Quantification of State-level Nuclear Security – an integrative approach for quantitative and qualitative analysis

The fourth and last Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) was held in last April. The perception of the globe on nuclear security and non-proliferation has been changed with a number of global events and the series of the NSS. Although an integrated way of global regime or an effective system that can contribute to nuclear security is still unachieved, efforts to measure state-level nuclear security in quantitative way could prove useful. The Nuclear Materials Security Index developed by NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative) with EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) is the most representative one so far, covering a wide range of factors to address a State’s nuclear security condition. The third version of NTI’s report has come out in January 2016, reflecting the circumstances of significantly growing threat of theft and sabotage to nuclear materials and facilities. This study reviews the current methodology of NTI and tries to suggest a more integrative evaluation frame considering the vulnerability to sabotage and covering cross-national characteristic of terrorism/sabotage. Also as a complementary approach to the NTI’s index, ways to refine the indicators for nuclear security culture will be explored with quantitative data on fundamental traits of national characteristics. Integrating such database as an indicator might suggest another approach to combine a qualitative analysis on a country’s nuclear security profile. With the suggestion of adjusted evaluation frame, impacts on overall rankings will also be examined. We are hoping that an integrated nuclear security profile and assessment frame might provide a linkage for the continuation of the nuclear security momentum afterward.