Short Course on The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: History, Threats and Solutions

On 23-25 February 2022, the Vienna Center for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (VCDNP) virtually held the second course on nuclear non-proliferation for graduate and post-graduate students in the fields of IT and engineering.

The course, entitled “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: History, Threats and Solutions”, was held in the framework of the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium (EUNPDC), of which the VCDNP is part.

The three-day course was designed to introduce technical students to the topics of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. The program covered a broad range of issues rangingfrom the fundamentals of the nuclear fuel cycle and the history of the spread of nuclear weapons, to export controls and the challenges and opportunities presented by advanced and emerging technologies.

The students learned about various elements of the international non-proliferation regime, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its safeguards, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) and the verification system it establishes. Course participants also received a show and tell lecture covering various technologies used by IAEA safeguards inspectors. The programme included a case study on the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea and provided an overview of how open-source information and tools, including satellite imagery and image analysis software, can be used to monitor nuclear and missile programmes such as that of North Korea.

The course brought together 20 participants from fourteen European universities and two non-European universities. Participants came from nine countries and ranged in level from advanced bachelor studies to PhD candidates. The lecturers included experts from the VCDNP, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), King’s College London (KCL), Chatham House, Open Nuclear Network, the Verification Research, Training and Information Center (VERTIC), and the Austrian Red Cross.

At the end of the course, participants completed an anonymous evaluation, providing feedback on the program and suggestions for improvement. The participants highlighted the usefulness of the course and stressed their appreciation for the level of expertise of the speakers. A selection of comments is posted below (quoted as written):

“I thought this was a very well-organized course with a nice mixture of policy/technical aspects of nuclear weapons. I learned a lot!”

“I have enjoyed the way information was delivered. It was catchy, easy to follow, very useful and well organized.”

“Already the program sounded promising, but how presentations were held and how they were interconnected clearly exceeded my expectations and motivates me to engage more with this topic.”

“I came here to learn about how and if I can contribute to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. I am now even more motivated to change to the field, and I feel that I could be a valuable member to this field; now knowing more about the challenges also on other levels.”

The VCDNP extends its gratitude to the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium for their generous support that made this course possible. The course was funded by the European Union through the EUNPDC pursuant to the EU Council Decision 2018/299.