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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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The opportunities for terrorists to smuggle a nuclear weapon into Russia or another state are even greater. Russia's land borders are nearly twice as long as America's, connecting it to more than a dozen other states. In many places, in part because borders between republics were less significant in the time of the Soviet Union, these borders are not closely monitored. Corruption has been a major problem among border patrols. Visa-free travel between Russia and several of its neighbors creates additional opportunities for weapons smugglers and terrorists. The "homeland security" challenge for Russia is truly monumental.

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In sum: even a conservative estimate must conclude that dozens of terrorist groups have sufficient motive to use a nuclear weapon, several could potentially obtain nuclear means, and hundreds of opportunities exist for a group with means and motive to make the United States or Russia a victim of nuclear terrorism. The mystery before us is not how a nuclear terrorist attack could possibly occur, but rather why no terrorist group has yet combined motive, means and opportunity to commit a nuclear attack. We have been lucky so far, but who among us trusts luck to protect us in the future?

Chto Delat? (9)

THE GOOD NEWS about nuclear terrorism can be summarized in one line: no highly enriched uranium or plutonium, no nuclear explosion, no nuclear terrorism. Though the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials are vast, they are finite. The prerequisites for manufacturing fissile material are many and require the resources of a modern state. Technologies for locking up super-dangerous or valuable items--from gold in Fort Knox to treasures in the Kremlin Armory--are well developed and tested. While challenging, a specific program of actions to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of the most dangerous groups is not beyond reach, if leaders give this objective highest priority and hold subordinates accountable for achieving this result.

The starting points for such a program are already in place. In his major foreign policy campaign address at the Ronald Reagan Library, then-presidential candidate George W. Bush called for "Congress to increase substantially our assistance to dismantle as many Russian weapons as possible, as quickly as possible." In his September 2000 address to the United Nations Millennium Summit, Russian President Putin proposed to "find ways to block the spread of nuclear weapons by excluding use of enriched uranium and plutonium in global atomic energy production." The Joint Declaration on the New Strategic Relationship between the United States and Russia, signed by the two presidents at the May 2002 summit, stated that the two partners would combat the "closely linked threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Another important result yielded by the summit was the upgrading of the Armitage/Trubnikov-led U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghanistan to the U.S.-Russia Working G roup on Counterterrorism, whose agenda is to thwart nuclear biological and chemical terrorism.

The new containment: an alliance against nuclear terrorism

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

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