Nuclear Black Market Research Articles

Exploring the use of ‘third countries’ in proliferation networks: the case of Malaysia

Abstract‘Third countries’ are frequently exploited by those involved in networks to transfer proliferation-sensitive technologies, allowing procurement agents to obscure the end user or vendor located in the proliferating state, and to deceive industry, export licensing officials, and intelligence services. While ‘third countries’ frequently feature in illicit transactions, the academic literature exploring the roles played by entities in these jurisdictions is limited. Building on the sanctions busting literature, this article proposes a loose typology considering the ways in which third countries can be exploited by proliferation networks. The typology is illustrated using three cases involving entities based in Malaysia – A. Q. Khan’s nuclear black market network, and Iran and North Korea’s efforts to procure and market WMD-related and military goods. These cases are used to generate insights into proliferators’ selection of ‘third country’ hubs. The article argues that while exploitation of third countries by proliferation networks is a similar, but distinct phenomenon to trade-based sanctions busting, hubs of both activities share characteristics. Furthermore, the article argues that other factors beyond the lax regulatory environment, such as level of development, and personal connections, are often as important in driving the decisions of proliferation networks. The article concludes with implications for nonproliferation policy.

Uranium yellowcake trafficking incidents in Africa

The perpetuation of an otherwise astute fissile material safeguards model by the current non-proliferation regime raises a number of concerns, not least the efficacy of the approach in reducing clandestine weapon developments and the nuclear terrorism threat. Mindful of potential shifts in illicit nuclear material and weapon acquisition, following an excessive focus on fissile material safeguards and the proliferation of nuclear weapon technology, this article uses proliferation trend and scenario analysis in a bid to identify potential proliferation threats and non-proliferation opportunities. The results of the article's assessment of reported incidents (1992–2013) involving theft, unauthorised possession, and attempts to smuggle or sell highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, low-enriched uranium (LEU), natural uranium and uranium yellowcake reveal a decline in occurrences involving fissile material but an increase in uranium yellowcake incidents, particularly in Africa. Presumptions that yellowcake may have provided the newest threat to clandestine weapon developments and nuclear terrorism wane amid concerns over possible biases in reporting, scepticism over an organised and demand-driven nuclear black market, and the difficulties of non-state actors’ development of crude nuclear weapons off the tedious yellowcake conversion-enrichment-fabrication pathway. To secure Africa's uranium yellowcake from potential proliferators, the article proposes concerted domestic, regional and multilateral non-proliferation efforts.

Comparative Analysis of the Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Energy Development Programmes

Due to the traditional competition between India and Pakistan, their strategic fi elds developing are interdependent. Nuclear power development programs are concerned as well. Pakistan falls behind India in this branch, however the speci fi cs of the nuclear infrastructure let the potential of the states be relatively balanced. After Nuclear Suppliers Group granted a waiver to India in 2008 and Russia, France and USA, the new participants, broke into the market, India obtained an opportunity to make a breakthrough in the national nuclear program development, thus violating a status quo in fuel cycle technologies. Such chances stimulated China to violate the NSG guidelines and non-proliferations principles to get involved in Pakistani nuclear program development. The nuclear power Indian-Pakistani competition prospects largely depend on the Chinese position. Despite the international community suspects the Pakistani of fi cials in nuclear black market dealing and the NSG guidelines China obviously supports the Pakistani nuclear fi eld. This may result in preventing of escalation of tensions in the region.

Illicit Nuclear Trafficking: States, Non-State Actors and the Quest for Criminalization in International Law

Nuclear and other radioactive materials are being trafficked outside the realm of legality. These materials are likely to be used in terrorist attacks that could inflict, given the extremely perilous nature of such substances, an enormous amount of casualties and many unforeseen consequences. This fact raises crucial issues that require a precise examination of the wide variety of international legal instruments that could potentially be invoked to curb this threat. Given the shift from traditional nuclear energy markets towards new frontiers, it is indeed crucial to better investigate this phenomenon and the role that can be played by international law in the fight against illicit trafficking in nuclear materials, examining how the law views the different actors of the nuclear black market, in particular non-State actors, and which mechanisms have been set up so far in order to prevent and tackle this menace.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION NETWORKS

This article uses a geographic approach to examine one aspect of the nuclear black market: the coordinators who bring buyers and sellers together, and transport goods between them. The most important factor in determining the geographical structure of a proliferation network is the network coordinator's access (or lack thereof) to unique state resources. Coordinators with access to state resources and prerogatives can avoid embedding themselves in hostile countries or relying on commercial infrastructure, often leading to territorially diffuse logistical networks. Coordinators without such access are forced to rely on commercial infrastructure and favorable local political, economic, and social conditions, often resulting in territorially centralized logistical networks. This is illustrated through case studies of Abdul Qadeer Khan's supply networks to Pakistan, Libya, and Iran. The article concludes with some observations about the implications of a geographical approach for understanding nuclear proliferation networks.

The Black Sea: Center of the nuclear black market

The Black Sea region is the center of the world’s nuclear black market, with Russia being the known or suspected source of most nuclear contraband and Turkey the preferred destination. To date, known attempts at nuclear smuggling have been unsuccessful, because the insiders who stole fissile material were not experienced at finding buyers and moving the material across country borders. Recently, however, organized crime appears to have become involved in some nuclear trafficking. Such involvement threatens to change the nuclear terrorism equation, providing the marketing and transportation expertise previously lacking. The US response to nuclear smuggling is handled by the Defense Department and the Energy Department. These agencies have few capabilities for dealing with organized crime, and the countries of the Black Sea region tend not to share nuclear information with one another. Unless international coordination and law enforcement are improved, criminal organizations will likely be able to supply terrorists sufficient fissile material to build an atomic bomb.

The Danger of Nuclear Terrorism: The Indian Case

The concept of nuclear terrorism is possibly the least understood of all dangers emanating from nuclear weapons. However, certain drivers like the nuclear black market (the AQ Khan Network), proliferation of nuclear technology, and the increasing demand for nuclear energy can make it easier for terrorist organizations like Al Qaida to acquire fissile material. The threat of nuclear terrorism cannot be ignored any longer. Nuclear terrorism is a plausible phenomenon that deserves adequate consideration, substantial countermeasures, expertise, and competence to combat it.

Why Nuclear Smuggling Matters

Nuclear leakage from the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union is an ongoing national security concern of the United States. While little weapons-usable material and no nuclear warheads have surfaced in international smuggling channels, observed data from seizures and arrests are not necessarily representative of the wider universe of illegal nuclear deals. Political and economic upheavals and associated nuclear security problems in Russia in the 1990s accentuated the risk of serious proliferation episodes. Adversaries such as Iran and Al Qaeda have tried to exploit these vulnerabilities to further their nuclear ambitions, although with uncertain results. Improved intelligence collection on the nuclear black market—who the players are, what items they seek, how they plan to obtain them and how successful they have been—should complement the essentially reactive and stationary risk management systems now in place in Russia and elsewhere.

Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling Networks

Since public disclosure by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) of its uranium enrichment program in 2002 and the subsequent restarting of its plutonium reactor, policymakers and academics have expressed concern that the DPRK will one day export nuclear material or components. An examination of North Korea's involvement in nonnuclear criminal activities shows that the DPRK has established sophisticated transnational smuggling networks, some of which involve terrorist groups and others that have been able to distribute counterfeit currency and goods on U.S. territory. These networks provide North Korea with a significant amount of much-needed hard currency, but the DPRK regime's control over them has decreased over time. These developments suggest that North Korea has both the means and motivation for exporting nuclear material, and that concerns over nuclear export from the DPRK, authorized or not, are well founded. When placed in the context of the global nuclear black market, the North Korea case suggests that criminal networks are likely to play an increased role in future proliferation. In addition, it raises the concern that proliferation conducted through illicit networks will not always be well controlled by the supplier state. It is therefore imperative to track and curtail illicit networks not only because of the costs they impose, but also because of the deterrent value of countersmuggling efforts. New strategies that integrate law enforcement, counterproliferation, and nonproliferation tools are likely to have the greatest success in addressing the risks posed by illicit proliferation networks.

The Nuclear black market

The very mention of nuclear terrorism is enough to rouse strong reactions, and understandably so, because it combines the most terrifying weapons and the most threatening of people in a single phrase. The possibility that terrorists could obtain and use nuclear weapons deserves careful analysis, but discussion has all too often been contaminated with exaggeration, even hysteria. For example, it has been claimed that nuclear terrorism poses an ‘existential threat’ to the United States. This Adelphi Paper attempts to develop a more measured analysis of the risk of terrorists detonating a true fission device. The study attacks the problem from two perspectives: the considerable, possibly insurmountable, technical challenges involved in obtaining a functional nuclear weapon, whether ‘home-made’ or begged, borrowed or stolen from a state arsenal; and the question of the strategic, political and psychological motivations to ‘go nuclear’. The conclusions are that nuclear terrorism is a less significant threat than is commonly believed, and that, among terrorists, Muslim extremists are not the most likely to use nuclear weapons.

Rensselaer W. Lee III. Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998 (paperback edition, 2000). xviii, 205 pp. $16.95 (paper).

Rensselaer W. Lee III. Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998 (paperback edition, 2000). xviii, 205 pp. $16.95 (paper).

Smuggling Armageddon: the nuclear black market in the former Soviet Union and Europe

Smuggling Armageddon looks at one of the most important and troubling international concerns of the 1990s and beyond: the illegal trade in nuclear materials that has erupted in the Newly Independent States (NIS) and Europe since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Lee raises the central yet seldom-asked question of whether such traffic poses a threat to international security and stability. He unveils a grim picture that shows a Russia characterized by a variety of criminal proliferation channels; a Russia where smuggling operations are becoming progressively more sophisticated; and a Russia whose nuclear stockpiles already may have suffered serious leakages of weapons -- usable materials. Lee concludes his groundbreaking work by assessing the implications of study findings for U.S. policy and by offering insights on the future of the NIS smuggling industry.

IAEA and Non-Proliferation of a Nuclear Black Market

IAEA and Non-Proliferation of a Nuclear Black Market