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Global Nuclear Security Culture Needed, Experts Say By David Ruppe LONDON — The international community must promote a stronger nonproliferation culture to improve the security of nuclear and radioactive materials worldwide, experts said here Friday (see GSN, March 18). “Why haven’t we yet achieved the gold standard for security for nuclear materials around the globe?” asked Laura Holgate, vice president for Russia and New Independent State Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, at a conference sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. “The answer is that we have not yet made it a priority. It’s not a matter of technology. It’s a matter of human judgment,” she said. While national leaders have called the potential for nuclear weapons terrorism the No. 1 threat, Holgate said, “We can pick out many other priorities that are competing against this supposed top priority and winning.” She said, for example, that U.S. and Russian officials are sacrificing “progress on bilateral security cooperation based on Cold War worries about theft of bomb designs when we can blow each other up several times over and the world with us.” Progress on U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation also has been hampered by disagreements over which party might pay damages in case of an accident at a site, along with “far-fetched scenarios of saboteurs secretly embedded in Western companies who are providing assistance to Russia’s nuclear industry,” Holgate said. Countries are fighting the development of binding international standards for nuclear security in “misguided attempts to preserve sovereignty and national pride,” she said. In Russia, nuclear facility guards have shut down alarm systems to avoid the annoyance of frequent false alarms and left their posts to forage for food, she said. “Too few people involved in nuclear security have truly internalized the threats we face today, and are therefore not setting proper priorities,” she said. “Every [security] system is inadequate if there is no security culture shared by the whole staff,” said Eric Plaisant, a commissioner at the French Economy, Finance and Industry Ministry. “Security has to be a concern for everyone and not just for some specialists,” he said. Holgate said improvements are occurring in Russia, which has the largest stores of unsecured nuclear materials. She noted the presence of nuclear security culture coordinators at some facilities whose activities are supported by U.S. aid. She said, though, that Russian security culture is a particular concern, with officials stressing the importance of improving security hardware and focusing less on factors such as “reliable funding streams, commitment to following procedures, and a management culture that recognizes the centrality of the nuclear security mission.” Holgate noted a report released by the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security in 2002 that listed measures for improving the security culture at Russian nuclear sites (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2002 ). She said Russia is “far from the only nation” that needs improvements to its security culture. Andrei Malyshev, who heads Russia’s Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service, Rostechnadzor, took exception to Holgate’s characterization of Russian security culture. “In the last few years we have substantially increased the level of physical protection,” he said. “I do not agree with the conclusions that were announced here.” He said “serious infringements” of security requirements at nuclear facilities detected by the Russian nuclear energy regulators dropped from 655 in 1999 to 175 in 2003. Quoting that same 2003 statistic last year, though, Malyshev said “The physical protection of nuclear facilities in Russia cannot be recognized as being satisfactory,” according to Russian news service Interfax. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group]
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