridan Washington Post sheridanm@washpost.com
Abe Shulsky
jeff smith the washington post smithj@washpost.com
Mark Smith Department of State smith267@uchicago.edu
Kate Smyth Hudson Institute ksmyth@hudson.org
Amanda Sokolski Hudson Institut Asokolski@hudson.org
jay solomon WSJ jay.solomon@wsj.com
john sopko akin gump jsopko@akingump.com
Joel spangenberg Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee joel_spangenberg@hsgac.senate.gov
Bob Sparks
Richard Speier Sprynet attnrs@sprynet.com
Jack Spencer Heritage Jack.Spencer@heritage.org
Sharon Squassoni Carnegie ssquassoni@carnegie.com
Kory Sylvester LANL ksbsDC@comcast.net
Benn Tannenbaum AAAS btannenb@aaas.org
Diana Tasnadi Congressman Fortenberry DianaTasnadi@mail.house.gov
Elena Thomas
Leonor Tomero Arms Control Center ltomero@armscontrol.org
michele topel jedlow@edlow.com
kathleen turner Office of the Director of National Intelligence kathleen.turner@ugov.gov
Peter Tynan Dalberg Global Development Advisors Peter.Tynan@dalberg.com
Mark Wallace UANI
John Walters Hudson
Alex Wardle VDEQ wardlealex@hotmail.com
len weiss lenweiss@verizon.net
Ken Wesintein Hudson Institute Ken@hudson.org
ROBERT ZARATE NPEC FELLLOW ON HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM,
NONPROLIFERATION AND TRADE
ROBERT.ZARATE@GMAIL.COM

Peter Bradford
Adjunct professor at
Vermont Law School
and former member
of the Nuclear
Regulatory
Commission

Rolf Ekeus
International
Commission on
Missing Persons
Commissioner,
former UNSCOM
Chairman and former
ambassador to the
US

Eldon Greenberg
Attorney, Garvey
Schubert and Barer

Richard Lester
Founding Director of
the Industrial
Performance Center
(IPC) and a professor
of nuclear science
and engineering at
the Massachusetts
Institute of
Technology

James Lilley
Former Director of
Asian Policy Studies at
the American
Enterprise Institute,
former US Ambassador
to China and South
Korea, and former
Assistant Secretary of
Defense for
International Security
Affairs

Steve Lukasik
Former Director of
the Advanced
Research Projects
Agency (ARPA, now
DARPA) and Former
Chief Scientist of the
Federal
Communications
Commission.

Robert Pfaltzgraff
President of the
Institute for Foreign
Policy Analysis and
Professor at the
Tufts University
Fletcher School of
Law and Diplomacy

David Rappoport
Editor, Journal of
Terrorism and
Political Violence;
Professor, University
of California at Los
Angeles

Peter Tynan
Partner and Access
to Finance Practice
Leader for Dalberg
Global Development
Advisors

Mark Wallace
Former United
States Ambassador
to the United
Nations and
President of UANI

Gordon Oehler
Former director of
the Central
Intelligence Agency´s
Nonproliferation
Center

What US Officials Think About
NPEC

The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center has
distinguished itself with its no-nonsense analyses and
strong advocacy for robust nonproliferation policies.
The organization's leadership ranks in the top tier of
experts that the Committee on Foreign Relations
looks to for testimony on difficult issues.
Senator Richard Lugar
Ranking Member
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

For 15 years, no individual or organization has spent
more time studying the risks associated with the
spread of civil nuclear power technology and the
failure to deal with the nuclear weapons programs of
Iran and North Korea as Henry Sokolski and the
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC). As
the threats of nuclear terrorism and proliferation
continue to dominate national security policy debates,
both Sokolski and NPEC will continue to provide a
vital service to the legislative and executive branches.
Senator Jon Kyl
Assistant Minority Leader
(Republican Whip)

In a town where institutions tend to stake out
predictable and not very original positions, NPEC
cannot be easily pigeon-holed. Its honest, hard-
hitting analysis has often made administrations of
both parties uncomfortable – and that’s probably a
good thing.
Robert Einhorn
U.S. Department of State

NPEC is fearless. It never hesitates to speak out for
nuclear nonproliferation as the top national security
priority of the United States, regardless of whose
feathers get ruffled. Its work is always provocative,
informative, and useful to those of us who are deeply
interested in these issues. Congratulations!
Congressman Howard Berman
Chairman
House Foreign Affairs Committee

The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center headed by
Henry Sokolski has repeatedly proven to be an
indispensable source of expertise for the Congress in its
work on nuclear issues. Through testimony to the
Foreign Affairs Committee, the many papers produced
by NPEC, and his analysis of complex issues, he has
contributed significantly to the Committee’s many
accomplishments in this area. I look forward to
continuing to working closely with NPEC for many
years to come.
Ilena Ros-Lehtinen
Ranking Member

Henry Sokolski and the Nonproliferation Policy
Education Center have been for many years top
resources for my work on nonproliferation issues.
NPEC’s commitment to reducing the nuclear
threat is second to none.
Congressman Ed Markey
Chairman, House energy and the
Environment Subcommittee

NPEC stands out among the many groups that provide
analysis and information about nuclear
nonproliferation because it focuses on something that
receives less attention than it should – namely, the
proliferation impacts of civilian nuclear
cooperation. You can count on NPEC to provide
incisive analysis of nuclear nonproliferation issues from
diverse points of view.
Congressman Brad Sherman
Chairman
House Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Trade

Nuclear proliferation is a vexing policy challenge. The
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center is an
invaluable resource for Members of Congress and their
staff as we grapple with these critical issues. Its
expertise is needed now more than ever.
Congressman Ed Royce
Ranking Member
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade

I am deeply impressed with NPEC’s mastery of a broad
range of nonproliferation topics and the depth of
analysis reflected in its profusion of publications.
NPEC is widely respected for distilling complex nuclear
threat issues down to their essence and providing
timely, actionable, and eminently sensible policy
recommendations.
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry
Co-chairman
House Nuclear Security Caucus

Attendee List The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center:
Atoms for Peace, Atoms for War - Book Review
June 1, 2009
First Name Last Name Organization Email Phone
Andrew May Office of the Secretary Of Defense andrew.may@osd.mil
Simon Limage Representative Ellen O. Tauscher Simon.Limage@mail.house.gov 202-225-1880
Steve Lukasik Consultant steve@gnsl.org (703) 931-5316
Bill Lanouette Author and public policy analyst wlanouette@comcast.net (202) 543-4550
Jeff Kueter George Marshall Institute kueter@marshall.org 202 296-0983
Doug Frantz Senate Foreign Relations Committee frantzfiles@hotmail.com (202) 224-4651
Ed Lyman Union of Concerned Scientists elyman@ucsusa.org (202) 223-6133 ext. 5445
Henry Sokolski NPEC npec@npec-web.org (202) 466-4406

Avoiding a Nuclear Crowd:
How to resist the weapon’s spread
By Henry Sokolski
Available online at: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/46390537.html
f current trends continue, in a decade or less, the United Kingdom could find its
nuclear forces eclipsed not only by those of Pakistan, but of Israel and India as well.
Shortly thereafter, France could share the same fate. China, which has already amassed
enough separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium to easily triple its current
stockpile of roughly 300 deployed nuclear warheads, also is likely to increase its
deployed numbers, quietly, during the coming years.1
Meanwhile, over 25 states have
announced their desire to build a large nuclear reactor — a key aspect of most previous
nuclear weapons programs — before 2030.
None of these trends should be welcome to those who favor the abolition of nuclear
weapons. Indeed, unless these negative trends are restrained and reversed, nuclear
weapons reductions in the U.S. and even Russia may not be enough to reduce continuing
nuclear rivalries and could actually intensify them. To understand why, one need only
review what is currently being proposed to reduce these nuclear threats.
The road to zero
A decade ago, an analysis of the challenges of transitioning to a world without nuclear
weapons would be dismissed as purely academic. No longer. Making total disarmament
the touchstone of U.S. nuclear policy is now actively promoted by George Shultz,
William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn — four of the most respected American
names in security policy.2
Most of their proposals for reducing nuclear threats, moreover,
received the backing of both presidential candidates in 2008 and, now, with President
Obama’s arms control pronouncements in April in Prague, they have become U.S. policy.
These recommendations include getting the U.S. and Russia to make significant nuclear
weapons reductions; providing developing states with “reliable supplies of nuclear fuel,
reserves of enriched uranium, infrastructure assistance, financing, and spent fuel
management” for peaceful nuclear power; and ratifying a verified Fissile Material Cut-off
Treaty ( fmct) and a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (ctbt).
This newfound enthusiasm for nuclear weapons reductions has been heralded as a clear
break from the past. Politically, this may be so. Technically, however, the U.S. and
Russian military establishments have steadily reduced the numbers of operational,
tactical, and strategic nuclear weapons since the late 1960s sevenfold (i.e., from 77,000
warheads to less than 11,000). By 2012, this total is expected to decline by yet another
50 percent.
What has driven these reductions? Mostly, advances in military science. Since the Cold
War, progress in computational science, digital mapping, and sensor and guidance
technologies have significantly enhanced the precision with which weapons can be
aimed. Rather than 50 percent of warheads hitting within 1,000 meters of their intended
I

2
targets — the average accuracy of the 1960s-design scud missiles — it now is possible to
strike within a few feet (the average accuracy of a Predator-launched missile or a long-
range cruise missile). Thus, the U.S. and Russian militaries no longer need to target more
or larger-yield nuclear weapons to assure the destruction of fixed military targets. They
can threaten them with a single, small-yield nuclear weapon or even conventional
warheads. Hence, the massive reduction in U.S. and Russian deployed tactical and
strategic nuclear weapons and in the average yields of these weapons (see Figure 1).3
Source: Data for this chart drawn from The Natural Resources Defense Council,
“Russian Nuclear Forces 2007,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March-April
2007), available at http://thebulletin.metapress.
com/content/d41x498467712117/fulltext.pdf, and Robert S. Norris and Hans M.
Kristensen, “U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2008,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March-
April 2008), available at
http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/pr53n270241156n6/fulltext.pdf.
When policymakers call for more nuclear weapons reductions and increased nuclear
restraint, then, they are hardly pushing against historical or technological trends.
Unfortunately, this desired harmony with history and science is far less evident when it
comes to the specific proposals being made to reduce future nuclear threats. Here, it is
unclear if the proposals will reduce or increase the nuclear threats we face.

3
Consider the suggestion made in the 2008Nunn-Shultz-Perry-Kissinger Wall Street
Journal op-ed (a follow-up piece to one they had written a year earlier) that advocated
spreading “civilian” nuclear power technology and large reactors to states that promise to
forgo nuclear fuel making — a spread that would bring countries within weeks or months
of acquiring nuclear weapons. The U.S. and most other states currently claim that all
nations have an “inalienable” right to make nuclear fuel.4
As a result, any state that
promises to forgo exercising this right today could legally — once it has mastered how to
make weapons-usable plutonium or uranium — change its mind and chemically separate
weapons-grade material from its reactor’s spent fuel or enrich the fresh fuel it has on
hand without breaking any currently enforced legal requirement. In essence, this is what
North Korea did despite pledging in a 1992 North-South denuclearization agreement
not to reprocess spent fuel or enrich uranium.
Also, nuclear fuel-making efforts can be hidden. A small, covert plutonium chemical
separation line, for example, might be built in a matter of months and, after a week of
operation, produce a crude bomb’s worth of weapons-usable plutonium per day. And
there are ways that fresh and spent nuclear reactor fuel might be diverted to accelerate a
bomb-making program without necessarily setting off any inspection alarms.5
All of this
suggests that giving states everything they need to build and operate a large reactor, in
exchange for pledges not to divert the technology or reactor fuel to make bombs, risks
increasing the nuclear threats we already face.
Two other questionable nuclear threat reduction proposals now championed by arms
control proponents include agreeing to a verified fmct and ctbt. Proponents insist that
such agreements are sufficiently verifiable to prevent violators from securing any
significant military advantage. Such contentions are debatable.6
In the case of a ctbt,
critics claim that extremely useful small test explosions could be conducted to validate
advanced nuclear weapons designs without necessarily giving off a clear seismic signal
and that without such a signal, other nuclear test monitoring improvements fall far short
of sufficiency. Worse, they suggest that other nations might gain strategic advantage over
the U.S. either by cheating or by interpreting what the ban permits more liberally than
Washington does. Finally, they complain that American ratification may still not be
enough to bring the treaty into force.7
As for verifying a fmct, a key concern is that it will still allow nuclear weapons states to
make nuclear fuel for civilian purposes and that there is no way to reliably detect military
diversions from such activities early enough to prevent bomb making. A reasonable
rejoinder to this concern is that members of such a treaty would be allowed to keep their
existing nuclear weapons stockpiles and so would lack much of a motive to use their
civilian nuclear fuel-making plants to cheat. Nonweapons states, such as Iran, however,
might well point to such inspections of nuclear fuel-making plants and ask why such
casual monitoring cannot be relied upon to prevent military diversions from whatever
fuel-making plants they might operate or acquire. Without a good answer to this question,
critics note that pushing a fmct could possibly resolve the headache of growing nuclear
arsenals in Pakistan, India, North Korea, and China only to create a much larger set of
nuclear proliferation dilemmas in the Middle East and Far East.8
In addition, there are

4
serious political obstacles to bringing such a treaty into force: Certainly, Egypt, Pakistan,
and others would be loath to join until Israel gave up its nuclear weapons and India no
longer presented a significant military threat. For these reasons, even nominal supporters
of the fmct have suggested that it may make more sense to promote easier, voluntary
“fissile material control initiatives.”9
Critics, meanwhile, suggest that any fmct
verification effort be narrowed to cover only those states known to have nuclear
weapons.10
A packed nuclear crowd?
So far, these verification battles have been waged on the margins of public policy. Each
is likely to become important when and if these specific proposals are implemented. Until
then, the debate over further reductions of existing nuclear stockpiles is likely to turn, if
at all, on more basic considerations. Two issues immediately come to mind. The first is
the assumption that the U.S. and Russia will both continue to reduce their nuclear
weapons deployments significantly. The second: That once such reductions are made,
one need worry only about accidental use, the further spread of nuclear weapons to
additional states, and securing what nuclear material there is against possible theft. Many
U.S officials and security and nuclear terrorism experts believe that the U.S. can work
with the Russians to reduce the number of operationally deployed nuclear weapons in
each country. Some believe that Washington should unilaterally reduce its operationally
deployed nuclear weapons to 1,000 or even 500.11
What these optimistic analyses rarely consider, however, is Russia’s increasing reliance
on nuclear weapons for its own security and the nuclear weapons production capacities
that continue to grow in Pakistan, India, China, and Israel.12
They miss how easy it
would be for Russia, China, or the U.S. to enlarge their existing nuclear arsenals quickly
by exploiting their existing surplus military stockpiles of plutonium and uranium. Nor
have they focused on how rapidly Japan or India might acquire nuclear weapons or ramp
up the size of their existing nuclear arsenal by dipping into their growing “civilian”
stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium.
With such large and growing stockpiles of nuclear-weapons-usable materials, achieving
true nuclear arms restraint will become more difficult no matter what the actual number
of operationally deployed nuclear weapons might be. Indeed, in ten to 15 years, the
expansion of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, and Israeli nuclear capabilities could also make
further U.S. and allied nuclear weapons reductions politically more difficult and could
well encourage other countries to hedge their security bets by developing nuclear
weapons options of their own.
The conventional wisdom, of course, is that these dangers are best addressed by getting
the U.S. and Russia mutually to reduce their nuclear weapons capabilities.13
Yet, just as
strong is the argument that at some point, the chances for strategic miscalculation (and
war) could increase if China, Pakistan, India, and Israel continued to augment their
nuclear capabilities and the U.S. and Russia reduced their own. Certainly, as the
qualitative and quantitative differences between nuclear weapons states becomes smaller

5
— when such differences are measured in hundreds of weapons rather than thousands of
bombs and each state has a large number of missile-deliverable warheads and the long-
range rockets and cruise missiles needed to put them on target — security alliance
relations and rivalries could become much more sensitive to a variety of security
developments.14
Assuming the realization of the road to zero objectives for the U.S. and
Russia, the packing of the current nuclear crowd is not far-fetched (see Figure 2):
Fissile for peace and war
Compounding this worrisome prospect are large amounts of weapons-usable materials in
military and growing civilian stockpiles that could be quickly militarized to create or
expand existing nuclear bomb arsenals. Russia, for example, has at least 700 tons of
weapons-grade uranium and over 100 tons of separated plutonium in excess of its
military requirements, while the U.S. has roughly 50 tons of separated plutonium and
about 160 tons of highly enriched uranium in excess of its military needs. As noted
before, China’s surpluses of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium are
already estimated to be large enough to allow Beijing to triple the number of weapons it
currently has deployed.15
In addition, stockpiles of civilian materials that could be drawn upon to make additional
bombs are large or growing. China, for example, is planning to complete two
“commercial” reprocessing plants by 2025 that will be able to produce each year enough

6
material to make at least 1,000 crude nuclear weapons.16
Meanwhile, Japan, a nonnuclear
weapons competitor of Beijing, already has roughly 45 tons of separated plutonium
(much of which is stored in France), 6.7 tons of which is stockpiled on its own soil —
enough to make roughly 1,500 crude nuclear weapons. Japan also will soon be separating
enough plutonium at its newest commercial reprocessing plant to make between 1,000
and 2,000 crude-weapons-worth of separated plutonium a year. Almost all of this newly
separated plutonium will be in surplus of Japan’s civilian requirements and will be stored
in the country.17
As for India and Pakistan, they have no declared military surpluses. India, however, has
stockpiled roughly 11 tons of unsafeguarded “civilian” reactor-grade plutonium —
enough to make well over 2,000 crude fission weapons — and can easily generate over
1,200 kilograms of unsafeguarded plutonium annually. Pakistan has no such reserve but,
like India, is planning to expand its “civilian” nuclear generating capacity roughly
twenty-fold in the next two decades and is stockpiling weapons-grade uranium. Both
countries are increasing their nuclear fuel-making capacity (uranium enrichment and
plutonium reprocessing) significantly.18
Atoms for peace?
Finally, several new nuclear weapons contenders are also likely to emerge in the next two
to three decades. Among these might be Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran,
Algeria, Brazil (which is developing a nuclear submarine and the uranium to fuel it),
Argentina, and possibly Saudi Arabia (courtesy of weapons leased to it by Pakistan or
China), Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. All of these states have either voiced a desire to
acquire nuclear weapons or tried to do so previously and have one or more of the
following: A nuclear power program, a large research reactor, or plans to build a large
power reactor by 2030.
With a large reactor program inevitably comes a large number of foreign nuclear experts
(who are exceedingly difficult to track and identify) and extensive training, which is
certain to include nuclear fuel making.19
Thus, it will be much more difficult to know
when and if a state is acquiring nuclear weapons (covertly or overtly) and far more
dangerous nuclear technology and materials will be available to terrorists than would
otherwise. Bottom line: As more states bring large reactors on line more will become
nuclear-weapons-ready — i.e., they could come within months of acquiring nuclear
weapons if they chose to do so.20
As for nuclear safeguards keeping apace, neither the
iaea’s nuclear inspection system (even under the most optimal conditions) nor technical
trends in nuclear fuel making (e.g., silex laser enrichment, centrifuges, new South
African aps enrichment techniques, filtering technology, and crude radiochemistry plants,
which are making successful, small, affordable, covert fuel manufacturing even more
likely)21
afford much cause for optimism.
This brave new nuclear world will stir existing security alliance relations more than it
will settle them: In the case of states such as Japan, South Korea, and Turkey, it could
prompt key allies to go ballistic or nuclear on their own.

7
Nuclear 1914
At a minimum, such developments will be a departure from whatever stability existed
during the Cold War. After World War II, there was a clear subordination of nations to
one or another of the two superpowers’ strong alliance systems — the U.S.-led free world
and the Russian-Chinese led Communist Bloc. The net effect was relative peace with
only small, nonindustrial wars. This alliance tension and system, however, no longer
exist. Instead, we now have one superpower, the United States, that is capable of
overthrowing small nations unilaterally with conventional arms alone, associated with a
relatively weak alliance system ( nato) that includes two European nuclear powers
(France and the uk). nato is increasingly integrating its nuclear targeting policies. The
U.S. also has retained its security allies in Asia (Japan, Australia, and South Korea) but
has seen the emergence of an increasing number of nuclear or nuclear-weapon-armed or -
ready states.
Note: NATO is artificially defined above as the nuclear forces of the uk and France
as these governments closely coordinate their targeting policies with each other
and with the U.S.

8
So far, the U.S. has tried to cope with independent nuclear powers by making them
“strategic partners” (e.g., India and Russia), nato nuclear allies (France and the uk), “non-
nato allies” (e.g., Israel and Pakistan), and strategic stakeholders (China); or by fudging if
a nation actually has attained full nuclear status (e.g., Iran or North Korea, which, we
insist, will either not get nuclear weapons or will give them up). In this world, every
nuclear power center (our European nuclear nato allies), the U.S., Russia, China, Israel,
India, and Pakistan could have significant diplomatic security relations or ties with one
another but none of these ties is viewed by Washington (and, one hopes, by no one else)
as being as important as the ties between Washington and each of these nuclear-armed
entities (see Figure 3).
There are limits, however, to what this approach can accomplish. Such a weak alliance
system, with its expanding set of loose affiliations, risks becoming analogous to the
international system that failed to contain offensive actions prior to World War I. Unlike
1914, there is no power today that can rival the projection of U.S. conventional forces
anywhere on the globe. But in a world with an increasing number of nuclear-armed or
nuclear-ready states, this may not matter as much as we think. In such a world, the
actions of just one or two states or groups that might threaten to disrupt or overthrow a
nuclear weapons state could check U.S. influence or ignite a war Washington could have
difficulty containing. No amount of military science or tactics could assure that the U.S.
could disarm or neutralize such threatening or unstable nuclear states.22
Nor could
diplomats or our intelligence services be relied upon to keep up to date on what each of
these governments would be likely to do in such a crisis (see graphic below):

9
Combine these proliferation trends with the others noted above and one could easily
create the perfect nuclear storm: Small differences between nuclear competitors that
would put all actors on edge; an overhang of nuclear materials that could be called upon
to break out or significantly ramp up existing nuclear deployments; and a variety of
potential new nuclear actors developing weapons options in the wings.
In such a setting, the military and nuclear rivalries between states could easily be much
more intense than before. Certainly each nuclear state’s military would place an even
higher premium than before on being able to weaponize its military and civilian surpluses
quickly, to deploy forces that are survivable, and to have forces that can get to their
targets and destroy them with high levels of probability. The advanced military states will
also be even more inclined to develop and deploy enhanced air and missile defenses and
long-range, precision guidance munitions, and to develop a variety of preventative and
preemptive war options.
Certainly, in such a world, relations between states could become far less stable.
Relatively small developments — e.g., Russian support for sympathetic near-abroad
provinces; Pakistani-inspired terrorist strikes in India, such as those experienced recently
in Mumbai; new Indian flanking activities in Iran near Pakistan; Chinese weapons
developments or moves regarding Taiwan; state-sponsored assassination attempts of key
figures in the Middle East or South West Asia, etc. — could easily prompt nuclear

10
weapons deployments with “strategic” consequences (arms races, strategic miscues, and
even nuclear war). As Herman Kahn once noted, in such a world “every quarrel or
difference of opinion may lead to violence of a kind quite different from what is possible
today.”23
In short, we may soon see a future that neither the proponents of nuclear
abolition, nor their critics, would ever want.
None of this, however, is inevitable.
Making something of zero
The u.s. government is now committed to moving closer to zero nuclear weapons. The
challenge, however, is not whether the U.S. can reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons it
has deployed or stored. It has been reducing these numbers steadily since 1964. Instead,
the question now is how the U.S. might reduce these numbers without simultaneously
increasing other states’ interest in acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities of their own.
Here, it would be helpful to keep four principles in mind:
First, it’s critical to avoid making the wrong sorts of military reductions or additions. At a
minimum, any push for further nuclear reductions must be as proportionate as possible.
To maintain or extend the security alliances that are currently neutralizing states’
demands to go nuclear, the U.S. must not only roughly preserve or improve the relative
correlation of forces between it and its key nuclear competitors, China and Russia, but do
all it can to keep states that might compete in the nuclear arena with these competitors
from doing so.
If Washington decides to reduce the operational deployment of additional U.S. nuclear
weapons, then it must see to it that additional nuclear restraints — either nuclear
deployment reductions or further weapons-usable fuel stockpile or production limits —
are imposed not only on Russia, but China, India, and Pakistan as well. As a practical
matter, this will mean that other nuclear-weapons-ready states — including Israel, Japan,
and Brazil — also should be urged to curtail or end their production of nuclear-weapons-
usable materials.
The U.S. government is now committed to moving closer to zero nuclear weapons.
Here, it also would be important for the U.S. to make sure that implementation of its
newly struck civilian nuclear cooperative agreement with India does not end up helping
New Delhi make more nuclear weapons than it was producing before the deal was
finalized late in 2008. Under the npt, nuclear weapons states are forbidden to help states
that did not have nuclear weapons before 1967 acquire them. Also, under the Hyde Act,
the executive is required to report to Congress just how much nuclear fuel India is
importing, how much of this fuel India is using to run its civilian reactors, how much
uranium fuel India is producing domestically, and the extent to which India is expanding
its unsafeguarded plutonium stockpiles. If the amount of unsafeguarded nuclear fuel
available to India to make bombs grows as a result of increased imports of safeguarded

11
reactor fuel, the U.S. would be implicated in violating the npt along with Russia and
France. In this case, the U.S. would be bound to ask these other states to suspend
supplying some or all of the nuclear fuel they might be selling to India.24
As for trying to maintain the relative correlation of forces between nuclear armed states
through military means, considerable care will be required. Missile defenses, for
example, could help compensate for eliminated U.S. nuclear weapons systems. Instead of
“neutralizing” a possible opponent’s nuclear missile by targeting it with a nuclear
weapon, it could be possible to do so in a non-nuclear fashion assuming missile defenses
become effective and affordable enough. Yet, even if such defenses do grow to be
inexpensive and effective, it would not necessarily improve matters to deploy them in
equal amounts everywhere and anywhere.
Consider the case of India and Pakistan. Because Pakistan has not yet fully renounced
first use and India will always have conventional superiority over Islamabad, Pakistan
would actually have good cause to feel less secure than it already does if equal levels of
missile defense capabilities were given to both sides. Similarly, Pakistan would have far
more to fear than to gain if the U.S. offers to afford India and Pakistan equal amounts of
advanced conventional capabilities since these might conceivably enable New Delhi to
knockout Islamabad’s nuclear forces without using nuclear weapons. How the U.S. and
others enhance each of these states’ offensive and defensive military capabilities, then,
matters at least as much as what each is offered.25
Another nuclear weapons substitution option now being discussed is to employ long-
range precision strike systems in place of eliminated nuclear systems. These systems’
effectiveness against hardened or hidden targets is unclear, however. There also may be
concerns about how they could be used without unintentionally triggering a nuclear
response. What might the numbers and the effectiveness of such nonnuclear offensive
and defensive systems have to be to substitute for eliminated nuclear weapons systems?
The prize now is to make sure that North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear misbehavior does
not become a model for others.
Second, there must be a clear cost for violating existing nuclear control agreements and
understandings. The U.S. and other likeminded states have yet to clearly establish that
nuclear proliferation does not pay. To the contrary, the cost for the worst nuclear
violators — Iran and North Korea — has either been light or nonexistent. It is highly
unlikely that North Korea will give up all of its nuclear weapons. It also may be too late
to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs. The prize now is to make sure that North
Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear misbehavior does not become a model for others. Certainly,
allowing Tehran to continue to make nuclear fuel under more “intrusive” inspections
(even though there is no reliable way to safeguard such activity from being diverted to
make bombs) would be self-defeating.
Given that China and Russia cannot be counted on to join the U.S., France, and others to
significantly tighten trade sanctions against Tehran, the only choice Washington and its

12
allies have is either to back down or to try to isolate and further stigmatize Iran’s nuclear
behavior as best they can without additional support from the United Nations Security
Council. This would require the waging of a type of Cold War not unlike the U.S. and its
key allies waged against the Warsaw Pact, the apartheid government in South Africa, and
Libya.
The U.S. and other like-minded states should also try to establish “country-neutral”
sanctions in domestic and international law. These sanctions should be directed against
states that cannot be found to be in full compliance with their nuclear safeguards
obligations, that violate them, or that would withdraw from the npt before coming back
into full compliance. Rather than placing the burden on the iaea Board of Governors, the
Nuclear Suppliers Group, or the un Security Council to reach a consensus on the
sanctions for such transgressions, a minimal, predetermined list should be automatically
imposed.
Third, it is critical to distinguish between nuclear activities and materials that the IAEA
can reliably safeguard against military diversions and those that it cannot. The npt is clear
that all peaceful nuclear activities and materials must be safeguarded — that is, inspected
in such a way as to prevent them from being diverted to make nuclear weapons. Most
npt states have fallen into the habit of thinking that if they merely declare their nuclear
holdings and activities and allow international inspections, they have met this
requirement.
This is a prescription for mischief. After the nuclear inspections gaffes in Iraq, Iran,
Syria, and North Korea, we now know that the iaea cannot reliably detect covert nuclear
activities. We also know that the iaea and euratom annually lose track of many bombs’
worth of usable plutonium and uranium at declared nuclear fuel-making plants. We also
know that the iaea cannot assure continuity of inspections for spent and fresh fuel rods at
more than half of the sites that it inspects. Finally, we know that declared plutonium and
enriched uranium can be made into bombs and their related production plants diverted so
quickly (in some cases, within hours or days) that no inspection system can afford timely
warning of a bomb-making effort.
All of these points fly directly in the face of the kind of early alarms nuclear safeguards
must provide. Any true safeguard against military nuclear diversions must reliably detect
them early enough to allow outside powers to intervene to block a bomb from being built.
Anything less is only monitoring that might, at best, detect military diversions after they
occur. Given the inherent limits to the kind of warning iaea nuclear inspections can
provide, the iaea needs to concede that it cannot safeguard all that it inspects.
Such candor would be most useful. It would immediately raise first-order questions about
the advisability of producing or stockpiling plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and
plutonium-based reactor fuels in any but the nuclear weapons states. At the very least, it
would suggest that nonweapons states ought not to acquire these materials or facilities
beyond what they already have.

13
Where would one raise these points? A good place to start would be the npt Review
conference that will be held in May 2010. In advance of the conference, the U.S. and
other likeminded nations independently might assess whether or not the iaea can meet its
own inspection goals; under what circumstances (if any) these goals can be met; and,
finally, whether these goals are good enough. This work would cost very little and could
be undertaken immediately without legislation or any new international agreements.
Fourth, if we want to develop safe, economically competitive forms of energy, we should
discourage using additional government financial incentives to promote new civilian
nuclear projects. Supporters of nuclear power insist that its expansion is critical to
prevent global warming. The proof is to be had in determining what new nuclear power
plants will cost in comparison to their alternatives while factoring in the price of carbon.
Creating more government financial incentives specifically geared to build more nuclear
plants and their associated fuel-making facilities will only make this more difficult to do.
Not only do such subsidies mask the true costs of nuclear power, they tilt the market
against their alternative. This is troubling since the most dangerous forms of civilian
nuclear energy — nuclear fuel making in most nonweapons states and large power
reactor projects in war-torn regions like the Middle East — turn out to be poor
investments as compared to much safer alternatives.26
There are three ways to prevent or mitigate such dangerous market distortions. The first
would be to get as many governments as possible to offer proposed civilian energy
projects that would compete openly against possible, nonnuclear alternatives. This is
hardly a radical proposal. France, the U.S., and the iaea have all quietly noted that nuclear
power programs only make sense for nations that have a large electrical grid, a major
nuclear regulatory and science infrastructure, and proper financing. U.S. officials have
emphasized how uneconomical Iran’s nuclear program is in the near- and mid-term as
compared to developing Iran’s existing natural gas resources. In the U.S., private banks
refuse to invest to build new nuclear power plants unless they secure federal loan
guarantees and new, additional subsidies. After an extensive analysis in 2006, the British
government found, in contrast, that if carbon emissions are properly priced (or taxed),
British nuclear power operators should be able to cover nearly all of their own costs
without government support.27
Economic judgments and criteria, in short, are already being relied upon to judge the
merits of proposed nuclear projects. The U.S. and most other nations, however, should go
further. Most advanced nations, including the U.S., claim to back the principles contained
in the Energy Charter Treaty and the Global Charter on Sustainable Energy
Development. These international agreements are designed to encourage all states to open
their energy sectors to international bidding and to assure that as many subsidies and
externalities are internalized and reflected in the price of any energy option.28
The U.S.
claims it is serious about reducing carbon emissions in the quickest, least costly manner.
If so, it also would make sense to reference and enforce the principles of the Energy
Charter Treaty and the Global Charter on Sustainable Energy as a part of the follow-on
negotiations to the Kyoto Protocol.

14
As a second and complementary effort, the United States should work with developing
states to create non-nuclear alternatives to address their energy and environmental needs.
In the case of the U.S., this would merely entail following existing law. Title v of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 requires the executive branch to do analyses of key
countries’ energy needs and identify how these needs might be addressed with non-fossil,
non-nuclear energy sources. Title v also requires the executive branch to consider the
creation of an energy-focused “Peace Corps” to help developing nations explore these
alternative options. To date, no president has chosen to implement this law. The U.S.
Congress has indicated that it would like to change this beginning by requiring Title v
country energy analyses (and outside, nongovernmental assessments of these analyses) to
be done as a precondition for the U.S. initialing any new, additional nuclear cooperative
agreements. Here, the U.S. can lead by example.29
Finally, although it may not be immediately possible to get all nations to agree about
what is “peaceful” and protected under the npt, it would be useful to try by insisting that
such projects ought to be safeguardable and beneficial. But it will be impossible to
persuade even one state of this proposition if the U.S. continues to insist that all states
have an inalienable right to the most dangerous nuclear materials, equipment, and
technology so long as they have some conceivable civilian application and are declared
and inspected. The U.S. should stop making this case and instead build on the argument it
already has made that there is no duty for any nuclear supplier state to supply dangerous
technologies or materials under the npt. Specifically, the U.S. should explain that what is
peaceful and protected under the npt can only be determined on the basis of a number of
factors, including whether or not the material, equipment, and technology can be reliably
safeguarded against possible military diversions and if the project that they are dedicated
to is economically justifiable.
Certainly, there is nothing in the npt that requires member states to read the treaty as if
they must encourage countries to come to the very brink of acquiring bombs by
developing dangerous, money-losing nuclear ventures. In fact, one would hope that most
states would conclude that the npt was designed to produce just the opposite result.
Ultimately, however, the credibility of this point will turn on just how economically
competitive civilian nuclear projects are when weighed against their alternatives. The
U.S. and those other states eager to prevent nuclear proliferation should do all they can to
find out.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center,
serves on the U.S. congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass
Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and is editor of Falling Behind: International
Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom (U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2008).
1
International Panel on Fissile Materials, “Global Fissile Materials Report 2008”
(October 2008), available at http://www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr08.pdf (these and all
subsequent urls accessed May 7, 2009), and Andrei Chang, “China’s Nuclear Warhead

15
Stockpile Rising,” UPIAsia.com (April 5, 2008), available at
http://www.upiasia.com/Security/2008/04/05/chinas_nuclear_warhead_stockpile_rising/7
074.
2
George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of
Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal (January 4, 2007), and George Shultz, et al.,
“Toward a Nuclear-Free World,” Wall Street Journal (January 15, 2008).
3
If you want to destroy a given fixed target, increasing your aiming accuracy is a much
more leveraged way to tackle the task than simply increasing the explosive yield of
whatever warhead you might use. Thus, increasing your aiming accuracies ten-fold
enables you to increase the probability of destroying the point target as if you had
increased the yield of your warhead 1,000-fold and held your aiming accuracies constant.
As noted in the text, aiming inaccuracies for missiles have declined not ten-fold, but over
1,000-fold in the past several decades. As a result, the numbers and the average yields of
the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal have dropped significantly and non-nuclear
warheads have in many instances been substituted for nuclear ones to threaten the same
targets. For more on these points see, Lynn Etheridge Davis and Warner R. Schilling,
“All You Ever Wanted to Know About mirv and icbm Calculations But Were Not
Cleared to Ask,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 17:2 (June 1973); Albert Wohlstetter,
“Racing Forward? Or Ambling Back?” Defending America (Basic Books, 1977),
reprinted in Robert Zarate and Henry Sokolski, eds., Nuclear Heuristics: Selected
Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter (Strategic Studies Institute, 2009).
4
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (npt) actually does not mention any specific
nuclear technology or materials that states have a per se right to acquire. On the
contentious character of the claim that there is such a right to fuel making, see, inter alia:
Victor Gilinsky and William Hoehn, “Nonproliferation Treaty Safeguards and the Spread
of Nuclear Technology” (rand, May 1970); Albert J. Wohlstetter, et al., “Moving Toward
Life in a Nuclear Armed Crowd?” (acda, December 4, 1975, [revised April 22, 1976]);
Wohlstetter, et al., “Towards a New Consensus on Nuclear Technology” (acda, July 6,
1979); Marvin M. Miller, “Are iaea Safeguards on Plutonium Bulk-Handling Facilities
Effective?” (Nuclear Control Institute, August 1990); Henry Sokolski, “The Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty and Peaceful Nuclear Energy,” testimony given before the House
Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and
Nonproliferation, March 2, 2006, available at
http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/sok030206.pdf; Robert Zarate,
“The npt, iaea Safeguards and Peaceful Nuclear Energy: An ‘Inalienable Right,’ but
Precisely to What?” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the
Peaceful Atom (Strategic Studies Institute, 2008); Christopher Ford, “Nuclear Rights and
Wrongs under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Expanding
Nuclear Power: Weighing the Costs and Risks (U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies
Institute, forthcoming).
5
See, e.g., Henry S. Rowen, “This ‘Nuclear-Free’ Plan Would Effect the Opposite,” Wall
Street Journal (January 17, 2008). For additional technical background, see David Kay,

16
“Denial and Deception Practices of wmd Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond” in Brad
Roberts, ed., Weapons Proliferation in the 1990s, (mit Press, 1995); Victor Gilinsky, et
al., “A Fresh Examination f the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors” (npec,
2004), available at http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/20041022-GilinskyEtAl-lwr.pdf;
and Andrew Leask, Russell Leslie, and John Carlson, “Safeguards As a Design Criteria
— Guidance for Regulators,” (Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office,
September 2004), available at
http://www.asno.dfat.gov.au/publications/safeguards_design_criteria.pdf.
6
See, e.g., George Perkovich and James Acton, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (iiss,
2008), and Henry Sokolski and Gary Schmitt, “Advice for the Nuclear Abolitionists,”
Weekly Standard (May 12, 2008), available at
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/068ekbiw.asp
7
See, e.g., Kathleen Bailey, The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: An Update on the
Debate (nipp, March 2001).
8
On these points see Brian G. Chow and Kenneth A. Solomon, “Limiting the spread of
Weapon-Usable Fissile Materials” (rand, 1993); Gilinsky, “A Fresh Examination”;
“Advice for the Nuclear Abolitionists”; and Christopher Ford, “The United States and the
Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty,” (U.S. Department of State, March 17, 2007), available at
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/other/81950.htm
9
See, e.g., Robert Einhorn, “Controlling Fissile Materials and Ending Nuclear Testing,”
presentation before the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, Oslo
(February 26–27, 2008), available at
http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/External_Reports/paper-einhorn.pdf.
10
Christopher Ford, “Five Plus Three: How to Have a Meaningful and Helpful Fissile
Material Cutoff Treaty,” Arms Control Today (March 2009), available at
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_03/Ford
11
See, e.g., Tim Reid, “President Obama Seeks Russia Deal to Slash Nuclear Weapons,”
Times of London (February 4, 2009), available at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5654836.ece; John
Kerry, “America looks to a world free of nuclear weapons,” Financial Times(June 25,
2008); Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal, “The Logic of Zero: Toward a World Without Nuclear
Weapons,” Foreign Affairs (November-December 2008); Sidney D. Drell and James E.
Goodby, “What Are Nuclear Weapons For: Recommendations for Restructuring U.S.
Strategic Nuclear Forces” (Arms Control Association, April 2005), available at
http://www.armscontrol.org/pdf/usnw_2005_Drell-Goodby.pdf; and Graham Allison,
Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe(Times Books, 2004).
12
On Russia’s increased interest in using its most advanced bombs for its European
defense and as a way to eliminate U.S. electronic battlefield dominance, see Thomas C.

17
Reed and Danny B. Stillman, The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and
Its Proliferation (Zenith Press, 2009), 198–199.
13
See, e.g., Hugh Gusterson, “The New Nuclear Abolitionists,” Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists (May 13, 2008); Ellen O. Tauscher, “Achieving Nuclear Balance,”
Nonproliferation Review14:3 (November 2008); Jeff Zeleny, “Obama to Urge
Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” New York Times (October 2, 2007); and Johan
Bergenas, “Beyond unscr1540: the Forging of a wmd Terrorism Treaty,” CNS Feature
Stories (October 23, 2008), available at http://cns.miis.edu/stories/
14
Some might rightly point out that the number of deployed nuclear weapons is only one
attribute that can be used to describe the effectiveness of a strategic force. A force’s
readiness, survivability, accuracy, ability to penetrate defenses, and to hit targets in a
timely fashion all go into calculating just how “superior” is one force compared to
another. Still, intercontinental ballistic missile-delivered fission warheads used against
cities in wealthy states in Europe, Asia, or America might be very potent even if they
were militarily crude compared to the most advanced weapons systems. Also, as
American and Russian numbers decline and command systems become less vulnerable
due to distribution and tunneling, there may well be a shift in targeting policies that might
emphasize targeting populations rather than weapons or command centers. If so, relative
numbers would constitute a significant metric much as it did in the very early 1950s.
15
International Panel on Fissile Materials, “Global Fissile Materials Report 2008”
(October 2008), available at http://www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr08.pdf, and “China’s
Nuclear Warhead Stockpile Rising.”
16
World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear Power in China” (October 2008), available at
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html. China operates a pilot reprocessing plant
capable of processing 50 tons of spent fuel annually. There are plans to expand this plant
to process 100 tons. This would enable China to make up to 250 crude bombs worth of
plutonium a year. China also is planning on completing a large commercial scale plant in
2020 based on indigenous technology located in far western China. Finally, China has
contracted with areva to compete a plant by 2025 capable of processing 800 tons of spent
fuel annually; the plant will be nearly identical in capacity and design to that which areva
helped Japan complete at Rokkasho, i.e., large enough to make between 1,000 and
2,000 bombs per year assuming operation at full capacity and four kilograms of
plutonium equating to one bomb’s worth of material.
17
Masafumi Takuba, “Wake Up, Stop Dreaming: Reassessing Japan’s Reprocessing
Program,” Nonproliferation Review (March 2008).
18
See, e.g., Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman, and M.V. Ramana, “Plutonium
Production in India and the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal,” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Gauging
U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation (Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), available at
http://www.npec-web.org/Books/20070300-npec-GaugingUS-IndiaStratCoop.pdf, and
Zia Mian, A.H. Nayyar, R. Rajaraman, and M.V. Ramana, “Fissile Materials in South

18
Asia” in Henry Sokolski, ed., Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War (Strategic
Studies Institute, 2008), available at http://www.npec-web.org/Books/20080116-
PakistanNuclearFuture.pdf
19
See, e.g., Elaine Sciolino, “Nuclear Aid by Russian to Iranians Suspected,” New York
Times(October 10, 2008), and John Larkin and Jay Solomon, “As Ties Between India
and Iran Rise, U.S. Grows Edgy,” Wall Street Journal (March 24, 2005).
20
It is worth noting that it took the U.S. only ten months after starting up its first large
reactor to test its first bomb — this at a time when it was unclear whether or not the U.S.
knew how to make a practical weapon. In the ussr, it took only 14 months. Assuming the
reactor in question has been up and running, the distance between decision and
detonation could be considerably shorter. On these points, see The Nuclear Express, 83,
and Thomas B. Cochran, “Adequacy of iaea’s Safeguards for Achieving Timely
Detection,” in Falling Behind.
21
See, e.g., David Kay, “Denial and Deception Practices of wmd Proliferators: Iraq and
Beyond,” in Brad Roberts, ed., Weapons Proliferation in the 1990s, (mit Press, 1995);
Gilinsky, “A Fresh Examination”; and Mark Clayton, “Will Lasers Brighten Nuclear’s
Future: New Process Could Replace Centrifuges But Renew Threat of Nuclear
Proliferation,” Christian Science Monitor (August 27, 2008).
22
On this point, see, e.g., Thomas A. Donnelly, “Bad Options: Or How I Stopped
Worrying and Learned to Live with Loose Nukes,” in Sokolski, Pakistan’s Nuclear
Future.
23
Herman Kahn, Thinking about the Unthinkable (Avon Books, 1964), 222.
24
See the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of
2006 “Implementation and Compliance Report,” available at
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-
bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h5682enr.txt.pdf
25
Peter Lavoy, “Islamabad’s Nuclear Posture: Its Premises and Implementation,” in
Sokolski, Pakistan’s Nuclear Future.
26
See, e.g., Peter Tynan and John Stephenson, “Nuclear Power in Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
and Turkey — how cost effective?” (npec, February 9, 2009), available at
http://www.npec-web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single& PDFFile=Dalberg-
Middle%20East-carbon&PDFFolder=Essays; and Frank von Hippel, “Why
Reprocessing Persists in Some Countries and Not in Others: The Costs and Benefits of
Reprocessing,” (npec, April 9, 2009), available at http://www.npec-
web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single& PDFFile=vonhippel%20-
%20TheCostsandBenefits&PDFFolder=Essays.

19
27
“The Energy Challenge: Energy Review Report2006” (British Department of Trade
and Industry, July 11, 2006), available at
http://www.dtistats.net/ereview/energy_review_report.pdf.
28
For more on these points, see Henry Sokolski, “Market Fortified Non-proliferation,” in
Jeffrey Laurenti and Carl Robichaud, eds., Breaking the Nuclear Impasse (The Century
Foundation, 2007), available at
http://nationalsecurity.oversight.house.gov/documents/20070627150329.pdf. For more on
the current membership and investment and trade principles of theEnergy Charter Treaty
and the Global Energy Charter for Sustainable Development go to
http://www.encharter.org and http://www.cmdc.net/echarter.html.
29
This set of ideas recently received congressional support from the ranking member of
the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on
Energy and Environment, and the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Proliferation,
Terrorism, and Trade. See the April 6, 2009, letter from Congressmen Brad Sherman,
Edward Markey, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, available
at http://bradsherman.house.gov/pdf/NuclearCooperationPresObama040609.pdf. Also,
see s1138 Nuclear Safeguards and Supply Act of 2007, available at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1138. Finally, the
congressionally appointed bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass
Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism unanimously recommended that the U.S.
discourage the use of financial incentives in the promotion of nuclear energy programs
and implement Title v of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978. For an explanation of
these and the commission’s other key nuclear recommendations, see http://www.npec-
web.org/Frameset.asp?PageType=Single& PDFFile=20081200-WmdCommission-
AdoptedNpecRecommendations&PDFFolder=Reports.
Copyright © 2009 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University
Phone: 650-723-1754

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