October 15, 2006
Restraints Fray and Risks Grow as Nuclear Club Gains Members
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
The declaration last
Monday by North Korea that it
had conducted a successful atomic test brought to nine the number of nations
believed to have nuclear arms. But atomic officials estimate that as many as 40
more countries have the technical skill, and in some cases the required
material, to build a bomb.
That ability, coupled
with new nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East, risks a second nuclear
age, officials and arms control specialists say, in which nations are more
likely to abandon the old restraints against atomic weapons.
The spread of nuclear
technology is expected to accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on
atomic power. That will give more countries the ability to make reactor fuel,
or, with the same equipment and a little more effort, bomb fuel — the hardest
part of the arms equation.
Signs of activity
abound. Hundreds of companies are now prospecting for uranium where dozens did
a few years ago. Argentina, Australia and South Africa are drawing up plans to
begin enriching uranium, and other countries are considering doing the same. Egypt is reviving its program to develop nuclear power.
Concern about the
situation led the International
Atomic Energy Agency to summon hundreds of government officials and experts
from around the world to Vienna in September to discuss tightening restrictions
on who is permitted to produce nuclear fuel.
“These dangers are
urgent,” Sam Nunn, an expert on nuclear proliferation and a former Democratic
senator, told the group. “We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe
and, at this moment, the outcome is unclear.”
But even the atomic
agency itself exemplifies some of the underlying tensions inherent in the
development of nuclear energy.
For decades, the
I.A.E.A., known as the world’s nuclear policeman, has pursued its other mandate
— to promote safe nuclear power — by running technical aid programs with
roughly a hundred states. Some of that knowledge could be useful in a weapons
program, though the aid is meant exclusively for civilian use.
The agency still helps
Pakistan, which exploded a nuclear bomb in 1998. It also helped North Korea until a decade ago. Even today, it is assisting Iran, which many experts fear
is close to mastering the basics of making a bomb. It has 14 programs under way
with Iran, including a study on upgrading a nuclear research laboratory, as
well as helping it start up its Bushehr reactor.
North Korea’s reported
test has shaken the nuclear status quo and raised anew the question of whether Asia will be the first to feel a nuclear “domino effect,” in which states clandestinely
hedge their bets by assembling the crucial technologies needed to make a bomb,
or actually cross the line to become new weapons states. In the Middle East,
the confrontation with Iran has focused new attention on countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both of which fear that an Iranian bomb would make Tehran the greatest power
in the region.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the
director general of the I.A.E.A., has estimated that up to 49 nations now know
how to make nuclear arms, and he has warned that global tensions could push
some over the line.
“We are relying,” he
said, “primarily on the continued good intentions of these countries —
intentions which are in turn based on their sense of security or insecurity,
and could therefore be subject to rapid change.”
Worry about
proliferation is hardly new. In March 1963, President John F. Kennedy said,
“I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may
be 10 nuclear powers instead of 4, and by 1975, 15 or 20.” That timetable
proved to be inaccurate. But in recent years there has been a sense around the
globe that President Kennedy’s prediction is about to come true, three decades
late.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary
general, said this year that “the international community seems almost to be
sleepwalking” down a path where states, after long living without nuclear arms,
now feel compelled to revisit their logic.
He warned of a new
arms race — not one of superpowers, but of regional powers. “Perhaps most
damaging of all,” he concluded, “there is also a perception that the possession
of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction offers the best protection
against being attacked.”
A New
Nuclear Vision
Democrats and Republicans spent the past
week arguing over who lost control of North Korea, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. But seeds of
the problem were planted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
just months after the armistice ended the fighting on the Korean Peninsula in 1953.
“It is not enough to
take this weapon out of the hands of soldiers,” President Eisenhower told the
United Nations that year, just as his administration was completing a series of
11 nuclear tests. “It must be put in the hands of those who will know how to
strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.”
His program was called
Atoms for Peace, and soon involved dozens of nations, all seeking to unlock the
magic of nuclear power. The first generation of nuclear reactors sprang up
around the globe, as did a huge supporting industry and an international
overseer, the I.A.E.A.
But almost from the
start, evidence accumulated that countries were using the civil alliances and
reactor technologies to make bombs. By 1960, France had joined the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union as a nuclear weapons state. China conducted its first
test in 1964. Israel had the bomb by 1967, India by 1974, South Africa by 1982 (it has since given up its weapons) and Pakistan by 1998.
All but the original
three built their weapons by exploiting at least some technologies that were
ostensibly civilian, nuclear analysts say. They enriched uranium beyond the low
level needed for power reactors. Or they mined the spent fuel of civil reactors
for plutonium — the path that North Korea started taking in the late 1980’s or
early 1990’s, according to American intelligence officials.
The international
atomic agency, which still inscribes Atoms for Peace on its business cards, has
worked hard to fight this kind of cheating while also helping with the basic
technology. In the 1980’s, it aided Iran’s hunt for uranium.
Even today, Iranian
technicians fly to Vienna and agency experts go to Iran to lend a hand. In
August, two experts went to review progress at the Bushehr reactor, which is
scheduled to go critical next year.
“It’s helping
establish that the plant is run in a safe and secure manner, which is in
everybody’s interest,” said M. Peter Salema, an agency official. “Look at Chernobyl. That’s the whole point.”
Many of the agency’s
cooperative projects use nuclear science to humanitarian ends, like fighting
disease and treating cancer. But others involve more basic atomic skills.
“We provide expert
services,” Dr. Salema said, “so they can learn to do things for themselves.”
The
Technology Boom
The Manhattan project
scientists who built the first atom bomb predicted that the diffusion of their
secret knowledge was inevitable. It was just a question of time. Now, after
decades of scholarly digging, government declassification, open research in
uranium and plutonium metallurgy and the rise of the Internet, much of that
information is freely available.
“The general concepts
are widely known,” said Robert S. Norris, the author of “Racing for the Bomb.”
“Still, it’s another thing to actually do it. That still requires certain
skills of engineering and chemistry and physics.”
The hardest part,
experts agree, is not acquiring the weapons blueprints but obtaining the fuel.
That is becoming easier because of developments both overt and covert.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, a chief
architect of Pakistan’s nuclear arms program who went on to establish the
world’s largest atomic black market, sold the secrets of how to make
centrifuges for enriching uranium to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Tehran insists its intentions are entirely peaceful, though most analysts judge that all
three countries bought from the black market because they wanted to make
nuclear arms.
Dr. Khan sold plans
and parts for Pakistan’s first-generation centrifuge, the P-1, as well as the
next generation, the P-2, which can spin faster to enrich uranium more rapidly.
Investigators are
still trying to learn where else Dr. Khan may have planted his nuclear seeds.
They discovered outposts of his network in Dubai, Malaysia and South Africa and found that before his downfall in 2004 he visited at least 18 countries, including Egypt, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The worrisome
enrichment trends involve not just stealthy military advances but also soaring
demands for nuclear power, driven by rising populations, dwindling oil supplies
and fears that the combustion of fossil fuels is warming the planet.
“The nuclear
renaissance is gaining momentum,” said George B. Assie, vice president for
business development at Cameco, the world’s largest publicly traded uranium
company, based in Canada.
In London, the World
Nuclear Association says 28 new reactors are under construction, 62 planned,
and 160 proposed, most in Asia. The required uranium, it estimates, could run
to more than 65,000 tons.
While it is not clear
if the expansion of the world’s civilian atomic infrastructure will ultimately
lead to a rise in the number of countries building nuclear arms, it could give
more countries the means to do so.
There are two main
ways to turn civilian technology to military use. The first is to enrich
uranium fuel from its usual level of 5 percent for reactors to the 90 percent
needed for a bomb, a modest step that requires longer processing in
centrifuges. The second is to take spent reactor fuel and mine it for
plutonium, the other main fuel for a bomb.
The Brazilian
military, for example, worked hard for decades to develop centrifuges to enrich
uranium fuel for a bomb, a secret program it renounced in the 1990’s.
In May, Brazil, despite growing pressure to give up indigenous production, inaugurated its first uranium
enrichment plant — an assembly of advanced centrifuges in Resende, in the state
of Rio de Janeiro. While Iran has aroused global suspicions for erecting a
similar plant, Brazil managed to reassure other nations, and the international
atomic agency, that its aims are peaceful.
“We have an urgent
need to expand the electric system,” said Leonam dos Santos Guimarães,
an official of Electronuclear, which operates nuclear power plants in Brazil.
Forecasting the size of the revitalized global industry is difficult. Even so, the predictions can be staggering. Hans-Holger Rogner, an economist at the international atomic agency, said that many forecasts for the 21st century foresaw huge expansions beyond the 443 power reactors now operating globally.
“An increase to 5,000
reactors is well within the range of many of the longer-range studies,” Dr.
Rogner said, adding: “People are positioning themselves. There seems to be a
race coming and nobody wants to be left out.”
A Complex
Game
A day after North Korea’s nuclear test, Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, vowed not to abandon Japan’s commitment to reject and never possess nuclear weapons, a cornerstone of Japanese foreign
policy since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But, even so, Japan already has all the component parts. It has many tons of plutonium left over from the
operation of its reactors, according to a 2004 government report to the
I.A.E.A. A small nuclear warhead requires only 10 pounds.
Japan is the
ultimate example of a “nuclear option” state, a country that the world knows
could become an atomic power virtually overnight, if need be. “They could be
very far down the road toward a virtual deterrent and not be in violation of
any of the existing international treaties,” said Robert L. Gallucci, the
former chief American negotiator with North Korea, and now dean of Georgetown University’s school of foreign service.
South Korea has also
vowed not to pursue nuclear weapons. But it has an extensive network of nuclear
power reactors and a few years ago, I.A.E.A. inspectors found evidence of
undeclared experimentation to make highly enriched uranium. In the early
1990’s, South Korea signed an agreement to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free — but it signed the accord with North Korea.
Iran’s nuclear
rise has prompted concerns that the Middle East could experience similar
pressures. In the region, only Israel is believed to possess nuclear arms,
although it has never confirmed that. If Iran — a Shiite state — does indeed
build nuclear weapons, there are fears that Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia or Egypt will be tempted to make their own bombs.
Egypt, which
long ago sought to build nuclear arms, may be starting to rethink its earlier
renunciation. The 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan shook Cairo. “Egypt’s leaders had placed their bet clearly in favor of the Middle East and the
world moving away from nuclear weapons,” said Robert J. Einhorn, a former
senior State Department nonproliferation official. “But here was a disquieting
indication that movement might be in the opposite direction.”
Recently, the
international atomic agency found that Egypt had kept some of its old and new
efforts cloaked in secrecy, including a continuing project to acquire uranium
ore in the Sinai desert. In September, Cairo announced plans to revive its
stalled program to build reactors for generating nuclear power. It gave no sign
of whether it, like Iran, planned to make reactor fuel on its own.
So the question now is
whether North Korea’s test, and Iran’s challenge, will change the calculus.
“When additional countries get the bomb, it does create new pressures,” said
Matthew Bunn of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, who tracks the
spread of nuclear technology. “But each country is unique and there’s little
risk that the dominoes will fall quickly, especially if we take steps to
prevent it.”
New Ground
Rules
When atomic
specialists gathered in Vienna in September to discuss new ground rules for a
second nuclear age, their proceedings were fueled by the fear that some of the
old restraints — both technological and political — are fraying.
The central proposal
debated at the I.A.E.A.’s headquarters sounded simple: No longer should nations
be permitted to develop their own means of enriching uranium to make reactor
fuel, which Iran and other developing states have claimed as their inalienable
right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Nearly 40 years after the
treaty was drafted, the dangers simply seem too great.
Instead, the argument
went, nations should band together to make multinational fuel banks where they
could watch one another, making sure no fuel is diverted for bomb production.
“A threat exists,”
said Sergei Kirienko, director of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency. “We
understand that only those solutions that are resolved together, that ensure
access for all nations today, will be successful.”
Russia took the
lead, proposing an international fuel bank that it would set up on its own soil
by next year — and from which it could potentially extract billions of dollars
in sales. But the big splash came when Warren E. Buffett, the
billionaire philanthropist, pledged $50 million for a fuel bank to be run by
the I.A.E.A., making the United Nations body a “supplier of last resort” for
any country that forsakes making its own fuel. The Bush administration has
backed similar plans.
But while there is
agreement on the problem, solutions bogged down in bickering — from weapons
states that want to maintain their capacity and from developing nations that
sniff a conspiracy to deny them the same nuclear rights that large powers have
long enjoyed.
“We should guard
against the notion that sensitive technologies are safe in the hands of some,
but pose a risk when others have access to them,” said Buyelwa Sonjica, the
energy minister of South Africa, which wants to restart its enrichment program
and build up to six reactors.
Few parties involved
in the debate are optimistic about reform, and some say the enterprise is
doomed to failure.
“Nuclear power is
inextricably linked with nuclear proliferation,” the environmental group Greenpeace said in a recent
statement. “None of the schemes being promoted will solve this problem. In
fact, they will make it worse.”
So far, though, the
countries that the world most wants to stop from enriching say they have seen
no reason to do so.
At a dinner in New York in September, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran looked supremely confident as he batted away the idea that other countries could be
relied upon to provide him with the nuclear fuel he said he needed.
“Before stopping
enrichment by others, why don’t you stop building the next generation of
nuclear weapons?” he asked his American hosts. Then, smiling, he suggested that
the United States just buy its nuclear fuel from Iran’s new facilities. He
would sell it to Washington, he said, “with a 50 percent discount.”