And my final comment before I go to bed (and I promise tomorrow I will start working on a course outline) is that there a whole different nuclear and proliferation related topic is that the West led heavily by the US choose in the immediate post-Cold War era to become heavily reliant on Russian fuel cycle services(mining, conversion, and enrichment), the most proliferation and dual use sensitive aspects of nuclear energy. In the beginning and I think with some justifiable reasons this was considered a good thing by keeping the huge overhang of Soviet era fissile materials, technology, and scientists out of the hands of the likes of Gaddafi and Saddam(although I wonder to this day just how assistance say North Korea got from Russian scientists in this time period). But anyways like most everything Russia related we probably should have stopped this dependence at some point in the Putin era(and by this point the money we pay Russia for enriched uranium is pretty much guaranteed to mostly flow directly to Putin's pockets, Ukraine in fact which had been completely reliant on Russian enriched uranium imports banned them in 2014 after Crimea). The other issue is the US uranium enrichment sector was already in bad shape at the end of the Cold War and having all these Russian swords to plowshares enriched uranium flow into the US market kind of killed off the US enrichment industry.
Now the good news is the West collectively and I emphasize not just the 3 Western NWS states(the UK, France, and US) but also non-nuclear western countries like Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands have the capabilities collectively to allow us to completely end our reliance on Russian fuel cycle services in the next few years. The bad news is to make this all work is going to require a significant increase of the nuclear technology base of the non nuclear weapons states of the West(Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands are the only "Western" suppliers of enrichment centrifuges) at a time when much of the criticism of the JCPOA is that basically non- nuclear weapons states like Iran or Japan should be prohibited for certain sensitive activities like building enrichment centrifuges that happen to be the very same activities we need the likes of Netherlands, Germany, and Japan to ramp up (The Netherlands and Germany both supply the UK and France with centrifuges through the 4 country European ETC consortium founded by the Treaty of Almelo)
Now I know most Cosmopolitan Globalists will say that Japan and Iran are totally different countries and Japan is obviously more able to be trusted with sensitive nuclear technology than say the mullahs in Tehran and I agree with this at a moral level but unfortunately in much of the global south and from legalistic standpoint it kind of looks there is a different standard for Western countries than there is for Iran and maybe there should be different standards for Japan than for Iran but it doesn't take a genius to know this isn't exactly going to play well in much of the world already not that sympathetic.
Then there are, more recent question about just how committed the Biden Admin is about weaning the West off of a Russian uranium. In the G7 for example France(including even before Macron's sharp turn towards Ukraine) and Japan have been the two most enthusiastic members of increasing non Russian enrichment capacity but both "may" have their own reasons for supporting this. Japan obviously has their own interest in possible nuclear deterrence and having more enrichment capacity at home would help them with that. France despite already having nuclear weapons if they needed to expand their arsenal again having more enrichment capacity would help them do that. Again, I am not suggesting France and Japan's support for cutting Russia off is somehow self-centered and nefarious it is just in the world of nuclear there can always be multiple reasons for doing something. My own view is that if there is a reason Biden's Admin might be slow walking this is that the Jake Sullivan crowd in the WH still sees the US buying enriched uranium from Russia as some type of leverage of Russian behavior no matter how misguided that seems.
After listening to the second half of the podcast in my car and arriving back home from Vladislav's talk I do want want to push back a bit on Jon's contention that peaceful uses of nuclear energy has been a failure. I think maybe the more apt contention is that nuclear has been a failure in the two core Anglo Saxon nations of the UK and the US(although less so in the US sorry Jon) but I do think there is a case to be made that nuclear has a useful, significant and successful alternate energy source(particularly compared to Stalinist/Scargillite union mined coal or Russian Natural Gas) in countries such as Canada, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, and even post Soviet Ukraine. What I think has been a failure is the US led Atoms for Peace nuclear "order" where the US kept control of the most sensitive technological elements of nuclear energy in return for providing extended military deterrence to other countries. All of the countries that were really successful in civil nuclear all chafed and rebelled against the US desire for technological monopoly in nuclear and got the US to give up a lot of technical and non proliferation prerogatives that all else being equal the US would rather not have given up(Along with the fact that US extended deterrence looks rather wobbly in recent years). Now has say South Korean or Canadian nuclear been successful at producing energy because secretly it has all been a ruse and in reality all those nuclear power plants around Toronto, Canada are really just a way for the Canadian govt to keep the nuclear "card" in it's back pocket and the financial support Canada gave civil nuclear was really intended to keep the weapons/military option open. I genuinely don't know. I have friends in Canada who for example strongly believe that Canada should have it's own nuclear weapons but also that Canada's existing civil nuclear program has no military benefit. I personally don't know what I feel about this yet.
I do think and maybe this is a consequence of being a resident of a country that has nuclear weapons, if tomorrow in today's current international climate I was somehow made leader of a country without nuclear weapons one of the first questions I would asking myself is at the very least if I had to get my hands on some nuclear weapons in the future what is my plan and my country's plan for doing so. If my country already has lots of civil nuclear assets like Canada or Sweden what could I possibly get from them that helps my country develop a bomb?
I made the following comment or offer on the Middle East 101 page but I thought I should post it here.
I just want to throw an idea out there. As we get closer to what I think will be denouement of the class i.e. the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Israel/Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas conflict culminating into October 7th I thought it might be valuable to share some readings on the "nuclear" aspects of the Iran Nuclear Deal and how say the legacy of the Manhattan Project and Robert Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer won Best Picture best picture as everyone probably knows) affects and leads to the Iranian Nuclear program. I could also host some discussion sessions between now and when the Middle East 101 Class finally catches up to the Iranian Nuclear Deal(and Trump leaving the deal time period).
I would suggest that knowing terms like the Acheson Lilienthal Plan, the Treaty of Almelo, and the Budapest Memorandum are all important terms one should know when discussing the nuclear aspects of the Iran Nuclear Deal and Israel's opposition to it. While I feel hardly qualified to teach this subject compared to experts in the field, I do think I can come up with a list of readings and lead some discussions to the point that anyone who is interested would know pretty well what say the Acheson Lilienthal Plan, the Treaty of Almelo, and the Budapest Memorandum are among many other important subjects in global nuclear governance and international law and why they are important(EURATOM, and the McMahan Act are other things I can throw in as well).
And my final comment before I go to bed (and I promise tomorrow I will start working on a course outline) is that there a whole different nuclear and proliferation related topic is that the West led heavily by the US choose in the immediate post-Cold War era to become heavily reliant on Russian fuel cycle services(mining, conversion, and enrichment), the most proliferation and dual use sensitive aspects of nuclear energy. In the beginning and I think with some justifiable reasons this was considered a good thing by keeping the huge overhang of Soviet era fissile materials, technology, and scientists out of the hands of the likes of Gaddafi and Saddam(although I wonder to this day just how assistance say North Korea got from Russian scientists in this time period). But anyways like most everything Russia related we probably should have stopped this dependence at some point in the Putin era(and by this point the money we pay Russia for enriched uranium is pretty much guaranteed to mostly flow directly to Putin's pockets, Ukraine in fact which had been completely reliant on Russian enriched uranium imports banned them in 2014 after Crimea). The other issue is the US uranium enrichment sector was already in bad shape at the end of the Cold War and having all these Russian swords to plowshares enriched uranium flow into the US market kind of killed off the US enrichment industry.
Now the good news is the West collectively and I emphasize not just the 3 Western NWS states(the UK, France, and US) but also non-nuclear western countries like Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands have the capabilities collectively to allow us to completely end our reliance on Russian fuel cycle services in the next few years. The bad news is to make this all work is going to require a significant increase of the nuclear technology base of the non nuclear weapons states of the West(Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands are the only "Western" suppliers of enrichment centrifuges) at a time when much of the criticism of the JCPOA is that basically non- nuclear weapons states like Iran or Japan should be prohibited for certain sensitive activities like building enrichment centrifuges that happen to be the very same activities we need the likes of Netherlands, Germany, and Japan to ramp up (The Netherlands and Germany both supply the UK and France with centrifuges through the 4 country European ETC consortium founded by the Treaty of Almelo)
https://enritec.com/
Now I know most Cosmopolitan Globalists will say that Japan and Iran are totally different countries and Japan is obviously more able to be trusted with sensitive nuclear technology than say the mullahs in Tehran and I agree with this at a moral level but unfortunately in much of the global south and from legalistic standpoint it kind of looks there is a different standard for Western countries than there is for Iran and maybe there should be different standards for Japan than for Iran but it doesn't take a genius to know this isn't exactly going to play well in much of the world already not that sympathetic.
Then there are, more recent question about just how committed the Biden Admin is about weaning the West off of a Russian uranium. In the G7 for example France(including even before Macron's sharp turn towards Ukraine) and Japan have been the two most enthusiastic members of increasing non Russian enrichment capacity but both "may" have their own reasons for supporting this. Japan obviously has their own interest in possible nuclear deterrence and having more enrichment capacity at home would help them with that. France despite already having nuclear weapons if they needed to expand their arsenal again having more enrichment capacity would help them do that. Again, I am not suggesting France and Japan's support for cutting Russia off is somehow self-centered and nefarious it is just in the world of nuclear there can always be multiple reasons for doing something. My own view is that if there is a reason Biden's Admin might be slow walking this is that the Jake Sullivan crowd in the WH still sees the US buying enriched uranium from Russia as some type of leverage of Russian behavior no matter how misguided that seems.
After listening to the second half of the podcast in my car and arriving back home from Vladislav's talk I do want want to push back a bit on Jon's contention that peaceful uses of nuclear energy has been a failure. I think maybe the more apt contention is that nuclear has been a failure in the two core Anglo Saxon nations of the UK and the US(although less so in the US sorry Jon) but I do think there is a case to be made that nuclear has a useful, significant and successful alternate energy source(particularly compared to Stalinist/Scargillite union mined coal or Russian Natural Gas) in countries such as Canada, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, and even post Soviet Ukraine. What I think has been a failure is the US led Atoms for Peace nuclear "order" where the US kept control of the most sensitive technological elements of nuclear energy in return for providing extended military deterrence to other countries. All of the countries that were really successful in civil nuclear all chafed and rebelled against the US desire for technological monopoly in nuclear and got the US to give up a lot of technical and non proliferation prerogatives that all else being equal the US would rather not have given up(Along with the fact that US extended deterrence looks rather wobbly in recent years). Now has say South Korean or Canadian nuclear been successful at producing energy because secretly it has all been a ruse and in reality all those nuclear power plants around Toronto, Canada are really just a way for the Canadian govt to keep the nuclear "card" in it's back pocket and the financial support Canada gave civil nuclear was really intended to keep the weapons/military option open. I genuinely don't know. I have friends in Canada who for example strongly believe that Canada should have it's own nuclear weapons but also that Canada's existing civil nuclear program has no military benefit. I personally don't know what I feel about this yet.
I do think and maybe this is a consequence of being a resident of a country that has nuclear weapons, if tomorrow in today's current international climate I was somehow made leader of a country without nuclear weapons one of the first questions I would asking myself is at the very least if I had to get my hands on some nuclear weapons in the future what is my plan and my country's plan for doing so. If my country already has lots of civil nuclear assets like Canada or Sweden what could I possibly get from them that helps my country develop a bomb?
I made the following comment or offer on the Middle East 101 page but I thought I should post it here.
I just want to throw an idea out there. As we get closer to what I think will be denouement of the class i.e. the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Israel/Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas conflict culminating into October 7th I thought it might be valuable to share some readings on the "nuclear" aspects of the Iran Nuclear Deal and how say the legacy of the Manhattan Project and Robert Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer won Best Picture best picture as everyone probably knows) affects and leads to the Iranian Nuclear program. I could also host some discussion sessions between now and when the Middle East 101 Class finally catches up to the Iranian Nuclear Deal(and Trump leaving the deal time period).
I would suggest that knowing terms like the Acheson Lilienthal Plan, the Treaty of Almelo, and the Budapest Memorandum are all important terms one should know when discussing the nuclear aspects of the Iran Nuclear Deal and Israel's opposition to it. While I feel hardly qualified to teach this subject compared to experts in the field, I do think I can come up with a list of readings and lead some discussions to the point that anyone who is interested would know pretty well what say the Acheson Lilienthal Plan, the Treaty of Almelo, and the Budapest Memorandum are among many other important subjects in global nuclear governance and international law and why they are important(EURATOM, and the McMahan Act are other things I can throw in as well).
Absolutely. Why don't you prepare a timeline, a glossary, and a list of recommended readings?
I have to leave for Vladislav's talk at Boston College in a few minutes but I will start typing some things when I get back.