Description
Attacks against nuclear facilities are typically associated with the Middle Eastern region. Yet, episodes have also occurred in Europe. In 1943, Allied forces carried out the first attack against a nuclear facility, targeting the Norsk Hydro hydrogen-electrolysis plant in Norway, a central element of Nazi Germany’s effort to develop nuclear weapons. Fast forward to 2022, the Russian military targeted the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in Ukraine, Europe’s largest operational nuclear facility. Over the nearly eight decades separating these two episodes, European countries have been at the forefront of the debate on how to define, address, and prevent such incidents. The 1980s, particularly, were a pivotal decade for discussions on the issue. As negotiations progressed on the Radiological Weapons Convention and the first incidents of attacks on nuclear facilities since World War II emerged, Sweden spearheaded efforts to raise and integrate the issue of nuclear facility protection within the convention negotiations. The Swedish proposal marked the inception of formal discussions on nuclear facility protection as well as the onset of divergent viewpoints on the matter. Subsequently, debates intensified regarding the intersection between traditional radiological weapon concerns and the ban on attacks on nuclear facilities, resulting in pronounced divisions among European stakeholders. In parallel, these years witnessed the highest concentration of episodes of attacks ever recorded. This article seeks to trace the development of European states’ approach, both as individual entities and as a collective, regarding attacks on nuclear facilities, with a focus on the early 1980s. As this practice persists as an enduring feature of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, remaining permissible as a policy option, it becomes pertinent to examine the historical engagement of European states with this issue. How have European states – individually and collectively – engaged with and influenced the debate on protecting nuclear facilities against such attacks?
