Excess weapons plutonium: How to reduce a clear and present danger

The ongoing dismantlement of tens of thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons offers immeasurable benefits for the security of the United States and the world. But it is also creating a daunting new security challenge: controlling the risks of theft, proliferation and reversal of ongoing arms reductions posed by the growing U.S. and Russian stockpiles of excess separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU). As some of us warned three years ago in the first volume of a two-part National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study of this issue, these materials pose a {open_quotes}clear and present danger to national and international security.{close_quotes} It is vital that these stockpiles be safely and securely transformed as quickly as possible into forms much harder to use for bomb building. Doing so will reduce the danger of theft of the materials for weapons use by rogue states or terroists and will create significant barriers against its reincorporation into U.S. and Russian arsenals. This action, which will send a signal to the world that the United States and Russia do not intend to reuse these materials, will improve prospects for further nuclear arms reductions and strengthen the international non-proliferation regime. 2 figs.