NUCLEAR ISLANDS

Current International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards do not provide adequate protection against the diversion to military use of materials or technology from certain types of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. In view of highly enriched uranium's relatively greater ease of use as a nuclear explosive material than plutonium and the significant diseconomies of commercial spent fuel reprocessing, this article focuses on the need for improved international controls over uranium enrichment facilities as the proximate justification for creation of an International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Association (INFCA). In principle, the proposal is equally applicable to alleviating the proliferation concerns provoked by nuclear fuel reprocessing plants and other sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities. The INFCA would provide significantly increased nonproliferation assurance to its member states and the wider international community by holding long-term leasehold contracts to operate secure restricted zones containing such sensitive nuclear facilities.     

GERMANY'S CURRENT AND FUTURE PLUTONIUM INVENTORY

In the past, Germany reprocessed a significant amount of its spent nuclear fuel, partly on its own territory but mostly as a customer of British and French reprocessing plants. In mid-2005, Germany stopped this practice, banning new transports of spent fuel for reprocessing—although the already-exported material would be allowed to be reprocessed and recycled in German reactors as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel. In total, about 6,500 tonnes of heavy metal have been contracted for reprocessing, but a significant portion of this material has neither been reprocessed nor recycled as MOX fuel in German reactors. Due to the complex import-export history and the partly nontransparent information policy of the German government and utilities, a comprehensive and up-to-date plutonium balance for Germany is not publicly available. This report provides an assessment of Germany's plutonium inventory (stored domestically or abroad) based on open-source information. Special attention is paid to the issue of whether the entire inventory of separated plutonium can be completely irradiated in German nuclear reactors before the last of them are shut down in 2022. The authors conclude that Germany's stock of plutonium waiting to be recycled was about 12.2 tonnes as of 2010; this plutonium should be completely re-imported from the United Kingdom and France by 2017. Germany's MOX-consumption capacities should be sufficient to irradiate the remaining plutonium, although further delays are expected that could leave Germany with an inventory of separated (unirradiated) plutonium.     

Political opposition,external threats,and elite responses: analyzing domestic security policy in post-Rose Revolution Georgia

In the years since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the popularly elected leadership of the Republic of Georgia has responded to organized protests with a variety of repressive tactics. These reactions suggest that former challengers to authoritarian elites may utilize similar methods of retaining power during crisis periods. Yet, the alleged involvement of agencies of the Russian Federation in fomenting domestic instability has also occupied a central position in the national security policies of the outgoing Saakashvili government. These conditions both preceded and were reinforced by the South Ossetia War of August 2008. This article proposes a theoretical model that represents the intervening effect of interstate conflicts on state–society relations in Georgia from 2003 to present. It presents several hypotheses and possible indicators, data sources, and techniques for analyzing the interaction between characteristics of opposition groups, external threats, and the domestic security practices of contemporary Georgian political elites.