STRATEGIC APPROACHES TO NUCLEAR TERRORISM

A number of official US documents describe the basic outlines of national strategy and specific elements addressed at individual areas of concern. The national strategy seeks to “help make the world not just safer but better.” To achieve these aims the United States will:¹

- Promote human dignity and democracy;
- Strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism;
- Prevent threats by Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD);
- Work with other nations to promote peace and development;
- Ignite global economic growth through free markets and free trade.

So the overall US national strategy specifically notes the WMD threat, which is addressed in more detail in a subordinate strategy document. This characterizes WMD in the hands of hostile states or terrorists as “one of the greatest security challenges facing the United States.” This subordinate strategy rests on three pillars:²

- Counterproliferation to deter and defend against possible WMD deployments;
- Nonproliferation using diplomatic and multilateral actions to enhance measures which seek to dissuade or impede proliferant states and terrorist networks;
- Consequence management to respond to any WMD use, primarily within the United States by Department of Homeland Security.

These documents recognize a complex world and set interconnected tasks which have to be balanced against one another. In addition, a specific strategy document on terrorism focuses on a goal of defeating terrorists and their organizations by reducing their capabilities and the scope of their actions. This encompasses a wide range of actions, from collecting intelligence on terrorists and their organizations, through denying them support and sanctuary, to diminishing the conditions which promote terrorism.³ Radical Islam stands at the center of these concerns and the strategy seeks to reverse the spread of extremist ideology. The global nature of the challenge necessitates international cooperation on a broad scale.

The nuclear aspects of this threat fall into two somewhat overlapping concerns: nuclear explosions and the dissemination of dangerously radioactive substances. Such events could be set in motion by:

- Adversary Nations. Iran and North Korea are the focus on current attention, but a loosening of the nonproliferation regime could encourage other nations to develop nuclear capabilities. In the longer run, a radicalized Pakistan could pose very difficult challenges, as could Russia or China if the international community fails to integrate them into a peaceful world.
- Insiders. In recent decades, the United States has greatly increased internal controls on persons working in its nuclear complex, but it is simply impossible to totally eliminate the potential for some disgruntled or deranged individual(s) to create havoc. Internal controls in the nuclear complexes of other nations do raise questions, particularly in regard to the extensive and widely dispersed Russian nuclear systems.
- Accidents. Through the years there have been numerous accidents involving nuclear weapons. On the civilian side, the Chernobyl accident came close to a low scale nuclear explosion and resulted in widespread contamination. The incident at Three Mile Island was contained much better, but came close to being far worse.
Terrorists. Dedicated organizations could develop some of their own capabilities, but would be most dangerous acting with the support of an adversary nation or hostile insider, or working to cause a serious accident. In fact, independent terrorist organizations have no capability to create radioisotopes or nuclear bomb materials – these would have to be obtained from outside sources.

International actions focus on the explosive threat because of the potential for catastrophic damage. From a terrorism point of view, there are two major concerns:

Proliferators are the first major concern, not only because of the direct threats they could pose, but also because of the potential for leakage of nuclear know how, technology or materials to terrorist organizations. For years, the network headed by A.Q. Khan operated out of Pakistan and sold a wide range of nuclear know how and equipment in a global black market.⁴ There are currently three major focal points for these concerns:

- North Korea, which claims to have nuclear weapons. The dispersion and hardening of command, control, and nuclear sites as well as the potential for nuclear retaliation against Seoul make military options very unattractive. Negotiations, however, have proven difficult. Current multilateral negotiations involve not only Japan and South Korea, but also Russia and China. The dismal sate of the North Korean economy give economic sanctions some real leverage, but require active cooperation of China and to a lesser extent Russia.
- Iran, which claims not to want nuclear weapons but which is demanding a right to enrich uranium. Dispersion and hardening also make military options unattractive as does the potential for Iran to greatly complicate stability operations in Iraq. Negotiations here have also been difficult. Britain, France and Germany have acted jointly to pressure Iran into concessions, but it is Russia that has been a central player, offering to let Iran do enrichment within Russia. Because of its oil resources, economic sanctions or inducements carry less weight with Iran. The effect of possible sanctions by the UN Security Council remain problematical.
- India, which has never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Recent tentative agreements with the United States would allow the import of nuclear fuel and materials, but also have a potential to undermine the nonproliferation regime, complicating negotiations with Iran and straining relations with Pakistan. It would also legitimize any parallel moves by China to provide nuclear assistance directly to Pakistan.

The terrorists themselves are the other major concern since they are actively seeking nuclear capabilities. Because of known ties between al Queda and the A.Q. Khan network, it has to be assumed that terrorists have the know how to construct a crude improvised nuclear device.⁵ Fortunately, they have no capability at all to produce the highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium needed for such a device. However, there are almost four million kilograms of these materials worldwide, with only some 25 kilograms necessary for a device (less if it is plutonium).⁶ So the key to countering the terrorist nuclear threat is keeping HEU and plutonium (or entire nuclear weapons) out of their hands. Although there is some potential for leakage from dozens of countries (particularly including North Korea and Iran discussed above), the largest concerns focus on two countries:

- Pakistan, which possess nuclear weapons and has an unstable government (President Musharraf has already survived several assassination attempts). Widespread sympathy for Muslim extremists raises the potential for insider cooperation with a terrorist organization as well as the potential for cooperation of individual nuclear technicians or scientists.
- Russia, where the security of nuclear weapons and materials at widely dispersed sites is often inadequate. At the same time, the rise of criminal organizations and the relative poverty of many workers in the nuclear complex make for a worrisome combination.

A number of international activities address these concerns. In addition to intelligence sharing between countries, these include:

- The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, originally signed in 1968, commits the nuclear powers to work for the elimination of these weapons and the nonnuclear powers to refrain from developing such weapons in exchange for access to nuclear power and technologies. Compliance is monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency which reports to the United Nations. While important for efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, this treaty and the associated regime have little application to subnational groups.
- Export control regimes on nuclear, chemical, missile and biological materials. These regimes can be important in slowing the progress of national programs, but have scant relevance to a terrorist organization looking to develop one or two devices.
- Arms control treaties were an important element of Cold War politics and also addressed the responsibility of nuclear powers to work towards disarmament.
- The Nunn-Lugar agreements were based on a US recognition of the dangers of loosely secured weapons and nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. This initiative resulted in a wide range of cooperative programs between the United States and the nuclear successor states of the Soviet Union. It was based on the premise that the successor states did not have the resources or expertise to properly secure the weapons and nuclear materials they inherited.
- The G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction was launched in June 2002 at the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada. It brought new donors to the table and a new sense of urgency to nonproliferation projects in Russia.

Progress in these various areas has been erratic:

- Weapon Removal. This has been a total success, as all nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
- Global Cleanout. This is an effort to remove HEU from research facilities worldwide where it could be an attractive target for terrorists. Facilities originally designed to operate with HEU are being re-designed to use low enriched uranium. The HEU, some of it highly irradiated and very dangerous, is being returned to Russia or the United States. Progress, however, has been slow. By one estimate, there are some 120 facilities worldwide that still have at least 20 kilograms of HEU.⁷
- Nuclear Power. There are some 440 nuclear power plants in 31 countries. All of them produce spent nuclear fuel which they must handle, many by storing in local holding ponds. These spent fuel rods do not pose a nuclear explosion hazard, but they can be intensely radioactive and would be ideal material for a radiation dispersion device. Security at such power plants has generally increased, but there is no global standard or systematic assessment of readiness.
- Russian Programs. There is a wide range of these programs initiated by the Nunn-Lugar agreements and further expanded by the G8 Global Partnership. There have been several comprehensive assessments of these programs:

1. A Russia Task Force chaired by Howard Baker and Lloyd Butler in 2001. This assessment recognized significant progress in the overall programs, but nevertheless found that they fell short of adequately addressing the threat. The report recommended the formation of a strategic plan to address the problems as well as actions in five specific areas: securing weapons and materials, decreasing stocks of HEU, managing excess plutonium, downsizing the nuclear complex and providing adequate financing.⁸
2. An assessment jointly by the Henry L. Stimson Center and the Center for American Progress, two nongovernmental organizations in Washington. This assessment looked in detail at 19 specific topic areas and assessed that only five of them were making good progress. Security upgrades were not even scheduled to be completed until 2008, and that target seemed doubtful. The blending down of HEU to low enriched uranium, a critical element, had completed less than 20% of the targeted amount. The elimination of plutonium production, originally scheduled for 2006, will probably not happen till 2011.⁹
3. A year-end assessment of the G8 Global Partnership likewise showed a mix of highly successful programs and programs moving at very slow paces. For one example, of 195 submarines (with HEU in their reactor cores) to be dismantled, 115 have been completed and 32 more are in progress.¹⁰

What these reports show is a staggering array of individual programs and projects, along with numbers: the total of this, the percentage of that, the date of something else, etc. Some of the numbers are very impressive – for example, almost 16,000 Russian nuclear scientists and technicians had been involved in commercial projects by the end of 2004.¹¹ But the significance of many of the individual numbers is hard to assess. For example, with al Queda likely having basic nuclear device design information and potential assistance from Pakistani technicians, would additional assistance from Russian-speaking technicians really make much difference? And even if it would, does providing Russian technicians with commercial contacts outside Russia decrease or increase their likelihood of cooperation with terrorist organizations? And of course the problem is not the 16,000 scientists who have been involved with the programs, but the one rogue scientist who might not have been.

Overall, the individual numbers clearly show significant improvements in many aspects of addressing the nuclear terrorist challenge. These are tactical improvements in specific areas of activity. They do not give any assessment of the overall status of addressing the challenge. In particular, they do not address:

- Force Reductions. The higher that force levels are, the more there is to protect; available assets have to be spread thinner. And of course, the larger the forces, the more possibilities there are for leakage, malevolent insider actions, and accidents, including purposefully caused “accidents.” Naturally, the failure of the Untied States and Russia to proceed with force reductions does not encourage other nuclear powers such as Great Britain and France to make reductions.
- One-Sided Non-Proliferation Responsibilities. Failure of the major powers to show any progress in the obligations under Article 6 of the Nonproliferation Treaty to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”¹² of course undercuts the legitimacy of the treaty and complicates negotiations with nations such as North Korea (which withdrew from the treaty) and Iran, not to mention India and Pakistan. This shortcoming is particularly frustrating because the large numbers of strategic weapons have little relevance in the contemporary strategic situation.¹³ The only recent agreement in this area, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, the “Moscow Treaty”) simply requires the United States and Russia to remove weapons from operational status by December 31, 2012, which happens to be the same day the treaty expires, ¹⁴ so, in effect, it does not require any actions at all.
- Radical Islam. Despite the fact that radical Islamists make up the core of the nuclear terrorist threat, there is no systematic effort to address their ideology. This contrasts markedly with the Cold War, when large number of think tanks and government resources specifically addressed totalitarian Communism, analyzing its ideological shortcomings and engaging it in continuous, highly visible intellectual challenges.
- Russia's Political Position. These actions to address nuclear terrorism focus heavily on specific changes within the Russian nuclear complex without addressing the much broader question of Russia's drift towards autocracy and its cooperation with the West. Increasingly strained relations certainly do not encourage faster or broader cooperation on cooperative threat reduction issues. More worryingly, the war in Chechnya continues to radicalize Muslims within Russia, and cooperative anti-democratic efforts by Russia and China greatly complicate efforts to stabilize Central Asia where a large Muslim population has broad historical ties within Russia.

Addressing the challenge of nuclear terrorism requires addressing a problem that has developed over the course of fifty years or more and certainly does not have a rapid solution. Addressing the root causes of the challenge requires systematic, integrated actions in at least five primary areas:

- Challenge Radical Islam. Radical and fundamentalist Islamic sects have existed for hundreds of years. Their prominence has risen rapidly in recent decades as globalization and other forces have helped to promote a sense of Muslim identity while world-wide information networks have spread awareness of the relative poverty and backwardness of the Muslim world.¹⁵ Challenging the radicalists will require not only working to resolve larger cultural differences, but systematically campaigning to blunt the appeal of terrorist ideologies.¹⁶
- Broaden Cooperation with the Muslim World. The other side of the coin from engaging radicals is building positive relations with the millions of everyday Muslims. Several recent activities show both the challenge and the potential. The global reaction of Muslims to the Danish cartoons vividly demonstrated the depth of anger and frustration in the Muslim world with the West. On the other hand, the immediate and highly visible US assistance to victims of the Pakistani earthquake brought a rapid improvement of the opinion of the United States in this volatile and critical nation – a nonpolitical, humanitarian gesture did at relatively small cost what years of diplomacy failed to do at all. Unfortunately the earthquake assistance is now over, ended without any apparent awareness of its significance as an opportunity to demonstrate Western solidarity with the Muslim world. An opportunity for a continuing program to build a showcase of Western assistance was squandered, just as the opportunity in Afghanistan was. That poor country now slowly descends back towards misery and tribalism, fueled by resurgent opium cultivation which supports warlords, insurgents, criminals and other assorted evildoers. The United States has also helped lead the international effort to stop the slaughter of Muslims in Darfur, but this effort has been halfhearted and ineffective.¹⁷ Another opportunity squandered. Meanwhile the European Union squabbles over admission of Turkey and development in Central Asia grinds to a halt.
- Global Economic Development. The underlying cause of global terrorism can be seen in one statistic: the top 20% of the world's population gets 82.7% of global GNP¹⁸ -- actually that figure is 15 years old and the situation has worsened since then even as the internet has made knowledge of such inequalities widespread. Democracy, transparency, and equality all take a back seat to survival. The difficulties of survival for millions of people worldwide coupled with the knowledge of their economic repression is a powerful incentive for anger and frustration. The European Union efforts to address the root causes of terrorism specifically include poverty reduction and improved education systems in developing nations around the world,¹⁹ paralleling the fundamental US strategic objectives. This inequality underlies much of the frustration of the Muslim World with the West, and the attractiveness of radical Islam for young Muslims globally.
- Universal Compliance. A concerted effort to enlist the entire international community to support global norms on nonproliferation²⁰ can broaden these efforts and significantly reduce the long-term nuclear weapon developments world wide. Resolution of current challenges with North Korea, Iran, India and Pakistan could provide real support to these efforts. On the other hand, failure to reach agreements could significantly undermine long-standing nonproliferation efforts.
- Strategic Cooperation with Russia. Russia stands at the center of these challenges: it has the most widespread and vulnerable nuclear complex, it has maintains a grossly oversized nuclear weapon posture, its struggle with Chechnya radicalizes its own sizable Muslim population, it supports anti-democratic regimes including in China and Central Asia, and it is a key player in nuclear negotiations with both Iran and North Korea. Its drift back toward authoritarianism is not only compatible with a thousand years of history, it is broadly supported by the Russian population. The collapse of the Soviet dictatorship did not usher in an era of prosperity, but rather led to widespread impoverishment, the rise of criminal elements, and the disillusionment of a downtrodden population with both democracy and markets. So it is no easy or straightforward task for the West to re-orient Russian development towards transparency and cooperation. But until this is done, real progress towards eliminating global terrorism will be slow and painful.

These five lines of engagement represent the strategic face of meeting the challenges of terrorism. Unfortunately, they are nearly impossible to quantify and are subject to only slow, even glacial, changes. But they address the underlying problems which need to be resolved if terrorism in general and nuclear terrorism in particular is going to be eliminated. This requires vision and leadership on a global scale. Even before that, it requires understanding.

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