Sharon Squassoni

The Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Center for Strategic and International Studies joined to launch the New Approaches to the Fuel Cycle project. This project sought to build consensus on common goals, address practical challenges, and engage a spectrum of actors that influence policymaking regarding the nuclear fuel cycle. The project also tackled one of the toughest issues—spent nuclear fuel and high level waste—to see if solutions there might offer incentives to states on the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle and address the inherent inertia and concerns about additional burdens and restrictions that have stalled past efforts to improve the robustness of the nonproliferation regime. This report presents the group’s conclusions that a best-practices approach to the nuclear fuel cycle can achieve these objectives and offer a path to a more secure and sustainable nuclear landscape.

As part of the global Governing Uranium Project headed by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) analyzed U.S. experiences with the security of its “front-end” uranium industry. This report examines current U.S. regulation and industry practices regarding security measures and controls over natural uranium prior to enrichment. Topics include prudent management practices, export-import controls, transportation, physical protection, and material accounting. The report highlights security analysis on uranium mining, milling, and conversion, which have historically enjoyed less proliferation scrutiny than other components of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Non-proliferation assistance programs are a relatively new tool in combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Co-operative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs, funded by the Department of Defense (DOD), are the most visible of these programs. Begun in 1991, CTR initially aimed to help Russia meet its START obligations to reduce strategic nuclear weapons; 1. Within a decade, however, CTR took on the goal of reducing the threat of terrorist access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD); 2. Experts realised that Russia needed to protect its Cold War overhang of WMD materials, scientists, and equipment from those who might exploit insider opportunities and who had incentives (particularly financial) to sell WMD technology to anyone. Now, however, many analysts support expanding co-operative threat reduction programs beyond Russia to other geographic areas. The Bush Administration itself stated in early 2003, that it had 'expanded the strategic focus of the CTR program' to support the war on terrorism. This book surveys options for applying CTR programs to states that pose a WMD and terrorism threat.