PREFACE At the request of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, the Congressional Research Service has analyzed the hearings held by this Subcommittee on international proliferation of nuclear technology. The purpose of this analysis and report is to highlight briefly the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, its characteristics, the role of nuclear exports in proliferation, the international means for limiting further proliferation, and the issues posed for national policy, legislation and congressional oversight. The report opens with a summary of observations. follow chapters on the challenge of proliferation of the ability to make nuclear weapons, domestic nuclear safeguards, government control of nuclear exports, and the international framework for limiting prolifer ation. There I. SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS AND ISSUES At the request of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, the Congressional Research Service has analyzed hearings held by the Subcommittee on the international proliferation of nuclear technology. The hearings raised the fundamental question: Can we survive in the nuclear age? Overall Commentary On the whole, the hearings indicated a "yes-but" answer to the fundamental question. Avoiding a worldwide nuclear war triggered by smallnation use of nuclear weapons appears reasonably certain but is by no means guaranteed. The chances will increase that more nations may obtain them and possibly use them if there is an uncontrolled expansion throughout the world of the industrial capacity to make and process nuclear fuel materials. In the years ahead, many more nations are likely to possess the means to make nuclear weapons if they choose to do so. Limiting the expansion or proliferation of the means to make nuclear weapons will call for extraordinary diplomatic efforts the success of which cannot be assumed. Also, avoidance of nuclear conflict or disaster will take on new dimensions if terrorist or other extremist groups decide to try to steal nuclear explosive materials to make weapons and if they succeed in doing so. Many witnesses assessed proliferation as probably the principal problem of the times. Yet few called for radical measures. They opted instead for incremental changes and improvements in ways to limit proliferation. CRS-2 There is an incongruity between warnings of dire foreboding on one hand, and, on the other, international haggling over who should pay the costs of keeping just 40 international inspectors in the field to assure compliance by free world nations with their commitments to use nuclear materials only for peaceful purposes. If the risks are as grave as seen by some, then radical action is needed, action unlikely to be seriously considered by Congress on the basis of hypothetical situations. If the risks are not of cata strophic imminence, then moderate and incremental measures can be expected to attempt to reduce but not to erase risks of proliferation. From this viewpoint, probably the most useful congressional oversight will be hard-headed assessment of the risks of proliferation. Specific Insights Proliferation and nuclear power plants. --The risks of proliferation come from the spreading of industrial facilities that can produce fissionable materials of weapons quality, not from the spread of nuclear power plants alone. The normal or slightly enriched uranium used in most contemporary power reactors are not nuclear explosives. The used fuels from these reactors do contain the nuclear explosive plutonium, but as long as the plutonium is not separated, it remains protected by the intense radiation characteristic of used fuel. Highly enriched uranium and uranium-233 also can be used as nuclear explosives. Proliferation and the nuclear fuel cycle.--If plutonium, highly enriched uranium, or uranium-233 become practical nuclear fuels in the future, then there will have to be industrial plants to produce and use these materials. CRS-3 The spread of such facilities will increase the prospects that nations possessing them can quickly make nuclear bombs, or that terrorists can find a weak link where they might steal these materials. If and when that time comes, the safest place for nuclear fuel materials will be inside an operating reactor. Safeguarding nuclear materials and facilities. --If nuclear power is to be used widely throughout the world, then effective measures to deter diversion of nuclear materials from civil nuclear power to clandestine national manufacture of nuclear weapons, and to prevent theft of nuclear materials by terrorist or other subnational groups become increasingly important. In the nuclear age, "safeguards" refers to systems of equipment, personnel and procedures designed to discourage the further spread of nuclear weapons by assuring early detection and announcement of diversion or theft of nuclear materials from safeguarded uses. Safeguards are not designed to detect clandestine production of nuclear sources. weapons materials from non-power Safeguards systems are applied by some but not all individual nations. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also can, upon request, apply safeguards to nuclear materials in specified facilities in some countries or to all peaceful uses of nuclear materials in other countries that have ratified the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Note: there is no blanket commitment by all nuclear nations to place all of their nuclear activities under IAEA safeguards, or to use nuclear materials only for peaceful purposes. The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China all possess nuclear weapons and con CRS-4 United States' concept of safeguards also includes security measures to prevent theft of nuclear materials or sabotage of nuclear facilities. Other countries and the IAEA limit their concept of safeguards to detection and announcement of diversion or theft. For them protection of nuclear materials is a normal police-type function. Whether the United States can persuade other nations to incorporate U. S. physical security concepts into their safeguards systems remains to be seen. On the whole, the hearings would support the conclusion that present national and IAEA safeguards appear reasonably sufficient to assure detection and announcement of diversion for world nuclear power fueled with natural or slightly enriched uranium. However, the world's safeguards systems appear inadequate in manpower, equipment, funding and access of inspectors to provide the same assurance of detection and announcement if and when highly enriched uranium, uranium-233 or plutonium become widely used as nuclear fuels. Also, IAEA and related national safeguards systems do not assure minimum standards for protection against theft or sabotage by subnational groups. Finally, IAEA safeguards are not backed by prescribed, credible sanctions against nations that divert materials from civil nuclear power, or that abrogate their commitments not to use nuclear materials to make bombs. As for the United States nuclear industry, it remains to be seen whether safeguards based upon a regulatory approach, with all the attendant problems of opposition, delay and minimal compliance, will be sufficient. If the current U. S. system is found lacking, then a return to direct Government |