Increased Security for Nuclear Materials
The data comes from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private advocacy group that promotes the safekeeping of nuclear materials. Following up on its first report in 2012, the group surveyed the precautions each country had in place and ranked nations based on their security practices. The report issued on Wednesday covered factors like national laws, regulations, participation in international treaties and physical security, including whether a state has armed guards protecting its facilities.
The countries deserving special praise — Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Sweden, Ukraine and Vietnam — effectively gave up their bomb-making capability and now have less than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of material that can fuel nuclear weapons.
Of the countries that still have weapons-usable nuclear material, Australia placed first on the security ranking, because it reduced its supply of nuclear materials and ratified a treaty that commits countries to criminalize acts of nuclear terrorism and bring nuclear criminals to justice. The United States fell to 11th in part because it failed to ratify two nuclear accords.
Despite progress, the challenges ahead are daunting. At the bottom of the security rankings were North Korea (25), which is continuing to expand its nuclear weapons program, and Iran (24), which is in negotiations with the United States and other world powers on an agreement to freeze and roll back its program.
Pakistan’s rank rose to 22, up slightly from two years ago and ahead of India (23), because the Pakistani government took steps to update its nuclear security regulations. Still, both countries are nuclear-armed, have weak safety and security ratings, and are still increasing their nuclear fuel stockpiles for military and civilian purposes.
The world is already awash in 2,000 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear material spread across hundreds of sites around the globe. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 100 incidents of theft and other unauthorized activities involving nuclear and radioactive material are reported to the organization every year.
There are many steps the international community can take to prevent nuclear fuel from falling into terrorists’ hands, including developing a system of global standards for securing the material and persuading nations to ratify nuclear security treaties. World leaders should push this agenda forward when they meet in The Hague for their third nuclear summit meeting this March.
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