Institute all-hazards frameworks and leverage legal protections for nuclear infrastructure

Countries and areas with weapons-usable materials or nuclear facilities should address complex risks with enforceable national requirements with the following actions:

• Adopt an all-hazards framework that emphasizes common functional capabilities rather than planning for specific disasters, including designation of nuclear facilities as a critical infrastructure sector and identification of a coordinating government authority
• Require that nuclear infrastructure protection plans be tested annually to translate awareness and prioritization of risks into operational readiness
• Conduct annual joint exercises between on-site and off-site responders to improve coordination capabilities and to correct any problems before a real emergency
• Reinforce international norms against targeting nuclear facilities during war by promoting universal endorsement of and adherence to the IAEA’s Seven Indispensable Pillars for Ensuring Nuclear Safety and Security During an Armed Conflict
• Encourage compliance with existing legal protections under Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions and additional ratification and translation of these principles into bilateral and multilateral agreements, as modeled by the India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement
• Translate normative concepts captured in IAEA principles and international humanitarian law into a durable international code of conduct on protection of nuclear facilities during times of war.

What the Data Show

Countries and areas with weapons-usable materials or nuclear facilities have not consistently adopted and implemented measures designed to protect nuclear infrastructure from complex and sustained crises.

Data Details

Today, nuclear facilities face a broad range of complex and evolving risks that their nuclear security frameworks were not designed to address. Natural and human-made disasters, armed conflict, and other severe, sustained disruptions can occur simultaneously, compromising security systems, straining personnel, and creating conditions that malicious actors can exploit.

The 2026 NTI Index finds that 27 countries with nuclear facilities are currently engaged in a full-fledged war, limited war, or violent crisis. Between March 2025 and May 2026, 16 of those countries (Belarus, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates) experienced confirmed battles or explosions within 10 miles of their nuclear facilities. The ongoing Russia–Ukraine war is perhaps the most significant example of this trend. Since 2022, the conflict has led to strikes on nuclear facilities in both countries, and Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant poses a major nuclear security risk. The potential for a nuclear facility to be disrupted by these compounding risks is not limited to active conflict zones. In January 2024, the Noto Peninsula earthquake caused tremors at Japan’s Shika nuclear power plant that exceeded design expectations, despite the country’s implementation of safety upgrades following the 2011
Fukushima nuclear accident.

The complexity and unpredictability of these events speak to the need for an all-hazards framework, enabling governments to manage sustained crises and mitigate nuclear security risks regardless of their specific cause. An all-hazards framework is a common approach in global crisis response that treats security, safety, and emergency preparedness as interconnected subsystems that share resources and coordinate directly through a unified command structure so that a response in one area does not compromise operations in another.

Thirty-eight of the 50 countries and areas with weapons-usable nuclear materials or facilities have all-hazards plans in place to protect nuclear infrastructure in the event of a disaster, leaving 11 countries and Taiwan with no plan at all. Given the complex nature of an all-hazards plan and the speed with which climatic events are worsening, effective implementation of such a plan requires regular testing. However, only 18 of the 38 countries with plans in place require testing at defined intervals. Progress in this area is concerningly slow: since the 2023 NTI Index, Slovakia is the only new country to develop a nuclear infrastructure protection plan, and only Brazil, India, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates have instituted annual testing requirements.

Coordinated exercises that bring together on-site and offsite response teams are essential stress tests for these plans. Thirty-three of the 50 countries and areas with weapons-usable nuclear materials or nuclear facilities conduct joint exercises between on-site and off-site responders, but only 21 do so annually. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recommends holding joint exercises annually to prevent “perishable skills” from degrading and to improve operational readiness by promoting skill retention, verifying that vital equipment is functional, and building trust between coordinating response forces. Unless nuclear infrastructure protection plans and joint exercises between on-site and off-site response forces are updated and tested at routine, defined intervals, coordinated crisis response capabilities can become dangerously misaligned with actual conditions in a short time.

Some governments have recognized the severity of complex risks through their support for relevant international principles and treaties. Thirty-one of the 50 countries and areas with weapons-usable nuclear materials or nuclear facilities have endorsed the IAEA’s Seven Indispensable Pillars for Ensuring Nuclear Safety and Security During an Armed Conflict. Forty-one of those 50 have ratified Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, a 1977 treaty that, among other commitments, prohibits attacks on nuclear facilities, demonstrating broad—if incomplete—support for this principle. The reality of today’s risks calls for governments to prioritize the translation of political commitments and statements of support into an accepted international code of conduct. By working at local, national, and international levels, countries can mitigate the chances that worst-case scenarios occur and can proactively build resilience in the event that they happen.