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ABSTRACT
This article argues for an updated strategy to limit the spread of sensitive nuclear technology around the globe. Traditional efforts by the United States to deny countries access to enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology are becoming difficult to enforce, while the threat of sanctions against US allies with legal nuclear-energy programs is not credible. As a result, the United States should shift toward a strategy of “buying out” an ally’s ambition for sensitive nuclear technology. Offering military, political, and economic assistance in exchange for stringent nonproliferation commitments will only work when offered at the earliest stage of technical development, before the country builds capabilities that will be difficult or expensive to give up. While there are some practical challenges to implementing such a strategy, the conditions are right to see if lucrative nuclear-energy offers—notably spent-waste management solutions—can induce countries with new civil nuclear programs to foreclose the option to develop ENR technology in the future.
Acknowledgements
The author is indebted to seminar participants at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey, and Cornell University's Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies for insightful feedback on this work. James Acton, Toby Dalton, George Perkovich, Jeffrey Knopf, Philipp Bleek, Brad Roberts, two anonymous journal reviewers, and numerous government officials offered outstanding comments. The author is grateful to the Stanton Foundation for funding this research as a 2015 Nuclear Security Fellow, and to the MacArthur Foundation for providing a generous grant to assess the proliferation risks of emerging technology.
Notes
1 A first-generation nuclear weapon generates effects by rapidly combining pieces of fissile material into a supercritical mass to enable a nuclear-chain reaction. A gun-type slams together subcritical masses of highly enriched uranium (HEU). An implosion weapon surrounds a subcritical mass of plutonium or HEU with high-explosive material that is used to compress the fissile material into a denser, supercritical mass. See US Department of Energy, Restricted Data Declassification Decisions 1946 to the Present (RDD-7, Office of Declassification, January 2001).
2 Francis J. Gavin, “Strategies of Inhibition: U.S. Grand Strategy, the Nuclear Revolution, and Nonproliferation,” International Security 40 (Summer 2015), pp. 9–46.
3 Wade Boese, “Bush Outlines Proposals to Stem Proliferation,” Arms Control Today, March 1, 2004, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_03/Bush>.
4 Fred McGoldrick, “Limiting Transfers of Enrichment and Reprocessing Technology: Issues, Constraints, Options,” Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, May 2011, <http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/MTA-NSG-report-color.pdf>.
5 “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with” the NPT. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, March 5, 1970, Article IV, paragraph 1.
6 J. Samuel Walker, “Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation: The Controversy over Nuclear Exports, 1974-1980,” Diplomatic History 25 (Spring 2001), pp. 215–49.
7 Government Accountability Office, Nuclear Commerce: Government-wide Strategy Could Help Increase Commercial Benefits from U.S. Nuclear Cooperation Agreements with Other Countries, GAO-11-36 (Washington, DC: 2010), <www.gao.gov/assets/320/311924.pdf>.
8 Mark Hibbs, “Negotiating Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nuclear Energy Brief, August 7, 2012, <http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/08/07/negotiating-nuclear-cooperation-agreements-pub-49011>.
9 National Security Council, “Intelligence Report,” March 1977, in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1977–1980, Vol. 26 (Washington, DC: Department of State), p. 816.
10 Ian J. Stewart, “China and Non-Proliferation: Progress at Last?” the Diplomat, March 25, 2015, <http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/china-and-non-proliferation-progress-at-last/>.
11 For an overview of the membership challenges facing the NSG, see Mark Hibbs, “The Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011, <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/future_nsg.pdf>.
12 Toby Dalton and Michael Krepon, “A Normal Nuclear Pakistan,” Stimson Center and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2015, <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/NormalNuclearPakistan.pdf>, p. 5.
13 Andrea Berger, Target Markets: North Korea's Military Customers (London: Routledge, 2016); Robert D. Wallace, Sustaining the Regime: North Korea's Quest for Financial Support (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006).
14 Ian J. Stewart, “EU Export Controls: The State of Play and the Need for Reform,” Paper Prepared for the European Parliament's Sub-Committee on Security and Defense, October 6, 2015, p. 22; Ian J. Stewart, “The Contribution of Intangible Technology Controls in Controlling the Spread of Strategic Technologies,” Strategic Trade Review 1 (Autumn 2015), p. 55.
15 For a technical assessment of 3D-printing maraging steel centrifuge components, see Grant Christopher, “3D Printing: A Challenge to Nuclear Export Controls,” Strategic Trade Review 1 (Autumn 2015), pp. 18–25.
16 Matthew Kroenig and Tristan Volpe, “3-D Printing the Bomb? The Nuclear Nonproliferation Challenge,” Washington Quarterly 38 (Fall 2015), pp. 7–19.
17 Gene Gerzhoy, “Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint: How the United States Thwarted West Germany's Nuclear Ambitions,” International Security 39 (Spring 2015), pp. 91–129.
18 Nicholas Miller, “The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions,” International Organization 68 (2014), pp. 913–44.
19 James M. Acton, “The Problem with Nuclear Mind Reading,” Survival 51 (February/March 2009), pp. 136–37.
20 Leopoldo Nuti, “‘Me Too, Please’: Italy and the Politics of Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1975,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 4 (1993), pp. 137, 121; George H. Quester, “Japan and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Asian Survey 10 (September 1, 1970), pp. 765–78.
21 Seung-Young Kim, “Security, nationalism and the pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles: The South Korean Case, 1970-82,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 12 (December 2001), p. 60.
22 Central Intelligence Agency, “Managing Nuclear Proliferation: The Politics of Limited Choice,” Research Study, December 1975, National Security Archive [hereafter NSA], p. 39.
23 Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), p. 37.
24 On knowledge barriers to the production of sensitive technologies, see Alexander H. Montgomery, “Stop Helping Me: When Nuclear Assistance Impedes Nuclear Programs,” in Adam Stulberg and Matthew Fuhrmann, eds., The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), pp. 177–200.
25 Christopher M. Blanchard and Paul K. Kerr, “The United Arab Emirates Nuclear Program and Proposed U.S. Nuclear Cooperation,” Congressional Research Service, December 10, 2015, <www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40344.pdf>.
26 “Report: UAE might seek right to enrich uranium,” Al Jazeera, October 16, 2015, <www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/report-uae-seek-enrich-uranium-151016052723467.html>
27 Quoted in Elisabeth Dyck and Ayhan Evrensel, “From Consideration to Construction: The United Arab Emirates’ Journey to Nuclear Power: A Country Case Study,” International Atomic Energy Agency, February 3, 2015, <www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/consideration-construction-united-arab-emirates-journey-nuclear-power>.
28 Jessica C. Varnum, “U.S. Nuclear Cooperation as Nonproliferation: Reforms, or the Devil You Know?,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, November 27, 2012, <www.nti.org/analysis/articles/us-nuclear-cooperation-nonproliferation-reforms-or-devil-you-know/>.
29 Ibid.
30 Hibbs, “Negotiating Nuclear Cooperation Agreements.”
31 Mary Beth Nikitin, Mark Holt, and Mark Manyin, “U.S.-Vietnam Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, September 15, 2014, <www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43433.pdf>.
32 Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2004), pp. 17–18.
33 Robin Cowan, “Nuclear Power Reactors: A Study in Technological Lock-in,” Journal of Economic History 50 (September 1990), pp. 541–67.
34 William Walker, Nuclear Entrapment: THORP and the Politics of Commitment (Institute for Public Policy Research, 1999).
35 James M. Acton, “Wagging the Plutonium Dog: Japanese Domestic Politics and Its International Security Implications,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2015, <http://carnegieendowment.org/files/Brief-Plutonium_Dog.pdf>.
36 Author interviews with South Korean government officials and analysts. Seoul, Republic of Korea, June and November 2015.
37 US Secretary of State, Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, December 17, 1976; FRUS, 1969–1976, Volume E–8, Document 239.
38 US Department of State, “A Strategy for Pakistan,” Memorandum, 5 March 1979, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 333.
39 On the link between US conventional arms transfers and Pakistan's proliferation calculus during this time, see Lewis Dunn, “Some Reflections on the ‘Dove's Dilemma,’” International Organization 35 (1981), p. 183.
40 David E. Sanger, “Saudi Arabia Promises to Match Iran in Nuclear Capability,” New York Times, May 13, 2015, <www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-promises-to-match-iran-in-nuclear-capability.html>.
41 Nawaf Obaid, “Saudi Arabia is preparing itself in case Iran develops nuclear weapons,” the Telegraph, June 29, 2015, <www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11705381/Nawaf-Obaid-Saudi-Arabia-is-preparing-itself-in-case-Iran-develops-nuclear-weapons.html>.
42 Helene Cooper, “Saudi Arabia Says King Won’t Attend Meetings in U.S.,” New York Times, May 10, 2015, <http://nyti.ms/1FehGPO>.
43 Julie H. Davis and David E. Sanger, “Obama Pledges More Military Aid to Reassure Persian Gulf Allies on Iran Deal,” New York Times, May 14, 2015, <www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/world/middleeast/obama-saudi-arabia-iran-persian-gulf-security.html>.
44 For a good overview of Saudi Arabia's indigenous nuclear capabilities, see Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton, and Matthew Irvine, “Atomic Kingdom: If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia Be Next?” Center for New American Security, February 2013, <www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_AtomicKingdom_Kahl.pdf>.
45 For examples of this recurrent concern, see Farhan Bokhari, Stephen Fidler, and Roula Khalaf, “Saudi oil money joins forces with nuclear Pakistan,” Financial Times, August 5, 2004, <http://on.ft.com/1Oy6qzZ>; Bruce Riedel, “Enduring Allies: Pakistan's Partnership with Saudi Arabia Runs Deeper,” Force, December 2011, <www.brookings.edu/articles/enduring-allies-pakistans-partnership-with-saudi-arabia-runs-deeper/>; Yoel Guzansky, “Questioning Riyadh's Nuclear Rational,” Middle East Quarterly 20 (2013): pp. 59–64; Toby Harnden and Christina Lamb, “Saudis ‘to get nuclear weapons’,” Sunday Times, May 17, 2015, <www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Middle_East/article1557090.ece>.
46 Mark Fitzpatrick, Overcoming Pakistan's Nuclear Dangers (London, UK: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2014), p. 147.
47 Bruce Riedel, “Pakistan declines to join Saudi Arabia's anti-Iran alliance,” Al-Monitor, March 15, 2015, <www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/saudi-pakistan-yemen-taliban-iran-sunni-salman.html#ixzz4KLYFvjxi>.
48 Munir Akram, “India-Pakistan: Hyphenated,” Dawn, September 13, 2015, <www.dawn.com/news/1206621>.
49 Michael Crawford, “Exploring the Maze: Counter-proliferation Intelligence,” Survival 532 (April 2011), pp. 131–58.
50 Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), pp. 236–401.
51 Fred McGoldrick, Robert J. Einhorn, Duyeon Kim, and James L. Tyson, “ROK-U.S. Civil Nuclear and Nonproliferation Collaboration in Third Countries,” Brookings Institution, January 2015, p. 60.
52 In order to provide Saudi Arabia with the latest offensive weapon systems, the White House would have needed Congress to waive legislation designed to ensure that Israel retains a qualitative military edge in the region.
53 Dan Drollette Jr., “View from the inside: Prince Turki al-Faisal on Saudi Arabia, nuclear energy and weapons, and Middle East politics,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 72 (January 2016), pp. 19, 22.
54 For a complementary argument about US options to dissuade a nuclear bargain between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, see Christopher Clary and Mara Karlin, “The Pak-Saudi Nuke, and How to Stop It,” American Interest 7 (2012), <www.the-american-interest.com/2012/06/10/the-pak-saudi-nuke-and-how-to-stop-it/>.
55 See Yang Bonny Lin, “Arms, Alliances, and the Bomb: Using Conventional Arms Transfers to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation,” PhD Dissertation, Yale University, 2012.