Undermining Nuclear Security

obama putin President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a plenary session during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Beijing, Nov. 11, 2014.

 

CISAC's Siegfried Hecker is working on a book about his 20-year collaboration with Russian nuclear scientists.

In this New York Times "Room for Debate" commentary, he argues that abandoning cooperation between Moscow and Washington will diminish security and exacerbate other common concerns, such as nuclear terrorism and proliferation. And in this NPR All Things Considered interview, the former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory says there has been extraordinary cooperation between American and Russian scientists in securing loose nuclear materials and upgrading former Soviet nuclear test sites. But the United States is making it harder for Russian scientists to get visas to come here - and Moscow likewise is not cooperating.
 
"Hopefully, the book will demonstrate to both governments it was absolutely essential for us to work together over these past 20 years - and that we're not done," Hecker tells NPR's Michele Keleman. Yet, Hecker concedes, this cooperation has all but ended in the wake of the disputes over Ukraine and Crimea.
 
 
And you can read about Hecker's two-decade collaboration with his Russian counterparts in this story.