(An) approach to proliferation risk assessment

Abstract

As the need for global decarbonization rises, the use of nuclear power will continue to spread. The international community, therefore, has the mission of promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy while minimizing uncertainty about proliferation that arises from the dual-use characteristics of nuclear technologies. My dissertation proposes an integrated methodology for predicting a country's nuclear proliferation risk, a methodology that improves on the approaches and data use of previous studies. My work seeks to determine whether a progressive pattern of nuclear technological cooperation and nuclear-related research can predict a country’s proliferation potential. Such predictions would be based on countries that have historically developed nuclear weapons. Specifically, I use existing proliferation data, data on nuclear technological cooperation, and nuclear energy-related journal article materials. The first two studies of the dissertation examine proliferation uncertainty/progression by using data on the nuclear cooperation of all countries and on the patterns of research network progression over time in North Korea. The last study evaluates whether deep learning algorithms can be used to simulate the behavior of nuclear weapons programs of countries that have historically developed nuclear weapons.