Editor's Note

Miles A. Pomper

The Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist Hannes Alven remarked some years ago, “The military atom and the civil atom are Siamese twins.” Nuclear energy and nuclear weapons remain intimately and dangerously linked.

In our cover story this month, Edwin Lyman and Frank N. von Hippel warn of the security risks posed by the Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The effort was launched two years ago as a way of boosting civilian nuclear power without spurring nuclear proliferation. Yet, the program is now encouraging spent fuel reprocessing, a technology that can produce the fissile material for nuclear weapons, and allowing its spread to non-nuclear-weapon states.

Similarly, for the past three years, the Bush administration has championed support for civil nuclear cooperation with India, saying it would boost that nuclear-armed state’s compliance with global nonproliferation norms. Based on interviews in India, however, Charles D. Ferguson says that the current U.S.-Indian deal does not meet this test. Instead, it would provide India with sufficient uranium both to fully power its nuclear power reactors and continue to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. He argues that Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group should insist on additional nonproliferation-related restrictions and commitments before allowing the deal to proceed.

One of the countries that has struggled with whether to supply uranium to India is Australia, which boasts the world’s largest reserves. Indeed, Australian policy has turned against supplying uranium to India after elections last year swept the Labor Party to power. Still, as Jeffrey S. Lantis writes in another feature article, Australia’s long-standing role as a champion of nuclear nonproliferation is being challenged by the perception of vast market opportunities in India and China and a purported “nuclear renaissance.”

Our news section includes a report by Wade Boese about how U.S.-Polish and U.S.-Russian negotiations are affecting the planned deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in Europe; Peter Crail details the UN Security Council’s imposition of a third sanctions resolution on Iran; and Jeremy Patterson examines recent developments in Sino-U.S. strategic relations.

In our book review this month, William C. Potter discusses Michael Levi’s On Nuclear Terrorism, which suggests that analysts have frequently been too pessimistic in assessing the possibility of preventing such catastrophic dangers.