Technology, Materials, and Knowledge Transfer in Nuclear Proliferation Networks: Findings and Implications

Abstract

This White Paper explicates policy analytical puzzles associated with illicit nuclear trafficking. Despite widespread appreciation of and research into the diffusion of sensitive nuclear materials, technology, and information, we lack systematic understanding of how different proliferation rings are organized and poised to leverage open logistical, political, and practical knowledge contexts to greater or lesser effect. Accordingly, this report presents a single framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different types of logistical and knowledge networks for spreading sensitive nuclear-related material and practical know-how among state and non-state actors. Specifically, alternative logistical and social network approaches are applied to conceptualize different levels of operation among nuclear proliferation rings. This provides quantitative and qualitative methods to extract and operationalize variables— e.g. characteristics of the personnel within the networks, the structure of nodes and characteristics of the links between them, and nature of the landscape in which they operated -- that correlate with trends in illicit nuclear trafficking and nuclear weapons development. These insights are probed in critical cases of North Korean, Iranian, and Pakistani proliferation networks to account for the mixed pathways, timing, and overall effectiveness of acquiring nuclear-related technology from abroad and absorbing/diffusing experiential knowledge within respective national contexts.