Breaking the rules without quite stopping the bomb: European views

Abstract

While nonproliferation is no longer in the focus of international attention in the aftermath of the Afghanistan crisis, the problem of checking the spread of nuclear weapons was the subject of an intense controversy between the United States and Europe throughout the 1970s.Beginning with the Ford administration policy and continuing with the new Carter nonproliferation policy, a major nuclear controversy opposed the American and European nuclear suppliers.The first area of controversy was the question of technological transfers to the Third World and the conditions for such transfers (embargoes on sensitive technology, IAEA safeguards). The controversy also spread into the area of the plutonium economy—i.e., breeders and reprocessing. On both of these questions, most of the problems raised in the 1970s are still open despite some rapprochement between European and American positions. Major points of disagreement remain in the aftermath of the INFCE: full scope safeguards, the question of breeder reactors, and plutonium economy. The major uncertainty for the future will be whether nuclear energy as a whole will remain in the present state of depression or whether nuclear programs throughout the world will grow again.