Nuclear proliferation

Since the mid-1970s, the primary focus of non-proliferation efforts has been to maintain, and even increase, international control over the fissile material and specialized technologies necessary to build such devices because these are the most difficult and expensive parts of a nuclear weapons program.

Other than the acquisition of these special materials, the scientific and technical means for weapons construction to develop rudimentary, but working, nuclear explosive devices are considered to be within the reach of industrialized nations.

The main concern of the IAEA is that uranium not be enriched beyond what is necessary for commercial civil plants, and that plutonium which is produced by nuclear reactors not be refined into a form that would be suitable for bomb production.

With North Korea, the promised provision of commercial power reactors appeared to resolve the situation for a time, but it later withdrew from the NPT and declared it had nuclear weapons.

Its goal is to "[..] provide competitive, commercially-based services as an alternative to a state’s development of costly, proliferation-sensitive facilities, and address other issues associated with the safe and secure management of used fuel and radioactive waste.

This aims to complement the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 (not entered into force as of June 2020) and to codify commitments made by the United States, the UK, France and Russia to cease production of weapons material, as well as putting a similar ban on China.

This self-sufficiency extends from uranium exploration and mining through fuel fabrication, heavy water production, reactor design and construction, to reprocessing and waste management.

Similarly, the United States sold India heavy water for use in the reactor "only... in connection with research into and the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes" Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine.

[citation needed] In 1974, when India surprised the world with the successful detonation of its own bomb, codename Smiling Buddha, it became "imperative for Pakistan" to pursue weapons research.

[43] This claim could not be verified due to the refusal of that Government to allow the IAEA to interview the alleged head of the nuclear black market, who happened to be no other than Abdul Qadeer Khan.

[43] Independent investigation conducted by International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) confirmed that he had control over the import-export deals, and his acquisition activities were largely unsupervised by Pakistan governmental authorities.

This eventually led to negotiations with the United States resulting in the Agreed Framework of 1994, which provided for IAEA safeguards being applied to its reactors and spent fuel rods.

Reports indicate that North Korea was willing to supply missile sub-systems including rocket motors, inertial guidance systems, control and testing equipment for US$50 million.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. in Jane's Defence Weekly (27 November 2002) reports that Western analysts had begun to question what North Korea received in payment for the missiles; many suspected it was the nuclear technology.

Western intelligence agencies began to notice the exchange of personnel, technology and components between KRL and entities of the North Korean 2nd Economic Committee (responsible for weapons production).

Separate reports indicate (The Washington Times, 22 November 2002) that U.S. intelligence had as early as 1999 picked up signs that North Korea was continuing to develop nuclear arms.

Other reports also indicate that North Korea had been working covertly to develop an enrichment capability for nuclear weapons for at least five years and had used technology obtained from Pakistan (The Washington Times, 18 October 2002).

It has repeatedly proposed a nuclear-free zone in South Asia, and has proclaimed its willingness to engage in nuclear disarmament and to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty if India would do so.

Instead, the 'Gandhi Plan', put forward in 1988, proposed the revision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it regards as inherently discriminatory in favor of the nuclear-weapon States, and a timetable for complete nuclear weapons disarmament.

Should India and Pakistan join such a convention, they would have to agree to halt the production of fissile materials for weapons and to accept international verification on their relevant nuclear facilities (enrichment and reprocessing plants).

[69][70] The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said in 2009 he had not seen any evidence in IAEA official documents that Iran was developing nuclear weapons.

According to the report, "The secret complex, much of it in caves tunnelled into a mountain at Naung Laing in northern Burma, runs parallel to a civilian reactor being built at another site by Russia that both the Russians and Burmese say will be put under international safeguards.

[citation needed] Recently, the David Albright-led Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) rang alarm bells about Myanmar attempting a nuclear project with North Korean help.

During that period, it brought into operation a small gas-cooled, graphite-moderated, natural-uranium (metal) fuelled "Experimental Power Reactor" of about 25 MWt (5 MWe), based on the UK Magnox design.

[citation needed] Ultimately, the DPRK was persuaded to stop what appeared to be its nuclear weapons programme in exchange, under the agreed framework, for about US$5 billion in energy-related assistance.

On 13 February 2007, the parties announced "Initial Actions" to implement the 2005 joint statement including shutdown and disablement of North Korean nuclear facilities in exchange for energy assistance.

[citation needed] On 6 September 2007, Israel bombed an officially unidentified site in Syria which it later asserted was a nuclear reactor under construction (see Operation Outside the Box).

However secret nuclear activities were exposed after the Lieyu massacre by Colonel Chang Hsien-yi, deputy director of INER, who defected to the U.S. in December 1987 and produced a cache of incriminating documents.

Not being deterred by self-annihilation, terrorism groups could push forth their own nuclear agendas or be used as shadow fronts to carry out the attack plans by mentioned unstable governments.

When the United States demonstrated that it had nuclear power capabilities after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Russians started to develop their program in preparation for the Cold War.