The accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station demonstrated quite dramatically the national security risk that civil nuclear power stations can present, and has led to reflections in many countries around the world about the long-term prospects for investments in nuclear energy, and weighing the environmental, economic, and safety factors alongside the energy benefits.
The United States and Japan share a goal of eliminating the security challenges posed by the proliferation and/or mismanagement of nuclear materials. They bring complementary insights and perspectives: the United States, as one of the five nuclear weapon states under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, leads various multinational efforts to prevent nuclear weapons, materials, and related technologies from falling into hostile hands. Japan, as the only country in the world that has been subjected to a nuclear weapons attack, represents the interests of advanced industrialized countries with robust civil nuclear energy programs that have renounced the possession of nuclear weapons.
This volume and its contributing authors from Japan and the United States see prospects for enhanced cooperation between Tokyo and Washington. The authors also believe that by pursuing nuclear issues with a more integrated approach, the United States and Japan will help shape the global nuclear future, and the difficult choices about nuclear energy, technology, and counter-proliferation efforts that many countries will have to address.
The project was supported primarily by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.