Corrupting Nuclear Security: Potential Gaps and New Approaches to Insider Risk Mitigation

Much of the literature on nuclear security focuses on identifying approaches that strengthen physical protection (PP) systems (“guards, gates, guns”) and improve material control and accounting (MC&A) methods and technologies. Despite the growing body of evidence indicating that a well-placed insider could overcome some of the most sophisticated PP and MC&A systems, less attention has been focused on studying the “human factor” -- that is, analyzing the potential motivations, capabilities, and pathways an insider might take to perpetrate an act of nuclear theft or sabotage.

Corruption of an insider within an organization represents one of the likely pathways by which a security system might be deliberately compromised at a nuclear facility to facilitate nuclear theft or sabotage. Recent history demonstrates that the risk of insider corruption to a security regime is all too real. Yet, paradoxically, “anti-corruption” and “human reliability” in the nuclear security realm are typically treated separately, using different means, for different ends – potentially missing corruption risks that could feasibly be mitigated.

This paper offers an overview of the conceptual linkages between nuclear security and corruption and presents a brief review of experience from the realms of nuclear non-proliferation, breaches of highly sensitive national security information, and high-value thefts and heists. It then offers a preliminary assessment of the degree to which current approaches to anti-corruption and human reliability successfully address corruption risks, particularly in the nuclear security context. This paper’s findings establish a need for additional research on how anti-corruption and nuclear security human reliability programs could more clearly, consistently, and proactively scrutinize and dis-incentivize behaviors that present increased risks of corruption.