How to Stop Nuclear Terror

Graham Allison

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004

Summary:  President Bush has called nuclear terror the defining threat the United States now faces. He's right, but he has yet to follow up his words with actions. This is especially frustrating since nuclear terror is preventable. Washington needs a strategy based on the "Three No's": no loose nukes, no nascent nukes, and no new nuclear states.

Graham Allison is Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. From 1993 to 1994 he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans.

THE DAY AFTER

If a terrorist nuclear attack did occur in the United States, the first questions asked would be who did it, and where did they get the bomb? Bin Laden would top the list of probable perpetrators. But the supplier would be less certain; it could be Russia, Pakistan, or North Korea, but it could also be Ukraine or Ghana. Russia would probably top the list not because of hostile intent but because of the enormity of its arsenal of nuclear material, much of it still vulnerable to insider theft. Pakistan would likely rank second due to the ongoing links between its security services and al Qaeda, and the uncertain chain of command over its nuclear weaponry. North Korea, the most promiscuous weapon proliferator on earth, has already sold missiles to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia and so would merit suspicion. As would Ukraine and Ghana, which operate Soviet-supplied research reactors with enough heu for one or more nuclear weapons. Interestingly, Saddam-era Iraq would not have even made the top ten.

To be fair, since September 11, the Bush administration has taken steps to reduce the danger of a nuclear attack by terrorists. It has attacked al Qaeda training bases in Afghanistan and around the globe and enlisted more than 100 nations in a global effort to share intelligence, enforce antiterrorism legislation, and curtail the flow of terrorists' money. Bush has repeatedly declared that the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would be "intolerable," prompting similar declarations from key allies. Recently, he also proposed a UN Security Council resolution that would criminalize WMD proliferation and promoted the Proliferation Security Initiative, an 11-nation group that, stretching existing legal frameworks, will search vehicles suspected of transporting WMD cargo on the high seas. After initial skepticism, the administration has also embraced the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to secure and eliminate former Soviet nuclear weapons and has enlisted other members of the g-8 group of leading industrialized countries to match Washington's $1 billion annual commitment to the program over the next decade. And the United States has cooperated with Russia to extract three potential nuclear weapons from Serbia and one from Romania.

But the list of actions not taken by the administration remains lengthy and worrisome. Bush has not made nuclear terrorism a personal priority for himself or those who report directly to him. And he has resisted proposals by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), and others to assign responsibility for the issue to a single individual, who could then be held accountable. As a result, were the president today to ask his cabinet who is responsible for preventing nuclear terrorism, either a dozen people would raise their hands, or no one would. Bush has also not communicated his sense of urgency about nuclear terrorism to the presidents of Russia or Pakistan. Nor has Bush increased the pace of U.S. cooperation with Russia in securing former Soviet nuclear weapons and materials. As a result, after a decade of effort, half of the Soviet arsenal remains inadequately secured. More generally, the Bush administration has not acted to change the prevailing practice that allows states to decide for themselves how secure weapons and materials on their territories will be. More than 100 potential weapons, such as those extracted from Serbia, still sit in a dozen countries in circumstances that leave them vulnerable to theft.

In this context, it is impossible to avoid mentioning Iraq. The Bush administration used the danger that Saddam might supply WMD to terrorists as its decisive argument for war. The subsequent failure to find evidence of these weapons has compromised the administration's credibility on the general subject of WMD, as well as the perceived competence of the U.S. intelligence community. Moreover, during the year and a half in which the United States sought to get other countries to support its Iraq policy, North Korea and Iran were able to accelerate their own programs. Mounting a serious campaign now to prevent nuclear terrorism will thus be more challenging than it would have been before the Iraq war.

NO, NO, NO

Preventing nuclear terrorism will require a comprehensive strategy: one that denies access to weapons and materials at their source, detects them at borders, defends every route by which a weapon could be delivered, and addresses motives as well as means. Aggressive offense to disrupt and destroy organizations and individuals that could attack the United States must be matched by robust defenses at home. Washington may still sometimes have to act unilaterally. But the United States will not be able to bully other nations into taking all the necessary steps. Successful counterterrorism requires multinational intelligence and local police enforcement. For example, last summer's capture of al Qaeda's Southeast Asia mastermind resulted from a tip from suspicious neighbors, who informed Thai authorities who, in turn, called the CIA. If properly encouraged, foreign nationals and governments can play a huge role in tracking down terrorists. If not, they become a sympathetic sea in which terrorists can swim and hide.

The centerpiece of a serious campaign to prevent nuclear terrorism -- a strategy based on the three no's (no loose nukes, no new nascent nukes, and no new nuclear weapons states) -- should be denying terrorists access to weapons and their components. After all, no nuclear weapons or material means no nuclear terrorism; it's that simple.

The first part of the strategy -- no loose nukes -- would require rapidly securing all nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material under a new "International Security Standard" that would ensure that terrorists could not acquire weapons or their components. The United States and Russia should develop such a standard together and act quickly to secure their own weapons and materials in a manner sufficiently transparent to give each other assurance that their stockpiles could not be used by terrorists. Moscow and Washington should then go quickly to other nuclear-weapons states and demand that they too meet this new benchmark for nuclear security and be certified by another member of the club as having done so. If necessary, technical assistance in meeting these standards should be offered. But the United States and Russia should also make clear that this is not a negotiable demand.