One can conceive of at least three potentially catastrophic events involving the energy of the atom: a nuclear accident in which massive quantities of radiation inadvertently are released into the environment including inadvertent nuclear missile launches; nuclear war among nation-states; and nuclear violence inflicted by non-state actors. This chapter focuses on the latter threat – the dangers posed by nuclear terrorism, a phenomenon that lies at the nexus between what are widely considered to be two of the primary security threats of the modern era.
Non-state actors have essentially four mechanisms by which they can exploit civilian and military nuclear assets intentionally to serve their terrorist1 goals:
• the dispersal of radioactive material by conventional explosives or other means;
• attacks against or sabotage of nuclear facilities, in particular nuclear power plants and fuel storage sites, causing the release of radioactivity;
• the theft, purchase, or receipt of fissile material leading to the fabrication and detonation of a crude nuclear explosive, usually referred to as an improvised nuclear device (IND); and
• the theft, purchase, or receipt and detonation of an intact nuclear weapon.
All of these nuclear threats are real; all merit the attention of the international community; and all require the expenditure of significant resources to reduce their likelihood and potential impact. The threats, however, are different andvary widely in their probability of occurrence, in consequences for human and financial loss, and in the ease with which intervention might reduce destructive outcomes (for a detailed analysis, see Ferguson and Potter, 2005).
Nuclear terrorism experts generally agree that the nuclear terror scenarios with the highest consequences – those involving nuclear explosives – are the least likely to occur because they are the most difficult to accomplish. Conversely, the scenarios with the least damaging consequences – those involving the release of radioactivity but no nuclear explosion – are the most likely to occur because they are the easiest to carry out. Constructing and detonating an IND, for example, is far more challenging than building and setting off a radiological dispersal device (RDD), because the former weapon is far more complex technologically and because the necessary materials are far more difficult to obtain. Thus, an IND presents a less likely threat than does an RDD, but the potential consequences of an IND explosion are orders of magnitude more devastating than the potential damage from the use of an RDD.
It is difficult to conceive of any scenario in which either the terrorist use of RDDs or the sabotage of or attack on one or more nuclear facilities would approach the category of global, terminal risks referred to in this volume as existential risks. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the two forms of ‘high consequence’ nuclear terrorism, those involving INDs and intact nuclear weapons. Although it also is hard to devise plausible scenarios in which nonstate actors could employ these forms of nuclear terrorism to achieve a situation in which humankind as a whole is imperiled, under certain circumstances terrorist action might create global catastrophic risks of the endurable kind.
This chapter examines the theoretical requirements for engaging in nuclear terrorism, outlines the current evidence for and possible future shape of the threat, and then discusses the potential short- and long-term global consequences of nuclear terrorism. It concludes with policy recommendations for mitigating this particular species of global catastrophic risk.
Asked in a closed Senate hearing room ‘whether three or four men couldn’t smuggle units of an [atomic] bomb into New York and blow up the whole city’. Oppenheimer responded, ‘Of course it could be done, and people could destroy New York’. When a startled senator then followed by asking, ‘What instrument would you use to detect an atomic bomb hidden somewhere in the city?’ Oppenheimer quipped, ‘A screwdriver [to open each and every crate or suitcase]’. There was no defense against nuclear terrorism – and he felt there never would be.
(Bird and Sherwin, 2005, p. 349)
The subject of non-state actors and nuclear explosives has been the focus of sporadic scholarship, journalistic commentary, and government attention for over three decades. While it was anticipated from the beginning of the nuclear age, as the quote above notes, few worried about non-state actors as a nuclear threat before the 1970s. One of the earliest efforts to examine the issue was by a panel of experts convened by the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) under the chairmanship of Ralph F. Lumb. In its 1967 report, the Lumb panel addressed the need to strengthen safeguards to discourage diversion of nuclear materials from the expanding civilian nuclear fuel cycle in the United States.2 The report followed the discovery by the AEC in 1965 that it could not account for a large quantity of weapons grade uranium at the US naval nuclear fuel plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania (Walker, 2001, p. 109).3
The potential for home grown nuclear terrorism gained greater recognition in the United States at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s when incidents of politically motivated violence, including a number of incidents at nuclear research and power reactor sites, increased. For example, explosives were discovered at a research reactor at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Point Beach nuclear power plant (Walker, 2001, p. 111). Another dimension of the terrorism problem – nuclear extortion – was also highlighted following a threat in October 1970 to detonate a hydrogen bomb in Orlando, Florida unless $1 million was provided. The extortion threat, accompanied by a drawing of the alleged device, was judged sufficiently credible by authorities that city officials considered paying the ransom until a slip-up revealed that it was a hoax perpetrated by a local 14-year-old honours student (Willrich and Taylor, 1974, p. 80).
In addition to a spate of press reports about the dangers of nuclear terrorism (including Ingram, 1972; Lapp, 1973; Zorza, 1972, 1974), the early to mid-1970s generated a second AEC report on the subject, released to considerable public fanfare by Senator Abraham Ribicoff and the first book length nongovernmental studies. The 1974 volume Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards by Mason Willrich and Theodore Taylor was particularly noteworthy because of its thorough treatment of the risks of nuclear theft and the fact that Taylor was a professional nuclear weapons designer who spoke with great authority about the technical obstacles – or lack thereof – a non-state actor would have to overcome to build a nuclear explosive (Zorza, 1972).4 According to the account by Willrich and Taylor,
Under conceivable circumstances, a few persons, possibly even one person working alone, who possessed about ten kilograms of plutonium and substantial amount of chemical high explosive could, within several weeks, design and build a crude fission bomb. … This could be done using materials and equipment that could be purchased at a hardware store and from commercial suppliers of scientific equipment for student laboratories. … Statements similar to those made above about a plutonium oxide bomb, could also be made about a fission bomb made with high-enriched uranium.
(McPhee, 1974, pp. 20–21)
This view was not shared uniformly by other experts, and, as is noted below, may understate the difficulty of producing a crude nuclear explosive with plutonium (as opposed to uranium). Taylor, himself, subsequently appeared to raise the degree of difficulty facing non-state actors. Nevertheless, the warning about the ability of terrorists to inflict high consequence nuclear violence could not be easily dismissed. This perspective was reinforced in a 1977 assessment by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, which drew upon relevant classified information. It reported that ‘a small group of people, none of whom have ever had access to the classified literature, could possibly design and build a crude nuclear explosive device’. According to the report, modest machine shop facilities could suffice and necessary equipment could be obtained for ‘a fraction of a million dollars’. The group, however, ‘would have to include, at a minimum, a person capable of researching and understanding the literature in several fields, and a jack-of-all trades technician’ (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1977, p. 30).
Two other influential authors during the 1970s were David Rosenbaum, a consultant who challenged the adequacy of AEC regulations to prevent nuclear theft (Rosenbaum, 1977) and Brian Jenkins, an analyst at the Rand Corporation. Best known for his assertion that ‘Terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead …’, Jenkins, probably more than anyone else, encouraged the notion that terrorists were unlikely to employ weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in pursuit of their objectives (Jenkins, 1977).
Although it is hard to gauge how much impact Jenkins’ thesis had on government policy, the dangers of high consequence nuclear terrorism received relatively little attention in the scholarly literature during the period between the mid-1970s and early 1990s. An important exception was an indepth report of an international task force whose findings were published under the editorship of Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander (1987). A frequently cited chapter in that book by J. Carson Mark and a team of other former US bombmakers concluded that terrorists could indeed build a nuclear explosive device. It was more circumspect than Willrich and Taylor, however, in attributing that capability to any single individual. ‘The number of specialists required’, Mark et al. maintained, ‘would depend on the background and experience of those enlisted, but their number could scarcely be fewer than three or four and might well have to be more’ (Mark et al., 1987, p. 58).
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the risk of ‘loose nukes’ prompted a new wave of government, academic, and popular concern about nuclear terrorism. A series of studies organized by Harvard University’s Center for Science and International Studies, in particular, helped to frame the nature of the nuclear threat posed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and also contributed to major new legislation in the form of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (Allison, 1996; Campbell, 1991).5
If the demise of the Soviet Union refocused scholarly and governmental attention on the risk that insecure nuclear weapons and material might find their way into the hands of terrorists, the use of sarin nerve agent by the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo in 1995 and the events of 11 September 2001, resulted in a surge in research and government spending on many dimensions of WMD terrorism, including a reassessment of the readiness and ability of non-state actors to resort to nuclear violence.
An intentional risk such as nuclear terrorism can only result from the conscious decision of a human actor, yet the integral motivational component of such threats has often been overshadowed by assessments of terrorist capabilities and weapon consequences.6 What is needed is a systematic dissection of the variety of factors that might induce terrorists to pursue the use of nuclear weapons.7 The following discussion examines possible terrorist motivations that reflect strategic, operational, and tactical incentives for using nuclear weapons (i.e., where nuclear weapons are used as a means to an end) as well as more esoteric motives where the use of nuclear weapons is an end in itself.8
1. Mass Casualties: The most obvious reason for terrorists to seek nuclear weapons is for the purpose of inflicting massive casualties upon their perceived enemies.9 Indeed, while conventional (and even most unconventional) weapons will suffice to kill thousands or perhaps even tens of thousands of people if used by terrorist groups, for perpetrators who seek to cause the maximum possible immediate carnage (on the order of hundreds of thousands or millions of fatalities) the most viable means is to utilize the kinetic and thermal effects of a nuclear blast.10 Much of the concern surrounding terrorism involving WMD stems from the belief that there is a growing number of non-state actors prepared to inflict catastrophic violence.11 The majority of terrorist attacks, however, are carried out for a multiplicity of motives, so one should not assume that the desire to inflict mass casualties is necessarily the sole, or even predominant, motive for resorting to a nuclear option.12
2. Inordinate Psychological Impact: It is a truism that one of the core elements of terrorism is the terror it evokes. For a terrorist group seeking to traumatize a targeted society and generate public and official disorientation, nuclear weapons must hold a particular allure, for there can be few images that are guaranteed to leave as indelible a mark on the collective psyche of the targeted country as that of a mushroom cloud over one of its major cities.13 Anthony Cordesman asserts that it is not even necessary for a nuclear weapon to have catastrophic physical effects for it to have far-ranging psychological and political impact (Cordesman, 2001, pp. 9, 10, 38–39).
3. Prestige: Historically, nuclear weapons have remained under the exclusive purview of nation-states, with one of the key motivations for state acquisition being the status which nuclear weapons are believed to bestow upon their possessors. How much more appealing then might the possession of nuclear weapons seem for non-state groups, many of whomseek international legitimization? To the extent that terrorists believe that nuclear weapons could enable them to attain quasi-state standing or redress military imbalances vis-à-vis their purported enemies, the possession of such weapons, but not necessarily their use, becomes an attractive proposition. It is even conceivable that a terrorist group might pursue nuclear weapons in the hope of deterring, blackmailing or coercing a particular state or group of states. Thomas Schelling explores the prestige and deterrence aspects for non-state terrorists (Schelling, 1982). Also see Cameron (1999, p. 134).
4. Incentives for Innovation and Escalation: In a milieu in which terrorists groups may have to compete with rival groups for ‘market share’ of media attention and constituency support, terrorist decision makers may feel compelled to outdo the destruction wrought by previous attacks. For a discussion of why terrorists seek mass-casualty events that ‘out-do’ previous attacks, see Post (2000, pp. 280–282). The asymptote of such escalatory pressures, especially in the wake of such attacks as those of September 11, may be the detonation of a nuclear weapon on enemy territory, which would guarantee unrivalled attention upon the terrorists and their cause. While most terrorist supporters and sympathizers would be appalled by such horrific actions, there are certain subsets of disaffected populations that could condone the use of nuclear weapons against a hated enemy. For example, brutalized communities motivated by revenge may be more likely to condone such use.
5. Mass Destruction and Area Denial: In certain cases, terrorists may desire not only mass casualties, but also to physically destroy the infrastructure of their enemies and deny them the use or functioning of vital areas. These are tasks for which nuclear weapons are well-suited because they have both immediately destructive blast effects and persistent radiological contamination effects.
6. Ideology: The worldview of a terrorist group or individual demarcates allies and enemies and forms the basis for deciding between legitimate and illegitimate targets and tactics.14 As such it is likely to be one of the most important factors in any decision to resort to the use of nuclear weapons. It is often asserted that the use of a weapon as destructive and reviled as nuclear weapons would alienate the supporters and perceived constituency of any terrorist group motivated primarily by a nationalist or secular political ideology (Cameron, 1999, pp. 156–157), and therefore that such groups would mostly refrain from using nuclear weapons. Whatever the accuracy of this assertion, a corollary is widely accepted by terrorism experts, that is, that groups motivated by religion, which are focused on cosmic as opposed to mortal concerns, are far more willing to engage in attacks involving mass casualties and hence would be more prone to use nuclear weapons or other means of mass destruction (Cameron, 2000; Campbell, 2000; Gurr and Cole, 2002; Hoffman, 1993a; Hoffman, 1997, pp. 45–50; Hoffman, 1998, p. 94). As one analyst observed, ‘to the extent that violent extremist groups are absolutely convinced that they are doing God’s bidding, virtually any action that they decide to undertake can be justified, no matter how heinous, since the “divine” ends are thought to justify the means’ (Bale, 2005, p. 298; cf. Hoffman, 1993a, p. 12). The resurgence in religiously inspired terrorism in recent decades could imply that there is now a greater possibility of terrorists seeking to use WMD.15 The situation, however, is more complex. First, not all religious terrorists are equally likely to pursue mass destruction – many religiously motivated terrorist organizations have political components, represent constituencies that are well-defined geographically (and thus are subject to retribution), or depend for financial or logistical support on parties whose views may not be quite as radical as their own. Moreover, it is the theological and cultural content of the particular strand of religious belief which is of greatest significance (Gressang, 2001), rather than the mere fact that a group has a religious bent. It has been asserted that the ideologies most conducive to the pursuit of catastrophic violence are those which simultaneously reflect an apocalyptic millenarian character, in which an irremediably corrupt world must be purged to make way for a utopian future, and emphasize the capacity for purification from sins through sacrificial acts of violence (Ackerman and Bale, 2004, pp. 2930; Cameron, 1999, pp. 80–83; see also Chapter 4 in this volume). Such ideologies are of ten, though not exclusively, found amongst unorthodox religious cults, such as Aum Shinrikyo, the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, and R.I.S.E.,16 and one can conceive of an affinity between the ‘the relentless impulse toward world-rejecting purification’ (Lifton, 1999, p. 204) displayed by such groups and the levels of ‘cathartic’ destruction only achievable using nuclear weapons. Moreover, Jessica Stern has suggested that religious terrorists might embrace WMD, including nuclear weapons, as a means of ‘emulat[ing] God’ (Stern, 1999, p. 70). One must bear in mind, however, that possessing an ideology with a religious character may at most be a contributing factor to any desire to engage in nuclear terrorism, and is certainly not determinative, an assertion which has been validated empirically for CBRN weapons in toto (Asal and Ackerman, 2006).
7. Atomic Fetishism: A terrorist group whose ideology or key decision makers display a peculiar fascination for things nuclear or radiological might be more likely to consider pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. It is not hard to imagine that a group whose ideology is based, for instance, upon a nuclear holocaust motif or whose leader is obsessed with the science-fiction genre, could be drawn towards nuclear weapons as their preferred instruments of destruction. The archetype amongst known terrorist groups is Aum Shinrikyo, whose leader, Shoko Asahara, whose view of several types of unconventional weapons, including the nuclear variety verged on fetishism.
8. Revenge and Other ‘Expressive’ Motives: It is believed that individuals from heavily brutalized and traumatized communities (such as those who fall victim to genocide) might be capable of unrestrained levels of violence in the pursuit of revenge against their perceived persecutors, 17 and thus might consider a retributive act as devastating as a nuclear detonation. Other expressive motives might also come into play, for example, an extreme form of defensive aggression wherein a group perceives its own imminent destruction (or that of those it purports to represent) and thus resorts to the most violent measures imaginable as a ‘swan song’ (Cameron, 1999, p. 135).
In addition to the possible set of instrumental, ideological or psychological motives already described, there are two other considerations that, while not necessarily sufficient on their own to motivate terrorists to pursue nuclear weapons, might influence this choice indirectly. The first of these is opportunity: a terrorist group manifesting one or more of the above motives may be propelled to consider the nuclear option more seriously by happenstance. For example, governmental collapse in a nuclear weapons state could provide increased scope for the terrorists’ procurement of intact nuclear weapons and thus might precipitate for the first time the consideration of using a nuclear device. The second salient consideration is the impact of organizational structure and dynamics. It has been suggested that groups exhibiting certain structural characteristics might be more likely to engage in acts of violence as extreme as nuclear terrorism. Some of these allegedly pernicious traits include: control by megalomaniacal or sadistic, but nonetheless charismatic and authoritarian leaders; isolation from their broader society, with little display of concern for outgroups; an intentional focus on recruiting technical or scientifically skilled members; a record of innovation and excessive risk-taking; and the possession of sufficient resources, whether financial, human or logistical, to enable long-term research and development into multiple advanced weapons systems.18
While none of the above motives will necessarily lead to a decision to use nuclear weapons, the existence of such a broad array of potential motives provides a prima facie theoretical case that the most extreme and violent of terrorists might find either strategic, tactical, or emotional advantage in utilizing the destructive power of nuclear weapons. Any group possessing several of the abovementioned attributes deserves close scrutiny in this regard. Moreover, many (though not all) of the motives listed could also be served by lower-scale attacks, including using RDDs or attacking nuclear facilities. For instance, RDDs would likely result in a disproportionate psychological impact and area denial, but would not satisfy terrorists seeking mass fatalities.
Fortunately, even for those terrorist organizations that are not dissuaded from high consequence nuclear terrorism by moral considerations or fears of reprisal, there are major implementation challenges. These include access to nuclear assets and a variety of technical hurdles.
19. 3.2.1 Improvised nuclear devices
A terrorist group motivated to manufacture and detonate an IND would need to:
1. acquire sufficient fissile material to fabricate an IND
2. fabricate the weapon
3. transport the intact IND (or its components) to a high-value target and
4. detonate the IND.19
In this ‘chain of causation’, the most difficult challenge for a terrorist organization would most likely be obtaining the fissile material necessary to construct an IND.20
The problem of protecting fissile material globally has many dimensions, the most significant of which is the vast quantity of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium situated at approximately 350 different sites in nearly five dozen countries. It is estimated that there are more than 2000 metric tons of fissile material – enough for over 200,000 nuclear weapons. Many of the sites holding this material lack adequate material protection, control, and accounting measures; some are outside of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) safeguard system; and many exist in countries without independent nuclear regulatory bodies or rules, regulations, and practices consistent with a meaningful safeguards culture.
19.3.2.2 The special dangers of HEU
Two types of fissile material can be used for the purpose of fabricating a nuclear explosive – plutonium and HEU. The most basic type of nuclear weapon and the simplest to design and manufacture is a HEU-based gun-type device. As its name implies, it fires a projectile – in this case a piece of HEU – down a gun barrel into another piece of HEU. Each piece of HEU is sub-critical and by itself cannot sustain an explosive chain reaction. Once combined, however, they form a supercritical mass and can create a nuclear explosion.
Weapons-grade HEU – uranium enriched to over 90% of the isotope U-235 – is the most effective material for a HEU-based device. However, even HEU enriched to less than weapons-grade can lead to an explosive chain reaction. The Hiroshima bomb, for example, used about 60 kg of 80% enriched uranium. Terrorists would probably need at least 40 kg of weapons-grade or near weapons-grade HEU to have reasonable confidence that the IND would work (McPhee, 1974, pp. 189–194).21
As indicated above, the potential for non-state actors to build a nuclear explosive already had been expressed publicly by knowledgeable experts as early as the 1970s. Their view is shared today by many physicists and nuclear weapons scientists, who concur that construction of a gun-type device would pose few technological barriers to technically competent terrorists (Alvarez, 1988, p. 125; Arbman et al., 2004; Barnaby, 1996; Boutwell et al., 2002; Civiak, 2002; Garwin and Charpak, 2001; Maerli, 2000; National Research Council, 2002; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2003; von Hippel, 2001, p. 1; Wald, 2000). In 2002, for example, the U.S. National Research Council warned, ‘Crude HEU weapons could be fabricated without state assistance’ (National Research Council, 2002, p. 45). The Council further specified, ‘The primary impediment that prevents countries or technically competent terrorist groups from developing nuclear weapons is the availability of [nuclear material], especially HEU’ (National Research Council, 2002, p. 40). This perspective was echoed in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Clinton administration when representatives from the three US nuclear weapons laboratories all acknowledged that terrorists with access to fissile material could produce a crude nuclear explosion using components that were commonly available (Bunn and Weir, 2005, p. 156).
While there appears to be little doubt among experts that technically competent terrorists could make a gun-type device given sufficient quantities of HEU, no consensus exists as to how technically competent they have to be and how large a team they would need. At one end of the spectrum, there is the view that a suicidal terrorist could literally drop one piece of HEU metal on top of another piece to form a supercritical mass and initiate an explosive chain reaction. Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez’s oft-cited quote exemplifies this view:
With modern weapons-grade uranium, the background neutron rate is so low that terrorists, if they have such material, would have a good chance of setting off a high-yield explosion simply by dropping one half of the material onto the other half. Most people seem unaware that if separated HEU is at hand it’s a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion … even a high school kid could make a bomb in short order.
(Alvarez, 1988, p. 125)
However, to make sure that the group could surmount any technical barriers, it would likely want to recruit team members who have knowledge of conventional explosives (needed to fire one piece of HEU into another), metalworking, and draftsmanship. A well-financed terrorist organization such as al Qaeda would probably have little difficulty recruiting personnel with these skills.
There are many potential sources of HEU for would-be nuclear terrorists. It is estimated that there are nearly 130 research reactors and associated fuel facilities in the civilian nuclear sector around the world with 20 kg or more of HEU, many of which lack adequate security (Bunn and Weir, 2005, p. 39; GAO, 2004). Also vulnerable is HEU in the form of fuel for naval reactors and targets for the production of medical isotopes. Indeed, a number of the confirmed cases involving illicit nuclear trafficking involve naval fuel.
Although an HEU-fuelled gun-type design would be most attractive to a would-be nuclear terrorist, one cannot altogether rule out an IND using plutonium. Such an explosive would require an implosion design in which the sphere of fissile material was rapidly compressed. In order to accomplish this feat, a terrorist group would require access to and knowledge of high speed electronics and high explosive lenses. A US government sponsored experiment in the 1960s suggests that several physics graduates without prior experience with nuclear weapons and with access to only unclassified information could design a workable implosion type bomb.22 The participants in the experiment pursued an implosion design because they decided a gun-type device was too simple and not enough of a challenge (Stober, 2003).
Assuming that terrorists were able to acquire the necessary fissile material and manufacture an IND, they would need to transport the device (or its components) to the target site. Although an assembled IND would likely be heavy – perhaps weighing up to 1 ton – trucks and commercial vans could easily haul a device that size. In addition, container ships and commercial airplanes could provide delivery means. Inasmuch as, by definition, terrorists constructing an IND would be familiar with its design, the act of detonating the device would be relatively straightforward and present few technical difficulties.
19.3.2.3 Intact nuclear weapons
In order for terrorists to detonate an intact nuclear weapon at a designated target they would have to:
1. acquire an intact nuclear charge
2. bypass or defeat any safeguards against unauthorized use incorporated into the intact weapons and.
3. detonate the weapon.
By far the most difficult challenge in the aforementioned pathway would be acquisition of the intact weapon itself.23
According to conventional wisdom, intact nuclear weapons are more secure than are their fissile material components. Although this perspective is probably correct, as is the view that the theft of a nuclear weapon is less likely than most nuclear terrorist scenarios, one should not be complacent about nuclear weapons security. Of particular concern are tactical nuclear weapons (TNW), of which thousands exist, none covered by formal arms control accords. Because of their relatively small size, large number, and, in some instances, lack of electronic locks and deployment outside of central storage sites, TNW would appear to be the nuclear weapon of choice for terrorists.
The overwhelming majority of TNW reside in Russia, although estimates about the size of the arsenal vary widely (see, for example, the estimate provided by Sokov, Arkin, and Arbatov, in Potter et al., 2000, pp. 58–60). The United States also deploys a small arsenal of under 500 TNW in Europe in the form of gravity bombs. A major positive step enhancing the security of TNW was taken following the parallel, unilateral Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991–1992. In their respective declarations, the American and Soviet/Russian presidents declared that they would eliminate many types of TNW, including artillery-fired atomic projectiles, tactical nuclear warheads, and atomic demolition munitions, and would place most other classes of TNW in ‘central storage’. Although Russia proceeded to dismantle several thousand TNW, it has been unwilling to withdraw unilaterally all of its remaining TNW from forward bases or even to relocate to central storage in a timely fashion those categories of TNW covered by the 1991–1992 declarations. Moreover, in recent years, neither the United States nor Russia has displayed any inclination in pursuing negotiations to reduce further TNW or to reinforce the informal and fragile TNW regime based on parallel, unilateral declarations.
Although Russia has been the focus of most international efforts to enhance the security of nuclear weapons, many experts also are concerned about nuclear weapons security in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan. Extremist Islamic groups within Pakistan and the surrounding region, a history of political instability, uncertain loyalties of senior officials in the civilian and military nuclear chain of command, and a nascent nuclear command and control system increase the risk that Pakistan’s nuclear arms could fall into the hands of terrorists. Little definite information is available, however, on the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or those in its nuclear neighbour, India.
Should a terrorist organization obtain an intact nuclear weapon, in most instances it would still need to overcome mechanisms in the weapon designed to prevent its use by unauthorized persons. In addition to electronic locks known as Permissive Action Links (PALs), nuclear weapons also may be safeguarded through so-called safing, arming, fusing, and firing procedures. For example, the arming sequence for a warhead may require changes in altitude, acceleration, or other parameters verified by sensors built into the weapon to ensure that the warhead can only be used according to a specific mission profile. Finally, weapons are likely to be protected from unauthorized use by a combination of complex procedural arrangements (requiring the participation of many individuals) and authenticating codes authorizing each individual to activate the weapon.
All operational US nuclear weapons have PALs. Most authorities believe that Russian strategic nuclear weapons and modern shorter range systems also incorporate these safeguards, but are less confident that older Russian TNW are equipped with PALs (Sokov, 2004). Operational British and French nuclear weapons (with the possible exception of French SLBM warheads) also probably are protected by PALs. The safeguards on warheads of the other nuclear-armed states cannot be determined reliably from open sources, but are more likely torely on procedures (e.g., a three-man rule) than PALs to prevent unauthorized use (Ferguson and Potter, 2005, p. 62).
Unless assisted by sympathetic experts, terrorists would find it difficult, though not necessarily impossible, to disable or bypass PALs or other safeguard measures. If stymied, terrorists might attempt to open the weapon casing to obtain fissile material in order to fabricate an IND. However, the act of prying open the bomb casing might result in terrorists blowing themselves up with the conventional high explosives associated with nuclear warheads. Thus, terrorists would likely require the services of insiders to perform this operation safely.
Assuming a terrorist organization could obtain a nuclear weapon and had the ability to overcome any mechanisms built into the device to prevent its unauthorized detonation, it would still need to deliver the weapon to the group’s intended target. This task could be significantly complicated if the loss of the weapon were detected and a massive recovery effect were mounted.
It is also possible terrorists might adopt strategies that minimized transportation. These include detonating the weapon at a nearby, less-than-optimal target, or even at the place of acquisition.
If a nuclear weapon were successfully transported to its target site, and any PALs disabled, a degree of technical competence would nonetheless be required to determine how to trigger the device and provide the necessary electrical or mechanical input for detonation. Here, again, insider assistance would be of considerable help.
Thankfully, there have been no instances of non-state actor use of nuclear weapons. The historical record of pursuit by terrorists of nuclear weapons is also very sparse, with only two cases in which there is credible evidence that terrorists actually attempted to acquire nuclear devices.24 The most commonly cited reasons for this absence of interest include the technical and material difficulties associated with developing and executing a nuclear detonation attack, together with the alleged technological and operational ‘conservatism’25 of most terrorists, fears of reprisal, and the moral and political constraints on employing such frightful forms of violence. These propositions are thencombined and cast in a relative manner to conclude that the overwhelming majority of terrorists have thus far steered clear of nuclear weapons because they have found other weapon types to be (1) easier to develop and use, (2) more reliable and politically acceptable, and (3) nonetheless eminently suitable of accomplishing their various political and strategic goals. In short, the basic argument is that interest has been lacking because large-scale unconventional weapons, especially of the nuclear variety, were seen to be neither necessary nor sufficient26 for success from the terrorists’ point of view.
Although the past non-use of nuclear weapons may ab initio be a poor indicator of future developments, it appears that some prior restraints on terrorist pursuit and use of nuclear weapons (and other large scale unconventional weapons systems) may be breaking down. For example, one can point to an increase in the number of terrorist-inclined individuals and groups who subscribe to beliefs and goals that are concordant with several of the motivational factors described earlier. In terms of mass casualties, for instance, there are now groups who have expressed the desire to inflict violence on the order of magnitude that would result from the use of a nuclear weapon. Illustrative of this perspective was the claim in 2002 by Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Usama bin Laden’s former official press spokesman, of the right for jihadists ‘to kill four million Americans’ (The Middle East Media Research Institute, 2002). One can also point to groups displaying an incipient techno-fetishism, who are simultaneously less interested in global, or sometimes any external, opinion, such as Aum Shinrikyo. It might be of little surprise, then, that it is these very two groups which have manifested more than a passing interest in nuclear weapons.
Prior to Aum Shinrikyo, most would-be nuclear terrorists were more kooks than capable, but Aum made genuine efforts to acquire a nuclear capability. As is described in more detail in the next section, during the early 1990s, Aum repeatedly attempted to purchase, produce, or otherwise acquire a nuclear weapon. Aum’s combination of apocalyptic ideology, vast financial and technical resources, and the non-interference by authorities in its activities enabled it to undertake a generous, if unsuccessful, effort to acquire nuclear weapons. Although some analysts at the time sought to portray Aum as a one-off nexus of factors that were unlikely to ever be repeated, in fact, a far larger transnational movement emerged shortly thereafter with a similar eye on the nuclear prize.
Al Qaeda, the diffuse jihadist network responsible for many of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the past decade, has not been shy about its nuclear ambitions. As early as 1998, its self-styled emir, Usama bin Ladin, declared that ‘To seek to possess the weapons [of mass destruction] that could counter those of the infidels is a religious duty … It would be a sin for Muslims not to seek possession of the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims’ (Scheuer, 2002, p. 72). As noted previously, the group has asserted ‘the right to kill 4 million Americans – 2 million of them children’, in retaliation for the casualties it believes the United States and Israel have inflicted on Muslims. Bin Laden also sought and was granted a religious edict or fatwa from a Saudi cleric in 2003, authorizing such action (Bunn, 2006). In addition to their potential use as a mass-casualty weapon for punitive purposes, 27 al Qaeda ostensibly also sees strategic political advantage in the possession of nuclear weapons, perhaps to accomplish such tasks as coercing the ‘Crusaders’ to leave Muslim territory. When combined with millenarian impulses among certain quarters of global jihadis and a demonstrated orientation towards martyrdom, it is apparent that many (if not most) of the motivational factors associated with nuclear terrorism apply to the current violent jihadist movement. The manner in which these demands on motivations have been translated into concrete efforts to obtain nuclear explosives is described in the section below on ‘The Supply Side’.
At present, the universe of non-state actors seeking to acquire and use nuclear weapons appears to be confined to violent jihadhists, a movement that is growing in size and scope and spawning a host of radical offshoots and followers. Although in the short term at least, the most likely perpetrators of nuclear violence will stem from operationally sophisticated members of this milieu, in the longer term, they may be joined by radical rightwing groups (especially those components espousing extremist Christian beliefs),28 an as-yet-unidentified religious cult, or some other group of extremists who limn the ideological and structural arcs associated with nuclear terrorism.
Within any society, there will always be some people dissatisfied with the status quo. A very small subset of these angry and alienated individuals may embark on violent, terrorist campaigns for change, in some cases aiming globally. An even tinier subset of these non-state actors with specific ideological, structural, and operational attributes may seek nuclear weapons. Perhaps the most frightening possibility would be the development of technology or the dissolution of state power in a region to the point where a single disgruntled individual would be able to produce or acquire a working nuclear weapon. Since there are far more hateful, delusional and solipsistic individuals than organized groups in this world, 29 this situation would indeed be deserving of the label of a nuclear nightmare. This and other simila capability related issues are discussed in the following section.
As a recent briefing by the Rand Corporation points out, ‘On the supply side of the nuclear market, the opportunities for [non-state] groups to acquire nuclear material and expertise are potentially numerous’ (Daly et al., 2005, p. 3). These opportunities include huge global stocks of fissile material, not all of which are adequately secured; tens of thousands of weapons in various sizes and states of deployment and reserve in the nuclear arsenals of at least eight states; and a large cadre of past and present nuclear weaponeers with knowledge of the science and art of weapons design and manufacture. In addition, the extraordinarily brazen and often successful nuclear supply activities of A.Q. Khan and his wide-flung network demonstrate vividly the loopholes in current national and international export control arrangements. Although not in great evidence to date, one also cannot discount the emergence of organized criminal organizations that play a Khan-like middleman role in finding a potential nuclear supplier, negotiating the purchase/sale of the contraband, and transporting the commodity to the terrorist end-user. Taken together, these factors point to the need to assess carefully the past procurement record of terrorist groups and the potential for them in the future to obtain not only highly sensitive nuclear technology and know-how, but also nuclear weapon designs and the weapons themselves. The most instructive cases in examining the level of success attained by terrorists thus far are once again to be found in Aum Shinrikyo and al Qaeda.
The religious cult Aum Shinrikyo initiated an ambitious programme to acquire chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the early 1990s. In the nuclear sphere, this effort was first directed at purchasing a nuclear weapon. To this end, Aum appears to have sought to exploit its large following in Russia (at its peak estimated to number in the tens of thousands) and its access to senior Russian officials, to obtain a nuclear warhead. Aum members are reported to have included a number of scientists at the Kurchatov Institute, an important nuclear research facility in Moscow possessing large quantities of HEU, which at the time were poorly secured (Bunn, 2006; Daly et al., 2005, p. 16). Aum leader Shoko Asahara, himself, led a delegation to Russia in 1992, which met with former Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi, Russian Parliament speaker Rusian Khasbulatov, and Head of Russia’s Security Council, Oleg Lobov (Daly et al., 2005, p. 14).30 Inscribed in a notebook confiscated from senior Aum leader Hayakawa Kiyohi, who reportedly made over 20 trips to Russia, was the question, ‘Nuclear warhead. How much?’ Following the questions were several prices in the millions of dollars (Bunn, 2006; Daly et al., 2005, p. 13).
Despite its deep pockets and unusually high-level contacts in Russia, possibly extending into the impoverished nuclear scientific complex, Aum’s persistent efforts were unsuccessful in obtaining either intact nuclear weapons or the fissile material for their production. A similarly ambitious if more far-fetched attempt to mine uranium ore on a sheep farm in Australia also resulted in failure.31 Aum, therefore, at least temporarily turned its attention away from nuclear weapons in order to pursue the relatively easier task of developing chemical weapons.32
There is substantial evidence that al Qaeda, like Aum Shinrikyo, has attempted to obtain nuclear weapons and their components. According to the federal indictment of Osama bin Laden for his role in the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, these procurement activities date back to at least 1992 (Bunn, 2006). According to Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a Sudanese national who testified against bin Laden in 2001, an attempt was made by al Qaeda operatives in 1993 to buy HEU for a bomb (McLoud and Osborne, 2001). This effort, as well as several other attempts to purchase fissile material appear to have been unproductive, and were undermined by the lack of technical knowledge on the part of al Qaeda aides. In fact, al Qaeda may well have fallen victim to various criminal scams involving the sale of low-grade reactor fuel and a bogus nuclear material called ‘Red Mercury’..33
If al Qaeda’s early efforts to acquire nuclear weapons were unimpressive, the leadership did not abandon this objective and pursued it with renewed energy once the organization found a new sanctuary in Afghanistan after 1996. Either with the acquiescence or possible assistance of the Taliban, al Qaeda appears to have sought not only fissile material but also nuclear weapons expertise, most notably from the Pakistani nuclear establishment. Bin Laden and his deputy al-Zawahiri, for example, are reported to have met at length with two Pakistani nuclear weapons experts, who also were Taliban sympathizers, and to have sought to elicit information about the manufacture of nuclear weapons (Glasser and Khan, 2001).
According to one analyst who has closely followed al Qaeda’s nuclear activities, the Pakistanis may have provided bin Laden with advice about potential suppliers for key nuclear components (Albright and Higgens, 2003, pp. 9–55). In addition, although there is no solid evidence, one cannot rule out he possibility that al Qaeda received the same kind of weapons design blueprints from the A.Q. Khan network that were provided to Libya and also, conceivably, to Iran.
The Presidential Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding WMD reported in March 2005 that in October 2001 the US intelligence community assessed al Qaeda as capable of making at least a ‘crude’ nuclear device if it had access to HEU or plutonium (Commission, 2005, pp. 267, 271, 292). The commission also revealed that the CIA’s non-proliferation intelligence and counterterrorism centres had concluded in November 2001 that al Qaeda ‘probably had access to nuclear expertise and facilities and that there was a real possibility of the group developing a crude nuclear device’ (Commission, 2005, pp. 267, 271, 292). These assessments appear to be based, at least in part, on documents uncovered at al Qaeda safe houses after the US toppled the Taliban regime, which revealed that al Qaeda operatives were studying nuclear explosives and nuclear fuel cycle technology.34
In addition to compelling evidence about al Qaeda’s efforts to obtain nuclear material and expertise, there have been numerous unsubstantiated reports about the possible acquisition by al Qaeda of intact nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union. Most of these accounts are variants of the storyline that one or more Soviet-origin ‘suitcase nukes’ were obtained by al Qaeda on the black market in Central Asia.35 Although one cannot dismiss these media reports out of hand due to uncertainties about Soviet weapons accounting practices, the reports provide little basis for corroboration, and most US government analysts remain very skeptical that al Qaeda or any other non-state actor has yet acquired a stolen nuclear weapon on the black market.
Despite the loss of its safe haven in Afghanistan, US government officials continue to express the belief that al Qaeda is in a position to build an improvised nuclear device (Jane’s Intelligence Digest, 2003; Negroponte statement, 2005). And yet even at their heyday, there is no credible evidence that either al Qaeda or Aum Shinrikyo were able to exploit their high motivations, substantial financial resources, demonstrated organizational skills, far-flung network of followers, and relative security in a friendly or tolerant host country to move very far down the path towards acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. As best one can tell from the limited information available in public sources, among the obstacles that proved most difficult for them to overcome was access to the fissile material needed to fabricate an IND. This failure probably was due in part to a combination of factors, including the lack of relevant ‘in house’ technical expertise, unfamiliarity with the nuclear black market and lack of access to potential nuclear suppliers, and greater security and control than was anticipated at sites possessing desired nuclear material and expertise. In the case of the former Soviet Union, the group’s procurement efforts also probably underestimated the loyalty of underpaid nuclear scientists when it came to sharing nuclear secrets. In addition, both Aum Shinrikyo and al Qaeda’s pursuit of nuclear weapons may have suffered from too diffuse an effort in which large but limited organizational resources were spread too thinly over a variety of ambitious tasks.36
Past failures by non-state actors to acquire a nuclear explosive capability may prove unreliable indicators of future outcomes. What then are the key variables that are likely to determine if and when terrorists will succeed in acquiring INDs and/or nuclear weapons, and if they are to acquire them, how many and of what sort might they obtain? The numbers, in particular, are relevant in determining whether nuclear terrorism could occur on a scale and scope that would constitute a global catastrophic threat.
As discussed earlier, the inability of two very resourceful non-state actors-Aum Shinrikyo and al Qaeda – to acquire a credible nuclear weapons capability cautions against the assumption that terrorists will any time soon be more successful. Although weapons usable nuclear material and nuclear weapons themselves are in great abundance and, in some instances, lack adequate physical protection, material control, and accounting, not withstanding the activities of the A.Q. Khan network, there are few confirmed reports of illicit trafficking of weapons usable material, and no reliable accounts of the diversion or sale of intact nuclear weapons (Potter and Sokova, 2002).
This apparent positive state of affairs may be an artifact of poor intelligence collection and analysis as well as the operation of sophisticated smugglers able to avoid detection (Potter and Sokova, 2002). It also may reflect the relatively small number of would-be nuclear terrorists, the domination of the nuclear marketplace by amateur thieves and scam artists, and the inclination of most organized criminal organizations to shy away from nuclear commerce when they can make their fortune in realms less likely to provoke harsh governmental intervention. Finally, one cannot discount the role of good luck.
That being said, a number of respected analysts have proffered rather dire predictions about the looming threat of terrorist initiated nuclear violence. Graham Allison, author of one of the most widely cited works on the subject, offers a standing bet of 51 to 49 odds that, barring radical new antiproliferation steps, there will be a terrorist nuclear strike within the next ten years. Allison gave such odds in August 2004, and former US Secretary of Defense William Perry agreed, assessing the chance of a terror strike as even (Allison, 2004; Kristof, 2004). More recently, in June 2007, Perry and two other former US government officials concluded that the probability of a nuclear weapon going off in an American city had increased in the past 5 years although they did not assign a specific probability or time frame (Perry et al., 2007, p. 8). Two other well-known analysts, Matthew Bunn and David Albright, also are concerned about the danger, but place the likelihood of a terrorist attack involving an IND at 5% and 1%, respectively (Sterngold, 2004).37
It is difficult to assess these predictions as few provide much information about their underlying assumptions. Nevertheless, one can identify a number of conditions, which if met, would enable non-state actors to have a much better chance of building an IND or seizing or purchasing one or more intact nuclear weapons.
Perhaps the single most important factor that could alter the probability of a successful terrorist nuclear weapons acquisition effort is state-sponsorship or state-complicity. Variants of this pathway to nuclear weapons range from the deliberate transfer of nuclear assets by a national government to unauthorized assistance by national government officials, weapons scientists, or custodians. At one end of the continuum, for example, a terrorist group could conceivably acquire a number of intact operational nuclear weapons directly from a sympathetic government. Such action would make it unnecessary to bypass security systems protecting the weapons. This ‘worst case’ scenario has shaped US foreign policy towards so-called rogue states, and continues to be a concern with respect to countries such as North Korea and Iran.38
Even ifa state’s most senior political leaders were not prepared to transfer a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization, it is possible that other officials with access to their country’s nuclear assets might take this step for financial or ideological reasons. If President Musharraf and A.Q. Khan are to be believed, the latter’s unauthorized sale of nuclear know-how to a number of states demonstrated the feasibility of such transfer, including the provision of nuclear weapon designs, and, in principle, could as easily have been directed to non-state actors. Aid from one or more insiders lower down the chain of command, such as guards at a nuclear weapons storage or deployment site, also could facilitate the transfer of a nuclear weapon into terrorist hands.
Moreover, one can conceive of a plausible scenario in which terrorist groups might take advantage of a coup, political unrest, a revolution, or a period of anarchy to gain control over one or more nuclear weapons. Nuclear assets could change hands, for example, because of a coup instigated by insurgents allied to or cooperating with terrorists. Although the failed coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev during August 1991 did not involve terrorists, during the crisis Gorbachev reportedly lost control of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal to his would-be successors when they cut off his communications links (Ferguson and Potter, 2005, p. 59; Pry, 1999, p. 60). It is also possible that during a period of intense political turmoil, nuclear custodians might desert their posts or otherwise be swept aside by the tide of events. During China’s Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s, for example, leaders of China’s nuclear establishment feared that their institutes and the Lop Nor nuclear test site might be overrun by cadres of Red Guards (Spector, 1987, p. 32). Similarly in 1961, French nuclear authorities appeared to have rushed to test a nuclear bomb at a site in Algeria out of fear that a delay could enable rebel forces to seize the weapon (Spector, 1987, pp. 27–30). Although it is unlikely that political unrest would threaten nuclear controls in most weapons states today, the situation is not clear cut everywhere, and many analysts express particular concerns with respect to Pakistan and North Korea.
Although the preceding examples pertain to operational nuclear weapons, similar state-sponsored or state-complicit scenarios apply with equal force to the transfer of weapons usable material and technical know-how. Indeed, the transfers of highly sensitive nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea by A.Q. Khan and his associates over an extended period of time (1989-2003), demonstrate the feasibility of similar transfers to non-state actors. As in an attempted seizure of a nuclear weapon, political instability during a coup or revolution could provide ample opportunities for terrorists to gain control of fissile material, stocks of which are much more widely dispersed and less well guarded than nuclear weapons. There is one confirmed case, for example, in which several kilograms of HEU disappeared from the Sukhumi Nuclear Research Center in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia. Although the details of the case remain murky, and there is no evidence that a terrorist organization was involved, the HEU was diverted during a period of civil turmoil in the early 1990s (Potter and Sokova, 2002, p. 113).
Aside from the assistance provided by a state sponsor, the most likely means by which a non-state actor is apt to experience a surge in its ability to acquire nuclear explosives is through technological breakthroughs. Today, the two bottlenecks that most constrain non-state entities from fabricating a nuclear weapon are the difficulty of enriching uranium and the technical challenge of correctly designing and building an implosion device.
Although almost all experts believe uranium enrichment is beyond the capability of any non-state entity acting on its own today, it is possible that new enrichment technologies, especially involving lasers, may reduce this barrier. Unlike prevailing centrifuge and diffusion enrichment technology, which require massive investments in space, infrastructure, and energy, laser enrichment could theoretically involve smaller facilities, less energy consumption, and a much more rapid enrichment process. These characteristics would make it much easier to conceal enrichment activities and could enable a terrorist organization with appropriate financial resources and technical expertise to enrich sufficient quantities of HEU covertly for the fabrication of multiple INDs. However, despite the promise of laser enrichment, it has proved much more complex and costly to develop than was anticipated (Boureston and Ferguson, 2005).
Unlike a gun-type device, an implosion-type nuclear explosive can employ either HEU or plutonium. However, it also requires more technical sophistication and competence than an HEU-based IND. Although these demands are likely to be a major impediment to would-be nuclear terrorists at present, the barriers may erode over time as relevant technology such as high-speed trigger circuitry and high explosive lenses become more accessible.
Were terrorists to acquire the ability to enrich uranium or manufacture implosion devices using plutonium, it is much more likely that they would be able to produce multiple INDs, which could significantly increase the level of nuclear violence. Neither of these developments, however, are apt to alter significantly the yield of the IND. Indeed, nothing short of a hard to imagine technological breakthrough that would enable a non-state actor to produce an advanced fission weapon or a hydrogen bomb would produce an order of magnitude increase in the explosive yield of a single nuclear device.39
The discussion to this point has focused on the potential for terrorists to inflict nuclear violence. A separate but related issue is the potential for terrorists to instigate the use of nuclear explosives, possibly including a full-fledged nuclear war. Ironically, this scenario involves less demanding technical skills and is probably a more plausible scenario in terms of terrorists approaching the level of a global catastrophic nuclear threat.
One can conceive of a number of possible means by which terrorists might seek to provoke a nuclear exchange involving current nuclear weapon states. This outcome might be easiest to accomplish in South Asia, given the history of armed conflict between India and Pakistan, uncertainties regarding the command and control arrangements governing nuclear weapons release, and the inclination on the part of the two governments to blame each other whenever any doubt exists about responsibility for terrorist actions. The geographical proximity of the two states works to encourage a ‘use them or lose them’ crisis mentality with nuclear assets, especially in Pakistan which is at a severe military disadvantage vis a vis India in all indices but nuclear weapons. It is conceivable, therefore, that a terrorist organization might inflict large scale but conventional violence in either country in such manner as to suggest the possibility of state complicity in an effort to provoke a nuclear response by the other side.
A number of films and novels rely on cyber terror attacks as the source of potential inter-state nuclear violence.40 Although the plot lines vary, they frequently involve an individual or group’s ability to hack into a classified military network, thereby setting in motion false alarms about the launch of foreign nuclear-armed missiles, or perhaps even launching the missiles themselves. It is difficult to assess the extent to which these fictional accounts mirror real-life vulnerabilities in the computer systems providing the eyes and ears of early warning systems for nuclear weapon states, but few experts attach much credence to the ability of non-state actors to penetrate and spoof these extraordinarily vital military systems.
A more credible, if still unlikely means, to mislead an early warning system and trigger a nuclear exchange involves the use by terrorists of scientific rockets. The ‘real world’ model for such a scenario is the 1995 incident in which a legitimate scientific sounding rocket (used to take atmospheric measurements) launched from Norway led the Russian early warning system to conclude initially that Russia was under nuclear attack (Forden, 2001).41
Although terrorists might find it very difficult to anticipate the reaction of the Russian early warning system (or those of other nuclear weapon states) to various kinds of rocket launches, access to and use of scientific rockets is well within the reach of many non-state actors, and the potential for future false alerts to occur is considerable.
The physical and health consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack in the foreseeable future, while apt to be devastating, are unlikely to be globally catastrophic. This conclusion is derived, in part, from a review of various government and scholarly calculations involving different nuclear detonation/exchange scenarios which range from a single 20 kiloton IND to multiple megaton weapons.
The most likely scenario is one in which an IND of less than 20 kilotons is detonated at ground level in a major metropolitan area such as New York. The size of the IND is governed by the amount of HEU available to would-be nuclear terrorists and their technical skills.42
A blast from such an IND would immediately wipe out the area within about a one and a half mile radius of the weapon. Almost all non-reinforced structures within that radius would be destroyed and between 50,000 and 500,000 people would probably die, with a similar number seriously injured.43 The amount of radioactive fallout after such an attack is difficult to estimate because of uncertain atmospheric factors, but one simulation predicts that 1.5 million people would be exposed to fallout in the immediate aftermath of the blast, with 10,000 immediate deaths from radiation poisoning and an eventual 200,000 cancer deaths (Helfandetal., 2002, p. 357). Very soon after the attack, hospital facilities would be overwhelmed, especially with burn victims, and many victims would die because of a lack of treatment. These estimates are derived from computer models, nuclear testing results, and the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.44 A firestorm might engulf the area within one to two miles of the blast, killing those who survived the initial thermal radiation and shockwave.45
Of course, no one really knows what would happen if a nuclear weapon went off today in a major metropolis. Most Cold War studies focus on weapons exploding at least 2000 feet above the ground, which result in more devastation and a wider damage radius than ground level detonations. But such blasts, like those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also produce less fallout. Government studies of the consequences of nuclear weapons use also typically focus on larger weapons and multiple detonations. A terrorist, however, is unlikely to expend more than a single weapon in one city or have the ability to set off an airburst. Still, the damage inflicted by a single IND would be extreme compared to any past terrorist bombing. By way of contrast, the Oklahoma City truck bomb was approximately 0.001 kiloton, a fraction of the force of an improvised nuclear device.
TNW typically are small in size and yield and would not produce many more casualties than an IND. Although they are most likely to be the intact weapon of choice for a terrorist because of their relative portability, if a larger nuclear weapon were stolen it could increase the number of deaths by a factor of 10. If, for example, a 1-megaton fusion weapon (the highest yield of current US and Russian arsenals) were to hit the tip of Manhattan, total destruction might extend as far as the middle of Central Park, five miles away. One study by the Office of Technology Assessment estimated that a 1-megaton weapon would kill 250,000 people in less-dense Detroit (U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1979), and in Manhattan well over a million might die instantly. Again, millions would be exposed to radioactive fallout, and many thousands would die depending on where the wind happened to blow and how quickly people took shelter.
Regardless of the precise scenarios involving an IND or intact nuclear weapon, the physical and health consequences would be devastating. Such an attack would tax health care systems, transportation, and general commerce, perhaps to a breaking point. Economic studies of a single nuclear attack estimate property damage in the many hundreds of billions of dollars (ABT Associates, 2003, p.7), 46 and the direct cost could easily exceed one trillion dollars if lost lives are counted in economic terms. For comparison, the economic impact of the September 11 attacks has been estimated at $83 billion in both direct and indirect costs (GAO, 2002).
A nuclear attack, especially a larger one, might totally destroy a major city. The radioactivity of the surrounding area would decrease with time, and outside the totally destroyed area (a mile or two), the city could be repopulated within weeks, but most residents would probably be hesitant to return due to fear of radioactivity.
A more globally catastrophic scenario involves multiple nuclear warheads going off at the same time or in rapid succession. If one attack is possible, multiple attacks also are conceivable as weapons and weapons material are often stored and transported together. Should terrorists have access to multiple INDs or weapons they might target a number of financial centres or trade hubs. Alternatively, they could follow a Cold War attack plan and aim at oil refineries. In either scenario, an attack could lead to severe global economic crisis with unforeseen consequences. Whereas the September 11 attacks only halted financial markets and disrupted transportation for a week, even a limited nuclear attack on lower Manhattan might demolish the New York Stock Exchange and numerous financial headquarters. Combined with attacks on Washington, DC, Paris, London, and Moscow, major centres of government and finance could nearly disappear. The physical effects of the attacks would be similar in each city, though many cities are less densely packed than New York and would experience fewer immediate deaths.
Unlike the more tangible physical and economic effects of nuclear terrorism, it is almost impossible to model the possible psychological, social, and political consequences of nuclear terrorism, especially in the long term and following multiple incidents. One is therefore forced to rely on proxy data from the effects of previous cases of large-scale terrorism, a variety of natural disasters, and past nuclear accidents such as the Chernobyl meltdown. The psychological, social, and political effects of nuclear terrorism are likely to extend far beyond the areas affected by blast or radiation, although many of these effects are likely to be more severe closer to ground zero.
It can be expected that the initial event will induce a number of psychological symptoms in victims, responders, and onlookers. In an age of instantaneous global communication, the last category might rapidly encompass most of the planet. The constellation of possible symptoms might include anxiety, grief, helplessness, initial denial, anger, confusion, impaired memory, sleep disturbance and withdrawal (Alexander and Klein, 2006). Based on past experience with terrorism and natural disasters, these symptoms will resolve naturally in the majority of people, with only a fraction47 going on to develop persistent psychiatric illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the intangible, potentially irreversible, contaminating, invasive and doubt-provoking nature of radiation brings with it a singular aura of dread and high levels of stress and anxiety. Indeed, this fear factor is one of the key reasons why some terrorists might select weapons emitting radiation.
In addition to significant physical casualties, a nuclear terrorism event would most likely result in substantially greater numbers of unexposed individuals seeking treatment, thereby complicating medical responses.48 In the 1987 radiological incident in Goiania, Brazil, up to 140,000 unexposed people flooded the health care system seeking treatment (Department of Homeland Security, 2003, p. 26). Although genuine panic – in the sense of maladaptive responses such as ‘freezing’ – is extremely rare (Jones, 1995), a nuclear terrorism incident might provoke a mass exodus from cities as individuals make subjective decisions to minimize their anxiety. Following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States in 1979, 150,000 people took to the highways – 45 people evacuated for every person advised to leave (Becker, 2003).
Were nuclear terrorism to become a repeating occurrence, the question would arise regarding whether people would eventually be able to habituate to such events, much as the Israeli public currently manages to maintain a functional society despite continual terrorist attacks. While desensitization to extremely high levels of violence is possible, multiple cases of nuclear terrorism over an extended period of time might prove to be beyond the threshold of human tolerance.
Even a single incidence of nuclear terrorism could augur negative social changes. While greater social cohesion is likely in the immediate aftermath of an attack (Department of Homeland Security, 2003, p. 38), over time feelings of fear, anger and frustration could lead to widespread anti-social behaviour, including the stigmatization of those exposed to radiation and the scapegoating of population groups associated with the perceived perpetrators of the attack. This reaction could reach the level of large-scale xenophobia and vigilantism. Repeated attacks on major cities might even lead to behaviours encouraging social reversion and the general deterioriation of civil society, for example, ifmany people adopt a survivalist attitude and abandon populated areas. There is, of course, also the possibility that higher mortality salience might lead to positive social effects, including more constructive approaches to problem-solving (Calhoun and Tedeschi, 1998). Yet higher morality could just as easily lead to more pathological behaviours. For instance, during outbreaks of the Black Death plague in the Middle Ages, some groups lost all hope and descended into a self-destructive epicureanism.
A nuclear terrorist attack, or series of such attacks, would almost certainly alter the fabric of politics (Becker, 2003). The use of a nuclear weapon might trigger a backlash against current political or scientific establishments for creating and failing to prevent the threat. Such attacks might paralyse an open or free society by causing the government to adopt draconian methods (Stern, 1999, pp. 2–3), or massively restrict movement and trade until all nuclear material can be accounted for, an effort that would take years and which could never be totally complete. The concomitant loss of faith in governing authorities might eventually culminate in the fulfillment of John Herz’s initial vision of the atomic age, resulting in the demise of the nation-state as we know it (1957).
While the aforementioned effects could occur in a number of countries, especially if multiple states were targeted by nuclear-armed terrorists, nuclear terrorism could also impact the overall conduct of international relations. One issue that may arise is whether the terrorists responsible, as non-state actors, would have the power to coerce or deter nation-states.49 Nuclear detonation by a non-state group virtually anywhere would terrorize citizens in potential target countries around the globe, who would fear that the perpetrators had additional weapons at their disposal. The organization could exploit such fears in order to blackmail governments into political concessions – for example, it could demand the withdrawal of military forces or political support from states the terrorists opposed. The group might even achieve these results without a nuclear detonation, by providing proof that it had a nuclear weapon in its possession at a location unknown to its adversaries. The addition on the world stage of powerful non-state actors as the ostensible military equals of (at least some) states would herald the most significant change in international affairs since the advent of the Westphalian system. While one can only speculate about the nature of the resultant international system, one possibility is that ‘superproliferation’ would occur. In this case every state (and non-state) actor with the wherewithal pursues nuclear weapons, resulting in an extremely multipolar and unstable world order and greater possibility for violent conflict. On the other hand, a nuclear terrorist attack might finally create the international will to control or eliminate nuclear weaponry.
It is almost impossible to predict the direction, duration, or extent of the above-mentioned changes since they depend on a complex set of variables. However, it is certainly plausible that a global campaign of nuclear terrorism would have serious and harmful consequences, not only for those directly affected by the attack, but for humanity as a whole.
While any predictions under conditions of dynamic change are inherently complicated by the forces described earlier, the exploration of the motivations, capabilities and consequences associated with nuclear terrorism permit a preliminary estimate of the current and future overall risk. Annotated estimates of the risk posed by nuclear terrorism are given in Tables 19.1 to 19.3 under three different scenarios.
The tables represent a static analysis of the risk posed by nuclear terrorism. When one considers dynamics, it is more difficult to determine which effects will prevail. On the one hand, a successful scenario of attack as in Table 19.2 or Table 19.3 might have precedent-setting and learning effects, establishing proof-of-concept and spurring more terrorists to follow suit, which would increase the overall risk. Similarly, the use of nuclear weapons by some states (such as the United States or Israel against a Muslim country) might redouble the efforts of some terrorists to acquire and use these weapons or significantly increase the readiness of some state actors to provide assistance to terrorists. Moreover, one must consider the possibility of discontinuous adoption practices. This is rooted in the idea that certain technologies (perhaps including nuclear weapons) possess inherently ‘disruptive’ traits and that the transition to the use of such technologies need not be incremental, but could be rapid, wholesale and permanent once a tipping point is reached in the technology’s maturization process.50
On the other hand, the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability by states with which a terrorist group feels an ideological affinity might partially satiate their perceived need for nuclear weapons. At the same time, the advent of improved detection and/or remediation technologies might make terrorists less inclined to expend the effort of acquiring nuclear weapons. As a counterargument to the above assertions regarding the adoption of new weapons technologies, it is possible that following the initial use by terrorists of a nuclear weapon, the international community may act swiftly to stem the availability of nuclear materials and initiate a severe crackdown on any terrorist group suspected of interest in causing mass casualties.
Table 19.1 Most Extreme Overall Scenario: Terrorists Precipitate a Full-scale Interstate Nuclear War (Either by Spoof ing, Hacking, or Conducting a False Flag Operation)
Table 19.2 Most Extreme ‘Terrorist Weapon Only’ Scenario: Multiple Attacks With Megaton-Scale Weapons
Table 19.3 Most Likely Scenario: A Single to a Few <50 kilotons Detonations
Scholars have asserted that acquisition of nuclear weapons is the most difficult form of violence for a terrorist to achieve, even when compared with other unconventional weapons (Gurr and Cole, 2002, p. 56). Indeed, this is one of the main reasons for the relatively low overall risk of global devastation from nuclear terrorism in the near term. However, the risk is not completely negligible and in the absence of intervention, could grow significantly in the future, eventually acquiring the potential to cause a global catastrophe.
Among the most thoughtful analyses of how to accomplish this objective are a series of five volumes co-authored by a team of researchers at Harvard University and sponsored by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US foundation (Bunn, 2006; Bunn and Wier, 2005a, 2005b; Bunn et al., 2002, 2004). Since 2002, these annual monographs have tracked progress (and on occasion regression) in controlling nuclear warheads, material, and expertise, and have provided many creative ideas for reducing the supply side opportunities for would-be nuclear terrorists. A number of their insights, including proposals for accelerating the ‘global cleanout’ of HEU and building a nuclear security culture, inform the recommendations that follow in the next section below.
Several recent studies have called attention to the manner in which gaps in the international non-proliferation regime have impeded efforts to curtail nuclear terrorism (Ferguson and Potter, 2005; Perkovich et al., 2004). They note, for example, the state-centric orientation of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – the most widely subscribed to treaty in the world – and its failure to address the relatively new and very different dangers posed by non-state actors. They also call attention to the importance of developing new international mechanisms that provide a legal basis for implementing effective controls on the safeguarding and export of sensitive nuclear materials, technology, and technical know-how.51 In addition, they point to the urgency of developing far more comprehensive and coordinated global responses to nuclear terrorism threats. Both the potential and limitations of current initiatives in this regard are illustrated by the G-8 Global Partnership, which in 2002 set the ambitious target of 20 billion dollars to be committed over a 10-year period for the purpose of preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons and materials of mass destruction (Einhorn and Flourney, 2003). Although this initiative, like most others in the realm of combating nuclear terrorism, can point to some successes, it has been stronger on rhetoric than on sustained action. This phenomenon has led some observers to note that the ‘most fundamental missing ingredient of the U.S. and global response to the nuclear terrorism threat to date is sustained high-level leadership’ (Bunn and Wier, 2006, p. viii).
Although there is no consensus among analysts about how best to intervene to reduce the risks of nuclear terrorism, most experts share the view that a great deal can be done to reduce at least the supply side opportunities for would-be nuclear terrorists. At the core of this optimism is the recognition that the problem ultimately is an issue of physics. As one leading exponent of this philosophy puts its, the logic is simple, ‘No fissile material, no nuclear explosion, no nuclear terrorism’ (Allison, 2004, p.140).
Major new initiatives to combat the nuclear proliferation and terrorism threats posed by non-state actors have been launched by national governments and international organizations, and considerable sums of financial and political capital have been committed to new and continuing programmes to enhance nuclear security. These initiatives include the adoption in April 2004 of UN Security Council Resolution 1540, the U.S. Department of Energy’s May 2004 Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the expanded G-8 Global Partnership, the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the 2006 Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Although these and other efforts are worthy of support, it is not obvious that they reflect a clear ordering of priorities or are being implemented with a sense of urgency. In order to correct this situation it is imperative to pursue a multi-track approach, the core elements of which should be to enhance the security of nuclear weapons and fissile material globally, consolidate nuclear weapons and fissile material stockpiles, reduce their size, and move towards their elimination, while at the same time working to reduce the number of terrorists seeking these weapons.
The following initiatives, most of which focus on the supply side of the nuclear terrorism problem, should be given priority: (1) minimize HEU use globally, (2) implement UN Security Council Resolution 1540, (3) promote adoption of stringent, global nuclear security standards, (4) secure vulnerable Russian TNW, and (5) accelerate international counterterrorism efforts to identify and interdict would-be nuclear terrorists.
1. Minimize HEU Use Globally. Significant quantities of fissile materials exist globally which are not needed, are not in use, and, in many instances, are not subject to adequate safeguards. From the standpoint of nuclear terrorism, the risk is most pronounced with respect to stockpiles of HEU in dozens of countries. It is vital to secure, consolidate, reduce, and, when possible, eliminate these HEU stocks. The principle should be one in which fewer countries retain HEU, fewer facilities within countries posses HEU, and fewer locations within those facilities have HEU present. Important components of a policy guided by this principle include, rapid repatriation of all US- and Soviet/Russian-origin HEU (both fresh and irradiated), international legal prohibitions of exports of HEU-fuelled research and power reactors, and down-blending of existing stocks of HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU). Use of spallation sources also can contribute to this HEU minimization process. Particular attention should be given to de-legitimizing the use of HEU in the civilian nuclear sector – a realistic objective given the relatively few commercial applications of HEU and the feasibility of substituting LEU for HEU in most, if not all, of these uses (Potter, 2006).
2. Implement UN Security Council Resolution 1540. One of the most important new tools to combat nuclear terrorism is UN Security Council Resolution 1540 (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8076.doc.htm). Adopted in April 2004, this legally binding measure on all UN members prohibits states from providing any form of support to non-state actors attempting to acquire or use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery. It also requires states to adopt and enforce ‘appropriate effective measures’ to account for and secure such items, including fissile material, and to establish and maintain effective national export and trans-shipment controls over these commodities. This United Nations mandate provides an unusual opportunity for those states most concerned about nuclear security to develop the elements of a global nuclear security standard, to assess the specific needs of individual states in meeting this standard, and to render necessary assistance (Bunn and Wier, 2005, p. 109). This urgent task is complicated by the fact that many states are not persuaded about the dangers of nuclear terrorism or doubt if the risk applies to them. Therefore, in order for the potential of 1540 to be realized, it is necessary for all states to recognize that a nuclear terror act anywhere has major ramifications everywhere. As discussed below, a major educational effort will be required to counter complacency and the perception that nuclear terrorism is someone else’s problem. In the meantime, it is imperative that those states already convinced of the danger and with stringent nuclear security measures in place assist other countries to meet their 1540 obligations.
3. Promote Adoption of Stringent, Global Security Standards. Renewed efforts are required to establish binding international standards for the physical protection of fissile material. An important means to accomplish that objective is to ratify the recent amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material to make it applicable to civilian nuclear material in domestic storage, use, and transport. Ideally, the amendment would oblige parties to provide protection comparable to that recommended in INFCIRC 225/Rev 4 and to report to the IAEA on the adoption of measures to bring national obligations into conformity with the amendment. However, because ratifying the amended Convention is likely to require a long time, as many like-minded states as possible should agree immediately to meet a stringent material protection standard, which should apply to all civilian and military HEU.
4. Secure and Reduce TNW. Preventing non-state actors from gaining access to intact nuclear weapons is essential in combating nuclear terrorism. Priority should be given to safeguarding and reducing TNW, the category of nuclear arms most vulnerable to theft. Although it would be desirable to initiate negotiations on a legally binding and verifiable treaty to secure and reduce such arms, this approach does not appear to have much prospect of success, at least in the foreseeable future. As a consequence, one should concentrate on encouraging Russia to implement its pledges under the 1991–1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, including the removal to central storage of all but one category of TNW. Ideally, all TNW should be stored at exceptionally secure facilities far from populated regions. In parallel, the United States should declare its intention to return to US territory the small number of air-launched TNW currently deployed in Europe. Although probably less vulnerable to terrorist seizure than TNW forward deployed in Russia, there no longer is a military justification for their presence in Europe. The US action, while valuable in its own right, might be linked to Russian agreement to move its tactical nuclear arms to more secure locations.
5. Accelerate International Counterterrorism Efforts to Pre-emptively Identify and Interdict Nuclear Terrorists. On the demand side, one can identify several recommendations for reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism that are generally less specific than those on the supply side. The most effective measures in the near term involve improved law enforcement and intelligence. As only a small proportion of non-state actors is likely to possess both the motivation and capability necessary for high consequence nuclear terrorism, it should be at least possible to identify potential nuclear perpetrators in advance and concentrate counterterrorism efforts – including surveillance and prosecution – against these groups and individuals.52 However, counterterrorism agencies have traditionally proven to be less proficient at terrorist threat preemption than response after an attack. Given the likely horrific consequences of nuclear terrorism, it is crucial to invest more resources wisely in apprehending terrorists known to harbour nuclear ambitions and to be more vigilant and savvy in anticipating the emergence of new and evolving non-state actors who may be predisposed to seek a nuclear terrorist option. Successful efforts in this regard will require much greater international collaboration in intelligence sharing, law enforcement, and prosecution – developments more likely to occur if global perceptions of nuclear terrorism threats converge.
Implementation of the aforementioned short-term measures should reduce significantly the risks of nuclear terrorism. However, the threat will remain unless certain underlying factors are addressed. On the demand side, the most basic long-term strategy is to decrease the absolute number of terrorists (and hence the number of would-be nuclear terrorists). While the root causes of terrorism are beyond the scope of this essay, it should be noted that terrorist grievances stem from a complex and poorly understood interplay of social, political and psychological factors, some of which can be assuaged by policy. The ideological make-up of potential nuclear terrorists, however, reduces their susceptibility to such measures as political concessions or improved socioeconomic conditions, which may take decades to implement in any case.
Another way to reduce motivations for nuclear terrorism is to remove at least part of the subjective benefit that terrorists might derive from conducting acts of nuclear violence. Useful steps include strengthening normative taboos against the use of nuclear weapons, vilifying terrorists who have attempted to obtain nuclear weapons, and increasing public education programmes in order to psychologically immunize the public against some irrational fears related to radiation. Implementation of these measures might help to dissuade some terrorists that the strategic benefits of nuclear violence outweigh the costs.
Maintaining high standards of nuclear forensics and attribution, coupled with strict warnings to states that they will be held responsible for any terrorism involving fissile material of their national origin also may be useful. In addition to providing states with greater incentive to increase the protection of fissile material under their control, these steps could provide some measure of deterrence against state complicity in terrorist acts.
On the supply side, vigorous implementation of the previously noted priority measures should significantly reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism. However, these dangers will not be completely eliminated as long as countries attach value to and retain nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material. Although it is unrealistic to assume that prevailing national views regarding nuclear weapons will change anytime soon, it nevertheless is important to initiate steps today to change mindsets and forge norms consistent with formal national obligations to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. An important but underutilized tool for this purpose is education.
Although few national governments or international organizations have invested significantly in this sphere, there is growing recognition among states of the need to rectify this situation. This positive development is reflected in the broad support for recommendations of a UN study on disarmament and non-proliferation education and in related initiatives within the NPT review process (Potter, 2001; Toki and Potter, 2005). Among specific steps states should take to utilize education and training to combat complacency and reduce the proliferation risks posed by non-state actors are:
• Develop educational materials that illustrate the urgency of the proliferation threats posed by non-state actors and their potential impact on all states.
• Cooperate with regional and international organizations to provide training courses on best practices related to nuclear materials and security and non-proliferation exports controls for government officials and law enforcement officers.
• Adopt national non-proliferation education legislation to support graduate training in the field – the best guarantee that states and international organizations will have an adequate pool of knowledgeable nuclear proliferation and counter-terrorism intelligence analysts.
Perhaps the greatest promise of non-proliferation education in the long term is the potential growth of a global network of non-proliferation experts and practitioners who increasingly share common norms and promote their countries’ adherence to non-proliferation and anti-terrorism treaties and agreements. This desirable and necessary state of affairs is most likely to be realized if many more bright young individuals enter the nuclear non-proliferation field and, by the strength of their idealism and energy, prod national governments to abandon old ways of doing things and adjust their non-proliferation strategies and tactics to take account of new realities involving non-state actors and nuclear weapons.
It is difficult to find many reasons for optimism regarding the threat of high consequence nuclear terrorism. It is a growing danger and one that could result in enormously devastating and enduring local, regional, national, and even global consequences. One, therefore, should not take great solace in the conclusion that nuclear terrorism is unlikely to pose an existential, end-of-the world threat. It can still cause sufficient perturbation to severely disrupt economic and cultural life and adversely affect the nature of human civilization.
Given the rising potential for terrorists to inflict nuclear violence, what then accounts for the failure on the part of the most powerful nations on earth to take corrective action commensurate with the threat? Is it a lack of political leadership, a failure of imagination, faulty conceptualization, domestic politics, bureaucratic inertia, competing national security objectives, wishful thinking, the intractable nature of the problem, or simply incompetence?
All of these factors contribute to the current predicament, but some are more amenable to correction than others. Perhaps the most fundamental shortcoming, and one that can be remedied, is the failure by government and academic analysts alike to distinguish clearly between the proliferation risks posed by state and non-state actors, and to devise and employ tools that are appropriate for combating these very different threats. The challenge is an urgent but manageable one, affording the world a reasonable second chance.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Michael Miller for his excellent research assistance. His contribution to the section on ‘The Consequences of Nuclear Terrorism’ was especially valuable. The authors also wish to thank Erika Hunsicker for her editorial assistance.
Ferguson, C.D. and Potter, W.C. (2005). The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (New York: Routledge).
Levi, M. (2007). On Nuclear Terrorism. (Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press).
Zimmerman, P.D. and Lewis, J.G. (2006). The bomb in the backyard. Foreign Policy (November/December 2006), 33–40.
ABT Associates. (2003). The Economic Impact of Nuclear Terrorist Attacks on Freight Transport Systems in an Age of Seaport Vulnerability. Executive summary. Accessed 15 September 2006 http://www.abtassociates.com/reports/ES-Economic_Impact_of _Nuclear_Terrorist_Attacks.pdf
Ackerman, G. and Bale, J.M. (2004). How Serious is the ‘WMD Terrorism’ Threat?: Terrorist Motivations and Capabilities for Using Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Weapons. Report prepared for Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Albright, D. and Higgens, H. (March/April 2003). A bomb for the Ummah. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 49–55.
Alexander, D.A. and Klein, S. (2006). The challenge of preparation for a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear terrorist attack. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 52, 126–131.
Allison, G. (1996). Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Allison, G. (2004). Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New York: Henry Holt).
Alvarez, L.W. (1988). Adventures of a Physicist (New York: Basic Books).
Arbman, G., Calogero, F., Cotta-Ramusino, P., van Dessen, L., Martellini, M., Maerli, M.B., Nikitin, A., Prawitz, J., and Wredberg, L. (2004). Eliminating Stockpiles of Highly-Enriched Uranium. Report submitted to the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, SKI Report 2004.
Asal, V. and Ackerman, G. (2006). Size Matters: Terrorist Organizational Factors and the Pursuit and Use of CBRN Terrorism. Submitted for publication.
Bale, J. (2005). Islamism. In Pilch, R.F. and Zilinskas, R. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense (New York: Wiley).
Bandura, A. (1998). Mechanisms of moral disengagement. In Reich, W. (ed.), Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, pp. 161–191 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center).
Barnaby, F. (1996). Issues Surrounding Crude Nuclear Explosives in Crude Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and the Terrorist Threat, IPPNW Global Health Watch Report Number 1.
Becker, S.M. (2003). Psychosocial Issues in Radiological Terrorism and Response: NCRP 138 and After. Presented at the International Workshop on Radiological Sciences and Applications: Issues and Challenges of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation. Albuquerque, New Mexico. 21 April 2003.
Bird, K. and Sherwin, M.J. (2005). American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Alfred A Knopf).
Bostrom, N. (2002). Existential risks: analyzing human extinction scenarios and related hazards. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 9. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html
Boureston, J. and Ferguson, C.D. (March/April 2005). Laser enrichment: separation anxiety. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 14–18.
Boutwell, J., Calegero, F., and Harris, J. (2002). Nuclear Terrorism: The Danger of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Pugwash Issue Brief.
Bower, J.L. and Christensen, C.M. (1995). Disruptive technologies: catching the wave. Harvard Business Review, 73, 43–53.
Bunn, M. and Wier, A. (2005a). Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperative. (Cambridge, MA: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University).
Bunn, M. and Wier, A. (April 2005b). The seven myths of nuclear terrorism. Current History.
Bunn, M. (2006). The Demand for Black Market Fissile Material. NTI Web site, accessed at [http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/threat/demand.asp?print=true] on August 20, 2006.
Bunn, M., Holdren, J.P., and Wier, A. (2002). Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven Steps for Immediate Action (Cambridge, MA: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University).
Bunn, M., Holdren, J.P., and Wier, A. (2003). Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Report Card and Action Plan (Cambridge, MA: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University).
Bunn, M., Holdren, J.P., and Wier, A. (2004). Securingthe Bomb: An Agenda for Action (Cambridge, MA: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University).
Calhoun, L.G. and Tedeschi, R.G. (1998). Posttraumatic growth: future directions. In Tedeschi, R.G., Park, C.L., and Calhoun, L.G. (eds.), Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis, pp. 215–238 (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates).
Cameron, G. (1999). Nuclear Terrorism: A Threat Assessment for the 21 st Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.).
Cameron, G. (2000). WMD terrorism in the United States: the threat and possible The Nonproliferation Review, 7(1), 169–170.
Campbell K.M. et al. (1991). Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Campbell, J.K. (2000). On not understanding the problem. In Roberts, B. (ed.), Hype or Reality?: The ‘New Terrorism’ and Mass Casualty Attacks (Alexandria, VA: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute).
Carus, W.S. (2000). R.I.S.E. (1972). In Tucker 2000: 55–70.
Civiak, R.L. (May 2002). Closing the Gaps: Securing High Enriched Uranium in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Report for the Federation of American Scientists.
Clutterbuck, R. (1993). Trends in terrorist weaponry. Terrorism Political Violence, 5, 130.
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. (2005). Report to the President (Washington, DC: WMD Commission).
Connor, T. (22 March 2004). Al Qaeda: we bought nuke cases. New York Daily News.
Cordesman, A.H. (2001). Defending America: Asymmetric and Terrorist Attacks with Radiological and Nuclear Weapons, Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Daly, S., Parachini, J., and Rosenau, W. (2005). Aum Shinrikyo, Al Qaeda, and the Kinshasa Reactor: Implications of Three Studies for Combatting Nuclear Terrorism. Document Briefing (Santa Monica, CA: RAND).
Department of Homeland Security (2003). ‘Radiological Countermeasures.’ Prepared by the Department of Homeland Security, Working Group on Radiological Dispersion Device Preparedness, May 1, 2003, www.va.gov/emshq/docs/Radiologic Medical Countermeasures 051403.pdf.
Dolnik, A. (2004). All God’s poisons: re-evaluating the threat of religious terrorism with respect to non-conventional weapons. In Howard, R.D. and Sawyer, R.L. (eds.), Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill).
Eden, L. (2004). Whole World on Fire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Einhorn, R. and Flourney, M. (2003). Protecting Against the Spread of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons: An Action Agenda for the Global Partnership. Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Falkenrath, R.A. (1998). Confronting nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism. Survival, 40, 3.
Falkenrath, R.A., Newman, R.D., and Thayer, B.A. (1998). America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Ferguson, C.D. and Potter, W.C. (2005). The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism (New York: Routledge).
Forden, G. (3 May 2001). Reducing a common danger: improving Russia’s early-warning system. Policy Analysis, 1–20.
Foxell, J.W. (1999). The debate on the potential for mass-casualty terrorism: the challenge to US security. Terrorism and Political Violence, 11, 1.
Garwin, R.L. and Charpak G. (2001). Megawatts and Megatons: A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age? (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).
General Accounting Office. (2004). DOE Needs to take Action to Further Reduce the Use of Weapons-Usable Uranium in Civilian Research Reactors. GAO-04-807.
Gilinsky, V. (2004). Israel’s bomb. Letter to the Editor, The New York Review of Books, 51 /8. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17104
Glasser, S. and Khan, K. (24 November 2001). Pakistan continues probe of nuclear scientists. Washington Post, p.A13.
Glasstone, S. and Dolan, P.J. (eds.) (1977). The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. U.S. Department Defense and Department of Energy and their own simulations.
Government Accountability Office. (2002). Impact of Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center. Report GAO-02-700R.
Gressang, D.S., IV (2001). Audience and message: assessing terrorist WMD potential. Terrorism and Political Violence, 13(3), 83–106.
Gurr, N. and Cole, B. (2002). The New Face of Terrorism: Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction (London: I. B. Tauris).
Helfand, I., Forrow, L., and Tiwari, J. (2002). Nuclear terrorism. British Medicine Journal, 324, 357.
Herz, J. (1957). The rise and demise of the territorial state. World Politics, 9, 473–493.
Hoffman, B. (1993a). ’Holy Terror’: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative (Santa Monica: RAND).
Hoffman, B. (1993b). Terrorist targeting: tactics, trends, and potentialities. Terrorism and Political Violence, 5, 12–29.
Hof fman, B. (1997). Terrorism and WMD: some preliminary hypotheses. The Nonproliferation Review, 4(3), 45–50.
Hoffman, B. (1998). Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University).
Ingram, T.H. (December 1972). Nuclear hijacking: now within the grasp of any bright lunatic. Washington Monthly, pp. 20–28.
Jackson, B.A. (2001). Technology acquisition by terrorist groups: threat assessment informed by lessons from private sector technology adoption. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 24, 3.
Jane’s Intelligence Digest. (3 July 2003). Al-Qaeda and the Bomb.
Jenkins B. (1977). International terrorism: a new mode of conflict. In Carlton, D. and Schaerf, C. (eds.), International Terrorism and World Security (London: Croom Helm.
Jenkins, B. (1986). Defense against terrorism. Political Science Quarterly, 101, 777.
Jones, F.D. (1995). Neuropsychiatric casualties of nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare. In Textbook of Military Medicine: War Psychiatry. Department of the Army, Office of The Surgeon General, Borden Institute.
Jones, S. (2006). Resolution 1540: universalizing export control standards? Arms Control Today. Available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_05/1540.asp
Kaplan, D.E. (2000). Aum Shinrikyo (1995). In Tucker, J. (ed.), Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, pp. 207–226 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Kristof, N.D. (11 August 2004). An American Hiroshima. New York Times.
Lapp, R.E. (4 February 1973). The ultimate blackmail. The New York Times Magazine.
Leader, S. (June 1999). Osama Bin Laden and the terrorist search for WMD. Jane’s Intelligence Review.
Levanthal, P. and Alexander, Y. (1987). Preventing Nuclear Terrorism (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books).
Lifton, R.J. (1999). Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (New York: Metropolitan Books).
Lugar, R.G. (2005). The Lugar Survey on Proliferation Threats and Responses (Washington, DC: U.S. Senate).
Macdonald, A. [pseudonym for Pierce] (1999). The Turner Diaries: A Novel. Hillsboro, W.V.: National Vanguard; originally published 1980.
Maerli, M.B. (Summer, 2000). Relearning the ABCs: terrorists and ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The Nonproliferation Review.
Maerli, M.B. (2004). Crude Nukes on the Loose? Preventing Nuclear Terrorism by Means of Optimum Nuclear Husbandry, Transparency, and Non-Intrusive Fissile Material Verification. Dissertation, University of Oslo.
Mark, J.C., Taylor, T., Eyster, E., Maraman, W., and Wechsler, J. (1987). Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons? in Leventhal and Alexander.
Marlo, F.H. (Autumn 1999). WMD terrorism and US intelligence collection. Terrorism and Political Violence, 11, 3.
McCormick, G.H. (2003). Terrorist decision making. Annual Reviews in Political Science, 6, 479–480.
McLoud, K. and Osborne, M. (2001). WMD Terrorism and Usama bin Laden. (Monterey, CA: Center for Nonproliferation Studies) Available at [http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm.]
McPhee, J. (1974). The Curve of Binding Energy (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).
Mir, H. (10 November 2001). Osama Claims He Has Nukes: If US Uses N-Arms It Will Get Same Response. Dawn Internet Edition. Karachi, Pakistan.
National Research Council. (2002). Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism. Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Academy Press).
Negroponte, J. (2005). Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence. Statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Accessed at [http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2006/February/Negroponte%2002-28-06.pdf]
North, C. and Pfefferbaum, B. (2002). Research on the mental health effects of terrorism. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288 633–636.
Pangi, R. (2002). After the attack: the psychological consequences of terrorism. Perspectives on Preparedness, 7, 1–20.
Perkovich, G., Cirincione, J., Gottemoelle, R., Wolfsthal, J., and Mathews, J. (2004). Universal Compliance (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment).
Perry, W.J., Carter, A., and May, M. (12 June 2007). After the bomb. New York Times.
Petersen, J.L. (2000). Out of the Blue (Lanham, MD: Madison Books).
Post, J. (1987). Prospects for nuclear terrorism: psychological motivations and constraints. In Levanthal and Alexander.
Post, J. (2000). Psychological and motivational factors in terrorist decision-making: implications for CBW terrorism. In Tucker, J. (ed.), Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Potter, W.C. (2001). A New Agenda for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education. Disarmament Forum, No. 3. pp. 5–12.
Potter, W.C. (2006). A Practical Approach to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: Phase Out HEU in the Civilian Nuclear Sector. Paper presented at the International Conference on the G8 Global Security Agenda: Challenges and Interests. Toward the St. Petersburg Summit. Moscow, April 20–22, 2006.
Potter, W.C. and Sokova, E. (Summer, 2002). Illicit nuclear trafficking in the NIS: what’s new? what’s true? Nonproliferation Review, 112–120.
Potter, W.C., Sokov, N., Mueller, H., and Schaper, A. (2000). Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Options for Control (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research).
Pry, P.V. (1999). War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink (Westport, CT: Praeger).
Rapoport, D.C. (1999). Terrorism and weapons of the apocalypse. Nonproliferation Review, 6(3), 49–67.
Rhodes, R. (1986). The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon &Schuster).
Rosenbaum, D.M. (Winter 1977). Nuclear terror. International Security, pp. 140–161.
Sagan, S.D. (1993). The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Schelling, T. (1982). Thinking about nuclear terrorism. International Security, 6(4), 61–77.
Scheuer, M. (2002). Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc.).
Schlenger, W.E. (2002). Psychological reactions to terrorist attacks: findings from the national study of Americans’ reactions to September 11. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288 581–588.
Schollmeyer, J. (May/June 2005). Lights, camera, Armageddon. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, pp. 42–50.
Sokov, N. (2002). Suitcase Nukes: A Reassessment. Research Story of the Week, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. Available at http://www.cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020923.htm.
Sokov, N. (2004). ‘Tactical Nuclear Weapons’. Available at the Nuclear Threat Initiative website http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_10b.html
Spector, L.S. (1987). Going Nuclear (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co).
Sprinzak, E. (2000). On not overstating the problem In Roberts, B. (ed.), Hype or Reality?: The ‘New Terrorism’ and Mass Casualty Attacks (Alexandria, VA: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute).
Sprinzak, E. and Zertal, I. (2000). Avenging Israel’s Blood (1946). In Tucker, J. (ed.), Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, pp. 17–42 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Stern, J.E. (1999). The Ultimate Terrorists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Stern, J.E. (2000). The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (1985). In Tucker, J. (ed.), Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons, pp. 139–157 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Sterngold, J. (18 April 2004). Assessing the risk on nuclear terrorism; experts differ on likelihood of ‘dirty bomb’ attack. San Francisco Chronicle.
Stober, D. (March/April 2003). Noexperience necessary. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, pp. 57–63.
Taleb, N.N. (2004). The Black Swan: Why Don’t We Learn that We Don’t Learn? in United States Department of Defense Highlands Forum papers.
The Frontier Post. (20 November 2001). Al Qaeda Network May Have Transported Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons to the United States, The Frontier Post, Peshawar.
The Middle East Media Research Institute. (12 June 2002). ‘Why we fight America’: Al-Qa’ida Spokesman Explains September 11 and Declares Intentions to Kill 4 Million Americans with Weapons of Mass Destruction. 2002. The Middle East Media Research Institute. Special Dispatch Series No. 388. Accessed at http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP38802 on 20 August 2006.
Toki, M. and Potter, W. C. (March 2005). How we think about peace and security: The ABCs of initiatives for disarmament &non-proliferation education. IAEA Bulletin, 56–58.
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment. (1977). Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards. Vol. 1 (New York: Praeger).
U.S. Office of Technology Assessment. (1979). The Effects of Nuclear War.
Union of Concerned Scientists. (2003). Scientists’ Letter on Exporting Nuclear Material to W. J. ‘Billy’ Tauzin, 25 September 2003. Available at
vonHippel, F. (2001). Recommendations for Preventing Nuclear Terrorism. Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report.
Wald, M.L. (23 January 2000). Suicidal nuclear threat is seen at weapons plants. New York Times, A9.
Walker, S. (2001). Regulating against nuclear terrorism: the domestic safeguards issue, 1970–1979. Technology and Culture, 42, 107–132.
War Games. (1983). Film, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by John Badham.
Willrich, M. and Taylor, T.B. (1974). Nuclear Theft: Risks and Safeguards (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co.).
Zorza, V. (9 September 1972). World could be held to ransom. The Washington Post, p. A19.
Zorza, V. (2 May 1974). The basement nuclear bomb. The Washington Post.