In this essay, Siegfried Hecker describes a 1992 visit to nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union.
Scholars at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies assess the strategic situation in East Asia to be unsettled, unstable, and drifting in ways unfavorable for American interests. These developments are worrisome to countries in the region, most of which want the United States to reduce uncertainty about American intentions by taking early and effective steps to clarify and solidify U.S. engagement. In the absence of such steps, they will seek to reduce uncertainty and protect their own interests in ways that reduce U.S. influence and ability to shape regional institutions. This 23-page report entitled “President Trump’s Asia Inbox” suggests specific steps to achieve American economic and security interests.
Abstract: Since their conception in the 1950s, thorium reactors have been promoted as a promising technology for nuclear energy generation, though they have not yet been successfully commercialized. Proponents of thorium reactors argue that they are safer, produce less waste, and are proliferation-resistant, compared with uranium-fueled light water reactors used around the world today. The central question guiding this research concerns the final claim. Is the thorium fuel cycle inherently more resistant to nuclear weapons proliferation than the traditional uranium fuel cycle?
Advocates argue that the thorium fuel cycle is less vulnerable to proliferation of nuclear weapons technology because little or no plutonium is produced. Additionally, fissile U-233 is claimed to be “self-protected” by U-232, which is produced with U-233 and decays through Tl-208, emitting highly energetic gamma radiation. But the amount of U-232 generated depends on reactor operation. Furthermore, the U-232 content can be further decreased by conducting chemical separations at the back-end of the fuel cycle.
This presentation will discuss the proliferation risks of the thorium fuel cycle. The potential for generating large stockpiles of isotopically pure U-233 by conducting protactinium separations at the back end of the fuel cycle is examined as a new proliferation pathway that current IAEA safeguards may not be prepared to address.
About the Speaker: Eva C. Uribe is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC for the 2016-2017 academic year. Her research involves identifying proliferation pathways in the thorium fuel cycle and assessing the potential impact and implications of U-233 stockpile generation on the international nonproliferation regime. Eva received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. Her dissertation research focused on structural analysis of organically-modified porous silica surfaces for the extraction of uranium from aqueous solutions using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In 2011 Eva received a B.S. from Yale University with a double major in Chemistry and Political Science. She served as a Next Generation Safeguards Initiative intern with the Nonproliferation Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2008 and 2009.
Encina Hall, 2nd floor
The Summary and Briefings from the Stanford-China Workshop on Reducing Risks of Nuclear Terrorism is the result of a collaborative project engaging researchers from the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and several Chinese nuclear organizations focused on the response to nuclear terrorism threats. A goal of the research was to identify prospective joint research initiatives that might reduce the global and regional dangers of such threats. Initiatives were identified in three technical areas: interdiction of smuggled nuclear and radiological materials; nuclear forensics; and countermeasures to radiological (“dirty bomb”) threats. Application of the methodologies of systems and risk analysis to the framing and initial assessment of these areas was emphasized in the project. The workshop summarized in the report brought together the analysis work from this project and related efforts by both Chinese and U.S. analysts.
Abstract: This talk examines ideologies of knowledge and expertise in the global governance of nuclear technology through an ethnographic study of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Department of Safeguards. It considers how changes in the way that the IAEA carries out international nuclear safeguards have become the subject of increasing controversy in the last 15 years. This controversy provides fertile ground for understanding the role of knowledge and the functioning of bureaucracy in international governance. I will show that the critiques addressed against the new safeguards system reveal not only political alignments and struggles for power, but also uncover global and regional assumptions about how a technical bureaucracy is supposed to produce knowledge. In closing, I will propose how nuclear safeguards might be adapted to a changing security environment without threatening the IAEA's expert authority or politically discriminating against states.
About the Speaker: Anna M. Weichselbraun is a Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in August 2016. Anna's dissertation, based on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork and multi-archival research, investigates how nuclear safeguards inspectors, bureaucrats, and diplomats at the IAEA negotiate the international and institutional boundaries of politics and technology in their working lives. She asks how organizational products such as bureaucratic procedures, technical inspection reports, policy papers, and official diplomatic statements contribute to the logical ordering of technocratic expertise within the IAEA. She is especially interested in how individuals at international organizations communicate across different epistemic paradigms, and how particular types of knowledge become recognized as authoritative and legitimate. In addition to revising her dissertation into a book manuscript, she is also conducting preliminary research on networks of nonproliferation experts and their spheres of influence.
Encina Hall, 2nd floor
Anna Weichselbraun is a former Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2018). She is a research and teaching postdoc at the Department of European Ethnology at the University of Vienna. Her research examines the governance of technologies as well as technologies of governance.
In her book The Nuclear Order of Things: Making Safeguards Technical at the IAEA, Anna provides an intimate view of the practices and activities of nuclear safeguards inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency, and connects these quotidian practices to the geopolitics of nuclear governance.
Her current project explores problems of Anthropocene governance, that is, the social mechanisms and technological infrastructures by which humans attempt to mitigate the uncertainty emanating from each other and their environments. In 2022-23 she is a USC-Berggruen fellow looking at how experiments in blockchain-based organizational forms can inform new visions of global governance.
Speaking at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus underscored the importance of partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region and need for an adaptable force to meet the rapidly changing security environment around the world.
Mabus began by recognizing William J. Perry, a Stanford emeritus professor and former U.S. secretary of defense, with a Distinguished Public Service Award for his exceptional record of public service and collaboration on alternative energy initiatives, and set the stage for a conversation on innovation in the Navy and Marine Corps.
Throughout his remarks, Mabus highlighted the challenges of preparing for today’s security landscape and offered examples of how the Navy engages them.
The Navy must not be complacent in its ways, he said, especially in a context of eroding trust in multilateral institutions, unpredictable threats, and increasing competition for resources as sea levels rise.
“You’re not going to be able to tell what those next threats are. You never will. But what you can do is make sure that whatever they are you can respond,” he said. “You’ve got to be flexible.”
Mabus, who has led the Navy administration for the past seven years, said four “Ps” – people, platforms, power and partnerships – have guided his approach to improve force capabilities and rapid-response time.
Reviewing his own record as secretary, he cited updates to policies that extend family leave time, boost diversity in the force, and explore alternative energy sources for Navy aircraft and ships, including the earlier launch of the “Great Green Fleet,” a carrier strike group that uses biofuels.
Partnerships in Asia
Implementing the U.S. rebalance to Asia strategy has been a focus of the Navy’s interaction in the region.
“We’re doing it diplomatically, we’re doing it economically, we’re doing it in every region that we as a government are active in,” said Mabus, who formerly served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and governor of Mississippi.
Sixty percent of the United States naval presence is located in the Asia-Pacific region and it is poised toward growth, Mabus said. Three more guided missile destroyers will be stationed in Japan and be "on station when North Korea launches one of its missiles," he said.
“If something does happen, if a crisis does erupt, we’re already there,” Mabus said, emphasizing the importance of force readiness.
Responding to crises effectively, however, requires an awareness and interoperability between many countries, he said. To practice and prepare, around 500 naval exercises occur between the United States and other countries each year, including Malabar, a trilateral exercise between India, Japan and the United States, and the biannual 27-nation Rim of the Pacific “RIMPAC” exercise, which China joined last year.
South China Sea issues
Answering a question from the audience about fortifications being built by China on land features in the South China Sea, Mabus said, “We don’t think any one country should try and change the status quo.”
Mabus reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to both sail and fly over the land features in accordance with international law. The American naval presence in the region has been there for 70 years and will remain steadfast, he said.
He noted the importance of upholding international law and warned of the dangers of setting a precedent of reinterpreting the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea regarding the South China Sea, attempting to do so would have “a really dramatic impact, not just there, but around the world."
A main goal for the U.S. Navy is to continue engagement between China and the United States, he said. The two countries already collaborate on a number of bilateral measures, such as scheduled passing exercises and visits by the navies to each other’s ports of call.
“What we want China to do is to assume the responsibilities of a naval power, to work with us, and to make sure that freedom of navigation is ensured.”
Gi-Wook Shin, a Stanford professor of sociology and director of Shorenstein APARC, concluded the event by thanking Mabus, and recognized the secretary’s friendship with the late Walter H. Shorenstein, after whom the center was named.
North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test in the wake of the G20 summit earlier this month. The United States immediately condemned North Korea’s behavior in a statement delivered by the White House, and a few days later, flew a set of bombers near the U.S. military base in Osan, South Korea.
Writing for Toyo Keizai, Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, said a consistent strategic and military reasoning drives the North Korean regime’s decision to test nuclear missiles. His analysis piece can be viewed in English and Japanese.
Sneider also spoke with Slate about how the next U.S. administration could respond, suggesting that a deployment of additional nuclear-capable aircraft at U.S. bases in Asia would send a strong signal to Pyongyang. The Slate article is available at this link.
South Korea has been seeking stronger international sanctions against North Korea since the test. As the country’s biggest trading partner, China is considered an important actor in the ability to influence North Korea. In the Korea Times, Sneider said a way to motivate China to augment their role in sanctions against North Korea is to remind Beijing that a continuation of North Korea's nuclear program would only lead to greater scale and capability of American military presence in the region. The Korea Times article is available at this link.
Stanford expert Siegfried Hecker proposes a series of nuclear weapons and energy questions that journalists and citizens should consider asking the 2016 presidential candidates.
