(April 21, 2006) Ever since the idea of harnessing nuclear power to generate energy by controlled means arose, the possibility of abusing the same technology for military purposes has always existed. This should surprise no one. After all, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 created a human trauma that resonated around the world. The "Atoms for Peace" programme announced by American President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 was intended to launch the "peaceful use of atomic energy". His venture was born of necessity and concern. With its generous offer of what was still largely classified knowledge about nuclear fission, the USA wanted to prevent more countries from pursuing their own nuclear weapons programmes.
With the bomb now the ultimate demonstration of US superpower status, the deal that the president offered the world could not have been simpler. All interested countries could benefit from the peaceful use of nuclear energy, as long as they relinquished any ambitions to build their own nuclear weapons. This was intended to halt developments that would give the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and China nuclear weapons within a few years following World War Two. Other countries, including some which then, as now, were considered deeply peace loving - such as Sweden and Switzerland - were also working more or less intensively and clandestinely on developing the ultimate weapon. The Federal Republic of Germany - which from the end of World War Two until 1955 was not strictly speaking a sovereign state - developed similar ambitions during the term of Franz-Josef Strauss as Nuclear Energy Minister.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which finally went into effect in 1970, was a result of the Eisenhower initiative, as was the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The job of this Vienna-based agency, which was founded back in 1957, was to promote nuclear technology for generating electricity around the world, yet at the same time to prevent an increasing number of countries from developing atomic bombs. Nearly half a century after its inception, the achievements of the IAEA are as ambivalent as its original agenda. By monitoring civilian nuclear facilities and the fissile materials they use, it has significantly discouraged proliferation. For this, the Agency and its director Mohamed El-Baradei received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Despite this, it has not succeeded in preventing proliferation. By the end of the Cold War, three more states in addition to the five "official" nuclear powers had acquired nuclear weapons; namely Israel, India and South Africa. South Africa subsequently destroyed its nuclear arms at the end of the apartheid system in the early 1990s. Following the 1991 Gulf War, inspectors discovered a secret nuclear weapons programme in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, itself a signatory to the NPT, which was very advanced despite strict monitoring by the IAEA. In 1998, India and Pakistan, which like Israel had consistently declined to sign the NPT, shocked the world by testing their weapons. In 2003, communist-controlled North Korea terminated its commitment to the NPT and declared itself in possession of nuclear weapons.
According to many experts, it is precisely this latest development that has the potential to encourage other authoritarian regimes. While the assumption leading up the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was that the country was attempting to acquire an atomic bomb but did not yet actually have one, the North Korean communist government announced that it had already achieved its aim. Yet while Saddam Hussein's government toppled under the force of the superpower's conventional bombs and cruise missiles, the no less authoritarian dictator Kim Jong-il was spared this fate. In addition to already existing US military interests promoting action in Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems plausible that part of the reason for sparing North Korea was fear that it could retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked by conventional means. Even the retroactive assumption that this fear played a role could spur other countries hostile to the USA to follow in North Korea's footsteps. A current example of such ambitions is Iran, even though its rulers insist that all nuclear facilities in the country serve exclusively civilian purposes.
All these developments derive from a fundamental problem associated with nuclear technology: with the best will in the world and supported by cutting-edge monitoring systems, civilian and military developments in this area cannot be clearly differentiated. The fuel or fission cycles for peaceful and non-peaceful applications run largely parallel and technologies and expertise are often suited for dual use - with fatal consequences. Every country that possesses civilian nuclear technology promoted by the IAEA and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) will sooner or later be capable of building its own bomb. Again and again over the course of the past 50 years, unscrupulous ambitious heads of government have set up clandestine military tracks in parallel to their civilian nuclear programmes. Even without specifically clandestine programmes, the major steps in the civilian nuclear chain are extremely vulnerable to military abuse:
- Enrichment plants for the fissile uranium isotope U-235 produce fuel for light water reactors, i.e. the most common type of reactor in the world. Continuing the process yields highly enriched uranium (HEU), a fissile material that can be used for research reactors - or for atomic bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima.
- Both research and commercial reactors can serve their officially intended purposes - or be deliberately used to produce weapons-grade plutonium (Pu-239) for atomic bombs of the type dropped on Nagasaki. This applies even more so to fast breeder reactors. o Reprocessing plants are primarily intended to separate plutonium reactor fuel from other radioisotopes produced earlier in reactor fission processes but can also be used to separate the plutonium isotope PU-239, which makes a suitable explosive for atomic bombs.
- Reprocessing technology can also be used to treat radioactive fissile material in insulated "hot cells" as part of a fuel cycle for civilian purposes - or to process and treat components for atomic bombs.
- Interim storage depots for plutonium, uranium and other fissile materials can serve either as fuel depots for nuclear power plants or as depots of explosive materials for building atomic bombs.
Civilian components of the fuel cycle can be converted to military components - sanctioned by the respective state in parallel clandestine military programmes. By secretly diverting fuel intended for civilian purposes, these programmes can evade national and international monitoring. Another fear is of the outright theft of these substances, the corresponding know-how and the relevant military technology.
At the end of the Cold War, many people initially hoped that the nuclear powers would act on their shared interest in restricting the dissemination of sensitive technology and materials in order to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. At the same time, however, there was a growing threat of "leaks" in what had been strict security measures for both military and civilian nuclear facilities, especially as the Soviet Union fell apart. Fuelled by shady profiteers as well as criminal groups, a veritable black market arose for all types of nuclear paraphernalia. Most of the radioactive materials on offer for exorbitant prices in primarily criminal circles, especially in the early 1990s, were not suited for building bombs. Still, the fact that radioactive material was now suddenly available from what had been hermetically sealed depots was worrying.
No one disputes the fact that with every new country beyond the current total of 31 that acquires civilian nuclear technology, it will become all the more difficult to prevent military proliferation. Another nuclear energy boom like that in the 1970s, which would boost the total number of countries possessing fission technology up to 50, 60 or more, would pose overwhelming monitoring problems for the overworked and chronically underfinanced IAEA and does not begin to address the new threat by terrorists, who presumably would not hesitate to employ "dirty bombs". Detonating a conventional explosive packed with radioactive material of civilian origin would not only claim a large number of victims and greatly exacerbate fear and uncertainty in potential target countries, but also render the site of the explosion uninhabitable.