Many nations have domestic nuclear/atomic companies. Generally they are carefully watched over, and are open to, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection, oversight and regulation - not withstanding domestic regulation, “watchdogs”, and oversight. Many, however, are independent actors from “the State”, rather than a direct extension of “the State”. By “direct extension”, think Kremlin and Gazprom, a company whose actions are simply dictated by The Kremlin for political purposes, regardless of its profit and loss or balance sheet.
So too, as is the way in Russia, is Rosatom.
Today saw the release of the 2015 edition of the IAEA “Nuclear Power Reactors in the World“.
Aside from the existing nuclear reactors in the world, according to the IAEA, “as of the end of 2014, 70 reactors were under construction and 96 more were reported to the IAEA as planned.”
Ergo, as with Gazprom, any Rosatom “power projection” and by default critical dependence thereon for fuel, maintenance etc, warrants a closer look - for therein, given The Kremlin penchant for using energy dependency as a lever within its foreign policy toolkit, a careful eye should, perhaps, be cast over its activities, both on-going and planned.
This is particularly so, perhaps not only in Europe as another lever within certain nations, but also where The Kremlin now sees its Holy Grail - a world changing grand alliance with China and India in the decades ahead (no matter how realistic or otherwise, any such grand alliance actually is). After all, Kremlin desire to return to “Great Power”status whilst being a shadow of the USSR, will be accomplished only by piggybacking upon two up and coming major powers. As they don’t need The Kremlin to continue their ascent, dependencies must therefore be carefully inserted whenever the opportunity arises.
Issue raised.