Year
2017
Abstract
The international nuclear safeguards community is faced with a host of challengesin the coming years, many of which have been outlined but have not been described in terms oftheir urgency. Literature regarding safeguards challenges is either broad and devoid of anyreference to prioritization or tailored to a specific problem and removed from the overall goals ofthe safeguards community. For example, developing new methods of environmental sampling,improving containment and surveillance (C/S) technologies to increase efficiency and decreaseinspection time, advancing nuclear material accountancy (NMA) techniques, and planningsafeguards approaches for new types of nuclear facilities are all important. They have not,however, been distinctly prioritized at a high level within the safeguards community. Based on areview of existing literature and interviews with experts on these upcoming challenges, thispaper offers a high-level summary of present and future priorities in safeguards, with attentionboth to what is feasible and to what is most imperative. In doing so, the paper addresses thepotential repercussions for failing to prioritize, with a focus on the risk of diversion of nuclearmaterial. Within the context of shifts in the American political landscape, and keeping in mindthat nonproliferation issues may take a backseat to others in the near future, a prioritized view ofsafeguards objectives will be vital. In the interest of expanding upon this work, the paper offersseveral potential conceptual models for prioritization which can be explored in greater depthupon further research.