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.     

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.     

UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S ANTISATELLITE TEST

In discussing China's January 2007 hit-to-kill intercept of the Chinese weather satellite FengYun-1C, most American analysts sought the “message” for the United States—either by asserting that China's test was a deliberate step toward a comprehensive counterspace capability to offset U.S. conventional military superiority or an attempt to force the United States to the negotiating table on “the prevention of an arms race in outer space.” Chinese officials, after a long silence, eventually claimed the test was an “experiment” that was “not targeted at any country.” We traveled to China several times in 2007 and had a series of conversations with Chinese individuals knowledgeable about the history of this particular antisatellite program and with access to information about the decision-making process prior to and after the final test. These discussions were off the record, not for attribution, given the sensitivity of the subject. They reflected the views of some of the key institutions involved in the test from the State, the Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and aerospace experts involved in debris calculations. The information conveyed to us suggests that American commentators tend to place much greater importance on the United States as a driver in China's decision to develop the technology and conduct the test than do the Chinese.     

Helpless or Deliberate Bystander: American Policy towards South Vietnam's Military Coups, 1954–1975

The USA's role in fomenting and responding to military coups remains an understudied and politically contentious subject despite it being a recurring foreign policy problem exemplified most recently in both Egypt and Mali. To the extent this topic has been addressed in any depth by scholars, it is mainly limited to an examination of a small number of coups that occurred during the Cold War that the CIA was accused of sponsoring. However, this emphasis on well-known cases to the exclusion of lesser-known cases has resulted in a biased view of omnipotent US power. This limitation is reflected in the case of South Vietnam, in which the focus has been placed on the 1963 coup that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem, whereas the numerous other coups that occurred have received little or no attention. In this article, a more inclusive approach will be taken in which US policy will be examined with respect to all of the main coups and coup attempts that occurred during the period 1954–1975.     

Landmarks in defense literature

Achtung-Panzer! By Major General Heinz Guderian, Translated by Christopher Duffy with Introduction and Notes by Paul Harris. (Arms & Armour Press £16.99. ISBN 1-85409-138-7, 220 pages)     

Tree-search algorithms for quadratic assignment problems

Problems having the mathematical structure of a quadratic assignment problem are found in a diversity of contexts: by the economist in assigning a number of plants or indivisible operations to a number of different geographical locations; by the architect or indusatrial engineer in laying out activities, offices, or departments in a building; by the human engineer in arranging the indicators and controls in an operators control room; by the electronics engineer in laying out components on a backboard; by the computer systems engineer in arranging information in drum and disc storage; by the production scheduler in sequencing work through a production facility; and so on. In this paper we discuss several types of algorithms for solving such problems, presenting a unifying framework for some of the existing algorithms, and dcscribing some new algorithms. All of the algorithms discussed proceed first to a feasible solution and then to better and better feasible solutions, until ultimately one is discovered which is shown to be optimal.     

A tactical warfare simulation program

The Tactical Warfare Simulation Program is a procedure by which the major interactions among opposing military units and terrain features can be treated in a tactical limited warfare situation. It is a critical-area, sequence-of-event model and is programmed in SIM-SCRIPT. In this program a military unit is described by such properties as strength, size, location, velocity, and attrition rates. Some of the events which can occur to a military unit are entering/leaving terrain features, becoming engaged/disengaged with opposing units, retreating, reaching an objective, and breaking. Following a discussion of the general features of the program, a study of a hypothetical war is presented.