Why the world needs better nuclear security

Over the past five years, world leaders have given concerted attention to ensuring that terrorists or other malevolent non-state actors cannot get their hands on material that could be fashioned into a nuclear weapon. The Nuclear Security Summits that President Obama initiated in 2010 and that the Republic of Korea and the Netherlands hosted in succeeding biennials, have brought into being clear improvements in nuclear security.

Still, improvements have focused primarily on nuclear material in the civilian sector, which accounts for only 15% of the problem. Meanwhile, the 85% of nuclear material that is considered to be for military use remains outside existing international regulation reporting requirements. That is to say, nearly 1,440 tons of highly enriched uranium and nearly 250 tons of separated plutonium – enough for nearly 100,000 weapons in total – lack any form of international oversight.

Worse still, production of nuclear material for weapons continues in a number of states, despite international efforts for nearly two decades to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty to put an end to such production. It has been suggested that any such treaty should also control existing stockpiles and pave the way to future verification of nuclear disarmament. Well short of these worthy objectives, there are several steps that states can take to strengthen security and management of military-use nuclear materials in ways that would not infringe on national sovereignty or disclose sensitive information.

Steps towards a nuclear all-clear

A good way to start would be to adhere to the principle that military nuclear stockpiles should be secured to no less a standard than that which applies to civilian materials. The next, and probably last, Nuclear Security Summit in 2016 should adopt this principle as a first order. In practice, the principle means that states would commit to applying to those materials the best nuclear security practices of the private sector and the applicable guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States came close to such a unilateral commitment in its national statement at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit.

Just because these materials are supposedly under military protection does not make them more secure. Witness, for example, the many reported incidents of security breaches and mishaps involving nuclear warheads and military-use fissile material just in the US, including the breach of the perimeter of a facility housing 400 metric tons of highly enriched uranium in 2012 by an 82-year-old nun and two other activists. Other security lapses might be assumed to have occurred in less transparent nuclear-armed states.

Tackling the trust problem

A second starting point for building confidence in the security and proper management of military materials would involve the sharing of information with respect to certain categories of non-civilian nuclear materials. The 20-year history of cooperative threat-reduction programmes between the US and Russia, some of which also involved other countries, demonstrates that careful mechanisms for sharing information about the protection and accountancy of nuclear weapons and materials can both build mutual trust and increase the security and sound management of these materials and arsenals.

Additionally, countries with military nuclear materials could provide annual information on the size and categories of their stocks, and place excess military material under international verification arrangements under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Such arrangements were developed in the early 2000s within the framework of the US-Russia-IAEA Trilateral Initiative but were never implemented.

A “non-paper” prepared by the Nuclear Threat Initiative for its project Global Dialogue on Nuclear Security Priorities offers a dozen other suggestions on how states can build confidence in the security of military materials through a variety of unilateral, bilateral and multilateral commitments and arrangements.

As members of the Global Agenda Council on Nuclear Security of the World Economic Forum, we urge the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit to give equal priority to non-civilian nuclear material. All states that possess such materials should take steps that will ensure the world that such materials are not vulnerable to nuclear terrorists.

Authors: Mark Fitzpatrick is Director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Sir Malcolm Rifkind is Former Foreign Secretary and Minister of Defence of the UK. Elena Sokova is Executive Director of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation.

Image: World leaders attend the opening session of the Nuclear Security summit (NSS) in The Hague March 24, 2014. REUTERS/Yves Logghe/Pool