![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) allows states to exempt nuclear material from international safeguards for use in nuclear submarine programs. This material, however, could be diverted for nuclear weapons purposes without the knowledge of inspectors, creating a potentially dangerous loophole in the treaty. This article argues that exercising that loophole today would amount to admitting a nuclear weapon program, making it a particularly poor pathway to a weapon for a potential proliferant. Still, if states like Brazil ultimately exempt nuclear material from safeguards for a nuclear submarine effort, they could set a dangerous precedent that makes it easier for others to use the loophole as a route to a nuclear weapon capability. There are several policy options available to mitigate the damage of such a precedent; most promising is the prospect of a voluntary safeguards arrangement that would allow international inspectors to keep an eye on nuclear material even after it has been dedicated to a naval nuclear propulsion program.
Acknowledgments
This research was originally commissioned by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
Notes
1. Rajat Pandit, “India's First Indigenous Nuclear Submarine Gears up for Maiden Sea Trials,” Times of India, December 15, 2014, <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Indias-first-indigenous-nuclear-submarine-gears-up-for-maiden-sea-trials/articleshow/45517702.cms>; Robin Yapp, “Argentina Developing Nuclear-Powered Submarine,” Telegraph, August 2, 2011, <www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/8677600/Argentina-developing-nuclear-powered-submarine.html>; Olli Heinonen, “Nuclear Submarine Program Surfaces in Iran,” Power & Policy, July 23, 2012, <www.powerandpolicy.com/2012/07/23/nuclear-submarine-program-surfaces-in-iran>; Agence France Presse, “Brazil's Rousseff Inaugurates Nuclear Sub Shipyard,” Yahoo News, December 12, 2014, <http://news.yahoo.com/brazils-rousseff-inaugurates-nuclear-sub-shipyard-224338823.html>.
2. See, for example, James Clay Moltz, “Closing the NPT Loophole on Exports of Naval Propulsion Reactors,” Nonproliferation Review 6 (1998), pp. 108–14; Chunyan Ma and Frank von Hippel, “Ending the Production of Highly Enriched Uranium for Naval Reactors,” Nonproliferation Review 8 (March 2001), pp. 86–101; Greg Thielmann and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT,” Arms Control Association Threat Assessment Brief, July 24, 2013, <www.armscontrol.org/files/TAB_Naval_Nuclear_Reactor_Threat_to_the_NPT_2013.pdf>; John M. Lamb, “Roiling the Arms Control Waters,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 43, no. 8 (October 1987), pp. 17–19.
3. Naval nuclear propulsion is the use of a nuclear reactor to power a naval vessel. While most naval reactors power submarines, both the United States and Russia have produced nuclear-powered surface ships, and Russia still operates a fleet of nuclear icebreakers.
4. “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, July 1, 1968, Article X.
5. “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Article VI. For a debate on the way interpretations of text could lead to loopholes, see for example, David A. Koplow, “Parsing Good Faith: Has the United States Violated Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?” Wisconsin Law Review 301 (1993), pp. 301–94. Of course, others disagree. See Christopher A. Ford, “Debating Disarmament,” Nonproliferation Review 14 (November 1, 2007), pp. 401–28.
6. International Atomic Energy Agency, “The Structure and Content of Agreements Between the Agency and States Required in Connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” INFCIRC/153 (Corrected), June, 1972, <www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/infcircs/1972/infcirc153.pdf>.
7. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties allows the negotiating history of an international agreement to clarify state obligations. Arguments relying on the intent of treaty drafters are routinely made outside of the courts, as well. See, for example, Ford, “Debating Disarmament.”
8. See, for example, 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, (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2008), pp. 221–90.
9. On space nuclear propulsion efforts in the civilian sphere, see A. Stanculescu, ed., The Role of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Propulsion in the Peaceful Exploration of Space (Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency, 2005), <www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/pub1197_web.pdf>.
10. US Department of State, “State Department Cable 040620 to Embassy Tokyo,” February 20, 1976, Confidential, Central Foreign Policy Files, Record Group 59, National Archives at College Park, MD.
11. US Department of State, Draft Position Paper, “Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” August 14, 1964, Secret Noforn, Document 44, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XI, Arms Control and Disarmament, <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v11/d44>; US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Draft Position Paper, “Safeguards on Peaceful Nuclear Activities,” December 22, 1965, Confidential, ProQuest Digital National Security Archive, Item NP01155, <http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:dnsa&rft_dat=xri:dnsa:article:CNP01155>.
12. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, March 5, 1970.
13. Moltz, “Closing the NPT Loophole on Exports of Naval Propulsion Reactors,” p. 109; David Fischer, History of the International Atomic Energy Agency: The First Forty Years (Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997), p. 272, <www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/pub1032_web.pdf>; US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Draft Position Paper, “Safeguards on Peaceful Nuclear Activities.”
14. Of course, these states may ultimately have signed the treaty even without the presence of the naval reactor exemption; certainly some had multiple concerns about the NPT even in its final form. Italy, for example, “had been quite difficult” in negotiating the treaty, according to the Director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. See “Memorandum for the Record of the 548th Meeting of the National Security Council,” March 27, 1968, Secret, Document 229, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XI, Arms Control and Disarmament, <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v11/d229>. On Italy's stance toward NPT ratification more broadly, see US Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “Intelligence Note 605, Italian Parliament Gives Overwhelming Backing to NPT,” July 31, 1968, <www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb253/doc31.pdf>.
15. “Editorial Note,” Document 92, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XI, Arms Control and Disarmament, <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v11/d92>.
16. Proposals that would have required NWS to place all peaceful nuclear activities under safeguards—just as NNWS were required to do—were rejected by the Soviet Union. See, for example, US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, “Memorandum, Director Foster to Secretary of State Rusk,” January 11, 1967, Secret Limdis, Document 172, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XI, Arms Control and Disarmament, <https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v11/d172>. All NWS ultimately implemented voluntary safeguards at civilian nuclear facilities. For background on these agreements, see Adolf von Baeckmann, “IAEA Safeguards in Nuclear-Weapon States: A Review of Objectives, Purposes, and Achievements,” IAEA Bulletin 30, March 1988, <www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull30-1/30103552224.pdf>.
17. Christopher A. Ford, “Nuclear Technology Rights and Wrongs: The NPT, Article IV, and Nonproliferation,” (Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, 2009), <https://hudson.org/content/researchattachments/attachment/727/20090601-ford-nuclearrightsandwrongs.pdf>.
18. Recent archival work suggests that at least some US and UK officials had significant concerns about the proliferation risk of gas centrifuge technology as the NPT was being negotiated. See John Krige, “The Proliferation Risks of Gas Centrifuge Enrichment at the Dawn of the NPT: Shedding Light on the Negotiating History,” Nonproliferation Review 19 (July 2012), pp. 219–27.
19. US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Draft Position Paper, “Safeguards on Peaceful Nuclear Activities.”
20. This count of nuclear weapon programs is updated from Dong-Joon Jo and Erik Gartzke, “Determinants of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51 (February 1, 2007), pp. 167–94. See also Jeffrey M. Kaplow, “State Compliance and the Track Record of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” Working Paper (2014), <http://dl.jkaplow.net/KaplowCh1.pdf>.
21. Ma and von Hippel, “Ending the Production of Highly Enriched Uranium for Naval Reactors,” pp. 97–98. On the difficulties that modern, non-nuclear attack submarines pose for US anti-submarine warfare, see John R. Benedict, “The Unraveling and Revitalization of US Navy Antisubmarine Warfare,” Naval War College Review 58 (2005), pp. 101–02.
22. Canada's defense minister in 2012 caused some controversy by implying Canadian interest in deploying nuclear submarines, but his comments were quickly walked back. See Laura Payton, “No Nuclear Sub Buy Planned, MacKay Affirms,” CBC News, October 28, 2011, <www.cbc.ca/1.1043181>. On the 1987 defense strategy, see Canada Department of National Defence, Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canada, 1987, <http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/dn-nd/D2-73-1987-eng.pdf>, pp. 52–53.
23. Steve Shallhorn, “Standing up to the United States,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 43 (October 1987), pp. 16–17.
24. See, for example, Tariq Rauf and Marie-France Desjardins, “Canada's Nuclear Submarine Program: A New Proliferation Concern,” Arms Control Today 18 (December 1988), pp. 13–18; William Epstein, “New Stance Tarnishes Canada's Reputation,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 43 (October 1987), pp. 11–12.
25. Ma and von Hippel, “Ending the Production of Highly Enriched Uranium for Naval Reactors,” p. 91.
26. Moltz, “Closing the NPT Loophole on Exports of Naval Propulsion Reactors,” p. 110; Yogesh Joshi, “Leased Sub Key to India's Naval Modernization,” World Politics Review, June 1, 2012, <www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12014/leased-sub-key-to-indias-naval-modernization>.
27. Pandit, “India's First Indigenous Nuclear Submarine Gears up for Maiden Sea Trials.” The name Arihant, reassuringly, is Sanskrit for “destroyer of enemies.”
28. Iskander Rehman, “Drowning Stability: The Perils of Naval Nuclearization and Brinkmanship in the Indian Ocean,” Naval War College Review 65 (Autumn 2012), pp. 64–88; Yogesh Joshi and Frank O'Donnell, “India's Submarine Deterrent and Asian Nuclear Proliferation,” Survival 56 (August/September, 2014), pp. 157–74.
29. “Memorandum, Information for the President of Brazil, No. 011/85 from the National Security Council, Structure of the Parallel Nuclear Program,” February 21, 1985, Wilson Center, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116917>.
30. Thielmann and Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT.”
31. Sarah Diehl and Eduardo Fujii, “Brazil's Pursuit of a Nuclear Submarine Raises Proliferation Concerns,” WMD Insights, no. 23 (March 2008), pp. 9–18.
32. For a full discussion of Brazil's motivations for seeking nuclear technology generally, including the nuclear submarine effort, see Togzhan Kassenova, Brazil's Nuclear Kaleidoscope: An Evolving Identity (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014), <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/brazil_nuclear_kaleidoscope_lo_res.pdf>.
33. Sharon Squassoni and David Fite, “Brazil as Litmus Test: Resende and Restrictions on Uranium Enrichment,” Arms Control Today 35 (October 2005), <http://legacy.armscontrol.org/act/2005_10/Oct-Brazil>.
34. As of July 2015, the Additional Protocol was in force for 126 states, with another twenty states that have signed but not yet ratified it. IAEA, “Status of the Additional Protocol,” July 3, 2015, <www.iaea.org/safeguards/safeguards-legal-framework/additional-protocol/status-of-additional-protocol>.
35. The same potential consequences apply to the nuclear submarine ambitions of a state like Argentina. See Yapp, “Argentina Developing Nuclear-Powered Submarine.”
36. Heinonen, “Nuclear Submarine Program Surfaces in Iran;” “Iran Mulls Highly Enriched Uranium,” UPI, April 17, 2013, <www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/04/17/Iran-mulls-highly-enriched-uranium/82301366205307/>.
37. “Iran Mulls Highly Enriched Uranium.”
38. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran Parliamentarians Call for Nuclear Ships,” Associated Press, July 15, 2012, <http://news.yahoo.com/iran-parliamentarians-call-nuclear-ships-172547792.html>.
39. Fredrik Dahl, “Iran Submarine Plan May Fuel Western Nuclear Worries,” Reuters, July 5, 2012, <www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/05/us-iran-nuclear-submarines-idUSBRE8640PC20120705>.
40. For a skeptical take on the IAEA's ability to quickly detect safeguards violations, see Henry D. Sokolski, “Assessing the IAEA's Ability To Verify the NPT,” and Thomas B. Cochran, “Adequacy of IAEA's Safeguards for Achieving Timely Detection,” in Henry D. Sokolski, ed., Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2008), pp. 3–61, and 121–157, respectively.
41. “Editorial Note.”
42. This last shift is not without some controversy. See, for example, Daniel Joyner, “Iran's Nuclear Program and the Legal Mandate of the IAEA,” JURIST, November 9, 2011, <http://jurist.org/forum/2011/11/dan-joyner-iaea-report.php>. For a defense of the legal basis for the IAEA's activities in Iran, see David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Orde Kittrie, Understanding the IAEA's Mandate in Iran: Avoiding Misinterpretations (Washington, DC: Institute for Science and International Security, November 27, 2012), <http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Misinterpreting_the_IAEA_27Nov2012.pdf>.
43. Important advances in safeguards technology include remote monitoring systems, commercial satellite imagery, and environmental sampling. See Mark Schanfein, “International Atomic Energy Unattended Monitoring Systems,” in James E. Doyle, ed., Nuclear Safeguards, Security, and Nonproliferation (Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 2008); K. Chitumbo, S. Robb, and J. Hilliard, “Use of Commercial Satellite Imagery in Strengthening IAEA Safeguards,” in Bhupendra Jasani and Gotthard Stein, eds., Commercial Satellite Imagery: A Tactic in Nuclear Weapon Deterrence (Chichester, UK: Praxis Publishing Ltd., 2002), pp. 23–48; D.L. Donohue, “Strengthening IAEA Safeguards through Environmental Sampling and Analysis,” Journal of Alloys and Compounds 271–273 (June 12, 1998), pp. 11–18.
44. Mark E. Abhold, “Irradiated Fuel Measurements,” in James Doyle, ed., Nuclear Safeguards, Security and Nonproliferation, p. 66.
45. International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA Department of Safeguards Long-Term R&D Plan, 2012-2023 (Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency, January 2013), <www.iaea.org/safeguards/documents/STR_375_--_IAEA_Department_of_Safeguards_Long-Term_R&D_Plan_2012-2023.pdf>.
46. Squassoni and Fite, “Brazil as Litmus Test: Resende and Restrictions on Uranium Enrichment.”
47. On the other hand, Brazil's unique four-party safeguards arrangement (with Argentina, the IAEA, and the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials) could be interpreted as leaving an opening for safeguards on nuclear material used in naval reactors. See Thielmann and Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT. ”
48. US export controls already limit the participation of US companies in foreign naval propulsion efforts under most circumstances. See Carlton E. Thorne, “Nonproliferation Export Controls,” in James E. Doyle, ed., Nuclear Safeguards, Security and Nonproliferation, p. 541.
49. Moltz, “Closing the NPT Loophole on Exports of Naval Propulsion Reactors,” pp. 111–12.
50. Thielmann and Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT.”
51. On the importance of international precedent in efforts to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, see Jeffrey M. Kaplow and Rebecca Davis Gibbons, “The Days After a Deal with Iran: Implications for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” RAND Corporation, 2014, <www.rand.org/international/cmepp/the-days-after-a-deal-with-iran.html>.
52. Ma and von Hippel, “Ending the Production of Highly Enriched Uranium for Naval Reactors,” p. 91; Thielmann and Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT.”
53. Thielmann and Kelleher-Vergantini, “The Naval Nuclear Reactor Threat to the NPT;” “Iran Mulls Highly Enriched Uranium.”
54. Office of Naval Reactors, “Report on Low Enriched Uranium for Naval Reactor Cores,” Report to Congress, US Department of Energy, January 2014.
55. Ma and von Hippel, “Ending the Production of Highly Enriched Uranium for Naval Reactors,” p. 87.
56. Peter Crail, “Pakistan's Nuclear Buildup Vexes FMCT Talks,” Arms Control Today 41 (March 2011), <www.armscontrol.org/act/2011_03/Pakistan>.
57. Michael Krepon, “Will Pakistan and India Break the Fissile Material Deadlock?” Arms Control Wonk, July 31, 2014, <http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/4217/fmct>.
58. See, among many, Ephraim Asculai, Rethinking the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2004); Tom Sauer, “The Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime in Crisis,” Peace Review 18 (2006), pp. 333–40; Michael Wesley, “It's Time to Scrap the NPT,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 59 (2005), pp. 283–99; Orde F. Kittrie, “Averting Catastrophe: Why the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Is Losing Its Deterrence Capacity and How to Restore It,” Michigan Journal of Interntional Law 28 (2006), pp. 337–430.