“A Culture of Security”

Igor Khripunov from the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs has published a new article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about how important it is for the world that our leaders make major progress at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit.

Highlighting our recent report outlining policy recommendations for the 2016 NSS, Khripunov emphasizes that we need to go beyond physically protecting and tracking dangerous nuclear materials, to create an ongoing and sustainable “culture of security” that can evolve to adapt to new threats and new dangers quickly and efficiently:

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum: It turns out that there is more to ensuring the security of nuclear material than physically protecting it, or trying to account for the whereabouts of every last bit of, say, highly enriched uranium. There is also something a bit harder to define, but perhaps even more important: a broader, all-embracing culture of nuclear security, that takes into account the human factor. Known as nuclear security culture, this approach encompasses programs on personnel reliability and training, illicit trafficking interception, customs and border security, export control, and IT security, to name just a few. Security culture has become a bit of a buzzword in many security-related domains, and the FMWG report seeks to raise it above this level, explicitly detailing the concept and its implications in a special section.

Read the whole article from Khripunov, and share it with your friends and family!