No Nuclear Security without Transparency

Sobia Paracha

Security, Americas

Cooperation and collaboration should extend beyond the Nuclear Security Summit.

Nuclear security has improved internationally to a great extent through President Obama’s initiative of Nuclear Security Summits, but it still has a long way to go after the NSS process comes to an end. Since the first NSS summit in Washington, many bilateral and multilateral initiatives have been launched by states to guard against the menace of nuclear terrorism. One of the important successes of the NSS process is that it has helped improve the security of fissile materials present in many non–nuclear weapons states if such materials have not been totally removed. Based on international efforts and cooperation many countries have improved their nuclear security by transforming their Design Based Threat.

The NSS process has been a success primarily because it brought the agenda of nuclear security to the forefront of international policy and politically internationalized it the way more formal initiatives on nuclear and radiological security like Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) and UNSCR 1540 etc. did not. However, international nuclear security regime remains uneven and weak. Nuclear security debate is not complete without the discussion on instituting transparency in both military and civilian programs. Generally in international cooperation security is perceived to be gained by sharing knowledge, not by hoarding it. However, transparency would be one of the fundamental and hardest targets in order to achieve a positive international security culture and common international standards for nuclear security.