The nine nations that possess nuclear weapons have enough plutonium and high-enriched uranium collectively to build more than 100,000 additional nuclear weapons, according to a new report aimed at controlling the spread of such weapons and the materials to make them.

This considerable surplus of nuclear-explosive, or fissile, materials threatens global security, as other nations or terrorists seek the means to build nuclear weapons. "Despite a compelling security requirement to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and additional countries," the report warns, "not nearly enough is being done today to achieve this objective."

A group of 23 nuclear experts, convened by Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security (PS&GS), issued the report, "Preventing Nuclear Proliferation and Nuclear Terrorism: Essential Steps to Reduce the Availability of Nuclear-Explosive Materials."

The report details which nations currently have the means to produce nuclear weapons and how much fissile material they possess. "This distribution of fissile material defines the critical tasks facing the international community," the report states. It calls for nations to cooperate on seven steps.

At the top of the report's "to-do list for the international community" is closing what some see as a gaping loophole in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)--the ability of a nation to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities and then withdraw from the NPT without penalty. So the report first proposes that the U.N. Security Council establish sanctions to impose against any country that withdraws from the NPT and attempts to build weapons using fissile materials and facilities obtained under the treaty for ostensibly peaceful purposes.

The NPT, in effect since 1970, will undergo its seventh 5-year review by more than 180 member states May 2-27 in New York. The report, issued in time for this review, recommends six additional steps for consideration by the conference delegates and other nuclear nonproliferation specialists:

-- "strengthen international physical security standards;

-- "stop the uncontrolled spread of uranium enrichment plants," and "subject all enrichment plants to an extra layer of multinational monitoring;"

-- declare a moratorium on building new plants to reprocess spent nuclear fuel that could be diverted to weapons production;

-- "conclude a verified global treaty ending all further production of fissile materials for weapons;

-- "dispose of much more of the excess fissile materials recovered from dismantled Cold War weapons; and

-- "phase out the use of high-enriched uranium (HEU) as a reactor fuel," in favor of low-enriched uranium, which cannot be made into nuclear weapons without further enrichment.

Some of the study group's recommendations "have been on the international agenda for decades," the report points out, but "most are barely moving forward, if not completely stalled. These measures urgently need high-level attention."

"All of the report's proposals focus on weapons-usable fissile materials--highly enriched uranium and plutonium--because they are the essential materials for nuclear weapons," said CISAC Co-Director Christopher F. Chyba, who led the study with PS&GS Co-Directors Harold Feiveson and Frank von Hippel. "They and the technologies to produce them must be much more strictly controlled if further nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism are to be prevented. The report lays out a series of steps to do so," Chyba added.

The researchers intended to strengthen similar proposals under discussion. The report "gives technical details and support to policy ideas on the control of nuclear explosive materials and their means of production that Mohamed ElBaradei (director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency) and others have been forwarding," explained Feiveson.

While the report emphasizes physical security measures geared toward reducing the supply of nuclear weapons materials, its authors acknowledge that "demand-side measures" are "equally important." A comprehensive strategy to halt nuclear proliferation must also "address the reasons that certain states choose to pursue nuclear weapons," the report states.

The research group of scientists, political scientists, and international legal experts from leading research and regulatory institutions met at Stanford University in August 2003 to begin their assessment of the global stock of nuclear weapons and the nuclear-explosive materials needed to make them and to outline a plan for limiting the spread of these materials. They continued to refine their recommendations, to produce their report in time for this year's NPT review.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- The European Union is increasingly showing a new independent stance on foreign-policy issues as the logic of its industrial and economic integration plays out in the international arena.

Already the EU has taken a distinct and independent approach to both the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the nuclear crisis in Iran. Now it has broken ranks over the Korean Peninsula, fed up and concerned with the failure to resolve the ongoing crisis over North Korea's development of nuclear arms.

Reflecting this new stance, the European Parliament this week passed a comprehensive resolution on the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and nuclear arms in North Korea and Iran:

• It urges the resumption of the supply of heavy fuel oil (HFO) to North Korea in exchange for a verified freeze of the Yongbyong heavy-water reactor, which is capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, to avoid a further deterioration in the situation. At the same time it is calling for the European Council and Commission to offer to pay for these HFO supplies.
• It urges the Council of Ministers to reconsider paying 4 million Euros of the suspension costs for KEDO (the Korea Energy Development Organization) to South Korea to ensure the continued existence of an organization that could play a key role in delivering energy supplies during a settlement process.
• It demands that the Commission and Council request EU participation in future six-party talks, making it clear that the EU will in the future adopt a "no say, no pay" principle in respect to the Korean Peninsula. Having already placed more than $650 million worth of humanitarian and development aid into the North, it is no longer willing to be seen merely as a cash cow. This view was backed in the debate by the Luxembourg presidency and follows a line initially enunciated by Javier Solana's representatives last month in the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee.
• It urges North Korea to rejoin the NPT, return to the six-party talks and allow the resumption of negotiations.

The EP cannot substantiate U.S. allegations that North Korea has an HEU (highly enriched uranium) program or that North Korea provided HEU to Libya. It has called for its Foreign Affairs Committee to hold a public hearing to evaluate the evidence. "Once bitten, twice shy" is the consequence of U.S. claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The world order is changing; the EU -- like China -- is emerging as a significant global power economically with the euro challenging the dollar as the global currency (even prior to the latest enlargement from 15 to 25 member states, the EU's economy was bigger than that of the United States). Speaking at Stanford University earlier this month, former U.S. foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out that the EU, U.S., China, Japan and India will be the major powers in the new emerging global order. Since the new Asia will have three out of the five major players, he stressed the importance of engaging with it.

How will those already in play respond? Some may claim that statements by North Korea welcoming the EU's involvement and participation are merely polite, inoffensive small talk that cannot be taken seriously. Yet there have been a spate of pro-EU articles appearing in Rodong Sinmun, the daily newspaper of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers Party, since 2001.

Of 128 EU-related articles between 2001 and 2004, a majority praised Europe's independent counter-U.S. stance, emphasized its increasing economic power and influence, and heralded its autonomous regional integration. Rodong Sinmun portrays the EU as the only superpower that can check and balance U.S. hegemony and America's unilateral exercise of military power.

North Korea's perception of the EU is well reflected in articles such as: "EU becomes new challenge to U.S. unilateralism"; "Escalating frictions (disagreements) between Europe and U.S."; "European economy (euro) dominating that of the U.S."; "Europe strongly opposing unilateral power play of U.S.," and so forth.

Concurrently, North Korea has pursued active engagement with the EU by establishing diplomatic relations with 24 of the 25 EU member states (the exception being France). It is not necessary to read between the lines to recognize North Korea's genuine commitment to engagement with the EU based on its perception of the EU's emerging role on the world stage.

The Republic of Korea has publicly welcomed the prospect of EU involvement, while China wishes to go further and engage in bilateral discussions with the EU on its new policy toward the North. Russia will follow the majority. The problem is with Japan and the U.S.

In Japan, opinion is split by hardliners in the Liberal Democratic Party who view problems with North Korea as a convenient excuse to justify the abandonment of the Peace Constitution. They don't want a quick solution until crisis has catalyzed the transformation of Japan into what advocates call a "normal" country.

The U.S. expects an EU financial commitment, but not EU participation. The neocons believe that EU participation would change the balance of forces within the talks inexorably toward critical engagement rather than confrontation.

The question is whether the EU's offer will point the U.S. into a corner or trigger a breakthrough. Will U.S. fundamentalists outmaneuver the realists who favor a diplomatic rather than military solution? Only time will tell.

Glyn Ford, a Labour Party member of the European Parliament (representing South West England), belongs to the EP's Korean Peninsula Delegation. Soyoung Kwon is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Seriously studied for almost sixty years, nothing would seem better understood than the effects and terrible consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. Yet, surprisingly, for decades, one far-reaching effect--the mass fire damage caused by "firestorms"--was neither examined in depth nor widely understood. This matters because, for modern nuclear weapons, under almost all conditions and for many targets of interest, the range of devastation from mass fire substantially exceeds that of damage from blast. Once mass fire began to be studied analytically and through reanalysis of empirical experience, the quite well-developed findings were not widely accepted. There may be somewhat greater acceptance now, but, when it comes to nuclear operations, understanding by physicists is not enough. Knowledge has to be incorporated into organizational procedures, specifically, the algorithms used in strategic nuclear war planning.

For complete article, see Physics and Society: "Underestimating the consequences of use of nuclear weapons: Condemned to repeat the past's errors?"

There is no way to deal with the policy and the moral issues related to the use of nuclear weapons without understanding the technical background, at least to the extent that (as I tell students), the politicians representing them, their staff, and the executive leading private companies involved must understand them. The technical knowledge is essential in itself and it also provides a common basis for broader discussion. There are a few major topics under the heading of nuclear issues, and each has an underlying technical component. The dangers are nuclear terrorism, launch of a nuclear weapon owing to warning system failure, and nuclear war, in any of several forms. The positive side includes nuclear energy if it is done right, nuclear medicine and industrial applications.