Nuclear Security and Terrorism

Information for Journalists and Interested Citizens

Nuclear technologies, fissile materials, and radioactive sources are at risk to be targeted by criminals and terrorists. This is not an alarmist statement, but a real concern.

Here are some facts about nuclear crime and terrorism:

• Radioactive materials, widely used in medicine, industry, and research, have recurrently been weaponized to injure, maim, and murder people.

• Nuclear power plants were attacked, sabotaged, or credibly threatened, with dozens of serious incidents publicly documented in the past forty years.

• Two major terrorist organizations, Aum Shinrikyo and al-Qaeda, seriously pursued parts and materials to make atomic bombs. Al-Qaeda presumably even experimented with essential – but non-nuclear – mechanisms for such a device.

The good news is that terrorists have not been successful yet in causing large-scale radioactive contamination - or mounting a nuclear attack (obviously). But to keep it that way, governments, industry, and academia must keep strengthening nuclear security instruments and practices - most urgently those to protect nuclear weapons-usable fissile materials from theft and nuclear facilities from attack or sabotage.

The articles on this website introduce some of the key concepts of nuclear security and nuclear terrorism prevention. They explain what needs to be done to keep highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the main ingredients of nuclear weapons, out of the hands of terrorists. They discuss the terrorist threat to nuclear facilities, including some of the lessons to be learned from the Fukushima disaster for both safety and security of nuclear power plants. And they deal with the issue of “dirty bombs” and how to protect the radioactive sources used in medicine and industry.

The collection includes links to open-access papers and presentations written by some of my great colleagues, by other trusted experts, and by myself. I hope that it will be useful as a backgrounder for journalists and for everybody else who is interested in learning about these important matters.

Note that this site and its subpages are currently under (re)construction.

Comments and questions are welcome. Please contact me at Tom.Bielefeld[at]gmail.com.

Information about the Nuclear Security Summit 2016 in Washington DC

• Media Backgrounder published by the Fissile Materials Working Group (FMWG), a non-governmental coalition of 80 civil society organizations from around the world, which also hosts the NGO Side Summit to the NSS.

• The Results We Need 2016.Policy Recommendations for the Nuclear Security Summit (2015). Also by the FMWG, this short report provides a bit more context and detail to the issues mentioned in the Media Backgrounder.

• Preventing NuclearTerrorism by Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, Nickolas Roth, and William H. Tobey (March, 2016). This thorough report is probably the best overall assessment available of the current state of nuclear security.

• "Nuclear Security Matters" Resources, including a blog, from Harvard’s Belfer Center.

• Nuclear Security Primer:The Existing System published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). This paper provides an excellent summary of the institutions of nuclear security governance, i.e. international organizations, agreements and other mechanisms, and discusses their respective benefits and limitations.

• Websites and Twitter-handles: Fissile MaterialsWorking Group @FMWG; Official Website of the NuclearSecurity Summit: @NSS2016, Website of the NGO SideSummit (providing live streaming of the venue here: http://ssnf2016.org/medias/#videos)

Terrorism and Nuclear Weapons

• "The Nuclear Terrorism Threat" Briefing slides by William Tobey and Pavel Zolotarev, as presented to the 'Sherpas' to the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit at their meeting in Thailand (January 13, 2014).

• For an updated version which also includes an assessment of the potential threat by the so-called “Islamic State”, see Bunn’s et al Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, ch. 3 (p. 14-26).

• "The US-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism," written by a working group of academics and former government officials from the US and Russia (2011).

• "Al Qaeda's Bomb," by David Albright. Chapter 8 from his book "Peddling Peril" (March 2010).

• "The Bomb in the Backyard," by Peter D. Zimmerman and Jeffrey Lewis. Article published in Foreign Policy (October 2006 - a rather vivid account of a hypothetical yet conceivable nuclear terror plot).

• "Improvised Nuclear Devices and Nuclear Terrorism," by Charles Ferguson and William Potter. Study commissioned by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (2006).

Terrorism, Radioactive Materials, and "Dirty Bombs"

• "Dirty Bombs: The Threat Revisited," by Peter D. Zimmerman and Chery Loeb. Article published in Defense Horizons (January 2004).

• "Assessing Radiological Weapons: Attack Methods and Estimated Effects," by Charles D. Ferguson and Michelle M. Smith, published in Defense Against Terrorism Review (Fall 2009).

• "Mexico’s Stolen Radiation Source: It Could Happen Here" by Tom Bielefeld, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (23 Jan 2014). While this article deals primarily with the issue of sources security in the US, many of the problems described exist in Western Europe, too.

Terrorism and Nuclear Power Plants

• "Threats to Civil Nuclear Energy Facilities," by John Holdren. Paper (pp. 61-69) presented at the Indo-US-Workshop on Science and Technology to Counter Terrorism (2007).

• "Terrorism and Military Attacks on Nuclear Facilities," by Charles Ferguson. Section (pp. 23-29) of a report on the "Potential Strategic Consequences of the Nuclear Energy Revival" (2010).

• "Nuclear Safety and Security at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit," by Sharon Squassoni (paper written for the US-Korea Institute, March 2012).

• "Integrating Nuclear Safety and Security: Policy Recommendations," by Kenneth Luongo, Sharon Squassoni, and Joel Wit. Memo written for CSIS and the US-Korea Institute (December 2011).

• Drones: These two short articles from 2015 are useful as a quick introduction to the issue of drones in the context of nuclear security: “Drones at nuclear power plants: enemies or helpers?” by David Lochbaum and “Drones: Good News and Bad News for Nuclear Security”, by Matthew Bunn.

• Cyber: Two interesting reports from 2015 focus on the ever more important issue of protecting nuclear facilities from cyber-attacks: “Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks,” by Caroline Baylon, David Livingstone, and Roger Brunt and “Cyber Security at Nuclear Facilities: National Approaches,” sponsored by NTI and undertaken by the Institute for Security and Safety at the University of Brandenburg.

Websites

• The Nuclear Threat Initiative. (NTI provides a wealth of nuclear security-related information, including analysis and policy documents. Home of the new country-by-country "Nuclear Security Index" and of the report series on "Securing the Bomb", which assesses the state of fissile materials security and the progress made in international cooperative threat reduction efforts.)

• The Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

• (Articles, reports, and commentary on nuclear security and non-proliferation). The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM provides in-depth analysis on nuclear weapon and fissile material stockpiles and production as well as on initiatives for stockpile reduction.)

• "NukeMap," by Alex Wellerstein. Educational tool, involving Google Maps(TM), to illustrate the range of nuclear weapons effects (2012).

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