Developing the Technical Basis for Policy Initiatives to Secure and Irreversibly Reduce Stocks of Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Materials; Second report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials

[6], 164, [2] pages. Maps. Illustrations (some with color). Appendix. Endnotes. Glossary. Cover has slight wear and soiling. The Panel produces an annual Global Fissile Material Report which summarizes new information on fissile material stocks and production worldwide, as well as periodic research reports. Almost two decades since the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia still retain stockpiles of about 10,000 nuclear weapons each and have committed only to reduce to about half that number by the end of 2012, when the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty comes into force. There are now seven other nuclear weapon states, including North Korea, which carried out its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006. Their arsenals range from a few simple warheads to several hundred high-yield thermonuclear weapons. There are growing concerns about a loss of momentum in the nuclear disarmament process, additional states acquiring nuclear weapons, and the possibility of nuclear terrorism. Fissile materials, ordinarily plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), are the essential ingredients in all nuclear weapons. Securing, consolidating, and eliminating fissile material stocks worldwide are the common imperatives in the overlapping efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons in the countries where they exist, halt their spread to still more countries, and prevent terrorists from obtaining them. This is the second report by International Panel on Fissile Materials on the global situation with regard to efforts to secure and eliminate fissile materials. The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) was founded in January 2006 and is an independent group of arms-control and nonproliferation experts from both nuclear weapon and non-nuclear weapon states. The mission of the IPFM is to analyze the technical basis for practical and achievable policy initiatives to secure, consolidate, and reduce stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. These fissile materials are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and their control is critical to nuclear weapons disarmament, to halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons. Both military and civilian stocks of fissile materials have to be addressed. The nuclear-weapon states still have enough fissile materials in their weapon stockpiles for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. On the civilian side, enough plutonium has been separated to make a similarly large number of weapons. Highly enriched uranium is used in civilian reactor fuel in more than one hundred locations. The total amount used for this purpose is sufficient to make about one thousand Hiroshima-type bombs, a design well within the potential capabilities of terrorist groups. The Panel has been co-chaired since 2015 by Professor Alexander Glaser and Dr. Zia Mian of Princeton University and Professor Tatsujiro Suzuki of Nagasaki University, Japan. Previously, it was co-chaired by Professor Jose Goldemberg of the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil (2006-2007), Dr. R. Rajaraman (2007-2014) Professor Emeritus, of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and Professor Frank von Hippel of Princeton University (2006-2014). Its members include nuclear experts from seventeen countries: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This group of countries includes seven nuclear-weapon states and ten non-weapon states. IPFM research and reports are shared with international organizations, national governments and nongovernmental groups. It has full panel meetings twice a year at capitals around the world in addition to specialist workshops. These meetings and workshops are often in conjunction with international conferences at which IPFM panels and experts make presentations. Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security provide.…