American Purpose

The Curious Endurance of Atoms for Peace

Peaceful nuclear power was a political gambit from the start. Why does it still continue?

 Henry Sokolski | Aug 14, 2024

The Atoms For Peace bus, a mobile exhibit about nuclear power operated for a time by the Atomic Energy Commission. (Corbis via Getty Images.)

Seventy-one years ago, while President Eisenhower was vacationing in Colorado, the Soviets tested their first thermonuclear device. It failed as a true fusion weapon, but the 400 kilotons of energy it released (roughly 25 times more than was released over Hiroshima) rattled Washington. More important, it spurred the formulation of one of America’s most curious endeavors: Atoms for Peace and its policy that spread dangerous nuclear technology world-wide. 

This program’s continued endurance is difficult to understand. Its historical genesis, though, is clear enough. Early in 1953, J. Robert Oppenheimer briefed Eisenhower on the findings of a classified nuclear disarmament advisory panel Truman had asked Oppenheimer to chair. The panel’s findings were grim: Within a few short years, the Soviets would have enough nuclear weapons to knock out one hundred of America’s largest cities in a surprise attack. The United States might retaliate by destroying Moscow but America itself would be in ruins. The bottom line: Unless Russia capped its nuclear buildup, America and Russia would be able to land deadly strikes against one another but be unable to survive or thrive. Compounding the problem was that Moscow might not understand this. Oppenheimer urged Eisenhower to clarify the threat publicly.

What ensued was a close-hold assignment—“Operation Candor”—a speechwriting project, chaired by psychological policy advisor C.D. Jackson to produce the seemingly impossible: a presidential address that would explain the emerging nuclear threat without frightening America. Months of feckless drafting efforts followed. Then, on August 12, 1953, the Russians detonated Joe-4, a massive weapon that brought the “critical date”—when Russia might knock out the United States—even closer. 

The test made headline news. It also catalyzed an idea Eisenhower had already been mulling to pit the good atom of nuclear power against the evil atom of war. Why not ask the Russians to make joint fissile material contributions with the United States to fuel peaceful nuclear power projects globally. The idea here would be to goad Moscow into contributing so much of its military fissile material to an international atomic bank for civilian projects so as to keep it from ever acquiring a nuclear arsenal large enough to knock out America. Such a program, Eisenhower explained, might achieve the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament “by the back door”—i.e. without the intrusive on-site inspections that the Soviets had already rejected.

Eisenhower liked his idea. Nuclear experts, though, were skeptical. Lewis Strauss, Eisenhower’s top nuclear official, doubted the proposed fissile contributions would ever be large enough to matter. J. Robert Oppenheimer also was doubtful, dismissing the program’s connection to disarmament as sentimental and illusory.

Over time, the truth turned out to be much harsher. No joint U.S.-Soviet fissile contributions were ever made. Instead, Soviet and American nuclear weapons deployments ramped up exponentially. Worse, countries piggybacked off of the “peaceful” nuclear projects the program promoted to create nuclear weapons efforts of their own. France, Russia, the UK, and India (a major beneficiary of the Atoms for Peace program) used their “peaceful,” dual-use nuclear power plants to make bombs. South Africa, Iraq, Sweden, Italy, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil and Argentina all attempted to do so. Today, experts fear China, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, and Japan might do the same. 

Have those unforeseen consequences put an end to Eisenhower’s fanciful program? No. In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which the Atoms for Peace program helped create, actually built a version of Eisenhower’s proposed fissile bank in Kazakhstan to assure nuclear fuel supplies to countries hungering after nuclear fuel.

Then there is the U.S.-Russian “megatons to megawatts” nuclear fuel downblending program, launched in 1993. It converted 500 tons of weapons-grade Russian uranium to low enriched uranium to fuel U.S. power reactors. These numbers are impressive but after twenty years of operation, the program failed to limit Russia’s or China’s continued nuclear ramp-up. Nonetheless, the megawatts program, like the Kazakhstan fissile bank, is still cast as a practical option to promote nuclear weapons restraint.

Why is unclear.

Even more curious is the persistent popularity of Atoms for Peace’s promotion of  nuclear power. In 1954, Eisenhower’s Atomic Energy Commission chairman insisted nuclear electricity would be “too cheap to meter.” The prospect of limitless, “free” electricity continues to mesmerize governments and the public. Yet, after decades of massive government subsidies, nuclear power still only constitutes 10 percent of the world’s electrical generation and this percentage is expected to plateau or decline by 2050. As for its cost, nuclear reactors—small, large, modular or not—are now the most expensive way to generate electricity. 

Additional problems have emerged. In the Middle East, Israel, Iraq, Iran, and the United States have all targeted nuclear reactors as part of their military operations on more than a dozen occasions. Since 2022, Putin has attacked Ukraine’s research and power reactors repeatedly. Meanwhile, Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and Israel have all threatened to target their neighbors’ nuclear plants. If they do, the environmental, military, and diplomatic effects of a major radiological release from nuclear plants in war zones could be huge.

Undeterred, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea all want to build and operate additional nuclear power plants. They insist nuclear power is necessary to bolster their energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. None, however, has clarified how they might prevent these plants from being seized militarily or becoming targets. 

What explains this? 

One possibility is inertia. For decades, governments have invested significant capital into civilian nuclear projects, creating a multitude of vested interests eager to keep the money flowing. Electrical utility systems in many countries are owned and operated by national authorities that can ignore or muffle negative market signals. In the United States, many utilities’ spending on expensive nuclear construction projects are rewarded with higher utility rates, whether the project is the best economical choice or not. Once a major reactor project runs over-budget in regulated jurisdictions, these costs are not necessarily “prohibitive” as long as the project enjoys political support.

What, though, explains such backing? Frequently, contractors and public officials warn against “losing” the costs already sunk in an expensive nuclear project as a way of justifying the completion of plants that are decades behind schedule and billions over budget. This, however, fails to explain why states launch such projects even when they’ve been flagged as being financially dubious from the outset.

A deeper set of explanations is needed.

A worrisome possibility is that countries lacking nuclear arms view building and operating reactors as an amiable way to develop a nuclear weapons option. “Peaceful” nuclear plants, after all, can serve as bomb starter kits. This certainly explains Saddam Hussein’s construction of Osirak and its supporting facilities, as well as Syria’s construction of its reactor. It also explains Sweden’s original heavy water reactor project, Israel’s construction of Dimona, and Iran’s extensive nuclear activities. Taiwan’s and South Korea’s early nuclear weapons ambitions, as well as those of Argentina, France, Italy, Algeria, Brazil, India, Pakistan, and South Africa were also all fueled by first standing up a “peaceful” nuclear reactor. Exploiting civilian nuclear projects to develop bomb options might soon contribute to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt’s nuclear programs.

The nuclear weapons potential of nuclear plants also produces a halo effect for small and large reactor sales to medium and developing nations. China and Russia, on the one hand, and the United States, South Korea, and France, on the other, are now competing for nuclear power markets in Eastern Europe, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. For nuclear suppliers, securing nuclear deals in these regions is not only about establishing or maintaining a geopolitical-economic foothold, but about sustaining their own economically-fragile domestic nuclear vendors.

Meanwhile, most nuclear client states find the energy security rationale for nuclear power appealing—so much so that they are willing to commit to projects that put them into serious debt. They also give lip service to limiting greenhouse gas emissions, even though nuclear power’s current contribution to countering climate change is marginal and a distraction from more viable renewable energy solutions.

All these claims skim over an underlying explanation—that promoting “peaceful” nuclear power never was or is much of an end in itself, but instead is only sustainable as a support to some grander goal. When Eisenhower first proposed Atoms for Peace, his main objective was to somehow reduce the public’s fear of nuclear war by presenting as an alternative a peaceful, prosperous nuclear future. Eisenhower proposed nuclear power’s development even though he and his advisors suspected nuclear energy might not be economically viable for a decade or more.

This did not matter. Eisenhower wanted to have a more positive vision guide his policies than the impending threat of a Russian nuclear knock out blow. He proposed Atoms for Peace to offer hope against this fear. 

Was there ever a real, clear fix against the threat of nuclear war? Did the Atoms for Peace program address the most likely nuclear threat that could defeat the United States? Was the program’s hope of drawing down stockpiles and production of nuclear fissile material all that sound?  No. 

Again, it did not matter. America and the world needed to believe that the most powerful nuclear-armed state—the United States—had both a clear desire and a plan to skirt Armageddon. By fully committing to an ambitious (albeit questionable) program of peaceful nuclear development, Eisenhower convinced the world and himself just how dedicated he and America were to security and economic development. It helped that, early on, few had a clear idea of what nuclear deterrence or developing nuclear power actually required.

In subsequent decades, America’s organizing principles changed but the use of peaceful nuclear energy to achieve them persisted. In the 1960s, the Great Society’ commitment to eliminating poverty and making the “deserts bloom” embraced the Atomic Energy Commission’s fantastic vision of bringing a thousand reactors (both fast and thermal) online by the year 2000.

Today, nuclear power boosters pitch nuclear power in an effort to help America become energy-independent. They insist net zero is impossible without nuclear energy. As such, the uncertain costs of small, advanced modular reactors and the poor financial performance of the large ones are no longer relevant: Achieving energy security and stopping global warming are “existential” imperatives whose ultimate value cannot be fully internalized in any compelling, quantitative fashion. When it comes to saving America and the world, money no longer is much of an object. Nor are the technical, safety, environmental and military concerns these projects raise.

What might change this?

One possibility is the emergence of economically-distributed electrical supply systems. The further development of affordable electrical storage batteries, improved switching and monitoring technologies, and advanced distribution and transmission systems should make this possible. Such systems might even render nuclear or non-nuclear baseload generators unnecessary. The growing vulnerability of electrical supply systems and of nuclear plants to cyber and physical attacks might catalyze these developments. On the other hand, vested industry interests and local regulatory and bureaucratic inertia could easily slow them.

Another possibility is that a major reactor accident or attack on a nuclear plant could produce a major radiological release that might catalyze support for developing safer, cheaper, non-nuclear power alternatives. 

A similar but more worrisome negative incentive might happen if “peaceful” nuclear plants and  know-how are ever exploited to make bombs. If states made weapons from such plants and fired them, it would cast a pall over “peaceful” nuclear energy. It also would increase demand for tougher nuclear controls, which could detect possible military nuclear diversions early enough to prevent bombs from being built. Such tighter controls, in turn, would necessarily restrict nuclear fuel making and the operation of the most proliferation-prone of reactor types.

Unfortunately, the last half century suggests that demand for such exacting inspections is hardly high. However, it can be generated. In 1974, India’s “peaceful” nuclear test, which used plutonium produced in a “peaceful” nuclear reactor, prompted a serious tightening of the nuclear rules. Perhaps another “peaceful” test by another non-weapons state might result in the same consequences. Until then, though, support for Atoms for Peace and its mixed results are likely to persist.

Henry Sokolski is Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future. He served as Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the George H.W. Bush Administration.