Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
1/15/2016
Global progress on nuclear security has slowed in recent years, according to a new report that assesses the status of nuclear material security worldwide and the threat of nuclear terrorism. The Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative’s (NTI) 2016 Nuclear Security Index found highly enriched uranium and plutonium security measures have not improved since 2014, and the number of countries eliminating their nuclear materials has dropped.
NTI found that while seven countries eliminated their stocks of weapon-usable materials from 2012 to 2014, only one country, Uzbekistan, did so since 2014. “Global progress on the goals set at the first Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 . . . has slowed, including the pace at which countries are eliminating their plutonium and highly enriched uranium, including the steps countries are taking to secure the stocks and also including a trend line toward possible increases in stocks of plutonium and highly enriched uranium,” former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), NTI co-chairman, said Thursday at the report release event.
The biennial index analyzed for the first time cybersecurity and sabotage threats at nuclear facilities and found almost half the 24 countries with weapon-usable materials and the 23 states with nuclear facilities but no weapon-usable materials in the assessment have not developed any requirements to protect their facilities from cyberattacks. Those countries do not have “any of the foundational legal and regulatory requirements in place” for cybersecurity, Nunn said. Nine of 24 countries assessed with weapon-usable nuclear materials scored well on cybersecurity, the report found.
The sabotage ranking also assessed 45 countries with nuclear facilities and found many have not implemented measures to protect against radiological releases from acts of sabotage, something Nunn said is “a high-probability threat.”
Australia topped the report’s theft ranking for best securing its small quantity of materials – out of the 24 states that have weapon-usable nuclear material – and Japan was identified as the most improved state. The United States, the United Kingdom, and France received high scores for security among nuclear-armed states, and the U.S., U.K., India, and Russia were the most-improved nuclear-armed states. Meanwhile, Finland topped the sabotage ranking for its strong commitment to security norms and legal framework, out of the 45 states with nuclear facilities such as research reactors or power plants.
The report recommended strengthening nuclear material security worldwide — including the security of military materials that make up 83 percent of all global stocks — and bolstering the international legal foundation for nuclear security to achieve common standards for all states. It also recommended states commit to decreasing their stocks of weapon-usable nuclear materials and strengthen facility security, particularly cybersecurity.
Nunn touted the benefits of the Nuclear Security Summit process to the indicators measured by the NTI index. “In 1992, 52 countries had weapons-usable material. By the beginning of 2010, the first year of the nuclear summit, there were still 35 countries with such materials. Six years later, during the time period when three summits were held, nine more countries eliminated their stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium,” Nunn said at the event.
