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"I want to tell you that your fact sheet on the [Missile Technology Control Regime] is very well done and useful for me when I have to speak on MTCR issues."

– Amb. Thomas Hajnoczi
Chair, MTCR
May 19, 2021
April 2008
Edition Date: 
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Cover Image: 

India Test-Launches Submarine Missile

Wade Boese

India took a recent step toward its longtime goal of deploying nuclear weapons at sea by test-firing a missile from beneath the ocean’s surface. The submarine that this missile type is supposed to arm is scheduled to be put to sea for the first time next year.

 Official details about the Feb. 26 missile test are scant, and the Indian government did not respond to Arms Control Today inquiries requesting information. India’s media, however, reported on the event at length, albeit with some conflicting data.

In addition, the Pakistani government confirmed March 5 that it had been “duly informed” of the test in advance by India. The two rivals agreed in October 2005 to give each other prior notice of their surface-to-surface ballistic missile flight tests. (See ACT, November 2005. ) That notification suggests that the missile tested was a ballistic missile and not a cruise missile as some reports stated. A cruise missile is powered through its entire flight and can maneuver, unlike a ballistic missile, which is only powered during the early stages of its flight and then follows a trajectory dictated by gravity to its target.

The missile India fired from a submersible platform about 50 meters deep in the Bay of Bengal waters was most frequently cited as the K-15. Some reports also called it the Sagarika, which is a missile that two years ago India’s defense minister told lawmakers did not exist.

All reports generally agree that the tested missile can fly approximately 700 kilometers and carry a nuclear warhead. Most reports also declare the experiment was the missile’s inaugural undersea launch. Agence France-Presse Feb. 18 quoted S. Prahlada, a top official of India’s Defence Research and Development Organization, as telling reporters, “[W]e have completed all preparations for the first-ever launch of the missile.” But some reports indicated the missile may have been previously tested secretly, perhaps several times.

Rajesh Basrur, author of the book Minimum Deterrence and India’s Nuclear Security, told Arms Control Today in a March 20 e-mail that the previously reported tests were “component tests” and “the recent one was the first ‘undersea’ trial.” He added, “[T]hat would partly explain the publicity given to it.”

Another expert on Indian nuclear weapons, Bharat Karnad, also e-mailed Arms Control Today March 23 that the February launch was a “full-system test.” Formerly a member of India’s National Security Advisory Board and a participant in crafting India’s 1999 draft nuclear doctrine (see ACT, July/August 1999 ), Karnad contended the launch was a success but “some kinks appeared thereafter in [the missile’s] flight which need ironing out.”

India has at least a few years to try and perfect the missile. Sureesh Mehta, India’s top naval official, disclosed last December that the first Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) would be ready for sea trials in 2009. If the trials go well, it could be inducted into service two or three years later.

Largely kept secret, the ATV would be India’s first indigenous nuclear-powered submarine and India’s first submarine able to fire nuclear-armed missiles. India reportedly is building three of the boats. It began developing nuclear power submarines in the 1970s, but their development was delayed by troubles in building a power reactor small enough to fit onboard.

India’s interest in nuclear-armed submarines has been no secret. The 1999 draft nuclear doctrine endorsed a sea-based nuclear delivery capability. In its May 2006 “vision document,” the Indian navy stated its intent to conduct operations from “conventional war fighting to nuclear deterrence.”

Basrur and Karnad stated that India wants nuclear-armed submarines due to the notion that they are more “invulnerable” than air or ground systems. The thinking is that such arms more persuasively dissuade an adversary that, in a first strike, it will be able to minimize or eliminate the possibility of retaliation. India claims it particularly needs survivable forces because it has forsworn the first use of nuclear weapons. Basrur disagrees, contending that submarine-delivered nuclear weapons invite instability by increasing “risk precisely because they are hard to detect…thereby reducing reaction time and encouraging early warning and launch.” 

Admiral Muhammad Afzal Tahir, chief of Pakistan’s naval staff, reacted to the Indian test by reportedly calling it a “very serious issue” and warning it could provoke “a new arms race in the region.” In a lengthy interview several months ago with Asian Defence Journal, however, Tahir discounted the possibility that Pakistan would pursue a sea-based nuclear force, stating, “[P]resently, we do not have [the] technological capability and we cannot afford it.”

Other countries with nuclear-armed submarine missiles are China, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France, which recently commissioned its latest nuclear-armed submarine (see page 35 ). Israel, which neither confirms nor denies its widely believed nuclear arms possession, also allegedly has equipped submarine-based cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. (See ACT, November 2003 .)

Reshaping the U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal to Lessen the Nonproliferation Losses

Charles D. Ferguson

For decades, India’s nuclear programs have been defined by two contradictory forces: the country’s vast ambitions and its limited uranium reserves. Its ambitions have led New Delhi to establish a significant civilian nuclear enterprise, to refuse to sign the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and to develop and test nuclear weapons. Its limited uranium reserves, on the other hand, have clearly slowed India’s nuclear energy development, most likely hampered its nuclear weapons program, and intertwined the two efforts to a high degree.

The tension between India’s goals and resources has grown much stronger in the past decade. By bringing India’s nuclear weapons programs into the open, the country’s 1998 nuclear tests fueled calls to develop the full panoply of nuclear capabilities, including a nuclear triad. India’s recent impressive economic growth has strained the country’s energy system, increasing interest in nuclear energy. In particular, India would like to quintuple the production of electricity through nuclear energy by 2020.

To the Indian government, the civil nuclear cooperation agreement it signed with the United States last year looks like a way for New Delhi to escape this dilemma, giving it access to global uranium reserves without imposing limits on its nuclear weapons program. India’s right and left wings may claim the Congress-led government has somehow shortchanged their country. The truth is that, without the deal, New Delhi will be forced to confront painful trade-offs between its energy and national security goals, as a series of January interviews I conducted in India of nuclear scientists, policy experts, and energy and defense analysts made clear.

For the deal to go forward, the 45 members of the voluntary Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) must first agree to carve out an exception for India to its guidelines. These currently require a non-nuclear-weapon state, as India is legally defined under the NPT, to have comprehensive safeguards on all nuclear facilities before receiving civilian nuclear assistance from NSG countries.

The U.S. Congress too must sign off on the final nuclear cooperation agreement, meaning that it and the NSG will retain considerable leverage over India. They should use this power to condition the agreement in a way that does less damage to the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

The NSG has an opportunity to condition this exception on India’s behaviors, including continuing to refrain from testing nuclear explosives and placing permanent safeguards on any foreign technologies and fuel, as well as designated indigenous facilities. Moreover, the NSG should hold back on transferring enrichment and reprocessing technologies, which could further enhance India’s weapons production capabilities, and only supply as much reserve fuel as needed for reasonable power plant requirements. U.S. leadership could also influence India to become a more responsible nuclear-armed state through signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and committing to a cutoff of weapons-usable fissile material in addition to adhering to conditions on civilian nuclear commerce.

Two Intertwined Visions

The roots of the current controversy over the nuclear deal go back to India’s emergence as an independent nation in the late 1940s. At that time, Dr. Homi Bhabha, widely viewed as a father of India’s nuclear programs, sought to develop these efforts in a way that exploited indigenous resources. He was well aware that India’s uranium resources were only sufficient to power a modest nuclear energy program of about 10,000 megawatts per year and even less would be available if some were used for weapons. To compensate, Bhabha laid out a three-stage plan for India to hoard these limited indigenous uranium deposits and to leverage its abundant thorium deposits to bootstrap itself to a massive production of electricity through nuclear energy and to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

This vision of self-sufficiency, which arose in part from India’s desire to escape its colonial heritage, has remained a guiding vision for India’s nuclear establishment even as its practical fulfillment has receded further into the future. India’s positions in the discussions on a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States in many ways reflect a compromise between those who want to be self-reliant and stick almost exclusively with Bhabha’s three-stage plan, which one interviewee called “a sacred cow,” and those who are willing to bring in outside foreign suppliers. India’s preference for autarky was reinforced by its isolation from international nuclear trade after a 1974 nuclear test, which relied on U.S. and Canadian technology and nuclear materials. This is also reflected in India’s current negotiating posture, which seeks to ensure that foreign suppliers cannot shut off access to fuel and reactors if New Delhi tests nuclear explosives or commits some other proliferation transgression, such as transferring nuclear technologies to states of concern.

Moreover, while Bhabha sought to ensure that fissile materials would be available for a nuclear weapons program, India in recent years has fleshed out what it means when it says that it seeks a “credible minimal deterrent.” In its draft nuclear doctrine published soon after the 1998 tests, New Delhi explicitly stated its objective was to deploy a triad of nuclear forces. The triad would consist of land-based ballistic missiles, nuclear-capable aircraft, and nuclear-armed submarines. As with the U.S.-Soviet experience during the Cold War, such a triad is designed to provide India with survivable nuclear forces and a second-strike capability. It would also mean that India’s arsenal would increase from an estimated few dozen operational warheads today to as many as 200 or more, a level akin to China and the United Kingdom. The nuclear deal would not prevent India from building up to these projected operational and reserve capacities within several years.[1]

The Deal and India’s Fissile Material

To produce enough weapons-usable fissile material (highly enriched uranium or plutonium), India needs sufficient uranium. This uranium would have to come from the country’s limited indigenous sources because foreign suppliers would not give permission to have their uranium used to make weapons. Currently, the military has to share these scarce uranium resources with the civilian sector as nearly all of India’s thermal reactors, are fueled with indigenous uranium. All told, the current total annual uranium demand is about 475 tons. The military reactors require about 45 metric tons of uranium annually:  The CIRUS and Dhruva weapons-grade plutonium-production reactors require about 35 metric tons and another military program to make fuel for nuclear-powered submarines, the uranium-enrichment facility at Mysore, uses an estimated 10 metric tons of uranium annually. By contrast,  the civilian thermal reactor fleet currently requires about 430 metric tons of uranium per year to be fully fueled.[2] The uranium demands of the civilian sector have grown since the late 1990s more reactors came online in the late 1990s and the India was able to operate its reactors at a higher pitch.

Indigenous supplies have not kept up with this rising demand. Estimated uranium mining has fallen to around 300 tons per year because of poor planning in the uranium mining and milling sectors and opposition from an emerging environmental movement. Notably, New Delhi has kept its two weapons-grade plutonium-production reactors fully fueled during the last several years while curtailing electricity production.

This energy crunch could not have come at a worse time. Indian electricity demand is soaring to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. According to the Indian government and the International Energy Agency, India’s electricity demand will increase at a rate of 6 to 8 percent annually at least through 2020.

India’s nuclear energy boosters, such as Subhinder Thakur, the head strategist for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), an enterprise of the government of India, claim “the mismatch is temporary.” Thakur said the Uranium Corporation of India, the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research, and the Nuclear Fuel Complex are working together to resolve the uranium shortage within the next few years.

Despite this optimistic assessment from the NPCIL, India confronts continued resistance from environmentalists about opening new mines or expanding old ones, especially in the northeastern part of the country. Also, India’s plans to increase its thermal reactor power production within the next five to six years would drive up the demand for domestically mined uranium in the near term. In particular, to keep the newest indigenous reactors fully fueled would require about 140 tons of uranium per year. Adding this to the current uranium demands means that if the plants were run at full capacity, India annually would consume an estimated 600 tons of uranium.

Therefore, if the political conflicts surrounding mining were not resolved by the time these plants were built and if the nuclear deal were to fall through, India would be forced to stop running about half of its indigenously fueled reactors or only operate this fleet at approximately 50 percent capacity. With the deal, India has plans to place enough reactors under safeguards to reduce the demand for domestically mined uranium to just more than 300 tons for the unsafeguarded power production reactors by 2014—the amount that it is mining today. Assuming that India could import the uranium for the safeguarded reactors, the deal could reduce pressure on India to open up new or expand existing uranium mines. From the perspectives of the NSG and the United States, this significant difference between the deal and no deal scenarios offers tremendous leverage.

Still, the United States and the other NSG countries have not yet taken advantage of this opportunity to extract crucial concessions that would reduce the deal’s damage to the nonproliferation system. Instead, the deal would permit India to reach its goal of 20,000 megawatts of nuclear-generated electricity by 2020, if foreign suppliers could build enough reactors, and to fulfill its nuclear weapons aspirations. If the deal goes through, about one-half of India’s nuclear-generated electricity would come from indigenously produced and currently operating foreign-supplied reactors and the other half would come from additional foreign-supplied reactors, including the two 1,000-megawatt reactors Russia is completing at Kudankulam. Therefore, the Indian government has asked foreign suppliers to bid on building up to eight large reactors by 2020.[3] Current and former government officials, however, admitted to me that this planning scenario is ambitious and faces significant financial and construction hurdles.

Plutonium Production

To be sure, Indian officials I interviewed, as well as some deal supporters in the United States, contend that whether or not the deal goes through will not significantly affect India’s weapons-grade plutonium production.[4] Given New Delhi’s dedication to maintaining such production at full capacity, the deal’s potential impact in this regard is indeed murky.

New Delhi has neither published its weapons-usable fissile material holdings nor indicated how large a nuclear arsenal it intends to make. Unofficial estimates by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) indicate that India may have amassed 575 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium as of the end of 2004.[5] ISIS has also estimated that India may have consumed about 131 kilograms of this plutonium in nuclear weapons tests, as reactor fuel, and in processing losses. The CIRUS reactor could produce about 9 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium annually, and Dhruva could make about 23 kilograms annually. If these estimates are accurate, India may have had available 540 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium as of the end of 2007. Using the conservative International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that 8 kilograms of plutonium are needed to make a nuclear bomb, the stockpiled Indian plutonium could fuel a minimum of 67 first-generation fission bombs. Some analysts have argued that more advanced designs could use as little as a few kilograms of plutonium.[6] Therefore, the upper bound estimate for India’s current warhead capacity is somewhat more than 100 nuclear weapons.

It does appear that, in at least one respect, the deal could stimulate near-term growth in weapons-grade plutonium production. Under the deal, India has pledged to shut down the aging CIRUS reactor by 2010. CIRUS is contentious because India obtained it from Canada in the late 1950s and gave assurances “that the reactor would be used only for peaceful uses.” The United States had provided the heavy water for the reactor. This reactor, however, produced plutonium for India’s 1974 “peaceful” nuclear test, which spurred the United States and other countries to form the NSG. India has considered replacing this 40-megawatt thermal (MWth) reactor with a larger capacity 100 MWth reactor.[7] This replacement reactor could produce about two-and-a-half times the amount of plutonium produced annually by CIRUS, or about 23 kilograms compared to 9 kilograms.

In addition to its weapons-grade plutonium stockpile, with or without the deal, India can make hundreds of nuclear weapons from several tons of unsafeguarded reactor-grade plutonium in spent nuclear fuel it has already accumulated, although the deal could somewhat affect future production. It is unknown how much reactor-grade plutonium India has separated from spent fuel, but the unsafeguarded reactors have produced more than 20 times the amount of plutonium that India has obtained from the two weapons-plutonium-production reactors. The deal did not place any of this past production under safeguards.

The most direct and immediate means of using this material would be as fissile material in nuclear weapons. Although weapons-grade plutonium is ideal for weapons use, reactor-grade plutonium can also serve this purpose.[8] Reportedly, India may have used reactor-grade plutonium in one of its May 1998 tests.[9]

Moreover, this feedstock of unsafeguarded plutonium could fuel India’s planned breeder reactor program (the second stage of Bhabha’s three-stage plan), which will remain outside of safeguards. The five planned breeder reactors by 2020 would require two initial cores of plutonium before recycling of plutonium would make the breeders more than self-sufficient. If only the first 500-megawatt electric Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor were dedicated to weapons production, it could produce up to 140 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium each year, more than four times the current rate of production from CIRUS and Dhruva.[10]

It should be noted that, in a few years, the deal might lower the future rate of production of reactor-grade plutonium. Without the deal, India would have only six reactors under safeguards: the U.S.-built Tarapur 1 and 2, the Canadian-built Rajasthan 1 and 2, and the two Russian reactors under construction at Kudankulam. With the deal, India has agreed to place eight additional indigenously made reactors under safeguards, meaning that eight pressurized heavy-water reactors and their produced plutonium would remain outside of safeguards. Over the course of the next seven years, the net result would be that the annual production rate of unsafeguarded plutonium would be set to peak at about 2,000 kilograms per year in the next two years and fall to about 1,250 kilograms per year by 2015, when safeguards would be applied to all of the reactors subject to the deal.

Therefore, the deal would serve to lower India’s future unsafeguarded plutonium production rate by about one-third.[11] In that respect, the deal is arguably positive for nonproliferation as long as permanent safeguards are applied. Nonetheless, existing and future stocks of spent fuel would be more than sufficient to fuel the breeder program or to provide direct fissile material for nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the deal as structured has given implicit U.S. approval to India’s nuclear weapons program under the guise of bringing India into “the nonproliferation mainstream.”

Directing India Onto a More Responsible Path

To truly bring India into the nonproliferation mainstream, the NSG and Congress must insist on certain conditions. These conditions are minimal in the sense that they would not roll back India’s nuclear weapons program and would not significantly curtail India’s weapons-usable fissile material production capabilities. In that sense, India will have won what it has most sought, recognition of its nuclear weapons program. Even if the deal dies, the United States in effect has already bestowed that recognition. Nonetheless, as a price for that acknowledgement, India should be willing to accept more responsible behavior that would lessen the damage to the nonproliferation regime.

Nuclear trade should be contingent on India refraining from nuclear testing. Also, such commerce should depend on maintenance of permanent safeguards on all designated nuclear facilities. Moreover, the NSG should hold back on transferring enrichment, reprocessing, and heavy-water technologies that could further enhance India’s weapons production capabilities. In addition, the United States should press for India to sign the CTBT and adhere to a weapons-usable fissile material cap. Fully implementing these measures, however, will depend on Chinese and Pakistani actions.

Although most Indian policymakers and analysts have supported the country’s unilateral testing moratorium since 1998, all interviewees agreed that India’s accession to the CTBT has become increasingly tied to the U.S. position on the treaty. India will not ratify the treaty unless the United States does so. Although there is no direct nuclear threat between India and the United States, Indian analysts have made a direct connection between U.S. nuclear actions and India’s place in the world. Summing up this view, Professor Pratap Mehta, the executive director of the Center for Policy Research, based in New Delhi, said India “cannot support a world order that gives into the U.S. maintaining its nuclear primacy.” Moreover, he said that “as long as the U.S. holds out on modernizing its arsenal, India will not sign the FMCT [fissile material cutoff treaty] or the CTBT.”

Acknowledging U.S. influence, top defense expert K. Santhanam, who had a leadership role during the 1998 tests, drew a more direct connection to China and Pakistan. He expressed willingness for India to continue indefinitely the testing moratorium as long as China and Pakistan refrain from testing.

All of the five original nuclear-weapon states, including China, have signed the CTBT. Even if ratification by the United States remains out of reach for the time being, India should be encouraged in tandem with Pakistan to take a step beyond the moratorium and sign the treaty.

Similarly, fissile material production depends crucially on Chinese and Pakistani production. All of the five legally recognized nuclear-weapon states but China have committed to stop making fissile material for weapons. China is believed to have stopped weapons-usable fissile material production, but Beijing has never officially said so. If China would make a public pledge not to make fissile material for weapons, it would put added pressure on India to specify when it would stop stockpiling nuclear weapons material. To bring Pakistan into this arrangement, India could offer a series of alternating unilateral moves. For example, India could verifiably shut down one of its plutonium-production reactors for a period of time. Pakistan could take a similar step with one of its production reactors. Verification could be achieved through third-party commercial satellite monitoring of the status of the reactors.

Although turning back the growth in India’s nuclear arsenal appears unlikely for the foreseeable future, the NSG and the United States have opportunities to shape the future direction of India’s strategic weapons program. They should take it.


India’s Nuclear Energy Program: Ambitious Dreams, Sober Realities

Charles D. Ferguson

New Delhi’s nuclear planners can never be accused of thinking small. Even at the very beginning of India’s nuclear efforts, Homi Bhabha proposed an ambitious three-stage plan for Indian nuclear development that sought to develop original technology that would allow the country to compensate for its insufficient uranium reserves.

Thermal reactors—today’s typical power reactors—represented the first part of Bhabha’s vision. Thermal reactors use slow or thermal energy neutrons to fission uranium-235, a naturally occurring fissile isotope of uranium.

Bhabha envisioned that, in a second stage, spent fuel from these thermal reactors would be reprocessed to separate plutonium for fueling breeder reactors, which would “breed” more plutonium.

In the third and final stage, this plutonium would fuel reactors that would irradiate thorium to make uranium-233. India has about one-third of the world’s known supply of thorium, which is not useful by itself but can transform into the fissile material U-233. U-233 can power nuclear reactors and provide the fissile material for nuclear weapons. This material could therefore provide additional fuel for India’s electrical power production reactors and additional material for nuclear weapons.

If India were able to develop the thorium fuel cycle, it could have available as much as 155,502 gigawatt-years of electrical energy (GWe-yr), in comparison to the potential for 328 GWe-yr from indigenously fueled thermal reactors; 10,660 GWe-yr from indigenous coal (which now provides 69 percent of Indian electricity); and 42,231 GWe-yr from plutonium breeder reactors.[1] Currently, India has an installed electrical generating capacity of about 140 GWe, and the rate of electricity demand is expected to increase by 6 to 8 percent per year through 2020 during this period of projected ambitious economic growth.[2] Thus, the thorium cycle holds out the potential to provide a huge portion of India’s projected electricity needs for several hundred years.

Indian engineers have recognized, however, that significant hurdles block the way toward commercializing the thorium fuel cycle. High costs and major technical problems are likely to delay full commercialization of the thorium cycle until at least 2050, according to Indian energy experts.

To fully realize the thorium cycle, Indian engineers first face the mainly financial challenge of proving the commercial viability of the plutonium breeder program. India has operated a small 40-megawatt pilot-scale breeder reactor since 1985.Although India is building a commercial-scale breeder reactor, which is projected to be completed in 2011, and is planning to build four more of these reactors by 2020, ramping up to a fleet of breeder reactors will likely take decades, and it is uncertain if this program will succeed commercially. Thus, full realization of India’s civilian nuclear energy vision appears blurry, and this program could remain stuck at a low level for the next few decades.

Indeed, after nearly half a century of investment, nuclear energy provides only about 4,000 megawatts of electricity, or 3 percent of India’s electricity needs. That compares to about 20 percent in the United States. Even if the nuclear deal were to go through and India were to meet all of its goals for nuclear power generation, nuclear-generated electricity would only account for about 5 percent of India’s projected electricity demands in 2020. —CHARLES D. FERGUSON


ENDNOTES

1. Subhinder Thakur, Interview with author, Mumbai, January 4, 2008. Similar estimates appear in R. B. Grover and Subhash Chandra, “Scenario for Growth of Electricity in India,” Energy Policy, November 2006, pp. 2834-2847. For data on coal use, see World Coal Institute, www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=402.

2. John Stephenson and Peter Tynan, “Will the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative Light India?” in Gauging U.S. Indian Strategic Cooperation, Henry Sokolski, editor (Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), p. 24.

India’s Planned Nuclear Triad: Seeking a “Credible Deterrent”

Charles D. Ferguson

If the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal were to move forward without any conditions, it would allow India to achieve its goal of deploying a triad of land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear weapons without hampering its nuclear energy ambitions.

India’s desire for a nuclear triad arises out of its stated need for a “credible minimal deterrent.” Exactly what that means is still being debated within the country, although the emphasis is clearly on “credibility” not minimalism. “Minimal” has been dropped at times from government pronouncements, but Indian analysts have consistently underscored the notion of credibility.[1] Even those who are strong supporters of eventual nuclear disarmament generally agree that credibility requires a second-strike capability.

Second-strike capability demands survivable nuclear forces. To achieve this, Indian analysts have borrowed from the U.S.-Soviet experience during the Cold War and have sought to acquire nuclear-armed submarines. In late February, India took a decisive step toward a sea-based nuclear capability by conducting a test of the K-15 ballistic missile from a submerged pontoon. The K-15 has a reported top range of 700 kilometers, allowing it to strike many targets in Pakistan. Deployed K-15 missiles on submarines could also target high-value sites in China.

The Indian military has been less successful in building nuclear submarines from which to launch such missiles. India’s nuclear-powered submarine program has limped along since 1985, although the Indian navy is trying to ready its first nuclear submarine for sea trials next year. India also received some experience in nuclear submarine operations from 1988 to 1991 when it leased a nuclear-powered attack submarine from the Soviet Union. A Russian crew manned this submarine while training Indian sailors. Presently, Russia is building an Akula-class nuclear submarine for lease to India.

Despite the substantial delays in deploying nuclear-powered submarines, these types of warships are not essential for deploying nuclear-armed forces at sea. India could use conventionally powered submarines as missile carriers, surface ships carrying nuclear-armed cruise missiles, or aircraft carriers with nuclear-capable bombers. Russia is refitting an aircraft carrier for India. Having fallen behind schedule, Moscow will likely complete the refit by late 2010. India has renamed the Admiral Gorshkov carrier as the Vikramaditya, which would be capable of helping protect India’s submarine fleet as well as launching fighter-bomber aircraft.[2] Of these platforms, Indian defense planners prefer the submarine force, whether nuclear or conventionally powered, to optimize survivability of this leg of the envisioned triad.

At this stage, India has not indicated how large its nuclear-armed submarine force could become. Submarines are least vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack when deployed; in port, a submarine is more exposed to attack. Even when deployed, a small submarine force could be vulnerable to anti-submarine warfare. If Pakistan develops effective anti-submarine capabilities, Indian defense planners would feel pressure to build a larger fleet of submarines, thereby increasing the perceived need for more weapons-usable fissile material and more nuclear weapons.

The other two legs of the triad would also require ready-to-deploy nuclear weapons. In the absence of clarifying information from the Indian government, there has been considerable debate about the deployment status of India’s nuclear weapons. Estimates of weapons that are fully assembled or can be fully assembled within days to weeks vary from a few to up to 100 with many analysts settling on about 30 to 50.[3]

There is even more certainty about the numbers of aircraft India has. India has more than 300 nuclear-capable planes, but it is uncertain how many are devoted to the nuclear mission. The most likely nuclear delivery systems are the Jaguar IS and Mirage 2000H fighter-bombers. Russian-acquired older MiG-27 and newer Su-30MKI fighter-bombers might also have a nuclear role.[4] India plans to upgrade its military aircraft within the next few years by purchasing 126 multipurpose planes for up to $12 billion. During a late February 2008 official visit to India, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly promoted sales of U.S.-made aircraft.[5] It is uncertain how many aircraft India has armed or would consider arming with nuclear weapons.

Although the number of nuclear-armed land-based missiles is also uncertain, tests of these missiles are easier to track. The Prithvi I, with a range of 150 kilometers and a payload of 1,000 kilograms, has been approved for the Indian army. The Dhanush is the naval version of the Prithvi II, which is under development and has a range of approximately 350 kilometers. In addition, India has been developing longer-range Agni missiles. Although the Agni I with a 700-kilometer range and the Agni II with a range greater than 2,000 kilometers have reportedly been “inducted” into the army’s missile groups, their operational status is uncertain. In addition, the Agni III with a range greater than 3,000 kilometers is still under development and was test-launched on April 12, 2007. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that the Agni I and II will become fully operational in the next two years. Both can be deployed on road or rail launchers.[6] Once operational, these missile systems would significantly enhance India’s nuclear strike capabilities and could strike parts of China. India is estimated to have up to 100 ballistic missiles with more than half of those in the longer-range Agni class, but it is uncertain how many of these could be armed with nuclear warheads.[7]

Perceived pressures to deter China as well as Pakistan could increase the numbers of deployed and reserve Indian nuclear weapons. Although the actual size of the Indian arsenal is unknown, accounting for even modestly sized bomber, land-based missile, and submarine legs in a triad can give a rough estimate of the potential future size. For aircraft, India may choose to have a few dozen nuclear bombs. Presently, for example, India has about 48 Mirage 2000H planes and about 70 Jaguar ISs, but probably only a portion would have nuclear bombs devoted to them. In the missile leg, a few dozen Prithvi and Agni missiles could be devoted to nuclear missions. In the submarine leg, to ensure survivable forces, India would likely plan at a minimum for one submarine in the shipyard, one in port readying for deployment, and one or two at sea. Assuming up to a dozen missiles per submarine, India may have at least a few dozen warheads for the submarine force. If multiple warheads are placed on the missiles, the warhead numbers could expand by three or more times.

In sum, India’s triad including a single-warhead missile force based on land and underwater and a bomber fleet could exceed more than 100 operational weapons in the coming years. In addition, this warhead amount could increase by a factor of two or more depending on the size of a reserve fissile material stockpile. —CHARLES D. FERGUSON


ENDNOTES

1. For an extensive, recent Indian report on this issue, see “India’s Credible Minimum Deterrence: A Report,” IPCS Special Report, No. 13, February 2006.

2. Viktor Litovkin, “India to Get Renamed Aircraft Carrier From Russia,” RIA Novosti, June 11, 2007.

3. Arms Control Association, “Arms Control and Proliferation Profile: India,” Fact Sheet, November 2007; Sharon Squassoni, “Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Weapons,” CRS Report for Congress, RS21237, February 17, 2005.

4. Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “India’s Nuclear Forces, 2007,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2007, pp. 74-78.

5. Ken Fireman, “Gates Says U.S.-India Ties to Expand Regardless of Nuclear Deal,” Bloomberg, February 26, 2008.

6. Norris and Kristensen, “India’s Nuclear Forces, 2007,” p. 76.

7. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Nuclear Forces: India 2005,” www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19273&prog=zgp&proj=znpp; Natural Resources Defense Council, “Nuclear Notebook,” July/August 2007.


Charles D. Ferguson is a fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. He co-authored The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (Monterey Institute of International Studies and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2004).


ENDNOTES

1. For a different analysis that reaches similar conclusions, see Raja Menon, “Nuclear Stability, Deterrence and Separation of India’s Civil and Weapon Facilities,” Strategic Analysis, Vol. 29, No. 4 (October-December 2005).

2. Zia Mian et al.,“Plutonium Production in India and the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal,” in Gauging U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation, ed. Henry Sokolski (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2007), p. 109.

3. Note that there is a discrepancy between NPCIL and Government of India Planning Commission estimates of the number of foreign-supplied reactors by 2020. The NPCIL cites up to eight 1,000-megawatt reactors from foreign suppliers while the commission cites six of these reactors. The difference is accounted for by the NPCIL’s more ambitious projections of 23,180 megawatts of electricity (including contributions from a few breeder reactors); the commission calls for 20,000 megawatts, which it characterizes as “optimistic.” Government of India Planning Commission, “Integrated Energy Policy: Report of the Expert Committee,” August 2006, p. 47.

4. Ashley J. Tellis, “Atoms for War?: U.S.-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India’s Nuclear Arsenal,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006.

5. David Albright, “India’s Military Plutonium Inventory, End-2004,” Institute for Science and International Security, May 7, 2005.

6. Thomas B. Cochran and Christopher E. Paine, “The Amount of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium Needed for Pure Fission Nuclear Weapons,” Natural Resources Defense Council, April 13, 1995.

7. The thermal power rating (MWth) specifies the power that is produced by the reactor core. Knowing this number, one can estimate the plutonium production capacity. By contrast, the electric power rating (MWe) tells the electrical power production capacity. Because of energy conversion loses, MWe is always less than MWth.

8. U.S. Department of Energy, “Nonproliferation and Arms Control Assessment of Weapons-Usable Fissile Material Storage and Excess Plutonium Disposition Alternatives,” 1997.

9. George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 428-430.

10. Alexander Glaser and M. V. Ramana, “Weapon-Grade Plutonium Production Potential in the Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2007), pp. 85-105.

11. Mian et al., “Plutonium Production in India and the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal,” p. 115.

Indian Politics Stymie U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal

Wade Boese

With U.S. officials warning that time is running out on an initiative to rollback restrictions on global nuclear trade with India, that country’s coalition government failed March 17 to persuade its leftist allies to drop their opposition to the U.S.-Indian effort. Another meeting to sway the holdouts is supposed to take place sometime in April.

The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is trying to win over the leftist parties because they have threatened to withdraw support for the ruling coalition if it takes certain steps toward implementing what the leftists charge is a deal that will erode India’s sovereignty and security. Such a split could trigger early elections that risk unseating Singh’s government.

The key issue at the March conclave was whether Singh’s government should finalize a safeguards agreement it negotiated over the past several months with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Safeguards are measures that the agency applies to a country’s declared civilian nuclear materials, technologies, and facilities to guard against their use for nuclear weapons purposes.

As part of a March 2006 agreement with President George W. Bush, Singh pledged to put eight additional Indian thermal nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards, leaving another eight outside of safeguards and free to contribute to India’s nuclear weapons sector. New Delhi also plans to keep its two fast breeder reactors, which can produce large quantities of the nuclear bomb material plutonium, outside of safeguards. It further retains the option to designate any future reactors of any type that it builds off-limits to the IAEA.

Singh’s government is seeking the leftist parties’ endorsement of the new safeguards arrangement so it can be completed and presented for approval by the IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors. The leftist parties have warned that they will break with the government if it proceeds with the safeguards agreement without their consent.

The text of the India-specific safeguards agreement remains secret and unfinished. A source familiar with the IAEA-Indian talks told Arms Control Today March 19 that “the sides are close to a final text, but India has to confirm the text” before it can be presented to the board, which typically has agreed to safeguards arrangements by consensus. It can, however, approve them with a simple majority vote.

At the March meeting, Singh’s government did not share the safeguards text with the representatives of the leftist parties, opting to brief them instead. The Hindu, one of India’s largest daily newspapers, reported afterward that leftist leaders said they need more details and that deliberations might take another three to four months.

That prospect conflicts with recent statements by U.S. government officials and legislators that the IAEA Board of Governors and the voluntary Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) must act rapidly on the U.S.-Indian initiative so U.S. lawmakers can take it up before this summer when Congress will recess and then turn its attention to the November elections. (See ACT, March 2008 .) The 45 members of the NSG, including the United States, seek to coordinate their nuclear export rules, one of which restricts trade with countries, such as India, that do not subject their entire nuclear enterprise to IAEA safeguards and remain outside the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India largely has been ostracized from the international nuclear market since conducting a 1974 nuclear blast that used material derived from Canadian and U.S. exports designated for peaceful purposes.

U.S. lawmakers in December 2006 approved legislation with a provision that the NSG must clear India for expanded nuclear trade before Congress will vote on a U.S.-Indian nuclear trade agreement negotiated last summer. (See ACT, September 2007 .) Meanwhile, the NSG is waiting on IAEA board approval of the Indian safeguards agreement.

The next NSG meeting is scheduled to occur May 19-22, which is prior to the next regular IAEA board meeting June 2-6. A special meeting of the board, however, can be convened at the request of the IAEA director-general or any board member, including the United States or India. The source familiar with the IAEA-Indian talks said that there are “no plans for a special session of the board” but noted that could change quickly if the Indian government gives final approval to the negotiated safeguards text.

Still, the window might already be closed. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told the Hindustan Times Feb. 29 that the “Indian government needs to move in the month of March on the IAEA Board of Governors” in order to give the NSG and Congress time to act. Noting that “it’s not going to happen overnight,” he warned that the NSG process will be “complicated” and “require many meetings.” Burns further cautioned that if Congress did not get around to passing the agreement this year, he thought “it’s very likely that we will not see it continued by a new administration.”

France Upgrades, Trims Nuclear Arsenal

Wade Boese

Showcasing France’s newest nuclear-armed submarine March 21, French President Nicolas Sarkozy extolled the enduring value of nuclear weapons to his country’s security while he also vowed to reduce their numbers. The French president further called on other states to dismantle their nuclear weapons testing facilities and forswear certain missiles.

Sarkozy, elected last May, delivered his first major speech on France’s nuclear weapons and nuclear policy at the Cherbourg shipyard where the country’s newest ballistic missile submarine, Le Terrible, was on display. That vessel is the fourth of the Le Triomphant-class and is scheduled to be commissioned in 2010 and armed with France’s newest ballistic missile, the M51.1. The submarine will carry 16 of the missiles, which have an estimated range of at least 6,000 kilometers and are capable of carrying six nuclear warheads.

Sarkozy noted that the addition of Le Terrible and the M51.1 ballistic missile, which will be retrofitted on the other three Le Triomphant­-class submarines, is only part of France’s effort to modernize its nuclear forces. He also said that the Rafale combat aircraft this year will start carrying the upgraded, nuclear-armed ASMP-A cruise missile. The Rafale is replacing the Mirage 2000N and Super Étendard as France’s nuclear delivery aircraft. France previously eliminated all of its ground-launched nuclear-weapon systems.

Nonetheless, Sarkozy announced that France would reduce its force of air-delivered nuclear warheads by one-third. He said the move would lower the overall French stockpile to less than 300 warheads, a total that Sarkozy said was “half of the maximum number of warheads we had during the Cold War.” Although nuclear-armed states jealously guard details about their arsenals, public estimates suggest France would still field the third-largest nuclear arsenal behind Russia and the United States, which both possess several thousand nuclear warheads.

Although declining in numbers, Sarkozy emphasized that French nuclear weapons were not diminishing in importance. He described the weapons as the “ultimate guarantee” of France’s independence and “decision-making autonomy.”

After singling out Iran as a growing threat, Sarkozy warned that “all those who would threaten our vital interests would expose themselves to severe retaliation.” He also claimed a European role for France’s nuclear weapons, declaring, “By their very existence, French nuclear forces are a key element in Europe’s security. Any aggressor who might consider challenging it must be mindful of this.” Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, in a similar 2006 address had invited other European states to discuss a “common [European] defense that would take into account…existing deterrent forces.” (See ACT, March 2006 .) There was little response.

Sarkozy indicated a decision to use nuclear weapons would not be taken lightly. He argued French nuclear weapons were “strictly defensive” and that their use “would clearly be conceivable only in extreme circumstances of legitimate defense.”

Turning to other nuclear-armed powers, Sarkozy urged them to follow France’s lead by dismantling their nuclear weapons testing facilities. He also specifically called on China and the United States to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the two countries have signed. France in April 1998 ratified that accord, which outlaws nuclear explosions, and three months later completed dismantlement of its nuclear testing center.

Sarkozy also asked China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to join France in “transparency measures.” He did not specify what those measures were, but he invited foreign experts to verify the dismantlement of France’s two military fissile material production plants, Pierrelatte and Marcoule. In 1996, France announced it had ceased producing fissile material, plutonium and highly enriched uranium, for weapons purposes. In his Cherbourg speech, Sarkozy reiterated French support for starting long-stalled talks on a global fissile material production ban for arms.

In addition, Sarkozy endorsed negotiations to ban short- and intermediate-range surface-to-surface missiles. Such a prohibition would not affect the M51.1, which is a long-range missile, or the air-launched ASMP-A cruise missile. Sarkozy’s call follows a February Russian proposal to institute a global ban on ground-launched short- to intermediate-range missiles, which the United States and Russia have already forsworn through the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. (See ACT, March 2008 .)

Sarkozy’s nuclear agenda resembles that enunciated over the past year by the United Kingdom. The British government decided early last year to explore developing a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines while it touted a decision to cut its operational nuclear forces to fewer than 160 warheads. (See ACT, January/February 2007 .) Des Browne, the British defense minister, also recently invited American, Chinese, French, and Russian nuclear weapons scientists to participate in a future conference on verifying nuclear disarmament. (See ACT, March 2008 .)

Declaration Snags U.S.-North Korean Talks

Peter Crail

A March 13-14 bilateral meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials initiated by Pyongyang was unable to resolve differences over what Pyongyang needs to do to meet a commitment to declare all of its nuclear activities. The key differences involve U.S. concerns that North Korea has pursued a uranium-enrichment program and provided nuclear assistance to other countries. Washington asserts North Korea must come clean on these activities, which Pyongyang denies have occurred or are occurring. U.S. officials also want to make additional progress on dismantling North Korea’s known plutonium-based nuclear weapons program but highlight that the terms of an October 2007 agreement must be completed first.

In October 2007, during six-party talks involving China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the United States, Pyongyang agreed to provide a declaration of all of its nuclear activities by the end of that year. (See ACT, November 2007. ) The agreement also stipulated that, by the same deadline, North Korea would complete disabling the primary nuclear facilities used for its weapons program in return for energy assistance and efforts toward normalizing relations with the United States.

North Korea has proceeded with the disablement process, albeit far more slowly than it originally promised, because of technical obstacles and complaints that other countries have been slow in meeting their commitments. (See ACT, March 2008. ) U.S. officials acknowledged that there have been logistical delays in providing the promised energy assistance but indicate that China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States have subsequently made greater progress on this assistance.

U.S., North Korea Moot Declaration Formats

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, met with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, in Geneva March 13-14 to discuss ways to make progress on North Korea’s declaration. The discussion appeared aimed at finding a compromise that addresses U.S. concerns by clarifying North Korea’s activities while allowing the broader process of denuclearization to continue.

The Yonhap News Agency reported March 12 that Chinese diplomats had proposed that North Korea provide information about the two most contentious issues separately from disclosures about the plutonium program. In particular, North Korea alone would provide details on its plutonium program in one document, and Washington and Pyongyang would issue a joint statement addressing the uranium-enrichment and proliferation concerns.

The Washington Times reported Feb. 28 that the United States was considering a different arrangement involving both public and secret declarations. Using this formulation, Pyongyang would provide a formal declaration on its plutonium program and a private document addressing the uranium-enrichment and proliferation questions.

Hill told reporters March 13 that the United States “can be flexible on format” but rejected the notion that he and Kim discussed separating the various issues, stating that the two sides “have never talked about separating elements from the other.” He also dismissed the idea of agreeing on a secret document, stating March 19 that the United States is “not interested in more secrecy.”

A congressional source told Arms Control Today March 25 that a side letter agreement on the uranium-enrichment and proliferation issues would not be a problem for Congress so long as the admissions are “fully transparent and verifiable.” The source added that a secret document would be problematic due to the likelihood that it would be leaked, potentially jeopardizing the process.

Consistent Stance on Enrichment, Proliferation

Pyongyang continues to deny any involvement in uranium enrichment and proliferation. Kyodo News quoted Kim March 14 as stating that North Korea has not carried out such activities in the past or present and “will not engage in them in the future.”

The dispute regarding the uranium-enrichment issue has been a major sticking point since 2002, when U.S. officials claimed that North Korea admitted to pursuing a uranium-enrichment program, a claim Pyongyang continues to deny. (See ACT, November 2002. ) This disagreement led to the collapse of a previous denuclearization agreement between North Korea and the United States.

Following the October 2007 agreement, North Korea sought to provide evidence to U.S. officials that some of the materials that Washington believed Pyongyang imported for a uranium-enrichment program were intended for conventional weapon systems. (See ACT, March 2008. )

In regard to North Korean nuclear proliferation, U.S. officials have maintained that the issue has always been part of the six-party talks. This issue rose to the forefront following a September 2007 Israeli airstrike on a suspected Syrian nuclear facility allegedly constructed with aid from North Korea. Since that incident, Hill has said that he discussed with the North Koreans U.S. concerns regarding Pyongyang’s suspected nuclear assistance to Syria.

Disagreement over these issues does not only relate to North Korea’s past activities, as U.S. intelligence assessments conflict with North Korea’s assurance that these activities of concern are not ongoing. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell Feb. 27 told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “[w]hile Pyongyang denies a program of uranium enrichment and they deny their proliferation activities, we believe North Korea continues to engage in both.”

South Korea Conditions Key Aid

The lack of progress on fulfilling the terms of the October 2007 agreement may also hinder South Korea’s development assistance to North Korea. South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong said March 19 that Seoul would continue to maintain the landmark development zone it established at Kaesong to provide economic aid to Pyongyang, but “it would be difficult to expand (the complex) unless North Korea’s nuclear issue is resolved.”

The Kaesong industrial zone was part of a landmark agreement in 2000 in which South Korean companies agreed to operate an industrial park in the demilitarized zone between the two countries. The complex employs about 22,000 North Koreans, and during an historic inter-Korean summit on Oct. 4, 2007, the two Korean states agreed to expand operations at Kaesong over several years. (See ACT, November 2007. )

Prior to taking office, the new South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, pledged to revisit Seoul’s long-standing “sunshine policy” toward Pyongyang and to pursue an economic cooperation policy contingent on North Korean nuclear disarmament. (See ACT, March 2008. ) The sunshine policy, which gave priority to warmer ties with North Korea, was central to Seoul’s relations with Pyongyang between 1998 and 2007.

U.S., Russia at Odds on Key Arms Issues

Wade Boese

Top U.S. and Russian officials accentuated the positive after a recent high-level meeting, but the two sides remain deeply divided on developing anti-missile systems and managing their future nuclear weapons relationship.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates traveled to Moscow to meet with their respective Russian counterparts March 17 and 18, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s handpicked successor and the president-elect. The trip was the second of the “two plus two” talks agreed to last July by Putin and President George W. Bush as a channel for their governments to discuss security issues. The inaugural meeting occurred last October in Moscow. (See ACT, November 2007 .)

Rice explained to reporters March 17 that she and Gates took the atypical step of visiting Moscow for a second straight time instead of hosting a reciprocal visit by their Russian counterparts because of “the hope that we will be able to move on a number of issues.” The trip stemmed from a March 7 phone call between Putin and Bush, who subsequently sent Putin a letter touching on a raft of issues. Putin described the letter as a “serious document.”

Despite descriptions by both sides of the two-day visit as “fruitful” and “productive,” the two countries did not reach any agreements on what have been two of the most divisive issues: missile defenses and future strategic nuclear arms limits. Nonetheless, Bush plans to meet Putin in Sochi, Russia a couple of days after both leaders attend an April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania. National security advisor Stephen Hadley March 26 informed reporters of the short-notice trip and described it as a chance to “identify areas of cooperation [and] resolve some outstanding issues so that the relationship is in good shape to be handed over to their two respective successors.”

The U.S. plan to deploy 10 long-range ballistic missile interceptors in Poland and an advanced missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic has been the greatest irritant in the U.S.-Russian relationship over the past year. The United States claims the systems are intended to protect against a growing Iranian missile threat, but Russia alleges that Russian missiles could be the target. As Gates acknowledged March 17, “The Russians hate the idea of missile defense.”

Gates and Rice sought to soften Moscow’s opposition by reaffirming and fleshing out some previous U.S. proposals intended to reassure Russia that Iran is the true target of the anti-missile systems. For instance, Gates suggested the United States could refrain from activating the proposed systems until Iran conducts longer-range missile flight tests. He also volunteered Washington’s readiness to “negotiate limits” on the anti-missile systems to alleviate Russian fears of a “breakout,” meaning a significant increase in U.S. capabilities that could be used against Russia.

The proposals apparently were very similar to those initially discussed last October, on which Russia later accused the United States of reneging. (See ACT, January/February 2008 .) Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov both downplayed that incident.

Still, Russia requested the United States provide its latest proposals in writing so they could be studied more thoroughly, and Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov reiterated that “our positions have not changed.” Indeed, Lavrov remarked that the “best way” for the United States to address Russian concerns would be to abandon its plan.

Another point of contention is what should be done about the scheduled Dec. 5, 2009, expiration of the 1991 START accord. Although that treaty’s nuclear weapons reductions were completed several years ago, the accord’s extensive verification regime is still used by each of the countries to keep tabs on the other’s strategic nuclear forces, including compliance with the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which lacks verification measures. That accord commits the United States and Russia to lower their operationally deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1,700-2,200 warheads apiece by Dec. 31, 2012, which also happens to be the day the limit expires. (See ACT, June 2002 .)

Russia wants to negotiate new warhead limits lower than those mandated by SORT, as well as restrictions on strategic delivery vehicles. The Kremlin also wants the continuation of some legally binding verification measures.

Although initially resistant to negotiating any new legally binding instrument, including continuation of START verification provisions, the Bush administration relented last October to that possibility. But the administration remains opposed to codifying new arms limits. Rice argued March 17 that the current U.S.-Russian relationship does not require “the kind of highly articulated, expensive limitations and verification procedures that attended the strategic arms relationship with the Soviet Union.”

Although unable to resolve their major disputes, the two sides vowed to continue work initiated last year on a “strategic framework document,” which Rice said would “record all of the elements of the U.S.-Russia relationship.” She cited as key examples joint projects to combat nuclear terrorism and provide nuclear fuel assurances to states forgoing uranium-enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities that can be used to make nuclear bombs.

Ambassador Jackie Wolcott, a former U.S. representative to the Conference on Disarmament, will be responsible for advancing many of those projects in her new role as special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation. The Department of State announced her appointment March 14 and indicated her duties entail implementing the measures endorsed last July by Putin and Bush to promote nuclear energy worldwide and reduce proliferation dangers. Press reports indicate that one of the measures that may be signed during the trip is a nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries that Putin and Bush initialed in July 2007, but have yet to sign, in part because of U.S. dissatisfaction with Russia’s policies toward Iran.

Top U.S. and Russian officials accentuated the positive after a recent high-level meeting, but the two sides remain deeply divided on developing anti-missile systems and managing their future nuclear weapons relationship. (Continue)

Courts Threaten Russian Weapons Uranium Cuts

Miles A. Pomper

Several recent U.S. court decisions are threatening an effort to dramatically reduce Russia’s stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium, two senior Bush administration officials told a Senate committee March 5.

The court decisions would eliminate high tariff barriers that have effectively blocked Russia’s exports of uranium to the United States, except for those covered by a 1993 U.S.-Russian agreement for downblending 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons into fuel for nuclear reactors by 2013. To date, the agreement has helped lead to the downblending of 325 metric tons of HEU, equivalent to 13,000 nuclear warheads. The downblended uranium currently supplies more than 40 percent of the fuel for U.S. power reactors.

The U.S. officials warned that the court decisions would affect not only the viability of the 1993 agreement but also threaten the ability of the U.S. government to negotiate future agreements that could lead to further downblending beyond the remaining 175 metric tons of HEU already slated for conversion. Before the program began, the total Soviet-era HEU weapons stockpile was estimated at about 1,250 metric tons, according to U.S. and Russian officials.

The officials urged the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee to support legislation overturning the decisions, particularly if the U.S. Supreme Court does not act on an administration appeal to strike them down.

“While we are committed to facilitating Russia’s transition into the U.S. nuclear market as a commercial partner, we believe it should be accomplished in ways that advance our national security, nonproliferation, and energy interests,” testified William H. Tobey, deputy administrator for nuclear nonproliferation at the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.

The 1993 U.S.-Russian “suspension agreement” was put in place after the former Soviet Union was found to have been “dumping” low-enriched uranium (the fuel for nuclear reactors) in the United States at below market prices. After these findings, U.S. laws have called for raising tariffs on such imports, but the tariff increase was suspended in relation to the downblended HEU. Other Russian uranium imports have been subject to prohibitive 112 percent duties.

U.S. utilities and Russia atomic energy officials increasingly have chafed at these restrictions because Russia has been unable to take full advantage of its vast uranium-enrichment capacity—nearly half of the world’s total—at a time that enriched uranium prices have been soaring. Interest in nuclear power has been growing because of rising prices for alternative fossil fuels and the perception that those fuels are more likely to contribute to global warming than atomic energy.

Russian officials have pursued both diplomatic and legal strategies to make greater inroads into the U.S. market. Diplomatically, they have sought to ensure that they have access to the U.S. market after the suspension agreement ends in 2013 and that they can take the more lucrative path of enriching natural uranium rather than downblending HEU.

They succeeded in this vein when Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez and Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s Federal Agency for Atomic Energy (Rosatom) Feb. 1 signed a pact that will allow uranium that is not downblended from weapons to begin trickling into the U.S. market in 2011. Such imports will be permitted to constitute about 20 percent of total U.S. imports beginning in 2014, when the suspension agreement will have expired.

Legally, Russia and U.S. utilities have sought to take advantage of a recent case involving the European enrichment consortium Eurodif to find cracks in the original antidumping judgment. In the 2005 Eurodif case, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that imports of uranium mined in other countries but enriched by Eurodif under “SWU contracts” could not be considered under antidumping law because Eurodif was just providing an enrichment service for utilities. Services, unlike goods, are not subject to duties. The international trade court’s ruling was upheld in September 2007 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Russia’s enrichment company won a similar judgment from the CIT in September 2007 after making a similar plea. If upheld, that judgment would immediately free Russia to sell to the United States uranium mined by producers such as Kazakhstan and Australia that it has subsequently enriched. Russia recently signed enrichment agreements with both countries, which boast two of the world’s largest reserves of uranium.

The Bush administration has opposed the judgments both on national security and commercial grounds. Tobey said that the court judgments threaten not only the current agreement but the ability of the United States to entice Russia into further downblending of nuclear weapons-usable material into reactor fuel.

Tobey acknowledged that Russia has shown little interest in such a follow-on agreement and indicated that an effort in 2002 to strike another downblending agreement foundered on questions relating to cost and Russia’s preference to use any downblended uranium to fuel its own power plants, so as to profit from the export trade.

But he said that “while we can’t predict whether Russia will be persuaded to enter into a future HEU agreement, we can certainly foresee no progress in the absence of incentives, incentives that the Eurodif decision effectively undercuts.”

He said that progress on negotiating a future agreement could serve several U.S. nonproliferation goals. For example, it would represent a concrete step to fulfill U.S. commitments under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to pursue nuclear disarmament and it would promote efforts to pursue a global fissile material cutoff treaty.

Tobey and David M. Spooner, assistant secretary for import administration in the Department of Commerce, said the decisions also threaten the potential commercial viability of several firms that have planned to build enrichment plants in the United States to fill the market gap anticipated in 2013.

In an effort to prevent these effects, the Bush administration has appealed the Eurodif case to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has also offered its support for legislation by several Kentucky lawmakers, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, to alter the law so that Russian and European enriched uranium could be subject to import duties, regardless of the origin of the natural uranium. Other lawmakers have pushed for more narrow legislation limiting the change effectively to Russian exporters. These efforts are opposed by U.S. utilities as well as Russia.

Meanwhile, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M) is said to be circulating legislation that would permit additional imports from Russia beyond those in the Feb. 1 agreement for uranium downblended from Russian weapons. “I believe we should encourage the Russians to continue to meet the nonproliferation goals embodied in the HEU agreement by providing access to the U.S. market as long as a portion of that material is derived from HEU legacy stockpiles,” Domenici told Arms Control Today in a Jan. 11 email.

Security Council Adopts More Iran Sanctions

Peter Crail

The UN Security Council March 3 adopted a third sanctions resolution responding to Iran’s refusal to comply with the council’s demands to suspend its nuclear fuel-cycle activities. Resolution 1803 calls on states to undertake additional efforts to prevent Iran from financing or procuring technology for its nuclear and missile programs, as well as broadening the existing sanctions imposed under two previous resolutions. The five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and Germany agreed on pursuing the resolution as part of a “package deal,” seeking to impose additional sanctions on Iran on one hand, but also agreeing “to further enhance diplomatic efforts” to find a comprehensive long-term resolution to the nuclear issue as part of their “dual track approach.”

The council adopted the resolution with 14 votes in favor and Indonesia abstaining. Indonesian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Marty Natalegawa explained to the council following the March 3 vote that “Indonesia remains to be convinced of the efficacy of adopting additional sanctions at this juncture.”

A Modest Increase in Sanctions

Resolution 1803 reiterates the demands of three previous resolutions requiring Iran to suspend its activities related to uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing, as well as work on its heavy-water reactor. These activities have civilian nuclear uses but may also be used to create fissile material for nuclear weapons. The council initially made this demand in Resolution 1696, adopted in July 2006. It reiterated this demand in two subsequent sanctions resolutions, 1737 adopted in December 2006 and Resolution 1747 adopted in March 2007.

The resolution requests that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei submit a report to the council and the IAEA Board of Governors by June 3 regarding Iran’s compliance with these obligations. The agency’s board is scheduled to meet June 2-6. ElBaradei issued a report on Iran’s nuclear program Feb. 22 indicating that although Tehran had increased its cooperation with the agency, it did not suspend its nuclear fuel-cycle activities and has not yet answered questions regarding suspected work related to nuclear weapons. (See ACT, March 2008. )

As in Resolutions 1737 and 1747, Resolution 1803 highlights that the council will suspend its sanctions as long as Iran carries out these demands and will terminate the sanctions as soon as the IAEA verifies that “Iran has fully complied with” its obligations to the Security Council and the IAEA. It also indicates that if Iran fails to meet these obligations, the council shall “adopt further appropriate measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII” of the UN Charter. Article 41 grants the council the authority to adopt nonmilitary measures in response to threats to international peace and security.

Resolution 1803 expands and strengthens some of the targeted sanctions measures included in Resolutions 1737 and 1747. For example, the resolution extends the financial restrictions contained in the two previous resolutions, such as funds and assets freezes, to an additional 13 persons and seven entities involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. It also calls on states to “exercise vigilance and restraint” regarding the “entry into or transit through their territories” of these 13 persons.

In a slight strengthening of the travel restrictions imposed by the two previous resolutions, Resolution 1803 requires that states prevent the travel of a select list of five persons involved in Iran’s nuclear program whom were designated under Resolutions 1737 and 1747.

Resolution 1803 also expands the scope of restrictions on nuclear- and missile-related technology transfers to Iran. For example, Resolution 1737 placed restrictions on the supply of items and technologies directly associated with nuclear programs, but the new resolution places similar restrictions on a list of dual-use nuclear goods that have nuclear and non-nuclear applications.

This prohibition on dual-use nuclear technology does not apply to transfers exclusively for use in light-water reactors (LWRs) or for nonprohibited IAEA technical cooperation with Iran. All such transfers, however, must be carried out under strict control, including verifying the appropriate end use after shipment and notifying the committee established under Resolution 1737 of such transfers.

The exemption for LWR-related transfers allows Russia to continue its work on Iran’s first nuclear power reactor at Bushehr, scheduled for completion late this year.

In order for states to avoid financing Tehran’s proliferation activities, Resolution 1803 calls on all states to “exercise vigilance” regarding their firms that have dealings with Iran. In particular, it asks states to be wary of granting export credits, guarantees, or insurance to their businesses trading with Iran. The resolution also asks that states exercise the same caution in regard to activities between their financial institutions and Iranian banks, especially the state-owned Bank Melli and Bank Saderat and their branches and subsidiaries.

The United States has previously imposed financial sanctions on Bank Melli and Bank Saderat, Iran’s largest and second-largest state-owned banks, respectively. In October 2007, Washington placed restrictions on Bank Melli for its contributions to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and on Bank Saderat for its contributions to terrorist organizations. (See ACT, November 2007. )

The most controversial provision of the resolution calls on all states to carry out inspections of cargo going to and coming from Iran “at their airports and seaports” and of aircraft and vessels owned or operated by Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line “provided there are reasonable grounds to believe” the cargo contains goods prohibited under the sanctions resolutions.

During the negotiations on the draft resolution in the council, some states, including Libya, South Africa, and Vietnam, expressed opposition to this provision due to legal concerns and the potential to incite hostilities. (See ACT, March 2008. ) Explaining South Africa’s vote in favor of the resolution March 3, Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa’s permanent representative to the UN, told the council that Pretoria “would have preferred that the resolution not contain the controversial provision” allowing such inspections “as this could spark confrontation.”

In order to address such concerns, language was added to the draft resolution requiring that these inspections be carried out in accordance with “national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, in particular the law of the sea and relevant international civil aviation agreements.”

As with the two previous resolutions, the resolution contains a call for states to report to a Security Council committee established under Resolution 1737 on the efforts they have taken to implement the sanctions within 60 days. Of the 192 UN members, about 85 states have submitted reports on their efforts under Resolution 1737, and about 71 have done so for Resolution 1747.

Further Developing Incentives

In addition to imposing sanctions on Iran, the resolution “stresses the willingness” of the five permanent members of the council and Germany “to further enhance diplomatic efforts” to find a comprehensive long-term settlement of the nuclear issue with Tehran.

Following the adoption of the resolution, the United Kingdom issued a statement on behalf of the group. The statement indicated that the six powers reconfirm the proposals they presented to Iran in June 2006 “and are prepared to further develop them.” According to the 2006 proposal, once Iran suspends its nuclear fuel-cycle activities, the six countries offered to negotiate a wide range of opportunities for technical, economic, and political cooperation with Iran, including European-Iranian nuclear cooperation. (See ACT, July/August 2006. )

Tehran formally rejected the proposal in August 2006. It claimed that, although the proposal contained “useful foundations and capacities for comprehensive and long-term cooperation,” it also had numerous ambiguities, in particular with regard to “Iran’s right to [a] peaceful nuclear program.”

A British diplomat told Arms Control Today March 19 that the primary reason for Tehran’s rejection of the offer was that it did not permit Iran to enrich uranium.

Since the 2006 offer was made, EU High Representative Javier Solana has held intermittent discussions with Iran on behalf of the six countries in order to open negotiations for a long-term settlement of the nuclear issue on the basis of the incentives package. These discussions have not been successful, and Solana said that he was “disappointed” with the latest talks in November 2007. (See ACT, December 2007. ) Resolution 1803 encourages these negotiations to continue.

The decision to further develop the incentives package was part of the overall agreement by the six countries on the draft sanctions they proposed to the council in February. (See ACT, March 2008. ) Russia and China conditioned their support for the additional sanctions on an agreement to repackage the incentives offer. A Russian diplomat told Arms Control Today March 3 that the agreement to enhance the incentives proposal was necessary in order for Moscow to support the draft sanctions resolution. Similarly, a German diplomat said March 5 that further work on the offer was also important to ensure Chinese support for the additional sanctions.

In a March 3 statement, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, told reporters that Moscow viewed the resolution and the statement of the six countries as a “package deal.” He highlighted that the statement is “extremely significant” as it does not just reiterate but expands on the June 2006 offer and asserted that it “deserves serious reflections on the Iranian side.”

European diplomats told Arms Control Today that the main purpose of “repackaging” the incentives offer is to demonstrate to the Iranian population the benefits that they would receive if Tehran decided to cooperate and suspend their nuclear fuel-cycle programs in order to enter negotiations. Several Western diplomats described the repackaging process as “ongoing.”

A British diplomat said March 19 that “the Iranian regime has been opaque with the Iranian people about the offer on the table,” adding that, should the Iranian public become aware of what the Iranian leadership was rejecting, “it may place public pressure on the regime.” The diplomat noted that the repackaging was largely clarifying the advantages that the Iranians would gain from cooperation.

Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. permanent representative to the UN, made a similar appeal in a March 4 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, citing in particular the U.S. recognition of Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy. Underlining the benefits that Iran would receive from the incentive package, he stated that the Iranian people “should know that the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany have offered to help Iran develop civil nuclear power” if Iran complies with the council’s “very reasonable demand” to suspend enrichment.

The March 3 resolution and six-country statement were issued more than a week prior to the March 14 Iranian parliamentary elections. The elections did not result in substantial changes in the makeup of the Iranian parliament.

Iran Rejects Suspension, Dialogue

Even before the adoption of Resolution 1803, Iran reiterated its refusal to comply with the council’s demands to suspend its nuclear fuel-cycle activities. Speaking to the council prior to the March 3 vote on the resolution, Mohammad Khazaee, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, stated in regard to suspension that “Iran cannot and will not accept a requirement which is legally defective and politically coercive.”

Iran also rejected the call by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany to pursue discussions on the nuclear issue on the basis of the incentives package. Iranian government spokesperson Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters March 15, “The issue of nuclear talks with the countries of the [five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany] is over.”

Unlike Iran’s response to the adoption of Resolution 1747, in which Iran curtailed its cooperation with the IAEA, Iranian officials have stated that Tehran will continue to work with the agency in line with its safeguards obligations. Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, Tehran’s ambassador to the IAEA, told Iran’s Press TV March 4, “Iran will continue its cooperation with the IAEA in accordance with the IAEA statute, [the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty], and its comprehensive safeguard[s] agreement.”

In March 2007, Iran suspended a subsidiary pact to its safeguards agreement that required Iran to provide design information for nuclear facilities as soon as it authorizes construction. Resolution 1803 underlines that the IAEA “has sought confirmation” that Iran will reapply this subsidiary agreement.


UN Security Council Resolution 1803

The UN Security Council on March 3 adopted Resolution 1803 imposing additional targeted sanctions on Iran for its failure to implement steps required in past resolutions, such as suspending its uranium-enrichment-related activities. The resolution was passed with 14 votes in favor and Indonesia abstaining. As with several past resolutions, Resolution 1803 was adopted under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which provides for the Security Council to take nonmilitary actions to threats to international peace and security.

The resolution expands on and strengthens some of the sanctions contained in Resolutions 1737, adopted in December 2006, and 1747, adopted in March 2007. These sanctions include travel and financial restrictions on Iranian personnel involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, controls over the transfer of certain nuclear- and missile-related goods to Iran, and constraints on providing Iran with major conventional combat systems.

In addition to sanctions, the resolution highlights the efforts by China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to further develop their June 2006 incentives offer to Iran in order to negotiate a comprehensive resolution of the nuclear issue once Iran suspends its relevant nuclear activities.

In particular, Resolution 1803:

• Reaffirms that Iran must verifiably suspend all of its activities related to uranium enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and heavy-water reactor construction. It also reaffirms the call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for Iran to ratify and implement an additional protocol to its safeguards agreement, which provides the agency with enhanced inspection authority in order to detect undeclared nuclear activities.

• Welcomes the August 2007 work plan concluded between the IAEA and Iran to resolve all outstanding safeguards issues and the progress made in this regard as detailed in the Feb. 22 report of IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei. It encourages the IAEA to continue its work to clarify these outstanding issues.

• Calls on all states to exercise vigilance and restraint regarding the entry or transit of Iranian personnel associated with Iran’s nuclear and missile programs through their territories. The council decides that all states shall notify the Iran sanctions committee established pursuant to Resolution 1737 of the movement of additional Iranian personnel designated in an annex of this resolution.

• Decides that all states shall prevent the entry or transit of Iranian personnel designated in an annex to this resolution, as well as any additional persons designated by the council.

• Decides that all states shall freeze the financial assets and economic resources that are on their territories that are owned or controlled by the persons or organizations designated in annexes to the resolution.

• Decides that all states shall prevent the transfer of nuclear dual-use items and technology to Iran except for light-water reactors and IAEA projects. These transfers must be subject to strict controls. The council also decides that all states shall prevent the transfer of specialized materials, technologies and subcomponents that may be used in missile systems.

• Calls on all states to exercise vigilance in providing public financial support for trade with Iran, including granting export credits, guarantees, or insurance to entities involved in such trade.

• Calls on all states to exercise vigilance over their financial institutions involved with Iranian banks, especially Bank Melli and Bank Saderat, in order to prevent them from assisting the finance of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

• Calls on all states to inspect the cargoes to and from Iran of aircraft and vessels owned or operated by Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line at their airports and seaports upon suspicion that such cargoes may be transporting items and technologies prohibited under the council’s resolutions. The council also requires that states must submit a report to the council within five working days regarding the details and rationale regarding such an inspection.

• Calls on all states to report to the Iran sanctions committee within 60 days on steps they have taken to implement the sanctions in the resolution.

• Stresses the willingness of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to further enhance their diplomatic efforts on the basis of their June 2006 offer to Iran in order to reach a long-term resolution of the nuclear issue so long as Iran verifiably suspends its sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle activities.

• Encourages European High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana to continue communications with Iran in order to create the necessary conditions for resuming talks on a diplomatic solution.

• Requests a report from ElBaradei on Iran’s compliance with the resolution within 90 days.

• Reaffirms that the council shall suspend sanctions as long as Iran verifiably suspends its nuclear fuel-cycle activities to allow negotiations on a long-term resolution to occur.

• Reaffirms that the council will halt sanctions once the IAEA director-general confirms that Iran has complied with the obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions and meets the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors.

• Reaffirms that if the June 2008 report by ElBaradei demonstrates that Iran has not complied with the council’s resolutions, the council shall adopt further nonmilitary punitive responses.

Bush Says Iraq Oil May Fuel Al Qaeda WMD

Peter Crail

During a March 19 speech marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush warned of consequences for the early removal of U.S. forces from that country. These, he said, could include the possibility that a withdrawal would indirectly help al Qaeda acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to indicate that Iran was pursuing the development of weapons-grade uranium, a claim contrary to international inspection findings.

In his March 19 remarks, Bush stated that “an emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq’s oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.”

It is not evident, however, that access to substantial additional funds would be an important factor in al Qaeda’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction.

In regard to nuclear weapons, a 2006 unclassified intelligence report to Congress on WMD proliferation concluded that al Qaeda’s “key obstacle” in developing a nuclear device is acquiring sufficient fissile material. Al Qaeda has pursued a nuclear weapons capability since the early 1990s, but attempts to purchase the necessary material are believed to have been unsuccessful. Known attempts include cases in which the purchase was prevented by law enforcement authorities or in which the group bought material falsely sold as nuclear material.

Prior to the October 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, al Qaeda had more success in developing a limited biological and chemical weapons capability. According to the 2005 “Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction,” al Qaeda recruited individuals during the 1990s with sufficient technical expertise for rudimentary biological and chemical weapons programs. (See ACT, October 2006. )

The report described al Qaeda’s biological weapons work as “extensive” and “well-organized” and indicated that it was operated by “individuals with special training.” Similarly, the commission indicated that some al Qaeda members had know-how to produce and deploy “common chemical agents.” However, U.S. intelligence agencies were “doubtful” that the organization was capable of carrying out mass casualty attacks with advanced chemical agents.

The 2004 report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, informally known as the 9/11 Commission, stated that al Qaeda’s overall operations prior to the September 2001 attacks cost about $30 million each year, based almost entirely on donations. It is unclear how much of this funding was dedicated to the organization’s WMD pursuits.

Al Qaeda’s biological and chemical weapons programs were largely dismantled following U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan. A 2005 unclassified intelligence report to Congress on WMD proliferation indicated that there were no reliable reports of an active al Qaeda biological weapons program but judged that acquiring such weapons remained an important goal. The report stated that al Qaeda continued “possible chemical-related training” in Pakistan, but the commission had no evidence of a concerted program similar to al Qaeda’s pre-2001 pursuits.

Cheney Suggests That Iran Is Developing HEU

In addition to commenting on the WMD threat from al Qaeda, administration officials continue to highlight the threat from Iran’s nuclear program. During a March 24 ABC News interview, Cheney stated that Iran is “heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels.”

However, a Feb. 22 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iran has enriched uranium to 3.8 percent uranium-235 (from natural concentrations of less than 1 percent), a typical level for nuclear power reactors. Weapons-grade enrichment requires a concentration of 90 percent or more of this fissile isotope.

Enrichment facilities can be used to produce any level of enrichment. However, a December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate assessed with moderate confidence that, between 2010 and 2015, Iran will be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon. The U.S. intelligence community also judged with moderate confidence that Iran would not use its declared facilities to carry out such enrichment.

During a March 19 speech marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush warned of consequences for the early removal of U.S. forces from that country. These, he said, could include the possibility that a withdrawal would indirectly help al Qaeda acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney seemed to indicate that Iran was pursuing the development of weapons-grade uranium, a claim contrary to international inspection findings. (Continue)

Elections and Enduring Realities: Australia’s Nuclear Debate

Jeffrey S. Lantis

In November 2007, voters in the Commonwealth of Australia went to the polls in a hotly contested national election. Their choice was between the two major-party candidates, incumbent Prime Minister John Howard of the conservative Liberal Party, and his challenger, Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party. The parties differed vocally over issues ranging from Aboriginal rights to the plight of the middle class. Another serious issue sharply divided the parties but received less public debate: nuclear energy policy.

During the campaign, the Howard government sought to dampen debate on the subject even as it joined the Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and called for Australia to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle and expand uranium sales to developing countries, including India.

Meanwhile, Labor leaders made clear their opposition to nuclear power. Candidate Rudd argued, “Nuclear energy and nuclear power plants for Australia are not an option. They don’t represent a sensible case on economics, [and] they don’t represent a sensible case on how you deal with radioactive waste.”[1] Peter Garrett, Labor’s shadow minister for climate change and the environment (and a former rock star), warned that even in the face of global warming, “to choose an option such as nuclear energy, while aware of its pitfalls, is the worst kind of denial.”[2] Nonetheless, the Labor Party victory, combined with some recent world events, raise serious questions about whether and to what degree the Rudd government will retain this stance on nuclear power, particularly when it comes to providing uranium to nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) outliers such as India.

Over the past few decades, Australia has carved out a unique role in nuclear policy. It is one of the world’s few wealthy, advanced industrial democracies not to have developed a nuclear energy infrastructure. Instead it has established a reputation as a global champion of nonproliferation. Time and again, Australian diplomats have led the way on nonproliferation treaty commitments, especially Canberra’s pledge not to supply uranium to NPT nonsignatories for fear it might inadvertently contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Yet, Australia possesses the world’s largest reserves of uranium (more than one-third of the global total) in its network of mines in the Northern Territory and South Australia. Canberra therefore has strong countervailing economic and energy security incentives to change course and participate more fully in the recent renaissance of interest in nuclear energy, especially helping to supply fuel for the scores of reactors planned for Asian countries such as India and China.[3] Australian uranium export deals with these and other countries have the potential to be highly lucrative. They also provide developing countries needed guarantees for expansion of their energy infrastructure. Critics, however, warn that exports may also contribute inadvertently to nuclear proliferation.

Still, in the lead-up to last year’s election, even the Labor Party endorsed steps that may inevitably expand the country’s role in the global nuclear energy cycle, and public opinion polls also hint that Australians may be slowly coming to terms with nuclear energy.

Australia’s Nuclear History

Contemporary policy debates in Australia regarding nuclear energy derive from a complicated history on the question. In periods of Liberal Party rule in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, Australia pressed forward on nuclear energy and even sought nuclear weapons. Liberal Party leaders have appeared beholden to the views of major corporations who have seen nuclear energy as a growth industry. Meanwhile, the Labor Party traditionally has opposed nuclear energy for Australia and appeared more responsive to general public unease with nuclear power and the problem of disposing of nuclear waste.

Australia first entered the controversial nuclear arena in 1944 when the government mined uranium for use in the Manhattan Project. Several Australian scientists also participated in the British atomic bomb research program and returned home with valuable expertise. After World War II, larger deposits of uranium were discovered, mined, and exported to the United Kingdom and the United States for use in their weapons programs.[4]

The Australian government became more directly involved in nuclear weapons development in the 1950s under the leadership of conservative Prime Minister Robert Menzies. In 1951, Australia signed a security pact with the United States and New Zealand (the ANZUS Treaty) that saw the establishment of permanent U.S. military bases in Australia. Menzies also invited the United Kingdom to test nuclear weapons in his country. The first British bomb was tested in 1952 on an island off the coast of Western Australia; later, aboveground British tests were conducted at Woomera and Emu Field in South Australia. Analysts have suggested that Menzies saw cooperation with the United Kingdom primarily as a way to deepen security ties between the countries. It also offered an opportunity to gain scientific expertise on nuclear weapons development.

In 1953 the government established the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC), chaired by nuclear physicist Sir Philip Baxter, and five years later, Australia acquired its first nuclear research reactor from the United Kingdom. Under pressure from Baxter and some military officers who believed that nuclear weapons should be the centerpiece of a modern force, Australian leaders also began making secret requests to acquire bombs from allies.[5] Defense planners interpreted Australia’s Cold War strategic situation as similar to that of Western European countries and saw reliance on nuclear weapons as a strategic inevitability.

By the 1960s, as the international community celebrated progress toward agreements to limit nuclear proliferation, Australia’s conservative government grew increasingly worried. Menzies conveyed his opposition to a formal declaration of nuclear haves and have-nots at the outset of U.S.-Soviet-British negotiations on a Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. At one point, the frustrated prime minister told his allied counterparts that if major nonproliferation treaties were to come into force, “Australia should insist on nuclear weapons on demand.”[6] China’s first nuclear test in 1964 only deepened Australia’s security concerns.

Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton actually took his nation to the brink of nuclear capability in the late 1960s. Gorton shared Baxter’s view that the NPT, opened for signature in 1968, represented a serious roadblock to Australia’s plans to construct nuclear reactors, expand uranium exports, and even acquire nuclear weapons. The prime minister refused to sign the NPT until February 1970 and believed he could continue to keep Australia’s nuclear options open by not ratifying it.

With the support of the AAEC, Gorton’s government negotiated a secret deal with France for construction of a uranium-enrichment plant in Australia. The Liberal government also advanced a plan to develop a large (500 megawatt) nuclear reactor at Jervis Bay in New South Wales. Gorton’s intention was to solicit bids for a reactor that could run on indigenous natural uranium, such as a CANDU plant, or highly enriched uranium (HEU) produced by a plant on Australian soil. Although ostensibly a civilian power plant, this would give the government the option of either reprocessing spent fuel or diverting HEU for military purposes. In the end, Baxter and the AAEC decided on a safer and more reliable British light-water reactor plan.[7]

This pattern of behavior ended in the early 1970s, however, when the Labor Party took over the government. The new prime minister, Gough Whitlam, cancelled the Jervis Bay project and fired Baxter from his longtime post at the AAEC. In 1973, Australia ratified the NPT, and the Labor government delayed uranium-mine expansion plans citing concerns about Aboriginal land claims. In 1975, Labor adopted an official party proclamation that limited uranium mining to existing mines (the “Three Named Uranium Mines Policy”). Australia seemed firmly committed to the international nonproliferation regime in the 1980s and 1990s. Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, for example, appointed the country’s first ambassador for disarmament and lobbied other governments to establish a global ban on nuclear testing. Australian diplomats helped sponsor the South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty in 1985, an agreement whereby signatories pledged not to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons, to prevent territorial stationing of any nuclear weapons, to ban nuclear testing, and to oppose radioactive waste dumping at sea.[8]

Nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl only deepened concern about the risks of nuclear energy among Australians. When French President Jacques Chirac announced in 1995 that his country would conduct a new round of nuclear tests in the South Pacific, tens of thousands of Australians protested in the streets and threatened boycotts of French goods. Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating condemned France’s decision and sponsored an international convention of nuclear weapons experts in Canberra that called for global nuclear disarmament.[9] Even after Labor’s defeat in March 1996, the party’s legacy continued to influence government policy. Australia remained an active supporter of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the indefinite extension of the NPT, and the ruling by the International Court of Justice declaring the use of nuclear weapons illegal in cases other than national self-defense.

The debate over nuclear energy and Australia’s role in the global nuclear fuel cycle came to a head once again during 2006-2007 as a result of several new developments. Like other countries, Australia showed renewed interest in nuclear energy because of perceived threats to energy security, soaring prices in energy markets, and rising concern over global warming. Moreover, the signing of the U.S.-Indian civil nuclear cooperation agreement in 2007 raised anew the question of whether or not Australia should sell uranium to a non-NPT state. The Bush administration’s new GNEP program prompted the Howard government to commit to new multinational nuclear energy initiatives. At home, Howard ordered a comprehensive study of nuclear power and then announced plans for construction of a robust nuclear energy program, possibly including more than 50 power plants, uranium-enrichment facilities, and waste repositories.

Nuclear Masala? Cooperation Deals With India, China, and Russia

The 2007 U.S.-Indian civil nuclear cooperation agreement opened a Pandora’s box of opportunities and challenges for Australia. The agreement called on India to “separate” its military and civilian nuclear facilities, placing only civilian reactors under international safeguards, in exchange for nuclear trade with the United States and its allies.

Given its vast uranium reserves, Australia traditionally has played a critical role as a supplier state to allies but dutifully toed the line on international export controls. It is one of 45 member states of the voluntary Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), established in 1975 to regulate the supply and export of civilian nuclear material and nuclear-related equipment and technology in support of the nonproliferation regime. The NSG calls for potential recipients to have full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards in place, effectively ruling some countries, notably India, Israel, and Pakistan, off-limits for this commodity trade. The Australian government was even more selective, requiring that its customers be signatories to the NPT and complete bilateral safeguards agreements to ensure no chance for diversion of uranium to weapons programs. Its traditional customers included France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. At the same time, Australia refused to export uranium to countries such as India, Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, and Taiwan.

All this seemed to change late in the Howard government when, with prices soaring, Australia opened negotiations with China, India, and Russia for the export of uranium. When the U.S.-Indian deal was first announced, the Bush administration pledged to “work with friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India.”[10] The Australian government jumped eagerly into this mix. Just days after a U.S.-Indian plan that claimed to separate India’s military and civil facilities was announced in March 2006, Howard arrived in New Delhi, and one of the topics of discussion in his private meetings with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was reportedly the export of uranium to India.[11]

An Australian-Chinese export deal was completed in April 2006 and ratified in January 2007, and an Australian-Russian uranium-export agreement was signed at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney in 2007. The China deal is highly lucrative: starting in 2010, Australia will export up to 20,000 metric tons of uranium to China per year.[12] The plan has since been endorsed by the Rudd government as a complement to the prime minister’s initiatives to strengthen relations with Asia. The agreement with Russia, penned by Howard and President Vladimir Putin, would also help promote Australian-Russian ties. Both deals included safeguards agreements preventing diversion of uranium for military use or sale to third parties.

The most vexing issue for Australian policymakers regarding uranium sales today is India’s status as a nonsignatory of the NPT. In the 1990s, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer stated firmly that his country had a “legal obligation not to provide nuclear material unless subject to safeguards required by Article III.1 of the NPT, that is, full scope safeguards.”[13] India’s rejection of the NPT and 1974 explosion of a nuclear device made it the target of export controls on dual-use and nuclear-related technology for decades. Sanctions were tightened in the wake of its 1998 nuclear tests. The Indian Atomic Energy Commission runs its nuclear reactors below capacity because India possesses only a limited amount of indigenous uranium. India also faces difficulties developing a thorium-based reactor that could alleviate reliance on domestic uranium.

Throughout 2006, Australian authorities steadfastly denied that they were considering selling uranium to India, but quiet diplomatic negotiations were already underway. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) officials saw the prospect of selling uranium to India as appealing. With countries such as China and India developing rapidly and expanding their nuclear power programs, Australia could emerge as the regional uranium supplier of choice.

By 2007, the Howard government was making a concerted push to change the nature of the debate on the matter. Seemingly overnight, editorials and reports began to appear in prominent newspapers suggesting that Australians rethink their relationship with India. One opinion piece argued that India would be a reliable partner: “Since it first tested in 1974 India has not shared its nuclear technology or materials with anyone. Its non-proliferation record is better than some countries that have signed the treaty like China which is widely believed to have helped Pakistan go nuclear.”[14] A May 2007 brief from the conservative Lowy Institute for International Policy claimed that “selling uranium to India offers major potential benefits for exports and foreign policy.”[15] The problem, supporters argued, was less with India as a strategic partner and more with an outdated and flawed nonproliferation regime.

In August 2007, Howard officially announced his government’s decision to export uranium to India, subject to certain preconditions. Australia would require that India finalize a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, pending NSG approval of the deal. Australia would also await ratification of a “123 agreement” for nuclear cooperation between the United States and India. The 123 agreement (so-named in reference to Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act) requires establishing ground rules for civilian nuclear cooperation. Ratification was not seen as a major hurdle at the time; the deal had been completed in July 2007 and submitted to each country’s legislature for review. All signs suggested that the U.S.-Indian deal would be completed and that Australia would finalize a very lucrative uranium-export arrangement in the near future.

Events in 2007-2008 have since called this into question. As a candidate, Rudd was on the record opposed to the export of uranium to India. Rudd’s new foreign minister, Stephen Smith, said that Australia would not export to India or other nonsignatories of the NPT during a visit to Washington in January 2008. Meanwhile, ratification of the 123 agreement has been held up in India by opposition from Communist parties allied to Singh’s Congress Party. This provided the Rudd government a needed reprieve on the issue.

Evidence suggests that the Rudd government will be forced to re-evaluate its position if the safeguards agreement with the IAEA is finalized and the decision taken to the NSG. In February 2008, Australia’s ambassador to India, John McCarthy, stated that Rudd’s decision on exports does “not mean that Australia will oppose the NSG exemption when the group votes on the matter.”[16] Given Australia’s ties with great powers and its emerging trade relationship with India, it appears highly unlikely that Australia would reject the special deal in the NSG. Furthermore, with the blessing of a special exemption, some experts believe that Australia will eventually find a way to export uranium to India.

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)

In February 2006, the Bush administration announced plans for GNEP. The core of the partnership was collaboration between the United States and other countries with advanced nuclear energy programs to develop new technologies to reuse elements in spent nuclear fuel so that that they might reduce nuclear waste without increasing nuclear proliferation. One initial goal of the program was to discourage new countries from developing uranium-enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing facilities, because these plants could not only produce nuclear fuel for power plants but fissile material for nuclear weapons, and instead “lease” fuel from facilities in states that already have enrichment or reprocessing plants.

For almost a year after the initial announcement of the partnership, however, the precise nature of its scope and activities remained unclear to Australian authorities. Indeed, these have changed considerably over time. According to a government task force report:

GNEP envisions whole-of-life fuel leasing…but is a long term proposal which has only recently been launched, so it can be expected to evolve considerably over time. Some of GNEP technologies are already well established, others require major development. A timeframe of the introduction of new technologies as envisaged under GNEP may be around 20-25 years.[17]

Nevertheless, Howard’s government expressed interest in joining up even before the outlines of the partnership were clear. One high-ranking government official speaking on background explained that Australia has a vested interest in any discussion of the nuclear fuel cycle and that the Howard government was willing to follow the U.S. lead on the matter.[18] In July 2006, Howard said that Australia had an opportunity to become an energy superpower by selling more uranium on world markets: “We are part of the nuclear fuel cycle whether we like it or not,” he declared. “The real question is whether Australia should fully consider our interests and responsibilities in the global nuclear energy debate or whether we succumb to the dogma of denial.”

Howard and Downer made several requests to the United States to become partners in the initiative but at the same time made sure that, by doing so, they would not preclude Australia’s ability to acquire enrichment facilities.[19] Bush confirmed plans to expand membership of the organization during the APEC summit in Sydney in September 2007. Australia and 10 other states became official members of GNEP later that month, and Australia participated in its first steering committee meeting in December 2007.

At this writing, however, many questions and uncertainties remain about the future of GNEP in its domestic and international dimensions. These have only contributed to a fear that Australia’s most important role in GNEP may turn out to be as a vast international nuclear waste repository.

The Switkowski Report

Perhaps the most significant event that shaped the nuclear energy debate in Australia in recent years was the release of the government’s “Uranium Mining, Processing, and Nuclear Energy Taskforce Report” (UMPNER) in December 2006. The report was the product of a special study commissioned by Howard and led by Ziggy Switkowski, former CEO of Telstra International and head of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. The task force was given the mandate to conduct a comprehensive review of uranium mining and processing and nuclear energy. The group consisted of respected members from the sciences and academia, but critics immediately denounced the enterprise as no less than the creation of a “roadmap for Australia to go nuclear.”[20]

The task force investigated all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, from mining to enrichment to management of nuclear waste. They also examined relevant social concerns, safety and proliferation issues, and the potential impact of nuclear energy on the environment. The task force held public hearings in Australia, consulted with scores of individuals and institutions around the world, and visited nuclear energy plants, mines, enrichment facilities, waste repositories, and nuclear regulatory agencies. They also made it a point to visit more controversial sites associated with nuclear energy, including Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the United States.

The final report delivered to the prime minister in December 2006 reached several conclusions, although it is worth noting that, for political reasons, the task force was prevented from labeling these “recommendations.”[21] First and foremost, the task force expressed the seeming inevitability of a rise in the use of nuclear energy around the world and that “nuclear should be on the table” again in the Australian energy debate, including discussion of greater Australian involvement in other elements of nuclear fuel cycle.[22]

The report also outlined basic criteria for establishment of a nuclear infrastructure, including the need for a regulatory regime, training and investment in nuclear research and education, and a comprehensive energy strategy. The task force had consulted with companies working in the nuclear fuel cycle, such as San Diego’s General Atomics and the European enrichment consortium URENCO. Task force member Professor George Dracoulis reports that URENCO representatives discussed details of a hypothetical partnership deal in which they could build and manage an enrichment facility in Australia for approximately AU$2 billion (about US$1.6 billion at current exchange rates). When the task force discussed the controversial question of building a uranium-enrichment facility with Downer, he seemed receptive. Downer reportedly said at the time that DFAT could effectively “manage” world opinion and domestic opposition if the government decided to move forward.[23]

Australia’s Nuclear Future

In late April 2007, at the official opening of a new nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights, Howard proclaimed nuclear energy “a source of hope” and “part of Australia’s future.”[24] Soon thereafter, the prime minister announced his decision to launch a full-scale nuclear energy program. The government would follow the steps toward nuclear energy outlined in the UMPNER, including plans to develop a regulatory regime, promote nuclear engineering research, and launch a public information campaign. These actions were necessary precursors to the establishment of a national network of nuclear power plants (possibly more than 50, according to Switkowski) and domestic uranium enrichment. In the weeks that followed, DFAT officials also confirmed they had begun talks with new countries on uranium exports and that Australia would participate in the international Generation IV Advanced Nuclear Reactor Research program.

Howard’s announcement set the Liberal Party’s position on nuclear energy distinctly apart from that of Labor in the lead-up to the November 2007 election.[25] Prior to the election, Rudd and Labor leaders stated their opposition to nuclear power and uranium-enrichment plants in Australia, as well as uranium exports to India and Russia. Rudd called the prime minister’s endorsement of nuclear power “too expensive, too dangerous, too slow, when it comes to impact on greenhouse gas emissions.”[26] Another Labor leader chided, “John Howard has been in Parliament for over 30 years and suddenly the Australian people are expected to believe that he discovered a new way to fast-track nuclear power…. Australia has abundant supplies of gas and coal which will supply our energy needs for hundreds of years.”[27] Queensland Nuclear Free Alliance Spokesperson Robin Taubenfeld called the move “highly irresponsible” and predicted that the prime minister had committed “political suicide.”[28]

Notably, Howard’s nuclear plan also drove a wedge between federal and state governments. Premiers of large-state governments (under Labor Party control) vowed to fight federal plans, claiming that their own state laws prevented stationing of reactors in their territories. New South Wales (NSW) Premier Morris Iemma said he would use every means available to make sure that no nuclear power stations were built there: “If the Prime Minister wants to build a nuclear power station in NSW, he’ll have to get past me first.”[29] South Australian Premier Mike Rann echoed this sentiment, vowing, “They [the Commonwealth] won’t be building a nuclear power plant in South Australia while Labor is in office.”[30] Nevertheless, by early 2007, the federal government had already begun exploring legal routes by which state laws could be overridden to construct nuclear power stations, enrichment facilities, and even waste depositories.[31]

On November 24, 2007, Rudd and the Labor Party won the national parliamentary election soundly, defeating Howard and the Liberal/National coalition government. What followed was a consolidation of power by Rudd, including the naming of Julia Gillard as deputy prime minister, representing the left wing of the party, and Peter Garrett as the new environment minister. One of Rudd’s first actions in office was to announce that Australia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the United States as the only advanced industrialized power not to join.[32] Meanwhile, the Liberal Party imploded with Howard’s defeat and the withdrawal from party leadership of embittered former Treasury Minister Peter Costello.

Merely a Change in Speed?

The dramatic change in government gave encouragement to Australians opposed to nuclear power and greater involvement in the global nuclear fuel cycle. Rudd signaled a shift in foreign policy away from close cooperation with the Bush administration, and Smith’s announcement that Australia would not export uranium to India was met with praise by anti-nuclear activists. Still, celebrations of the Labor victory by many anti-nuclear advocates may have been premature. Some evidence suggests that the nuclear choice has effectively already been made for Australia.

First and foremost, nuclear insiders believe that the choice on nuclear policy offered up to voters might not be as distinct as it was portrayed in the media. Indeed, they contend that many Labor leaders already quietly accept the intellectual arguments for nuclear energy and emphasize a gradual evolution in thinking underway in the Australian polity on the question. Although a pause in government progress toward nuclear energy is likely, insiders believe that the Labor government will move to address critical nuclear issues within three to four years of taking office.[33] At a business forum after the 2007 election, Switkowski repeated the claim that Labor would eventually endorse nuclear energy:

We will get there [to nuclear energy]. I’m sure that we will get there, whether it happens in the next term of government or the one after…. The attitude in Australia, I think, will move from concern to grudging acceptance, to enormous relief that we have this very efficient technology and these vast reserves that will give us…the lowest cost, safest, cleanest form of base load electricity.[34]

Second, the Labor Party has already taken a critical step in support of an expanded role for Australia in the global nuclear energy cycle. In 2007, party leaders began debating whether they should overturn the Three Named Uranium Mines Policy of the past and expand Australia’s involvement in the lucrative growing market of uranium mining. Pragmatists including Rudd saw potential in the expansion of uranium mining and exports. Australia was the second-largest exporter of uranium in the world behind Canada, even with its restrictive policies, and spot uranium prices were spiking. Rudd was able to gain the support of opponents on the left and the party voted to allow expanded uranium mining at its leadership conference in April 2007.

Third, advocates of nuclear power in Australia have long believed that there is latent public support for the enterprise. A 2005 survey conducted for the IAEA showed that “levels of support for nuclear power in Australia, particularly when put in context of climate change, are similar to those in a number of other countries including Indonesia, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and France.”[35] Elite framing may be one key to understanding this phenomenon over time. When the prospect of nuclear power first captured the attention of conservative governments in the 1960s and 1970s, they championed it as a potential solution to the expected shortage of fossil fuels. Liberal governments appeared to enjoy a diffuse base of public support for nuclear power in Australia, but polling was notoriously inconsistent. Following the election of the Whitlam Labor government, a majority of Australian citizens favored NPT ratification in 1973 and the country’s responsibility to support the international nonproliferation regime.

In 2006 and 2007, the Howard government began to revive interest in nuclear energy in part by tapping into the diffuse base of public support. This time around, however, nuclear energy advocates had a new trump card: global warming. Nuclear energy was presented as the best response to growing concerns about energy security and climate change, and the argument seemed to be effective. The 2005 IAEA survey, for example, found that although 60 percent of Australians opposed the construction of nuclear power plants in their country, opposition fell dramatically when respondents were asked whether they would support “the use of nuclear power to help combat climate change” (evenly split at 47 percent for and 47 percent against).[36] In a May 2006 poll, a plurality of Australians (49 percent) approved of the construction of nuclear power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[37] Similar Newspoll surveys conducted in 2006 and 2007 charted a gradual decline in opposition to nuclear power plants along with an increase in undecided citizens. It is also noteworthy that the proportion of young people (aged 18-34) who were strongly opposed to nuclear energy fell dramatically, from 43 percent to 32 percent, between May and December 2006.[38]

These data suggest both latent support for nuclear power as a response to climate change and the potential for elite framing to shape public attitudes on the nuclear question. Indeed, the Howard government attempted to seize on what it saw as support in the buildup to the 2007 national election. Conservatives also knew that the framing of nuclear energy as a potential solution to global warming would place its opponents on the left in a true political dilemma. Skeptics might be forced to see the issue in a new light and would be hard-pressed to raise the same level of challenges voiced in earlier decades. Meanwhile, those on the left who accepted the intellectual argument regarding nuclear energy might be forced to reveal their cards to the voting public, thereby undermining the swell of support for a change in government. By raising the nuclear question, the Liberals believed they had masterminded a catch-22 for Labor.

Finally, Rudd himself seems committed to strengthening relations between Australia and key Asian partners, and international economic trends suggest that the focus will be squarely on commodity exports. Rudd’s personal understanding of the dramatic growth in Asian economies and their dire need for energy resources may resonate as well. All signs pointed to a massive increase in worldwide electricity demand, much of it originating in Asia. In 2006, China was already building 13 new nuclear power plants, with dozens more on the drawing boards; India had 16 reactors either under construction or planned. Meanwhile, Australian-Indian nuclear ties have already begun: a recent private sector deal was struck between Reliance Industries, India’s biggest private sector company in the energy and materials market, and Uranium Exploration Australia for exploration in Australia.[39] The fact that the Australian-Chinese and Australian-Russian uranium-export deals were only recently wrapped up means that these deals will effectively go forward on Rudd’s watch.

In many ways, the Australian-Indian nuclear export deal will be a key barometer of the evolution of Australian nuclear policy. If Labor leaders truly accept the intellectual argument in favor of greater involvement in the global nuclear fuel cycle, then they will find it difficult to ignore the potential for uranium exports to India. A pending NSG vote could put the Rudd government in a position of tacit endorsement for special exemptions to the NPT. As noted earlier, this may pave the way for the government to come around to a position that endorses broader exports with special safeguards agreements so that Australia can remain a viable player in the global nuclear renaissance.

Conclusion

What is clear about Australian nuclear policy in 2008 is that Rudd will have to walk a fine line in balancing principle and practical politics. Of course, Australians are not alone in confronting difficult choices on nuclear energy in the 21st century, but their unique role in nonproliferation and their vast reserves of uranium give them special influence on these issues.

Australia’s decision to pursue a broader role in the global nuclear fuel cycle is significant for the market as well as for political and security considerations in Australasia. Not only would a potential doubling of Australian uranium exports by 2015 to current nuclear powers help ensure increases in baseload power capacity, but the government could also reach out to supply newer civilian nuclear power programs.

A greater role in the global supply chain, however, also means greater responsibility. Australia’s first hurdle in an expanded uranium-export program will be to overcome charges of double standards. Exports to Russia with its ties to controversial regimes such as Iran and Syria could draw Australia into a web of proliferation crises. Exports to China with its controversial human rights record also raises important policy questions. Exports to India, an NPT nonsignatory, would be interpreted as the ultimate double standard in the Labor government’s foreign policy profile. As one prominent critic of this policy direction has already articulated, the Rudd government may appear to be arguing that “nuclear power is something Australians support—so long as it is not in their country.”[40]

Other important questions of responsibility also arise. For example, any move toward development of uranium-enrichment capability for Australia could also foster a regional energy or arms race. Because GNEP “envisions a system whereby supplier states take back spent fuel,” Australians will have to confront questions of the return and storage of nuclear waste sooner rather than later. As early as 2005, former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke publicly suggested that Australia had an “environmental responsibility” to open a global nuclear waste repository.[41] Finally, can Australia ensure the viability of bilateral safeguards agreements as well as the robustness of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime while becoming a larger player in the nuclear fuel cycle?

Australia has a fascinating yet contradictory nuclear history. Various governments have made efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, develop enrichment capacity, and take strong stands on nuclear disarmament. Yet, the forces at work that have shaped past Australian policies remain in play today. The nuclear debate has also intensified as a result of contemporary challenges such as global warming and real economic opportunities. In summary, despite the hopes of some Australians today, nuclear power remains an issue that will not go away.

Jeffrey S. Lantis is an associate professor of political science at The College of Wooster and was a 2007 Fulbright Senior Scholar at Australian National University.


ENDNOTES

1. Kevin Rudd, Interviewed by Steve Liebmann, Radio 2UE, December 12, 2006.

2. Peter Garrett, “Nukes Not the Answer to the Greenhouse Threat,” The Age, April 28, 2005.

3. Sharon Squassoni, “Risks and Realities: The ‘New Nuclear Energy Revival,’” Arms Control Today, May 2007, pp. 1-9.

4. Wayne Reynolds, “Rethinking the Joint Project: Australia’s Bid for Nuclear Weapons 1945-1960,” Historical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 3 (1998), pp. 853-873.

5. Jim Walsh, “Surprise Down Under: The Secret History of Australia’s Nuclear Ambitions,” The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 5 (Fall 1997), pp. 1-20; Richard Tanter, “The Re-emergence of an Australian Nuclear Weapons Option? Implications for Indonesia and the Asia Pacific,” Japan Focus, November 5, 2007, http://japanfocus.org.

6. T. V. Paul, Power Versus Prudence: Why States Forgo Nuclear Weapons (Montreal: McGill/Queen’s University Press, 2000), p. 75.

7. Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 129-131.

8. Toshiki Mogami, “The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone: A Fettered Leap Forward,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 25, No. 4 (December 1988), pp. 411-430.

9. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” August 1996.

10. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Joint Statement Between U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,” July 18, 2005.

11. Unidentified source, Interview with author, Canberra, March 21, 2007.

12. Australia-China Nuclear Material Transfer Agreement and Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, November 2007.

13. Daryl G. Kimball, “Fixing a Flawed Nuclear Deal,” Arms Control Today, September 2007, p. 3.

14. Christopher Kemmer, “Facing Up to the Nuclear Question,” Sydney Morning Herald, March 29, 2007, p. 13.

15. Ron Walker, “Uranium for India: Avoiding the Pitfalls,” Policy Brief, Lowy Institute for International Policy, May 2007, p. 1.

16. “Australia Not to Sell Uranium to India,” The Hindu, February 6, 2008.

17. Uranium Mining, Processing, and Nuclear Energy Review Taskforce, “Uranium Mining, Processing, and Nuclear Energy—Opportunities for Australia?” 2006, p. 243.

18. Australian government official, Interview with author, Canberra, Australia, March 21, 2007.

19. Jill Parillo and Rebecca Cooper, “Potential ‘Receiver’ Nations Rebuff Fuel Leasing Overtures,” Nuclear Weapon and Materials Monitor, Vol. 11, No. 29 (July 9, 2007); Rebecca Cooper, “More Countries Sign on to GNEP as U.S. Modifies Approach,” Nuclear Fuel Cycle Monitor, Vol. 26, No. 27 (September 24, 2007).

20. Unidentified source, Interview with author, Canberra, March 20, 2007.

21. Unidentified source, Interview with author, Canberra, May 17, 2007.

22. Ziggy Switkowski, interview with author, Adelaide, June 7, 2007.

23. Unidentified source, Interview with author, Canberra, May 17, 2007.

24. Richard Macey, “Nation’s Energy Future Is Nuclear: Howard,” Sydney Morning Herald, April 21, 2007, p. 1.

25. Phillip Coorey, “PM Sets Nation on Nuclear Path,” Sydney Morning Herald, April 27, 2007, p. 1.

26. Katharine Murphy, “PM Puts Faith in Nuclear Power,” The Age, December 30, 2006, p. 1.

27. “ALP Slams Nuclear Policy,” Sydney Morning Herald, April 28, 2007, p. 1.

28. “Howard Nuclear Plan a Worry: Protestors,” Sydney Morning Herald, April 28, 2007, p. 3.

29. Stephanie Peatling and Marian Wilkinson, “Bid to Overturn Nuclear Ban,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 30, 2007, p. 6.

30. “Rann Rules Out Nuclear Plant for South Australia,” Sydney Morning Herald, February 27, 2007, p. 1.

31. Peatling and Wilkinson, “Bid to Overturn Nuclear Ban,” p. 6.

32. Michael Fullilove, “Don’t Be Fooled: There’ll Be More Change Than Continuity in Foreign Policy,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 20, 2007, p. 6.

33. Ziggy Switkowski, interview with author, Adelaide, June 7, 2007.

34. Catherine Best, “Nuclear Power Inevitable, Says Ziggy,” www.news.com.au, November 16, 2007.

35. Globescan, “Global Public Opinion on Nuclear Issues and the IAEA: Final Report From 18 Countries,” October 2005 (prepared for the International Atomic Energy Agency).

36. Ibid. See Andrew Macintosh, “Who Wants a Nuclear Power Plant? Support for Nuclear Power in Australia,” Australia Institute Research Paper, No. 39 (January 2007).

37. Roy Morgan Research, “More Australians Approve Than Disapprove of Nuclear Power Plants,” Finding, No. 4032 (June 10, 2006).

38. Newspoll 2006, “Opinion Polls,” November 30, 2006; Newspoll 2007, “Opinion Polls,” January 8, 2007. Not surprisingly, many Australians oppose specific initiatives that may strike closer to home. For example, a 2006 poll found that 87 percent of Australians were concerned about the disposal of nuclear waste in their country. When Australians are asked about hypothetical construction of a nuclear power plant in their local area, 66 percent of respondents oppose the idea, with only 10 percent strongly in favor; Roy Morgan Research, “More Australians Approve Than Disapprove of Nuclear Power Plants.”

39. “RIL Goes to Oz for Uranium,” The Economic Times, December 11, 2007.

40. Senator Christine Milne, “Election Silence 2: Uranium Exports,” GreensBlog, November 22, 2007, http://greensblog.org.

41. Mary Beth Dunham Nikitn et al., “Managing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Policy Implications of Expanding Global Access to Nuclear Power,” CRS Report for Congress, RL34234, November 1, 2007, p. 31; “Hawke Backs Australia as Nuclear Waste Repository,” ABC News Online, September 27, 2005.

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