EURATOM Nuclear Safeguards and the International Debate over Nuclear Export Controls and Physical Security

Abstract

By the 1970s the nuclear trade rivalries noted by Walker and Lonn-roth between the United States and the West European nuclear suppliers like France and West Germany, had become well entrenched. Whereas in the 1950s and 1960s the United States had dominated the nuclear export markets, by the 1970s this hegemony had come under severe challenge by other nuclear suppliers, notably from the two West European supplier countries already mentioned plus Japan.¹ The erosion of United States influence led to a structural change in the global nuclear industry. As a result of this structural change, the United States was no longer in a position to rely on unilateral influence alone to shape global nuclear export policies, especially those of the West European suppliers.