Analysts are concerned that Iran's development of laser enrichment technology to produce uranium for its nuclear program is an indicator that not only has the nonproliferation export control regime has failed but that its too late to do anything about it.
International inspectors report that Iran's nuclear-energy scientists have produced uranium metal and are testing powerful green lasers -- potential steps toward an exotic means of harvesting weapons fuel that so far has been the exclusive province of developed nuclear nations.
Arms control experts warn that North Korea and Iran appear to have succeeded in mounting clandestine programs for enriching uranium for weapons by breaking through a number of legal and technological safeguards with the help a shadowy new "proliferation ring," or distribution network, involving a number of less developed countries.
Selig Harrison argues that the U.S. should end its double standard with India and provide them with the same civillian nuclear reactor technology they have exported to China to reduce the risk of Indian Chernobyls.
Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, argues that the Bush Administration's decision to lower the barriers on the export supercomputers has given terrorists and rogue states the tools they need to build nuclear weapons.
One of the casualties of this fall’s terrorist attacks upon the United States may have been the latest effort to reform controls limiting exports of technologies (ex. encryption or missile guidance) that could provide a military advantage to the nation’s potential enemies.