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The new containment: an alliance against nuclear terrorism

National Interest, The, Fall, 2002 by Graham Allison, Andrei Kokoshin

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Terrorist groups could obtain these materials by theft, illicit purchase or voluntary transfer from state control. There is ample evidence that attempts to steal or sell nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material are not hypothetical, but a recurring fact. (5) Just last fall, the chief of the directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry responsible for nuclear weapons reported two recent incidents in which terrorist groups attempted to perform reconnaissance at Russian nuclear storage sites. The past decade has seen repeated incidents in which individuals and groups have successfully stolen weapons material from sites in Russia and sought to export them--but were caught trying to do so. In one highly publicized case, a group of insiders at a Russian nuclear weapons facility in Chelyabinsk plotted to steal 18.5 kg (40.7 lbs.) of HEU, which would have been enough to construct a bomb, but were thwarted by Russian Federal Security Service agents.

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In the mid-1990s, material sufficient to allow terrorists to build more than twenty nuclear weapons--more than 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium--sat unprotected in Kazakhstan. Iranian and possibly Al-Qaeda operatives with nuclear ambitions were widely reported to be in Kazakhstan. Recognizing the danger, the American government itself purchased the material and removed it to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In February 2002, the U.S. National Intelligence Council reported to Congress that "undetected smuggling [of weapons-usable nuclear materials from Russia] has occurred, although we do not know the extent of such thefts." Each assertion invariably provokes blanket denials from Russian officials. Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev has claimed categorically: "Fissile materials have not disappeared." President Putin has stated that he is "absolutely confident" that terrorists in Afghanistan do not have weapons of mass destruction of Soviet or Russian origin.

For perspective on claims of the inviolable security of nuclear weapons or material, it is worth considering the issue of "lost nukes." Is it possible that the United States or Soviet Union lost assembled nuclear weapons? At least on the American side the evidence is clear. In 1981, the U.S. Department of Defense published a list of 32 accidents involving nuclear weapons, many of which resulted in lost bombs. (6) One involved a submarine that sank along with two nuclear torpedoes. In other cases, nuclear bombs were lost from aircraft. Though on the Soviet/Russian side there is no official information, we do know that four Soviet submarines carrying nuclear weapons have sunk since 1968, resulting in an estimated 43 lost nuclear warheads. (7) These accidents suggest the complexity of controlling and accounting for vast nuclear arsenals and stockpiles.

Nuclear materials have also been stolen from stockpiles housed at research reactors. In 1999, Italian police seized a bar of enriched uranium from an organized crime group trying to sell it to an agent posing as a Middle Eastern businessman with presumed ties to terrorists. On investigation, the Italians found that the uranium originated from a U.S.-supplied research reactor in the former Zaire, where it presumably had been stolen or purchased sub rosa.

The new containment: an alliance against nuclear terrorism

National Interest, The, Fall, 2002 by Graham Allison, Andrei Kokoshin

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