Abstract: Relative to the struggles Western nuclear powered countries have experienced in the recent past, South Korea and China have had notable success building up nuclear power at an impressive scale. China today leads the world in new builds of nuclear reactors. Moving beyond indigenous construction, South Korea is on the verge of completing its first exported power reactor in the UAE, marking an impressive accomplishment for this relatively new nuclear startup. However, China and South Korea now face a challenge other more established nuclear powered countries have yet to solve, an unresolved structure of the back end of the fuel cycle. Despite the uncertainty that exists about the ultimate fate of the spent fuel, the more immediate problem of interim storage is urgent. In this talk, I will review the status and urgency of this problem in the two countries with quantitative results from modeling accumulation, storage and transportation. I will then outline immediate policy mitigations needed in the short term as well as strategies for designing a more permanent solution.

About the Speaker: Rob Forrest is currently a member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories where his research interests include nuclear power, cybersecurity, and nonproliferation. As a member of the systems research group, he specializes in data driven methods and analysis to inform policy for national security.

As a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC, his research focused on one of the most pressing technical issues of nuclear power: what to do with spent nuclear fuel. Specifically, he looked at the more short term issues surrounding interim storage as they affect the structure of the back end of the fuel cycle. He focuses mainly on countries with strong nuclear power growth such as South Korea and China.

Rob’s interest in policy and nuclear issues began during his fellowship in the 2008 Public Policy and Nuclear Threats program at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. In 2010, he also participated in the PONI Nuclear Scholars Initiative at CSIS.

Before coming to CISAC in 2011, Rob received his Ph.D. in high-energy physics from the University of California, Davis. Most of his graduate career was spent at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, IL where he performed a search for signs of a theory called Supersymmetry. Before beginning his graduate work, Rob spent two years at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. In 2001, Rob earned his B.S. in physics from the University of California, San Diego where, throughout his undergraduate career, he worked for NASA. 

Abstract: Throughout the Cold War, Japanese leaders and policymakers have generally been careful to reflect the public’s firm opposition to anti-nuclear sentiment. However, the turn of the 21st century has witnessed a remarkable shift in the political debate, with élites alluding to a nuclear option for Japan. This sudden proliferation of nuclear statements among Japanese élites in 2002 has been directly linked by Japan watchers to the breakout of the second North Korean nuclear crisis and the rapid buildup of China’s military capabilities. Is the Japanese perception of this double military threat in Northeast Asia really the main factor that triggered this shift in the nuclear debate? This paper argues that Japanese élites’ behavior rather indicates that the new threats in the regional strategic context is merely used as a pretext to solve a more deep-rooted and long-standing anxiety that stems from Japan’s own unsuccessful quest for a less reactive, and more proactive post-Cold War identity. 

About the speaker: Sayuri Romei is a Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at CISAC for 2016-2017 and a doctoral candidate in international relations at Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy. Her dissertation focuses on the evolution of Japanese élites’ nuclear mentality in the postwar era, looking at its ambivalent nuclear history and exploring how the country’s nuclear latency was seen by the United States throughout the Cold War. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, a BA in international relations from the University of Roma La Sapienza, and an MA in international relations from Roma Tre University. Her fellowship at CISAC is sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation.

Abstract: In 1992, North Korea offered to dismantle its plutonium-production reactors in exchange for more “proliferation-resistant” light water reactors (LWRs) from the West, and this offer culminated in the 1994 Agreed Framework with the United States. After the Agreed Framework collapsed in 2002, North Korean negotiators continued to insist that LWRs were a prerequisite for relinquishing its nuclear weapons capabilities. Why has the regime placed such importance on this particular form of energy generation? I examine the history of North Korea’s pursuit of LWR technology, and the shifting role that pursuit played in its diplomacy. A technically informed look at the LWR fuel cycle reveals a network of technical dependence that can draw nations into enduring modes of collective action. At times, and with varying degrees of awareness, actors on all sides of the North Korean nuclear crisis sought to leverage these unique aspects of LWR technology, hoping to lay a path for North Korea to vacate its isolation. This overlooked history offers important lessons for nonproliferation thought and policy.

Abstract: While impressive strides have been made in detecting physical evidence of nuclear weapons production, there is no consensus on how international relationships combine to motivate or deter policymakers from seeking nuclear weapons. Rather than address a single variable, this study investigates how networks of interstate conflict, alliances, trade, and nuclear cooperation merge to increase or decrease the proliferation likelihood of individual states. Using multiplex networks to study the structure of international relations factors theorized to deter or incentivize nuclear proliferation and open-source data on military alliances, macroeconomic ties, armed conflicts, and nuclear cooperation agreements, we construct a multilayer network model in which states are nodes linked by proliferation-relevant variables. This work shows the first quantitative heterogenous analysis of external proliferation determinants using a network science formalism and opens a new avenue of study of the external proliferation motivators for each state within an international network. Preliminary findings suggest that specific external relations—particularly the existence of armed conflict and the signing of Nuclear Cooperation Agreements—largely explain the decision of states to proliferate or not.

About the Speaker: Bethany L. Goldblum is a member of the research faculty in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the Scientific Director of the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, a multi-institution initiative established by DOE’s NNSA to support the nation’s nonproliferation mission through cutting-edge research in nuclear security science in collaboration with the national laboratories. Goldblum founded and directs the Nuclear Policy Working Group, an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate students focused on developing policy solutions to strengthen global nuclear security. She has been involved with the Public Policy and Nuclear Threats Boot Camp nearly since its inception, and acted as director of the program since 2013. Goldblum received a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007.

Abstract: In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama had a very specific agenda to revise and update the U.S. nuclear posture. However, there were many elements in his program which later disappeared, or which were modified by the time his Nuclear Posture Review came out in April 2010. Over the course of the 18-month review process, the option to implement a no-first use policy and the idea of an unconditional negative security assurance were both examined. A no-first use policy would mean that the U.S. would never use nuclear weapons first, only in response to a nuclear attack by its opponents; an unconditional negative security assurance would mean that the U.S. would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states. Both of these policies could have significantly reduced the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. posture, and they could have also limited the number of adversaries and contingencies that nuclear weapons need to cover. Although these goals were in line with President Obama’s nuclear agenda, the administration decided to adopt a careful alternative in both cases. My paper investigates why President Obama agreed to these alternatives, and the strategic implications of these policies.

About the Speaker: Dr. Anna Péczeli is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. She is also a research fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Defence Studies (National University of Public Service – Budapest, Hungary), where she is currently on sabbatical leave. Previously she was an assistant lecturer at Corvinus University of Budapest, an adjunct fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, a visiting research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, and a visiting Fulbright fellow at the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC. Dr. Péczeli earned a Ph.D. degree in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest, her research focused on the Obama administration’s nuclear strategy – the review of nuclear guidance, and the extent to which the legacies of the Cold War still define U.S. nuclear planning.

Dr. Péczeli is a member of the G7 Berlin Group – International Coalition for CBRN Security Culture; the European Defence and Security Network (sponsored by the European Parliament); the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI); the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium; and chair of the Executive Board of the International Student/Young Pugwash (ISYP) group.