Recasting the geopolitics of US–Russian commercial nuclear rivalry by embracing strategic complementarity

Abstract

There is much ado nowadays about the flagging commercial nuclear industry in the United States. Although the country maintains the largest global fleet of reactors, more than one-third operate at a loss, and the industry is on pace to lose more than 20 percent of its generating capacity by 2050. This crisis is unfolding as Russia’s stateowned nuclear industry has become the largest global supplier of new nuclear reactors, driven by its build-own-operate export model and Russian government financing for international reactor projects. This financing is “large (in total amount provided), cheap (with low interest rates) and long-lived (with long repayment periods).” Not surprisingly, many US nuclear officials, policy experts, and corporate leaders fear that without concerted government intervention, the US nuclear industry is teetering on the precipice of irrelevance as a strategic global supplier, just as the prospects for long-term strategic confrontation with Moscow are materializing with Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Advocates justify US government intervention by arguing that the domestic nuclear industry is a “key national security enabler,” ensuring US-origin fuel for the nuclear navy, as well as a pillar of the promotion and enforcement of Washington’s nonproliferation objectives. The industry’s link to nonproliferation is due to long-standing US laws mandating that any country wishing to conduct business with an American nuclear firm must have a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement in force with the US government. These “123 agreements,” named for the section of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act that describes their form and function, establish the legal framework for any future nuclear cooperation with the United States. This framework includes delineating the scope of nuclear technology, material, and equipment that the United States is willing to provide under the agreement, as well as defining the terms, conditions, and restrictions