IAEA SAFEGUARDS AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS: POTAS IN THE 1990s*

The U.S. Program of Technical Assistance to IAEA Safeguards (POTAS) has since 1978 provided technology and technical assistance to the IAEA to support its nuclear safeguards activities. The present level of support, $6.9 million per year, equals 10% of the Department of Safeguards annual budget. During the next decade, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will face new technical challenges in carrying out its verification activities. To help the IAEA acquire the technology and other technical support that it will require in the 1990s, POTAS expects to continue its assistance, both in the areas established in the past and in additional areas dictated by newly identified IAEA safeguards requirements. This paper will look at the political and policy context within which the Department of Safeguards, and hence POTAS, operates, and how that context is expected to evolve over the next decade. The roles and functions of POTAS will be identified and discussed in terms of their historical evolution. Lastly, the paper will consider how POTAS is expected to change during the 1990s, both to maintain effectiveness in existing roles and functions, and to meet the challenge of the changing policy context.