Editing Nuclear terrorism (section)

==Policy landscape==

===Recovery===
The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR), which is also known as the [[Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction]], is a 1992 law sponsored by Senators [[Sam Nunn]] and [[Richard Lugar]]. The CTR established a program that gave the [[United States Department of Defense|U.S. Department of Defense]] a direct stake in securing loose fissile material inside the since-dissolved [[Soviet Union]]. According to [[Graham Allison]], director of [[Harvard University]]'s [[Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs]], this law is a major reason why not a single nuclear weapon has been discovered outside the control of Russia's nuclear custodians.<ref>{{cite news|last=Allison|first=Graham|title=Washington Can Work: Celebrating Twenty Years With Zero Nuclear Terrorism|url=http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/21644/washington_can_work.html|access-date=July 26, 2012|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=December 29, 2011|archive-date=July 5, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120705215638/http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/21644/washington_can_work.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Belfer Center is itself running the ''Project on Managing the Atom,''  [[Matthew Bunn]] is a co-principal investigator of the project,  Martin B. Malin is its executive director (circa. 2014).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/project/3/managing_the_atom.html|title=Managing the Atom - Harvard - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs|access-date=2015-08-09|archive-date=2007-12-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071228020232/http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/project/3/managing_the_atom.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In August 2002, the [[United States]] launched a program to track and secure [[enriched uranium]] from 24 [[Soviet Union|Soviet]]-style reactors in 16 countries, in order to reduce the risk of the materials falling into the hands of terrorists or "[[rogue state]]s". The first such operation was ''[[Project Vinca]]'', "a multinational, public-private effort to remove nuclear material from a poorly-secured [[Vinca Nuclear Institute|Yugoslav research institute]]." The project has been hailed as "a nonproliferation success story" with the "potential to inform broader 'global cleanout' efforts to address one of the weakest links in the nuclear nonproliferation chain: insufficiently secured civilian nuclear research facilities."<ref>Philipp C. Bleek, "Project Vinca: Lessons for Securing Civil Nuclear Material Stockpiles," ''The Nonproliferation Review'' (Fall-Winter 2003) p. 1.</ref>

In 2004, the U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) was established in order to consolidate nuclear stockpiles of [[highly enriched uranium]] (HEU), [[plutonium]], and assemble nuclear weapons at fewer locations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Consolidation_Thwarting_Nuclear_Theft_corrected.pdf|title=Consolidation: Thwarting Nuclear Theft|year=2012|publisher=Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University|access-date=July 26, 2012|author1=Bunn, Matthew|author2=Eben Harrell|name-list-style=amp|archive-date=July 5, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120705001717/http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Consolidation_Thwarting_Nuclear_Theft_corrected.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Additionally, the GTRI converted HEU fuels to [[low-enriched uranium]] (LEU) fuels, which has prevented their use in making a nuclear bomb within a short amount of time. HEU that has not been converted to LEU has been shipped back to secure sites, while amplified security measures have taken hold around vulnerable nuclear facilities.<ref>{{cite news|last=Wier|first=Anthony and Matthew Bunn|title=Bombs That Won't Go Off|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111701591.html|access-date=July 26, 2012|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=November 19, 2006|archive-date=July 17, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160717022945/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111701591.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Options===
[[Robert Gallucci]], President of the [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]], argues that traditional deterrence is not an effective approach toward terrorist groups bent on causing a nuclear catastrophe.<ref name="Gallucci pp. 51–58">{{cite journal|last=Gallucci|first=Robert|title=Averting Nuclear Catastrophe: Contemplating Extreme Responses to U.S. Vulnerability|journal=Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science|date=September 2006|volume= 607|pages=51–58|doi=10.1177/0002716206290457|s2cid=68857650}}</ref>  [[Henry Kissinger]], stating the wide availability of nuclear weapons makes deterrence “decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous.”<ref>{{cite news|last=Kissinger|first=Henry|title=Toward a Nuclear-Free World|url=http://www.nti.org/analysis/opinions/toward-nuclear-free-world/|access-date=28 January 2013|newspaper=NTI|date=15 January 2008|archive-date=12 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512194633/http://www.nti.org/analysis/opinions/toward-nuclear-free-world/|url-status=live}}</ref> Preventive strategies, which advocate the elimination of an enemy before it is able to mount an attack, are risky and controversial, therefore difficult to implement. Gallucci believes that “the United States should instead consider a policy of expanded deterrence, which focuses not on the would-be nuclear terrorists but on those states that may deliberately transfer or inadvertently lead nuclear weapons and materials to them. By threatening retaliation against those states, the United States may be able to deter that which it cannot physically prevent.”.<ref name="Gallucci pp. 51–58"/>

[[Graham Allison]] makes a similar case, arguing that the key to expanded deterrence is coming up with ways of tracing nuclear material to the country that forged the fissile material. “After a nuclear bomb detonates, nuclear forensic cops would collect debris samples and send them to a laboratory for radiological analysis. By identifying unique attributes of the fissile material, including its impurities and contaminants, one could trace the path back to its origin.”<ref name="Allison">{{cite news|last=Allison|first=Graham|title=How to Keep the Bomb From Terrorists|url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/03/13/how-to-keep-the-bomb-from-terrorists.html|access-date=28 January 2013|newspaper=Newsweek|date=13 March 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513111324/http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/03/13/how-to-keep-the-bomb-from-terrorists.html|archive-date=13 May 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> The process is analogous to identifying a criminal by fingerprints. “The goal would be twofold: first, to deter leaders of nuclear states from selling weapons to terrorists by holding them accountable for any use of their own weapons; second, to give every leader the incentive to tightly secure their nuclear weapons and materials.”<ref name="Allison"/>

===Nuclear skeptics===
[[John Mueller]], a scholar of international relations at the [[Ohio State University]], is a prominent nuclear skeptic. He makes three claims: (1) the nuclear intent and capability of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda has been “fundamentally exaggerated;” (2) “the likelihood a terrorist group will come up with an atomic bomb seems to be vanishingly small;” and (3) policymakers are guilty of an “atomic obsession” that has led to “substantively counterproductive” policies premised on “worst case fantasies.”<ref name="Mueller presentation">{{cite book|last=Mueller|first=John|title=The Atomic Terrorist: Assessing the Likelihood, prepared for presentation at the Program on International Security Policy|date=15 January 2008|location=University of Chicago|url=http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller//apsachgo.pdf|access-date=28 January 2013|archive-date=16 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130516012622/http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller//apsachgo.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> In his book ''Atomic Obsession'': ''Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda''  he argues that: "anxieties about terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons are essentially baseless: a host of practical and organizational difficulties make their likelihood of success almost vanishingly small".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/?view=usa&ci=9780195381368|title=Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|accessdate=Oct 9, 2022|archive-date=December 7, 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031207002933/http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/?view=usa&ci=9780195381368|url-status=live}}</ref>

Intelligence officials have pushed back, testifying before Congress that the inability to recognize the shifting modus operandi of terrorist groups was part of the reason why members of [[Aum Shinrikyo]], for example, were “not on anybody’s radar screen.”<ref name="Graham Allison Nuclear Terrorism">{{cite book|last=Allison|first=Graham|title=Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe|year=2004|publisher=Macmillan|location=New York|isbn=9781429945516|page=15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s9qoSQx-UuoC}}</ref> Matthew Bunn, associate professor at [[Harvard University]]'s [[John F. Kennedy School of Government]], argues that “Theft of [[Enriched uranium|HEU]] and plutonium is not a hypothetical worry, it is an ongoing reality."<ref name="Bunn Secure">{{cite web|last=Bunn|first=Matthew|title=Securing the Bomb 2010: Securing All Nuclear Materials in Four Years|url=http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/Securing_The_Bomb_2010.pdf?_=1317159794|publisher=President and Fellows of Harvard College|access-date=28 January 2013|archive-date=12 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512210047/http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/Securing_The_Bomb_2010.pdf?_=1317159794|url-status=live}}</ref> Almost all of the stolen HEU and plutonium that has been seized over the years had never been missed before it was seized. The IAEA Illicit Nuclear Trafficking Database notes 1,266 incidents reported by 99 countries over the last 12 years, including 18 incidents involving HEU or plutonium trafficking.<ref name="Bunn Secure" />

Keir Lieber and Daryl Press argue that despite the prominent U.S. focus on nuclear terrorism, "the fear of terrorist transfer [of nuclear weapons] seems greatly exaggerated... [and] the dangers of a state giving nuclear weapons to terrorists have been overstated." A decade of terrorism statistics  show a strong correlation between attack fatalities and the attribution of the attack, and Lieber and Press assert that "neither a terror group nor a state sponsor would remain anonymous after a nuclear terror attack." About 75 percent of attacks with 100 or more fatalities were traced to the culprits; also, 97 percent of attacks on U.S. soil or that of a major ally (resulting in 10 or more deaths) were attributed to the guilty party. Lieber and Press conclude that the lack of anonymity would deter a state from providing terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Lieber|first1=Keir|last2=Press|first2=Daryl|title=Why States Won't Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists|journal=International Security|date=Summer 2013|volume=38|pages=80–84, 104|issue=1|doi=10.1162/isec_a_00127|s2cid=10608058|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The use of HEU and plutonium in satellites has raised the concern that a sufficiently motivated rogue state could retrieve materials from a satellite crash (notably on land as occurred with [[Kosmos 954|Kosmos-954]], [[Mars 96|Mars-96]] and [[Fobos-Grunt]]) and then use these to supplement the yield of an already working nuclear device. This has been discussed recently in the UN and the [[Nuclear Emergency Search Team]] regularly consults with [[Roscosmos]] and [[NASA]] about satellite re-entries that may have contained such materials. As yet no parts were verifiably recovered from Mars 96 but recent [[WikiLeaks]] releases suggest that one of the "cells" may have been recovered by mountain climbers in Chile.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}

===Security summits===
On April 12–13, 2010, President of the United States [[Barack Obama]] initiated and hosted the first-ever nuclear security summit in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington D.C.]], commonly known as the Washington [[Nuclear Security Summit]]. The goal was to strengthen international cooperation to prevent nuclear terrorism. President Obama, along with nearly fifty world leaders, discussed the threat of nuclear terrorism, what steps needed to be taken to mitigate illicit nuclear trafficking, and how to secure nuclear material. The Summit was successful in that it produced a consensus delineating nuclear terrorism as a serious threat to all nations. Finally, the Summit produced over four-dozen specific actions embodied in commitments by individual countries and the Joint Work Plan.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/TobeyPAB611.pdf|title=Planning for Success at the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit|year=2011|publisher=The Stanley Foundation|access-date=July 26, 2012|author=Tobey, William|archive-date=May 12, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512103010/http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/TobeyPAB611.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> However, world leaders at the Summit failed to agree on baseline protections for weapons-usable material, and no agreement was reached on ending the use of [[highly enriched uranium]] (HEU) in civil nuclear functions. Many of the shortcomings of the Washington Nuclear Security Summit were addressed at the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit in March 2012, including a focus on nuclear detection.<ref>{{Cite web |title=2012 Nuclear Security Summit {{!}} Homeland Security |url=https://www.dhs.gov/archive/2012-nuclear-security-summit |access-date=2024-09-29 |website=www.dhs.gov |language=en}}</ref>

According to [[Graham Allison]], director of [[Harvard University]]’s [[Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs]], the objectives of the Nuclear Security Summit in [[Seoul]] are to continue to, “assess the progress made since the Washington Summit and propose additional cooperation measures to (1) Combat the threat of nuclear terrorism, (2) protect nuclear materials and related facilities, and (3) prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear materials."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nuclearsummit.org/files/QAFINALVersion.pdf|title=2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit Q&A with Professor Graham Allison|year=2012|publisher=Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University|access-date=July 26, 2012|archive-date=April 2, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402135223/http://www.nuclearsummit.org/files/QAFINALVersion.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>