Nuclear Proliferation Is Everybody’s Business

On Jan. 31, 1980, then-candidate Ronald Reagan, responding to a question about emerging atom-bomb programs in several Third World countries, said, “I just don’t think it’s any of our business.”

Though that comment was regarded as a gaffe, it foreshadowed the Reagan Administration’s laissez faire approach to nuclear proliferation--an approach that has placed economic and other considerations ahead of what had been a top U.S. national security priority: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

While a slackening in the U.S. non-proliferation policy began in the Jimmy Carter Administration, Reagan’s State Department, led by point-man Ambassador Richard T. Kennedy, pushed this trend to the extreme--reducing U.S. efforts for non-proliferation, except where actions were perceived to be without cost to the United States.

This lax approach is responsible for both the 1980s expansion of nuclear weapons programs--in India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina--and the recent inauguration of civilian global commerce in vast amounts of material usable for nuclear weapons.

The following examples of Reagan Administration policy demonstrate that unless President-elect George Bush reinstates a hard-line anti-proliferation stance, one Reagan legacy may be the spread of nuclear weapons to more nations and, ultimately, to terrorists:

--Reagan’s most radical break with past U.S. efforts to prevent proliferation was his “plutonium-use” policy of Oct. 8, 1981. Only four years earlier, President Carter had banned use of plutonium fuel in domestic nuclear plants, and had begun to pressure U.S. allies to do the same, on the grounds that plutonium, unlike ordinary uranium fuel, can be used in nuclear bombs if stolen by terrorists or outlaw states. Reagan, seemingly unperturbed by such risks, lifted the ban on domestic use of plutonium and abandoned efforts to discourage its use within advanced industrial nations.

Some alarming facts about Reagan’s new policy have already come to light. In one new nuclear agreement, for example, the Administration gave Japan advance approval to acquire and use a minimum 153 tons of U.S.-controlled plutonium. By comparison, the United States has only about 100 tons of plutonium in its entire nuclear arsenal. Just one-hundredth of 1% of this plutonium, if stolen, would be sufficient for several nuclear weapons, each with a potential yield as large as the Hiroshima bomb.

Because of such dangers, both the U.S. Defense Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urged rejection of the new accord in writing. Reagan, however, ignored these warnings--as he did a finding by the U.S. comptroller general that the accord violated U.S. non-proliferation law--and instead brought the pact into force last July.

A recent NRC report to Congress on the Japanese pact stated: “We have concerns that based on current international safeguards as applied to (Japan’s planned) reprocessing facility, 200-300 kilograms of plutonium could remain unaccounted for each year.” That’s enough missing material for 36 atom bombs annually.

--In line with Reagan’s policy on plutonium, the Administration recently abandoned the decade-old U.S. effort to eliminate civilian commerce in another atom-bomb material, high-enriched uranium.

While quantities of such bomb-grade uranium in world commerce are smaller than amounts of plutonium, such trade poses graver risks, given uranium’s vulnerability to theft. Whereas plutonium is toxic and therefore dangerous to handle, high-enriched uranium offers virtually no radioactive hazard to thieves. Moreover, while plutonium is usually enveloped in tight security, bomb-grade uranium fuel is used at nuclear research reactors, many sitting essentially unguarded on college campuses.

Responding to this vulnerability, the United States created a program in 1978 to develop substitute fuels--non-weapons-usable --for research reactors. In just 10 years, the program has made technical breakthroughs that will enable a 70% reduction in annual U.S. exports of bomb-grade uranium to such facilities.

According to a recent national laboratory report, if the program receives full funding for five years--at a cost of $15 million--the United States should be able to halt all such exports.

Yet the Reagan Administration slashed the program’s funding and, this summer, announced plans to terminate it in two years. As a result, the United States will continue exporting at least six bombs- worth of weapons-grade uranium per year.

--Reagan’s final departure from past non-proliferation policy has been his refusal, because of competing U.S. interests, to apply legally mandated sanctions against nations that acquire nuclear bomb-making materials and technology. In the most prominent case, for seven years Reagan has waived economic sanctions against Pakistan, first applied by Carter in 1979 in accordance with a law enacted under President Gerald R. Ford. The White House didn’t want to upset the Pakistanis when their country was serving as a conduit for arms deliveries to Afghan rebels. Despite Pakistan’s escalating bomb program, and its violation of two additional U.S. non-proliferation statutes, the President repeatedly refused to reimpose sanctions.

While the case of Pakistan is the most publicized, it is but one of many examples of the Reagan Administration’s refusal to enforce U.S. non-proliferation law. In Reagan’s first term, for example, the Administration approved the sale of powerful computers useful in the design and manufacture of nuclear weapons to both South Africa and Argentina--although both nations have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or accept international safeguards (inspections) at all their nuclear facilities. This year, the President prevailed on Congress to renew military training assistance to Brazil and Argentina, although U.S. law requires that such aid be cut-off because both countries imported technology for the production of bomb-grade uranium and plutonium.

The Pakistan case will probably produce two serious consequences elsewhere:

First, it will stimulate, if it hasn’t already, the revival of India’s dormant nuclear-weapons program. While India for years chose not to build nuclear weapons--even though it had the requisite technology--a nuclear-arms race on the subcontinent now seems assured. Then if these two rivals should again fight a war--as they have three times in the last 42 years--both will be nuclear-armed.

Second, and perhaps more important, Reagan’s Pakistan policy has sent a clear message to other would-be proliferaters: The United States will not apply sanctions against illicit bomb programs in regions where it has competing strategic interests. As a result, near-nuclear nations, such as Brazil, Argentina, Taiwan and South Korea may be emboldened to embrace the Pakistan example. When such nations, all subject to instability, develop nuclear capabilities, the chances of weapons falling into terrorist or paramilitary hands increase dramatically.

Then what can the Bush Administration do to rectify the situation?

After eight years of laxity, the key to regaining international credibility for a tough non-proliferation stance is decisive action. Upon entering office, Bush can announce a sweeping overhaul of U.S. policy, just as Reagan did in 1981. Vital to any such plan are three points:

First, the new President must restore funding for development of research-reactor fuel that is not weapons-usable and announce that the United States will no longer export bomb-grade uranium to any reactor that can use alternate fuel. With that, Bush could eliminate a real threat to U.S. national security within five years.

Second, the Bush Administration must make clear that the United States will now enforce non-proliferation laws. To give credence to this, the new President should announce his intention to suspend military aid to Pakistan unless the United States receives verifiable assurances of a halt in the production of weapons-grade uranium.

Third, and requiring the most resolve because of likely international resistance, the United States must again apply pressure worldwide against civil plutonium commerce. Critics of such a policy will point out that those nations about to embark on plutonium industries--Britain, France, West Germany and Japan--are among our closest allies and that U.S. opposition will result in unwanted diplomatic friction. But the close relationships with those countries provides the United States with significant leverage to influence their nuclear policies, as long as Washington is willing to link trade and security arrangements to non-proliferation policy.

Most important, Bush should be aware that the alternative to a hard-line U.S. anti-plutonium policy is the inevitable creation of a world with more atom-bomb material in civilian commerce--vulnerable to theft--than exists in the combined weapons arsenals of the superpowers.

In 1980, Reagan may well have believed that nuclear proliferation was not “any of our business.” Yet the legacy of his lax policy, unless reversed, will be a continuing increase in the likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used, somewhere, for the first time since World War II. If and when that occurs, it will certainly be our business.