The United States should consider additional safeguards to civil nuclear reactors in the event of a military attack, a defense analyst said at a Monday hearing.
A panel of nuclear experts discussed in the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe hearing the Russian seizing of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and lessons learned from that conflict. The hearing was held in Washington D.C.
Since the March 2022 Russian attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Robert Wagner said civilian nuclear infrastructure has apparently become a part of military strategy. He added such attacks on nuclear reactors can cause more immediate damage than radiological disasters, and can be repeated.
Wagner is a defense analyst, emergency manager and Navy reserve officer.
There are layers of safety risks that should be taken into consideration, such as reactor design and emergency response for civilians, Wagner said.
“We have a bad habit in this country of fighting the last war and if you look at the current design basis, threat, that is what reactors are designed to defend against,” Wagner said. “So we need to readdress the design basis threat, even here in the United States, in what we’re defending against in designing our reactors.”
Spent nuclear fuel pools should be considered in plans for additional protection given the nuclear waste’s vulnerability, Wagner added.
With the United States’ increasing interest in expanding its geopolitical reach in nuclear power, Wagner said the nation has to be cautious in its approach given the recent unprecedented attacks on nuclear plants.
Wagner said that the recent 123 Agreement with Armenia could be a point of concern due the region being in Russia’s reach. While Wagner did discourage the U.S. effort to strike more civil nuclear agreements, he said the nation should be more mindful of the potential risks that could come with such deals.
“If we’re going to engage in further 123 agreements in Russia’s near abroad, we probably need to build some kind of nuclear safety and security resilience requirements into those agreements,” Wagner said.