 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Introduction: The Threat
 HEU fuel from an insecure research facility, in shipping container |
The attacks of September 11 demonstrated that the threat from well-organized terrorist groups with global reach, bent on inflicting mass destruction, is not hypothetical but real. While the attackers achieved horrifying destruction with box-cutters, there can be little doubt that if they had possessed a nuclear bomb, they would have used it – and today the United States could be mourning not just the loss of the two towers and a section of the Pentagon but the loss of the lower half of Manhattan. Yet hundreds of tons of potential nuclear bomb materials are potentially vulnerable to terrorist theft in hundreds of buildings in scores of countries around the world. The pages in this section provide an overview of the different aspects of the threat the world faces from insecure nuclear weapons and weapons materials. |
The facts are stark:
- We know that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network are seeking nuclear weapons. Bin Laden has called the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) a "religious duty."[1] Al Qaeda operatives have made repeated attempts to buy stolen nuclear material from which to make a nuclear bomb. They have tried to recruit nuclear weapon scientists to help them. The extensive downloaded materials on nuclear weapons (and crude bomb design drawings) found in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan make clear the group’s continuing desire for a nuclear capability.[2] Hostile states such as Iraq are also actively seeking to get nuclear weapons and their essential ingredients. (See The Demand for Black Market Fissile Material.)
- We know that if they got the materials, most states and even some particularly well-organized terrorist groups would have the potential to make a nuclear bomb. With highly enriched uranium (HEU), terrorists could potentially make a simple gun-type" bomb, little more than firing two pieces of HEU into each other to form a critical mass, with a device to generate a shower of neutrons to start the chain reaction when they come together. Making a bomb from plutonium would be more difficult, because it would have to be an implosion" bomb, in which explosives are set off all around a plutonium core, crushing it down to a smaller, denser configuration where the nuclear chain reaction will begin. While getting these explosives right was a difficult challenge in the Manhattan Project, today the relevant explosive technology is in wide use in conventional military and even commercial applications. Detailed examinations by U.S. nuclear weapons experts have concluded again and again that with enough nuclear material in hand, it is plausible that a sophisticated terrorist group could build at least a crude nuclear explosive. These conclusions were drawn before September 11 demonstrated the sophistication and careful planning and intelligence gathering of which al Qaeda is capable.[3] Indeed, DOE internal security regulations envision the possibility of an improvised nuclear device" – a nuclear bomb the terrorists might be able to put together while they were still inside the facility where they stole the HEU.[4] (See Technical Background.)
- We know that the amounts needed to build a bomb are small. With an efficient implosion design, a baseball-sized lump of plutonium weighing 4 kilograms (about 10 pounds), or a softball-sized lump of HEU weighing perhaps 3 times as much, is enough. [5] For a simpler but less-efficient gun-type design, 4-5 times more HEU would be needed. Unless proper security and accounting systems are in place, a worker at a nuclear facility could put enough material for a bomb in a briefcase or under an overcoat and walk out. (See Technical Background.)
- We know, at the same time, that enough HEU and separated plutonium to make nearly a quarter million nuclear weapons exists in the world today, in hundreds of buildings, in scores of countries, with security conditions that range from excellent to appalling.[6] The collapse of the former Soviet Union, an empire with some 30,000 nuclear weapons and enough nuclear material for many tens of thousands more, created a unique security crisis, for the Soviet nuclear security system was based on a closed society with closed borders, pampered nuclear workers, and everyone under close surveillance by the KGB – a world that no longer exists. (See The Threat in Russia and the NIS.) But this is a global problem as well, extending far beyond the former Soviet Union. For example, there are well over 100 civilian research reactors operating with HEU in more than 40 countries (as well as a substantial number of shut-down research reactors with HEU fuel still on-site), most of which have very modest security arrangements. (See The Global Threat.) At some facilities where the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons reside, there are literally no armed guards on duty; at some, there is no security camera in the area where the material is stored, and no detector at the door to sound an alarm if someone was carrying out nuclear material in their briefcase; a few of these facilities are so impoverished that they have dead rats floating in the spent fuel pool; at some facilities, for some of the 1990s, scientists and workers were receiving pay of less than $100 per month, which sometimes was delayed for months at a time. During the Russian financial crisis of 1998, guards at some nuclear facilities were leaving their posts to forage for food.[7] (See Anecdotes of Insecurity.) There are also some 30,000 assembled nuclear weapons that remain in the world, and while security for these is generally better, here, too, there are some grounds for concern – particularly with respect to tactical weapons, which are often more portable and in some cases are not equipped with modern electronic locks to prevent unauthorized use – and there is a need for immediate steps to improve security. (See Warhead Security.)
- We know that as a result of such conditions, there have been multiple documented cases of real theft of kilogram quantities of real weapons-usable nuclear material. The International Atomic Energy Agency has a database that includes 18 incidents involving seizure of stolen HEU or plutonium that have been confirmed by the relevant states.[8] To cite just one example, in 1998 there was a conspiracy by insiders at one of Russia’s largest nuclear weapons facilities to steal 18.5 kilograms of HEU – potentially enough for a nuclear bomb at a single stroke. Fortunately, Russian officials report that the conspirators were caught before the material left the facility.[9] Theft of the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons is not a hypothetical worry – it is an ongoing reality. What we do not know is how many of these thefts have not been detected – how many horses have already left the barn.
- We know that nuclear materials, or even nuclear weapons, could readily be smuggled across our borders, or other nations’ borders. If stolen or built abroad, a nuclear bomb might be delivered to the United States, intact or in pieces, by ship or aircraft or truck, or the materials could be smuggled in and the bomb constructed at the site of its intended use. The length of the border, the diversity of means of transport, and the ease of shielding the radiation from plutonium or HEU all operate in favor of the terrorists. Building the overall system of legal infrastructure, intelligence, law enforcement, border and customs forces, and nuclear detectors needed to find and recover stolen nuclear weapons or materials, or to interdict these as they cross national borders, is an extraordinarily difficult challenge. (See Technical Background, and Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling.)
- We know that the detonation of such a bomb in a U.S. (or any other) city would be a catastrophe almost beyond imagination. A 10-kiloton nuclear explosion (from a small" tactical nuclear weapon from an existing arsenal or a well-executed terrorist design) would create a circle of near-total destruction perhaps 2 miles in diameter. Even a 1-kiloton fizzle" from a badly executed terrorist bomb would have a diameter of destruction nearly half as big. If parked at the site of the World Trade Center, even a 1-kiloton truck-bomb would level every building in the Wall Street financial area and destroy much of lower Manhattan. If carried out on a typical business day, some 200,000 people might be killed in a flash.[10] America and its way of life would be transformed forever. (See Technical Background.)
There are crucial pieces of good news in this story as well:
- First, the materials needed to make a nuclear bomb do not occur in significant quantities in nature, and making them is so difficult as to be well beyond the plausible capabilities of terrorist groups. Hence, if the world community can effectively guard all of the existing stockpiles, it can prevent nuclear weapons terrorism from ever occurring: no material, no bomb.[11]
- Second, there is no evidence that either nuclear weapons or the materials needed to make them have fallen into the hands of terrorists or hostile states, or that al Qaeda has yet put together the expertise that would be needed to turn such materials into a bomb – though again, we do not know what has not been detected.
- Third, the evidence from the materials seized in Afghanistan suggests that al Qaeda’s overall focus remains overwhelmingly on the conventional tools of terror: nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons appear to be a small part of their overall level of effort, though a dangerous one.
- Fourth, the technology exists to secure and account for the world's nuclear stockpiles, and dramatically reduce the risk that they could be stolen and fall into the hands of terrorists or hostile states. This is a big job, and a complex job, but it is a doable one. It is a matter of putting the resources and the political will behind getting the job done.
It is clear that terrorist interest in weapons of mass destruction includes chemical and biological as well as nuclear possibilities, and it is important that the nuclear-weapon threat not be exaggerated in relation to the other WMD terrorism threats or indeed in relation to threats of terrorism by more conventional means. The nuclear-weapon threat is probably the most difficult of all for terrorists to implement and to that degree might be regarded as the least likely. But the massive, assured, instantaneous, and comprehensive destruction of life and property that would result may make nuclear weapons a priority for terrorists despite the difficulties.[12] The almost unimaginable devastation that would result if they succeeded means that everything practical should be done to reduce this risk, and that is the focus of these pages. The pages in this section include:
 |
The Threat in Russia and the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union: The breakup of the Soviet Union created a unique situation in history: the collapse of an empire armed with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and enough nuclear material for tens of thousands more. This page details the grave vulnerability of these stockpiles following the Soviet collapse, and the threat some of them still pose today. |
|
The Global Threat: While the Soviet collapse created an urgent and unique nuclear control problem, there are potentially vulnerable nuclear materials spread all around the world as well. This page outlines the threat of potentially insecure nuclear weapons and materials as it exists outside the former Soviet Union. |
|
The Demand for Black Market Fissile Material: Both terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and hostile states such as Iran and Iraq have actively sought to get stolen nuclear warheads or nuclear materials. This page outlines the "demand side" of the threat. |
|
Anecdotes of Insecurity: This page provides a chronological listing of selected documented incidents highlighting the problems of nuclear insecurity in the former Soviet Union – from nuclear guards shooting each other, to underpaid nuclear experts, to high-level military corruption and theft of weapons, to actual theft of nuclear materials. |
Links
| Key Resources | |
|
Matthew Bunn, Anthony Wier, and John P. Holdren, Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Report Card and Action Plan (Washington, D.C.: Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, March 2003). |
| This new report, published by Harvard and NTI, includes as part of its review of U.S. programs' progress a revised assessment of the threat, and an examination of the consequences of a nuclear weapon being detonated in downtown Manhattan (Download 448K PDF). | |
|
National
Research Council, Committee on Science and Technology
for Countering Terrorism, Nuclear and Radiological
Threats," in Making the Nation Safer: The Role of
Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism (Washington,
D.C.: National Academies Press, June 2002). Download 299K PDF |
| This report, released on June 25, 2002, warns that a "technically competent" terrorist group would be able to make a nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium or HEU, and concludes that "the first challenge, then, for the United States and its allies is to improve security for weapons and special nuclear material wherever they exist, but especially in Russia." | |
|
National Intelligence Council, Annual Report to Congress on the Safety and Security of Russian Nuclear Facilities and Military Forces (Langley, Va.: Central Intelligence Agency, February 2002). |
| This annual, unclassified report assesses the safety and security of the nuclear facilities and military forces in Russia, as well as the ability of the Russian Government to maintain its nuclear military forces, the security arrangements at Russia’s civilian and military nuclear facilities, the reliability of controls and safety systems at Russia’s civilian nuclear facilities, and the reliability of command and control systems and procedures of the nuclear military forces in Russia. | |
|
Scott Parrish, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute for International Studies, "Issues & Analysis: Illicit Nuclear Trafficking in the NIS," Nuclear Threat Initiative Research Library, March 2002. |
| Useful page in the Issues & Analysis section of the Research Library providing a succinct description of the threat and policy options in dealing with the problem of nuclear smuggling. | |
|
Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute for International Studies, "NIS Profiles Database: Map of Russian WMD Facilities," Nuclear Threat Initiative Research Library, 2000. |
| This very useful map, developed by the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies and hosted in the NIS Profiles Database section of NTI Research Library, allows the user to click on any region of Russia, and then click on any particular site location, in order to connect into CNS’ large database of information on the Russian weapons complex. Similar maps are available for each of the Newly Independent States, after selecting that country in the NIS Profiles Database. | |
|
Richard L. Garwin, Nuclear and Biological Megaterrorism" (presented at the 27th Session of the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies, Erice, Sicily, August 19-24, 2002). |
| Provides a good summary of key aspects of the threat, and some particular steps to address it – includes data on the range of blast, heat, and radiation effects from 1 kiloton and 10 kiloton nuclear weapons. | |
|
Jon Brook Wolfsthal, Christina Chuen, Emily Ewell Daughtry, Nuclear Status Report: Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material, and Export Controls in the Former Soviet Union (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Monterey Institute for International Studies, June 2001). |
| This report compiles in a single source information on Russia’s nuclear arsenal and stockpile, the status of fissile material at other sites in the former Soviet Union, and the progress of U.S. nonproliferation assistance programs. | |
|
Valentin Tikhonov, Russia’s Nuclear and Missile Complex: The Human Factor in Proliferation (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2001). |
| The report provides the results of extensive surveys performed in five Russian nuclear cities and three Russian missile enterprises. The results suggest an increasingly difficult situation, and illustrate the high potential that a significant percentage of Russia’s weapons experts might sell their services to would-be proliferators. | |
|
Graham Allison, "Could worse be yet to come?" The Economist, November 1, 2001. |
| Describes the danger of al Qaeda carrying out terrorism with weapons of mass destruction, and calls for action to prevent such catastrophic terrorism. | |
|
Harvard Managing the Atom Project, Resources on Nuclear Terrorism |
| In the aftermath of the appalling attack on September 11, a key element of the global response must be ensuring that nuclear weapons technologies and materials do not fall into the hands of terrorist groups or hostile states, and that nuclear facilities are protected from attacks that could cause mass destruction. A selection of important resources on nuclear theft and terrorism is provided. | |
|
J. Carson Mark et al., “Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons?" in Paul Leventhal, and Yonah Alexander, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987). |
| This chapter from the 1987 book Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, authored by a group of U.S. nuclear weapon designers with a spectrum of views on the subject, is the most authoritative available unclassified treatment. Unfortunately, the answer the authors offer is yes, it is possible that some particularly well-organized terrorist groups could make a nuclear explosive. | |
|
Matthew Bunn, "The
Threat," in The
Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads
and Fissile Material (Washington, D.C. and Cambridge,
Mass.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and
the Managing the Atom Project, 2000), pp. 9-27. Download 2.4M PDF |
| Chapter from 2000 report detailing threat posed by inadequately managed nuclear warheads and materials remaining in Russia and the other Newly Independent States. | |
|
John Deutch, "The Threat of Nuclear Diversion," Testimony before the U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Part 2, 104th Congress, 2nd Session,Senate Hearing 104-422, March 20, 1996. |
| Only an excerpt of this testimony, provided on PBS' Frontline website, is available freely on the web. | |
|
Oleg Bukharin and William Potter, "Potatoes Were Guarded Better," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 51, no. 3 (May/June, 1995), pp. 46-50. |
| According to this article, stealing nuclear fuel from the storage building at Sevmorput in Russia was—and may still be—easy. | |
| FOOTNOTES | |
| [1] | Interview with Bin Laden: World’s Most Wanted Terrorist," ABCNews.com, 1999. |
| [2] | See, for example, David Albright, Kathryn Buehler, and Holly Higgins, Bin Laden and the Bomb," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (January-February 2002); Mike Boetcher and Ingrid Arnesen, Al Qaeda Documents Outline Serious Weapons Program," CNN, January 25, 2002; Gavin Cameron, Multi-Track Microproliferation: Lessons from Aum Shinrikyo and Al Qaeda," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 22, no. 4 (1999); and Kimberly McCloud and Matthew Osborne, WMD Terrorism and Usama bin Laden" (Monterey, Cal.: Monterey Institute for International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, November 20, 2001). |
| [3] | See J. Carson Mark et al., Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons?" in Paul Leventhal, and Yonah Alexander, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987). This remains the most authoritative unclassified treatment of the subject – in part because it represents something of a negotiated statement by experts with a range of views on the matter. |
| [4] | U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Security Affairs, Office of Safeguards and Security, Manual for Protection and Control of Safeguards and Security Interests, Chapter I, Protection and Control Planning (Washington, D.C.: DOE, July 15, 1994). |
| [5] | DOE has officially declassified the fact that 4 kilograms of plutonium is in principle sufficient to make a nuclear weapon. See Drawing Back the Curtain of Secrecy: Restricted Data Declassification Decisions 1946 to the Present, RDD-5 (Washington, D.C.: DOE, January 1, 1999). |
| [6] | The total world stockpile of HEU is estimated to be some 1,600 tons (potentially enough to fabricate 130,000 nuclear weapons), while the world stockpile of plutonium separated from spent fuel is estimated to be over 450 tons (enough to fabricate an additional 110,000 nuclear weapons). See David Albright and Mark Gorwicz, Tracking Civil Plutonium Inventories: End of 1999," ISIS Plutonium Watch, October 2000; the figures presented there have been updated to reflect continuing blend-down of HEU and continuing accumulation of civil separated plutonium. The weapons equivalent calculation assumes 4 kilograms of plutonium per weapon and three times that for HEU. |
| [7] | For a recent unclassified summary of the situation in Russia, see National Intelligence Council, Annual Report to Congress on the Safety and Security of Russian Nuclear Facilities and Military Forces (Langley, Va.: Central Intelligence Agency, February 2002); for earlier accounts of the state of security and accounting for nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union, see Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Managing the Atom Project, April 2000), and sources cited therein. For a discussion of the global threat outside the former Soviet Union, see Matthew Bunn, John P. Holdren, and Anthony Wier, Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven Steps for Immediate Action (Washington, D.C.: Managing the Atom Project and Nuclear Threat Initiative, May 2002). |
| [8] | International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), "Facts & Figures: The IAEA's Database on Illicit Trafficking of Nuclear and Other Radioactive Materials" (press release, Vienna, Austria, October 8, 2002). |
| [9] | For discussions, with references, of many of the major theft cases, including this one, see Bunn, The Next Wave, op. cit. |
| [10] | See the discussion of blast, thermal, and radiation effects from 1 kiloton and 10 kiloton nuclear weapons detonated in Manhattan in Richard L. Garwin, Nuclear and Biological Megaterrorism" (presented at the 27th Session of the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies, Erice, Sicily, August 19-24, 2002). |
| [11] | This makes nuclear weapons quite different from chemical and biological weapons, for which the essential ingredients can be found in nature. |
| [12] | For a useful discussion of the relative dangers posed by different types of mass destruction terrorist threats, see Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert Newman, and Bradley Thayer, America's Achilles' Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998). |
Written by Matthew Bunn. Last updated by Anthony Wier on August 1, 2006.
The Securing the Bomb section of the NTI website is produced by the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) for NTI, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. MTA welcomes comments and suggestions at atom@harvard.edu. Copyright 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.