Atomic Assistance

How "Atoms for Peace" Programs Cause Nuclear Insecurity

Matthew Fuhrmann

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780801450907
• eBook ISBN: 9780801465314
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Nuclear technology is dual use in nature, meaning that it can be used to produce nuclear energy or to build nuclear weapons. Despite security concerns about proliferation, the United States and other nuclear nations have regularly shared with other countries nuclear technology, materials, and knowledge for peaceful purposes. In Atomic Assistance, Matthew Fuhrmann argues that governments use peaceful nuclear assistance as a tool of economic statecraft. Nuclear suppliers hope that they can reap the benefits of foreign aid—improving relationships with their allies, limiting the influence of their adversaries, enhancing their energy security by gaining favorable access to oil supplies—without undermining their security. By providing peaceful nuclear assistance, however, countries inadvertently help spread nuclear weapons.

Fuhrmann draws on several cases of "Atoms for Peace," including U.S. civilian nuclear assistance to Iran from 1957 to 1979; Soviet aid to Libya from 1975 to 1986; French, Italian, and Brazilian nuclear exports to Iraq from 1975 to 1981; and U.S. nuclear cooperation with India from 2001 to 2008. He also explores decision making in countries such as Japan, North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, and Syria to determine why states began (or did not begin) nuclear weapons programs and why some programs succeeded while others failed. Fuhrmann concludes that, on average, countries receiving higher levels of peaceful nuclear assistance are more likely to pursue and acquire the bomb—especially if they experience an international crisis after receiving aid.

Chapter 1

Definitions and Patterns of Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation

Since the initial drive by the United States to share technology and knowledge for peaceful purposes in the 1950s, civilian nuclear cooperation has occurred regularly. Nevertheless, it remains poorly understood and has rarely received scholarly attention. Some important questions must be addressed before analyzing the causes and strategic effects of nuclear cooperation. What is peaceful nuclear assistance? What are the different types of aid that nuclear suppliers can provide? How can we measure atomic assistance? What are the historical trends in civilian nuclear cooperation? How frequently have suppliers provided atomic aid, and with whom have they shared nuclear technology, materials, or knowledge?

Peaceful nuclear cooperation is the state-authorized transfer of nuclear facilities, technology, materials, or know-how from one country to another for civilian purposes. This definition captures transfers that enable the recipient country to develop, successfully operate, and expand a civil nuclear program. However, it excludes nuclear transactions that are not approved by the supplier country. Nonstate-sanctioned transfers could occur, for example, if nuclear technology or materials were stolen and sold to foreign clients.1 Such cases are driven by the parochial interests of nonstate actors in the supplier country and it is very difficult if not impossible to systematically measure them. Moreover, because governments keep a tight leash on firms that export nuclear technologies, unauthorized exports of this nature occur relatively infrequently.

Civilian nuclear assistance may be intended to help the recipient state conduct research on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy or to produce electricity at nuclear power stations. There are six operational categories of peaceful nuclear cooperation: (1) safety; (2) intangible transfers; (3) nuclear materials; (4) research reactors; (5) power reactors; and (6) fuel cycle facilities.

Defining Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation

Nuclear Safety

For a civil nuclear program to function effectively, actions must be taken to prevent accidents involving nuclear or radiological materials and to minimize the consequences of mishaps in the event that they occur. These actions collectively encompass nuclear safety. Effectively safeguarding a nuclear program is crucial because nuclear reactors are susceptible to accidents, as Charles Perrow documents in his book Normal Accidents.2 Just one accident, even a minor one, can affect a nuclear program. The March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania generated fear and anxiety among many Americans, restricting the growth of the U.S. nuclear program even though it did not result in the death of a single person.3 The risk of nuclear accidents is especially salient today in light of the March 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Given the importance of nuclear safety, countries commonly cooperate in this area. States sometimes assist each other in safety inspections of reactors. In 1993 Canada aided Pakistan in a month-long safety inspection of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, which Ottawa built in the early 1970s.4 A more frequent type of cooperation in this vein involves the sharing of research on nuclear safety. Over the last several decades, for instance, China has received access to safety-related research from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.5 In April 2008, the United States agreed to share research on safety with Israel, a move that attracted media attention because of Israel’s refusal to sign the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.6

Intangibles

Training scientists or operators and conducting joint research and development on nuclear-related fields constitute intangible cooperation. A cadre of educated scientists and operators is vital to the functioning of a peaceful nuclear program. Countries with experience in nuclear matters often invite scientists and technicians from other states to visit their laboratories and receive training in nuclear physics and reactor operation. For instance, the United States, United Kingdom, and France all offered training to Iranian nuclear scientists prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.7 Countries with well-developed nuclear energy programs sometimes cooperate with one another in conducting joint research and development of a new technology. Historically, many of the European countries—including France, Italy, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Germany—cooperated to develop “breeder” reactors, which produce more plutonium than they consume. Japan and the United States have also conducted a substantial amount of joint research in areas such as liquid metal and breeder reactor development and fusion fuel processing.8

Nuclear Materials

Several materials play a prominent role in the nuclear marketplace. Among them are natural uranium, enriched uranium, and plutonium, which can be used to fuel reactors. Natural uranium, which contains less than 1 percent of the isotope U-235, is mined from the earth’s crust, milled and processed into a chemical substance called yellowcake, and finally converted to a form usable in a reactor such as uranium metal or uranium dioxide.9 Uranium in this form can be used to fuel some reactors. Enriched uranium contains a greater percentage of the isotope U-235. Many reactors operating in the world today require low enriched uranium (LEU). For use in a nuclear reactor, the uranium needs to be enriched to around 2–3 percent U-235.10 Enriching uranium is a technical process that requires highly specialized facilities. A handful of developed states offer enrichment services whereby they import natural uranium (or use their indigenous supply), convert it to LEU, and export the enriched uranium for use in a reactor. The countries that have historically offered enrichment services include the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia.11

Some reactors use highly enriched uranium (HEU), which contains at least 20 percent of the isotope U-235. Note that HEU and “weapons-grade” uranium are not necessarily the same thing. The latter typically refers to uranium that is enriched to at least 90 percent U-235. Historically, the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia were the principal suppliers of HEU for civil purposes. Between 1950 and 2002, the United States exported more than twenty-five tons of HEU.12 The United States exported HEU to Iran in the 1960s for use in a research reactor located in Tehran, for example.13 The Soviet Union/Russia exported considerably less HEU—between 2.5 and 3.5 tons—during the same period. In more recent years, China has emerged as a significant supplier and has exported HEU fuel for research reactors in Nigeria, Ghana, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria.14 As of 2003, more than thirty countries had received HEU as a result of civilian nuclear cooperation.15

Plutonium can also be used to fuel reactors but it does not naturally exist. Once in the reactor, uranium fuel creates a controlled nuclear chain reaction that releases neutrons. Spent fuel rods that are burned in a reactor contain new isotopes, including plutonium. To separate plutonium from other isotopes in the spent fuel, a procedure known as chemical “reprocessing” is necessary. Once separated, plutonium can be merged with uranium to form mixed oxide (MOX) reactor fuel. This process is commonly referred to as “recycling” because waste is converted to fuel, reducing the amount of spent material that needs to be stored. In the 1970s, the expansion of nuclear power coupled with the perceived shortages of uranium led to increased interest in the use of plutonium as a reactor fuel.16 Ultimately, however, plutonium never became a prominent fuel source because recycling was economically inefficient and some major suppliers worried about the proliferation risks of its use in civil applications.17

Other materials relevant to a civil nuclear program include heavy water (water highly enriched with the hydrogen isotope deuterium), graphite, and thorium. Heavy water and graphite can be used as moderators in certain types of reactors to slow down the neutrons that are released when the nucleus of an atom is split. Reactors moderated by heavy water or graphite have the advantage of running on natural uranium, but the appropriate moderator must be present for the reactor to function properly. Of the two materials, heavy water is more widely employed; Canada, India, South Korea, China, Romania, Pakistan, and Argentina all possess heavy water moderated reactors.18 Most of these countries are at least partially dependent on a heavy water supply from foreign sources.19 Thorium is a naturally occurring material that can be used as reactor fuel because it is capable of breeding a fissile uranium isotope, U-233.

Research Reactors

Research reactors are used for training purposes or to produce isotopes that have medical applications and are often exported to countries that are just beginning nuclear programs.20 They are smaller than power reactors and typically have a capacity of less than 100 MWt, meaning they have less than one-hundred-million watts of electric capacity.21 As of May 2007 there were 283 research reactors operating in the world. As one might expect, some of these reactors were produced indigenously by states that have had highly developed nuclear infrastructures. Russia, for example, has sixty-two research reactors and the United States has fifty-four.22 However, many of these reactors are located in developing countries, including Algeria, Iran, Jamaica, and Libya, and were supplied by foreign sources.

Power Reactors

Power reactors, which are used to produce electricity, comprise a significant portion of all civilian nuclear cooperation. They extract usable energy, typically by splitting the nucleus of an atom to produce a series of controlled nuclear reactions. There are a few different types of reactors used for power production. Two common types are the American-designed pressurized water reactor (PWR) and the Canadian-designed Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR). According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there were 439 nuclear power plants in operation at the end of 2007 in thirty countries.23 In many countries, including France, Lithuania, and Ukraine, nuclear power provides a significant share of electricity production. Unless they are built in one of the major reactor suppliers such as the United States, Russia, France, or Canada, power reactors are typically constructed with some foreign assistance.

In addition to supplying complete nuclear research reactors, nuclear exporters sometimes provide various reactor subcomponents (e.g., reactor pressure vessels) to other countries.24 These transfers also constitute civilian nuclear cooperation.

Fuel Cycle Facilities

As described above, countries often import fuel in a form that is ready to be loaded into a reactor. States seeking to develop more advanced civil nuclear programs often demand the capability to produce reactor fuel indigenously or with minimal dependence on foreign suppliers. To achieve this capacity, facilities related to the nuclear fuel cycle—the processes leading to the production of electricity from uranium in power reactors—must be constructed. Most of these facilities are technologically sophisticated and are usually built via civilian nuclear cooperation. In addition to reactors, components of the fuel cycle include (1) uranium mines; (2) facilities to convert solid uranium yellowcake to the gas uranium hexafluoride; (3) enrichment facilities that can increase the concentration of the isotope uranium-235;25 (4) fuel fabrication facilities that transform enriched uranium into fuel rods; (5) facilities capable of storing or disposing spent fuel; and (6) reprocessing facilities capable of chemically separating plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Additionally, heavy water production facilities are sometimes considered to be part of the fuel cycle given the significance of heavy water for certain reactors that run on natural uranium.

Transfers of fuel cycle facilities—or subcomponents of these facilities—occur, albeit less frequently than reactor exports. For example, in the 1970s Switzerland supplied a ...

Table of contents

• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Unintended Consequences in International Politics
• 1. Definitions and Patterns of Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation
• PART I: ATOMS FOR PEACE
• PART II: ATOMS FOR WAR
• Conclusion: What Peaceful Nuclear Assistance Teaches Us about International Relations
• Notes