Nuclear Trade Controls; Minding the Gaps: A Report of the CSIS Proliferation Prevention Program

xv, [1], 65, [3] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Cover has slight wear and soiling. McGoldrick is president of Bengelsdorf, McGoldrick, and Associates, an international consulting firm that specializes in nuclear nonproliferation and peaceful nuclear cooperation. He has held senior positions at the Energy and State departments and the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He negotiated peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements with EURATOM, Switzerland, Japan, China, and South Africa, and helped shape U.S. policy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have been an uneasy fact of life since 1945, both for the states that possess them and the states without them. Today, there is a growing recognition that the risks of nuclear weapons just might outweigh their benefits, even for nuclear weapon holders. Three kinds of efforts are required to reduce nuclear risks: Deterring and preventing states and non-state actors from acquiring nuclear weapons; Engaging in nuclear arms control to reduce the threat that nuclear weapons and nuclear material pose worldwide; and Building a peaceful nuclear energy fuel cycle that lowers the risk of misuse of nuclear capabilities. The research of the program is focused on: Developing new tools for slowing proliferation; Identifying next steps in arms control; and Helping illuminate the path toward a sustainable and safe nuclear future. The merits of nuclear trade controls for helping stem proliferation have been strenuously debated for decades. Some have maintained that the policy of secrecy and denial that the United States pursued in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a failure and that, instead, sharing the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy under nonproliferation controls and conditions has helped build key elements of the global regime to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Others argue that international nuclear trade increases the risk of nuclear-weapons proliferation. Both viewpoints have merit, and both need to be taken seriously. This report has four main elements. First, it explains the nature and importance of the nonproliferation conditions that the United States requires for its exports of nuclear materials, equipment, and technology as well as dual-use items and technology that have both nuclear and nonnuclear applications. Second, it compares these with the nuclear export controls of other exporting states as reflected in the guidelines of such multilateral arrangements as the Zangger Committee (ZC), the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and other international agreements and understandings such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and, where known, the specific export policies of other individual nuclear-supplier states. Third, it assesses the limits, weaknesses, successes, and failures of nuclear export controls of nuclear suppliers to date. Finally, it identifies the challenges for the future and the role that the United States should play in meeting them. …