Siegfried Hecker testified April 30, 2008, about the importance of expanding the cooperative threat reduction programs to counter the growing proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons capability. A formal written statement is also available: Hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development

Thank you Chairman Dorgan, Senator Domenici and distinguished members of the Committee for giving me the opportunity to comment on the National Nuclear Security Administration's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation programs and its 2009 budget request. I have a written statement that I would like to submit for the record.

This morning I will summarize the three main points in my statement. My opinions have been shaped by 34 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and nearly 20 years of practicing nonproliferation with my feet on the ground in places like Russia, China, India, North Korea and Kazakhstan.  Much of this I have done with the strong support and encouragement of Senator Domenici.

1) The proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons capability is growing. Today, we face a nuclear threat in North Korea, nuclear ambitions in Iran, a nuclear puzzle in Syria, recently nuclear-armed states in Pakistan and India, and an improved, but not satisfactory, nuclear security situation in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union. The danger of nuclear terrorism is real. This is not a fight the United States can win alone. We cannot simply push the dangers beyond our borders. It is imperative to forge effective global partnerships to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Meeting these challenges requires diplomatic initiative and technical cooperation. The United States must lead international diplomacy and DOE/NNSA must provide technical leadership and capabilities. The NNSA has done a commendable job in nuclear threat reduction and combating nuclear proliferation. However, funds to support these activities are not commensurate with the magnitude or the urgency of the threat.

2) CTR began with Nunn-Lugar followed by Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation directed at the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union. We must stay engaged with Russia and the other states of the Soviet Union. Much progress has been made, but more needs to be done. We have to change the nature of the partnership to one in which Russia carries more of the burden.

We should expand the cooperative reduction programs aggressively to other countries that require technical or financial assistance. The nuclear threat exists wherever nuclear materials exist. These materials cannot be eliminated, but they can be secured and safeguarded. We should more strongly support the International Atomic Energy Agency and provide more support to countries that try to implement UNSCR 1540 to prevent nuclear terrorism, for example.

We should enlist other nations such as China, India, and for that matter, Russia, to build a strong global partnership to prevent proliferation and combat nuclear terrorism. China and India have for the most part sat on the sidelines while the U.S. has led the fight. Russia has not engaged commensurate with its nuclear status. These efforts are particularly important if nuclear energy is to experience a real renaissance.

3) The hallmark of all of these efforts must be technology, partnership and in-country presence. The DOE/NNSA has in its laboratories the principal nuclear expertise in this country. It should be applauded for sending its technical experts around the world, often in very difficult situations (I met up with the DOE team in North Korea on a bitterly cold February day). However, both for structural reasons and budgetary shortfalls, that technical talent is slowing fading away. We do not have in place the necessary personnel recruitment or the working environment in the laboratories or the pipeline of students in our universities to replenish that talent. I strongly support the NNSA's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative, which is aimed at tackling this problem.

Mr. Chairman, when I first visited Russia's secret cities in 1992 shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, I feared that its collapse may trigger a nuclear catastrophe. The fact that nothing really terrible has happened in the intervening 16 years is in great part due to the DOE/NNSA programs that your are considering today. We must now be just as innovative and creative to deal with the changing nuclear threat today.

In my statement I also mention the implications of my recent trips to North Korea and to India. However, since I am out of time, I will need to leave those for your questions.

Thank you for your attention.

CISAC's Co-Director Scott D. Sagan, professor of political science, is one of 190 new fellows and 22 foreign honorary members elected this year to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers. Sagan and Harvard's Steve Miller jointly direct a new initiative sponsored by the Academy to identify ways to manage the global spread of nuclear energy without a concurrent increase in nuclear weapons proliferation or nuclear terrorism.

CISAC's Co-Director Scott Sagan, professor of political science, is one of 190 new fellows and 22 foreign honorary members elected this year to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers. 

Sagan and Harvard's Steve Miller jointly direct a new initiative sponsored by the Academy to identify ways to manage the global spread of nuclear energy without a concurrent increase in nuclear weapons proliferation or nuclear terrorism.

Pavel Podvig and Anatoli Diakov, professor of physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), have been awarded the American Physical Society's (APS) Leo Szilard Lectureship Award "for establishing a center for scientific study of arms control, for landmark analyses, and for courage in supporting open discussion of international security in Russia." Since 1991, Diakov has directed MIPT's Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies.

Before coming to Stanford in 2004, Podvig worked at MIPT's Center for Arms Control Studies. In 1988, he graduated from MIPT with a physics degree and, in 1990, he helped Diyakov establish the center as Russia's first independent research organization dedicated to analysis of technical issues related to arms control and disarmament. Podvig's work at the center included research on the technical and political aspects of missile defense, early-warning, command and control, and the U.S.-Russian arms control process. In that role, Podvig had an opportunity to work with the leading technical groups in the United States at MIT and Princeton. In Moscow, he led a major research project and edited the book, "Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces" (MIT Press, 2001), which is considered the definitive source on Russia's strategic forces. In 2004, Podvig earned a doctorate in political science from the Moscow Institute of World Economy and International Relations. Since 2001, he has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists." Since 2006, he has been a member of the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists and was appointed committee chair in 2008.