The International Security Implications Of U.S. Domestic Nuclear Power Decisions

The United States makes decisions regarding the domestic uses of nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle primarily based economic considerations, domestic political constraints, and environmental impact concerns. Such factors influence U.S. foreign policy decisions as well, but foreign policy decisions are often more strongly determined by national security considerations, including concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism. As a political scientist who studies other states’ weapons proliferation and nonproliferation decisions, I am acutely aware of how often U.S. domestic nuclear power decisions influence other states’ nuclear energy decisions in complex ways that impact our security interests, through modeling good or bad behaviors, by strengthening or weakening our diplomatic persuasiveness, and by providing or not providing new tools that promote nonproliferation and security cooperation. U.S. policy-makers and scholars, however, too often ignore or underestimate the influence of U.S. domestic nuclear decisions on those of foreign governments. The Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) should take advantage of the opportunity to focus national attention on specific U.S. domestic nuclear power policies and actions that would better promote our broader global nonproliferation and nuclear security interests.