by Peter Jenkins
An article in the latest issue of the International Security journal goes to the heart of US and European nuclear non-proliferation policy. The author, Scott Kemp, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, raises a fundamental question: is proliferation best prevented by supply-side measures [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
An article in the latest issue of the International Security journal goes to the heart of US and European nuclear non-proliferation policy. The author, Scott Kemp, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, raises a fundamental question: is proliferation best prevented by supply-side measures (attempts to restrict the availability of certain technologies) or by influencing the demand side (the national interest calculations that underpin decision-making on nuclear weapon acquisition)?
The question has divided the US nuclear community since 1945 and is unlikely to be resolved by this one article, well-researched and highly intelligent as it is. Nonetheless, Kemp’s conclusion merits substantial debate, not least in the wider foreign policy community. It is that a rebalancing of nuclear non-proliferation policy is advisable, away from over-dependence on supply side restrictions and towards greater reliance on influencing states’ motives and calculations.
Kemp justifies his conclusion by surveying the extent to which controlling one type of nuclear technology — the use of centrifuges to enrich uranium — can be relied on to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and by demonstrating that controls have been and will be porous and permeable.
Technological and industrial developments since 1945 have moved the proliferation-potential boundary outwards to where the building of a uranium enrichment plant lies within the reach of many states. The required information has long been in the public domain. The tools and equipment needed to build rudimentary centrifuge machines are unsophisticated. The risk of remote detection of a small clandestine plant is small. Thirteen of the twenty states that have built enrichment facilities have done so without recourse to outside help — and several others could have gone it alone.
Kemp is careful to distinguish between over-reliance on technology controls and denying that controls have any merit. He is not advocating the elimination of controls. On the contrary, he recognises that controls can make the task of building and operating centrifuges more arduous by forcing states to develop the technology indigenously and to spend time troubleshooting the challenges that will inevitably arise. Controls can also limit the ability of states to build high-performance centrifuges.
But where centrifuge technology is concerned, Kemp’s sympathies clearly lie with Niels Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, and other Manhattan Project scientists who warned that controls could only provide a temporary hurdle, not an insurmountable barrier. Like them, he also believes that enduring protection “can only come from the political organization of the world”.
Mercifully, much of that political organization now exists, thanks to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970. Early doubts about how effective a barrier the NPT would be have been confounded. All but the four nuclear-armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) and South Sudan, which has had more pressing priorities, are parties to it. Only nine states are known or suspected of having engaged in clandestine nuclear activities after becoming parties; and all but two of those (Iraq and Syria) have chosen or been persuaded to abandon their clandestine activities well short of nuclear weapons acquisition.
Why has the NPT been so effective? Kemp leaves that question to be answered by others. My sense is that NPT parties see mutual security benefits in maintaining this regime for as long as possible, certain grievances notwithstanding, and have no appetite for engaging in a nuclear arms race with their neighbors. An element of deterrence may also enter into the equation: latecomers to the nuclear-armed clubhouse cannot be sure of getting in unscathed.
But I hope someone more qualified than I will undertake the thorough assessment Kemp calls for at the end of his article:
While the specific causes of proliferation abstinence lie beyond the scope of this article, the subject clearly merits deeper analysis by both policymakers and academics as such factors are probably the most viable basis for the future of the non proliferation regime.
More immediately, Kemp’s conclusion begs important questions in relation to the current negotiations between Iran and the P5+1: if technology restrictions can never be more than a hurdle to centrifuge-based nuclear weapon acquisition, is it essential that the US and EU insist on a dramatic cut in the number of operating centrifuges at Iran’s disposal during the interim phase of a comprehensive solution?
Would the US and EU be wise to walk away from the negotiation if, for domestic political reasons, Iran were to refuse to dismantle any of its 19,000 centrifuges and to operate any fewer than 9,000 at any one time?
Should the US and EU be ready to close the deal if Iran can demonstrate convincingly that it has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons — with no motive for incurring the near-universal condemnation that a nuclear “break-out” would trigger — and backs up the demonstration by accepting that verification of its nuclear program can remain at current levels indefinitely?
I know what I think. But what, I wonder, do the US administration’s “counter-proliferation” experts think, and what advice are they giving to the US secretary of state and president? I fear they may be on the other side of the post-1945 divide.
This article was first published by LobeLog.
Photo: The first meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland on April 1, 1974. Credit: UN
]]>by Peter Jenkins
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a joint statement on May 21 to the effect that they had agreed on a further set of practical measures within the framework of their cooperation agreement reached November 11, 2013. The first two measures relate to IAEA [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a joint statement on May 21 to the effect that they had agreed on a further set of practical measures within the framework of their cooperation agreement reached November 11, 2013. The first two measures relate to IAEA concerns about a possible military dimension (PMD) to Iran’s nuclear program, the other three to Iran’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement:
1) Exchanging information with the Agency with respect to the allegations related to the initiation of high explosives, including the conduct of large-scale high explosives experimentation in Iran.
(2) Providing mutually agreed relevant information and explanations related to studies made and/or papers published in Iran in relation to neutron transport and associated modelling and calculations and their alleged application to compressed materials.
3) Providing mutually agreed information and arranging a technical visit to a centrifuge research and development centre.
(4) Providing mutually agreed information and managed access to centrifuge assembly workshops, centrifuge rotor production workshops, and storage facilities, as well as concluding the safeguards approach for the IR-40 reactor.
The aim here is to complete implementation of these measures by Aug. 25, 2014. This is alsothe third of such sets. The first was announced on Nov. 11 of last year, the second on February 20.
The absence in Wednesday’s statement of any news about implementation of the Feb. 20 measures is almost certainly insignificant. The IAEA reported on implementation of the Nov. 11 measures in one of its quarterly reports on Iran to the IAEA Board of Governors. It can be inferred that the IAEA intends to report on the Feb. 20 measures in the quarterly report that will likely be issued some ten days before a June 2 meeting of the Board.
A particularly interesting feature of that report will be the IAEA’s findings in relation to the last of the Feb. 20 measures: “Providing information and explanations for the Agency to assess Iran’s stated need…for the development of Exploding Bridge Wire [EBW] detonators”.
Since February 22, 2008, if not earlier, the IAEA has believed that such detonators could “be relevant to nuclear weapon R&D”. Will Iran have succeeded in persuading the IAEA that its development of EBW detonators was for conventional military or even civil applications? “EBW detonators are the standard in virtually all conventional military applications and in the mining industry. There is a huge market for them. So characterising them as an indicator of a nuclear weapons program is odd” notes Robert Kelley, a nuclear weapons expert who has worked at the IAEA.
Items 1 and 2 in the new list are IAEA concerns first made public in the annex to GOV/2011/65 of November 8, 2011. In paragraph 57 of that annex, at the end of a section on the neutron initiation of nuclear explosions, the IAEA stated: “Given the importance of neutron generation and transport, and their effect on geometries containing fissile materials in the context of an implosion device, Iran needs to explain to the Agency its objectives and capabilities in this field”.
Paragraphs 47-51 of the same annex relate to alleged Iranian “hydrodynamic experiments”. They detail information made available to the IAEA by third parties; this information suggested that Iran had manufactured surrogate nuclear weapon components (not using fissile or nuclear material) and might have used those surrogates in high explosive experiments.
The fact that Iran is now ready to address these concerns is promising. It suggests a decision in Tehran to be more cooperative than in the past in resolving issues that have enabled Iran’s enemies to impute to Iran the blackest of nuclear intentions.
Nonetheless, it is to be seen whether the IAEA will be satisfied if Iran declines to provide answers that indicate a nuclear weapon connection — if, for instance, they point to a nuclear reactor connection. “Neutron transport is important in reactors as well as nuclear weapons,” remarks Kelley. Can the IAEA bring itself to accept answers that do not support the nuclear weapon accusations that have been leveled at Iran?
The last point to note about this week’s statement is the target completion date of Aug. 25. This is a reminder that the IAEA is pursuing its investigations into Iranian compliance with its NPT safeguards obligations, and alleged nuclear-related activities, in parallel with, but without any formal connection to the negotiations on which the US, Iran and five other powers have embarked pursuant to the November 24, 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA).
It also suggests that the parties to this negotiation have agreed that the resolution of all PMD concerns is not a necessary precondition for agreeing the “comprehensive solution” envisaged in the JPOA, since the negotiation parties continue to hope that, despite recent difficulties, they can wrap up their work by July 20 or thereabouts.
. The first two measures relate to IAEA concerns about a possible military dimension (PMD) to Iran’s nuclear program, and the other three to Iran’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards agreement:
1) Exchanging information with the Agency with respect to the allegations related to the initiation of high explosives, including the conduct of large-scale high explosives experimentation in Iran.
(2) Providing mutually agreed relevant information and explanations related to studies made and/or papers published in Iran in relation to neutron transport and associated modelling and calculations and their alleged application to compressed materials.
3) Providing mutually agreed information and arranging a technical visit to a centrifuge research and development centre.
(4) Providing mutually agreed information and managed access to centrifuge assembly workshops, centrifuge rotor production workshops, and storage facilities, as well as concluding the safeguards approach for the IR-40 reactor.
The aim here is to complete implementation of these measures by Aug. 25, 2014. This is the third of such sets. The first was announced on Nov. 11 of last year, the second on February 20.
The absence in Wednesday’s statement of any news about implementation of the Feb. 20 measures is almost certainly insignificant. The IAEA reported on implementation of the Nov. 11 measures in one of its quarterly reports on Iran to the IAEA Board of Governors (GOV/2014/10 of 20 February 2014). It can be inferred that the IAEA intends to report on the Feb. 20 measures in the quarterly report that will likely be issued some ten days before a June 2 meeting of the Board.
A particularly interesting feature of that report will be the IAEA’s findings in relation to the last of the Feb. 20 measures: “Providing information and explanations for the Agency to assess Iran’s stated need…for the development of Exploding Bridge Wire [EBW] detonators”. Since February 22, 2008 (GOV/2008/4), if not earlier, the IAEA has believed that such detonators could “be relevant to nuclear weapon R&D”. Will Iran have succeeded in persuading the IAEA that its development of EBW detonators was for conventional military or even civil applications? “EBW detonators are the standard in virtually all conventional military applications and in the mining industry. There is a huge market for them. So characterizing them as an indicator of a nuclear weapons program is odd” notes Robert Kelley, a nuclear weapons expert who has worked at the IAEA.
Items 1 and 2 in the new list are IAEA concerns first made public in the annex to GOV/2011/65 of November 8, 2011.
In paragraph 57 of that annex, at the end of a section on the neutron initiation of nuclear explosions, the IAEA stated: “Given the importance of neutron generation and transport, and their effect on geometries containing fissile materials in the context of an implosion device, Iran needs to explain to the Agency its objectives and capabilities in this field”.
Paragraphs 47-51 of the same annex relate to alleged Iranian “hydrodynamic experiments”. They detail information made available to the IAEA by third parties; this information suggested that Iran had manufactured surrogate nuclear weapon components (not using fissile or nuclear material) and might have used those surrogates in high explosive experiments.
The fact that Iran is now ready to address these concerns is promising. It suggests a decision in Tehran to be more cooperative than in the past in resolving issues that have enabled Iran’s enemies to impute to Iran the blackest of nuclear intentions.
Nonetheless, it is to be seen whether the IAEA will be satisfied if Iran declines to provide answers that indicate a nuclear weapon connection — if, for instance, they point to a nuclear reactor connection. “Neutron transport is important in reactors as well as nuclear weapons,” remarks Kelley. Can the IAEA bring itself to accept answers that do not support the nuclear weapon accusations that have been leveled at Iran?
The last point to note about this week’s statement is the target completion date of Aug. 25. This is a reminder that the IAEA is pursuing its investigations into Iranian compliance with its NPT safeguards obligations, and alleged nuclear-related activities, in parallel with, but without any formal connection to the negotiations on which the US, Iran and five other powers have embarked pursuant to the November 24, 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA).
It also suggests that the parties to this negotiation have agreed that the resolution of all PMD concerns is not a necessary precondition for agreeing the “comprehensive solution” envisaged in the JPOA, since the negotiation parties continue to hope that, despite recent difficulties, they can wrap up their work by July 20 or thereabouts.
Photo: IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano meett with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on February 18 on the margins of the nuclear-related talks between Iran and world powers. Credit: Dean Calma/IAEA
]]>To date, negotiators on both sides of the talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which resume next week, have been remarkably discreet. Even at the political level, people have been unusually quiet. This is an excellent omen. In the past, too many opportunities have been nipped in the bud due to [...]]]>
To date, negotiators on both sides of the talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which resume next week, have been remarkably discreet. Even at the political level, people have been unusually quiet. This is an excellent omen. In the past, too many opportunities have been nipped in the bud due to an excess of statements calibrated for domestic purposes (a special mention to Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator, for saying so little, amiably, in many background meetings with the press). The involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the negotiations has also been of inestimable value. The Agency offers unique expertise and notarizes regularly the way in which Iran complies with its commitments. It contributes therefore decisively to the smooth progression of the discussions.
Quite unexpectedly, Iran’s negotiators have been the driving force in this process. They have seized President Hassan Rouhani’s initiative to solve the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program and have kept it ever since, setting the targets as well as the tempo. Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on April 7 that the drafting of the final agreement between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) should start in May, and that all efforts should be taken to complete the negotiations by the official deadline of July. The Iranians seem set to resolve the conflict over their nuclear program as fast as possible, once and for all.
The Rouhani administration’s determination serves in pleasant contrast to the rather stiff and slow Iranian behavior that was especially exhibited during the Ahmadinejad era, but also, at times, in the most favorable of circumstances, during the 2003-05 period, when Rouhani was himself Iran’s chief negotiator. At that time, the Iranian diplomats on the frontline were subjected to a heavy-handed system of control, which tended to stifle their movements. Having learned from this experience, President Rouhani, elected last June, has obtained a carte blanche from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While the Leader did issue a set of red lines last month (English diagram), and has issued specific warnings every now and then, he has consistently supported Iran’s diplomats while keeping domestic criticism of Iran’s team at a manageable level.
Indeed, Rouhani may not own the horse, but he controls the reigns. One of his first acts as president was transferring Iran’s nuclear negotiating file from the Supreme National Security Council to the Ministry of Foreign affairs. That enabled him to build a “dream team” of seasoned negotiators, perfectly comfortable with the codes and practices of their Western counterparts. Iran’s new and refined team has stood out in stark contrast to the collective clumsiness of the P5+1 negotiators, as in the early November 2013 episode, when four Western Foreign Ministers rushed prematurely to Geneva, spurring the media to believe, mistakenly, that a deal would be signed (it was signed 10 days later). But, as Marshal Foch used to say: “After leading a coalition, I have much less admiration for Napoleon…”
Getting to the heart of the matter, many points seem close to being settled. Iran is ready to cap at 5% its production of enriched uranium and to limit its current stockpile from further enrichment. The controversial underground facility of Fordow will probably end up as a kind of research and development unit. The Arak reactor’s original configuration allowed the yearly production of about ten kilograms of plutonium, enough for one or two bombs. Ali Akbar Salehi, chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), has hinted that this configuration could be modified in order to accommodate low-enriched uranium fuel rather than natural uranium. This would reduce Arak’s plutonium production capacity by a factor of five to ten. And Iran has already confirmed that it has no intention of acquiring the fuel reprocessing capacity indispensable for isolating weapon-grade plutonium.
Depending on the pace of sanctions relief, Iran also seems ready to return to a kind of de facto implementation of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which would provide enhanced monitoring over all of Iran’s nuclear activities. Iran should be ready to initiate the Protocol’s ratification process as soon as the United Nations Security Council shows itself ready to remove the Iranian nuclear file from its agenda, thus erasing the burning humiliation of 2006, when it passed its first resolution on the subject.
The make or break issues
To date, five sticking points remain on the table.
The most difficult issue concerns the format of Iran’s enrichment capacity. The Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), adopted last November, speaks of “parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities”. But the West has focused on “breakout time”, that is, the time needed to acquire enough highly enriched uranium for a first bomb if Iran decided to renege on its commitments. This delay has been estimated at about two months in the current state of Iran’s enrichment program. To extend it significantly, Iran would have to bring down the number of its centrifuges from the present 20,000 to 2-6,000.
A drastic reduction of the number of centrifuges, however, would be a deal-breaker for Iran. Following the conservative elements of the regime, the Supreme Leader has recently excluded any kind of bargaining on Iran’s nuclear achievements.
Fortunately, other solutions can alleviate the West’s concerns. First, having enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb does not mean having the bomb. Several more months would be necessary to make it ready. Second, one wonders why the international community would need more than one or two months to properly respond to an Iranian rush for a bomb. If it can’t make it in two months, why would it succeed in six? Third, this infamous breakout time could be extended without reducing the present number of centrifuges by using, as fast as possible, the low enriched uranium produced by Iran as fuel for nuclear reactors, rendering it unserviceable for further, weapon-grade, enrichment. Here, feeding the Arak reactor with domestic low-enriched uranium could solve a good part of the problem.
It is unfortunate, though, that the Iranians have made so little effort up to now to identify the “practical needs” mentioned, at their initiative, in the Geneva agreement. The spokesman of the AEOI has announced recently that a “comprehensive document” was being elaborated on the subject, and would be submitted for approval to the Iranian Parliament. But this process will probably extend beyond the time limit set for the negotiations.
In the meantime, we know that the Russians are bound to provide for eight more years the low enriched fuel necessary for the Bushehr nuclear plant. After this period, they will resist the introduction of Iranian fuel into the Bushehr reactor, as the selling of fuel is for the Russians the most profitable part of their contract with Iran. Their attitude will be the same when discussing the construction and operation of more reactors in Iran. By all means, new Russian reactors, or any reactors from other origins, will not be active before a decade. All of this is to say that if the current number of 20,000 centrifuges was accepted by the international community, the Iranians would have no “practical need” in the offing to justify a raise of this number in the years to come.
Another difficult point is the question of nuclear research and development. The West would like Iran to forsake such activities, especially in the field of centrifugation. Again, this is a red line for the Supreme Leader and the conservatives, as Iran’s engineers are working on models up to fifteen times more efficient than the present outdated model forming the bulk of its program. Here, a simple solution has been suggested by Salehi: instead of setting a cap on centrifuges, which could be circumvented by using more efficient models, the parties should define this cap in “separative work units”, the equivalent of horsepower in the field of enrichment. The introduction of more efficient centrifuges would thus reduce in due proportion the total number allowed.
A third difficult point is the ongoing exploration by the IAEA of the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program. This demand, reiterated by the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council, has been fiercely resisted by Iran. In fact, it was the head of the US national intelligence community who said, in 2007, that the Iranian weaponization program was stopped before completion by the end of 2003. Ten years have since passed, and the people involved in that program must have been granted some kind of protection in exchange for their compliance, hence the inherent difficulty for the Iranians of authorizing outsiders to probe too deep into this subject. In former similar occurrences, such as with Egypt, South Korea and Taiwan, the IAEA has accepted not to divulge details on the wrongdoings discovered by its inspectors, once assured of the cancelation of these programs. A similar way out should be explored with Iran.
The fourth sticking point evolves around Iran’s ballistic missiles. The West wants to include them in the negotiations, as a source of worry identified by the UN Security Council, but this has been outright rejected by Iran. Recall that Iran has accepted to negotiate over its nuclear program as a civilian program placed under the aegis of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Negotiations over missiles pertain to a different world, the world of defense and disarmament, in which negotiations are by definition collective, save for unilateral measures imposed upon a defeated country. If there is a solution here, it would require a separate, multilateral discussion on the level and distribution of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, with the aim of convincing concerned states to join the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, adopted in 2002 in the Hague.
The last point, little talked about, but hardly the least difficult, concerns the duration of the future comprehensive agreement to be signed by Iran and the P5+1. Under the Geneva JPOA, this agreement, once fully implemented for the duration of all its provisions, will be replaced by the common regime applicable to all NPT members. Iran would then be freed of specific commitments such as the limitation of its enrichment activities, on which extensive IAEA controls, of course, would remain. Such a shift would mean that the International community would be fully reassured about the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.
However, to reach such an assessment, the general behavior of the Iranian regime and the quality of its relations with the outside world would be as important as the state of its nuclear program. How long should the assessment process last? These considerations cannot be put into writing. The Iranians will probably insist on no more than five years, while the West would be happy to see this regime of special constraints indefinitely extended. This point could be the last outstanding issue in the discussions. Hopefully, if solutions are found on all the previous questions, there will be a strong incentive to find a compromise here to ensure a final deal once and for all.
Photo: EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at a joint press conference following talks between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna, Austria on April 9, 2014. Credit: AFP/Samuel Kubani
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