Overview   Issue Summary   Blocking the Terrorist Pathway to the Bomb   Funding Summary   Legislative Summary
	Technical Background
	The Threat
	Securing Nuclear Warheads and Materials
	Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling
	Stabilizing Employment for Nuclear Personnel
	Monitoring Stockpiles
	Ending Further Production
	Reducing Stockpiles

 

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Previous Publications
	Funding for U.S. Efforts to Improve Controls Over Nuclear Weapons, Materials, and Expertise Overseas: Recent Developments and Trends February2007 Readthe Full Report (1.5M PDF)
	Securing the Bomb 2006 The latest report in our series, from May 2006, finds that even though the gap between the threat of nuclear terrorism and the response has narrowed in recent years, there remains an unacceptable danger that terrorists might succeed in their quest to get and use a nuclear bomb, turning a modern city into a smoking ruin. Offering concrete steps to confront that danger, the report calls for world leaders to launch a fast-paced global coalition against nuclear terrorism focused on locking down all stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials worldwide as rapidly as possible. Read the Executive Summary (379K PDF) or the Full Report (1.7M PDF)
	Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives Our May 2005 report finds that while the United States and other countries laid important foundations for an accelerated effort to prevent nuclear terrorism in the last year, sustained presidential leadership will be needed to win the race to lock down the world’s nuclear stockpiles before terrorists and thieves can get to them. Read the Executive Summary (281 K) or the Full Report (1.9M PDF)
	Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action Building on the previous years' reports, this 2004 NTI-commissioned report grades current efforts and recommends new actions to more effectively prevent nuclear terrorism. It finds that programs to reduce this danger are making progress, but there remains a potentially deadly gap between the urgency of the threat and the scope and pace of efforts to address it. Download the Full Report (1.2 M PDF) Выписки из доклада по-русски (423K PDF)
	Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials: A Report Card and Action Plan 2003 report published by Harvard and NTI measures the progress made in keeping nuclear weapons and materials out of terrorist hands, and outlines a comprehensive plan to reduce the danger. Download the Full Report (2.7M PDF)
	Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven Steps for Immediate Action 2002 report co-published by Harvard and NTI outlines seven urgent steps to reduce the threat of stolen nuclear weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists or hostile states. Read the Full Report (516K PDF)

Securing the Bomb: A Summary of the Key Issues

Keeping nuclear weapons or materials from being stolen is the most direct and reliable tool for preventing nuclear terrorism, for once such items have disappeared, the problem of finding them or stopping terrorists from using them multiplies enormously.

A dangerous gap remains between the urgency of the threat of nuclear terrorism and the scope and pace of the U.S. and world response.  That gap has been narrowed in recent years, with actions such as the formation of a Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism by U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at their 2006 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, the two presidents’ accord on nuclear security at their 2005 summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the launch of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) in early 2004.  But much more needs to be done.

The Threat

Today, there is still an unacceptable danger that terrorists might succeed in their quest to get and use a nuclear bomb, turning a modern city into a smoking ruin.  There remains a dangerous gap between the scope and pace of the U.S. and world response and the urgency of the threat—though that gap has narrowed significantly in recent years.

The facts that frame the danger are stark.  First, by word and deed, al Qaeda and the global movement it has spawned have made it clear that theywant nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden has called acquiring nuclear weapons a “religious duty.”[1] (See our page on the Demand for Black Market Fissile Material.) Al Qaeda operatives have repeatedly attempted to obtain nuclear material and recruit nuclear expertise.  The U.S. government has formally charged that bin Laden has been seeking nuclear weapons and the materials to make them since the early 1990s[2]—and by 1996, the CIA’s bin Laden unit had documented a “professional” nuclear acquisition effort leaving “no doubt that al-Qaeda was in deadly earnest in seeking nuclear weapons.”[3] Two senior Pakistani nuclear weapons scientists met with bin Laden at length and discussed nuclear weapons.[4] Documents recovered in Afghanistan reveal a significant nuclear research effort.[5]  Long after the removal of al Qaeda’s Afghanistan sanctuary, bin Laden sought and received a religious ruling or fatwa from a radical Saudi cleric authorizing the use of nuclear weapons against American civilians.[6]

Second, if terrorists could obtain the HEU or plutonium that are the essential ingredients of a nuclear bomb, making at least a crude nuclear bomb might well be within the capabilities of a sophisticated group.[7] One study by the now-defunct congressional Office of Technology Assessment summarized the threat: “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...  Only modest machine-shop facilities that could be contracted for without arousing suspicion would be required.”[8]  The 9/11 Commission offered a very similar warning, arguing that with the needed highly enriched uranium or plutonium, a terrorist group “could fashion a nuclear device that would fit in a van like the one Ramzi Yousef parked in the garage of the World Trade Center in 1993.  Such a bomb would level Lower Manhattan.”[9] Even before the Afghan war, U.S. intelligence concluded that “fabrication of at least a ‘crude’ nuclear device was within al-Qa’ida’s capabilities, if it could obtain fissile material.”[10] Documents later seized in Afghanistan provided “detailed and revealing” information about the progress of al Qaeda’s nuclear efforts that had not been available before the war.[11]

The partial and fragmentary publicly available information about al Qaeda’s nuclear efforts suggests only a modest level of nuclear expertise—but that offers only small comfort, given how little is known. Terrorists’ nuclear pursuits are carried out in secret, and little is known about how far terrorists may have progressed.  The Robb-Silberman commission on U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, which had full access to all classified information, pointed out that the U.S. government knew very little about al Qaeda’s nuclear efforts, and that key intelligence judgments about them cited virtually no evidence for the conclusions drawn.[12]  Similarly, the world was largely unaware of Aum Shinrikyo’s years-long efforts to get a nuclear bomb until the group announced itself by launching a nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway.  Given that record, there can be little basis for confidence that the world would know that a terrorist group was putting together the capabilities needed to build a nuclear bomb before it was too late.  

The removal of the Afghanistan sanctuary and the other disruptions al Qaeda has faced since 9/11 have almost certainly made it more difficult for al Qaeda to get the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons and make them into a bomb.  But some part of the resilient, loosely linked global movement that is today’s al Qaeda might well be able to put together the small group with modest, commercially available equipment needed to turn weapons-usable nuclear material into a bomb.  And whether that bomb-making project took place in any of the scores of “stateless zones” around the world where U.S. intelligence fears that terrorists may be building their capabilities,[13] or even on a ranch or in a garage in a developed country, the effort might well succeed in remaining entirely secret.  It is possible, in short, that there would be no warning that terrorists had made the leap from nuclear ambitions to real nuclear capabilities until it was too late (see our extensive of the myths that lead many officials and analysts to unduly downplay the danger of nuclear terrorism in Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action). 

Third, hundreds of tons of nuclear material, not just in the former Soviet Union but in dozens of countries around the world, remain dangerously vulnerable to theft.  (See the pages on the Threat in Russia and the former Soviet Union and the Global Threat.)  There are no binding global nuclear security standards (see our page on Global Standards), and nuclear security around the world varies from excellent to appalling.  Most of the nuclear facilities around the world, including many in the United States, would not be able to provide a reliable defense against attacks as large as terrorists have already proved they can mount, such as the four coordinated, independent teams of four to five suicidal terrorists each that struck on September 11, 2001, or the 30-plus terrorists armed with automatic weapons and explosives who seized a thousand hostages at the school in Beslan in September 2004.  A conspiracy of several insiders working together—possibly coerced by terrorists to do so, as in past cases where insiders’ families have been kidnapped—would be even more difficult to defend against. 

Indeed, theft of the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons is not a hypothetical worry, it is an ongoing reality: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has documented 18 cases of theft involving weapons-usable plutonium or HEU.[14]  (Our Anecdotes of Insecurity page provides additional concrete examples that highlight the danger.)

Fourth, if terrorists could steal, buy, or make a nuclear bomb, there can be little confidence that the government could stop them from smuggling it into the United States. After all, thousands of tons of illegal drugs and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants cross U.S. borders every year, despite massive efforts to stop them.[15] The essential ingredients of a nuclear bomb can fit easily into a briefcase, and the weak radiation these materials emit can be made quite difficult to detect with the use of modest amounts of shielding—particularly in the case of HEU, which is far less radioactive than plutonium (see our Technical Background page).  Even if effective detection systems and procedures were put in place at all U.S. ports and other official points of entry, there are myriad other ways that terrorists could get a nuclear bomb or its essential ingredients into the United States. 

It is worth investing in improved border detection systems to make the smuggler’s job more difficult and uncertain.  But the world should not place undue reliance on this last-ditch line of defense.  Defending primarily at the border is like a football team defending at its own goal line—but with that goal line stretched to thousands of kilometers, much of it unmonitored, with millions of legitimate people and vehicles crossing it every year.

Fifth, such a crude terrorist bomb would potentially be capable of incinerating the heart of any city. A bomb with the explosive power of 10,000 tons of TNT (that is, smaller than the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima), if set off in midtown Manhattan on a typical workday, could kill half a million people and cause more than $1 trillion in direct economic damage. Devastating economic aftershocks would reverberate throughout the world.  (For more on the effects of nuclear weapons, see the Technical Background page.)

Securing Stockpiles in the Former Soviet Union

In Russia and the other states of the former Soviet Union, there is some good news to report, but there is still far too much bad news.  (Read about the Threat in Russia and the former Soviet Union.)  Nuclear security has improved substantially, but significant threats of nuclear theft remain.  A decade and a half after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most egregious nuclear security weaknesses of the early 1990s—gaping holes in fences, buildings with no detector at the door to sound an alarm if some one was carrying out plutonium—have largely been fixed through a combination of international assistance programs and the former Soviet states’ own efforts.[16]  In the aftermath of the Bratislava summit, moreover, Russian and U.S. experts agreed on a joint plan for completing a specified list of security upgrades by the end of 2008—though the agreed list still leaves some nuclear warhead and nuclear material sites uncovered.  The pace of progress has also accelerated: security and accounting upgrades were completed at more buildings holding nuclear material in fiscal year (FY) 2005 than in any previous year of the effort.

Security upgrades are far from complete, however, and the challenges to effective security are daunting.  As of the end of FY 2005, U.S.-funded comprehensive security and accounting upgrades had been completed for 54% of the buildings in the former Soviet Union with potentially vulnerable weapons-usable nuclear material, leaving an immense amount of work to be done to meet the 2008 target.  (See our page on the Material Protection, Control & Accounting program.)  Rapid upgrades, such as bricking over windows and installing nuclear material detectors at exits, have been completed for a modest number of additional nuclear material buildings and a substantial number of additional warhead sites.  Upgrades at warhead sites have gotten a slower start, but are catching up: those upgrades the two sides considered to be needed (comprehensive upgrades at most permanent warhead sites, only rapid upgrades at some temporary sites) had been completed for 48 warhead sites, which we estimate represents some 40% of the total number of sites, as of the end of FY 2005.  (For a longer discussion on progress through FY 2005, see Chapter 3 of Securing the Bomb 2006.)

At the same time, Russia has continued to take steps to strengthen nuclear security on its own—though these appear to be only limited initial steps toward putting in place the security measures that are needed to meet today’s threats.  In 2005, the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (known by its Russian name Rosatom) continued a series of in-depth inspections of physical protection and nuclear material accounting at Rosatom sites (launched with U.S. funding), uncovering a wide range of problems and weaknesses which the inspection teams then began to help sites address.[17]  The Russian government completed a new basic regulation on nuclear security, which will take a more graded approach to protecting different types of nuclear materials, and will for the first time require facilities to have defenses adequate to protect against an identified design basis threat (DBT)—though as of the spring of 2006, the new rules were not yet issued.[18]  Russia announced new budget allocations for nuclear safety and security, but little public information on specific spending for security was made available.[19]  Finally, a number of sites invested in improved security measures themselves, to comply with Russian regulations.

The accord on nuclear security reached at the February 2005 summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, between U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin has led to a significant acceleration of U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation, and heightened the dialogue on key subjects such as security culture and plans for sustaining security upgrades.  The interagency process the summit established, under Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and his Russian counterpart (first Alexander Rumiantsev and now Sergei Kirienko) has helped push progress toward completing agreed milestones.  Soon after the Bratislava summit, Russian officials provided a list of additional nuclear warhead sites where they would permit security cooperation.[20]  By June 2005, in the bilateral group’s first progress report to President Bush and President Putin, the two sides had reached agreement on a joint plan to complete agreed sets of nuclear security upgrades at an agreed list of nuclear warhead and nuclear material sites by the end of 2008—though some nuclear material and nuclear warhead sites are not yet on the agreed list.[21] 

Though the nuclear security improvements in Russia have been substantial, it is essential that policy makers and the public understand that there remains a dangerous gap between the threat facing nuclear stockpiles in Russia and the current security arrangements for those stockpiles.  In fact, the key nuclear security issues in Russia have less and less to do with the specific percentages of buildings or materials covered by the various levels of cooperative security upgrades.  Instead, other crucial questions about international assistance for Russia ’s nuclear security system are now moving into the foreground:

• Are the security upgrades enough, given the immense scale of corruption and insider theft of everything else in Russia, and the huge scale of the outsider terrorist threat?
• Is the human factor that is using these upgrades working, given reports of guards patrolling without ammunition in their guns, and staff propping open security doors for convenience?[22] 
• Will the upgrades be sustained after U.S. assistance phases out? 

The upgrades provided by U.S.-Russian cooperation are designed to be sufficient to protect against modest groups of armed outsiders, or one to two insiders, or both together.  While greater than the security levels maintained for nuclear stockpiles in some other countries, this security level is less than the threats that terrorists and criminals have shown they can pose in Russia, and less than what the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is now requiring its facilities to protect against—even though the threats to nuclear stockpiles are clearly lower in the United States at present.  (This is among the reasons why we do not describe sites with initial U.S.-funded upgrades completed as “secured,” as the Department of Energy does). 

Moreover, the upgraded security and accounting equipment being installed with U.S. help will only provide high security if coupled with effective security staff and guard forces, which it is Russia’s responsibility to provide (though the United States can and does provide some equipment and training).  So far, as already noted, despite high-level statements of priority, Russia does not appear to be assigning remotely sufficient resources to maintain, operate, and eventually replace the modern security equipment now being installed with U.S. assistance.  Moreover, although Russia has announced that poorly trained conscripts will no longer be used for some key missions, such as the war in Chechnya, no similar commitments have been made for the guards at nuclear or other critical facilities.  Until Russia can be convinced to increase the priority assigned to nuclear security, continued U.S. assistance will be crucial to ensuring security for Russia ’s nuclear stockpiles, and thus will remain an excellent investment in U.S. homeland security.

Securing Stockpiles in the Rest of the World

In the rest of the world, there is even less good news.  More than a thousand assembled nuclear weapons are owned by seven countries outside of Russia and the United States (read more on the Global Threat).  Separated plutonium or HEU exist in hundreds of buildings in more than 40 countries.  There are no binding global standards for nuclear security, and in practice the security at sites where the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons are located ranges from excellent to appalling.

Pakistan ’s nuclear stockpiles are a central focus of concern (see our discussion in Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives).  Pakistan ’s small nuclear arsenal is believed to be heavily guarded, but armed remnants of al Qaeda continue to operate in Pakistan, as do jihadi groups with deep connections to Pakistani intelligence.  Moreover, corruption and theft are endemic in Pakistan, including within the military establishment.  Indeed, al Qaeda-linked operatives—with cooperation from insiders within the military—have twice almost succeeded in assassinating Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, suggesting that the threat to other heavily guarded targets (such as nuclear weapons) is real.  Senior insiders within Pakistan ’s nuclear establishment have demonstrated a willingness to sell technology related to nuclear weapons to practically anyone.

Civilian facilities with HEU in countries around the world also pose a major concern, as many have only minimal security measures in place.  Many developed countries have tightened their nuclear security rules and practices in the years since the 9/11 attacks.  But it remains the case that most civilian research reactors have very modest security—in many cases, no more than a night watchman and a chain-link fence—even when enough fresh or irradiated HEU for a bomb is present.[23]  Unfortunately, complying with the IAEA recommendations on physical protection—as facilities whose material came from the United States or from other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group are generally required to do—is not sufficient to resolve such problems, because the IAEA recommendations are very general, and not designed to ensure effective protection against any particular threat.

Some 60 metric tons of HEU—enough for over a thousand nuclear weapons—is in civilian use or storage throughout the world, most of it associated with research reactors, and about half of it outside of the United States and Russia.[24]  Today roughly 135 operating research reactors in some 40 countries still use HEU as their fuel, and an unknown number of shut-down or converted research reactors still have HEU fuel on-site.[25]  Many of these facilities do not have enough HEU on-site for a bomb, but a surprising number of facilities do.[26]  In November 2004, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) study concluded that there are 128 nuclear research reactors or associated facilities around the world with 20 kilograms of HEU or more.[27]  Dozens of HEU-fueled research reactors with smaller amounts of material are not on this list of sites with 20 kilograms or more of HEU.  Of the list of 128, 87 are reportedly research reactors, and the other 41 are fuel facilities.[28]

Because of such threats, the United States has pursued nuclear security cooperation for countries outside the former Soviet Union.  For the most part, however, progress has been slow-moving.  In China, security at one civilian facility with HEU had been upgraded by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2005,and no agreement is yet in place to upgrade China ’s remaining facilities.[29]  No cooperative upgrades have been accomplished in India ; indeed, the subject of preventing nuclear terrorism was strikingly absent from the U.S.-India nuclear agreement.[30]  Some published accounts suggest that nuclear security cooperation with Pakistan is proceeding, but there has been no official confirmation of this.[31]  Though close allies, the United States and Israel neither cooperate on nuclear security nor have discussed doing so, as far as is publicly known (though given long Israeli experience combating terrorism, Israel’s stockpile presumably is highly secure).  With North Korea, no nuclear security cooperation is conceivable until there is a dramatic shift in relations between that country and the United States. 

For non-nuclear-weapon states beyond the former Soviet Union, by the end of 2005, U.S.-sponsored upgrades (often implemented in coordination with the IAEA Office of Nuclear Security) had been completed for only seven facilities, with six more then in progress.[32]  As with the non-Russian facilities of the former Soviet Union, upgrades for these facilities were designed only to meet rather vague IAEA recommendations, a standard far below the level of security that would be required for the same materials if they were under DOE’s control in the United States.

While the United States and other donors have not sponsored security upgrades in developed countries, many states have strengthened their nuclear security measures since the 9/11 attacks.  In Japan, which has tons of weapons-usable separated plutonium on its soil, and which was the nation where the Aum Shinrikyo terror cult was working actively to get nuclear weapons and the materials to make them, there were no armed guards at nuclear facilities prior to the 9/11 attacks.[33] Since then, armed units of the national police have been patrolling at nuclear facilities.[34]  In December 2005, a new Japanese law on physical protection did take effect, requiring for the first time that Japanese nuclear facilities have security measures in place able to defeat a specific design basis threat.[35]  Regulations requiring strengthened nuclear security were also proposed in the past year in Canada and Sweden, among others.[36] 

While the establishment of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) in 2004 has significantly accelerated the pace of removing weapons-usable material from vulnerable sites around the world, major gaps in that effort have not yet been filled.  GTRI’s timelines for converting reactors to use safer low-enriched uranium (LEU) and for retrieving the HEU the United States exported around the world stretch out to 2014 and 2019, respectively.  Nearly half of the research reactors currently using HEU around the world are not yet on GTRI’s target list for conversion.  As yet the program has no plan for removing large portions of the civilian HEU and separated plutonium around the world (including two-thirds of the HEU the United States itself exported over the years, which is not covered by the U.S. offer to take back U.S.-exported material).  The program is so far offering facilities only very limited incentives to give up their HEU or to convert to LEU, while the policy tool of giving countries incentives to shut down unneeded reactors—an option likely to be far cheaper and easier in many cases than converting to LEU, without requiring any wait for new fuel development—is not yet part of any U.S. or international program to address this problem.

In short, the United States does not yet have a plan for ensuring that all stockpiles of nuclear warheads and weapons-usable nuclear materials worldwide are secure and accounted for.

Other Elements in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism

Across the spectrum of these efforts a similar story of “some good news, but still too much bad news” can be told.  The programs targeted on these objectives have demonstrably reduced the danger of nuclear theft at scores of buildings in the former Soviet Union and a few buildings elsewhere; they have permanently destroyed thousands of bombs’ worth of nuclear material; they have put radiation detection equipment at scores of key border crossings around the world; and they have offered at least temporary civilian re-employment for thousands of nuclear experts who were no longer needed in weapon programs.  These efforts have represented an excellent investment in U.S. and world security.  Hundreds of experts and officials from the United States, Russia, and other countries and organizations have worked hard, and often creatively, to achieve this progress, and the world is significantly more secure as a result of their efforts.

But in virtually every category of effort, there is much more to be done: thousands of nuclear weapons and enough material for thousands more at buildings and bunkers with security upgrades not yet installed; hundreds of high-priority border crossings around the world without effective nuclear security detectors yet in place; thousands of nuclear workers with potentially dangerous nuclear knowledge not yet re-employed; and tens of thousands of bombs’ worth of plutonium and HEU that is no longer needed for military purposes but has not yet been destroyed.

Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling. Once a nuclear weapon or the material needed to make one has been stolen from the facility where it is supposed to be, that weapon or material could be anywhere, and the problem of finding and recovering it multiplies a thousandfold.  Enough plutonium or HEU for a nuclear bomb would fit easily in a suitcase—indeed, could be carried in one hand—and while these materials are radioactive, their radioactivity is weak and difficult to detect at any substantial range, particularly in the case of HEU (see the Technical Background for discussion).  Nevertheless, efforts to interdict nuclear smuggling both globally and at the United States ’ borders are worth some investment, for they hold the hope of closing off some of the easiest routes for smuggling nuclear weapons or materials, thus making the smuggler’s job more complicated and uncertain.  (See our pages on Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling.)

Stabilizing Employment for Nuclear Personnel. Because even the best security system is only as good as the people who run it, it is important to stabilize the economic situations of nuclear personnel, in order to ensure that nuclear scientists, workers, and guards are not desperate enough to want to steal nuclear weapons and materials or sell nuclear knowledge.  It is also wise to close unsustainable and unnecessary nuclear facilities, so that stronger and more sustainable security can be achieved at the remaining facilities. 

Challenges remain for the question of stabilizing the economic situation for nuclear personnel.  To date, most U.S. programs continue to leave key categories of personnel with potentially dangerous knowledge or access to potential bomb materials unaddressed—from members of the guard forces, to production workers, to scientists who no longer have an association with a particular institute or facility.  On the Russian side, there continues to be only modest apparent planning for the future of the closed nuclear cities—where many of the key Russian nuclear scientists and engineers live and work.  Over the past year, the Russian government shifted subsidies for the closed nuclear cities from the federal budget to regional budgets.  This shift creates substantial uncertainties over financing for these concentrations of nuclear materials and know-how.  Meanwhile, in the past year several mayors, former mayors, and facility directors from these cities were either fired or charged with criminal offenses or both, with allegations ranging from creation of tax havens to benefit the former oil giant Yukos, to accepting bribes, to illegal dumping of radioactive waste.  There seems little doubt that anti-corruption initiatives need to be added to the portfolio of steps being taken to address the potential leakage of nuclear materials and expertise from Russia ’s nuclear complex. (See our discussion of the programs working in this area.)

Monitoring Stockpiles and Reductions. While the direct purpose of most proposed measures aimed at monitoring stockpiles and reductionsis to confirm that agreed nuclear reductions are being implemented, such measures can also have substantial indirect benefit in reducing the risk of theft of nuclear weapons and materials, easing the access that facilitates cooperation, highlighting weaknesses in security and accounting, and providing an incentive to fix potentially embarrassing problems before they are revealed.  Overall, the goal here should be to put in place sufficient monitoring and data exchanges to build confidence that nuclear stockpiles are secure and accounted for, agreed reductions are being implemented, and assistance funds are being spent appropriately. (Read about programs working to monitor stockpiles and reductions.)

Today, however, the reality is that the U.S. government is not pursuing broad-based nuclear transparency measures, either bilaterally with Russia or on a multilateral basis; only transparency measures related to specific agreements that are now being implemented—sometimes called “islands of transparency” in an opaque sea—are being pursued.

Ending Further Production. Clearly, the most important part of the objective of ending further production of nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material is ending (or preventing) production in countries where that production may be used to build a new nuclear arsenal. (Read about current U.S. efforts in this area.)

Perhaps surprisingly, there are no current efforts to put an end to further production of nuclear warheads in the United States and Russia.  Both the United States and Russia are decreasing, rather than increasing, their nuclear warhead stockpiles, but both retain the right to manufacture new warheads if needed to replace existing warheads.  Similarly, there are no current efforts to reach agreements to end nuclear weapon manufacture in the other nuclear weapon states.

Reducing Stockpiles. In addition to ending new production of material, actually reducing the massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material built up over the decades of the Cold War could have benefits both for reducing the risk of nuclear theft and for making reversal of ongoing nuclear arms reductions more difficult, observable, and costly.  This is true for excess stockpiles of nuclear warheads, HEU, and plutonium.

The United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom have all reduced their nuclear forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union, dismantling thousands of nuclear weapons.  In 2004, the Bush administration announced that the U.S. nuclear stockpile would be further reduced; non-government analysts estimate that some 6,000 weapons will remain in the U.S. weapons stockpile by 2012, the lowest level in decades.[37] 

Currently, however, there are no international negotiations or initiatives focused on achieving deeper reductions in nuclear weapons stockpiles.  U.S. threat reduction assistance programs are not providing direct assistance for dismantlement of nuclear weapons in other countries.

Plutonium disposition efforts overcame some obstacles in 2005, but progress on the ground remained slow, some key obstacles remained, and these efforts’ future remained in doubt.  (Read more about this issue in our pages on U.S. and Russian Plutonium Disposition.)

Recommendations to Reduce the Risk

The danger of nuclear theft and terrorism is a global problem, requiring a global response.  The presidents of the United States and Russia, along with the heads of state of other leading nuclear weapon and nuclear energy states, should join together in taking three actions:

• creating a true global coalition to prevent nuclear terrorism;
• forging effective global nuclear security standards; and
• accelerating and broadening current efforts toward a global cleanout, in which weapons-usable material would be removed from the world’s most vulnerable sites as rapidly as possible.

Numerous other actions to strengthen programs to block terrorists on later steps in their pathway to a nuclear bomb are also critical, though these efforts will provide less leverage in reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism than will steps to secure and consolidate nuclear stockpiles, which are the focus of our recommendations.  

A Global Coalition to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. On July 15, 2006, U.S. President Bush and Russian President Putin announced the formation of a Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism at their bilateral meeting at the G8 Summit meeting in St. Petersburg. Calling nuclear terrorism “one of the most dangerous international security challenges we face,” the two leaders called upon “like-minded nations to expand and accelerate efforts that develop partnership capacity to combat nuclear terrorism on a determined and systematic basis.” Beyond national efforts, the initiative envisions that countries could engage in exchanges of best practices, could conduct joint exercises, and could provide assistance to those requiring it.

The joint statement from President Bush and President Putin announcing the initiative was an excellent call to action.  The two leaders warned that nuclear terrorism poses “one of the most dangerous international security challenges,” and they called on like-minded states to cooperate in taking the necessary steps to combat the threat—possibly including securing stocks of nuclear weapons and materials, interdicting nuclear smuggling, and responding to the theft of a nuclear bomb or the materials to make one.

President Bush and President Putin deserve the world’s praise for putting aside differences and leading together in the common struggle against nuclear terrorism.  They have created an opportunity to dramatically improve the security of their nations and of the world.  Now they and their counterparts around the world must seize that opportunity to make concrete progress to ensure that the awesome power of the atom cannot fall into the hands of terrorists. 

This new global initiative, spearheaded by the leaders of the two countries with by far the world’s largest nuclear stockpiles, could go a long way toward closing that gap.  We say “could” because so much depends on the actions the United States, Russia, and other leading countries take next.

To be truly effective, participants in the Global Initiative would agree to protect all of their nuclear stockpiles to an agreed standard sufficient to defeat the threats terrorists and criminals have shown they can pose; to encourage, assist, and pressure other states to do likewise; to sustain effective nuclear security for the long haul using their own resources; to reduce the number of locations where nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials are located (thereby achieving higher security at lower cost); and to take other steps to cooperate to reduce the dangers of nuclear terrorism, from expanding intelligence and law enforcement cooperation targeted on nuclear theft and smuggling to putting in place criminal laws making actual or attempted nuclear theft or terrorism a crime comparable with murder or treason. As part of the effort, the coalition partners would also work to expand the mission, personnel, and resources of the IAEA Office of Nuclear Security, allowing that agency to substantially increase its contribution to preventing nuclear terrorism.  The participants should commit to providing the resources necessary to ensure that lack of funding does not constrain the pace at which nuclear stockpiles around the world can be secured and consolidated.

This global coalition should include the G8 industrialized democracies, along with China, India, Pakistan, and, ideally, Israel (which is believed to have a significant stockpile of nuclear weapons) and South Africa (which once had nuclear weapons, and still has one of the largest stockpiles of HEU among the developing non-nuclear-weapon states).  All of these states should be offered roles as co-leaders of this global effort, rather than as mere recipients of assistance currently unable to properly secure their own stockpiles. 

To be effective, the coalition needs a strong mechanism for ensuring that the initial commitments were fulfilled.  A standing group of senior officials appointed by the leader of each coalition partner would be responsible for implementing the global coalition commitments, developing agreed plans with measurable milestones, devising means to overcome obstacles to success, and reporting on the coalition’s progress to the leaders of the participating states on a regular basis. 

The participants in the Global Initiative still have much to do in Russia to complete the cooperative upgrades now under way, to ensure that security measures are put in place that are sufficient to meet the threats that exist in today’s Russia, to forge a strong security culture, and to see that high levels of security for nuclear stockpiles will be sustained after international assistance phases out.  But the work with Russia should become a true partnership, framed as one part of this global coalition.  Continuing bilateral cooperation with other countries should similarly be based on partnership, as one part of the global coalition, focusing on the same central objectives.  To succeed, the approaches that have been developed in cooperation with the former Soviet states will have to be adapted to the different national cultures, approaches to secrecy, and legal frameworks that exist in other countries.  The United States and other coalition partners should take steps to ensure that states and facilities have strong incentives to provide effective nuclear security, from working with states to put in place effective nuclear security regulation to establishing preferences in all contracts for facilities that have demonstrated superior nuclear security performance.

Effective Global Nuclear Security Standards. As part of this new Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, President Bush and other leaders of major nuclear-weapon and nuclear-energy states should immediately seek agreement on a broad political commitment to meet at least a common minimum standard of nuclear security.  Effective global standards are urgently needed, for in the face of terrorists with global reach, nuclear security is only as good as its weakest link.  The standard should be designed to be rigorous enough that all stockpiles with security measures meeting the standard are well protected against plausible insider and outsider threats, but flexible enough to allow each country to take its own approach to nuclear security and to protect its nuclear secrets.  For example, the agreed standard might be that all nuclear weapons and significant caches of weapons-usable nuclear materials be protected at least against two small groups of well-armed and well-trained outsiders, one to two well-placed insiders, or both outsiders and insiders working together.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540, which legally requires all states to provide “appropriate effective” security and accounting for any nuclear stockpiles they may have, provides an excellent opportunity, as yet unused, to back up such a high-level political commitment.  If the words “appropriate effective” mean anything, they should mean that nuclear security systems could effectively defeat threats that terrorists and criminals have shown they can pose. 

Hence, the United States should seek the broadest possible agreement that UNSCR 1540 already legally binds states to meet a minimum level of nuclear security.  The United States should immediately begin working with the other coalition participants and the IAEA to detail the essential elements of an “appropriate effective” system for nuclear security, to assess what improvements countries around the world need to make to put these essential elements in place, and to assist countries around the world in taking the needed actions.  The United States should also begin discussions with key nuclear states to develop means to build international confidence, without unduly compromising nuclear secrets, that states have fulfilled their commitments to take effective nuclear security measures. 

Complementing such government efforts, the nuclear industry should launch its own initiative focused on bringing the worst security performers up to the level of the best performers, through definition and exchange of best practices, industry peer reviews, and similar measures—a World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) on the model of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) established to improve global nuclear safety after the Chernobyl accident.  

An Accelerated and Expanded Global Cleanout. The only foolproof way to ensure that nuclear material will not be stolen from a particular site is to remove it.  As part of the global coalition to prevent nuclear terrorism, the United States should immediately begin working with other countries to take steps to accelerate and expand the removal of weapons-usable nuclear material from vulnerable sites around the world.  Where material cannot immediately be removed, the United States should speed steps to ensure that high levels of security will be put in place and maintained.  The goal should be to remove the nuclear material entirely from the world’s most vulnerable sites within four years—substantially upgrading security wherever that cannot be accomplished—and to eliminate all HEU from civil sites worldwide within roughly a decade.  The United States should make every effort to build international consensus that the civilian use of HEU is no longer acceptable, that all HEU should be removed from all civilian sites, and that all civilian commerce in HEU should be brought to an end as quickly as possible.

Achieving these goals will require a strengthened, broadened effort, including substantial packages of incentives to give up nuclear material, targeted to the needs of each facility and host country.  The U.S. take-back offer should be expanded to cover all stockpiles of U.S.-supplied HEU, and, on a case-by-case basis, other weapons-usable nuclear material that poses a proliferation threat.  The United States should seek agreement from Russia, Britain, France, and possibly other countries to receive and manage high-risk materials when the occasion demands.  Those HEU-fueled research reactors that can convert to non-weapons-usable low-enriched uranium (LEU) using existing fuels should be given strong incentives to do so.  The remaining HEU-fueled reactors that are still needed and cannot yet convert should be converted to LEU as soon as appropriate fuels are developed, and provided with high levels of security in the meantime.  Aging and unneeded research reactors using HEU fuel should be given strong incentives to shut down—a step in many cases cheaper and quicker than conversion to LEU—perhaps as part of an IAEA-led “Sound Nuclear Science Initiative” focused on getting the science, training, and isotope production the world needs at minimum cost, with a smaller number of more broadly shared research reactors. To not only remove threats from inside U.S. borders but also to enable U.S. leadership in convincing others to do the same, the United States should also convert or adequately secure its own HEU-fueled research reactors.

The focus on HEU should not lead the world community to ignore the burgeoning global stockpiles of separated civilian plutonium.  The Bush administration should renew the effort to negotiate a 20-year U.S.-Russian moratorium on separating weapons-usable plutonium that was almost completed by 2001 and should work actively to ensure that its reconsideration of modified approaches to reprocessing in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership does not encourage the spread of plutonium separation facilities.

Ingredients of Success. None of these initiatives will be easy.  A maze of political and bureaucratic obstacles must be overcome quickly if the world’s most vulnerable nuclear stockpiles are to be secured before terrorists and thieves get to them.  The job of keeping nuclear weapons and their essential ingredients out of terrorist hands requires broad international cooperation affecting some of the most sensitive secrets held by countries around the globe.  Sustained leadership from the highest levels of government, in the United States and around the world, will be needed.  The United States should make nuclear security a central item on its diplomatic agenda, an item to be addressed at every opportunity, with every relevant state, at every level, until the job is done.  Several ingredients will be critical to success.

First and most important, if political leaders and facility managers around the world are to take the actions necessary to achieve high levels of nuclear security, they must be convinced that nuclear theft and terrorism is a real and urgent threat to their own countries.  Many of them are not convinced of this today.  The United States and other countries should take several steps to build the needed sense of urgency and commitment, including:

• sponsoring briefings for political leaders of key countries, given jointly by U.S. and domestic nuclear experts, that outline both the very real possibility that terrorists could get nuclear material and make a nuclear bomb, and the global economic and political effects of a terrorist nuclear attack;
• encouraging leaders of key states to pick teams of security experts they trust to carry out fast-paced reviews of nuclear security in their countries assessing whether facilities are adequately protected against a set of threats the leaders would specify;
• working with key states to put in place regular systems of realistic testing of security performance;
• carrying out war games and similar exercises with senior policymakers of key states; and
• creating shared databases of unclassified information on actual security incidents that offer lessons for the threats policymakers and facility managers need to consider in deciding on nuclear security levels and the steps that can be taken to defeat those threats.

Second, success is likely to require mechanisms to keep the issue of nuclear security on the front burner at the top levels of government, day-in and day-out.  To lead these efforts in the United States, President Bush should appoint a senior full-time White House official with the access needed to walk in and ask for presidential action when needed.  That official would be responsible for setting overall priorities, for eliminating overlaps, for seizing opportunities for synergy, and for finding and fixing the obstacles to progress in the scores of existing U.S. programs scattered across several cabinet departments of the U.S. government that are focused on pieces of the job of keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.  As part of the global coalition described above, President Bush should lean on Russian President Putin and the leaders of other coalition participants to appoint a similar top-level official. 

Third, the United States should base its international nuclear security approaches on genuine partnership, with experts from each country where these stockpiles reside playing key roles in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the entire effort in their countries.  Experts from these countries will inevitably know more about their countries’ stockpiles and what can and cannot be done there than U.S. experts will, and data from a wide range of other types of international assistance efforts make clear that the long-term success rate is far higher when assistance recipients are deeply involved in project design and implementation than when this is not the case.  Strategic plans, timetables, and milestones should therefore be developed jointly by the country where the nuclear stockpiles in question exist and its foreign partners, using both the country’s own funds and foreign funds.  Steps to enhance or limit cooperation with particular countries on other matters—particularly with respect to nuclear technologies—should be considered in the light of their potential effect on cooperation to ensure effective nuclear security.

Finally, the United States and other providers of nuclear security assistance should take a flexible approach to ensuring that their taxpayers’ funds are spent appropriately without unduly demanding that states open up their nuclear secrets.  Methods that have proven effective include: providing training, software, and other tools that states can use to assess vulnerabilities and upgrade security themselves; providing U.S.-funded nuclear security equipment that recipient states install at their own expense; relying on photographs, videos, operational reports, and certifications by senior officials to ensure that equipment is installed and used as agreed; and using “trusted agents” from the country where cooperation is taking place, who have security clearances from that country but who are employed by a contractor from the donor country, to certify that equipment has been installed and used appropriately.

Strengthening the Other Lines of Defense

Preventing nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials from being stolen in the first place is the strongest leverage point in the battle to prevent nuclear terrorism.  Once stolen, these items could be anywhere, and finding and recovering them, or interdicting their smuggling is an extraordinarily difficult task.  Nonetheless, because efforts to lock down nuclear stockpiles around the world may not be 100% successful—and because some undetected thefts of nuclear material may already have occurred—investment in later lines of defense is important as well.

Appointing a Single Leader. Despite numerous recommendations from blue-ribbon panels, the administration has still not appointed a senior White House official with the full-time responsibility of overseeing and coordinating U.S. efforts to control nuclear warheads, materials, and expertise.[38]  Instead, the agenda has largely been left to Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and lower-ranking officials of other departments to push forward.  While Secretary Bodman has pursued it with considerable energy, the reality is that DOE is not among the lead national security agencies of the U.S. government, and many of the steps that need to be taken require high-level leadership from the White House or the State Department. There is scant public information to suggest that the White House is focusing daily on the task of securing all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material around the world—that is, little daily focus on the task the 9/11 Commission recommended be a “top national security priority.”[39]

None of what we recommend here will happen without sustained leadership and political heavy lifting from the White House and its counterparts around the world.  President Bush should appoint a senior full-time White House official, with the access needed to walk in and ask for presidential action when needed, to lead these efforts, and keep them on the front burner at the White House every day.  That official would be responsible for finding and fixing the obstacles to progress in the scores of existing U.S. programs scattered across several cabinet departments of the U.S. government that are focused on pieces of the job of keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands—and for setting priorities, eliminating overlaps, and seizing opportunities for synergy.

Agreements to Secure, Monitor, and Dismantle Dangerous Excess Warheads. The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty signed by President Bush and President Putin in May 2002, while valuable, represents a missed opportunity to reduce threats of nuclear terrorism.  It does not require that the reduced warheads be dismantled, or their security improved, and it does not address tactical nuclear warheads at all.  It is a remarkable fact that neither the United States nor Russia has ever verified the dismantlement of a single nuclear warhead by the other country, and that not a penny of cooperative threat reduction assistance has gone directly for Russian warhead dismantlement.  The administration should pursue a next-phase accord under which: (a) thousands of U.S. and Russian excess warheads (both strategic and tactical), including specifically all warheads not equipped with modern electronic locks to prevent unauthorized use, would be placed in secure storage facilities open to monitoring by the other side; (b) both sides would commit that these warheads would be verifiably dismantled as soon as appropriate procedures to do so while protecting classified information were agreed; (c) both sides would commit to place the plutonium and HEU from dismantling these warheads in secure, monitored storage, pending efforts to eliminate these materials; and (d) the United States would offer to provide threat reduction assistance in implementing these agreed steps, giving Russia an incentive to agree.  With such an accord, in a matter of months thousands of the most dangerous warheads could be under jointly monitored lock and key, and committed to eventual dismantlement—a substantial step forward for U.S. security.[40]

Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling.  The United States and other countries are now making substantial investments in putting in place improved means to detect smuggling of nuclear materials, particularly detection at border crossing points in key countries.  What is needed now is to pull existing efforts together into a prioritized strategic plan that goes well beyond detection at borders, detailing what police, border, customs, and intelligence entities in which countries should have what capabilities by when—and what resources will be used to achieve those objectives.  Making the needed connections between terrorists who want nuclear material and nuclear workers in a position to steal such material already appears to be one of the more difficult obstacles that potential nuclear terrorists face.  There is much that intelligence and law enforcement agencies can do to make this connection still harder to make, through sting operations, scams, publicizing opportunities for people who become aware of a nuclear theft or smuggling incident in progress to inform the authorities, and more. 

Improved approaches to nuclear monitoring at the U.S. borders and within the United States are also needed—as the Bush administration has proposed with the establishment of the new Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) in the Department of Homeland Security.  But it should be recognized that once a nuclear bomb has reached U.S. shores, it may already be too late (which is the rationale for the ongoing Megaports Initiative, designed to ensure that at the ports sending most container cargo to the United States, containers are inspected for nuclear contraband at the ports where they depart).  Moreover, given the long, complex, and heavily trafficked U.S. borders, and the difficulty of detecting the material needed for a nuclear bomb, such measures will never be more than a very partial last line of defense.  (See our discussion on the programs working to Interdict Nuclear Smuggling overseas.)

Global Nuclear Emergency Response. Within the United States, the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST, formerly the Nuclear Emergency Search Team) is charged with searching for and disabling a terrorist nuclear bomb, in the event of a nuclear terrorist threat or other information suggesting that such an attack may be imminent.  NEST teams are equipped with sophisticated nuclear detection equipment, and specialized technologies which, it is hoped, would make it possible to disable even a booby-trapped bomb before it went off.   Because of the great difficulty of detecting nuclear material at long range, broad-area searches are not practicable; if the only information available was that there was a nuclear bomb somewhere in a particular city, the chances of finding it would be slim.  But if additional information made it possible to narrow the search to an area of a few blocks, the chances of finding it would be substantial.  The United States should work with other countries to ensure that an international rapid-response capability is put in place—including making all the necessary legal arrangements for visas, import of technologies such as the nuclear detectors used by the NEST team (some of which include radioactive materials), and the like—so that within hours of receiving information related to stolen nuclear material or a stolen nuclear weapon anywhere in the world, a response team could be on the ground.

Stabilizing Employment for Nuclear Personnel.  With Russia ’s economy stabilized, nuclear workers in Russia are now paid an above-average wage, on time; the desperation of the late 1990s has largely eased.  The situation at many nuclear facilities has substantially stabilized.[41]  With thousands of nuclear workers soon to lose their jobs as major facilities close, however, serious proliferation risks remain.  The threat is not just nuclear weapons scientists who might help a foreign state develop a nuclear bomb, but nuclear workers or guards who might help thieves steal the essential ingredients of a bomb.[42]  The United States should work closely with Russia and other countries to take a broader approach, using all the economic tools available, to revitalizing the economies of those nuclear cities where the major facilities are closing or shrinking, and reemploying other nuclear workers and experts who could otherwise pose a proliferation threat.  (See our pages on efforts to Stabilize Employment for Nuclear Personnel.)

Data Exchange and Monitoring—Sizing the Problem.  To solve the problem of insecure nuclear weapons and materials, it would be very helpful to know how big the problem is. It is much more important for Russia to know exactly how much material it has (and where) than for the United States to know this.  Nevertheless, undue secrecy and limited access to sensitive facilities remain some of the biggest factors slowing progress in cooperative efforts to secure and account for warheads and materials – obstacles that could be substantially overcome if reciprocal arrangements for data exchange and monitoring of key facilities could be agreed.  The administration should seek formal or informal arrangements with Russia to exchange information on how many warheads, how much plutonium, and how much HEU each side has, along with reciprocal monitoring of excess fissile material stockpiles and of warhead dismantlement.[43]  (See Monitoring Stockpiles and Reductions.)

Accelerated HEU Blend-Down.  The surest means to prevent HEU from being stolen and used in a nuclear bomb is to destroy it – by blending it with natural uranium until the content of the nuclear-explosive isotope, U-235, is below the level required to create a nuclear explosion, transforming it into proliferation-resistant low-enriched uranium (LEU).  Thirty tons of HEU is currently being blended down each year under the U.S.-Russian HEU Purchase Agreement, for use as LEU fuel for nuclear power reactors.  By paying Russia a fee for service to blend additional HEU to LEU and then hold it in storage in Russia (rather than flooding the market with it), the national security objective of destroying HEU could be decoupled from market constraints.[44]  If the blending rate were doubled, more than a thousand bomb’s worth of additional HEU would be destroyed every year—clear, measurable threat reduction for each dollar invested.  (See our page on the HEU Purchase Agreement.)

Shutting Plutonium Production Reactors.  During 2005, progress was made in U.S.-Russian cooperation to build alternative power sources to replace Russia ’s last three plutonium production reactors, in the cities of Seversk and Zheleznogorsk, allowing them to be shut down without leaving the nearby towns in the cold and the dark.  Between them, the three reactors produce approximately 1.2 tons of weapon-grade plutonium per year, adding to Russia ’s already large stockpile of excess plutonium.  Under current plans, the $387 million project to refurbish a coal plant in Seversk, allowing the two reactors there to shut down, is expected to be completed in 2008, and the $ 570.5 million project to build a new coal plant at Zheleznogorsk to shut down the single reactor there has been accelerated from 2011 to 2010.[45] DOE has received some $ 29.4 million in international commitments to support the Zheleznogorsk shut-down project (some 5% of the estimated total project cost).[46]

The purpose of these shut-down projects is to avoid the production of the weapons-grade plutonium these reactors would otherwise produce during the remainder of their lives—and to reduce the safety risks these aging, pre-Chernobyl-design reactors would otherwise pose.  If judged by the cost per ton of plutonium avoided, the costs of these projects appears quite high, particularly in the case of the Zheleznogorsk effort, which will cost more to shut down half as much annual plutonium production at a later date.[47]  In the course of implementation, the Bush administration should significantly increase efforts to work with Russia to provide alternative employment for the thousands of nuclear experts and staff in Seversk and Zheleznogorsk who will be thrown out of work when these reactors and their associated reprocessing plants shut down, to avoid having the effort’s success itself create new proliferation risks.

Expanded Disposition of Excess Plutonium.  Part of the wavering support for plutonium disposition comes from doubts about whether the effort as currently conceived really would have large security benefits.  As we have argued before, disposition of 34 tons of excess plutonium could bring substantial security benefits only if (a) the initial 34 tons becomes only a first step toward disposition of a much larger fraction of the U.S. and Russian plutonium stockpiles; and (b) stringent standards of security and accounting are maintained throughout, so that the process of removing the material from guarded vaults, processing it into fuel, and shipping it from place to place does not substantially increase, rather than decreasing, proliferation risks.[48]  To date, however, there seems to be little focus on moving beyond the first 34 tons, and the U.S. government is not pursuing deep and irreversible nuclear arms reductions as a near-term objective.  Moreover, there appears to have been little focus on ensuring stringent security measures throughout the process in both Russia and the United States ; indeed, Duke Power has sought and received waivers from some NRC security rules going in the opposite direction.[49]  If the approach for disposition in Russia ultimately becomes using the BN-800 as originally designed—an approach in which the reactor produces more weapon-grade plutonium than it consumes—continued U.S. support would be more likely to undermine than to promote U.S. nonproliferation objectives. (See our pages on U.S. Plutonium Disposition andRussian Plutonium Disposition.)

Reforming U.S. Nuclear Intelligence.  The resources the intelligence community devotes to nuclear issues have been substantially reduced since the end of the Cold War.  And for reasons ranging from inertia to congressional mandates (which require, among other things, detailed reporting on states’ compliance with their arms control obligations), U.S. nuclear intelligence still focuses much more on detailed assessment of the nuclear forces of states that already have nuclear weapons than it does on the possibility that “loose nukes” might lead some unexpected party to get a nuclear bomb overnight.  Currently there does not exist, for example, a unified database of where all the plutonium and HEU is in the world, and how well secured each of those facilities is believed to be – a crucial starting point for prioritizing corrective actions.  Whether the bombs’ worth of HEU sitting at a research reactor in an obscure country is adequately secured or not, and how much the people there are paid, has not been a major focus of U.S. intelligence – yet that matters much more for U.S. security, and carries much more potential for devastating strategic surprise, than whether or not there are a few pounds of nuclear yield resulting from a Russian experiment at the Novaya Zemlya test range (a subject to which far more intelligence resources are devoted).  The President and Congress should work together to ensure that the U.S. intelligence community devotes substantial resources to the multifaceted aspects of the nuclear terrorism problem.  In particular, a practice should be established of preparing a classified annual report – comparable to those now required on arms control compliance – detailing what is known about which facilities in the world hold warheads, plutonium, or HEU, in what quantities and forms, how well secured and accounted for the materials are at these facilities, and what other information is available about the general level of threat at each facility. 

The Need for Leadership

Urgent action is needed to overcome all of these daunting challenges and significantly reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.  While the technology is available to accomplish that task, the obstacles are great.  Success in a host of difficult tasks is required: building the needed spirit of partnership; forging a common sense of the urgency of the threat; finding means to cooperate without compromising nuclear secrets; structuring incentives that will convince states and facilities to invest in high security and consolidate nuclear stockpiles into fewer, more secure locations; gaining agreement on effective global standards for nuclear security; and overcoming the myriad bureaucratic and political obstacles to rapid implementation of security upgrades.  No one person has the power to simply order that these tasks be accomplished, and then expect them to be done.  Executing these tasks will require sustained, creative leadership from the highest levels of government—in the United States, in Russia, and in other leading nuclear states.

The results from the St. Petersburg and Bratislava summits demonstrated what presidential leadership can do.  With their joint statement, President Bush and President Putin set goals they expected their subordinates to meet, established a process to follow through, and communicated to their governments that they viewed security cooperation as a priority not to be delayed by bureaucratic obstacles.  The result was a significant improvement in cooperation between the two governments, breaking the logjam on securing a substantial number of warhead sites, notably accelerating progress in securing materials, and elevating the dialogue on critical matters such as steps to forge strong security cultures and best practices in achieving and sustaining high levels of nuclear security.

But presidential intervention to move the process forward is intermittent at best, in Washington and in Moscow.  While President Bush and Vice President Cheney speak often of the need to keep weapons of mass destruction out of terrorist hands, they then focus almost exclusively on proliferation by states such as North Korea and Iran rather than the crucial task of securing global nuclear stockpiles from theft.[50]  Virtually no public discussions of the topics for meetings with foreign leaders by the president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, or even the deputy secretary of state or the relevant undersecretary of state even mention the subject of securing nuclear stockpiles.  For example, there was no public mention of nuclear security in any of the statements or briefings surrounding President Bush’s 2006 meeting with Chinese president Hu Jintao, although lower-level officials have been working for years to gain Chinese agreement to allow cooperation on security upgrades beyond the one civilian facility that has been upgraded so far.  Similarly, as noted above, no initiative on nuclear security was included in the negotiation of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, though lower-level officials had been trying to convince India to cooperate on nuclear security improvements for years.

Unfortunately, leaders of other countries around the world are doing even less to reduce this danger.  While some might think that nuclear terrorism is something only Americans need worry about, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been eloquent in pointing out the global impact of a nuclear terrorist attack:

Were such an attack to occur, it would not only cause widespread death and destruction, but would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty. Given what we know of the relationship between poverty and infant mortality, any nuclear terrorist attack would have a second death toll throughout the developing world.[51]

Others appear to believe that the probability of nuclear terrorism is so small that the danger can effectively be ignored.  Pakistani President Musharraf has publicly argued that terrorists could not make nuclear weapons, even if they got nuclear material, and that the “the West is overly concerned” about the threat of nuclear terrorism.[52]  Similarly, the security chief for Russia ’s nuclear agency has dismissed terrorist bomb construction as “absolutely impossible.”[53]

Despite the creation of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism in 2006 and the G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction in 2002, the reality today is that most countries do not share the United States’ sense of urgency about the threat of nuclear terrorism and the need to secure nuclear stockpiles, and no global coalition genuinely focused on rapidly improving nuclear security around the world yet exists. 

In short, there continues to be a substantial gap between the urgency of the nuclear terrorism threat and the pace and scope of the global response.

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Written by Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier. Last updated by Anthony Wier on August 3, 2006.

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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.

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