Alan J. Kuperman, Nuclear Terrorism and Global Nuclear Security: The Challenge of Phasing out Highly Enriched Uranium, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2013

Alan J. Kuperman’s edited volume Nuclear Terrorism and Global Nuclear Security: The Challenge of Phasing out Highly Enriched Uranium explores the prospects and challenges involved in the process of global elimination of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Global commerce in HEU poses the inherent dangers of nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Recognising the above, the volume asserts that, ‘given the vast majority of non-weapons HEU commerce persist[ing]’ (p. 3), the international community needs to undertake concerted measures to minimise the dangers of HEU commerce.

Nuclear Terrorism and Global Nuclear Security is an edited volume comprising 15 chapters. The volume highlights the experiences of past successes wherein weapons-grade uranium has been eliminated from the civil sector, such as in Argentina’s manufacture of medical isotopes. Jared Berenter recognises that medical isotope production ‘may create a proliferation risk’ (p. 29) and hence suggests alternative techniques of medical isotope manufacture with Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), which is not suitable for weapons. The volume also focuses on future challenges that pose extensive security threats, such as Russia’s sustained use of HEU in several nuclear facilities. The book provides 13 case studies to emphasise meaningful policy recommendations for the global elimination of weapons-grade HEU.