This article presents a review of the sensitivities to proliferation attempts in each of the different stages of the commercial nuclear fuel cycle and within the nuclear power industry. As the global nuclear power industry may be on the brink of a major expansion that might rival its original growth at the inception of the nuclear age, the question is: Would this second expansion create uncontrollable proliferation risks in its wake? The basic answer is that the nuclear power industry in itself does not pose a direct proliferation threat; however, various elements of the nuclear fuel cycle could create different proliferation sensitivities if not safeguarded carefully. The first element of securing the nuclear fuel cycle is the understanding of which elements pose the greatest potential for successful proliferation attempts. These issues and several institutional and technical mitigation strategies to reduce the potential for possible proliferation are discussed here.

If the ultimate terror attack were to happen--a nuclear explosion in a city--the resulting death and destruction would be almost unimaginable. But we can imagine the geopolitical consequences. Can we do anything now that would help matters? Michael May, Jay Davis and Raymond Jeanloz argue that we can, by establishing a databank of known nuclear explosive materials. Using this resource it would be possible to establish where the materials came from and who was responsible for the terrorist act. Not just for purposes of retribution, but in order to assess the chances of further nuclear detonations.

Policymakers fight over bureaucratic structure because it helps shape the legal interpretations and regulatory decisions of agencies through which modern governments operate. In this Article, we update positive political theories of bureaucratic structure to encompass two new issues with important implications for lawyers and political scientists: the significance of legislative responses to a crisis and the uncertainty surrounding major bureaucratic reorganizations. The resulting perspective affords a better understanding of how agencies interpret their legal mandates and deploy their administrative discretion.

We apply the theory to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Two principal questions surrounding this creation are (1) why the President changed from opposing the creation of a new department to supporting it and (2) why his plan for such a department was far beyond the scope of any other existing proposal. We argue that the President changed his mind in part because he did not want to be on the losing side of a major legislative battle. But more significantly, the President supported the massive new Department in part to further domestic policy priorities unrelated to homeland security. By moving a large set of agencies within the Department and instilling them with new homeland security responsibilities without additional budgets, the President forced these agencies to move resources out of their legacy mandates. Perversely, these goals appear to have been accomplished at the expense of homeland security.

Finally, we briefly discuss more general implications of our perspective: first, previous reorganizations (such as FDR's creation of a Federal Security Agency and Carter;' creation of an Energy Department) also seem to reflect politicians' efforts to enhance their control of administrative functions by making bureaucratic changes, and particularly by mixing domestic and national security functions; and, second, our analysis raises questions about some of the most often asserted justifications for judicial deference to agency legal interpretations.

We develop a mathematical model to find the optimal inspection strategy for detecting a nuclear weapon (or nuclear material to make a weapon) from being smuggled into the United States in a shipping container, subject to constraints of port congestion and an overall budget. We consider an 11-layer security system consisting of shipper certification, container seals, and a targeting software system, followed by passive (neutron and gamma), active (gamma radiography), and manual testing at overseas and domestic ports. Currently implemented policies achieve a low detection probability, and improved security requires passive and active testing of trusted containers and manually opening containers that cannot be penetrated by radiography. The annual cost of achieving a high detection probability of a plutonium weapon using existing equipment in traditional ways is roughly several billion dollars if testing is done domestically, and is approximately five times higher if testing is performed overseas. Our results suggest that employing high-energy x-ray radiography and elongating the passive neutron tests at overseas ports may provide significant cost savings, and several developing technologies, radiation sensors inside containers and tamper-resistant electronic seals, should be pursued aggressively. Further effort is critically needed to develop a practical neutron interrogation scheme that reliably detects moderately shielded, highly enriched uranium.

What role should nuclear weapons play in today's world? How can the United States promote international security while safeguarding its own interests? U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy informs this debate with an analysis of current nuclear weapons policies and strategies, including those for deterring, preventing, or preempting nuclear attack; preventing further proliferation, to nations and terrorists; modifying weapons designs; and revising the U.S. nuclear posture.

Presidents Bush and Clinton made major changes in U.S. policy after the cold war, and George W. Bush's administration made further, more radical changes after 9/11. Leaked portions of 2001's Nuclear Posture Review, for example, described more aggressive possible uses for nuclear weapons. This important volume examines the significance of such changes and suggests a way forward for U.S. policy, emphasizing stronger security of nuclear weapons and materials, international compliance with nonproliferation obligations, attention to the demand side of proliferation, and reduced reliance on nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy.

With a foreword by William J. Perry. Contributors: Chaim Braun (CISAC), George Bunn (CISAC), Christopher F. Chyba (formerly CISAC Co-Director), David Holloway (CISAC), Michael May (CISAC, formerly Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), W.K.H. Panofsky (formerly Director of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), Karthika Sasikumar (University of British Columbia, former CISAC fellow), Roger Speed (formerly with the Livermore Laboratory), and Dean A. Wilkening (Science Program Director, CISAC).