Zia Mian

Fissile Materials in South Asia and the Implications of the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal

The July 2005 U.S.–India joint statement represents a fundamental transformation of U.S.–India relations and at the same time a challenge to the disarmament and non-proliferation regimes. There is concern that the March 2006 separation plan proposed by India for demarcating its military and civilian nuclear facilities may allow a potentially rapid expansion of its capacity for fissile material production for weapons. In this analysis, we have assessed fissile material production capabilities in India and how they might change as a result of the U.S.–India deal. We look at current stockpiles of fissile materials in India and Pakistan and estimate the changing capacity for future fissile material production as India progressively places some of its heavy water reactors under safeguards. We assess Indias uranium resource constraints and the additional weapons grade plutonium production in its unsafeguarded heavy water power reactors that would be made possible by imports of uranium allowed by the deal. We also estimate the weapons plutonium production from Indias fast breeder reactor that is under construction and is to be unsafeguarded.

A frightening nuclear legacy

Early expansion of nuclear energy resulted in dangerous dispersal of fissile material and weapons proliferation— threats that persist today. Is it possible to prevent history from repeating itself?

It’s Time to Give Up on Breeder Reactors

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear energy advocates have dreamed of a reactor that could produce more fuel than it used. More than 60 years and

Early Warning in South Asia—Constraints and Implications

100 billion later, that vision remains as far from reality as ever.

After the Iran deal: Multinational enrichment

Geography makes ballistic missile flight times between India and Pakistan very short. This has serious consequences for the feasibility and utility of possible early warning systems that could be set up in India or Pakistan to detect incoming missiles from the other side. In this article, we show how one can estimate the time taken for a missile flight from expected launch sites to targets, both analytically and numerically. We find the flight time can be as little as 300 seconds. Then we examine the two standard technologies for detecting incoming missiles—radars and geostationary satellites with infrared detectors—keeping in mind the state of the art likely to obtain in the two countries. Our calculations indicate that the warning times provided by the two methods are roughly equal to one another and, given our estimates of missile transit time, are at best enough for confirming the signals as genuine. There would be no time at all for consultations or deliberation by decision makers. Any response would have to be predetermined and automatic. If such an automatic response involves a launch on warning posture, as is the case with the U.S. and Russia, there is a significant likelihood of accidental nuclear war from false alarms.

Denuclearizing North Korea: A verified, phased approach

World powers should buy a stake in Irans enrichment capacity and accept the same rules In April 2015, Iran and the E3+3 nations (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, plus China, Russia, and the United States) negotiated a framework for a “comprehensive solution that will ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program” (1, 2). The final settlement, expected by July 2015 or soon after, would constrain Irans activities for various extended periods in return for the lifting of sanctions and affirm Irans right to pursue its nuclear program free of the limits on its uranium enrichment capacity a decade or more from now. What happens when these restrictions begin to phase out? We outline one approach to limit the long-term risk by using the next 10 years to convert Irans national enrichment plant into a multinational one, possibly including as partners some of Irans neighbors and one or more of the E3+3 countries.

Nuclear fears, hopes and realities in Pakistan

The process must reflect existing levels of trust at each stage At the June 2018 Singapore Summit, North Korea agreed to the goal of “complete denuclearization” in exchange for “security guarantees” by the United States, including an end to enmity (1). Like earlier efforts in the 1990s and 2000s, the current round of diplomacy may well fail because of the challenges of balancing North Korean insistence on the primacy of building trust and cooperation with U.S. demands for progress on denuclearization. Any successful attempt to balance these priorities will have to resolve the thorny question of verification. Here, we propose a phased approach for verified denuclearization that relies on technical measures and tools to allow for the scope, pace, and intrusiveness of denuclearization to reflect progress in political confidence building. More broadly, successfully bridging the goals of denuclearization and political security for North Korea could inform judgments by the international community about how to approach verified disarmament for other states that currently have nuclear weapons.

Exploring Uranium Resource Constraints on Fissile Material Production in Pakistan

In the four decades since Pakistan launched its nuclear weapons program, and especially in the fifteen years since the nuclear tests of 1998, a way of thinking and a related set of feelings about the bomb have taken hold among policy-makers and the public in Pakistan. These include the ideas that the bomb can ensure Pakistans security; resolve the long-standing dispute with India over Kashmir in Pakistans favour; help create a new national spirit; establish Pakistan as a leader among Islamic countries; and usher in a new stage in Pakistans economic development. None of these hopes has come to pass, and in many ways Pakistan is much worse off than before it went nuclear. Yet the feelings about the bomb remain strong and it is these feelings that will have to be examined critically and be set aside if Pakistan is to move towards nuclear restraint and nuclear disarmament. This will require a measure of stability in a country beset by multiple insurgencies, the emergence of a peace movement able to launch a national debate on foreign policy and nuclear weapons, and greater international concern regarding the outcomes of nuclear arms racing in South Asia.

Fissile Material Stockpiles and Production, 2008

This paper evaluates possible scenarios for Pakistans uranium enrichment and plutonium production programs since the late 1970s by using Pakistans supply of natural uranium as a constraint. Since international sanctions have prevented Pakistan from importing uranium for decades, it has had to rely on domestic uranium production—currently estimated as approximately 40 tons a year. The paper divides the development of Pakistans uranium enrichment and plutonium production programs into three broad periods: from the beginning in the late 1970s until the 1998 nuclear tests; from 1999 to the present; and from the present to 2020; and considers how Pakistan could allocate its domestic uranium between its uranium enrichment and plutonium production programs for each period. This assessment is completed for enrichment capacities ranging from 15,000 to 75,000 separative work units (SWU) and takes into account the construction of the second and third plutonium production reactors at Khushab. The study finds that Pakistan may have sufficient natural uranium to fuel the three reactors, if they are approximately 50 MWt each, but that for some of these enrichment capacities, there will be a shortfall of natural uranium by 2020. The paper considers the impact of alternative sources of enrichment feed such as depleted tails from previous enrichment activity and reprocessed uranium from low-burn-up spent fuel from the Khushab reactors. There are signs Pakistan early on may have enriched some reprocessed uranium, possibly acquired from China. It finds that by 2020, Pakistan could have accumulated approximately 450 kg of plutonium from the Khushab reactors and 2500–6000 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) (90 percent enriched) for enrichment capacities ranging from 15,000–75,000 SWU. These stocks would be sufficient for perhaps 100–240 simple fission weapons based on HEU and for 90 plutonium weapons. Pakistan may be able to produce more weapons if it either increases its rate of uranium mining or has more advanced weapon designs requiring less fissile material in each weapon.

Resource Letter PSNAC-1: Physics and society: Nuclear arms control

This article presents estimates of global and national stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium based on the 2008 Global Fissile Material Report by the International Panel on Fissile Materials. 1 The global stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) is estimated to be 1670 ± 300 tons. It is declining as Russia and the United States blend down about 40 tons per year of HEU for use in light-water power-reactor fuel. This rate of blend-down is far higher than the estimated rate of production of HEU, currently believed to be limited to production by Pakistan for weapons and by India for naval fuel. The global stockpile of separated plutonium, all of which can be used for weapons, is about 500 tons. About half of this stockpile is civilian and is currently growing at less than 5 tons a year. This rate will increase significantly once Japans Rokkasho reprocessing plant begins commercial operation. Only India and Pakistan and perhaps Israel are believed to be producing plutonium for weapons, at a combined rate of less than 60 kg per year. The United States and Russia have declared as excess to weapons requirements or for all military purposes a significant fraction of their stocks of both highly enriched uranium and plutonium produced for weapons. The United States and Russia continue to blend down the 210 and 500 tons, respectively, of HEU that they have declared excess to produce low-enriched uranium to fuel light-water reactors. The United States and Russia have yet to put in place the infrastructure to eliminate the 34 tons of excess weapons plutonium each committed to dispose under the 2000 U.S.–Russian Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement. The past two years have also seen plans for new civilian enrichment plants and progress on new reprocessing plants. During this time, some former production facilities have been shut down, others dismantled, and in some cases key components have been demolished.