The United Nations has begun preparations for the Review Conference of the members of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was signed in 1968. The conference is scheduled for 2026 and many expect it to be a highly controversial event. A number of countries are now re-examining their stances on non-proliferation as they wonder whether Russia would have attacked Ukraine in 2022 if Kiev had not given up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the USSR. That speculation, on the other hand, has caused fears in other countries about the possible spread of nuclear weapons.
This concern is not new, of course. In my memoirs "A Life in the American Century" I describe an equally controversial period - the 1973s, when I was in charge of nuclear non-proliferation policy in the administration of US President Jimmy Carter. After the oil crisis of XNUMX, the generally accepted view was that the world was running out of oil, and therefore there was an urgent need to switch to nuclear energy. However, it was widely (and erroneously) believed that the world was running out of uranium and would therefore have to use recycled plutonium (a by-product of the uranium used in nuclear reactors).
According to projections at the time, 1990 countries were expected to reprocess plutonium from spent nuclear fuel by 46. The problem, of course, was that plutonium is a weapons-grade material. A world awash in plutonium trade would be at much greater risk of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
In 1974, India became the first country, apart from the five countries listed in the NPT (China, France, Russia, UK and USA), to carry out what it euphemistically called a “peaceful nuclear explosion”. India used plutonium obtained from spent American and Canadian uranium, which was provided to it on the condition that it be used only for peaceful purposes. France then agreed to sell a plutonium processing plant to Pakistan, whose Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto said his country would eat grass but not allow India to create a nuclear monopoly in South Asia. Meanwhile, in Latin America, Germany was considering selling a uranium enrichment plant to Brazil, and Argentina was exploring its own options for using plutonium. Other countries slowly did the same and so the initial nuclear arms race gradually began.
Ten years earlier, US President John Kennedy warned that during the 1970s the world would have 25 nuclear powers. Although the NPT was supposed to prevent this scenario, it seemed that Kennedy's prediction might come true. However, once in the White House, Carter (who had experience as a nuclear engineer in the Navy) was determined to prevent that from happening.
I, for my part, previously served on the Atomic Energy and Nuclear Nonproliferation Commission, established by the Ford Foundation and the Miter Corporation, which included many members of the future Carter administration. While it was feared at the time that the world was moving towards a plutonium economy and nuclear proliferation, the Ford-Mitre report challenged this widely held view and argued that the safest way to use nuclear power was through an internationally controlled "disposable" fuel cycle that would leave the plutonium locked away in stored spent fuel.
Carter approved our report when we met with him at the White House. However, our recommendations caused serious displeasure in the US nuclear industry, as well as senators from western and southern states where the relevant facilities could be closed. Moreover, these recommendations were anathema to our allies, including France, Germany and Japan, whose energy strategies (and exports) would be disrupted.
When I entered the administration, my job was to carry out Carter's policies. The result was intense criticism coming from all the above groups. As a former scientist, I had a new experience: my name appeared in critical editorials and in news headlines, I was called before a Senate committee, where I was harshly criticized. It's hard to remember that you might be right when you're constantly being told you're wrong!
The question was how to break through the conventional wisdom that was pushing the world into a plutonium economy. We have invited other countries to join the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) program to answer questions about uranium supply or plutonium control options. The INFCE program was launched at a major conference in Washington in 1977, and its committees and working groups met for the next two years. The program therefore played a central role in Carter's strategy: to buy time to slow down the situation and to build international knowledge of the real costs and alternatives of the nuclear fuel cycle, the nature of which the nuclear industry considered immutable.
In two years, the INFCE program has done much to achieve these goals. In 1977, the major nuclear weapons supplying countries met in London and agreed on general principles for "restrictions" on the export of sensitive nuclear technology. Soon after, France and Germany suspended the export of the plant's drive, which was controversial.
What is happening to nuclear non-proliferation today? The good news is that only nine countries now have nuclear weapons, not the two dozen that Kennedy predicted in the 1970s. In addition, 189 countries have signed the NPT. It is one of the few arms control agreements still respected by major powers. The principles established by the Nuclear Suppliers Group are still in place, and although some countries are reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, the world is in no rush to switch to an unstable plutonium economy.
The bad news is that North Korea has abandoned its obligations under the NPT. Since 2006, it has already carried out six nuclear explosions, and Kim Jong Un often rattles off nuclear weapons, and in an extremely destabilizing way. Iran has built weapons-grade uranium enrichment facilities in the Middle East and is fast approaching the threshold of becoming the world's tenth nuclear-weapon state. Many observers fear this could trigger a cascade of nuclear proliferation in the region, with Saudi Arabia quickly following Iran's lead.
This development is alarming. The experience of the 1970s teaches me - when conditions look particularly bad, efforts to slow the spread of nuclear weapons must be imperative. Otherwise, the world will become much more dangerous.
The author is a professor emeritus at Harvard University
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024. (translation: NR)
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