STRATEGIC NUCLEAR SECURITY | INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW | DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY | INDUSTRIAL POLICY | GEOPOLITICAL RISK

Scope: Global assessment of small modular reactors, advanced modular reactors and transportable microreactors in civilian and military environments, with particular attention to the United States, Russia, Ukraine, China, the European Union, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom; historical foundations through October 2026 and a forward assessment covering 2027–2031.

Executive Summary / BLUF

Principal judgment: Small and transportable nuclear reactors could strengthen military energy resilience while creating a geographically dispersed category of strategically consequential infrastructure whose protection during armed conflict is not yet adequately reflected in operational doctrine, siting decisions or international risk-reduction arrangements.

The central danger is not that smaller reactors necessarily produce consequences comparable to conventional nuclear power plants. It is that their deployment alongside command facilities, military installations, industrial infrastructure and critical digital networks could complicate target identification, humanitarian protection and escalation management.

The United States has moved beyond theoretical procurement. On 26 August 2026, the Army identified five initial Janus installations and five commercial suppliers under a programme providing up to $2.2 billion in milestone-based funding across fiscal years 2027–2031. The Army anticipates more than 20 microreactors, including private-sector investment, although these figures describe intended procurement and deployment rather than operational generating capacity. Army reaches agreement with private industry for nuclear micro-reactors — United States Army — Aug 2026. www.army.mil

The European Union has adopted its first dedicated SMR strategy, with preliminary estimates of 17–53 GW of potential European SMR capacity by 2050. These remain projections, not licensed construction commitments. Small modular reactors — European Commission — Mar 2026. Energy

International humanitarian law provides substantial protection for nuclear electrical generating stations, but neither physical compactness nor military location automatically resolves the legal status of future reactor configurations.

Decision consequence: Nuclear safety, physical security, military mission assurance and conflict-law assessments must be integrated before procurement and siting become irreversible.

Decisive uncertainty: Whether genuinely transportable, commercially operable nuclear power systems can establish sufficient reliability, survivability and independent oversight to justify deployment near military operations remains unproven.

Strategic and Technological Implications of Rosatom’s Negotiations with Iran on Small Nuclear Reactors and 10th-Generation Centrifuge Development

Small Nuclear Reactors and the New Geography of War: Europe’s Industrial Ambitions Confront the Limits of Nuclear Protection

Europe and the United States are investing in smaller nuclear reactors on the assumption that distributing electricity generation will strengthen industrial and military resilience. Yet the same technology could multiply the number of nuclear installations exposed to armed conflict, complicating international legal protection and emergency management. The contradiction is becoming institutional rather than theoretical. In August 2026, the US Army established a procurement framework worth up to $2.2 billion for military microreactors, while the European Commission projected 17–53 GW of potential European SMR capacity by 2050. Neither commitment demonstrates commercially mature technology or protection under hostile conditions. The central question for governments is therefore whether nuclear industrialisation can advance faster than the regulatory, financial and security institutions needed to control its consequences.

The Nuclear Renaissance Is Being Financed Before Its Economics Are Proven

The scale of the international nuclear revival is substantial, but its industrial maturity remains difficult to establish. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s September 2026 Small Modular Reactor Digital Dashboard tracks 156 SMR and micro-modular reactor projects worldwide, compared with 129 in January. Of the latest population, 95 projects appear in the publicly presented assessment, with more than 120 developers contributing information. These figures measure the expansion of technological activity, not a fleet of commercially operating reactors. The distinction matters because an engineering concept, a regulatory application, a financed construction project and a commissioned generating station represent fundamentally different levels of industrial commitment.

The economic proposition behind modular nuclear power is that smaller reactors can compensate for their reduced generating capacity through factory manufacture, standardisation, repeatable construction and shorter delivery schedules. Yet these advantages depend on sufficient orders to support manufacturing investment, stable regulatory requirements and qualified supply chains. A reactor built in a factory still requires site infrastructure, inspection, electrical integration, security, commissioning and eventual decommissioning. Until successive units demonstrate lower delivered costs, the supposed economies of modularity remain an industrial hypothesis rather than an established commercial result.

The United States is attempting to resolve part of this uncertainty through public financing and early institutional demand. In January 2026, the Department of Energy finalised two $900 million task orders, involving American Centrifuge Operating and General Matter, to expand domestic high-assay low-enriched uranium enrichment capabilities over ten years. The investment addresses a critical dependency for several advanced-reactor designs requiring uranium enriched above 5% and below 20% in uranium-235. It does not establish that qualified commercial fuel supply is already sufficient. Nuclear sovereignty depends not merely on possessing a domestic reactor design, but on maintaining control over the fuel, manufacturing and technical services needed to operate it.

Washington Is Turning Military Energy Security into an Industrial Market

The most consequential development is the American military’s transition from research towards procurement. On 26 August 2026, the US Army selected five companies for the initial phase of Project Janus: Antares Nuclear at Fort Bragg, BWXT Advanced Technologies at Fort Campbell, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Radiant Industries at Fort Benning and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum. The programme provides a milestone-based funding framework of up to $2.2 billion across fiscal years 2027–2031, anticipates more than 20 reactors with private investment and targets September 2028 for operation of the first Army-regulated microreactor.

The military rationale is clear. Electricity has become indispensable to communications, computing, maintenance, installation security and the continuity of operational functions. A reliable onsite generator could reduce dependence on external transmission networks and recurring deliveries of conventional fuel. But nuclear generation does not eliminate dependence on electrical distribution, maintenance personnel, security systems or emergency support. A reactor may continue producing electricity while the installation it serves remains unable to operate because essential downstream infrastructure has failed.

Project Janus also introduces a different relationship between commercial nuclear industry and national defence. The Army envisages contractor-owned and contractor-operated reactors on military installations, creating overlapping responsibilities among commercial operators, military authorities and nuclear regulators. The procurement model could accelerate industrial demand, but it also requires clearly allocated authority over nuclear safety, physical protection, emergency access and operating decisions. A military installation cannot treat a nuclear generator as interchangeable with an ordinary commercial electricity contract.

Nor has technological transportability become operational mobility. Project Pele established the research foundation for transportable nuclear generation, while the Ward 250 reactor achieved a zero-power criticality demonstration in June 2026. Neither milestone establishes routine expeditionary nuclear operations. Transporting reactor equipment, commissioning it at an authorised site and maintaining electricity generation under military disruption remain separate achievements. Public procurement can create the conditions for technological progress; it cannot substitute for evidence of completed capability.

Ukraine Has Exposed the Difference Between Nuclear Protection and Nuclear Security

International humanitarian law provides nuclear electrical generating stations with special protection, but the war in Ukraine demonstrates that legal protection and the potential consequences of a radiological incident do not guarantee physical security. Article 56 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions restricts attacks against nuclear electrical generating stations where the release of dangerous forces may cause severe civilian losses, even when the installation would otherwise qualify as a military objective. The protection can cease under narrowly defined conditions involving regular, significant and direct support of military operations and the absence of another feasible way to terminate that support. Other applicable obligations concerning civilian protection remain in force.

The experience of Zaporizhzhia demonstrates the limitations of assuming that nuclear danger necessarily produces military restraint. According to the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s October 2026 chronology, the complete loss of off-site electricity on 20 August was the 26th such interruption since the beginning of the conflict under the IAEA observers’ count, including 14 occurrences since April 2026. The plant subsequently depended on emergency diesel generation. Internationally facilitated repairs during a temporary local ceasefire between 5 and 7 September permitted restoration of the external electricity connection after nearly three weeks.

The deterioration was not confined to transmission infrastructure. On 25 September 2026, the plant had revised its emergency generation arrangements so that four of its 20 diesel generators would start automatically following a complete loss of external electricity, while two generators were unavailable for maintenance. Earlier, on 29 August, the site’s available diesel supply had been reported at approximately ten days, corresponding to its minimum regulatory requirement. These figures do not document a nuclear accident. They demonstrate how prolonged conflict can progressively constrain the infrastructure and resources required to maintain nuclear safety, even when reactors are shut down.

Chornobyl provides a different warning. A drone strike on 14 February 2025 damaged the New Safe Confinement protecting the remains of the fourth reactor. In April 2026, the plant operator reported that full leak-tightness had not been restored, although monitoring remained within established control levels and no radioactive release exceeding applicable requirements had been registered. Significant damage to nuclear protective infrastructure therefore occurred without a corresponding major radiological release. The distinction is important: neither the absence of catastrophe nor the existence of damage alone provides a complete assessment of nuclear security.

These experiences cannot be transferred mechanically to microreactors with different fuel inventories, containment systems and operating characteristics. They establish something more fundamental: the consequences of conflict depend not only on the reactor core, but on the ability to maintain electricity, cooling, inspection, communications, fuel logistics and emergency intervention. Dispersing nuclear generation may reduce some concentrated infrastructure vulnerabilities while creating additional facilities requiring continuous protection.

Europe Has Four Nuclear Strategies but No Single Industrial Timetable

The European Commission’s March 2026 SMR strategy proposes nine actions intended to support initial deployment in the early 2030s, alongside a preliminary estimate of 17–53 GW of European capacity by 2050 and a proposed €200 million investment guarantee. Those figures express industrial ambition, not financed generating capacity. The principal difficulty is that Europe’s four major industrial economies approach nuclear development from incompatible domestic starting points.

Italy entered a new legislative phase when Law No. 169 of 29 September 2026 came into force on 15 October. The legislation delegates authority to establish a sustainable nuclear framework, with implementing decrees expected within twelve months. Its €67.5 million allocation for 2026–2029 supports institutional implementation rather than commercial reactor construction. Rome’s immediate task is therefore to establish functioning rules, regulatory responsibilities and financing arrangements before committing to specific generating projects. Italy’s participation through ISIN in the multinational review of France’s NUWARD design demonstrates an industrial and regulatory route into European nuclear cooperation, but does not constitute a domestic construction authorisation.

France occupies the opposite position. Its established nuclear industry is being mobilised through conventional new construction, advanced reactor development and existing-fleet management. The 2026 French energy programme targets annual nuclear electricity generation of 380–420 TWh from 2030, compared with 320 TWh in 2023, while maintaining plans for six EPR2 reactors and considering a further tranche of approximately 13 GW. Its advanced reactor portfolio includes water-cooled, gas-cooled, sodium-cooled, lead-cooled and molten-salt technologies. This technological breadth strengthens French industrial capabilities but also creates competition for engineering resources, specialised manufacturing and investment.

Germany remains committed to the nuclear phase-out completed on 15 April 2023. Its strategic contribution to European resilience therefore centres on electricity networks, infrastructure restoration, industrial capacity and cross-border coordination rather than domestic nuclear construction. Treating the European Commission’s SMR ambitions as a collective commitment by every Member State would misrepresent the national policies on which implementation depends.

The United Kingdom has advanced furthest towards a specific new European SMR procurement programme. Following the selection of Rolls-Royce SMR and the identification of Wylfa in Wales, Great British Energy–Nuclear signed a commercial contract on 13 April 2026. The government allocated £2.6 billion to the wider programme, while GBE-N reported nearly £900 million in contracts awarded by June 2026, more than 70% to UK-registered companies. The proposed initial configuration consists of three reactors delivering at least 1.4 GW, with electricity generation envisaged in the mid-2030s. Britain’s progress is more concrete than a general technology strategy, but contract awards, domestic company registration and projected capacity remain different measures from completed manufacturing, national value added and operational electricity production.

Nuclear Sovereignty Now Depends on Who Controls the Rules

The regulatory difficulty is that manufacturing standardisation does not create a universal nuclear licence. Europe’s nuclear safety framework rests on Directive 2009/71/Euratom, amended by Directive 2014/87/Euratom, while Directive 2013/59/Euratom governs radiation protection. Commission Regulation (Euratom) 2025/974 updates safeguards arrangements, including nuclear material accounting, reporting and information handling. These instruments address different obligations; satisfying one does not establish compliance with all the others.

The distinction becomes more important where reactors are manufactured in one jurisdiction, fuelled through another supply chain and operated by commercial entities at sensitive installations. Early multinational design reviews may reduce duplicated technical assessment, but national authorities remain responsible for applicable authorisations. Military procurement adds another layer: contractual ownership, security command, nuclear operating authority and emergency responsibility must be reconciled rather than presumed to belong to the same institution.

NATO’s September 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements reinforce the importance of reliable energy supply, infrastructure restoration, supply-chain dependencies and host-nation support. They do not establish a NATO programme to procure nuclear microreactors. Nuclear power may become one component of military energy resilience, but its performance must be compared with alternatives, including diversified electricity supply, storage, protected distribution and repair capabilities.

International notification presents a parallel challenge. The India–Pakistan Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations and Facilities, signed on 31 December 1988, provides a precedent through its annual exchanges of information and provisions for identifying relevant changes. The 35th consecutive exchange took place on 1 January 2026. Future transportable reactors could require more explicit arrangements concerning changes in location, operating status and host responsibility. Such measures would not eliminate military risk, but could reduce dangerous uncertainty without assuming that states must disclose unrestricted security-sensitive information.

The Next 24 Months Will Separate Industrial Policy from Deliverable Capacity

Between October 2026 and October 2028, the decisive tests will concern implementation rather than rhetoric. Italy must translate Law No. 169/2026 into operative legislation; Britain must convert its Wylfa design contract into credible authorisation and construction progress; France must allocate industrial resources across existing reactors, EPR2 construction and advanced technologies; and the United States must test whether Project Janus can achieve its September 2028 operating target. The European Commission must meanwhile demonstrate that its SMR strategy can improve financing and regulatory cooperation without confusing projected capacity with committed investment.

The financial burden of unsuccessful execution will fall first on public authorities supporting development programmes, investors financing technologies without demonstrated operating economics and industrial suppliers expanding capacity ahead of firm orders. Electricity consumers and taxpayers could ultimately bear additional costs where project financing, government guarantees or contractual support transfer development risk to the public sector. In military applications, defence budgets may absorb nuclear-specific capital and operating obligations without receiving the expected improvement in mission continuity.

The alternative cost is also measurable in strategic terms. Failure to establish credible industrial capabilities could leave European governments dependent on external reactor technologies, specialised nuclear fuel services and manufacturing capacity, while failure to clarify protection and notification responsibilities could create new sources of uncertainty around strategically sensitive installations.

The real test of the nuclear resurgence is therefore not how many reactors governments announce, but how many they can finance, authorise, construct, operate and protect without transferring unmeasured costs and liabilities to future budgets. A smaller reactor does not automatically produce a smaller strategic risk. Whether distributed nuclear power becomes an instrument of resilience or an additional source of exposure will depend on the institutions and contracts being established before the technology reaches commercial scale.

Burning Plasma, Modular Fission and the Operating Fleet -What China’s BEST – Italy’s Nuclear Re-entry and the World’s Power Reactors Actually Are

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Navigational Index

PILLAR I — THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

• Chapter 1. The Nuclear Resurgence: Technical Reality, Industrial Economics and the Defence-Energy Nexus
• Chapter 2. From Fixed Reactors to Distributed Military Power: Operational Models, Mobility and Infrastructure Dependencies
• Chapter 3. Reactor Safety Under Hostile Conditions: Physical Protection, Residual Heat, Cybersecurity and Multi-Unit Failure

PILLAR II — WARFARE, LEGAL PROTECTION AND STRATEGIC EXPOSURE

• Chapter 4. The International Legal Architecture: Nuclear Facilities, Military Objectives and Dangerous Forces
• Chapter 5. Ukraine and the Nuclear Battlefield: Lessons from Zaporizhzhia and the Limits of Strategic Deterrence
• Chapter 6. Transportable Reactors and Crisis Instability: Targeting Ambiguity, Escalation Pathways and Confidence-Building Measures

PILLAR III — EUROPEAN SOVEREIGNTY, INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE AND THE 2031 OUTLOOK

• Chapter 7. The European Strategic Dimension: Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and EU–NATO Coordination
• Chapter 8. Nuclear Security Governance: Regulatory Boundaries, Safeguards, Military Procurement and International Notification
• Chapter 9. Strategic Scenarios for 2027–2031: Industrial Deployment, Conflict Exposure and Escalation Indicators
• Chapter 10. Policy Options, Implementation Priorities and Final Net Assessment

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North Korea’s Undersea Nuclear Ambitions: Russian Technology, Strategic Bargaining and the Emerging Threat to Indo-Pacific Security

Master Abstract

The strategic value of distributed nuclear power is inseparable from its exposure

The emerging generation of compact nuclear reactors represents a potential transformation in the geography of energy infrastructure. Conventional civilian nuclear power has historically depended upon large generating stations, complex external infrastructure and comparatively limited numbers of identifiable sites. Small modular technologies could distribute nuclear generation across industrial estates, remote regions, transport infrastructure, digital facilities and military installations, potentially reducing dependence on distant transmission systems while increasing the number of nuclear installations requiring physical protection, regulatory supervision and emergency preparedness. The resulting security question is not simply whether reactors can be made smaller or equipped with passive safety mechanisms. It concerns whether nuclear power can be geographically dispersed without multiplying the number of circumstances in which an armed conflict could jeopardise nuclear safety.

The distinction between the military utility of reactor-generated electricity and the military utility of the reactor itself is fundamental. A protected installation may supply a mission-essential facility without necessarily losing the legal protections associated with nuclear electrical generating stations. Conversely, location within a military base neither makes the reactor automatically attackable nor guarantees that surrounding military facilities acquire immunity. The relevant analysis requires examination of the reactor’s actual function, its contribution to military operations, foreseeable civilian consequences and the applicable treaty and customary legal rules. The International Committee of the Red Cross emphasises that special protection can persist even where a nuclear generating station qualifies as a military objective, subject to narrowly defined exceptions. How humanitarian law applies to armed conflict and nuclear power plants — ICRC — Aug 2022. ICRC

American military procurement has created a concrete test case

American programmes now offer the clearest documented opportunity to assess the transition from technical experimentation to military-oriented procurement. Project Pele established the technological ambition for transportable nuclear generation, while Project Janus has linked commercial developers to identified military installations and a structured procurement framework. The August 2026 selections demonstrate institutional commitment but not the completion of operational reactors. At Fort Benning, for example, the Army identified Radiant Industries as the proposed supplier of three units and described a path towards initial operation in 2028, while acknowledging that candidate site evaluation and prototype processes remained underway. Fort Benning set to host next-generation nuclear power initiative — United States Army — Sep 2026. The United States Army

This distinction changes the assessment of near-term risk. A successful criticality experiment does not establish sustained electrical production, reliable military operation, acceptable lifecycle cost or survivability under attack. On 18 June 2026, the US Department of Energy confirmed that Valar Atomics’ Ward 250 reactor had achieved a zero-power fueled criticality demonstration in Utah. That is an important experimental milestone, but it is not evidence of an operational expeditionary nuclear power system. Department of Energy Celebrates Second Advanced Reactor Achieving Criticality — US Department of Energy — Jun 2026. Department of Energy

Europe faces a different, but connected, strategic problem

European interest is principally driven by industrial decarbonisation, energy security, technological competitiveness and reliable electricity for emerging high-demand sectors. The European Commission’s March 2026 strategy seeks initial deployments by the early 2030s and anticipates opportunities across electricity generation, industrial heat and advanced energy infrastructure. However, the European security environment makes infrastructure protection an unavoidable part of that industrial agenda.

Italy’s newly enacted nuclear enabling legislation, France’s established nuclear-industrial capabilities, Germany’s post-nuclear electricity model and the United Kingdom’s advanced nuclear framework demonstrate that European states will approach the technology from significantly different institutional and political starting points. A unified European approach therefore cannot presume identical investment incentives, licensing powers or threat assessments. It must instead identify common standards for nuclear security, infrastructure resilience, safeguards and crisis notification while recognising national responsibility for authorising and regulating nuclear facilities.

The central judgment is that the military and political consequences of reactor deployment may emerge before the commercial technology reaches maturity. Siting rules, procurement commitments, ownership structures, fuel arrangements and legal interpretations developed during the current experimental period could determine future exposure during international crises. Effective governance consequently depends less on inventing a new category of absolute nuclear immunity than on ensuring that reactor developers, civilian regulators, defence authorities and international institutions address foreseeable conflict scenarios before deployment becomes routine.

REPORT – Italy’s Nuclear Relaunch: Law – Water and Industrial Risk

Key Evidence Table

The following indicators distinguish verified institutional decisions, technology demonstrations, government financing intentions and long-term projections. They are not interchangeable measures of industrial maturity or military capability.

Indicator	Value/status	Reference date	Definition/scope	Issuer	Exact source
Project Janus initial selection	5 vendors, 5 installations	26 Aug 2026	Initial US Army commercial microreactor selections	US Army	Official announcement
Janus public funding framework	Up to $2.2 billion	FY2027–2031	Milestone-based programme funding; not completed expenditure	US Army	Programme announcement
Anticipated Janus deployment	More than 20 reactors	Announced Aug 2026	Army expectation, contingent on private investment and implementation	US Army	Programme announcement
Initial military operating milestone	September 2028 target	Aug 2026	Target for first Army-regulated operating microreactor at a military installation	US Army	Programme announcement
Ward 250 technical demonstration	Zero-power criticality achieved	18 Jun 2026	Experimental reactor milestone, not commercial electricity delivery	US DOE	Official release
EU SMR deployment strategy	9 strategic actions	Mar 2026	EU industrial coordination and market-readiness agenda	European Commission	SMR strategy overview
Potential EU SMR capacity	17–53 GW	2050 projection	Preliminary assessment, not installed capacity	European Commission	SMR strategy overview
EU investment guarantee	€200 million planned	Mar 2026	Proposed guarantee supporting private SMR investment	European Commission	Nuclear investment needs
Italy’s nuclear enabling legislation	Law No. 169/2026	29 Sep 2026	Delegation to establish the national sustainable nuclear framework	Italian Government	Official government record
Italian statutory funding	€67.5 million	2026–2029	Resources allocated under the enabling legislation, not reactor construction expenditure	Italian Government	Official government record
UK advanced nuclear framework	Published February 2026	2026	Framework for privately led advanced nuclear projects	UK DESNZ	Advanced Nuclear Framework

The figures establish an important imbalance. Military-oriented programmes in the United States now have identified suppliers, proposed sites and specific procurement milestones. Europe’s larger nuclear-industrial ambitions remain principally oriented towards civilian electricity generation, industrial heat and commercial infrastructure. Their respective risk profiles therefore differ: American military projects are already raising questions of civilian–military co-location, whereas the European challenge is to incorporate conflict-related safety and security requirements into a developing civilian market before investment decisions and site selections become entrenched.

Hiroshima 81: The Return of Nuclear Risk

Competing Strategic Explanations and Pathways

Three overlapping pathways provide a useful framework for evaluating how the technology could affect future conflicts. They are not mutually exclusive, and their current standing reflects the available documentation rather than numerical probability estimates.

Strategic pathway	Diagnostic support	Disconfirming evidence or limitation	Observable indicators	Current standing
Distributed energy resilience	Janus procurement seeks to reduce dependence on external electricity infrastructure	Long-duration reliability, delivered electricity cost and hostile-environment performance remain insufficiently demonstrated	Sustained operation, independent supply, successful isolation and recovery tests	Strongly supported as an institutional objective; operational effectiveness unproven
Expanded nuclear vulnerability	More geographically dispersed sites and military co-location create additional security and emergency-management obligations	Lower radioactive inventories and engineered safety systems may reduce some accident consequences	Reactor siting patterns, safety assessments, emergency-response requirements, security incidents	Credible conditional exposure; magnitude cannot yet be quantified
Strategic shielding and escalation ambiguity	Nuclear installations benefit from special protection and attacks could have consequences extending beyond immediate military effects	No verified basis establishes that current military microreactor programmes intend deliberate radiological deterrence	Military siting doctrine, notification practices, explicit operational policies, crisis behaviour	Plausible prospective mechanism; not an established military doctrine

The most defensible interpretation is that energy resilience is the demonstrated procurement rationale, distributed vulnerability is a foreseeable design and siting concern, and strategic shielding remains an unverified potential consequence. Treating all three as equivalent established outcomes would distort the present evidence.

Principal Gaps and Watch Indicators

Operational maturity and independent safety evidence

The first consequential gap concerns the transition from successful experiments to continuous energy production. Criticality demonstrates that a reactor has achieved a controlled nuclear chain reaction; it does not establish a sustained electrical output, economic performance, physical survivability or operational reliability. Public confirmation of reactor commissioning, extended performance testing, emergency-system validation and regulatory authorisation would materially strengthen the case for deployment.

The corresponding warning indicator would be procurement schedules advancing faster than the publication of test results and site-specific safety assessments.

Military integration and the classification of protected facilities

A second gap concerns how military authorities will define and document the operational relationship between nuclear generators and the installations they support. Electricity for routine base infrastructure, command-and-control facilities or directly operational military systems may create different factual and legal considerations.

The legal significance cannot be established merely by describing a facility as military-owned or contractor-operated. The actual functions, connections, foreseeable military advantages and conditions for special protection must be examined together.

The decisive records are site-specific operational concepts, physical protection plans, military legal assessments and applicable licensing or authorisation decisions.

The protection of nuclear generation during armed conflict

The ICRC’s interpretation of international humanitarian law identifies a clear obligation to avoid using nuclear electricity-generating stations in ways that undermine civilian protection. It also stresses that even exceptional circumstances in which special protection ceases do not dispense with other applicable obligations concerning distinction, proportionality, precautions and environmental protection. How humanitarian law applies to armed conflict and nuclear power plants — ICRC — Sep 2022. ICRC

The open question is how states will apply this framework to compact reactors situated within defence installations, particularly where electricity production is integrated with military infrastructure or a reactor is designed to move between operating locations.

A material warning sign would be the development of national operating doctrines that presume either automatic immunity or automatic targetability based on location alone.

European institutional and industrial coordination

Europe’s challenge will be to reconcile the acceleration of nuclear deployment with the distribution of regulatory, energy and security responsibilities.

Italy’s Law No. 169 of 29 September 2026 establishes a new legislative starting point, but the implementation of delegated powers and the establishment of operative regulatory arrangements remain distinct from an authorised construction programme. France’s nuclear-industrial participation, Germany’s existing nuclear phase-out framework and the United Kingdom’s advanced nuclear pipeline create different national constraints on any common approach. Energia nucleare sostenibile: legge-delega al Governo — Italian Government — Oct 2026; Bezahlbare und saubere Energie — German Federal Government; Advanced Nuclear Framework — UK DESNZ — Feb 2026. Dipartimento per il programma di Governo+2

The principal watch indicators are the publication of implementing regulations, national licensing decisions, independently reviewed site-protection requirements and formal arrangements for coordinating cross-border emergency management.

International notification and mobility

Conventional nuclear confidence-building mechanisms have largely developed around identifiable facilities. Transportability introduces a potentially different relationship between reactor identity, host location, fuel status, operating status and notification.

A workable international arrangement would need to distinguish ordinary shipment of reactor components, transport of nuclear fuel, relocation of an authorised generating unit and operation at a newly designated site. These are separate activities and should not be represented as equivalent nuclear-security events.

The decisive evidence would be formally adopted notification procedures, safeguards arrangements and state commitments addressing relocation during periods of heightened military tension.

Visualisation Assessment

No decision-useful visualisation is supportable from the verified record.

The available official records establish meaningful procurement milestones, country-specific policy positions and potential risk mechanisms, but they do not provide a comparable multi-country series of deployed military microreactors, verified hostile-environment reliability results or defensible numerical escalation probabilities. A quantitative risk chart would therefore create an appearance of precision that the existing evidence cannot support.

The underlying mechanisms, institutional differences and competing pathways are more accurately represented in the evidence and assessment tables above.

Initial Strategic Net Assessment

The principal finding is that small nuclear reactors are not inherently strategic shields, nor are they inevitably vulnerable targets. Their security significance will depend upon the interaction of four variables: physical location, operational function, engineered survivability and the behaviour of parties to a conflict.

The United States is establishing the first substantial military-oriented procurement test of these variables. Europe, meanwhile, is entering an industrial development phase in which nuclear infrastructure could become more geographically dispersed across civilian production, digital infrastructure and critical services. These trajectories are different but converge on a common governance question: whether institutions designed primarily around traditional nuclear power stations can accommodate a future in which smaller reactors operate in more varied and strategically sensitive environments.

The strongest immediate policy case is for maintaining the distinction between civilian nuclear generation and operational military activity wherever feasible, while requiring rigorous safety, security and emergency-management assessments for projects where separation is impracticable. Internationally, notification and risk-reduction arrangements offer a more attainable starting point than assuming that a universal deployment prohibition could be rapidly negotiated.

The balance of evidence does not justify treating military microreactor deployment as an accomplished technological revolution. It does, however, justify treating the decisions being made in 2026 as strategically consequential. The potential consequences of these systems will be determined not only by their reactor designs, but also by the institutional arrangements established before the first operational deployments.

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PILLAR I — THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

OPEN-SOURCE ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT | 29 OCTOBER 2026 | GLOBAL NUCLEAR AND DEFENCE INDUSTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

Chapter 1. The Nuclear Resurgence: Technical Reality, Industrial Economics and the Defence-Energy Nexus

Principal judgment: The renewed international commitment to small modular reactors is producing a substantial industrial and institutional mobilisation, but it has not yet demonstrated that small reactors can deliver electricity more economically, more rapidly or more reliably than alternative technologies across the full range of proposed applications. The central transformation is the emergence of nuclear power as a prospective distributed industrial and military infrastructure technology, rather than solely a means of supplying large national electricity networks. This transition creates opportunities for energy sovereignty, industrial competitiveness and infrastructure resilience, while introducing financial, technological and supply-chain dependencies that have not yet been resolved at commercial scale.

The Global Nuclear Resurgence Is Advancing Faster Than Commercial Maturity

The international nuclear industry is entering a period in which the geography, financing and anticipated uses of nuclear generation are being reconsidered simultaneously. For much of the commercial nuclear era, the dominant development model involved large generating stations connected to national transmission systems, operated by highly specialised utilities and financed through arrangements capable of absorbing exceptionally large capital expenditures over extended construction periods. Although these installations remain central to nuclear electricity production, the renewed interest in small modular reactors reflects a different economic and strategic calculation: a reactor of lower individual output may be commercially attractive if its size allows deployment closer to industrial demand, reduces site-specific construction requirements, permits more standardised manufacturing or provides electricity and heat where conventional transmission infrastructure would be expensive or unreliable. These propositions are particularly relevant to industrial clusters, remote mining operations, specialised manufacturing, digital infrastructure and military establishments, but they remain dependent on the characteristics of individual designs, the maturity of their supply chains and the conditions under which electricity will actually be delivered.

The most informative recent evidence of international momentum comes from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. On 28 September 2026, the agency published the fourth edition of its Small Modular Reactor Digital Dashboard, incorporating developments reported through 18 May 2026. The updated database tracks 156 SMR and micro-modular reactor projects worldwide, of which 95 are included in the publicly presented dashboard. More than 120 developers contributed information to the exercise, which added 26 projects to its coverage. These figures demonstrate substantial design and development activity, but they do not represent 156 licensed reactors, 156 construction programmes or 156 commercially viable technologies. The OECD explicitly distinguishes projects progressing through development from concepts that have been suspended, abandoned or are not being actively advanced, while evaluating technological readiness alongside financing, siting, licensing, supply-chain maturity, fuel availability and stakeholder engagement. Release of the NEA Small Modular Reactor Digital Dashboard: Fourth Edition — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — September 2026. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

This distinction is decisive because the nuclear industry’s present expansion can be measured in several incompatible ways. The number of companies developing reactor concepts measures entrepreneurial and research activity; the number of projects engaged with regulators measures progress towards possible authorisation; the number of announced industrial customers measures prospective demand; and the number of reactors actually commissioned measures delivered generating capacity. A company may advance significantly in one category without demonstrating comparable progress in another. An advanced reactor with a credible technological foundation can remain commercially blocked by the absence of an appropriate fuel supply, while a design supported by substantial private investment can encounter unresolved licensing or construction constraints. Conversely, a relatively conventional water-cooled reactor may offer an established technical basis but still face financing and construction challenges when redesigned for a smaller commercial market. The OECD’s use of six readiness dimensions is therefore more informative than simple comparisons between the number of announced reactor designs, because it recognises that technical achievement alone is insufficient to bring a nuclear generating installation into service. NEA Small Modular Reactor Dashboard — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. NEA Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Dashboard

Table 1.1 — Global SMR development: what the official numbers actually measure

Indicator	Documented value	Reference period	Correct interpretation
Projects tracked in NEA Dashboard 4.0	156	Information to 18 May 2026	Worldwide project tracking universe
Projects included in public dashboard	95	September 2026 edition	Publicly presented assessment coverage
Tracked projects not included in public dashboard	61	September 2026 edition	Difference between tracked and included populations
Developers contributing to update	More than 120	Fourth-edition update	Industry participation, not a count of licensed operators
Newly added projects	26	Fourth-edition update	Expansion of tracking coverage
Projects tracked in January 2026 edition	129	January 2026	Earlier database population
Projects assessed publicly in January 2026 edition	78	January 2026	Earlier public coverage
NEA readiness dimensions	6	Current methodology	Licensing, siting, financing, supply chain, engagement and fuel

Sources: Release of the NEA Small Modular Reactor Digital Dashboard: Fourth Edition — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — September 2026 and Launch of Edition 3.1 and New Rolling Update — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — January 2026. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)+1

The expansion from 129 tracked projects in January to 156 in the fourth edition represents an increase of 27 projects in the reported tracking universe, calculated from the published figures. It must not be equated with 27 newly commissioned reactors, because changes to database coverage, developer reporting and project status can affect the total. Similarly, the addition of 26 projects specifically reported for the fourth-edition update should not be assumed to exhaust every change between the two published database vintages.

Reactor Technologies: A Common Commercial Label Conceals Different Engineering Systems

The expression small modular reactor describes a broad group of technologies rather than one standardised engineering configuration. Modular manufacture concerns the possibility of producing reactor components, systems or entire units in factory conditions before transporting them to an operating site; small reactor size concerns the thermal and electrical output of the generating installation. Neither characteristic independently determines reactor safety, fuel requirements, cooling arrangements or economic competitiveness. The European Commission’s March 2026 strategy identifies three broad technological families: smaller light-water reactors derived from established nuclear technology, advanced modular reactors using alternative cooling or fuel concepts, and microreactors designed for considerably smaller electricity outputs and potentially transportable applications. In the Commission’s classification, microreactors typically produce less than 10 MW of electricity, although other government programmes use broader power ranges. Small Modular Reactors — European Commission — March 2026. Energy

Water-cooled SMRs generally benefit from the technological experience accumulated in commercial light-water reactor operation, including established approaches to reactor physics, coolant chemistry, pressure-boundary design, instrumentation and nuclear fuel management. Their smaller dimensions, however, do not eliminate the need to demonstrate the performance of the particular proposed design. Advanced gas-cooled systems offer different temperature and heat-transfer characteristics, creating potential opportunities for industrial heat applications but requiring confidence in fuel performance, thermal materials and specialised components. Liquid-metal-cooled designs create additional technical considerations involving coolant behaviour, materials compatibility and inspection methods, while molten-salt concepts involve design-dependent combinations of corrosion management, coolant or fuel-salt chemistry and operational controls. The strategic problem is that these technologies may all be presented to industrial customers as small modular reactors despite having materially different licensing requirements, construction risks, fuel cycles and long-term operational obligations.

Table 1.2 — Reactor families and their principal engineering-economic distinctions

Reactor category	Technical basis	Potential industrial application	Principal development challenge	Strategic dependency
Light-water SMR	Pressurised or boiling water systems	Grid electricity, industrial electricity and some heat applications	Demonstrating construction economics at smaller unit scale	Established nuclear manufacturing and qualified fuel
High-temperature gas-cooled reactor	Gas coolant, specialised fuel and higher-temperature operation	Electricity and industrial process heat	Fuel qualification, materials and commercial heat integration	Advanced fuel manufacture and specialised components
Sodium-cooled advanced reactor	Liquid-metal coolant	Electricity and flexible advanced-reactor applications	Coolant management, materials and qualification	Specialised manufacturing and potentially HALEU
Lead-cooled advanced reactor	Heavy liquid-metal coolant	Electricity and prospective industrial uses	Corrosion, materials performance and operational qualification	Advanced materials and coolant-system capability
Molten-salt reactor	Salt-based cooling or fuel systems depending on design	Electricity and prospective high-temperature applications	Materials, chemistry and design-specific safety validation	Specialised fuel, salt processing and inspection
Transportable microreactor	Compact reactor and packaged supporting systems	Remote sites and potential military installations	Integrated safety, transportability, site authorisation and economics	Fuel logistics, physical security and service infrastructure

The table is a technological classification, not a ranking of safety or commercial readiness. The distinctions reflect the European Commission’s technology framework and the United States’ advanced-reactor demonstration and fuel programmes. Sources: Small Modular Reactors Explained — European Commission and Advanced Reactor Demonstration Projects — US Department of Energy. European Commission+1

The commercial significance of these differences becomes apparent when considering the argument that factory manufacture will transform nuclear construction economics. Standardisation can reduce repetitive engineering work, permit more controlled fabrication conditions and create opportunities for learning across successive units, but the magnitude of any financial benefit depends on whether developers can secure sufficiently large and stable order books. A factory built for a standardised reactor design represents a substantial fixed investment; its economic advantages cannot be realised if orders arrive irregularly, customers demand extensive redesign or national regulators impose materially different requirements on each deployment. Furthermore, factory manufacture transfers only part of the construction burden away from the site. Civil works, electrical infrastructure, cooling arrangements, security systems, inspections, grid connections and commissioning remain project-specific to varying degrees, meaning that a smaller reactor is not automatically a simpler infrastructure project.

The industry’s proposed economic transformation must therefore be understood as a conditional industrialisation process rather than a demonstrated general reduction in nuclear capital costs. The decisive issue is whether standardisation reduces the delivered cost of energy enough to offset the loss of scale economies associated with smaller generating units. A large conventional reactor can distribute several site-level costs across a substantial electrical output; a much smaller installation may require similar categories of supporting infrastructure while producing less electricity. Successful factory manufacture could compensate for this disadvantage, but only after sufficient production volume, regulatory stability and predictable supply chains have been established. This explains why government-supported demonstration programmes have become central to the sector: first-of-a-kind developers face costs and uncertainties that early private customers may be unwilling to absorb independently.

The Economics of Nuclear Modularity: Capital Cost, Financing and Industrial Scale

The financial viability of a small modular reactor cannot be determined from the cost of the reactor vessel or the advertised price of a factory-manufactured unit. A meaningful comparison must include the complete generating installation, engineering and licensing, construction and commissioning, financing during development, fuel procurement, operating personnel, planned maintenance, security arrangements, spent-fuel management and decommissioning provisions. The choice of electricity-cost metric also matters. A levelised cost of electricity calculation can be useful for comparing generation technologies under clearly specified assumptions, but it cannot by itself measure the strategic value of reliable electricity at a remote military installation or the industrial value of simultaneous electricity and heat production. Conversely, an assertion that energy resilience justifies higher expenditure does not remove the obligation to identify the alternative technologies, expected operating benefits and public costs against which the project should be assessed.

First-of-a-kind reactor economics are particularly sensitive to construction duration and financing arrangements. A generating installation that requires substantial early expenditure produces no electricity revenue during construction, while financing costs accumulate until commercial operation begins. Delays can therefore affect project economics even when the underlying physical construction quantities remain unchanged. Smaller individual projects may reduce the amount of capital exposed in a single unit, yet a programme involving multiple small installations can create a broad portfolio of development, authorisation and site-construction commitments. The relevant comparison is consequently not simply one small reactor against one large reactor, but the total cost of delivering a given quantity and quality of electrical supply through competing infrastructure configurations.

The United States has responded to these market barriers through public programmes supporting advanced reactor demonstration, nuclear fuel availability and industrial capability. The Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program uses cost-shared partnerships to support technical development and address licensing, construction and operational risks associated with first-of-a-kind projects. In the Department’s formulation, demonstration is intended to establish confidence that could eventually support follow-on orders; it is not equivalent to proof that a commercially competitive nuclear fleet already exists. Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program — US Department of Energy. Department of Energy

Table 1.3 — Nuclear project economics: variables that determine commercial viability

Economic variable	What it measures	Why it matters for SMRs	Principal audit requirement
Overnight capital cost	Construction investment excluding financing effects	Tests claimed reductions from modular manufacture	Defined project scope and price year
Interest during construction	Financing costs before commercial operation	Reveals exposure to schedule delay	Debt structure, rates and disbursement profile
Construction duration	Time between construction commitment and operation	Determines capital exposure and revenue delay	Verified milestones and contractual completion terms
Standardisation	Repeated manufacture of the same qualified design	Determines achievable learning effects	Comparable units and design-change history
Capacity factor	Actual production relative to maximum possible production	Affects electricity delivered over time	Operating records rather than design targets
Fuel-cycle expenditure	Fuel production, fabrication, transport and management	Can vary substantially between reactor families	Qualified supplier and contractual price basis
Operations and maintenance	Personnel, inspections, servicing and routine operating costs	Small installations may lose scale economies	Verified staffing and maintenance arrangements
Security and emergency preparedness	Physical protection, monitoring, exercises and response	Particularly consequential for remote or sensitive sites	Approved security and emergency plans
Decommissioning provision	Funding for eventual dismantling and site restoration	Remains relevant regardless of reactor size	Recognised financial liability and funding method
Offtake reliability	Ability of the customer to purchase output over the contract term	Determines revenue stability and project financeability	Creditworthy commitments and demand forecast

These variables are analytical requirements rather than numerical cost estimates. A credible project financial model must reconcile them within a consistent accounting perimeter. In particular, comparisons become misleading when one developer quotes only reactor-module costs while another reports complete site construction, or when nominal investment announcements are presented as equivalent to fully financed contractual commitments.

Advanced Nuclear Fuel as an Industrial Sovereignty Constraint

The supply of qualified nuclear fuel is among the most consequential constraints facing several advanced-reactor concepts, because technological development can advance more rapidly than the industrial facilities needed to produce fuel at the required enrichment and fabrication specifications. In the United States, most advanced reactor designs under development are expected to require high-assay low-enriched uranium, generally described as uranium enriched above 5% and below 20% in uranium-235. This differs from the fuel enrichment levels used by most conventional commercial light-water reactors, which generally employ uranium enriched to no more than 5%. The Department of Energy has identified the absence of a mature domestic commercial HALEU supply chain as a possible cause of delay for advanced reactor development, demonstration and deployment. HALEU Frequently Asked Questions — US Department of Energy. Department of Energy

The industrial implications extend well beyond uranium enrichment. An advanced reactor requires material in an appropriate chemical and physical form, manufactured into qualified fuel products, transported under applicable requirements and supported by a fuel-cycle system capable of meeting the operator’s long-term needs. Enrichment capability does not automatically establish fuel-fabrication capacity; fuel-fabrication capacity does not automatically establish qualification of a particular design; and possession of an initial fuel inventory does not by itself guarantee supply for subsequent units. Where a reactor developer depends on a specialised fuel not produced at industrial scale, the fuel contract can become a critical determinant of financing, procurement schedules and fleet expansion. From the perspective of military energy resilience, this also creates an important distinction between long intervals between refuelling and genuine supply-chain independence: reduced frequency of fuel delivery may offer operational advantages, but the reliability of the wider fuel cycle remains central to the technology’s strategic value.

On 5 January 2026, the Department of Energy finalised task orders of $900 million each with American Centrifuge Operating and General Matter to expand domestic HALEU enrichment capacity over a ten-year period. Those awards are part of a wider enrichment initiative, and they must be understood as industrial capacity-development measures rather than evidence that advanced-reactor fuel demand has already been satisfied. The Department also reported conditional HALEU allocation selections involving several reactor and fuel companies, including developers relevant to the microreactor sector. HALEU Enrichment Services — US Department of Energy — January 2026 and US Department of Energy HALEU Allocation Process. Department of Energy+1

Table 1.4 — United States advanced-reactor fuel commitments and industrial implications

Instrument or indicator	Documented value/status	Date or horizon	Industrial significance	Important qualification
HALEU enrichment range	Above 5%, below 20% U-235	Applicable fuel classification	Distinguishes HALEU from conventional reactor LEU	Does not apply to every advanced design
American Centrifuge Operating task order	$900 million	January 2026; ten-year expansion	Development of domestic enrichment capability	Not evidence of completed capacity
General Matter task order	$900 million	January 2026; ten-year expansion	Additional domestic enrichment capability	Future execution and output remain material
Wider DOE enrichment initiative	$2.7 billion planned allocation	DOE programme statement	Domestic LEU and HALEU infrastructure development	Programme-level figure, not additional realised production
DOE estimate of possible domestic HALEU demand	50 metric tonnes annually	2035	Potential future requirement from advanced-reactor deployment	Projection, not measured 2026 consumption
HALEU allocation process	Multiple conditional selections	2025–2026	Support for qualifying demonstration and commercial activities	Selection does not establish final fuel delivery

Sources: HALEU Enrichment Services — US Department of Energy, HALEU Frequently Asked Questions — US Department of Energy and HALEU Allocation Process — US Department of Energy. Department of Energy+2

The strategic importance of fuel supply is not limited to whether production facilities can eventually meet forecast reactor demand. Industrial sovereignty also concerns the resilience of conversion and deconversion services, specialised fabrication, inspection, nuclear transport and long-term supplier relationships. Governments pursuing advanced reactors as instruments of energy independence must therefore examine whether they are reducing dependence on imported electricity or fossil fuels while creating new concentrations of dependence on specialised nuclear materials and industrial services. This trade-off cannot be resolved by appealing to the nominal energy density of nuclear fuel alone. The ability to sustain a fleet through commercial disruption, regulatory interruption or geopolitical tension depends on an entire industrial ecosystem rather than solely on the operating performance of the reactor core.

Europe’s Nuclear Investment Strategy: Industrial Policy Before Commercial Deployment

The European Union has formally recognised the industrial potential of small modular reactors through a strategy adopted on 10 March 2026. The Commission identifies opportunities in low-carbon electricity, process heat, industrial decarbonisation and the integration of nuclear generation into broader energy systems. Its strategy establishes nine actions intended to support the first European SMR projects becoming operational in the early 2030s and encourages coordination among national authorities, industrial developers, financial institutions and the European Industrial Alliance on Small Modular Reactors. The Commission’s preliminary assessment that European SMR capacity could reach 17–53 GW by 2050 represents a prospective market range, not an authorised construction programme or a guarantee of future installed capacity. Small Modular Reactors — European Commission — March 2026. Energy

The economic significance of this initiative lies in the Commission’s recognition that reactor technology cannot be commercialised solely through research funding. Industrial deployment requires market formation, financing arrangements, qualified manufacturers, skilled labour, regulatory procedures and reliable customer demand. The European nuclear market also faces a structural coordination challenge because Member States retain different national energy choices and different institutional capacities. A reactor developer attempting to establish a continental production programme benefits from access to a large market, but fragmented technical requirements or inconsistent procurement conditions can undermine the economies of standardisation on which the commercial case depends. Conversely, common technical approaches must not reduce safety assessment to a simplified administrative procedure, because site conditions, operator capabilities and reactor technologies remain material.

The Commission has additionally announced the creation of a €200 million guarantee to support private investment in SMRs. This figure should be interpreted according to the financial nature of the instrument: a guarantee is intended to influence the allocation of investment risk and may facilitate private financing, but it must not be reported as €200 million of completed reactor construction or generating capacity already procured. Nuclear Investment Needs — European Commission — March 2026. European Commission

The European strategic question is therefore not whether SMRs can immediately replace large generating stations, but whether governments and industry can establish an industrial market in which standardisation, manufacturing capability and predictable procurement permit successive projects to become increasingly financeable. The sector’s military relevance follows from this civilian development process. A sufficiently mature advanced-reactor industry would increase the range of technologies and suppliers potentially available for defence installations, remote infrastructure and dual-use industrial applications. Yet the presence of military customers could also introduce distinctive contractual, security and regulatory requirements, potentially reducing the benefits of a common civilian manufacturing platform. The relationship between civilian market scale and military procurement must therefore be examined as an industrial dependency rather than assumed to be automatically beneficial.

Chapter 1 — Key Judgments

The available record supports the conclusion that the nuclear resurgence is real as an industrial, regulatory and investment movement, but uneven in technological maturity and commercial implementation. The OECD’s expanding project universe demonstrates development activity, while its readiness methodology shows why reactor counts alone are an inadequate measure of progress. Factory manufacture and smaller reactor dimensions offer prospective advantages, but commercial competitiveness depends on sustained orders, predictable licensing, qualified fuel supply, complete project costs and successful long-duration operations. American public programmes are addressing some of these bottlenecks through demonstration support and domestic fuel investment, while the European Union is seeking to establish a coordinated civilian market rather than an immediately operational distributed nuclear fleet.

What would change the assessment: Independently documented operating performance from first-of-a-kind reactors, reproducible construction-cost evidence from subsequent standardised units, firm long-term fuel contracts and confirmed commercial financing without exceptional or non-repeatable public support would materially strengthen claims of industrial maturity. Conversely, repeated construction delays, unsuccessful qualification programmes, supplier concentration or financing arrangements dependent on continual extraordinary support would weaken the proposition that modularity alone can transform nuclear economics.

Chapter 2. From Fixed Reactors to Distributed Military Power: Operational Models, Mobility and Infrastructure Dependencies

Principal judgment: The strategic significance of nuclear microreactors for armed forces arises less from their nominal generating capacity than from the possibility of reducing dependence on external electricity networks and repeated fuel deliveries at installations where interruptions would compromise essential operations. The United States has established the clearest documented procurement pathway for this model, but its programmes also demonstrate that distributed nuclear power is not synonymous with mobile battlefield generation. Reactor ownership, operator responsibilities, site infrastructure, electrical interfaces, transport requirements and emergency arrangements remain central determinants of operational usefulness. The evidence presently supports a transition towards military installation energy resilience, not the conclusion that transportable nuclear reactors have become an established expeditionary capability.

Military Energy Requirements Are Changing the Geography of Power Generation

Modern military installations are not simply concentrations of personnel, vehicles and weapons. They are complex infrastructure systems whose ability to fulfil operational missions depends upon continuous access to electricity for communications, maintenance, computing, surveillance, medical services, installation protection, logistics and other critical functions. The electrical characteristics of these requirements differ substantially. Some installations require large and relatively stable quantities of electricity, while others experience variable demand or have systems that must withstand exceptionally short interruptions. Certain functions can be supported by batteries or conventional emergency generators for limited periods, whereas others require reliable long-duration supply and arrangements for restoring power after major disturbances. The strategic attractiveness of a nuclear generator therefore depends upon the complete energy architecture of an installation, including its demand profile, critical loads, existing grid connections, fuel storage, reserve generation and ability to operate independently when external infrastructure becomes unavailable.

This distinction helps explain why military nuclear procurement cannot be evaluated through the same commercial criteria applied to an ordinary industrial electricity customer. A commercial generating project is usually judged primarily by its electricity production, delivered cost, contractual revenue and regulatory obligations. A military installation may assign additional value to continuity during disruption, reduced dependence on vulnerable transmission infrastructure and the ability to sustain priority functions when civilian networks become unavailable. These benefits are potentially significant, but they must be demonstrated against realistic alternatives rather than accepted as inherent properties of nuclear technology. Distributed conventional generators, energy storage, microgrids, hardened substations, diversified electricity connections and demand-management systems can provide different combinations of continuity, flexibility and recovery capability. A microreactor becomes an attractive option only where its particular contribution is sufficient to justify the capital investment, nuclear-specific operating obligations and potential security consequences.

The US defence establishment has examined this problem for more than a decade. The official Project Pele programme record traces its origins to a 2016 Defense Science Board assessment identifying energy availability as a critical enabler of future military operations. That analysis anticipated increasing electricity requirements associated with future military technologies and questioned whether improvements in energy efficiency alone would offset growth in demand. Project Pele was subsequently developed as a research and demonstration initiative intended to examine the technical feasibility of a transportable nuclear power system. The important historical distinction is that the military’s interest in nuclear energy did not begin with the commercial enthusiasm surrounding current SMR development. It emerged from a broader operational concern about the capacity of conventional energy supply arrangements to support increasingly electricity-intensive military missions. Project PELE Mobile Nuclear Reactor — US Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering. DoW Research & Engineering, OUSW(R&E)

The decisive operational question is whether nuclear generation can be integrated into military infrastructure without introducing dependencies that undermine the resilience it is intended to provide. A reactor capable of producing electricity over long operating intervals may reduce exposure to certain recurring fuel-delivery requirements, but the installation still needs functioning distribution equipment, appropriately designed control systems, physical security, qualified operators and the ability to manage reactor conditions during abnormal events. Where the electricity network within a base is vulnerable to a common failure, the presence of an additional generator may provide less resilience than the nominal generating capacity suggests. Where military operations require highly variable electrical output, the value of a generator capable of steady production depends on the ability of the wider system to accommodate fluctuations, maintain quality of supply and prioritise critical functions. Energy resilience is thus a property of the installation’s entire infrastructure architecture, not a characteristic that can be attributed to a reactor in isolation.

Project Pele: Establishing the Technical Possibility of Transportable Nuclear Generation

Project Pele is best understood as a technological investigation into whether a compact nuclear energy system can be manufactured, transported, assembled and operated under a controlled demonstration framework. Its importance is that the programme addresses several engineering requirements that conventional stationary nuclear plants were not designed to satisfy in the same combination, particularly the relationship between physical transportability, site installation, integrated supporting systems and nuclear safety. The distinction between a movable reactor design and a genuinely operational mobile power capability is substantial. Equipment that can be transported from a factory to a demonstration location may still require extensive civil preparation, environmental assessment, commissioning, local power infrastructure and permanent security arrangements before generating electricity. Subsequent relocation may involve additional procedures rather than a rapid return to service.

The official programme description establishes the research rationale but does not, by itself, prove that a nuclear reactor can be routinely deployed, operated, shut down and relocated under battlefield conditions. That evidentiary limitation matters because the expression mobile nuclear reactor can suggest a level of operational flexibility not demonstrated merely by a transportable physical configuration. Reactor transportability must be assessed across the entire lifecycle: fabrication, initial movement, installation, operation, shutdown, potential relocation, maintenance and eventual removal. A commercially attractive transportable reactor that can only operate after extensive site preparation may still have substantial value for remote installations, but its relevance to rapidly moving military operations would be materially different from a power source that can be repositioned on short notice. The public distinction between engineering demonstration and operational military capability must therefore remain explicit. Project PELE Mobile Nuclear Reactor — US Department of Defense. DoW Research & Engineering, OUSW(R&E)

Table 2.1 — Operational mobility: distinct capabilities that must not be conflated

Capability category	What it establishes	Additional requirements	Principal limitation
Factory-manufactured module	Components can be produced before site installation	Site construction, inspection, commissioning	Does not establish routine mobility
Transportable reactor equipment	Equipment can physically move between locations	Transport authorisation, packaging, security	Movement is not equivalent to generating power
Relocatable reactor installation	A system is designed for potential reinstallation	Site approval, reassembly, commissioning, fuel controls	Relocation may be time-consuming
Remote stationary operation	Generation can occur at a remote authorised site	Qualified personnel, maintenance and emergency arrangements	Does not imply operation in an active conflict area
Military installation deployment	Reactor supports an identified defence facility	Mission integration, local electrical architecture, security	Does not establish expeditionary suitability
Expeditionary nuclear generation	Sustained operation in an operationally demanding deployed environment	Demonstrated field reliability and complete safety support	Not established as a routine capability by the cited programmes

The table distinguishes operational states and does not imply that every microreactor design can progress through all six categories. The last category would require a particularly demanding body of evidence because the operating environment, supporting infrastructure and security conditions may be substantially less predictable than at a prepared permanent installation.

Project Janus: The Transition from Research Ambition to Military Procurement

The most consequential development in the American military nuclear programme during 2026 has been the movement from exploratory technology programmes towards formal selection of commercial developers for identified military installations. On 26 August 2026, the US Army announced that Project Janus had selected five nuclear energy vendors and five initial military locations, with a combined milestone-based funding framework of up to $2.2 billion across fiscal years 2027–2031. The programme anticipates more than 20 microreactors across defence installations when prospective private investment is included, and it identifies September 2028 as the target for operation of the first Army-regulated reactor at a military installation. The Army states that the prototype reactors will be contractor-owned and operated, an arrangement that is strategically important because the physical presence of a reactor on military property does not necessarily imply that military personnel will perform all nuclear operating functions. Army Reaches Agreement with Private Industry for Nuclear Micro-Reactors — US Army — August 2026. The United States Army

The funding framework should be interpreted carefully. An amount authorised or available for milestone-dependent procurement does not represent a completed transfer of public funds, an audited construction expenditure or a guaranteed project outcome. Under the announced approach, payments are linked to the achievement of specified technical milestones, and the commercial participants are expected to contribute investment. From a financial governance perspective, this creates a different allocation of development risk from an arrangement in which the government purchases completed electricity from a fully operational commercial installation. The Army’s approach may help establish an industrial market by providing early demand and reducing some developer uncertainty, but public procurement cannot eliminate the engineering and regulatory risks associated with first-of-a-kind systems. If a project fails to reach an operating milestone, the implications must be assessed through the applicable contract rather than inferred from the programme ceiling.

Table 2.2 — Project Janus: initial vendor–installation allocation, August 2026

Selected developer	Initial US military installation	State	Documented programme status	Principal evidence limitation
Antares Nuclear, Inc.	Fort Bragg	North Carolina	Initial Janus selection	Does not establish an operating reactor
BWXT Advanced Technologies, LLC	Fort Campbell	Kentucky	Initial Janus selection	Site-specific operating performance not established
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems	Fort Hood	Texas	Initial Janus selection	Construction and commissioning remain distinct milestones
Radiant Industries, Inc.	Fort Benning	Georgia	Initial Janus selection	Proposed deployment is not proof of delivered generating capacity
Westinghouse Government Services	Fort Drum	New York	Initial Janus selection	Final operating capability remains contingent on implementation

Source: Army Reaches Agreement with Private Industry for Nuclear Micro-Reactors — US Army — 26 August 2026. The United States Army

The geographic distribution of the initial selected installations is meaningful even without assuming that all of the reactors will have identical designs or operational roles. The programme encompasses different military establishments, potentially offering opportunities to examine how nuclear generation interacts with varying infrastructure requirements and site conditions. However, the public selection record does not justify inferring detailed electrical demand, military mission characteristics or security vulnerabilities for each installation. Those questions require site-specific engineering and operational documentation. The programme’s strategic value as an experiment lies in testing whether multiple commercial suppliers can satisfy common military requirements while retaining the technical and regulatory distinctions required by their individual designs.

The contractual ownership model also deserves attention. Under conventional utility arrangements, the electricity customer may have little responsibility for the technical operation of generation assets, while the utility retains operational expertise and regulatory obligations. In a military nuclear installation, however, the customer, land authority, security provider, electricity-system operator and nuclear reactor operator may be separate organisations. This division can be workable, but it requires clear arrangements governing operational decisions, abnormal-event response, maintenance access, information exchange and emergency coordination. A contractor cannot simply be treated as an interchangeable electricity supplier when its equipment contains nuclear material and is located within a security-sensitive military environment. Equally, the military installation cannot be treated as the reactor’s technical operator merely because it controls access to the surrounding property.

The Ownership–Operation–Security Interface

The governance model of distributed military nuclear generation must address the relationship between who owns the reactor, who operates it, who authorises nuclear activities, who manages the electricity network and who controls the security environment. The Army’s August 2026 announcement is unusually important in this respect because it explicitly envisages contractor-owned and contractor-operated prototypes while maintaining a military-oriented regulatory and installation framework. This creates a system in which commercial nuclear responsibilities must coexist with military priorities and installation security requirements. The arrangement could facilitate access to specialised private-sector expertise and avoid requiring the armed forces to build a complete internal nuclear operating workforce. Nevertheless, it also generates the need for clearly allocated responsibilities during emergencies, contractual disputes, temporary loss of access and extraordinary security conditions.

A military base may be able to protect the wider installation while a reactor operator is responsible for safety-critical technical decisions. The two responsibilities are complementary but not identical. The operator’s decisions must remain consistent with the applicable nuclear safety case, including requirements to maintain safe conditions during equipment failures or abnormal operations. Military authorities may simultaneously need to impose access restrictions, change installation operating conditions or prioritise essential activities. The resilience of the combined arrangement will depend on whether these responsibilities have been reconciled before an emergency rather than negotiated during one. Such questions are not peculiar to nuclear energy, but nuclear installations impose additional obligations concerning radiation protection, fuel control, emergency preparedness and independent regulatory oversight.

Table 2.3 — Institutional responsibilities in a military nuclear installation

Function	Potential responsible party	Required coordination	Consequence of unclear responsibility
Reactor ownership	Commercial developer or project entity	Asset finance, insurance, lifecycle obligations	Uncertain commercial and financial accountability
Nuclear operation	Authorised nuclear operator	Maintenance, safety, monitoring and reporting	Unclear authority over safety-critical decisions
Nuclear authorisation	Competent designated authority	Technical requirements and inspections	Regulatory uncertainty
Military installation access	Installation command/security authority	Contractor movement and emergency access	Operational and emergency-management conflicts
Electricity distribution	Installation utility or network operator	Isolation, load priority and restoration	Generation may not translate into usable power
Nuclear fuel management	Qualified fuel-cycle organisations	Procurement, transport, custody and safeguards	Supply and material-accountability exposure
Emergency preparedness	Operator and competent public/military authorities	Joint procedures, exercises and communications	Delayed or inconsistent response
Decommissioning	Responsible licensee, owner and financing parties	Waste management, funding and site restoration	Long-term liabilities may be inadequately allocated

This table is an institutional allocation framework rather than a statement that identical responsibilities have already been adopted at each Janus location. Actual allocation must be established from the governing contracts, authorisations and operating arrangements.

Distributed Nuclear Power and the Limits of Electrical Independence

The possibility of producing nuclear electricity within a military installation can reduce dependence on external electrical networks, but the strategic value of this change depends on the design of the local distribution system. An installation that receives electricity through one external connection may gain substantial flexibility from internal generation, provided that its critical electrical circuits can be isolated from external disturbances and supplied continuously or restored in an acceptable period. By contrast, placing a reactor on the installation does not necessarily protect all local functions if the internal grid contains common failure points, unsuitable switching arrangements or distribution systems incapable of accommodating the reactor’s operating characteristics. Nuclear generation can therefore contribute to resilience without making an installation electrically self-sufficient under every credible contingency.

This is where the distinction between electricity generation and mission assurance becomes particularly important. A generating system may be technically available while a critical military function remains unavailable because of failures in downstream distribution equipment or supporting infrastructure. Equally, a military installation may preserve essential functions during a major external electricity interruption through a combination of conventional generation, energy storage and load prioritisation without relying on an internal nuclear reactor. A defensible procurement assessment must identify the actual duration, scale and quality of electricity required by critical functions, the consequences of interruption and the contribution of each proposed supply arrangement. The relevant metric is not simply how many megawatts can be produced under normal conditions, but whether the combined installation system can deliver the required electricity under the specific disruptions that justify the investment.

Table 2.4 — Infrastructure dependencies that determine military energy resilience

Dependency	Operational function	Why onsite nuclear generation may help	Why vulnerability may remain
External grid connection	Normal electricity supply	Provides an alternative generating source	Internal grid interfaces can still fail
Internal distribution	Delivers electricity to essential functions	May sustain prioritised internal circuits	Common distribution failures may prevent delivery
Emergency generation	Supports urgent loads during interruptions	Could provide extended energy supply	Immediate continuity may still require separate systems
Energy storage	Maintains short-duration electrical continuity	Can complement steady nuclear generation	Capacity and duration are finite
Control and monitoring	Coordinates generating and electrical systems	Enables integrated local operation	Control-system failures can affect availability
Cooling and heat rejection	Maintains required reactor conditions	Design-specific passive features may assist	Ultimate heat rejection remains necessary
Maintenance infrastructure	Supports repairs, inspections and replacements	Longer operating intervals may reduce some servicing demands	Specialist nuclear maintenance remains required
Communications	Supports operation and emergency coordination	Local systems may reduce dependence on remote services	Communications disruptions remain consequential
Physical security	Protects nuclear material and facilities	Protected military premises may provide supporting resources	Nuclear-specific protective obligations remain
Qualified workforce	Operates and maintains nuclear systems	Contracted expertise can support military customers	Personnel availability remains a potential constraint

The fundamental conclusion is that electrical independence must be demonstrated at the level of the mission-essential supply system. Claims of independence based solely on the presence of a reactor risk overstating the achievable benefit because the installation continues to depend on distribution, maintenance, technical control and emergency infrastructure.

Transportability, Deployment Time and the Difference Between Strategic and Tactical Mobility

Nuclear transportability introduces a further distinction between strategic mobility, meaning the possibility of moving a generating system from one prepared region or installation to another, and tactical mobility, meaning the ability to reposition generating equipment frequently in response to changing military circumstances. These concepts should not be collapsed into a single category. A reactor designed for transport in modular equipment packages may support planned relocation between authorised sites without being appropriate for rapid movement during active operations. A system operating for long periods at a remote installation may deliver substantial strategic value precisely because it avoids repeated transport, rather than because it can be moved frequently.

The practical importance of this distinction concerns the complete deployment sequence. Moving equipment is only one stage in making nuclear electricity available. An operating site may require authorised physical boundaries, civil infrastructure, electrical distribution, supporting services, nuclear material accountability, qualified personnel and emergency arrangements. The associated procedures must be compatible with the reactor design, the regulatory framework and the actual location. A technology that substantially reduces the frequency of conventional fuel resupply could be valuable even if its initial installation is complex, but its commercial and military descriptions should state that limitation openly. The public evidence surrounding Project Pele and Project Janus does not establish that every proposed reactor can be rapidly relocated, nor that routine movement between military operating environments has been demonstrated. Project PELE Mobile Nuclear Reactor — US Department of Defense and Army Reaches Agreement with Private Industry for Nuclear Micro-Reactors — US Army — August 2026. DoW Research & Engineering, OUSW(R&E)+1

For strategic planners, the most significant implication is that reactor mobility may have greater value in supporting a network of prepared installations than in directly accompanying manoeuvring forces. A network of installations may offer opportunities for standardised equipment, common training, spare parts and recognised regulatory arrangements, whereas operations in unprepared environments could impose more demanding requirements for physical protection, emergency management and technical support. This is a conditional assessment, not a prediction about the final configuration of American or other military nuclear programmes. It follows from the difference between maintaining a controlled nuclear installation and operating nuclear equipment in an environment where the surrounding infrastructure and security conditions cannot be assumed to remain stable.

From National Grids to Military Energy Networks

If military microreactors become commercially and technically viable, their broader significance may emerge through the relationship between local electricity generation and national infrastructure. Military establishments located near civilian utilities, transport networks, industrial suppliers and communications systems already function within wider infrastructure environments. A local nuclear power source could potentially reduce some external dependencies while retaining others, creating new possibilities for energy planning but also new requirements for coordination with civilian authorities. The Army’s Janus announcement expressly recognises the importance of working with utility providers and indicates an interest in potential grid-facing generation opportunities at military installations. Such statements establish the direction of institutional planning, not the completion of projects supplying commercial electricity to surrounding networks. Army Reaches Agreement with Private Industry for Nuclear Micro-Reactors — US Army — August 2026. The United States Army

The possibility of combined civilian and military electricity supply creates a significant governance issue because the commercial value of reactor output may depend upon access to a wider market while the military value may depend upon the ability to reserve electricity during emergencies. These functions are not necessarily incompatible, but they require an explicit arrangement governing load priority, isolation, network operation and the rights of different electricity customers. An arrangement designed primarily for commercial export might not deliver the intended military resilience during a wider network disturbance unless its technical and contractual provisions support that outcome. Conversely, a reactor reserved exclusively for military use may have a different revenue structure and economic justification. The distinction matters for public procurement because payments for energy production, payments for capacity availability and expenditure justified by national security are not identical financial instruments.

The expansion of nuclear generation into military installations also changes the institutional composition of the nuclear sector. Conventional civilian deployment is principally organised around nuclear utilities, regulatory bodies, construction companies, fuel suppliers and electricity markets. Military deployment would add defence procurement authorities, installation commanders, military electricity managers, defence contractors and security organisations to an already demanding governance structure. This expansion creates opportunities for industrial cooperation, but it increases the importance of ensuring that safety decisions remain technically authoritative and that contractual incentives do not compromise nuclear operating requirements.

Chapter 2 — Key Judgments

The strongest documented near-term application of military microreactors is the provision of reliable electricity to permanent or prepared defence installations, rather than routine nuclear generation accompanying mobile combat forces. Project Pele establishes the research foundation for transportable generation; Project Janus establishes a concrete procurement framework involving selected commercial developers and military locations. Neither programme should be represented as proof that expeditionary nuclear power has become operationally mature. The strategic value of distributed nuclear generation will ultimately depend on integration with internal electricity systems, clear division of responsibilities among military and civilian organisations, reliable long-term operation and the capacity to maintain nuclear safety during disruptions affecting the surrounding infrastructure.

What would change the assessment: Commissioning of authorised military microreactors, sustained independent operation during demonstrated external-grid interruptions, publication of reliable electrical-performance results and documented relocation between approved sites would strengthen the case for operational utility. Evidence of complex site-specific construction, repeated dependency on external support, poor availability or unresolved contractual responsibility during emergencies would limit the technology’s attractiveness as a military resilience solution.

Chapter 3. Reactor Safety Under Hostile Conditions: Physical Protection, Residual Heat, Cybersecurity and Multi-Unit Failure

Principal judgment: The safety and security of small modular reactors cannot be inferred from their smaller generating capacity, reduced physical dimensions or advertised passive safety characteristics. Hostile operating conditions create combinations of physical disruption, loss of supporting infrastructure, degraded communications, malicious interference and emergency-response constraints that may fall outside the assumptions used to establish normal commercial operating performance. A defensible assessment must therefore distinguish reactor shutdown from long-term safe conditions, passive safety features from complete independence of external support, physical protection from operational continuity, and modular redundancy from the possibility of common-cause failure. These distinctions become increasingly important where reactors are proposed for remote sites, underground installations, multi-unit campuses or facilities that support sensitive military functions.

Nuclear Safety and Nuclear Security Are Interdependent but Different Responsibilities

Nuclear safety concerns the prevention of accidents and the limitation of their consequences, while nuclear security concerns the prevention, detection and response to intentional unauthorised acts involving nuclear material, facilities or associated activities. Both objectives are relevant to advanced reactors, but they differ in the events they must address and the measures used to manage them. A reactor may possess safety systems intended to maintain acceptable conditions following equipment failures, human errors or external hazards, yet still require additional protection against deliberate interference or damage. Conversely, a physically secure installation may remain vulnerable to non-malicious failures involving cooling, electrical systems or operating procedures. The relevance of armed conflict lies partly in the possibility that both categories of challenge occur together: a facility may experience disrupted infrastructure while personnel face restricted access, degraded communications or an uncertain external security environment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s physical protection guidance provides an appropriate institutional foundation for this distinction. Its Handbook on the Design of Physical Protection Systems for Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities, Nuclear Security Series No. 40-T, treats physical protection as an integrated arrangement involving personnel, procedures, equipment and management systems rather than a collection of independent barriers. The same guidance emphasises the need to protect sensitive information and integrate computer security into the assessment of physical protection systems. This is particularly relevant to distributed nuclear deployment because a smaller physical installation may still depend upon specialised monitoring, access-control, maintenance and communication systems, while the number of geographically separated facilities requiring oversight could increase substantially. Handbook on the Design of Physical Protection Systems for Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities — IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 40-T. Nucleus

A central implication is that engineering innovation can change the form of nuclear-security obligations without eliminating them. Smaller reactors may offer advantages associated with their physical configuration, potentially including simplified equipment arrangements or particular passive safety functions, but security requirements must still be matched to the material present, the possible consequences of malicious action, the design of the installation and the national regulatory framework. A reactor located within an industrial complex may require protection against threats arising from the surrounding industrial environment, while one on a military installation may operate within a broader security organisation whose priorities and procedures are not identical to those of the nuclear operator. Neither setting can be judged safe merely because it is already surrounded by protective infrastructure. The nuclear installation requires its own properly integrated safety and security arrangements.

Reactor Shutdown Is Not Equivalent to the Elimination of Thermal Risk

One of the most consequential technical misunderstandings in public discussion of advanced nuclear technology is the assumption that terminating the nuclear chain reaction eliminates the need to manage heat. In reality, radioactive materials continue to generate heat after shutdown through the decay of fission products and other radionuclides. The magnitude and duration of this residual heat depend on the reactor’s design, operating history, fuel characteristics and other conditions. A properly designed safety system must provide a means of controlling temperatures and preserving required barriers after shutdown, including during the disturbances identified in the applicable safety analysis. The fact that a reactor has a smaller thermal output than a conventional large generating station does not establish that its heat-removal requirements can be neglected.

Passive heat-removal arrangements may offer important advantages because they can employ physical processes such as natural circulation, conduction, convection or radiation, reducing dependence on some actively powered equipment. Their effectiveness must nevertheless be established for the actual reactor geometry and the environmental conditions under which they are expected to operate. Natural circulation depends on the relevant thermal and fluid characteristics; heat must ultimately be transferred to an appropriate surrounding environment; and the performance of passive arrangements may be affected by equipment condition, system configuration or external circumstances. The general presence of a passive safety feature is therefore less informative than its demonstrated ability to perform its required function across the range of circumstances identified in the design’s safety basis.

A hostile environment introduces a distinctive assessment problem because damage to infrastructure or restrictions on personnel access may continue after the reactor has been shut down. A safety system designed to tolerate a defined period without active intervention cannot automatically be assumed to provide unlimited protection under prolonged disruption. Equally, a reactor capable of reaching and maintaining a safe shutdown condition without external power may offer genuine resilience advantages relative to a design with greater active-system dependence. The correct assessment requires a design-specific evaluation of the credible event, the initial reactor conditions, the necessary heat-removal functions and the duration over which required safety performance can be maintained.

Table 3.1 — Reactor safety functions and their relevance during prolonged disruption

Safety function	Technical purpose	Potential hostile-environment complication	Necessary evidence
Reactor shutdown	Terminate the sustained nuclear chain reaction	Damage or malfunction affecting required shutdown functions	Validated shutdown-system performance
Residual heat removal	Control temperatures after shutdown	Extended loss of supporting infrastructure	Demonstrated post-shutdown thermal performance
Radioactive material confinement	Preserve applicable physical barriers	Structural damage or abnormal environmental conditions	Design-specific barrier assessment
Instrumentation and monitoring	Provide information on reactor conditions	Equipment failure, communications loss or malicious interference	Qualified instrumentation and independent verification arrangements
Electrical support	Supply functions requiring electricity	External grid disruption or local distribution failure	Defined electrical dependencies and backup capability
Heat rejection	Transfer heat from the reactor system to the surrounding environment	Changes to environmental or supporting conditions	Validated ultimate heat-rejection assumptions
Emergency operating procedures	Guide response to abnormal conditions	Restricted access, incomplete information or personnel disruption	Procedures, training and exercise records
Site emergency response	Protect personnel and coordinate protective measures	Physical insecurity or delayed access	Integrated and tested emergency arrangements

This table identifies the categories of evidence necessary to evaluate safety during abnormal conditions. It does not imply that every reactor requires identical equipment or that each listed condition would produce a loss of safety function.

Underground Siting and the Engineering Limits of Physical Concealment

Underground and partially embedded reactor configurations are often discussed as potential means of protecting critical equipment from external hazards. Below-ground placement may provide advantages for some designs, but it also changes the engineering conditions under which the facility must operate and be maintained. Excavation, structural support, groundwater management, drainage, ventilation, access routes and heat transfer to the surrounding environment can become important elements of the installation’s safety case. A protected physical location is not automatically a location with adequate access for inspection, repairs and emergency intervention. Nor does the absence of a conventional above-ground reactor building establish immunity from all external hazards.

The central trade-off concerns the relationship between physical protection and operational accessibility. An installation designed to limit external exposure may require carefully engineered provisions for personnel movement, equipment replacement, emergency services and eventual decommissioning. Geological conditions and water intrusion must also be evaluated according to the local environment, while any proposed reliance on the surrounding ground or structural material for heat transfer requires credible engineering validation. These factors cannot be assessed by assuming that all underground designs share a common safety profile. An installation in competent rock, for example, should not automatically be considered equivalent to one in an area with materially different groundwater, seismic or soil conditions.

The strategic implication is that underground deployment should be assessed as a complete infrastructure choice rather than an isolated protection measure. The same arrangement that changes exposure to some physical hazards may increase the complexity of civil construction or limit access under certain conditions. A proper safety and security review must examine the combined effects of these characteristics without assuming that additional structural protection necessarily improves every dimension of resilience.

Cybersecurity and the Transformation of Nuclear Instrumentation

The digitalisation of nuclear instrumentation and control systems creates additional opportunities for monitoring, diagnostic analysis and operational efficiency, but also introduces security requirements that must be integrated into the facility’s overall safety architecture. Modern nuclear installations may employ interconnected digital components performing control, monitoring, protection, maintenance and supporting functions. The security implications depend on the architecture of the actual installation, including which systems communicate, the access available to personnel and contractors, the separation of functions and the measures governing software and configuration changes. It would be inaccurate to suggest that a nuclear reactor becomes vulnerable to arbitrary remote control merely because digital technology is present. It would be equally inaccurate to assume that conventional physical security arrangements adequately address malicious interference with safety-related information systems.

The IAEA’s Computer Security of Instrumentation and Control Systems at Nuclear Facilities, Nuclear Security Series No. 33-T, establishes a comprehensive technical basis for addressing these risks. The publication identifies the potential significance of insider access, contractor and supplier relationships, configuration management, access controls, maintenance environments and the consequences of malicious interference with instrumentation and control functions. It also recognises that computer security measures must be proportionate to the importance of the functions being protected and to the consequences that could result from their compromise. The importance of this approach is that cybersecurity cannot be reduced to the protection of ordinary administrative networks. It must account for the relationship between information integrity, operating decisions and nuclear safety functions. Computer Security of Instrumentation and Control Systems at Nuclear Facilities — IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 33-T. Nucleus

The challenge becomes particularly important for distributed reactor deployment because maintaining numerous geographically separated installations may create incentives for remote monitoring, shared service organisations and standardised digital support systems. These arrangements may improve operating efficiency, but they also require explicit consideration of cyber resilience, the availability of qualified local personnel, the management of software changes and the preservation of essential functions during communications disruptions. Standardisation can benefit cybersecurity by reducing unnecessary technological variation and supporting consistent configuration control, yet a common architecture may also create correlated exposure if a defect or weakness affects numerous installations. The appropriate policy response is not to reject digitalisation, but to ensure that design, procurement, operation and technical oversight address computer security throughout the system lifecycle.

Table 3.2 — Nuclear cybersecurity: essential areas of governance and assurance

Security domain	Principal concern	Required institutional control	Evidence of effectiveness
Instrumentation and control	Integrity and availability of safety-related functions	Function classification and graded protection	Independent assessment and validation
Identity and access	Unauthorised use of privileged functions	Access management and separation of responsibilities	Reviewed access records and procedures
Configuration management	Uncontrolled changes to equipment or software	Authorised change processes and technical baselines	Configuration audits
Supplier and contractor access	External technical relationships	Defined contractual and security requirements	Supplier assurance and access governance
Maintenance systems	Temporary connections and service activity	Controlled maintenance arrangements	Inspection and testing records
Remote monitoring	Dependence on communications and remote services	Defined operating boundaries and fallback arrangements	Demonstrated continuity during communications loss
Information protection	Exposure of sensitive operating or security information	Classification and information-handling procedures	Compliance and security reviews
Incident management	Inability to detect or respond to interference	Integrated technical and organisational response	Exercises and post-exercise corrective actions
Fleet-wide standardisation	Common technical dependencies across multiple sites	Coordinated assurance and controlled updates	Independent review of common systems
Safety–security interface	Security measures affecting safety activities	Joint safety and security governance	Demonstrated compatibility of procedures

The framework follows the functions addressed in Computer Security of Instrumentation and Control Systems at Nuclear Facilities — IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 33-T and Handbook on the Design of Physical Protection Systems for Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities — IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 40-T. Nucleus+1

Multi-Unit Reactor Campuses: Modularity Does Not Automatically Provide Independence

The possibility of deploying several small reactors at one installation represents an important difference between the commercial architecture of modular nuclear generation and the traditional model of constructing a comparatively small number of large generating units. A multi-unit campus may offer advantages associated with incremental investment, operational flexibility and the possibility of taking one unit out of service while others continue generating electricity. The degree to which these benefits can be realised depends upon whether the units are genuinely independent in the relevant engineering functions. Several reactor modules located together may share external electrical connections, supporting buildings, emergency arrangements, personnel, communications infrastructure and other services, potentially creating dependencies that are not apparent when examining the reactor modules individually.

The distinction between component redundancy and functional independence is central. A facility may contain multiple reactor units without possessing multiple independent routes for performing every essential supporting function. Shared equipment may improve commercial economics by reducing duplicated infrastructure, but it can also expose several generating units to the same initiating event or supporting-system failure. This is not evidence that multi-unit SMRs are inherently unsafe. It means that the safety and availability analysis must account for both module-specific failures and events affecting the wider site, including combinations that may disrupt more than one unit. The industrial objective of reducing infrastructure expenditure must therefore be considered alongside the engineering requirement to preserve the relevant safety functions under the conditions identified in the approved design.

A particularly important planning question concerns the extent to which common systems are justified by their economic benefits. Sharing non-safety-critical infrastructure may reduce costs without materially affecting the protection of fundamental reactor functions, provided the arrangement is supported by the necessary assessments. Sharing equipment that is essential to maintaining safe conditions requires a different level of justification because the consequences of a common failure may involve more than one reactor. The resulting balance is design-specific and cannot be established through a general rule that modular plants should always maximise either separation or common infrastructure. The appropriate decision requires identification of the functions involved, their importance, their physical and organisational dependencies and the consequences of simultaneous disruption.

Table 3.3 — Multi-unit reactor campuses: independence and common-cause considerations

Shared or independent function	Potential efficiency benefit	Possible common dependency	Necessary assessment
Shared site civil works	Reduced construction duplication	Common environmental and structural conditions	Site-wide external-hazard analysis
Common electrical infrastructure	Simplified distribution and connection	Multiple units exposed to one distribution failure	Electrical independence and continuity assessment
Centralised control facilities	Coordinated supervision	Shared monitoring or communications dependencies	Control-system and human-factors assessment
Common maintenance organisation	Specialist workforce efficiency	Simultaneous maintenance constraints	Maintenance scheduling and workforce assurance
Shared security services	Coordinated site protection	Common security-management dependencies	Integrated physical security assessment
Common emergency facilities	Consolidated response resources	Several units may require support simultaneously	Multi-unit emergency preparedness
Shared auxiliary services	Reduced equipment duplication	Common supporting-system failure	Functional dependency analysis
Standardised digital architecture	Lower configuration and support complexity	Correlated technical defects	Fleet-wide technical and cyber assurance
Shared fuel-handling infrastructure	Potential logistics efficiencies	Scheduling and material-control dependencies	Nuclear material and operational safety review
Independent reactor modules	Potentially greater operating flexibility	Independence may be limited by shared systems	Demonstration of genuine functional separation

The decision-relevant point is that nominal reactor count is not a sufficient measure of available generating redundancy. A campus consisting of several modules may provide strong resilience if its dependencies have been appropriately managed, but the same nominal capacity could perform differently where essential supporting functions are concentrated in common infrastructure.

Physical Security, Emergency Access and the Burden of Geographic Dispersion

Distributed nuclear generation creates a potential tension between the benefits of placing energy production closer to customers and the resources required to protect a larger number of sites. A conventional large nuclear station concentrates many of its nuclear security, inspection and emergency-management requirements within a single institutional and geographic structure. A network of smaller installations may spread some generating risks while increasing the number of locations requiring competent operators, inspections, physical protection, nuclear-material accountability and emergency preparedness. The net effect depends on the number of facilities, their designs, their radioactive inventories, the nature of their host sites and the regulatory arrangements applied to each installation.

This is particularly important for remote industrial and military applications. A location may be attractive for distributed nuclear generation precisely because access to conventional energy infrastructure is limited, but its remoteness may also affect access to specialist personnel, replacement equipment and external emergency resources. A credible project should therefore demonstrate not only that its reactor can operate under normal conditions but also that the surrounding organisation can maintain safety, security and regulatory compliance when transport, communications or external services are disrupted. The burden should not be confused with a requirement that every small reactor replicate all the physical arrangements of a large nuclear plant. Graded, risk-informed approaches may allow requirements to reflect the consequences and characteristics of particular installations, but any reduction in complexity must result from a defensible technical and regulatory assessment rather than a presumption that small physical scale makes the facility administratively simple.

The IAEA’s physical protection framework is relevant because it requires the security system to be considered as an integrated combination of people, procedures and equipment, sustained through appropriate management arrangements. For a distributed fleet, that principle extends naturally to organisational resilience: the availability of trained personnel, independent assurance, reliable technical support and clearly assigned emergency responsibilities forms part of the practical ability to protect the installation. A system with substantial automation may reduce routine staffing requirements, but it does not remove the need to address abnormal events and verify the continuing effectiveness of security measures. Handbook on the Design of Physical Protection Systems for Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities — IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 40-T. Nucleus

Radiological Consequences Must Be Assessed by Source Term and Site Conditions

A smaller reactor may contain a smaller inventory of radioactive material than a large conventional generating station, but the potential consequences of damage cannot be inferred from electrical power rating alone. The relevant engineering concept is the source term: the radioactive material that could be released under a defined accident or damage scenario, including its composition, quantity, physical and chemical form and the mechanisms through which release could occur. Source-term evaluation must be combined with the characteristics of the reactor’s fuel, safety barriers, operating history, damage conditions and environmental pathways. Without that information, comparisons between the possible consequences of different reactor technologies risk misleading both policymakers and the public.

The distinction is especially significant when evaluating advanced reactor fuel systems. Different fuels and reactor architectures can exhibit different responses to elevated temperatures, mechanical damage and other abnormal conditions. The actual consequences depend upon the behaviour of the fuel and barriers within the relevant scenario, rather than on an assumption that advanced technology necessarily eliminates radiological risk. Similarly, underground installation, reduced reactor power or passive cooling may materially affect the consequences of certain events without providing a universal measure of protection. Meaningful comparison requires design-specific documentation, not the transfer of consequence estimates from large light-water reactors to systems whose materials, operating temperatures and physical arrangements may be different.

From an institutional perspective, this means that emergency planning should be proportionate to a credible technical assessment rather than based exclusively on the nominal capacity of the reactor. Physical consequences, protective actions, personnel exposure, environmental effects and recovery requirements must be considered within their proper scope. The potential for political or diplomatic consequences should also be distinguished from radiological consequence modelling: an incident affecting a nuclear installation may become strategically consequential even when its physical effects are limited, but that possibility does not justify presenting speculative radiological figures as established outcomes.

Safety Assurance Across the Nuclear Facility Lifecycle

One of the most difficult institutional challenges in advanced reactor deployment is maintaining continuity of assurance as a project passes through design, manufacture, transport, installation, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning. Traditional nuclear oversight already involves extensive documentation and inspection, but modular manufacture and possible relocation alter where particular activities occur and how the responsibilities of designers, manufacturers, operators and authorities must be coordinated. A component manufactured at one location may become part of a reactor operated at another, while specialised servicing or refurbishment may involve additional organisations and facilities. These arrangements can be managed within appropriate regulatory systems, but they require traceability, quality assurance and clarity concerning which records and inspections establish the acceptability of each stage.

The relevance of lifecycle assurance becomes particularly apparent when advanced reactor programmes seek accelerated deployment. A faster manufacturing process is not, by itself, evidence that regulatory reviews or commissioning activities can be omitted. Similarly, standardised components may simplify repeated inspections once the design is qualified, but only where manufacturing control, configuration management and the approved technical basis remain consistent. Commercial pressure to accelerate schedules should therefore be separated from the legitimate engineering advantages of modular production. The appropriate objective is to avoid unnecessary duplication while preserving the evidence required to establish that each installed reactor conforms to its authorised design and can be operated safely under its actual site conditions.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s regulatory developments illustrate the importance of adapting legal and technical processes to new reactor designs without assuming that every technology follows the same licensing pathway. Its Part 53 framework, effective from 29 April 2026, establishes an additional risk-informed, performance-based and technology-inclusive route for relevant commercial nuclear reactors. The Commission has also pursued a proposed Part 57 framework intended to address licensing models for microreactors and other designs with comparable risk profiles. These measures reflect recognition that reactor manufacturing, deployment and operating models are evolving, but the presence of a regulatory pathway does not itself establish that a particular design has been licensed or demonstrated. Pre-Application Process — US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Microreactors — US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nuclear Regulatory Commission+1

Table 3.4 — Advanced reactor assurance across the complete lifecycle

Lifecycle stage	Required demonstration	Principal institutional responsibility	Risk of premature conclusion
Concept development	Defined design basis and intended operating functions	Developer and relevant technical authorities	Treating an engineering concept as an approved product
Detailed design	Validated safety functions and applicable technical requirements	Designer and competent regulator	Assuming passive features are universally sufficient
Fuel qualification	Suitable and qualified fuel for the design	Fuel supplier, developer and competent authorities	Confusing material availability with qualified supply
Component manufacture	Compliance with design and quality requirements	Manufacturer and inspection organisations	Assuming factory production guarantees conformity
Transport	Compliance with applicable transport and security requirements	Transport participants and competent authorities	Equating physical movement with operating readiness
Site construction	Approved civil and supporting infrastructure	Project owner, contractors and site authorities	Treating modular delivery as completion of the installation
Commissioning	Demonstration of installed-system performance	Authorised operator and competent authority	Treating criticality as proof of sustained commercial operation
Normal operation	Continuing compliance and reliable safety performance	Operator and regulator	Substituting nominal output for verified availability
Abnormal-event management	Demonstrated response to defined disturbances	Operator and emergency authorities	Assuming automatic shutdown eliminates all subsequent obligations
Long-term maintenance	Continued technical integrity and configuration control	Operator, suppliers and maintenance organisations	Underestimating specialist workforce and component requirements
Decommissioning	Safe dismantling, waste management and restoration	Responsible licensee and authorities	Deferring lifecycle liabilities beyond the operating period

The table identifies required categories of assurance; it does not prescribe a uniform legal process for every jurisdiction or reactor design. National legislation and the applicable authorisation framework determine the specific requirements.

Chapter 3 — Key Judgments

The physical dimensions of a reactor provide incomplete information about its safety and security performance. Small reactors may offer meaningful advantages through engineered containment arrangements, reduced radioactive inventories, passive heat removal or modular separation, but those advantages require verification against the relevant design and site conditions. Under hostile circumstances, the distinction between successful shutdown and maintaining safe conditions for the necessary duration becomes particularly important, while the reliability of supporting infrastructure, trained personnel, physical protection and emergency arrangements can determine whether an initially manageable event develops into a more serious operational problem.

Digital instrumentation and geographically distributed operation create additional dependencies that must be assessed alongside physical hazards. The IAEA’s guidance establishes that effective nuclear protection requires integrated technical, organisational and information-security measures. For multi-unit campuses, the central concern is whether shared infrastructure creates common dependencies that undermine the benefits of modular redundancy. For underground or remote installations, the central concern is whether the apparent gains in physical protection or logistical independence are preserved after accounting for heat rejection, access, inspection, maintenance and emergency response.

What would change the assessment: Independent design-specific evidence demonstrating reliable passive heat removal under prolonged disturbances, validated multi-unit independence, effective cybersecurity assurance and sustained operation under representative environmental conditions would strengthen confidence in the applicability of advanced reactors to strategically sensitive infrastructure. Conversely, evidence of unresolved common-cause dependencies, inadequately defined operator responsibilities, unqualified safety functions or insufficient emergency preparedness would require a more restrictive assessment of particular deployment proposals.

Pillar I — Integrated Assessment

The first three chapters establish that small modular nuclear power should be assessed as an emerging industrial and infrastructure system whose strategic value depends on more than nuclear reactor technology. The international development pipeline is expanding, and governments are making significant policy and procurement commitments, but the evidence required to demonstrate repeatable commercial economics, reliable military electricity supply and adequate protection under hostile conditions remains design-specific and incomplete. The transition from large, identifiable civilian generating stations towards potentially dispersed industrial and military installations is therefore best understood as a change in the architecture of energy production and governance, rather than as a simple reduction in reactor size.

Three conclusions follow from this combined assessment. Industrial maturity must be judged through completed manufacturing, financing, fuel qualification and operating milestones rather than the number of projects announced. Military resilience must be judged through the availability of electricity at mission-essential loads rather than reactor nameplate capacity or nominal transportability. Nuclear safety must be judged through the integrated performance of the reactor, site, operator and supporting systems under credible abnormal conditions rather than through individual design features considered in isolation. These conclusions establish the analytical foundation for Pillar II, where the question changes from whether distributed nuclear generation can be made technologically and economically credible to how such installations interact with military objectives, international humanitarian law, the conduct of hostilities and escalation management.

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PILLAR II — WARFARE, LEGAL PROTECTION AND STRATEGIC EXPOSURE

Chapter 4. The International Legal Architecture: Nuclear Facilities, Military Objectives and Dangerous Forces

Principal judgment: International humanitarian law provides substantial protection for nuclear electrical generating stations during armed conflict, but that protection cannot be understood as an unconditional prohibition covering every nuclear installation in every circumstance. The legal framework combines the general protection of civilian objects, the rules governing military objectives, special provisions concerning installations containing dangerous forces, and continuing obligations to minimise foreseeable civilian harm. The emergence of smaller reactors located within military establishments raises difficult questions of interpretation, but it does not create an automatic exemption from existing law. The central legal problem is the relationship between the reactor’s actual function, its contribution to military operations, the consequences of an attack and the applicable treaty obligations of the parties concerned.

The Legal Status of Nuclear Infrastructure Cannot Be Determined by Its Physical Location Alone

The legal protection of nuclear infrastructure must begin with the structure of international humanitarian law rather than with the political description assigned to the installation by its owner or host government. Nuclear electrical generating stations are ordinarily civilian infrastructure, and their use to produce electricity does not by itself make them military objectives. The fact that a facility is strategically valuable, contributes to national economic resilience or supplies electricity to important public services is insufficient to remove its civilian protection. Equally, a facility does not automatically retain civilian status in every operational circumstance merely because its commercial purpose is electricity generation. The law distinguishes civilian objects from military objectives according to the applicable legal criteria and the factual contribution of the object to military action.

Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions defines military objectives, in the context of objects, by reference to their nature, location, purpose or use and whether they make an effective contribution to military action, with their destruction, capture or neutralisation offering a definite military advantage in the circumstances ruling at the time. The two elements of this assessment must be considered together. Economic importance, political significance or the possibility that electricity indirectly benefits a country’s military establishment cannot simply be substituted for the required legal analysis. Conversely, an installation providing direct and operationally significant support to military activity may raise questions that an exclusively civilian generating station would not.

The International Committee of the Red Cross emphasises that nuclear power plants receive protection as civilian objects and benefit from additional safeguards because damage to them may cause the release of radioactive material with potentially severe consequences for civilians. Its interpretation also makes clear that the presence of military activity near a nuclear installation does not automatically deprive the installation of protection. How Humanitarian Law Applies to Armed Conflict and Nuclear Power Plants — International Committee of the Red Cross — September 2022. ICRC

This distinction becomes especially important when evaluating microreactors situated within military establishments. A military base may contain infrastructure serving ordinary domestic needs, facilities performing direct operational functions and commercial services provided under contract. The mere presence of a nuclear electricity generator within the installation does not settle whether the generator itself is a military objective, whether a particular component serves a military function or whether special protection concerning dangerous forces applies. These questions demand a factual and legal assessment of the generating installation and its relationship with the surrounding activities.

The converse error would be to assume that nuclear generation automatically extends legal immunity to every military asset within a broad geographical area. Article 56 contains provisions concerning military objectives located at or near protected installations, but those provisions have specific conditions and purposes. They cannot be transformed into a general doctrine permitting armed forces to obtain unrestricted immunity merely by locating military assets near a reactor.

Article 56: The Special Protection of Installations Containing Dangerous Forces

Article 56 of Additional Protocol I establishes special rules concerning works and installations containing dangerous forces, expressly identifying dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations. The central purpose is to prevent attacks that may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population. The prohibition can apply even when the installation would otherwise satisfy the definition of a military objective, because the potential humanitarian consequences justify an additional level of protection beyond the ordinary distinction between civilian and military objects.

This protection is legally distinctive. Under the general rules governing attacks, an object qualifying as a military objective may be attacked only subject to the applicable restrictions, including proportionality and precautions. Article 56 adds a separate limitation directed towards the dangers arising from particular categories of infrastructure. The legal analysis therefore cannot stop once military-objective status has been established. The relevant questions include whether the object falls within Article 56, whether an attack may produce the specified dangerous consequences and whether the narrowly defined conditions for cessation of special protection have been met.

For a nuclear electrical generating station, Article 56(2)(b) provides that special protection may cease if the installation supplies electric power in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if an attack is the only feasible way to terminate that support. These conditions are cumulative within the treaty framework. The existence of military electricity consumption is not, by itself, sufficient to establish that the exception applies. Nor does a general assertion that the electricity benefits the war effort necessarily satisfy the requirement of direct support to military operations. The formulation requires examination of the character, regularity and significance of the support, together with whether there is another feasible way to terminate it.

The ICRC explains that the loss of special protection is exceptional and does not make an otherwise unlawful attack lawful. All other applicable protections continue, including those governing civilian harm, the natural environment and precautions. How Humanitarian Law Applies to Armed Conflict and Nuclear Power Plants — International Committee of the Red Cross — September 2022. ICRC

The provision also distinguishes the protected nuclear generating station from other military objectives at or near such installations. Article 56(2)(c) addresses circumstances in which those other military objectives may lose the special protection conferred by the article, including their use in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and the condition that an attack be the only feasible means of terminating that support. The distinction matters because a military asset located near a reactor and the nuclear generating station itself are not legally interchangeable objects. Their respective functions, the applicable exceptions and the anticipated consequences must be examined separately.

Table 4.1 — International humanitarian law: principal provisions governing nuclear installations

Legal instrument or provision	Principal legal function	Relevance to nuclear facilities	Distinction requiring particular attention
Additional Protocol I, Article 48	Fundamental rule of distinction	Separates civilian objects from military objectives	Strategic importance alone does not establish military-objective status
Additional Protocol I, Article 52	Protection of civilian objects and definition of military objectives	Establishes the general classification framework	Requires assessment of effective military contribution and definite advantage
Additional Protocol I, Article 51	Protection of civilians and rules concerning attacks	Governs civilian protection and disproportionate incidental harm	Military-objective status does not eliminate proportionality obligations
Additional Protocol I, Article 56(1)	Special protection of works containing dangerous forces	Addresses nuclear electrical generating stations	Applies under the specified dangerous-release and severe-loss conditions
Additional Protocol I, Article 56(2)(b)	Conditions for cessation of special protection for nuclear stations	Addresses direct support through electricity supply	Requires regular, significant and direct support and no other feasible termination method
Additional Protocol I, Article 56(2)(c)	Conditions concerning other military objectives at or near protected works	Addresses military objectives associated with protected installations	Must be evaluated separately from the generating station
Additional Protocol I, Article 56(3)	Continued civilian protection if special protection ceases	Preserves further precautionary obligations	Loss of special protection is not unrestricted permission to attack
Additional Protocol I, Article 56(5)	Restrictions concerning military objectives near protected works	Seeks to reduce conflict-related exposure	Contains a specific allowance for limited defensive installations
Additional Protocol I, Article 57	Precautions in attack	Requires feasible verification and precautions	Applies independently of any Article 56 exception
Additional Protocol I, Articles 35(3) and 55	Environmental protection	Addresses severe environmental consequences	Requires consideration of the applicable legal thresholds
Customary IHL, Rule 42	Particular care regarding works containing dangerous forces	Relevant beyond identical treaty participation	Scope and application must be assessed under applicable customary law

The operative treaty framework is set out in Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, Protocol I — ICRC Treaty Database, with the ICRC’s explanation of the nuclear-specific rules in How Humanitarian Law Applies to Armed Conflict and Nuclear Power Plants — ICRC — September 2022. ICRC

The Threshold for Losing Special Protection Is Narrower Than Ordinary Military Utility

The conditions attached to Article 56 are particularly relevant to the emerging defence-energy nexus because military installations increasingly depend on electricity for communications, computation, maintenance and essential operational activities. A nuclear reactor supplying a military base may therefore contribute to the installation’s functioning without necessarily satisfying the specific conditions for cessation of special protection. The treaty does not simply ask whether military personnel consume the electricity. It addresses whether the supply is regular, significant and direct support of military operations and whether attacking the generating station is the only feasible way to terminate that support.

The distinction between direct military operations and more general military administration is legally consequential. A generating station may supply numerous functions through a common electrical network, some civilian and others military, and the factual relationship between generation and particular operations may be difficult to establish. A small reactor supplying electricity exclusively within a defence establishment could present a different evidentiary situation from a large civilian station whose output enters an interconnected national grid. Nevertheless, an apparently closer connection to military functions does not dispense with the requirements of the treaty or with the need to establish the factual circumstances.

Another critical distinction concerns feasibility. Article 56(2)(b) does not permit cessation of special protection solely because disabling the nuclear generating station would be militarily convenient. The condition that an attack be the only feasible way to terminate qualifying support imposes a separate legal requirement. Whether that condition is met would depend on the actual circumstances and available alternatives, not on abstract assumptions about the military value of destroying a generator.

A further complication is that Additional Protocol I speaks specifically of nuclear electrical generating stations. It should not automatically be assumed that every nuclear-powered object, reactor component, nuclear research facility or transportable nuclear system falls within precisely the same express category. Some installations may qualify, while other technologies may require additional analysis concerning their actual function, location and classification. This does not imply that installations outside the expressly named category are unprotected. General civilian protection, customary rules and other applicable legal obligations remain relevant.

Military Protection of Nuclear Facilities and the Prohibition of Exploiting Civilian Risk

International humanitarian law also addresses the conduct of the party controlling a protected installation. Article 56 does not merely regulate the attacking party; it creates expectations concerning how protected infrastructure should be situated and used. The ICRC explains that parties should endeavour to avoid placing military objectives in the vicinity of nuclear power plants. At the same time, the applicable provisions recognise limited defensive arrangements intended to protect the installation itself, provided the relevant requirements are satisfied.

This is an important distinction in military planning. Defending a nuclear plant against attack is not equivalent to using the plant as a means of protecting unrelated military operations from lawful attack. The former may be compatible with the recognised protection of dangerous installations; the latter could undermine the humanitarian purpose of the rules and create significant legal controversy. A state’s decision to place substantial military capability near a nuclear facility therefore cannot be assessed solely through the protection afforded to the reactor. The nature and purpose of the surrounding activity must also be examined.

The ICRC identifies the possibility of additional agreements between parties to protect nuclear installations, including arrangements concerning demilitarised areas. Such agreements can supplement the general legal framework, but they require actual agreement and implementation. They cannot be presumed to exist merely because an international institution recommends them. How Humanitarian Law Applies to Armed Conflict and Nuclear Power Plants — ICRC — September 2022. ICRC

Treaty Participation and the Divergence of National Legal Positions

The international legal framework is not identical for every state. Additional Protocol I is a treaty, and its provisions bind parties according to the applicable law of treaties and international humanitarian law. The United States is not a party to Additional Protocol I, although it recognises and applies numerous customary principles governing the conduct of hostilities. The American Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual, updated in July 2023, sets out a position under which attacks on installations containing dangerous forces are assessed through applicable rules including distinction and proportionality. The manual recognises the seriousness of potential incidental harm but does not adopt Article 56’s specific treaty prohibition as an identical binding rule for the United States.

This difference should not be exaggerated into the claim that the United States considers nuclear installations unrestricted targets. Its legal framework continues to require compliance with applicable rules governing military objectives and civilian protection. Equally, treaty participation by another state should not be treated as evidence that its military behaviour necessarily complies with its obligations. The distinction between legal commitment, official interpretation and demonstrated practice is essential to an accurate assessment of international nuclear security.

The relevant American position is contained in Department of Defense Law of War Manual, Updated July 2023 — United States Department of Defense. The publicly identified manual text and its nuclear-installation provisions provide a basis for describing the American position, although the complete PDF could not be reopened for full passage verification during this research session. Its treatment of Article 56 should therefore not be presented as a substitute for an authoritative determination of customary law in a particular conflict. media.defense.gov

Table 4.2 — Treaty protection, customary law and national military doctrine

Legal dimension	Additional Protocol I framework	US military position	Implication for future microreactors
General civilian protection	Applicable treaty rules	Recognised law-of-war principles	Civilian character remains legally material
Definition of military objective	Article 52	Military-objective analysis under applicable law	Actual contribution to military action must be assessed
Special dangerous-forces protection	Article 56	Article 56 not accepted as an identical treaty obligation	Differences in legal interpretation may arise
Proportionality	Article 51 and related rules	Applicable proportionality requirements	Foreseeable civilian consequences remain relevant
Precautions	Article 57	Applicable precautionary obligations	Site-specific circumstances matter
Military assets near nuclear facilities	Express Article 56 provisions	General law-of-war framework and other applicable rules	Co-location can create legal and operational uncertainty
Future mobile reactors	Classification requires legal interpretation	Classification requires legal interpretation	Physical mobility does not itself determine protection
Additional bilateral arrangements	Expressly contemplated	May be adopted through agreement	Specific notification or protection commitments could reduce ambiguity

The strategic consequence is that developers and defence authorities cannot assume that one national legal interpretation will necessarily be shared by a potential adversary. Where a future military microreactor is operated in an international environment, its status may be assessed through different treaty obligations, customary-law positions and factual interpretations. The result can be uncertainty not only concerning whether the reactor is a military objective, but also concerning the existence and scope of special protection.

Legal Protection Is Not the Same as Strategic Deterrence

The protective status of nuclear infrastructure may influence an adversary’s decisions, but there is a fundamental difference between the existence of a legal prohibition and the expectation that the prohibition will produce military restraint. A commander may recognise the humanitarian consequences of damaging a nuclear facility while interpreting the legal position differently, disputing the facility’s actual function or making decisions under conditions of incomplete information. Legal protection therefore contributes to the framework governing military decisions without guaranteeing that protected infrastructure will remain untouched during conflict.

This distinction is particularly important for the proposition that nuclear microreactors might become strategic shields. A reactor positioned near military assets could potentially increase the perceived humanitarian and political consequences of attacks in the surrounding area, but that does not establish that its presence is a lawful method of securing military immunity, that an adversary will exercise restraint or that a particular deployment has been designed with such an intention. The legal implications depend on the actual conduct of the parties and the applicable rules. The strategic implications depend on their perceptions, information and operational decisions.

The international legal architecture consequently provides a substantial basis for protecting nuclear installations but does not eliminate the need for operational risk reduction. It is precisely because law cannot guarantee compliance that conflict-related nuclear governance also requires communication, monitoring, independent observation and arrangements that reduce the probability of misinterpretation.

Chapter 4 — Key Judgments

The established legal framework provides strong civilian protection for nuclear electrical generating stations and additional safeguards concerning installations containing dangerous forces. Article 56 is central, but its specific conditions must be distinguished from the general rules governing military objectives, proportionality and precautions. The emergence of compact reactors within military establishments does not create automatic targetability or automatic immunity, and the presence of commercial operators does not independently determine legal status.

The most consequential unresolved issue is the classification of future reactor configurations whose electricity generation is integrated closely with military functions, particularly where the systems are transportable or operate outside conventional civilian utility arrangements. Differences in treaty participation and national interpretation reinforce the need for explicit legal assessment and international communication before these technologies become widely deployed.

What would change the assessment: A competent international judicial interpretation, a new treaty provision expressly addressing transportable nuclear generators, authoritative state practice concerning their protection or adopted bilateral agreements defining their treatment would materially clarify the legal environment. Until such developments occur, assessments must remain grounded in the existing rules and the actual circumstances of each installation.

Chapter 5. Ukraine and the Nuclear Battlefield: Lessons from Zaporizhzhia and the Limits of Strategic Deterrence

Principal judgment: The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the legal protection and potentially catastrophic consequences associated with nuclear infrastructure do not reliably prevent military activity from threatening essential nuclear safety functions. The experience of Zaporizhzhia and Chornobyl reveals distinct but complementary forms of exposure: the sustained degradation of a generating station’s external infrastructure under military occupation and hostilities, and direct physical damage to a protective structure containing radioactive material. The evidence does not establish that smaller reactors would experience equivalent radiological consequences. It does establish that nuclear risk can arise through damaged infrastructure, constrained maintenance, interrupted monitoring and prolonged uncertainty without a successful attack against an operating reactor core.

Zaporizhzhia: The Transformation of a Generating Station into a Long-Term Nuclear Security Crisis

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has become the defining contemporary example of how an operating civilian nuclear establishment can be transformed into a strategically exposed installation during prolonged armed conflict. Its significance lies not simply in its generating capacity or the existence of military activity in the surrounding region, but in the gradual separation between the infrastructure arrangements assumed during normal commercial operation and the conditions under which the plant has had to maintain nuclear safety. The station contains six VVER reactors and forms part of a wider Ukrainian nuclear generating system consisting of 15 reactors at four nuclear power plants. Under normal circumstances, such facilities depend upon established relationships among the operator, national regulator, transmission infrastructure, maintenance organisations and external emergency services. The war has disrupted important parts of that environment.

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s official Ukraine monitoring record, updated on 15 October 2026, provides particularly valuable evidence because it preserves dated developments and distinguishes between information reported by the IAEA, Ukrainian authorities and other institutional sources. The record demonstrates that the plant’s security exposure has increasingly involved the reliability of external electricity connections, the availability of emergency generating equipment, fuel deliveries and the ability of technical personnel to restore damaged infrastructure. These issues are consequential even when the reactors are shut down, because maintaining safe conditions requires continued control of nuclear fuel temperatures, radioactive materials and supporting systems. Ukraine: Current Status of Nuclear Power Installations — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — October 2026. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

The cumulative scale of external electricity interruptions is especially revealing. According to the NEA’s chronology, the complete loss of off-site power reported on 20 August 2026 was the 26th such occurrence since the beginning of the conflict under the IAEA observers’ count, including 14 occurrences since April 2026. The same record explicitly notes a difference of one between certain IAEA and Energoatom counts, demonstrating why operational statistics should not be treated as perfectly interchangeable merely because they concern the same installation. The repeated interruptions do not establish that the plant experienced 26 nuclear accidents. They establish that an essential layer of infrastructure support was repeatedly lost, making the station dependent upon alternative arrangements to maintain necessary functions.

The record further identifies interruptions on 1, 4, 8 and 20 August 2026, illustrating how repeated events can occur within a relatively short period. This concentration matters because infrastructure resilience is not solely a question of whether emergency equipment functions during a single incident. Repeated interruptions impose demands on equipment availability, maintenance, consumables, operating personnel and recovery arrangements, potentially reducing the margin available to manage subsequent disturbances. The existence of successful emergency responses is therefore evidence of functioning safety arrangements, but it does not mean that the underlying exposure has been resolved. Ukraine: Current Status of Nuclear Power Installations — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — October 2026. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

The August–September 2026 Electricity Crisis

The events of August and September 2026 provide a particularly important case study because they demonstrate the interaction between external infrastructure damage, emergency generation, fuel availability and negotiated access for repairs. On 20 August 2026, the plant lost its remaining external electricity connection, the 330-kV Ferosplavna-1 line, following military activity on the northern side of the Dnipro River. The installation subsequently depended on emergency diesel generators for essential nuclear safety and security functions. The disruption continued into September, and restoration required repairs that could not be treated as an ordinary maintenance activity because of the surrounding military environment.

The IAEA facilitated a temporary local ceasefire permitting technical work between 5 and 7 September 2026. External electricity was restored on 7 September, after an interruption lasting nearly three weeks. The significance of this sequence lies in the need to involve an international nuclear institution in securing conditions for infrastructure repairs that would normally fall within the responsibilities of the operator and relevant electricity organisations. The Dutch Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection confirmed on 11 September that the 330-kV connection had been restored and emphasised that electricity remained necessary for nuclear fuel cooling despite the reactors’ shutdown. Power Supply to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Restored — Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection — September 2026. english.autoriteitnvs.nl

A further indication of operational deterioration emerged in the emergency generation arrangements. The NEA chronology records that, as of 25 September 2026, the station had revised its strategy so that only four of its 20 emergency diesel generators would start automatically following a complete loss of external electricity, while the remaining units would require manual intervention. The record links this change to increasingly constrained diesel fuel reserves and identifies two generators unavailable because of maintenance. These figures describe a specific operational arrangement at a particular time, not a general engineering recommendation for nuclear facilities. Their significance is that the availability and use of backup generation had become intertwined with the management of limited resources during a prolonged military crisis.

The same chronology records that the plant had approximately ten days of diesel fuel supply remaining on 29 August, corresponding to its minimum regulatory requirement, after additional diesel had been transferred to the site on 27 and 28 August. A planned delivery in May had been delayed by military activity. This evidence illustrates a critical distinction between the existence of technically functioning emergency equipment and the logistical ability to support that equipment over an extended disruption. The plant’s vulnerability did not depend solely on the possibility of direct physical damage to a reactor. It also involved the cumulative effects of infrastructure interruption and the difficulty of sustaining normal support arrangements. Ukraine: Current Status of Nuclear Power Installations — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — October 2026. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

Table 5.1 — Zaporizhzhia: documented nuclear infrastructure disruptions in 2026

Date	Officially documented development	Quantitative evidence	Nuclear-security significance
14 July 2026	Complete loss of off-site electricity	22nd occurrence under the reported chronology	Repeated dependence on emergency generation
30 July 2026	Restoration of internet connectivity after an interruption	Two-day disruption	Reduced remote monitoring capability
1 August 2026	Complete off-site electricity interruption	23rd recorded occurrence	Emergency diesel generation activated
4 August 2026	Further complete off-site electricity interruption	24th occurrence	Repetition within a short interval
8 August 2026	Complete off-site electricity interruption	25th occurrence	Continued pressure on backup arrangements
20 August 2026	Loss of the remaining 330-kV external line	26th occurrence under IAEA observers’ count	Extended dependence on emergency diesel generation
27–28 August 2026	Additional diesel transferred to the site	Several dozen tonnes, as reported	Partial replenishment of essential reserves
29 August 2026	Fuel stocks near minimum regulatory requirement	Approximately ten days	Limited operating margin for prolonged disruption
5–7 September 2026	Temporary local ceasefire for infrastructure repairs	Three-day repair window	Internationally facilitated restoration access
7 September 2026	External electricity connection restored	Nearly three weeks after 20 August interruption	Immediate reduction of dependence on emergency generation
25 September 2026	Revised diesel-generator activation strategy	Four of 20 automatically started; two unavailable for maintenance	Adjustment of emergency arrangements amid fuel constraints

Source: Ukraine: Current Status of Nuclear Power Installations — OECD Nuclear Energy Agency — Updated 15 October 2026, supplemented by Power Supply to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Restored — Dutch Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection — September 2026. Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)+1

The table reveals that the most important operational exposure in this period was not a single dramatic incident but a sequence of interrelated constraints. External electricity, emergency generation, fuel availability, technical maintenance and access to damaged infrastructure became components of the same safety problem. The relevant lesson for future nuclear installations is therefore institutional and logistical as much as technological: safety depends upon the ability to sustain the necessary functions when normal supporting arrangements are repeatedly disrupted.

Chornobyl: Direct Damage to Nuclear Protective Infrastructure Without a Major Radiological Release

The Chornobyl experience demonstrates a different dimension of conflict-related nuclear risk. Unlike Zaporizhzhia, where the central concern has involved the continued safety of a large reactor installation under military pressure, Chornobyl includes legacy radioactive material and protective structures associated with the destroyed fourth reactor. The New Safe Confinement was designed to provide a protective enclosure supporting the long-term management and eventual dismantling of hazardous structures remaining from the 1986 accident. Its function cannot be equated with that of an operating reactor containment building, and the consequences of damage to the facility cannot be transferred directly to advanced microreactor designs.

On 14 February 2025, a drone struck the New Safe Confinement structure, causing a fire and damage to important parts of the protective enclosure. The United Nations Secretary-General’s report dated 17 September 2025, document A/80/395, records structural damage and a fire at the New Safe Confinement, while also documenting the wider consequences of the war for the exclusion zone. The report notes that Russian armed forces controlled the Chornobyl site temporarily during February and March 2022, and that the area has remained affected by continuing security and environmental challenges. Persistent Legacy of the Chornobyl Disaster: Report of the Secretary-General — United Nations General Assembly — September 2025. Sistema di Documenti Ufficiali – ONU

The technical assessment of the February 2025 damage is more informative than an undifferentiated claim that the nuclear installation was either destroyed or unaffected. In its official update of 14 April 2026, the Chornobyl operator reported that the New Safe Confinement had lost the ability to maintain full leak-tightness following the impact and subsequent firefighting operations. Nevertheless, the operator stated that the structure continued to perform part of its protective function, that no release of radioactive substances exceeding applicable limits had been registered and that the site remained in a controlled condition. It also reported that no damage to the load-bearing structures of the relevant protective systems had been identified and that radiation-monitoring measurements remained within established control levels. Regarding the Situation at the Chornobyl NPP Industrial Site — State Specialised Enterprise Chornobyl NPP — April 2026. Chernobyl NPP

The distinction is critical. The absence of a major detected radiological release did not establish that the protective system had suffered no significant damage. Conversely, the degradation of a confinement function did not mean that a major release had occurred. Nuclear safety assessments must preserve both findings simultaneously. The damage changed the condition of the protective infrastructure and increased the importance of repairs, inspection and continued monitoring, while the observed radiological conditions remained controlled according to the operator’s reported measurements.

The Chornobyl operator further explained that the protective structure’s design service-life arrangements extended to 31 October 2029, subject to the applicable safety justification and potential extension. This deadline has implications for the management of the remaining damaged reactor structures and the scheduling of restoration activities, but it should not be misrepresented as a prediction that the confinement structure will fail on that date. Its significance is regulatory and engineering-related: continued safety depends upon maintaining the relevant protective functions while the longer-term dismantling and restoration programme proceeds. Regarding the Situation at the Chornobyl NPP Industrial Site — State Specialised Enterprise Chornobyl NPP — April 2026. Chernobyl NPP

Table 5.2 — Chornobyl: institutional evidence and consequences of the February 2025 strike

Indicator	Documented finding	Reference date	Analytical significance
Incident	Drone impact on New Safe Confinement	14 February 2025	Direct physical damage to nuclear protective infrastructure
Immediate effect	Fire and structural damage	February 2025	Damage extended beyond a superficial external event
UN reporting	Incident incorporated into Secretary-General’s report A/80/395	17 September 2025	International institutional documentation
Confinement integrity	Full leak-tightness no longer maintained	Operator assessment, April 2026	Loss of part of the designed protective capability
Primary structure	No identified damage to load-bearing structures	April 2026	Structural integrity must be distinguished from confinement performance
Radiological monitoring	Measurements remained within established control levels	April 2026	No reported exceedance of the relevant monitoring limits
Recorded radioactive releases	No release exceeding applicable requirements registered	April 2026	Physical damage did not produce a documented major release
Restoration	Works underway to restore confinement integrity	April 2026	Continuing technical and financial obligations
Shelter localising structure service-life date	31 October 2029, subject to safety assessment and possible extension	April 2026 documentation	Relevant to continuing management and dismantling planning

Sources: Persistent Legacy of the Chornobyl Disaster — United Nations Secretary-General — September 2025 and Regarding the Situation at the Chornobyl NPP Industrial Site — State Specialised Enterprise Chornobyl NPP — April 2026. Sistema di Documenti Ufficiali – ONU+1

The Evidentiary Limits of Assigning Responsibility for Individual Incidents

The war in Ukraine has generated numerous allegations and statements concerning attacks, military activity and responsibility for damage near nuclear installations. An institutionally credible assessment must distinguish the existence of a verified incident from the attribution of responsibility for it. An international monitoring organisation may establish that an explosion occurred, that a transmission line was disconnected or that a protective structure was damaged without possessing the evidence necessary to identify the actor responsible. A government or facility operator may make a specific attribution, but its position must be identified as such unless corroborated by sufficiently competent evidence.

This distinction does not create moral or legal equivalence between the parties to the conflict. The occupation of Ukrainian nuclear installations, the military circumstances in which damage has occurred and the obligations of parties controlling such facilities remain separate questions from the technical attribution of each individual incident. The source record supports differentiated conclusions: the United Nations reports the Russian military’s temporary control of Chornobyl in 2022, while international monitoring documentation records subsequent damage and interruptions affecting nuclear safety. Where an incident record does not independently establish the origin of a particular attack, the appropriate conclusion is limited to the verified technical effects and the attributed positions of the relevant actors. Persistent Legacy of the Chornobyl Disaster — United Nations General Assembly — September 2025. Sistema di Documenti Ufficiali – ONU

The practical importance of this evidentiary discipline extends beyond historical documentation. Nuclear crises are especially vulnerable to the conflation of technical events with strategic accusations because the possible consequences are serious and the public may have limited ability to verify competing claims. A damaged electrical connection can be described as evidence of escalating nuclear danger, but the cause of the damage and the intentions of the actor responsible require separate investigation. Failure to maintain these distinctions can weaken public understanding of the actual technical condition of an installation and complicate the work of independent monitoring bodies.

Why Nuclear Protection Has Not Produced Reliable Strategic Immunity

The Ukrainian experience challenges the proposition that the potentially severe consequences of a nuclear incident will necessarily deter military activity in the vicinity of nuclear installations. Zaporizhzhia has experienced repeated electricity disruptions during prolonged hostilities, while Chornobyl’s protective infrastructure suffered direct physical damage. These events demonstrate that nuclear installations can remain exposed despite the existence of international legal rules and the obvious political importance of avoiding radiological consequences.

They do not, however, prove that nuclear protection has had no restraining effect. Establishing deterrence would require evidence concerning military decisions that were modified or abandoned because of anticipated nuclear consequences. Such evidence is not supplied by the occurrence of incidents alone. A conflict in which certain nuclear facilities were not directly attacked might reflect legal restraint, strategic calculation, military limitations or other factors. The presence of incidents establishes the limits of protection, not the absence of every deterrent effect.

The appropriate analytical conclusion is therefore narrower but more consequential: nuclear danger does not reliably prevent infrastructure degradation or military activity from threatening nuclear safety, even when all parties have reason to recognise the seriousness of potential consequences. This finding is sufficient to justify international monitoring, emergency arrangements and infrastructure protection without assuming either that nuclear facilities are always deliberately targeted or that their protected status is ineffective in every circumstance.

Implications for Smaller and Distributed Nuclear Facilities

The relevance of Ukraine to future microreactors lies in the mechanisms through which conflict can affect nuclear safety, not in a direct comparison of potential radioactive releases. A small reactor would have a different fuel inventory, design, operating profile and possibly different cooling and containment arrangements from the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia installation. Chornobyl’s legacy radioactive structures are different again. It would consequently be unsound to estimate the consequences of a damaged microreactor by transferring radiation-release assumptions from either installation.

What can be transferred is the need to account for prolonged interruption of supporting infrastructure, limited availability of personnel, disrupted communications, difficulty accessing sites for repairs and the possibility that an emergency requires cooperation between parties engaged in hostilities. These are organisational and operational mechanisms that may arise across different reactor technologies. Their importance may be reduced or increased by particular designs, but they cannot be dismissed solely because a reactor is smaller.

The additional concern with distributed deployment is the possibility that a larger number of installations could become exposed to geographically separate crises. If a fleet requires recurring specialist support, security monitoring or emergency-response coordination, dispersed siting can affect the resources required to maintain oversight during widespread disruption. Conversely, distributing electricity generation may reduce dependence on some concentrated infrastructure. The net consequence would depend on site selection, design maturity and the actual support system. Ukraine provides a compelling reason to examine these questions before deployment, but not a sufficient basis for assigning numerical probabilities to future microreactor incidents.

Chapter 5 — Key Judgments

The documented record at Zaporizhzhia demonstrates the cumulative risk created by repeated interruptions to essential supporting infrastructure, particularly external electricity and emergency fuel supply. The August–September 2026 crisis illustrates how nuclear safety can depend on internationally facilitated access for repairs and the management of limited resources during prolonged hostilities. At Chornobyl, the February 2025 drone strike establishes that nuclear protective infrastructure can suffer substantial physical damage without an immediately corresponding major radiological release. The operator’s April 2026 assessment preserves this distinction by identifying degraded confinement capability alongside controlled radiological conditions.

The broader finding is that the strategic protection associated with nuclear installations is neither absolute nor operationally self-executing. International law, monitoring and the potential consequences of an accident can influence conduct, but they do not eliminate the possibility of direct damage, supporting-infrastructure failure or prolonged safety challenges.

What would change the assessment: Authoritative incident investigations, independently verified restoration of damaged nuclear infrastructure, sustained reduction in external electricity disruptions and evidence of durable arrangements protecting nuclear-site access would strengthen confidence in conflict-related risk reduction. Further damage, continued repeated interruptions or loss of essential monitoring and emergency capabilities would indicate deterioration, but the magnitude of any resulting radiological risk would still require installation-specific technical evaluation.

Chapter 6. Transportable Reactors and Crisis Instability: Targeting Ambiguity, Escalation Pathways and Confidence-Building Measures

Principal judgment: The potential mobility of nuclear microreactors introduces a category of strategic uncertainty distinct from the vulnerabilities of conventional fixed nuclear installations. Existing nuclear risk-reduction arrangements were largely developed around facilities whose locations and institutional functions could be identified in advance, whereas a genuinely relocatable reactor could change its operating location, host organisation and relationship to surrounding military activities over time. The primary concern is not that transportability necessarily makes nuclear infrastructure more dangerous. It is that movement, incomplete information and differing interpretations of legal protection could complicate crisis communication at precisely the moment when reliable identification of sensitive installations becomes most important. The most defensible near-term response is to develop notification, protection and emergency-coordination arrangements before deployment patterns become established, without treating unproven possibilities as existing military doctrine.

Nuclear Mobility Changes the Information Requirements of Strategic Stability

The historical architecture of nuclear confidence-building has generally depended upon the ability of governments to distinguish nuclear installations from other infrastructure and to maintain sufficient information about their location and status to reduce the possibility of serious misunderstanding. A conventional nuclear power station is a substantial fixed installation whose principal geographical characteristics are unlikely to change. A transportable nuclear system introduces the possibility that the location of the reactor, its fuel inventory, its host installation and its operating status may change during its service life. Such changes do not automatically generate strategic instability, but they alter the information that may be necessary for governments to understand which facilities require particular protection and how their movement affects existing commitments.

The distinction between a reactor being physically transportable and actually being relocated during a crisis is essential. Many nuclear components are transported during manufacture, construction, maintenance or decommissioning without creating a continuously mobile generating capability. A prospective military microreactor may likewise be designed for movement between prepared installations while spending most of its operating life at a fixed location. The relevant governance questions concern the conditions under which relocation occurs, the legal and administrative status of the reactor during movement, and the information that should be communicated to parties whose actions might affect its safety. The presence of a transportable design does not, by itself, establish an intention to move nuclear equipment into active combat areas or to exploit its protected status.

The strategic implications nevertheless extend beyond the physical movement of equipment. If a reactor can be transported to support different military facilities, the relationship between the nuclear installation and the operational purpose of the host site may change. A generating system supporting a permanent logistics establishment might subsequently be proposed for a different type of installation, raising new questions about its function, legal classification and emergency-management arrangements. These questions should not be resolved by assuming that the reactor carries identical legal characteristics wherever it goes. The relevant facts may change with the location, use and surrounding military activity, even when the reactor’s technical design remains the same.

The India–Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement as an Established Risk-Reduction Precedent

One of the most relevant examples of existing nuclear confidence-building is the bilateral Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations and Facilities between India and Pakistan, signed on 31 December 1988 and brought into force in January 1991. The agreement is distinctive because it combines a bilateral commitment not to undertake, encourage or participate in actions intended to damage the other party’s nuclear installations with a requirement to exchange information identifying covered facilities. Its definition encompasses nuclear power and research reactors, fuel-related facilities and other installations holding specified categories of nuclear or radioactive material. The agreement is therefore broader in its expressly defined coverage than a framework concerned only with electricity-generating nuclear stations.

Article II requires the parties to communicate the geographical coordinates of their covered installations on 1 January each year and whenever there is a change. This second requirement is particularly relevant to future reactor mobility. It demonstrates that the treaty is not entirely dependent on an assumption that nuclear installations can never change location. Rather, it establishes an obligation to communicate changes within its defined scope. The question for future applications is whether the existing provision supplies sufficient operational clarity for reactors that might be relocated more frequently than traditional fixed installations, or whether more explicit procedures would be needed to define the timing and treatment of particular movements.

The Government of India’s public broadcasting service confirmed that India and Pakistan exchanged the relevant nuclear installation lists on 1 January 2026, describing the event as the 35th consecutive exchange since the practice began on 1 January 1992. The continuation of these exchanges demonstrates that a narrowly defined nuclear confidence-building arrangement can remain operational through prolonged political and strategic rivalry. It does not establish that all disputes between the parties have been resolved, that the agreement has eliminated the possibility of nuclear escalation or that its information-exchange system would be immediately suitable for highly mobile reactor deployments. India, Pakistan Exchange List of Nuclear Installations Under Agreement — Prasar Bharati, Akashvani News — January 2026. Akashvani News

The original negotiating record is also important because it illustrates that the definition of covered facilities and the scope of disclosure were substantive diplomatic issues rather than minor administrative details. Historical documents published by India’s Ministry of External Affairs record discussions concerning the inclusion of uranium-enrichment facilities, radioactive-material storage and the requirement to identify geographical coordinates. Those negotiations demonstrate that even a relatively narrow non-attack arrangement requires states to reconcile protective transparency with the protection of sensitive nuclear information. This remains directly relevant to future arrangements covering military microreactors, where information about a generating installation may also reveal aspects of military infrastructure. India–Pakistan Relations: Political Relations 1975–1989 — Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. mea.gov.in

Table 6.1 — India–Pakistan nuclear non-attack arrangement and its relevance to mobile reactors

Treaty element	Established arrangement	Relevance to future transportable reactors	Remaining governance question
Signature	31 December 1988	Demonstrates an established bilateral precedent	Whether other states would accept comparable commitments
Entry into force	January 1991	Provides a longstanding operative agreement	How new reactor categories could be incorporated
Initial annual exchanges	1 January 1992	Demonstrates recurring information-sharing practice	Whether annual identification is sufficient for frequent relocation
Latest verified exchange in this assessment	1 January 2026	Confirms continuing implementation	Whether future exchanges will expand covered technology categories
Non-attack obligation	Prohibits specified actions aimed at damaging covered installations	Provides a possible model for explicit reactor protection	Relationship with other applicable rules of international law
Facility coverage	Includes power, research and specified fuel-related facilities	Potential relevance beyond ordinary power stations	Interpretation of novel compact or transportable configurations
Geographical information	Latitude and longitude exchanged	Offers a precedent for identifying protected facilities	Security and confidentiality of location data
Notification of changes	Required when changes occur	Relevant to relocation	Procedures for movement and temporary operating sites
Institutional format	Bilateral diplomatic exchange	Could be adapted to regional arrangements	Participation, verification and dispute management
Practical limitation	Narrowly focused agreement	Demonstrates feasibility without resolving wider conflict	Lack of assurance that disclosure alone produces restraint

Sources: India, Pakistan Exchange List of Nuclear Installations Under Agreement — Government of India, Prasar Bharati — January 2026 and India–Pakistan Relations: Political Relations 1975–1989 — Ministry of External Affairs. Akashvani News+1

The significance of the bilateral precedent is not that it provides a complete model for global nuclear mobility, but that it establishes two concepts of lasting relevance: identifying installations can itself be a confidence-building measure, and nuclear non-attack commitments can be negotiated separately from comprehensive settlements of wider military disputes. A future arrangement addressing transportable reactors would need to preserve these advantages while accounting for technologies that may change location and operational purpose more frequently than conventional nuclear facilities.

Strategic Ambiguity and the Problem of Incomplete Information

A prospective transportable reactor could generate several different kinds of uncertainty during an international crisis. The first concerns location: a state may lack reliable information about whether nuclear equipment is present at a particular installation. The second concerns operating status: equipment being transported, an installed but unfuelled reactor and an operating nuclear generator may present different factual conditions. The third concerns function: a reactor serving primarily civilian infrastructure may have a different operational relationship to the surrounding facility from one directly supporting military operations. The fourth concerns legal interpretation, particularly where governments do not share identical treaty commitments or views about the application of customary international humanitarian law.

These uncertainties are conceptually separable, but they can interact. A government receiving incomplete information about a mobile reactor may be uncertain not only where the equipment is located, but also whether it contains nuclear fuel and whether the reactor has begun operating. Such uncertainty could complicate diplomatic crisis management and the communication of safety concerns. It does not necessarily mean that the state will adopt a more aggressive military posture, because uncertainty can also encourage caution. The outcome depends on the available information, the incentives of the parties and their interpretation of the relevant circumstances.

For this reason, the term strategic ambiguity should not be treated as automatically beneficial or automatically destabilising. An element of uncertainty may constrain some decisions while encouraging others. The analytically important question is whether the uncertainty affects decisions involving potentially severe consequences and whether reliable communication could reduce it without disclosing information that governments legitimately need to protect. A framework that requires unrestricted public disclosure of every movement would face substantial security objections. Conversely, a framework providing no means of confirming the presence and status of protected nuclear equipment could fail to achieve its risk-reduction purpose.

The Strategic Shield Hypothesis and the Limits of Nuclear Deterrence by Presence

The proposition that a mobile reactor could function as a strategic shield rests on the possibility that its presence near military infrastructure would increase the humanitarian, legal or political costs associated with military activity affecting the surrounding area. This is a hypothesis about how an adversary might perceive the consequences of its actions, not an established doctrine of nuclear microreactor deployment. The existence of special legal protection for certain nuclear installations provides one element of the hypothesis, but the actual response of an adversary cannot be inferred directly from that legal protection.

Three pathways merit consideration. Under a restraint pathway, the perceived risks associated with the nuclear installation could influence an adversary to avoid certain actions in its vicinity. Under a substitution pathway, the adversary might pursue alternative military objectives or methods without changing its broader operational purpose. Under a destabilisation pathway, the presence of the reactor might generate competing interpretations of legality, military necessity or the intentions of the party controlling the installation. These pathways are not mutually exclusive over the course of a prolonged conflict, and there is insufficient evidence to assign defensible probabilities to them.

The Ukrainian record provides a caution against assuming that potential nuclear consequences necessarily guarantee restraint, but it does not establish the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of strategic shielding by microreactors. The reactors and protective structures involved in the documented Ukrainian incidents differ substantially from prospective small transportable systems. Their operational circumstances also differ. The appropriate conclusion is that the anticipated political consequences of nuclear damage may affect strategic behaviour, but cannot substitute for physical protection, lawful military conduct or verifiable crisis-management arrangements.

A further legal complication arises if an installation is deliberately situated in a manner intended to discourage attacks against unrelated military objectives. Such conduct must be assessed through the applicable obligations concerning civilian protection, military objectives and installations containing dangerous forces. The existence of potential radiological consequences does not create an unrestricted right to use a nuclear installation as a protective instrument for military operations. Equally, the presence of military activities nearby does not remove the attacking party’s independent obligations. The legal analysis cannot be reduced to whether one party has made the other’s decisions more difficult.

Confidence-Building Must Distinguish Installation Identity, Location and Operating Status

Future nuclear mobility arrangements would benefit from separating three questions that are often treated as interchangeable. The first is the identification of the nuclear installation itself, including the entity responsible for it and its relevant authorisation status. The second is the geographical location at which the installation is authorised to operate. The third is whether the reactor is in a condition requiring particular nuclear safety and emergency-management arrangements. These distinctions can support more precise communication without assuming that every change in equipment location should be treated as the movement of an operating nuclear power station.

For example, a reactor module that has not been fuelled may require a different form of notification from a fuelled reactor being relocated between authorised installations. Similarly, a reactor that has been permanently installed but not yet commissioned should not be described as an operating generating station. These distinctions are relevant not because one status necessarily eliminates every nuclear-security obligation, but because the factual basis for protective and emergency arrangements changes across the lifecycle.

A future notification framework could therefore focus on establishing agreed categories and secure channels for communication. It would need to address the respective roles of host states, competent nuclear authorities, military organisations and relevant international bodies. The degree of information shared would be a matter for negotiation, particularly where military security interests are implicated. The essential purpose should be to reduce avoidable uncertainty about nuclear safety and protection, not to compel disclosure of unrelated operational information.

Table 6.2 — Potential notification categories for transportable nuclear installations

Category	Relevant factual distinction	Possible governance requirement	Principal difficulty
Reactor equipment in manufacture	Equipment not yet deployed	Manufacturer and regulatory traceability	Commercial and security confidentiality
Unfuelled reactor transport	Movement without nuclear fuel in the reactor	Applicable transport authorisations	Avoiding confusion with operational deployment
Fuelled reactor transport	Movement involving nuclear material	Nuclear-material transport, custody and security requirements	Protection of sensitive movement information
Installation at a prepared site	Reactor physically present but not necessarily operational	Host-site identification and applicable authorisation	Distinguishing installation from commissioning
Commissioning	Testing towards authorised operation	Relevant regulatory and emergency arrangements	Status may change during the process
Operational generation	Reactor delivering electricity	Confirmed operating status and responsible operator	Protection of commercially or militarily sensitive details
Temporary shutdown	Reactor not generating but potentially retaining nuclear safety obligations	Appropriate continuing monitoring	Avoiding assumptions that shutdown removes all risk
Relocation to another approved site	Change in operating location	Updated authorisation and, where agreed, notification	Timing and confidentiality
Decommissioning or final removal	End of operational service and disposition of nuclear material	Closure and material-accountability records	Long-term responsibility and waste management

These are analytical categories for possible future governance design. They do not represent an adopted IAEA notification standard or a binding international agreement.

The IAEA’s Seven Pillars as a Foundation for Conflict-Related Nuclear Governance

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s response to the war in Ukraine has already established an internationally recognised set of principles addressing nuclear safety and security during armed conflict. The Seven Indispensable Pillars of Nuclear Safety and Security, formulated in March 2022, identify requirements concerning the physical integrity of nuclear facilities, functioning safety and security systems, the ability of personnel to perform their duties without undue pressure, secure external electricity supply, uninterrupted logistical support, effective radiation monitoring and emergency preparedness, and reliable communication with regulators and other relevant organisations.

Their significance for emerging reactor technologies is that they address the conditions required to preserve nuclear safety rather than assuming that the physical design of a facility alone can guarantee it. The principles are particularly useful for assessing the suitability of a future deployment environment because they encompass organisational and infrastructure dependencies as well as the reactor’s physical condition. They are not a treaty creating an independent enforcement system, and they should not be represented as replacing the requirements of international humanitarian law. They provide a recognised institutional framework for identifying circumstances in which nuclear safety may become difficult to maintain.

The European External Action Service’s joint statement on the safety and security of civilian nuclear facilities during armed conflict expressly endorsed these pillars and supported the IAEA’s presence and assistance in Ukraine. Nuclear Safety: Joint Statement on the Safety and Security of Civil Nuclear Facilities in Armed Conflicts — European External Action Service. EEAS

Table 6.3 — IAEA Seven Pillars and their relevance to future nuclear deployment in sensitive environments

IAEA principle	Institutional requirement	Relevance to prospective transportable reactors
Physical integrity	Nuclear facilities and relevant structures must remain intact	Site selection and protective arrangements must account for the proposed environment
Functioning safety and security systems	Essential systems must remain operational	Technical independence and system support must be demonstrated
Personnel able to perform their duties	Qualified personnel must operate without undue pressure	Operating arrangements must preserve the authority of safety personnel
Secure external electricity	Reliable power is required for nuclear sites	Any claim of electrical independence must be demonstrated through the complete system
Uninterrupted logistics	Necessary supplies and transportation must remain available	Fuel-cycle, maintenance and emergency-support dependencies remain relevant
Monitoring and emergency preparedness	Radiation monitoring and response arrangements must function	Remote locations require credible emergency and monitoring provisions
Reliable regulatory communications	Communication with responsible authorities must be maintained	Mobility and distributed operation must not undermine oversight

Source: Nuclear Safety: Joint Statement on the Safety and Security of Civil Nuclear Facilities in Armed Conflicts — European External Action Service. EEAS

The framework provides an important bridge between the technical evidence developed in Pillar I and the conflict-related evidence examined in Pillar II. It establishes that nuclear resilience is not merely a matter of a facility continuing to generate electricity. It requires the preservation of the institutional and technical conditions necessary to manage nuclear material safely throughout abnormal circumstances.

Regional Agreements and the Limits of a Universal Moratorium

A broad international prohibition on deploying nuclear microreactors at military installations would represent a substantial intervention in emerging national energy and defence policies. Such an arrangement could potentially reduce certain categories of exposure, but its negotiation would face difficult questions concerning national sovereignty, military energy resilience, differing reactor technologies and the definition of prohibited activity. The existing documentary record does not establish that states have agreed to such a moratorium or that negotiations towards one are underway. It would therefore be inappropriate to present a universal deployment pause as an emerging international consensus.

A more feasible near-term approach may be the development of differentiated arrangements addressing particular risks. States could seek agreements concerning the protection of nuclear generating installations, the notification of certain changes in nuclear facility location and arrangements for independent monitoring during crises. These mechanisms would not require every government to adopt identical commercial nuclear policies or military energy strategies. They could instead create common expectations concerning the preservation of nuclear safety and the avoidance of unnecessary ambiguity.

A time-bound pause on operational deployment in particularly unstable environments is another possible policy option, but it would require clear definitions, relevant national authority and a credible process for determining when the conditions for deployment had been satisfied. The benefit would be additional time for legal and technical review; the principal cost would be the delay of prospective energy-resilience capabilities. Its practical feasibility would depend on the willingness of states to accept constraints before the technology had become widely established.

Table 6.4 — International nuclear risk-reduction options

Proposed measure	Potential responsible authority	Intended effect	Implementation burden	Principal limitation
Bilateral nuclear non-attack arrangements	Concerned states	Strengthen explicit protection commitments	Diplomatic negotiation and national implementation	Limited participation
Updated facility-notification provisions	States under existing agreements	Reduce uncertainty concerning relevant location changes	Technical definitions and secure communications	Security-sensitive information
Regional confidence-building framework	Participating governments	Establish consistent expectations across neighbouring states	Multilateral negotiation	Political and legal diversity
IAEA technical guidance on transportable reactors	IAEA through appropriate institutional processes	Clarify safety and security considerations	Expert work and Member State participation	Guidance does not automatically create treaty obligations
Independent conflict-related scenario exercises	Competent nuclear and emergency authorities	Test institutional coordination and preparedness	Organisational and technical resources	Exercises cannot reproduce every real conflict condition
Time-bound deployment pause in highly unstable environments	National governments and relevant defence authorities	Permit further safety and legal review	Potential operational delay	States may disagree on its necessity
Emergency infrastructure protection agreements	Parties concerned, with possible international facilitation	Preserve access for essential nuclear safety work	Local coordination and verification	May be fragile during hostilities
Harmonised incident communication	Competent regulators and international organisations	Reduce contradictory reporting during crises	Reporting procedures and information-sharing arrangements	Information may remain incomplete or disputed

These options are policy assessments, not existing commitments. Their relative attractiveness depends on political feasibility, the technologies involved, the level of international trust and the consequences of delaying deployment.

Strategic Scenarios Without Unsupported Probabilities

The future security environment for transportable nuclear reactors can be examined through three broad pathways, although the available official evidence does not support assigning numerical probabilities to them. The first involves primarily civilian and permanent-site deployment, in which compact reactors become commercially established through industrial and utility applications while military use remains concentrated in prepared installations. Under this pathway, existing nuclear licensing and protection arrangements would remain central, although the increased number of sites could require additional coordination and oversight.

A second pathway involves a growing market for military installation reactors, supported by successful demonstrations and procurement programmes. This would increase the importance of arrangements addressing the relationship between civilian contractors, nuclear regulators and military authorities. It could also create incentives for bilateral and regional protection agreements if deployments occur in areas where military tensions are significant. The central question would be whether institutional risk reduction develops at a pace comparable to procurement.

A third pathway involves broader deployment of relocatable systems whose operating locations and institutional relationships change over time. This would create the strongest pressure for revising notification practices and clarifying the legal treatment of reactor mobility. It could also expose the inadequacy of arrangements that identify protected facilities only through infrequently updated lists, particularly where movement is not adequately covered by existing notification obligations. However, this pathway remains contingent on technological and commercial achievements that have not yet been demonstrated at routine operational scale.

These pathways can overlap. A reactor industry dominated by civilian projects could still produce specialised military applications, while fixed military installations could eventually adopt limited relocation capabilities. Their value for policymakers lies in identifying the records and developments that would distinguish one trajectory from another, not in asserting that one outcome is inevitable.

Table 6.5 — Strategic watch indicators for 2027–2031

Indicator	Evidence that would strengthen the assessment	Evidence that would weaken it	Strategic consequence
Military reactor commissioning	Authorised operating installations with documented performance	Persistent delays or failed commissioning	Determines credibility of defence deployment
Reactor relocation	Demonstrated authorised movement and subsequent operation	Repeated dependence on extensive site reconstruction	Determines practical mobility
Nuclear safety doctrine	Published guidance addressing new deployment configurations	Unresolved institutional responsibilities	Affects governance predictability
Bilateral notification agreements	New or amended arrangements covering location changes	Lack of agreement or inconsistent practice	Affects crisis transparency
Military–civilian co-location policies	Explicit legal and operational guidance	Unclear separation of responsibilities	Affects legal and operational ambiguity
International monitoring access	Sustained and effective technical observation	Restricted access and disputed information	Affects confidence in technical reporting
Conflict-related nuclear incidents	Durable protection and reduced infrastructure disruption	Repeated damage or loss of critical support	Affects perceived security of nuclear deployment
Emergency coordination	Tested cross-border and interagency arrangements	Fragmented responsibility	Affects response capability
Reactor fuel and material accountability	Reliable regulatory continuity across movements	Gaps in accountability or authorisation	Affects international confidence
International legal interpretation	Clarification through recognised legal instruments or authoritative practice	Persistent divergence without specific arrangements	Affects predictability during crises

Chapter 6 — Key Judgments

The mobility of nuclear reactors creates a prospective challenge for international nuclear confidence-building because location, operating status and institutional function may become less stable than under the traditional fixed-station model. The India–Pakistan non-attack agreement provides an important precedent for combining protection commitments with recurrent identification of nuclear facilities, including notification when relevant information changes. Its continued implementation in January 2026 demonstrates institutional durability, but not its sufficiency for every future reactor configuration.

The strategic-shield hypothesis remains a possible mechanism rather than a documented military doctrine. A nuclear installation’s presence may influence perceptions of legal, humanitarian and political consequences, but its protective significance cannot be presumed to produce restraint. The war in Ukraine reinforces the distinction between the existence of nuclear risk and the actual behaviour of parties engaged in hostilities.

The most credible near-term governance agenda therefore concerns the clarification of reactor status, secure notification, emergency coordination, consistent application of existing international humanitarian law and the integration of nuclear safety principles into emerging military deployment arrangements. Such measures would not eliminate every risk, but they could reduce uncertainty without requiring governments to settle all outstanding disputes over future nuclear energy or defence policy.

What would change the assessment: Formal agreements expressly addressing transportable nuclear systems, demonstrated operational relocation of authorised reactors, authoritative legal clarification of their status and sustained international monitoring arrangements would materially alter the present assessment. Evidence of deployment into active conflict environments without adequate notification, unclear operating responsibility or effective emergency coordination would strengthen concerns about crisis instability.

Pillar II — Integrated Strategic Assessment

The evidence assembled across the three chapters supports a central conclusion: the future strategic exposure of nuclear infrastructure will depend on the interaction between international legal protection, the operational circumstances of deployment and the capacity of states to preserve nuclear safety during prolonged confrontation. None of these dimensions can be evaluated adequately in isolation. Legal protection provides substantial obligations but does not guarantee compliance. Engineered safeguards can reduce physical consequences but do not eliminate institutional and infrastructure dependencies. International monitoring can establish important facts and facilitate crisis management, but it cannot replace the responsibilities of the parties exercising control over nuclear installations.

The legal framework developed around conventional nuclear infrastructure remains applicable in important respects, but its treatment of novel configurations will require careful interpretation. Article 56 creates special protections for nuclear electrical generating stations under specified conditions, while the general rules of international humanitarian law continue to apply across a broader range of objects and circumstances. The emergence of transportable reactors does not remove these obligations; it creates additional questions concerning how nuclear equipment is classified, how its location and operating status are communicated and how governments interpret its relationship to military functions.

Ukraine supplies the strongest documented contemporary demonstration of the consequences of nuclear infrastructure becoming entangled in prolonged armed conflict. Zaporizhzhia shows how repeated disruptions to external electricity, logistical support and technical access can become an enduring nuclear safety challenge. Chornobyl shows that substantial damage to protective infrastructure can occur without an immediate major radiological release, creating continuing restoration and oversight requirements rather than a simple binary outcome of catastrophe or safety. These cases do not establish the behaviour of future microreactors, but they provide powerful evidence that nuclear conflict risk extends beyond the physical reactor core.

The strategic significance of the emerging microreactor sector therefore lies partly in the possibility that nuclear generation will become more geographically dispersed and more closely integrated with sensitive industrial and military infrastructure. A larger number of installations could diversify electricity supply while also expanding the institutional responsibilities associated with protecting nuclear material and maintaining safe operating conditions. The resulting security balance cannot be predicted from reactor size, installed capacity or transportability alone. It will be shaped by the actual siting decisions, licensing systems, operator arrangements, legal interpretations and international agreements adopted as the technology develops.

Final Pillar II judgment: The central policy challenge is not to establish whether small reactors are inherently vulnerable targets or inherently protective strategic assets. It is to prevent their growing integration into civilian and military infrastructure from creating legal uncertainty, operational dependencies and crisis-management problems that institutions could have addressed before deployment. The strongest available evidence supports early clarification of protective responsibilities and international risk-reduction arrangements, while preserving the distinction between demonstrated military capabilities, announced programmes and hypothetical future uses.

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PILLAR III — EUROPEAN SOVEREIGNTY, INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE AND THE 2031 OUTLOOK

OPEN-SOURCE ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT | 29 OCTOBER 2026 | EUROPEAN NUCLEAR POLICY, DEFENCE RESILIENCE AND INDUSTRIAL SECURITY

Chapter 7. The European Strategic Dimension: Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and EU–NATO Coordination

Principal judgment: Europe’s emerging small modular reactor industry is not developing within a single nuclear policy, regulatory environment or defence strategy. Italy is constructing the legislative foundations for a possible return to nuclear electricity production; France is pursuing an integrated programme involving its existing reactor fleet, conventional new construction, innovative reactors and fuel-cycle capabilities; Germany remains committed to a post-nuclear electricity model; and the United Kingdom has moved towards a government-supported commercial SMR programme with a selected technology supplier, identified deployment site and substantial public funding commitments. These national differences create an important industrial coordination problem for the European Union, whose 2026 SMR strategy seeks technological standardisation, private investment and market development without transferring national authority over nuclear licensing or defence policy to a single European institution. The strategic consequence is that Europe could simultaneously develop significant nuclear manufacturing capabilities and remain dependent on fragmented national decisions concerning deployment, nuclear security, fuel-cycle investment and critical infrastructure protection.

Europe’s Nuclear Sovereignty Problem Is Institutional Before It Is Technological

European nuclear sovereignty cannot be measured simply by the number of domestic reactor designs under development or by the amount of electricity potentially generated by future installations. A sovereign industrial capability requires a combination of technological knowledge, manufacturing capacity, qualified components, nuclear fuel services, trained personnel, regulatory competence, financing arrangements, control over critical intellectual property and institutions capable of managing the entire lifecycle of nuclear infrastructure. The central European difficulty is that these capabilities are distributed unevenly across Member States, while decisions concerning nuclear electricity generation remain politically and legally differentiated. Some countries regard nuclear power as a central instrument of decarbonisation and energy security, others are pursuing a return to nuclear generation after earlier political opposition, and others have chosen to terminate commercial nuclear electricity production. Such differences do not prevent industrial cooperation, but they make it difficult to construct a single European deployment model comparable to a unified national nuclear programme.

The European Commission’s communication COM(2026) 117 final, adopted on 10 March 2026, recognises this fragmentation while seeking to establish a more coherent industrial framework. The strategy identifies advanced reactor development as an opportunity for European engineering, materials, robotics, industrial heat and low-carbon electricity, while treating safety, security, safeguards and radiation protection as conditions of deployment rather than secondary considerations. Its emphasis on financing, regulation, supply-chain integration and industrial coordination is significant because the Commission is not proposing merely to fund individual reactor concepts. It is attempting to develop the market and institutional conditions under which multiple European suppliers and customers might participate in repeatable commercial projects. Strategy for the Development and Deployment of Small Modular Reactors in Europe — European Commission, COM(2026) 117 final — March 2026. EUR-Lex

The defence dimension is connected to this industrial policy but remains institutionally distinct. European nuclear manufacturers may eventually supply components or complete systems relevant to military installations, yet the Commission’s civilian market strategy cannot be interpreted as an adopted European military reactor procurement programme. Defence energy policy requires a separate assessment of operational needs, infrastructure protection, national military authority and the responsibilities of nuclear operators. The relationship between civilian industrial scale and prospective military applications is therefore best understood as an area of potential technological and supply-chain overlap, not as evidence that a European military nuclear fleet has already been authorised.

Italy: The Legislative Return to Nuclear Energy and the Challenge of Rebuilding State Capacity

Italy entered a new institutional phase on 15 October 2026, when Law No. 169 of 29 September 2026 entered into force after publication in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 30 September. The statute delegates authority to the government to establish a framework for sustainable nuclear energy, including electricity production and use, nuclear fuel manufacture and reprocessing, decommissioning, radioactive waste management and the development of an appropriate institutional structure. Article 1 provides for the adoption of one or more legislative decrees within twelve months of entry into force, establishing a concrete legal timetable that extends into October 2027. This is a major change in legislative direction, but it should not be confused with a final decision to construct a specific commercial nuclear power station. The law creates delegated legislative authority and defines the intended scope of the future framework; actual projects remain dependent on subsequent rules, authorisations, technical evidence and investment decisions. Law No. 169 of 29 September 2026, Delegation to the Government on Sustainable Nuclear Energy — Italian Official Gazette — September 2026 and Consolidated Legislative Record — Normattiva — October 2026. Gazzetta Ufficiale+1

The law’s substantive importance lies in its breadth. The government is not being asked merely to define the licensing of new reactors, but to address nuclear energy within a wider industrial and environmental system. The inclusion of fuel manufacture and reprocessing recognises that reactor deployment cannot be separated from material supply and fuel-cycle choices, while the explicit treatment of decommissioning and radioactive waste reflects the continuing responsibilities associated with Italy’s previous nuclear programme. This creates the possibility of coordinating industrial development with long-term nuclear liabilities, but also places significant demands on institutional design. A functioning nuclear framework requires clear decisions concerning the allocation of regulatory powers, the independence and technical competence of the relevant supervisory bodies, the relationship between central and territorial authorities, and the treatment of public participation and environmental review.

The government’s official implementation summary identifies €67.5 million allocated across 2026–2029. The figure is important but must be interpreted within its statutory and administrative context. It is not a financing envelope for the construction of a commercial nuclear fleet, nor evidence that the government has committed the substantially larger resources that would be required for reactor construction, fuel procurement and long-term operation. Its role is more appropriately understood as supporting the legislative and institutional implementation of the newly authorised policy direction. The distinction matters for public debate because legislative re-entry into nuclear energy is financially and administratively different from a final investment decision for a generating installation. Sustainable Nuclear Energy: Government Enabling Law — Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers — October 2026. Dipartimento per il programma di Governo

Italy’s near-term strategic opportunity is therefore primarily institutional and industrial. It can strengthen its participation in European reactor development, specialised engineering, components, research and nuclear services while the domestic deployment framework is being established. Participation in a European supply chain need not await the commissioning of a reactor on Italian territory; however, industrial participation does not remove the need to create a national regulatory system capable of independently evaluating imported or domestically developed technologies. Nor should industrial expertise be mistaken for an immediately available domestic electricity-generation capability.

A particularly relevant development concerns Italy’s participation in international regulatory cooperation. In January 2026, the French nuclear regulator ASNR announced that the Italian nuclear safety authority, ISIN, had joined the third phase of the joint early review of the NUWARD reactor alongside seven other participating regulatory authorities. This is a concrete form of European nuclear cooperation because it exposes participating authorities to common technical questions before national licensing decisions are required. The review includes questions concerning major component integrity, safety classification and loss of off-site electricity. It does not create a common European reactor licence and does not constitute authorisation to construct NUWARD in Italy. Launch of the Third Phase of the Joint Review of Safety Options of the NUWARD Reactor — ASNR — January 2026. ASNR

Table 7.1 — Italy’s nuclear re-entry: statutory facts and implementation consequences

Instrument or milestone	Verified position	Date or amount	Institutional significance	Remaining decision
Parliamentary approval	Definitive approval of enabling legislation	23 September 2026	Completion of parliamentary passage	Implementation of delegated authority
Law No. 169/2026	Enacted	29 September 2026	Legal basis for nuclear policy restructuring	Legislative decrees
Official publication	Gazette No. 227	30 September 2026	Formal publication of statute	Entry into force
Entry into force	Statute becomes operative	15 October 2026	Starts delegated legislative timetable	Exercise of delegated powers
Delegated legislation	One or more decrees within twelve months	By October 2027 under Article 1	Establishes the substantive framework	Content and parliamentary procedures
Statutory resources	€67.5 million	2026–2029	Implementation funding	Separate commercial project financing
Nuclear electricity	Within delegated legislative scope	2026 framework	Opens legal path for future deployment	Site-specific authorisation and investment
Fuel cycle	Manufacture and reprocessing included	2026 law	Recognises industrial fuel-cycle questions	Implementing rules and investment
Waste and decommissioning	Express statutory scope	2026 law	Integrates existing liabilities	Long-term facilities and funding
European regulator cooperation	ISIN participates in NUWARD review	January 2026	Access to multinational regulatory learning	National decision-making remains separate

Sources: Italian Parliamentary Legislative Record — Senate of the Republic — September 2026, Law No. 169/2026 — Official Gazette, Government Implementation Summary — October 2026 and NUWARD Joint Regulatory Review — ASNR — January 2026. Senato della Repubblica+3

Italy’s strategic vulnerability is the potential distance between renewed political ambition and the institutional resources required to execute it. A national programme that concentrates on identifying preferred reactor technologies before establishing credible licensing, waste-management, public accountability and industrial procurement arrangements risks creating commitments that cannot be implemented within their announced schedules. Conversely, the new legislative framework creates an opportunity to incorporate conflict-related infrastructure protection, cybersecurity, safeguards and cross-border emergency coordination into national nuclear governance from the outset, rather than attempting to add these requirements after major site investments have been made.

France: A Comprehensive Nuclear Industrial Strategy with Distinct Conventional and Advanced-Reactor Horizons

France approaches the emerging small reactor market from a fundamentally different starting point. Its nuclear strategy rests upon an existing commercial generating fleet, established engineering and fuel-cycle capabilities, public research institutions and a national framework for nuclear safety oversight. Advanced reactors consequently form part of a broader programme involving life-extension of existing generating assets, conventional new construction, the development of innovative technologies and long-term fuel-cycle research. The French state is not attempting to create an entirely new nuclear sector; it is attempting to renew and adapt one that already occupies a central position in national energy and industrial policy.

France’s 2026 multiannual energy programming establishes several distinct horizons. The official programme identifies an objective of 380–420 TWh of annual nuclear electricity generation from 2030, compared with 320 TWh in 2023, alongside continued consideration of reactor operations beyond fifty and sixty years where applicable safety requirements are met. It also provides for the continuation of the programme involving six EPR2 reactors, subject to the relevant final investment decision, with the first unit expected around 2038. The programme further identifies consideration of an additional tranche representing approximately 13 GW, corresponding to eight EPR2 reactors, and ambitions for initial concrete pouring for a water-cooled SMR and at least one prototype using a different innovative technology at the beginning of the 2030s. These are different policy commitments and planning horizons; neither the existing-fleet electricity target nor the conventional EPR2 programme should be attributed to future SMR generating capacity. Multiannual Energy Programme, Nuclear Energy Provisions — French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission — 2026. Programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie

The industrial rationale is that France can potentially combine mature nuclear capabilities with investment in new reactor technologies, thereby retaining expertise across several generations of nuclear plant design. This combination creates considerable opportunities but also imposes choices about engineering resources, skilled labour, fuel-cycle investment and capital allocation. The same industrial system may be required to support life-extension of existing stations, conventional reactor construction and multiple advanced-reactor projects, each with different development schedules and technology requirements. A diversified programme may reduce dependence on the commercial success of one reactor architecture, but it can also fragment engineering effort if too many concepts advance without sufficient customers or industrial capacity.

The French regulatory authority offers unusually detailed evidence about the actual diversity of the advanced-reactor pipeline. ASNR’s publicly maintained project register identifies technologies including CALOGENA’s 30 MWth CAL30, OTRERA’s sodium-cooled concept at 200 MWth, HEXANA’s sodium-cooled concept at 400 MWth, JIMMY’s high-temperature reactor at 20 MWth, BLUE CAPSULE at 150 MWth, NEWCLEO’s lead-cooled LFR-AS-30 prototype at 90 MWth, and STELLARIA’s experimental molten-salt project at 200 kWth. These are design or project descriptors in thermal power units; they are not equivalent electrical generating capacities and must not be combined into an assumed future national electricity output. ASNR also documents associated specialised fuel-manufacturing projects, demonstrating that parts of the French innovation programme involve construction of new industrial capabilities rather than simply the licensing of complete reactors. SMR Projects and Their Fuel Manufacturing and Assembly Plants — French Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority — 2026. ASNR

Table 7.2 — Selected French advanced-reactor projects in the ASNR public register

Developer or project	Reactor technology	Published thermal output	Project character	Regulatory interpretation
CALOGENA CAL30	Light-water reactor	30 MWth	Industrial heat reactor	Design-specific safety assessment
OTRERA One	Sodium-cooled reactor	200 MWth	Demonstration/prototype	Development and regulatory engagement
HEXANA	Sodium-cooled concept	400 MWth	Demonstration/prototype	Not an operating generating fleet
JIMMY Energy	High-temperature reactor	20 MWth	Industrial application/demonstrator	Project-specific authorisation pathway
BLUE CAPSULE	High-temperature reactor	150 MWth	Prototype	Development-stage evidence
NEWCLEO LFR-AS-30	Lead-cooled reactor	90 MWth	Prototype	Design and fuel-cycle development
STELLARIA ALPHA/ALVIN	Molten-salt concept	200 kWth	Experimental reactor	Research-scale project

Source: SMR Projects and Their Fuel Manufacturing and Assembly Plants — ASNR. ASNR

The table’s units require particular attention. Thermal output describes reactor heat production, not net electrical output. An industrial reactor designed primarily to deliver heat should not be represented as equivalent to an electricity-generating unit merely because both are classified within the broader SMR sector. Similarly, the presence of a project within a regulatory authority’s register establishes engagement and technical scrutiny, not approval to construct or operate.

France’s most important contribution to European nuclear sovereignty may ultimately be regulatory as much as industrial. The NUWARD Joint Early Review demonstrates that different European authorities can examine a common design and identify similarities or differences in their approaches before project developers submit complete national applications. By January 2026, the initiative included ASNR together with authorities from the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Belgium and Italy. Such cooperation may reduce unnecessary duplication and clarify the evidence expected of developers, while preserving the legal responsibility of each national authority. Launch of the Third Phase of the Joint Review of Safety Options of the NUWARD Reactor — ASNR — January 2026. ASNR

The security implication is equally important. An established civilian nuclear sector does not automatically make military reactor deployment desirable or necessary. France’s nuclear strategy must continue to distinguish electricity security, defence industrial capabilities, nuclear material control and the separate responsibilities associated with military nuclear activities. The relevant opportunity is to draw on existing technical knowledge and regulatory expertise while preventing the diversification of reactor applications from producing unnecessary ambiguity over ownership, legal status and institutional supervision.

Germany: Nuclear Phase-Out, Industrial Interdependence and the Limits of a Uniform European Strategy

Germany remains the clearest demonstration that European nuclear industrial cooperation does not require agreement over the domestic use of nuclear electricity. The federal government’s published energy policy records that Germany’s final commercial nuclear power plants ceased operation on 15 April 2023, completing the accelerated nuclear phase-out adopted following the political decisions of 2011. The country’s electricity strategy has consequently developed around renewable energy expansion, network infrastructure, energy-system flexibility and other elements of its energy transition. This policy position makes Germany institutionally different from France and the United Kingdom, which are pursuing substantial new nuclear generating programmes, and from Italy, which has established a new enabling legislative framework. Affordable and Clean Energy — German Federal Government. Bundesregierung

The strategic consequence is often misunderstood. Germany’s withdrawal from domestic nuclear electricity production does not eliminate the country’s exposure to nuclear security questions elsewhere in Europe, nor does it make the industrial and regulatory developments of neighbouring states irrelevant. Nuclear incidents can generate cross-border environmental and emergency-management consequences, while European industrial supply chains are not confined to countries that operate nuclear power stations. Furthermore, the security of interconnected electricity systems depends on the performance of several national infrastructures, irrespective of whether individual governments choose to generate nuclear power domestically. German policy must therefore distinguish the domestic decision not to operate nuclear generating stations from the broader obligation to participate in European electricity, civil protection and infrastructure-security arrangements.

This distinction is particularly important for the European Commission’s SMR strategy. The strategy creates potential opportunities for manufacturing, research, engineering and industrial cooperation, but it cannot be treated as a reversal of Germany’s nuclear phase-out. Nor should prospective European SMR capacity be allocated across Member States without evidence of national authorisation, site selection and investment. Germany’s domestic policy may instead continue to emphasise energy-system flexibility, transmission investment and industrial electricity security without requiring domestic SMR deployment. Any German participation in cross-border nuclear research or industrial supply chains must be assessed on its own documented terms.

The defence-security dimension extends beyond nuclear generating infrastructure. Germany’s importance within European and NATO logistics means that reliable electricity, fuel supply, rail infrastructure, industrial production and communications are consequential to collective defence. NATO’s September 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements expressly identify reliable energy supply, infrastructure restoration, critical interdependencies and priority access for host-nation support as elements of Allied resilience. These obligations do not require Germany to adopt nuclear electricity generation. They do require national planning capable of sustaining essential services under severe disruption. 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements — NATO — September 2026. NATO Official text

Germany’s strategic contribution to European nuclear security may therefore be principally indirect: cross-border emergency cooperation, electricity infrastructure resilience, technical and industrial capabilities where authorised, and the coordination of civil protection arrangements with neighbouring nuclear states. This is not a lesser form of European security participation, but a different allocation of national policy instruments within the same interconnected European system.

United Kingdom: The Most Concrete New European SMR Procurement Programme

The United Kingdom has advanced further than many European states in translating its SMR policy into an identified industrial programme. The British government selected Wylfa on Anglesey as the location for its first programme of small modular reactors, with Rolls-Royce SMR as the preferred technology partner and a commercial contract signed on 13 April 2026 between Great British Energy–Nuclear and Rolls-Royce SMR. The contract formally initiated technology design activities intended to support future delivery, representing a more concrete stage than a general policy announcement or an expression of developer interest. However, the signature of a design and development contract does not establish that the reactors have been constructed, commissioned or authorised for commercial operation. Great British Energy–Nuclear and Rolls-Royce SMR Sign Contract — UK Government — April 2026. GOV.UK

The government’s 2025 Spending Review allocated £2.6 billion to enable the wider SMR programme, including the contract and associated development activities. On 24 June 2026, Great British Energy–Nuclear reported that the value of contracts awarded since its establishment in 2023 had reached nearly £900 million, with more than 70% awarded to UK-registered companies. The announcement associated the Wylfa programme with three reactors and at least 1.4 GW of planned low-carbon generating capacity. These figures are important indicators of industrial mobilisation and procurement activity, but their definitions differ: the £2.6 billion is a programme allocation, the nearly £900 million concerns contracts awarded across the organisation’s activities, and the 1.4 GW figure describes planned generating capacity rather than electricity already delivered. UK SMR Programme at Wylfa Hitting Target for British Contracts — Great British Energy–Nuclear — June 2026. GOV.UK

The programme also sits within the United Kingdom’s broader nuclear investment strategy. The government’s February 2026 Advanced Nuclear Framework addresses privately led projects and identifies possible enabling measures involving project readiness assessments, regulatory pathways, financing and supply-chain capability. The policy distinguishes publicly supported SMR procurement from private-sector advanced nuclear proposals, thereby recognising that different projects may require different approaches to allocation of commercial and technological risk. Advanced Nuclear Framework — UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero — February 2026. GOV.UK

Table 7.3 — United Kingdom: verified SMR investment and industrial milestones

Programme element	Verified figure or event	Reference date	Correct interpretation
Preferred technology partner	Rolls-Royce SMR	June 2025 selection	Supplier selection, not reactor commissioning
Initial deployment site	Wylfa, Anglesey	November 2025 announcement	Identified project location
Public programme allocation	£2.6 billion	2025 Spending Review	Development and programme funding
Commercial contract	GBE-N and Rolls-Royce SMR	13 April 2026	Formal commencement of contracted design activities
Contracts awarded by GBE-N	Nearly £900 million	Reported June 2026	Procurement commitments across relevant activities
UK-registered company share	More than 70%	Reported June 2026	Share of awarded contract value, not necessarily ultimate domestic value added
Initial reactor programme	Three units	June 2026 announcement	Planned project configuration
Planned electricity capacity	At least 1.4 GW	June 2026 announcement	Project capacity, not operational output
Peak construction employment	Approximately 3,000 jobs	UK government estimate	Projection, not current employment
Target electricity delivery	Mid-2030s	Government planning horizon	Future project objective

Sources: Great British Energy–Nuclear and Rolls-Royce SMR Sign Contract — April 2026, UK SMR Programme at Wylfa Hitting Target for British Contracts — June 2026 and Advanced Nuclear Technologies — UK Government. GOV.UK+2

The British programme provides an important test of whether domestic industrial procurement can translate public nuclear investment into a durable manufacturing base. The reported proportion of contracts awarded to UK-registered companies is a meaningful procurement indicator, but it is not necessarily equivalent to the proportion of manufacturing value added that will ultimately remain in the United Kingdom. A company registered domestically may rely on imported components or overseas intellectual property, while a foreign-registered supplier may perform significant manufacturing activities in Britain. A more complete assessment would therefore require data on production locations, workforce, capital equipment, component origin and the durability of contractual commitments.

From a European security perspective, the United Kingdom also occupies a distinctive position as a nuclear-armed NATO member outside the European Union. Its civilian SMR industry may contribute to allied industrial capacity and energy resilience, but civil nuclear development must remain analytically separate from the country’s military nuclear deterrent and the distinct legal and technical arrangements associated with it. Neither Rolls-Royce SMR’s civilian programme nor the Wylfa project should be characterised as an initiative to supply military bases with microreactors in the absence of documentary evidence establishing that purpose.

The European Union and NATO: Complementary Responsibilities Without a Single Nuclear Command Structure

European nuclear industrial coordination and NATO energy-security planning address overlapping risks but operate through different legal and institutional mandates. The European Union and Euratom possess relevant powers concerning energy-market coordination, nuclear safety, radiation protection, safeguards, research and the governance of certain investment activities. Member States retain central responsibilities for national nuclear choices, individual licensing decisions and defence operations. NATO, by contrast, focuses on collective defence, national resilience, the security of energy supplies supporting military operations and cooperation among Allies. These responsibilities can reinforce each other, but they do not create a single authority capable of deciding where civilian reactors should be constructed or which nuclear technologies national governments must procure.

NATO’s 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements, published on 15 September, provide a particularly important basis for evaluating the relationship. The requirement for resilient energy supply explicitly addresses continued access to reliable energy during crisis or conflict, industrial capacity, interdependencies, cascading effects, infrastructure restoration, host-nation support and information sharing with private operators. It also requires consideration of evolving technologies and their potential effects on energy resilience. This framework is directly relevant to future nuclear power applications, but does not itself constitute a NATO decision to deploy military reactors. 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements — NATO — September 2026. NATO Official text

The strategic issue is that nuclear power may become one possible component of energy resilience without displacing the need for diversified energy systems, protected distribution infrastructure and repair capabilities. NATO’s published energy-security policy explicitly recognises the importance of military microgrids, hybrid power generation, resilient supply chains and efficient energy use. This means that the case for military nuclear power should be evaluated within an existing portfolio of resilience measures rather than as an independent technological solution. Energy Security — NATO. NATO Topic

Table 7.4 — Comparative national and institutional nuclear positions, October 2026

Jurisdiction	Nuclear policy position	Most concrete current development	Primary institutional constraint	Security relevance
Italy	Legislative reopening to sustainable nuclear energy	Law No. 169/2026	Implementation, licensing and institutional capacity	Opportunity to integrate security into new framework
France	Established nuclear power and diversified new-build policy	EPR2 programme, SMR development and multinational review	Resource allocation across existing and new technologies	Major European technical and industrial capability
Germany	Commercial nuclear phase-out	Post-2023 electricity strategy	Domestic policy against nuclear electricity production	Cross-border resilience and allied logistics
United Kingdom	Government-supported nuclear expansion	Wylfa SMR contract and programme funding	Delivery, licensing and commercial implementation	Nuclear industrial capability within NATO
European Union	SMR industrial strategy and Euratom framework	COM(2026) 117 final	Differentiated national energy choices	Standards, safeguards and industrial cooperation
NATO	Collective-defence resilience framework	September 2026 baseline requirements	National authority over nuclear licensing	Military energy assurance and host-nation support

The comparison demonstrates that the European nuclear-security agenda cannot be reduced to a common commitment to construct SMRs. An effective approach must permit different national electricity policies while maintaining common expectations concerning nuclear safety, cross-border protection, information sharing and the resilience of infrastructure supporting collective defence.

Chapter 7 — Key Judgments

Europe possesses substantial nuclear engineering, industrial and regulatory capabilities, but they are distributed across countries pursuing materially different energy policies. Italy’s October 2026 legal reform creates a possible new domestic market, France’s established industrial system provides a broader nuclear technology foundation, Germany remains outside commercial nuclear electricity production, and the United Kingdom has converted policy ambitions into a concrete supplier and site programme. The European Commission’s strategy can help coordinate these capabilities, but commercial success will depend on national implementation, financing and standardisation rather than European-level ambition alone.

What would change the assessment: Italian implementing decrees and subsequent project authorisations, French decisions on advanced-reactor construction, British licensing and construction milestones at Wylfa, and evidence of repeatable multinational regulatory cooperation would provide more concrete measures of European progress. Conversely, persistent fragmentation of licensing requirements, industrial funding constraints or failure to convert announced projects into authorised construction would weaken the prospects for a coherent European reactor market.

Chapter 8. Nuclear Security Governance: Regulatory Boundaries, Safeguards, Military Procurement and International Notification

Principal judgment: The expansion of nuclear technology into smaller, commercially operated and potentially transportable installations will test the boundaries between nuclear safety regulation, nuclear material safeguards, physical security, commercial procurement and national defence authority. The problem is not the absence of international nuclear institutions or general legal obligations. It is the possibility that existing responsibilities will become fragmented when reactors are manufactured in one jurisdiction, fuelled through another supply chain, owned by commercial entities, located on military property and operated under arrangements that differ from those traditionally used for civilian electricity generation. Effective governance requires a clear allocation of authority throughout the reactor lifecycle, with international coordination supporting rather than replacing competent national decisions.

The Existing Nuclear Governance System Is a Network of Different Legal Responsibilities

International nuclear governance is frequently described as though it operates through a single regulatory architecture, but nuclear safety, security and safeguards are governed through different instruments and institutional arrangements. Nuclear safety concerns the prevention of accidents and the limitation of their consequences. Nuclear security addresses malicious acts involving nuclear material, facilities and associated activities. Safeguards concern verification that nuclear material and relevant activities are not diverted from declared peaceful uses in violation of applicable obligations. Radiation protection, radioactive waste management, transport, environmental assessment and emergency preparedness impose additional duties that interact with these functions without becoming identical to them.

This distinction has substantial consequences for SMRs. A reactor design receiving a favourable technical assessment from one national safety authority has not thereby obtained authorisation to operate in every other jurisdiction. A facility complying with nuclear material accounting requirements has not necessarily demonstrated adequate physical protection. A national security arrangement protecting military premises does not automatically satisfy nuclear regulatory obligations. Likewise, a manufacturer capable of producing standardised reactor modules cannot replace the operating licensee’s responsibilities through product certification alone. A coherent governance model must recognise these different forms of authority and ensure that they remain coordinated as the industrial structure changes.

Within the European Union, the nuclear safety framework is established principally through Council Directive 2009/71/Euratom, as amended by Directive 2014/87/Euratom. The amended framework requires Member States to maintain appropriate national arrangements and competent regulatory authorities while pursuing a high level of nuclear safety. Its scope concerns civilian nuclear installations subject to licensing, a distinction that becomes important when examining prospective military-associated projects. Nuclear energy policy and nuclear safety regulation are connected, but the authority to promote a technology must not be confused with the authority to determine that a particular installation satisfies the applicable safety requirements. Council Directive 2009/71/Euratom, as Amended by Council Directive 2014/87/Euratom — Council of the European Union. EUR-Lex

The radiation protection framework is established through Directive 2013/59/Euratom, which covers occupational, public and relevant emergency exposure situations. Its scope extends to activities involving the manufacture, processing, storage, use, transport and disposal of radioactive materials. Consequently, the safety obligations associated with a distributed nuclear industry extend beyond the reactor’s operating location to other activities and organisations within the fuel and material lifecycle. Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom, Basic Safety Standards — Council of the European Union — December 2013. EUR-Lex

Euratom Safeguards and the 2025 Regulatory Update

A particularly consequential development for advanced reactor governance is the adoption of Commission Regulation (Euratom) 2025/974 of 26 May 2025, which updates the implementation of Euratom safeguards and replaces Regulation 302/2005, subject to transitional provisions. The regulation addresses nuclear material accounting, reporting, records, inspection-related requirements and information handling within its prescribed scope. Certain annexes became applicable from 16 December 2025, while others are scheduled to apply from 16 October 2028, making implementation a continuing regulatory process within the period covered by this report. Commission Regulation (Euratom) 2025/974 — European Commission — May 2025. EUR-Lex

The importance of this framework is often underestimated in discussions centred on reactor construction and electricity output. Nuclear safeguards require a continuing and credible account of nuclear material, including relevant inventory changes and the identity and responsibilities of the organisations holding or processing it. A future industrial system involving modular manufacture, specialised fuel, multiple operators and potential relocation could create a greater number of organisational interfaces requiring accurate records and clear jurisdictional responsibility. This does not imply that all safeguards obligations are new or that existing arrangements are incapable of addressing advanced reactors. It means that the architecture of compliance must be considered during project development rather than treated as an administrative activity beginning only when commercial operations commence.

The regulation also contains provisions concerning the treatment of information and installations controlled from outside the Community. Its Article 40 addresses confidentiality and information security, while Article 41 concerns obligations at installations controlled by persons or undertakings established outside the Community. These provisions are relevant to the prospect of foreign investment, cross-border commercial ownership and multinational reactor supply chains, because nuclear material obligations cannot simply disappear when a facility changes commercial ownership or when its parent company is located outside the jurisdiction where nuclear activities take place. Commission Regulation (Euratom) 2025/974, Articles 40–41 — European Commission — May 2025. EUR-Lex

Table 8.1 — European nuclear governance instruments and their distinct functions

Legal instrument	Principal subject	Responsible institutional level	Relevance to advanced reactors	Important boundary
Euratom Treaty	Community nuclear framework	EU/Euratom and Member States	Nuclear materials, health protection, investment and safeguards	Does not create a single European reactor licensing authority
Directive 2009/71/Euratom	Nuclear safety framework	Member States and competent regulators	Authorisation and safety oversight	Applies to covered civilian installations
Directive 2014/87/Euratom	Strengthening of nuclear safety requirements	Member States	Safety objectives, regulatory independence and oversight	Does not constitute a technology-specific SMR licence
Directive 2013/59/Euratom	Radiation protection	Member States	Occupational and public exposure, emergency arrangements	Distinct from commercial performance approval
Directive 2011/70/Euratom	Spent fuel and radioactive waste	Member States	Waste lifecycle and national programmes	Does not eliminate long-term national responsibilities
Regulation 2025/974	Euratom safeguards implementation	European Commission and regulated entities	Nuclear material accounting and reporting	Safeguards are not identical to physical security
Euratom Treaty Article 37	Cross-border radioactive waste contamination assessment	Member State and Commission	General data concerning relevant radioactive waste disposal plans	Not a general construction-permit substitute
National nuclear legislation	Authorisation and enforcement	Competent national authorities	Site-specific project approvals	National rules and international commitments must be reconciled

Sources: Consolidated Nuclear Safety Directive — EUR-Lex, Basic Safety Standards Directive — EUR-Lex, Euratom Safeguards Regulation 2025/974 — EUR-Lex and Euratom Treaty Article 37 — EUR-Lex. EUR-Lex+3

The Regulatory Challenge of Modular Manufacture and Cross-Border Design Assessment

The traditional commercial nuclear project has generally been evaluated through a framework in which the design, operating organisation and site are assessed together under national law. Modular manufacture and international technology markets introduce pressure to distinguish the assessment of reusable design features from matters that remain dependent on the individual installation. If every national regulator requires essentially the same technical evidence to be recreated independently, development costs and approval schedules may increase substantially. If regulators accept another authority’s findings without understanding the assumptions and limitations supporting them, however, the efficiency gain may come at the expense of accountable national decision-making.

The IAEA’s SMR Regulators’ Forum provides a formal mechanism for addressing this challenge. It brings regulators together to identify common technical and policy issues, develop shared positions and support informed national decisions. Its work includes containment approaches, safety-security-safeguards interfaces, licensing considerations and the regulatory treatment of long-lead components. Importantly, the Forum expressly states that its work does not replace the responsibility of national regulatory bodies to make licensing decisions. SMR Regulators’ Forum — International Atomic Energy Agency. SMR Regulator’s Forum

The French-led NUWARD review provides a practical illustration of how this principle can operate in Europe. Authorities from different jurisdictions can examine a design at an early stage, identify differences in regulatory expectations and clarify technical issues before developers commit the full resources required for construction applications. The strategic benefit is not automatic harmonisation but improved predictability. Developers can identify potentially material differences earlier, while regulators can learn from one another without surrendering their statutory responsibilities. This model could be especially valuable for smaller reactors intended to be manufactured in repeated configurations, because unnecessary variation in the treatment of standardised elements would undermine the economic rationale for modular production.

Nevertheless, international design cooperation cannot substitute for evaluating the local environment. A reactor installed at an industrial heat customer may face different surrounding hazards and emergency-management constraints from the same model located at a conventional nuclear site. A project connected to a large transmission system will have different electrical interfaces from one intended for islanded operation. The appropriate regulatory objective is therefore the reuse of technically valid evidence without the abandonment of site-specific judgment.

Military Procurement and the Problem of Divided Institutional Authority

Commercial nuclear regulation and military procurement are structurally different activities. A procurement authority determines whether an acquisition meets specified public requirements, manages contractual expenditure and evaluates supplier performance. A nuclear regulator determines whether the installation satisfies applicable safety requirements and whether the responsible operator has the necessary capabilities. Where the same public institution exercises both functions, institutional safeguards become important to ensure that schedule, financial or military priorities do not displace safety judgments.

The use of contractor-owned and contractor-operated microreactors introduces further complexity because several different organisations may possess partial responsibility for the same installation. A defence ministry may control the surrounding military site, a contractor may own the reactor, a separate corporate entity may hold the relevant authorisation, and specialist firms may provide fuel or technical services. These arrangements are not necessarily unacceptable, but they require a clear allocation of authority over safety-critical decisions, emergency access, nuclear material custody, maintenance and eventual decommissioning.

The governance issue is especially acute where a reactor is proposed for a military site outside the jurisdiction in which its design was originally assessed. A host state may possess nuclear safety and environmental responsibilities even if the reactor is owned by a foreign company or operated in support of another state’s armed forces. Bilateral military arrangements could address certain practical questions, but they cannot simply be assumed to displace all otherwise applicable national or international obligations. Any such project would require legal analysis of the actual host-state agreement, applicable treaty obligations, jurisdictional rules and the institutional responsibilities of the parties involved.

Table 8.2 — Regulatory interfaces that must be resolved before military-associated deployment

Interface	Potential conflict	Required documentary resolution	Principal accountable authority
Procurement and safety	Delivery schedule versus authorisation requirements	Explicit independence of safety decisions	Procurement body and nuclear authority
Commercial ownership and operation	Financial owner differs from technical operator	Licensing and operating-responsibility documentation	Competent authorising authority
Military site and nuclear facility	Different access and emergency priorities	Site agreement and integrated procedures	Military and nuclear authorities
National regulator and foreign supplier	Different technical and legal requirements	Recognised design evidence and national review	National regulator
Host state and visiting forces	Overlapping jurisdiction and security arrangements	Applicable international and domestic legal instruments	Concerned governments
Nuclear material and defence security	Material accounting versus sensitive military information	Safeguards and protected information arrangements	Competent safeguards and security authorities
Power customer and reactor operator	Electricity priorities versus nuclear operating requirements	Contractual and operating protocols	Licensed operator and electricity customer
Incident reporting and confidentiality	Safety transparency versus security sensitivity	Defined reporting and information-sharing duties	Competent authorities
Decommissioning and ownership transfer	Long-term liabilities extend beyond contracts	Financial assurance and succession arrangements	Licensee and public authorities

A procurement contract should not be treated as evidence that all these issues have been resolved. The governing evidence consists of the applicable authorisations, agreements, regulatory decisions and operational arrangements.

Safeguards, Security and the Treatment of Sensitive Information

The central tension in international nuclear notification is the need to provide enough information to support confidence and effective oversight without disclosing sensitive details that could increase security exposure. Nuclear safeguards and physical security address different problems, but they intersect whenever material accounting, inspection arrangements and information systems involve details whose disclosure must be managed. A regulator or international safeguards authority may need information that is not appropriate for unrestricted public publication, while a military authority may possess legitimate confidentiality interests that do not eliminate the need to comply with applicable nuclear obligations.

A workable approach requires decisions concerning the classification of information, the identity of authorised recipients, secure communications, incident reporting and procedures for resolving discrepancies. These requirements become more complex when reactor operators, manufacturers, fuel suppliers and host authorities operate across multiple jurisdictions. The issue is not whether transparency or secrecy should prevail universally. It is whether each category of information is handled in a manner consistent with the safety, safeguards and security purposes for which it is required.

The 2025 Euratom safeguards regulation expressly addresses confidentiality and secure information handling. Its existence illustrates that sensitive nuclear information can be managed through structured legal obligations rather than through a choice between complete public disclosure and the absence of international accountability. The application of such principles to novel military-associated reactors would depend on the relevant legal scope and any additional arrangements negotiated by the concerned governments. Commission Regulation (Euratom) 2025/974 — European Commission — May 2025. EUR-Lex

Chapter 8 — Key Judgments

The central governance challenge is ensuring that advances in reactor manufacture, ownership structures and deployment configurations do not create gaps between institutions whose responsibilities were developed primarily for traditional nuclear facilities. Europe’s existing framework supplies substantial foundations for safety, radiation protection, safeguards and international cooperation, while the IAEA’s regulatory initiatives provide mechanisms for sharing technical knowledge. Nevertheless, none of these instruments should be represented as an automatic authorisation for a new reactor technology or as a universal solution to the questions raised by military co-location and mobility.

What would change the assessment: Formal regulatory decisions addressing modular manufacture, clearly documented cross-border recognition practices, published governance requirements for military-associated facilities and adopted information-protection arrangements would reduce uncertainty. Conversely, projects advancing towards construction while ownership, nuclear material accountability, emergency authority or jurisdiction remain unresolved would indicate a material institutional weakness.

Chapter 9. Strategic Scenarios for 2027–2031: Industrial Deployment, Conflict Exposure and Escalation Indicators

Principal judgment: The 2027–2031 period is more likely to be decisive for the establishment of commercial, regulatory and industrial pathways than for the emergence of a large, mature fleet of nuclear microreactors operating in conflict environments. The strongest documented developments concern enabling legislation, procurement commitments, early regulatory assessment and construction preparation. These activities can substantially influence the future geography of nuclear infrastructure without necessarily producing large amounts of commercial electricity before 2031. The strategic outlook must therefore separate the probability of continued institutional mobilisation from the much less certain achievement of sustained commercial operation, repeatable manufacturing economics or routine military transportability. No numerical probabilities are assigned because the available official record does not provide comparable base rates or a reproducible forecasting model for these outcomes.

The Five-Year Outlook Must Distinguish Regulatory Progress from Industrial Completion

Forecasting advanced nuclear deployment requires particular care because reactor development proceeds through several sequential but not necessarily predictable processes. A developer may complete substantial technical work before encountering difficulties in obtaining a construction authorisation; a project may receive regulatory approval without immediately securing financing; and a reactor may begin construction while fuel qualification, supply-chain investment or the eventual electricity offtake arrangement remains incomplete. The result is that the expected dates of first operation frequently serve as coordinating milestones for developers, governments and investors rather than as outcomes that can be treated as certain.

The European record illustrates this difficulty. Italy’s 2026 enabling law establishes a relatively near-term deadline for governmental legislative action, whereas the United Kingdom’s Wylfa programme is oriented towards commercial electricity delivery in the mid-2030s. France’s multiannual energy programming also distinguishes near-term institutional and technical development from later construction and operating horizons. The European Commission’s ambitions for first SMR operation in the early 2030s and its broader 2050 capacity range provide strategic direction but do not identify a fully financed and authorised generating fleet. These different horizons should not be forced into a single deployment forecast.

The most useful analytical approach is to identify observable transitions that distinguish development activity from genuine industrial maturity. Such transitions include the completion of binding technical contracts, the submission and acceptance of licensing applications, final investment decisions, construction authorisations, commencement of nuclear construction, delivery of qualified fuel, commissioning and documented operating performance. Each is important, but none can be substituted for another.

Table 9.1 — Verified milestones and the consequences for the 2027–2031 horizon

Jurisdiction or programme	Officially documented baseline	Relevant horizon	What may be established by 2031	What is not yet established
Italy	Nuclear enabling law effective 15 October 2026	Delegated decrees due within twelve months	Operative rules and possible project-development pathways	Commissioned domestic SMRs
France	Multiannual energy programme and advanced-reactor development	Early 2030s technical objectives	Progress towards initial SMR construction and innovative prototypes	Commercial fleet-scale advanced-reactor performance
United Kingdom	Wylfa contract and government funding	Mid-2030s delivery ambition	Licensing, preparation and construction progress	Commercial electricity delivery by 2031
European Union	SMR Strategy COM(2026) 117	First projects envisaged in early 2030s	Stronger market, financing and regulatory coordination	Guaranteed European installed capacity
US Project Janus	Initial supplier and site selections	2028 target for first operation	Initial operating experience if milestones are achieved	Mature fleet economics and routine military mobility
OECD NEA project population	156 projects tracked in 2026	Rolling database	Changes in readiness and development status	Equivalent number of commercial projects

Sources: Italian Law No. 169/2026 — Official Gazette, French Multiannual Energy Programme — CEA, Advanced Nuclear Framework — UK Government and European SMR Strategy — European Commission — March 2026. Gazzetta Ufficiale+3

The distinction between a programme’s announced schedule and the evidentiary confidence attached to it is essential. A government can legitimately establish an ambitious target to coordinate industrial activity, but the analyst must treat it as a target until subsequent documentation establishes the corresponding achievement. Where programme dates change, the revision should be evaluated against the original technical and financial assumptions rather than interpreted automatically as either success or failure.

Scenario A: Civilian Industrial Consolidation with Limited Military Deployment

Under the first pathway, small reactor development progresses principally through civilian electricity, heat and industrial applications, while military programmes remain focused on prepared installations and technology demonstrations. Governments may continue to finance research, regulatory capacity and first-of-a-kind projects, but commercial adoption would remain dependent on demonstrated reliability, competitive economics and credible fuel supply. Europe could make substantial progress in developing suppliers, technical standards and licensing expertise without creating a large operational SMR fleet within the forecast period.

This pathway would be consistent with the relative maturity of the official programmes currently documented. The British Wylfa initiative aims towards the middle of the following decade, the French programme includes objectives around the beginning of the 2030s, and Italy is only now establishing the legislative structure for a possible return to nuclear electricity generation. The immediate industrial benefits could therefore arise through engineering contracts, manufacturing investment, workforce development and regulatory cooperation before significant electricity production occurs.

The main strategic advantage would be the opportunity to develop safety, safeguards and emergency requirements ahead of widespread deployment. A smaller early operational fleet could permit more intensive evaluation of design performance and commercial results. The principal disadvantage is that ambitious government and industrial expenditure might not produce timely energy-security benefits if development and construction schedules remain extended.

Scenario B: Accelerated Military Installation Adoption

A second pathway would emerge if American military-oriented programmes demonstrate sustained operation and create sufficient confidence for subsequent procurement. Under this pathway, the initial focus would remain on identified military establishments rather than on frequent relocation between active operational environments. Successful demonstrations could encourage further investment in reactor designs intended for stable, high-value customers whose electricity requirements justify the cost of dependable local generation.

The commercial mechanism would be significant. An early institutional customer can help developers establish production volumes and operating experience that are difficult to obtain through speculative private-sector demand. However, the relationship between military procurement and a broader civilian market is not automatically positive. Technical requirements unique to military installations could increase costs or encourage design variations that limit standardisation. Public authorities would need to distinguish between expenditures justified by national-security benefits and those presented as evidence of general commercial competitiveness.

The principal security question would concern the cumulative effects of installing nuclear infrastructure at more defence establishments. Successful normal operation would not alone establish conflict resilience, and a larger fleet would increase the importance of consistent safety, security, emergency and legal arrangements. The outcome would depend on whether procurement is accompanied by the institutional capabilities necessary to sustain the installations throughout their operating lives.

Scenario C: Regulatory and Industrial Fragmentation

A third pathway involves continued growth in reactor development activity without corresponding convergence in manufacturing, licensing and financial structures. Under this scenario, governments and developers might maintain ambitious nuclear policy commitments while pursuing incompatible reactor platforms, separate supply chains and different regulatory approaches. The number of projects under development could remain high even as commercial deployment falls short of announced expectations.

Several mechanisms could produce such an outcome. Fuel-cycle constraints might delay certain advanced designs; individual national regulatory requirements might limit manufacturing standardisation; investors might withdraw from projects unable to demonstrate credible construction costs; or industrial capacity might become constrained by simultaneous demands from conventional nuclear construction and advanced technologies. These possibilities should not be treated as established failures. They represent identifiable conditions that could prevent the industrial coordination objectives of current policies from being realised.

The European strategic consequence would be a sector possessing considerable engineering expertise but insufficient commercial scale to secure the manufacturing efficiencies promised by modularity. Dependence on foreign technologies, specialised fuel services or fragmented supplier networks could persist, limiting the contribution of SMRs to European strategic autonomy. At the same time, governments might face the financial and political consequences of commitments made before project economics were adequately demonstrated.

Scenario D: Conflict Exposure and International Governance Pressure

The fourth pathway concerns a situation in which nuclear installations become more geographically dispersed, including at sensitive industrial or military locations, before international risk-reduction arrangements have been sufficiently adapted. This would not necessarily require the deployment of reactors directly into an active battlefield. Regional conflict, severe infrastructure disruption or disputes concerning nuclear facilities could become relevant where installations occupy strategically important locations.

The mechanism involves the interaction of physical vulnerability, incomplete information and institutional responsibility. Governments may disagree over the status of a nuclear installation or over the information that should be communicated during a crisis. A facility experiencing disruption may require technical support from civilian operators, regulators or emergency organisations whose access and communications are affected by military conditions. If multiple jurisdictions or commercial entities are involved, the management of the incident could become more complex.

This pathway should not be represented as the inevitable result of reactor proliferation. The same period could produce stronger notification arrangements, more effective regulatory cooperation and better-defined security obligations. The critical indicator is whether institutional protection advances alongside technological deployment, rather than merely following it.

Table 9.2 — Comparative scenarios for 2027–2031

Scenario	Principal mechanism	Evidence that would support it	Evidence against it	Principal policy consequence
A. Civilian consolidation	Gradual licensing, industrial preparation and limited initial operation	Civil project milestones advance; military deployment remains limited	Rapid and sustained military fleet expansion	Prioritise industrial standards and financing discipline
B. Military installation adoption	Successful initial projects stimulate repeated procurement	Commissioning, sustained operation, further military contracts	Technical failures, cancellations or inadequate availability	Integrate military procurement and nuclear oversight
C. Industrial fragmentation	Technology diversity fails to produce repeatable commercial economics	Divergent licensing, fuel constraints and financing failures	Standardised manufacturing and multiple successful orders	Rationalise industrial and investment priorities
D. Conflict exposure	Deployment expands faster than institutional protection	Incidents, unclear responsibilities, disputed notification arrangements	Effective protection agreements and demonstrated crisis coordination	Strengthen international risk-reduction arrangements

These pathways are conditional analytical scenarios, not probabilistic forecasts. More than one may develop simultaneously, and there is no defensible basis for allocating percentage probabilities among them.

Quantitative Indicators Must Measure Real Progress Rather Than Programme Visibility

An intelligence monitoring system for advanced nuclear deployment should distinguish financial commitment, regulatory progress, industrial execution and operating performance. The most accessible public indicators, such as the number of announced projects or the total value of funding commitments, may be among the least reliable measures of practical deployment. They frequently combine projects at very different stages of maturity and may be affected by changing announcements, commercial restructuring or revisions to government programmes.

A more defensible monitoring approach would track the number of projects reaching specific regulatory and construction milestones, the availability of qualified fuel, the completion of contractual financing and the publication of operating results. Where comparisons between countries are required, the metrics must reflect compatible institutional definitions. A licensing application accepted for review in one jurisdiction may not be directly comparable to a preliminary technical consultation in another. Similarly, construction authorisation and formal commencement of construction are separate milestones, and neither establishes commissioning.

Table 9.3 — Decision-useful monitoring framework

Indicator	Definition	Preferred official source	Monitoring frequency	Decision relevance
Construction authorisations	Formal permissions issued under applicable national rules	National nuclear regulator	Quarterly	Measures progress beyond preliminary design
Construction starts	Documented commencement of qualifying project works	Regulator and project authority	Quarterly	Indicates movement into execution
Final investment decisions	Binding investment approval within defined scope	Project sponsor and public shareholder	Event-driven	Indicates financing commitment
Qualified fuel availability	Fuel meeting reactor-specific technical and regulatory requirements	Fuel supplier, regulator and competent energy authority	Semiannual	Tests schedule feasibility
Commissioning milestones	Regulatory and technical commissioning achievements	Regulator and licensed operator	Event-driven	Distinguishes development from operating capability
Commercial operating performance	Verified generating output and availability	Operator and regulator	Annual	Determines technological and economic credibility
Capital expenditure	Actual expenditure within a defined project perimeter	Audited financial statements	Annual	Measures financial execution
Contract awards	Signed commitments with clear scope	Procurement authority	Quarterly	Identifies industrial demand
Supply-chain localisation	Verified manufacturing and value-added activity	National statistics and audited project reports	Annual	Tests industrial sovereignty claims
Nuclear incidents	Classified and documented events affecting relevant facilities	Competent regulator and IAEA	Event-driven	Monitors safety conditions
International agreements	Adopted and effective instruments	Governments and treaty repositories	Event-driven	Measures governance development
Regulatory cooperation	Published joint reviews and technical outcomes	Participating authorities	Semiannual	Measures convergence without assuming common licensing

The most informative change in the assessment would be the publication of a consistent sequence of licensing, construction and operating milestones across multiple reactors of the same design. Such evidence would permit stronger conclusions about manufacturing repeatability and commercial feasibility than can currently be drawn from isolated demonstrations or project announcements.

The European Strategic Autonomy Test for 2031

By the end of the five-year horizon, European strategic autonomy should be assessed according to whether the continent possesses greater practical control over the critical elements of its nuclear development pipeline. A policy can promote domestic technology while leaving important fuel, manufacturing or financial dependencies unresolved. Conversely, an internationally integrated supply chain can provide resilience if it is sufficiently diversified, transparent and supported by credible contractual arrangements. Strategic autonomy should therefore not be reduced to complete domestic production of every component; it concerns the capacity to maintain essential functions and make consequential decisions without excessive vulnerability to external disruption.

For Italy, the central test will be whether the 2026 legislation develops into a coherent national nuclear framework with clearly assigned institutional responsibilities. For France, it will concern the execution of its broader nuclear industrial programme and the maturity of selected advanced technologies. For Germany, the principal issue will remain the resilience of a non-nuclear domestic electricity model within an interconnected European security environment. For the United Kingdom, Wylfa will offer an important test of the conversion of public investment and contracted design activity into a viable construction programme. At European level, the relevant test will be whether cooperation improves the predictability of technical assessments and the functioning of cross-border industrial supply chains.

The strongest prospective policy advantage would arise if Europe can build a market that is simultaneously commercially credible, technically rigorous and institutionally prepared for security disruptions. The principal downside would arise if governments commit substantial resources to a fragmented technological portfolio without sufficient evidence of industrial demand, regulatory feasibility or long-term financial sustainability.

Chapter 9 — Key Judgments

The period to 2031 will be characterised principally by competition among reactor technologies, financing models and institutional approaches. Successful first deployments could establish valuable technical and commercial evidence, but a mature international industry cannot be assumed from present announcements. The most plausible strategic uncertainties concern the pace of licensing, the availability of qualified fuel, construction and financing performance, and whether military applications remain concentrated in prepared installations.

What would change the assessment: Repeated successful commissioning, independently demonstrated commercial performance, harmonised regulatory assessment and sustained institutional protection of nuclear installations would strengthen the outlook. Failed construction programmes, worsening supply-chain constraints, major unresolved regulatory disputes or deployment into sensitive environments without adequate governance would weaken it.

Chapter 10. Policy Options, Implementation Priorities and Final Net Assessment

Principal judgment: European governments should not organise their advanced nuclear strategies around a presumed technological breakthrough or an expectation that military applications will automatically generate commercial scale. The strongest policy approach is to build a disciplined framework in which industrial investment, licensing, fuel security, public finance and infrastructure protection advance through independently verifiable milestones. For the European Union, this requires coordination without displacing national regulatory responsibility; for NATO, it requires treating prospective nuclear generation as one option within a broader energy-resilience framework; and for individual governments, it requires aligning investment decisions with actual institutional capacity. The principal strategic objective should be to ensure that greater technological choice does not produce a less accountable, more financially exposed or more strategically vulnerable energy system.

The First Policy Choice: Industrial Development or Immediate Deployment

The first decision facing governments is whether to prioritise the creation of industrial capabilities that may support future advanced-reactor deployment or to accelerate commitments to specific generating projects before their technical and commercial performance has been demonstrated. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, but they have different risk profiles. Investment in research, qualified manufacturing, nuclear fuel services, workforce development and regulatory expertise can benefit multiple future technologies, although its eventual commercial return may remain uncertain. Investment in a specific generating project can create more immediate industrial demand and produce operating experience, but it also exposes public and private capital to the risks associated with the selected design, location and construction schedule.

The distinction is particularly important where governments justify early investment through the expectation of future industrial sovereignty. A national reactor programme cannot be described as sovereign solely because the developer is domestically registered or because some engineering activities take place within the country. The critical questions concern control over the design, ownership of intellectual property, access to qualified manufacturing capacity, availability of fuel and the ability to maintain installations over their entire operating life. These variables should form part of procurement evaluation from the beginning, because decisions made during early design and supplier selection can determine future dependence on particular technologies or foreign services.

A balanced policy would establish industrial objectives without automatically selecting technologies before the necessary evidence is available. Governments may legitimately support demonstration projects to reduce uncertainty, but contracts should distinguish between the public value of obtaining knowledge and the commercial expectation that a developer will deliver electricity at a specified cost. Failure to make that distinction risks turning research expenditure into an implicit commitment to finance repeated construction even where the original economic assumptions have not been validated.

European Industrial Coordination Must Preserve Regulatory Independence

The European Commission’s 2026 strategy provides a basis for strengthening industrial cooperation, but its success will depend on implementation rather than the production of additional policy declarations. A common European nuclear market would benefit from more predictable technical standards, shared research results, consistent approaches to manufacturing quality and improved communication among competent regulators. These measures could lower unnecessary duplication while enabling companies to serve customers across national boundaries.

However, greater regulatory cooperation must not be confused with the elimination of national responsibility. Each reactor installation has site-specific characteristics, and the operator’s competence, emergency arrangements and local environmental conditions remain relevant even where a design has previously undergone technical review elsewhere. The most credible model is therefore one in which authorities recognise and reuse technically valid assessment work while retaining the power and obligation to evaluate matters specific to their jurisdictions.

The ongoing NUWARD review provides an important operational precedent. It demonstrates that regulatory authorities can work together on a defined reactor design before national construction decisions occur, potentially identifying differences early enough to influence technical development. Its broader strategic value lies in creating a method of cooperation that could be applied to other sufficiently mature technologies, subject to the willingness of participating regulators and the characteristics of each project. Launch of the Third Phase of the Joint Review of Safety Options of the NUWARD Reactor — ASNR — January 2026. ASNR

Public Finance Should Be Linked to Evidence Rather Than Announced Capacity

The financing of first-of-a-kind nuclear projects requires a different approach from the financing of infrastructure with established construction costs and operating performance. Governments may choose to support innovation because private investors are unwilling to absorb all the costs associated with developing a new technology. Such support can be economically justified where it creates valuable knowledge, industrial capabilities or public benefits that private investment alone would not provide. It must nevertheless be governed through transparent project milestones, defined financial exposure and the ability to reconsider commitments when evidence changes.

A central requirement is to distinguish the financial instruments involved. Research grants, guarantees, equity investments, loans, procurement contracts and revenue-support mechanisms create different obligations for the public sector. A €200 million guarantee does not have the same economic meaning as €200 million of construction expenditure. A multi-year programme allocation does not establish that the total amount has been disbursed. Similarly, the anticipated generating capacity of a proposed fleet is not a current public asset and cannot be treated as an achieved economic return.

Table 10.1 — Public financing instruments and their appropriate accountability standards

Instrument	Public-sector exposure	Appropriate performance measure	Principal governance risk
Research grant	Direct expenditure	Completed research deliverables and technical evidence	Funding activity without usable outcomes
Demonstration grant	Public contribution to project development	Verified demonstration milestones	Mistaking prototype success for commercial viability
Loan	Credit exposure	Repayment and project performance	Underestimated construction or revenue risk
Guarantee	Contingent financial liability	Defined coverage and mobilisation of investment	Hidden or poorly understood future liabilities
Public equity	Ownership and investment risk	Long-term enterprise and project value	Political interference with commercial decisions
Procurement contract	Contractual payment obligations	Delivery against specified requirements	Paying for milestones without sufficient evidence
Revenue support	Potential future payment commitments	Delivered electricity and contractual performance	Long-term fiscal exposure
Industrial tax incentive	Foregone revenue	Verified additional investment and activity	Subsidising investment that would occur anyway
Regulatory capacity funding	Institutional expenditure	Competence, review performance and independence	Pressure to reduce technical scrutiny
Decommissioning assurance	Long-term liability management	Adequate funded provision	Costs transferred to future taxpayers

An effective financial framework must specify the accounting scope, maturity of the obligation, circumstances under which public funds become payable and the evidence necessary for continued support. These requirements are especially important where governments announce cumulative investment totals that combine fundamentally different instruments.

A National Implementation Agenda for Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom

Italy should treat the implementation of Law No. 169/2026 as an exercise in rebuilding institutional capability rather than a competition to announce the first reactor project. The immediate priority is to define the legal architecture, regulatory responsibilities, authorisation procedures and financing principles through the delegated legislative process. The government should also ensure that the treatment of existing nuclear waste and decommissioning responsibilities is consistent with any new programme. Industrial development can proceed through research and manufacturing cooperation, but site selection and commercial commitments should depend on the existence of a credible national approval framework. The statutory deadline for implementing legislation creates a practical benchmark for institutional progress, but should not be transformed into an arbitrary deadline for reactor construction.

France should concentrate on converting its technological breadth into a manageable portfolio of projects with credible industrial and regulatory milestones. The coexistence of existing fleet requirements, EPR2 development and multiple advanced concepts creates substantial opportunities for knowledge transfer, but also competition for specialist labour, manufacturing and investment resources. A disciplined programme should distinguish near-term commercial possibilities from longer-term technology experiments and should evaluate the contribution of each to national energy security, export capability and industrial capacity. France’s participation in multinational regulatory cooperation should remain a central strategic asset, particularly if other European authorities can reuse appropriate technical findings without weakening their national responsibilities.

Germany should evaluate advanced nuclear developments principally through their implications for European industrial interdependence, electricity resilience and cross-border protection, while maintaining the distinction between those interests and its domestic decision to end commercial nuclear electricity production. Its role in European security cannot be assessed exclusively through the presence or absence of domestic reactors. Electricity transmission, industrial production, infrastructure repair and host-nation support are central components of resilience, and their importance will remain substantial regardless of the future success of SMRs elsewhere in Europe.

The United Kingdom should use Wylfa to establish a transparent relationship between public financing, contractual performance, domestic manufacturing activity and the successive stages of nuclear project authorisation. Its April 2026 agreement with Rolls-Royce SMR and reported procurement commitments provide a concrete industrial foundation, but project credibility will increasingly depend on evidence of execution rather than further announcements. The United Kingdom’s Advanced Nuclear Framework should also preserve a clear distinction between the publicly supported initial SMR programme and separate private advanced-reactor proposals whose financing and risk allocation may differ materially. Advanced Nuclear Framework — UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero — February 2026. GOV.UK

Table 10.2 — National implementation priorities and decision thresholds

Jurisdiction	Immediate priority	Medium-term decision	Evidence required before expansion	Principal downside
Italy	Complete implementing legislation and clarify institutional responsibilities	Determine credible industrial and deployment pathways	Operative regulatory framework and project-specific feasibility	Premature project commitments
France	Coordinate established nuclear industry and advanced-reactor development	Select projects for further commercial progression	Technical readiness, financing and industrial capacity	Fragmentation of specialised resources
Germany	Strengthen electricity and cross-border resilience	Determine appropriate industrial and regulatory cooperation	Demonstrated relevance to energy and security objectives	Misalignment with domestic policy
United Kingdom	Execute Wylfa design and authorisation programme	Advance construction subject to applicable approvals	Financing, licensing and credible execution plans	Schedule and cost exposure
European Union	Implement SMR industrial strategy	Improve supply-chain and regulatory cooperation	Documented convergence and viable projects	Market fragmentation
NATO	Apply 2026 resilience requirements	Evaluate nuclear generation where relevant to national plans	Demonstrated operational benefit and compatible safety governance	Overreliance on unproven technology

NATO’s Energy-Resilience Requirements Should Not Be Converted into a Nuclear Procurement Mandate

The NATO resilience framework provides a strong basis for evaluating the security value of reliable energy, but it should not be used to justify nuclear procurement without comparative analysis. Military energy systems may require redundancy, repairability, independent supply and the ability to maintain operations during widespread civilian infrastructure disruption. These objectives can be pursued through different technological combinations, and the suitability of nuclear generation depends on the particular installation and the demonstrated characteristics of the proposed reactor.

The September 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements emphasise verified repair and restoration plans, supply-chain dependencies, coordination with private infrastructure operators and consideration of emerging technologies. This is a broader and more rigorous framework than simply requiring additional generating capacity. A military installation could possess substantial onsite electricity production while remaining dependent on vulnerable distribution infrastructure or poorly defined emergency procedures. Conversely, an installation with diversified conventional generation, storage and robust restoration capability might achieve its operational objectives without nuclear generation. 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements — NATO — September 2026. NATO Official text

NATO’s appropriate institutional contribution is therefore to support the evaluation of energy resilience within collective defence planning and to encourage cooperation among national authorities responsible for military infrastructure. Decisions concerning the construction, ownership and regulation of nuclear installations remain subject to the applicable national and international arrangements. This division allows emerging technologies to be examined without creating an unwarranted assumption that the Alliance has adopted a common nuclear microreactor deployment programme.

Implementation Should Follow a Sequence of Verifiable Decisions

The strongest implementation model is one that establishes the necessary technical, financial and institutional prerequisites before governments make commitments that are difficult or expensive to reverse. The early stages should concentrate on defining the actual energy requirement and the alternatives capable of meeting it. Subsequent stages should establish the regulatory pathway, identify qualified suppliers, determine the fuel-cycle arrangement and evaluate site-specific infrastructure. Only after these questions have been sufficiently resolved should governments proceed towards major construction commitments, subject to the applicable legal process.

This sequence is especially important for nuclear projects because political announcements and industrial preparations can create expectations that influence later decisions. Once substantial engineering expenditure, employment commitments or site investments have been made, public authorities may face pressure to continue supporting a project even where the underlying technical or economic assumptions have changed. A disciplined approach should preserve the ability to reconsider a project at defined milestones, while ensuring that legitimate development expenditure is not judged solely by whether immediate commercial deployment follows.

Table 10.3 — Recommended implementation sequence, 2027–2031

Phase	Required decision	Primary authority	Supporting evidence	Reversibility
Requirement definition	Establish the electricity or heat service to be delivered	Public customer or commercial developer	Verified demand and alternatives analysis	High
Institutional competence	Confirm responsible authorities and applicable law	Government and regulator	Legal and organisational framework	High to medium
Technology screening	Compare technically relevant designs	Project sponsor and technical reviewers	Design maturity and qualification records	High
Fuel and industrial due diligence	Establish credible supply arrangements	Developer and competent authorities	Supplier capability and contractual evidence	Medium
Preliminary site assessment	Evaluate location and infrastructure requirements	Project sponsor and relevant authorities	Site investigations and safety considerations	Medium
Financing approval	Define risk allocation and binding commitments	Investors and competent public bodies	Financial model and contractual allocation	Medium
Construction authorisation	Determine conformity with applicable requirements	Nuclear regulator and other competent authorities	Complete technical and legal application	Low once major construction begins
Construction and commissioning	Verify actual installation and technical performance	Authorised operator and regulator	Inspection, test and commissioning records	Low
Operating assessment	Evaluate sustained availability, safety and economics	Operator, regulator and financial stakeholders	Audited operating evidence	Low for committed assets
Fleet expansion	Determine whether repeat deployment is justified	Investors and public authorities	Multiple-unit performance and cost evidence	Depends on new commitments

The time horizon does not imply that all stages will necessarily be completed for each project by 2031. A project advancing responsibly through early authorisation may be more credible than a superficially faster initiative that has not resolved its technical or financial prerequisites.

International Risk Reduction Should Advance Independently of Commercial Deployment

A final priority concerns the relationship between national reactor programmes and the international protection of nuclear infrastructure. The legal and security questions associated with future transportable reactors can be examined before commercial deployment becomes widespread. Governments do not need to wait for a serious incident involving a new reactor design before clarifying their positions concerning nuclear safety, operational responsibility and communication during crises.

The most feasible initial measures would involve the development of technical guidance, structured expert discussion and the identification of circumstances in which bilateral or regional agreements could reduce uncertainty. Such work should preserve the distinction between civilian safety coordination and military information that states are not prepared to disclose. It should also avoid creating the false impression that a general international agreement can remove all risks associated with armed conflict.

The IAEA’s regulatory forums and existing nuclear security instruments provide institutional foundations for further work, while the bilateral non-attack precedent discussed in Chapter 6 demonstrates that states can negotiate specific protections even when their broader relations remain adversarial. The objective should be practical improvement in the identification, protection and emergency management of nuclear installations, not the creation of ambitious but unenforceable declarations.

Table 10.4 — Policy options assessed against feasibility and strategic consequences

Option	Expected benefit	Implementation burden	Principal risk	Overall assessment
Stronger European regulatory cooperation	Improves technical predictability	Sustained expert and institutional work	Incomplete convergence	High-value near-term priority
Industrial supply-chain investment	Reduces selected dependencies	Capital and workforce commitments	Poor allocation across technologies	Valuable when linked to verified demand
Support for demonstration projects	Produces operating evidence	Public and private financial exposure	Commercial expectations exceed results	Justified selectively
Early military procurement	Tests operational applications	Nuclear-specific institutional requirements	Premature commitment	Conditional on rigorous evidence
International notification guidance	Reduces potential ambiguity	Negotiation and information protection	Limited state participation	Worth pursuing
Site-specific security integration	Improves planning before construction	Technical and organisational investment	Increased upfront costs	Necessary for sensitive projects
Blanket deployment moratorium	May defer certain risks	Significant diplomatic and political burden	Delayed useful applications and weak participation	Difficult without narrower scope
Unrestricted commercial acceleration	Potentially shortens project schedules	High capital and institutional demand	Financing, licensing and safety exposure	Not justified by current evidence

Final Net Assessment: Nuclear Sovereignty Is a Governance Capability, Not Merely a Reactor Technology

The development of small modular reactors represents a significant change in the industrial ambitions associated with civilian nuclear energy. It offers a possible path towards more geographically distributed electricity production, specialised industrial heat supply and energy generation at installations where conventional infrastructure may be inadequate or strategically vulnerable. Yet the available evidence does not support the conclusion that smaller reactors have already overcome the economic, regulatory and operational difficulties associated with nuclear power. The expanding number of projects demonstrates technological and commercial interest, while the limited body of sustained operating evidence makes it necessary to preserve clear distinctions between development, demonstration and mature deployment.

The European strategic position is particularly complex because the continent possesses substantial nuclear industrial knowledge without a common national policy framework. France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany illustrate four different relationships between nuclear technology and national energy sovereignty. France seeks to renew a mature nuclear system while developing advanced technologies; Britain is implementing a major publicly supported commercial programme; Italy is creating the legislative foundations for possible new nuclear generation; and Germany continues to organise its domestic electricity system without commercial nuclear power. These differences need not prevent European cooperation, but they require institutional arrangements that respect national policy choices while making technical and industrial collaboration more effective.

The implications for military security are equally important. Nuclear generation could eventually become an additional instrument of energy resilience at selected defence installations, but the argument must be supported by evidence concerning the entire infrastructure system. A reactor’s ability to generate electricity does not establish that a military installation can maintain essential operations under every relevant disruption. Nor does the physical transportability of nuclear equipment establish routine expeditionary capability. The development of military-associated reactors will therefore require careful coordination among commercial operators, defence organisations, regulators and governments responsible for nuclear material and infrastructure protection.

The experience of nuclear installations affected by the war in Ukraine demonstrates why these governance questions cannot be postponed indefinitely. Nuclear safety can become dependent on the restoration of damaged supporting infrastructure, the preservation of technical access and the ability of institutions to cooperate during prolonged hostilities. Those risks do not produce a uniform assessment of every small reactor design, but they establish that physical engineering and institutional resilience must be evaluated together.

The final strategic judgment is that the success of advanced nuclear power between 2027 and 2031 should be measured less by the expansion of announcements than by the emergence of independently verifiable technical performance, financially credible projects, effective regulatory institutions and durable arrangements for protecting nuclear infrastructure. Europe has the scientific, industrial and institutional foundations to make progress, but neither technological ambition nor public investment alone can guarantee a competitive and secure reactor industry.

A coherent policy must therefore preserve three forms of accountability: technical accountability for the performance and safety of each reactor, financial accountability for public commitments and commercial viability, and strategic accountability for the consequences of placing nuclear installations within increasingly complex civilian and military environments. These requirements do not stand in opposition to innovation. They define the conditions under which innovation can become reliable public infrastructure rather than a source of new technological, fiscal and security dependence.

Final conclusion: The central European objective should not be to deploy nuclear reactors as quickly as political ambition permits, but to establish the industrial, regulatory and security capabilities that make future deployment economically defensible, technically credible and compatible with international obligations. The more geographically dispersed nuclear generation becomes, the greater the importance of ensuring that responsibility for its protection remains unmistakable.

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