Abstract
Nuclear energy can be distinguished from many other areas of modern technology by the intense emotional reactions and apocalyptic political and moral debate that it stimulates. The roots of these responses can be found in the events of August 1945, when two atomic bombs were dropped upon Japanese cities, with horrific consequences both for their inhabitants and their buildings. It also resides in the reaction of individuals to the intangible nature of the destructive radiation created by such explosions: phenomena which can kill or maim without being seen or felt. These emotive concerns have been reinforced, moreover, by the barriers of secrecy that have been erected around details of their associated technologies by the governments of Western states, initially with the intention of retarding the development of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union, and later to make it as difficult as possible for other states to acquire the capabilities to make them. As a consequence, the public image of military nuclear activities that has been created is of state enterprises that are clearly very important, but also characterised by great secrecy, furtiveness and the suspicion that behind the screen of national security there may lurk a history of disreputable activities, dubious dealings and unethical decisions.
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Notes and References
Considerable technical controversy exists over what constitutes weapon-grade fissile material. In the 1950s this was taken to be uranium containing 90 per cent of the U-235 isotope and plutonium containing 97 per cent of the Pu-239 isotope. The former material was manufactured in enrichment plants, the latter in nuclear reactor fuel, which was then passed through a reprocessing plant to separate the plutonium from other materials. Recent studies have argued that in theory uranium and plutonium with much lower concentrations of these isotopes could be used to make weapons. A. de Volpi, Proliferation, Plutonium and Policy (Pergamon Press, 1979), pp. 59–118, 285–7 and 297–327;
and SIPRI, Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation (Taylor & Francis, 1979) pp. 398–401.
The conversion of a large low enrichment plant to high enrichment, while not easy, is possible. It involves rearranging the process in order to ensure sufficient enriched material is flowing through the high enrichment part of the plant to allow it to operate effectively. It may also be feasible to process the same material a number of times in the same plant. The use of low enriched uranium (3–5 per cent U-235) enables a reactor to operate under conditions where appreciable absorption of neutrons is taking place, such as a water-cooled and moderated environment. Natural uranium would not produce a significant yield of plutonium under such circumstances, and a very large reactor would be involved, whereas enriched uranium enables a very compact unit to be built. For a discussion of these issues and the links between civil and military nuclear programmes see A. Wohlstetter et al., Swords from Ploughshares (Chicago University Press, 1979) pp. 33–46 and 151–217;
and T. Greenwood, G. W. Rathjens and J. Ruina, Nuclear power and weapons proliferation, Adelphi Paper No. 130 (IISS, 1976).
For a succinct account of this early US policy see US House of Representatives: Committee on International Relations, Science, Technology and American Diplomacy, vol. 1 (Washington, GPO, 1977) pp. 57–122. The contemporary unease stems largely from fears that an Iraqi research reactor, destroyed by an Israeli air raid in the summer of 1981, was intended for use in a military programme, despite Iraq being a non-nuclear state party to the NFT and the reactor being subject to IAEA safeguards inspections.
This argument applies especially to plutonium, where 97 per cent + Pu-239 was originally classified as weapon grade. More recently it has been stated that plutonium with a Pu-239 content of more than 93 per cent is classed as weapon grade. Hearings on H.R.2969 [H.R.3413] Department of Energy Authorisation Legislation (National Security Programs) for Fiscal Year 1982: before the Procurement and Military Nuclear Systems Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, 97th Congress, 1st session. Statement by F. C. Gilbert, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Materials, DoE, p. 170.
Enrichment plants would be operating uneconomically if they produced weapon grade U-235 because the commercial demand for reactor fuel is for 3–5 per cent enrichment only. Reactors would operate uneconomically because weapon-grade plutonium is produced by irradiating the fuel for only a short time, and then discharging it. This not only reduces the amount of time the reactor is available to make electricity, but it would also increase uranium consumption (assuming no reenrichment and recycling) at least eightfold.
These include the high-temperature reactors and experimental prototypes of fast breeder reactors. However, none of these types is currently in use for commercial electricity production.
For an account of the issues and arguments surrounding the negotiation of this treaty see SIPRI, Postures for Non-Proliferation (Taylor & Francis, 1979) pp. 74–129.
The pledges of the parties on these points are contained in Articles I, II and IV of the treaty.
A non-nuclear state which signs the NPT automatically pledges itself to accept IAEA safeguards and inspections over all its nuclear plants. This safeguard system is not intended to prevent diversion, but only to give timely warning of it having occurred. For a discussion on this point see M. Imber, ‘NPT safeguards: the limits of credibility’, Arms Control, vol. 1, no. 2 (Sept 1980) 186–7.
Currently, the majority of British voluntary safeguards inspections are made by EURATOM, not the IAEA. The EURATOM/UK/IAEA relationship over safeguards is rather complex. After the 1957 EURATOM treaty had been signed between the six EEC states, an Agreement for Cooperation was negotiated with the United States under which EURATOM would act as the safeguarding agency for materials and equipment supplied to them by that country. When the NPT had been negotiated, an agreement was sought to prevent duplication between the IAEA and EURATOM safeguarding activities. This was eventually signed on 21 February 1977, by which time there were seven non-nuclear EURATOM states. When the United Kingdom joined the EEC and EURATOM it was necessary to alter the existing arrangements resulting from a pledge at the end of 1967 that it would submit its civil nuclear facilities to IAEA safeguards. These negotiations were concluded with the signing of a UK/EURATOM/IAEA agreement which entered into force in August 1978.
In the United Kingdom, the basic distinction is between the civil programme administered by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) and the military programme administered by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). However, since BNFL reprocesses the SSEB and CEGB fuel, the distinction is less than perfect. In the United States, the civil programme is mainly in the hands of non-federal bodies such as commercial electricity undertakings and the military one is administered by the Department of Energy.
This justification was the one offered by India in 1974 when it conducted an underground nuclear test.
The possibility that a non-nuclear state might decide to build a submarine power reactor is incorporated into para. 14 of INFCIRC 153 (corrected), the standard agreement that a non-nuclear state signs with the IAEA when it accepts mandatory full scope safeguards under Article III of the NPT. Under this provision, material can be withdrawn from safeguards for military applications.
Cf. L. Freedman, ‘Logic, politics and foreign policy processes’, International Affairs, vol. 52 (1976) 434–49.
W. Wallace, The Foreign Policy Process in Britain (RIIA, 1975) p. 11.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 13 and 15.
C. P. Snow, Science and Government (Oxford University Press, 1961) p. 56.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 57.
Ibid., p. 60.
Ibid., p. 63.
Even when information is made publicly available through House of Commons committee reports and investigations it is often in the form of carefully tailored statements which do not give a full picture of what actually happened. For some examples of this from the early 1950s see J. Simpson, ‘Understanding weapon acquisition processes: a study of naval anti-submarine aircraft procurement in Britain, 1945–1955’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Southampton, 1976) especially pp. 488–527.
Cf. R. G. Head, ‘Decision-making on the A-7 attack aircraft program’, unpublished PhD thesis (Syracuse University, 1971) p. 568.
R. J. Coulam, Illusions of Choice (Princeton University Press, 1977) pp. 12–13;
J. D. Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision: New Dimensions of Political Analysis (Princeton University Press, 1974) pp. 26–7;
and G. T. Allison, Essence of Decision (Little, Brown, 1971) p. 67.
Coulam, ibid., pp. 14 and 15.
Ibid., pp. 24–34.
Allison, op. cit., p. 67.
Ibid.
Coulam, op. cit., pp. 17–26, and Steinbruner, op. cit., Chapters 3 and 4.
W.I. Jenkins, Policy Analysis (Martin Robertson, 1978) p. 70.
H. Sapolsky, The Polaris System Development (Harvard University Press, 1972) esp.p.232.
Allison, op. cit., p. 144.
Ibid.
K. Kaiser, ‘Transnational relations as a threat to the democratic process’ in R. O. Keohane and J. S. Nye Jr. (eds), Transnational Relations and World Politics (Harvard University Press, 1971) p. 358.
Ibid.
M. J. Peck and F. M. Scherer, The Weapon Acquisition Process: an Economic Analysis (Harvard, 1962) p. 24.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 362.
T. A. Marschak (ed.), The Role of Project Histories in the Study of R & D, Rand Paper P-2850 (Santa Monica, 1965) p. 3.
This was the procedure adopted with considerable success in the US Polaris A 1 programme. Sapolski, op. cit., pp. 140–1.
Marschak, op. cit., p. 16.
Peck and Scherer, op. cit., p. 310.
I have derived this listing from the review of the literature on the subject contained in Simpson, op. cit., pp. 23–9, 38–41 and 589–92.
Three examples of British aircraft projects illustrate this point. The Gannet anti-submarine aircraft took from October 1945 to September 1949 to achieve the first flight of a prototype, but it was January 1955 before it reached Fleet Air Arm squadrons (Simpson, ibid.). Work on the Avro Vulcan bomber started in early 1947, the prototype first flew in August 1952, and it entered squadron service in July 1957, while work on the Handley Page Victor started in early 1947, the prototype first flew in December 1952, and it entered squadron service in April 1958. (R. Jackson, V-Bombers (Ian Allen, 1981) pp. 10, 42, 51, 70 and 79.)
There now exists an extensive literature on the role of non-state actors in international relations. For a representative study see R. W. Mansbach, Y. H. Ferguson and D. E. Lampert, The Web of World Politics (Prentice-Hall, 1976) pp. 20–45 and 273–99.
Machiavelli was one of the earliest political thinkers to make use of this dichotomy. The Prince, trans. J. B. Atkinson (Bobbs-Merrill, 1976) pp. 68–9, 149, 163, 171, 203 and 349.
A rather wider distinction exists in some of the academic literature between self-sufficiency and dependency. This concentrates on the linkages between the economic development of Third World states and their trade dependency upon developed countries, as well as the polarisation of their social structures into a small, wealthy, ruling elite and the rest of the population. Some writers have argued that this has led to significant links between these elites and those in Western states. For a discussion of this social, rather than power, meaning of the term, see R. D. Duvall, ‘Dependence and dependence theory: notes towards precision of concept and argument’, International Organisation, vol. 32 (Winter 1978) 62–3.
This distinction first appears to have been used by Kenneth Waltz in his chapter ‘The myth of interdependence’ in C. Kindleberger (ed.), The International Corporation (MIT Press, 1970) p. 210.
The question of whether international interdependence is growing has been the subject of considerable debate. For a study based on this view see R. N. Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence (McGraw-Hill, 1968). For an opposing view see Waltz, ibid.
For a comprehensive discussion of these issues see, for example, A. O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (University of California Press, 1945).
The concept of ‘need’ is one which is open to several interpretations. For an interesting discussion of the distinction between needs and values see J. Burton, Deviance, Terrorism and War (Martin Robertson, 1979) pp. 58–84.
Cf. M. W. Hoag, ‘What interdependence for NATO?’, World Politics, vol. XII, no. 3 (April 1960) 369–72 and
T. A. Callaghan, US/European Economic Cooperation in Military and Civil Technology (Washington, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, 1975) pp. 40–64.
Cf. J. G. Ruggie, ‘Collective goods and future international collaboration’, American Political Science Review, vol. 66 (Sept 1972) 874–93.
For a good discussion of these issues see B. M. Russett (ed.), Economic Theories of International Politics (Markham Publishing Co., 1968) pp. 17–49.
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Simpson, J. (1983). Prologue: Themes for Analysis in British Nuclear Energy Policy. In: The Independent Nuclear State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17258-0_1
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