Agreed points: a real threat, urgent action required
Ultimately, the differences Mike and I have been expressing are less important than the points where we agree. Fundamentally, we agree that nuclear terrorism is a real threat; that urgent steps are needed to reduce that threat; that improving currently inadequate security arrangements for nuclear weapons and materials around the world is the foundation of any sensible program to reduce the risk; and that there are also a wide range of other steps that should be taken to reduce the risk, which should be considered in the context of a total system.
Those points may seem basic – but if we could find ways to convince political leaders and nuclear managers around the world that they were true, we’d be able to forge a far more effective defense against nuclear terrorism. Today, a huge number of political leaders and nuclear managers around the world believe instead that (a) it would be virtually impossible for terrorists to make a bomb, (b) existing nuclear security arrangements are good enough, so there’s little need for further action, and (c) in any case it’s the Americans’ problem, not theirs, as it will likely be one of our cities that gets hit if nuclear terrorism ever happens. As long as they believe these things, they will not take the actions required to ensure that stringent security measures for all nuclear weapons and potential nuclear bomb materials are put in place and sustained for the long haul.
While Mike and I may differ in our assessments of the probability of terrorist success at various stages, we agree that the probability of nuclear terrorism is high enough to make points (a) and (b) wildly off the mark. Point (c) is almost equally far from the truth, for, as Kofi Annan pointed out while serving as UN Secretary General, the global impact of of a nuclear terrorist attack on any city “would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty,” creating “a second death toll throughout the developing world.” And if political leaders in foreign countries see American foreign policy since 9/11 as too aggressive, wait until they see how the United States would behave in the aftermath of a nuclear terrorist attack on a major American city.
So, Mike’s and my bottom lines are not very different, in the end – and are close enough to jointly confront the wildly wrong bottom lines that remain prevalent around the world. Mike’s book makes a significant contribution toward that end.
Who exactly are you talking about here? I have a hard time believing, for instance, that the Russians -- given the history of the Chechnya conflict, hostages taken and bombings in Moscow -- view this as "the Americans' problem."
Second, how exactly could terrorists MAKE a bomb without the help of a state given the sophisticated equipment required to handle the material, create weapons grade uranium, and then precision refine parts and explosives so that you get a proper implosion in the bomb?
Where in the world do you do all that without being noticed?
December 7, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me see if I can clear up some confusion. There is essentially zero chance that terrorists can make their own weapons-grade fissionable material, whether U-235 or Pu-239. It's going to have to be diverted.
For technical reasons, only implosion systems work with plutonium -- I'll explain if you like, but take this as fact for a moment. With adequately enriched uranium, however, you can make a gun-type bomb, which is much simpler from a manufacturing standpoint. There's no accident that the US test of a nuclear weapon, before the drop on Japan, was a plutonium implosion device, since it was uncertain if that would work or not.
The Hiroshima bomb was a uranium gun system; it's was a long cylinder rather than the more spherical Nagasaki bomb. "Little Boy", the Hiroshima bomb, was not efficient in its uranium use; it was a brute-force design with a total weight of 4000 kilograms. Still, if you aren't weight and volume limited, getting some fission explosion out of HEU is much easier than with Pu, although for first-generation designs, you will need a lot less Pu-239 than U-235. Little Boy used about six kilograms of plutonium, while "Fat Man", the Hiroshima bomb, used 64 kilograms of U-235. An advanced plutonium design probably uses less than 2 KG.
Still, brute force is possible with plutonium. The fact of any terrorist nuclear yield would be more important than its yield.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 7, 2007 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is dicey here is allowing that it is in fact an issue, without people running away with it as a dominant anti-terrorism effort. Anything that gets that designation reaps large budget priorities, read career-building.
Of course it has been an issue for a long time, and the GOP has not really been friendly to helping other states secure their materials or weapons, as in Nunn-Lugar or arms reduction talks. I guess I would be OK with it getting more profile, and sucking some of the air out of the goofier stuff like border fences and unregulated surveillance.
What worries me is a higher profile on this invites Cheney-style saber rattling against states that might, someday, just maybe, have a nuclear program that might lead to a working weapon.
December 7, 2007 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once one uses the word "terrorist" one has so slanted the discussion that it is impossible to restore balance.
Ever since the Russian anarchists people have been using variations of the "terrorist" theme to suppress movements by the people against non-democratic regimes.
If you mean that non-state actors will be able to detonate a nuclear weapon as a way to influence public opinion then you have a hard case to make (or anyone taking this position).
All example of such non-state actors that we have seen in the past have always been motivated by reforming conditions in their own society. That's why the vast majority of "terrorist" activities happen locally or are directed at the rulers under colonialism. That's what makes 9/11 so unusual. This is the first example where a group had the political sophistication to go after an indirect target to make a point.
What Bin Laden wants is to reform Saudi society. What the IRA wanted was to reform Irish society. What the factions in Iraq, Nigeria, Algeria, Spain, etc. want are to reform their own societies. Given this, of what value would a nuclear attack be?
Is ETA going to nuke Madrid?
Now if you want to talk about nuclear intimidation, then we are no longer talking about non-state actors. The biggest practitioner of nuclear intimidate is the US. First we had 40 years of saber rattling against the USSR. Lately we have been doing the same thing against Iran. Since this is a state actor the threat is credible. We have the means and it is outwardly directed. The objectives are also those of interest to a state: to eliminate a rival or turn a resistant state into a client as we are attempting to do in Iraq.
Who has been the biggest obstructionist when it comes to nuclear disarmament? The US.
"Terrorism" is just a euphemism for anti-Muslim geopolitics. We know it and so do they, which is why we have lost the battle over hearts and minds in the region.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
December 7, 2007 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cue eye roll.
Listen, I'm not saying that mindfully caring for nuclear material and technology is not important. It is as important as it's has always been...it HAS been important right? So the point regarding the security of these things strikes me as a great big duh. But the idea that it's a serious "terrorist" threat is simply too outrageously infinitesimally remote to irresponsibly scare people with it. This is the same kind of ghost story madness that led to our nation to invade Iraq. This is the general path from fantasy to reality -
1. Create a spooky story. (Don't hold back, nothing is too outrageous).
2. Gather some "experts" willing to play along.
3. Have some of those experts tell the spooky story.
4. It's now considered a real spooky story.
5. Get on some TV shows and websites with this spooky story and scare people to death with it.
6. Use the spooky story and terrified population to justify spending obscene amounts of money and in order to justify doing TRULY spooky things in order to "defend against it".
Isn't that what occurred before Iraq? Weren't there a gaggle or two of "experts" that bought into the ridiculousness of the "Iraq Threat" and said almost verbatim "Agreed points: a real threat, urgent action required"? At that point didn't our country listen to them and do some incredibly stupid and expensive things? That's how I remember it.
If our (and the international community's) nuclear safety protocols are deficient then by all means shout about it and demand they be upgraded. And one of the important questions to then be asked and answered is why were they so deficient? Get some heads onto some chopping blocks and hold them accountable for gross negligence. But to even whisper "terrorists" while doing this is not only disingenuous and dangerous but in my mind it borders on criminally irresponsible. I'm still unimpressed by the entire argument involving hyper expensive and complex weapons getting into the hands of "terrorists". Most nations could not afford a nuclear program let alone a terrorist organization. And what "terrorist" organizations by the way? al-Queda? All other other far less well funded or prepared groups that we call "al-Queda linked" in order to more effectively scare the bejezus out of people and have them thinking that "terrorists" are literally crawling out of the woodwork? And if there were some for sale somewhere I'm wondering how much they would cost. What's the sticker prices for a nuke anyways? I'm guessing rather high. I believe this entire angle is largely hysteria. Whether it's intentional or not remains to be seen.
In the meantime our nation's capital is literally drowning in scandal. We can't seem to figure out how to run a fair and legitimate election. Millions of people are loosing their homes and 4-5 times that many can't afford a broken arm. Our nation is being led by a proven liar and an administration that nearly all could be convicted of high crimes right now if were weren't so damned lazy and so easily distracted. We're killing our country (and theirs) every day we stay in Iraq. Yes, this nuclear terrorist thing is surely good enough to distract us from all of those things which are less "a real threat" and which do not require "urgent action".
Howard, you've always seemed to be both level-headed and rather informed regarding nuclear weapons. Am I taking it too lightly? I certainly don't feel that I am. And watching the circular back-patting that's been going on regarding this "threat" hasn't altered my feelings about my position very much. In fact it's steeling my resolve on the matter.
December 7, 2007 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me answer indirectly. Assume I am Osama bin Ary, leader of the sinister al-Gebra movement. What is my goal? To cause the most disruption and unpredictability in the US as a whole, or to have the most spectacular single event?
I submit that to acccomplish the first, I would begin by exploiting the open society, and next concentrate on vulnerable but visible critical infrastructure. During the "Beltway sniper" period, I lived in the DC suburbs, and routinely parked in the Falls Church Home Depot parking lot, where one of the victims was killed. My own theory is that given the attacks were all outside, separated by days, and more of a classic sniper attack -- hit one target and disappear -- they did not have the impact that, for example, a few shoot-up-the-inside-of-a-mall attack would have. Those wouldn't even necessarily be suicide attacks.
Without getting too specific, what would be the effect of multiple simultaneous failures of transmission, electrical power, or both, right at kickoff of the Super Bowl, in a way that clearly meant simultaneous and widely separated events?
Now, think of major disasters. Chernobyl is probably the worst industrial accident, but we forget about a close second: Bhopal. While I'm sure that once the White House discovers some apparently competent people are involved in improving safety in the chemical industry, it's still a major target.
Full nuclear weapons, of the major powers, have what are called Permissive Action Links. Early ones did not, but weapons also have a shelf life. Think of a PAL as an electronic combination lock, inside the guts of the bomb, so you'd have to tear the bomb apart to get to it -- and ruin all the precise machining. There may be multiple codes to arm the bomb, and at least one is not accessible to the weapons crew. It has to come from outside.
Yes, if there were a substantial amount of diverted bomb-grade plutonium or uranium available to terrorists, and they weren't concerned with having something small enough to fit into a car, they could probably make something.
I can remember things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, where things were closer to a general war than was known at the time. It was 1990, IIRC, when the fUSSR revealed that the Soviet commander in Cuba had five tactical weapons, and delegated authority to use them against amphibious landings.
A small number of bombs, in the range possible to improvised devices, is certainly going to terrorize, but it's not going to bring down civilization. Personally, I'd use other techniques if I wanted to run widespread terror against the US.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 7, 2007 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your response Howard. And if I'm reading your 'indirectly' response correctly, what you are basically saying is that anything is possible. But, why would anyone try to jump over the moon in order to step up onto a curb.
I think that's what your point was and if so I agree. I'm just tired of this 'expert' think-tank culture who generate more fear & hot air than anything else. All the while the serious & obvious problems get no attention whatsoever. At least they could be 'green' about it all & stand in front of a wind farm in order to contribute something worthwhile to society in general.
I'm a person who believes in honesty, hard work, humility & common sense. If just 25% of Washington did likewise we'd likely not be in a fraction of the messes we're in. And BTW, I'm far from perfect and only have questionable promise for the years I have left, just ask anyone who knows me!
December 7, 2007 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
In computer marketing, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) has been around for decades. It's been ramped up politically, in such things as declaring war on a tactic (terror), to missile defense dumping billions into the least likely threat and ignoring things like Israel stopping joint and its own defenses against light rockets, to "security theater" to be seen Doing Something (TM).
Let's put it this way -- I probably first started looking at actual military planning documents relating to guerilla warfare 40 years ago. There is much FUD being put into things that aren't significant threats (e.g., long-range ballistic missiles) when the electrical power grid and other critical national infrastructure are creaking louder and louder. Some of the electrical power vulnerability is due to unexpected consequences of deregulation, but it's no less real.
There are people in Washington and elsewhere that understand real threats, but don't fit with the current political style.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 8, 2007 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know where to start here, and I don't know how to make sure I cover the critical points I want to make, but I'll try and paint a bit of a picture here. I'm one of the experts that you so disdain, here, and, on the spectrum of thought, I fall to the side where I don't think nuclear terrorism deserves the volume of press it gets (I will always defer to Matt on the facts, he really does know them better than anyone, I just draw different conclusions), but I think it is a real (i.e. probability greater than zero) problem. Its just that I view the problem as a link chain, and, if you break any link, the chain falls apart, unless and until you build a workaround. In nuclear terrorism, the weak link is access to weapons-usable fissile material. If you can keep that away from terrorists, you've made the rest of your problem so much more manageable. Problem is that there is lots of this stuff out there, in countries other than the United States, and in countries where the "nuclear protocols" are not what we would like to see.
This is not a ghost story. When U.S. officials first went to facilities where Russia stores nuclear materials (not full-up warheads, those are far less of a concern), they were shocked to see the poor or non-existent conditions of perimeter fencing, locks, alarms, accounting systems, etc. We jumped right in and helped, but we haven't yet gotten to all the facilities where Russia stores the stuff. There were several reasons for Russia's lack of security. The first and foremost, during the 1990s, was a lack of money. The second was that the Soviet Union had organized against and external threat (give the guards side-arms), but not an internal threat (what happens if the guards steal the stuff or try to sell it?) and they were going very low-tech and high on the people-factor in their accounting systems. But people can be unrealiable when they don't have food for their families and their paychecks are years overdue.
Also, Russia is not the only source of the materials. Consider Pakistan. We know that Pakistani nuclear scientists met with Al Queda leaders before 9/11. We know that the chief Pakistani nuclear scientists sold his knowledge to all-comers. We don't know much of anything about Pakistani controls over its nuclear materials.
So, there is a real threat, and there are real things we can do to reduce the threat, even if the use of the word "terrorism" has hyped the threat in the name of expanding the budget (this is my personal pet peeve, as I watch CTR funding diverted to "nuclear terrorism" programs).
December 8, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
We are in agreement, I think, that the greatest hazard is the diversion of fissionable materials, which could be assembled into a bomb that is neither small nor light, but would fit into a truck or good-sized boat. US, UK, Russian, and French (I would hope other countries as well) assembled devices probably have permissive action link (PAL) and related protective measures (e.g., the one-point-safe criterion, acclerometers on bombs intended to be dropped) that it is unlikely someone could set off a stolen warhead without significant outside help.
I have seen nothing in the open literature that addressed the inherent safety of Chinese, Indian, Israeli, or Pakistani devices. South Africa seems to have stored critical components in different locations, such that you could not get a working device without cooperation at not less than two places. There have been some speculation that Pakistan and Israel also store their devices as components rather than operationally ready devices. As much as gut opinion is a bad thing to trust, I tend to think China and India also would put some effort into safeguards.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 8, 2007 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we are not far from being in agreement, and 'expert' status aside I think we both say somewhat similar things. I'm just a tad more skeptical of my government and the ever growing population of experts that it seems to be using to prop up it's deepening madness, arrogance and greed.
Firstly I'd like to say that I do not have scorn for all experts. Far from it, I acknowledge & I'm greatful for the amount of time & level of knowledge they put towards a particular field or topic. My problem is that there are so very many bad ones, or worse irresponsible ones. Wielding knowledge is much like wielding a gun - don't point it at someone unless you mean to shoot them. And if you do, you had damn well be ready to explain why you shot them...and you'd better be convincing & right.
Secondly, I agree (as I said in my post here) that getting nuclar technology & materials under responsible controls/lock & key is very important. Who could rationally argue that? But when a person or persons starts to venture into the murky & far too often abused world of "terrorism", well then I have a problem. How many programs were expanded or created from thin air after 9-11? Their rationale for spending untracked millions & billions of dollars was to detect or thwart a terrorist attack. The reality is that they were ill concieved at best or as appears far more likely nauseating examples of opportunistic greed. I generally believe that it's better to do nothing at all than it is to do a lot if things that mean or do nothing at all. The systemic corruption & malfunction of our governent and the growing hopelessness of the average American needs far more attention and far sooner than any incredibly remote yet technically possible nuclear terrorist attack. If we could fix us I might have some degree of faith that we could fix the world at large or at least deal with the myriad of problems & dangers within it.
I look at it this way - how can the crop of politicians, and the government that they've bastardized to a point that the framers would have a hard time recognizing it, be entrusted to deal with this if indeed it is as pressing a "threat" as all that? We trust them & their experts? They haven't been able to effectively nor correctly predict or deal with anything that I've yet seen. All they've managed do is scare people & spend money we don't have on things we don't need or that simply don't work. I wouldn't let them valet park my car nor believe them if they said it would be sunny this week. I'd street park & carry an umbrella everyday & that's a fact. And they've made far too handy a use of "experts" (with the help of the aid of the criminally negligent media) to lie to us regarding similar "threats" in the past for me to simply conceed to them blind faith. Hell, even AFTER Katrina, not only was our government & it's "experts" response ridiculously inadequate and late, look at the Army Corps of Engineers "repair" job (the Army Corp qualifies as experts here do they not?) Safe to 6 feet! They said... (whisper months later - oops, we meant 6 inches...sorry 'bout that). Right. And how much did you spend & who did your math? Fantastic. I'll sleep better tonight knowing my government & it's "experts" are on the job.
December 8, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"How many programs were expanded or created from thin air after 9-11? Their rationale for spending untracked millions & billions of dollars was to detect or thwart a terrorist attack."
Actually, this is not a good definition of the problem, as there really weren't many programs created from thin air after 9/11 to deal with the problem of "nuclear terrorism." From my perspective, the biggest problem with spending on nuclear terrorism, is that it has diverted money and attention from the basic programs to secure nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union. We were spending about $1 billion per year on these before 9/11, we are spending about $1 billion per year on them now, and a small but growing portion of the money is moving away from programs that are designed to secure weapons and materials at the source and towards programs that are designed to protect borders and transit routes (true of DOE and State programs, not so much DOD programs.) The problem is that the budget has not grown, and nuclear terrorism has been used as the excuse to shift the funds. This is essentially the source of the debate between Mike and Matt, is this a cost-effective shift or not. There's also the question of whether the entire budget be made larger. Now, most of the NGOs working this issue agree that the budget should be made larger, but there is a lot less agreement on where to put the added money.
But its not fair to say that billion dollar programs have been created on the excuse of nuclear terrorism -- the reverse is true, nuclear terrorism has been used as a rhetorical explanation for programs that existed, for other good reasons, before 9/11, and this rhetoric matters because the money has started to shift in response.
December 9, 2007 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I should have been clearer. I wasn't narrowly referring to nuclear terrorism programs but all of them generally (even though this discussion has been specifically about this nuclear "threat").
I did this because it offers us a chance to see where chasing the "terrorist" angle has taken us more often than not - enormous amounts of money spent on many ill defined & ill managed programs that ultimately have accomplished very little save needlessly scaring people & costing us more money. But perhaps the most damaging thing that all this waste and rhetoric has done has been to generate a false sense of security. People think that well designed systems are in place & working. But wait until the next inccident. The politicians & their "experts" will come out of the woodwork with even more draconian measures and demanding even more money. The fact that they did nothing productive or effective with the previous money will be twisted into "we were underfunded" or "we didn't go far enough". It's dangerous & irresponsible.
Certainly it isn't a promising sign that this new department of homeland security (a name I detest btw) has already been sited for questionable: leadership, accounting and political exploitation. Why in the world would we want to open an even bigger door for corruption, manipulation & exploitation to enter this dangerous field by using this whole "terrorist" slant? It feels to me to be an avoidable mistake. Let's talk nuclear safety, responsibility and accountability. But let's leave the charged & oft exploited word "terrorist" out of it.
December 9, 2007 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
So Kofi Annan bought into the "war on terror", so what? He's a discard of history. The proposition that "terrorism is clearly one of the major threats that we face in this century" is utter hogwash. The American public is much more at risk from cancer, heart disease, auto accidents and diabetes, mostly due to poor lifestyle and environmental factors.
The idea that the global impact of a nuclear terrorist attack on any city “would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty” is also baloney. The devastation of New Orleans, for example, didn't seem to affect anyone except the poor people of New Orleans and the people making money off the disaster. The attack against any US city would unleash another profitable war, no doubt, which would increase US GDP as did the current one. It wouldn't stagger the US economy but boost it, like any other disaster but greater because of the revenge factor.
So your "bottom lines" are wrong. No "urgent action required". Go scare someone else. (But I live way out in the desert, just in case.)
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
December 7, 2007 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it were remotely probable that a group could obtain several nuclear warheads, and could arrange some way to bring them into several US cities, and could detonate those warheads, then this would be a major threat to our country and certainly to our economy. But, it isn't remotely probable, so there is no such threat.
The world has had terrorist activity at least as long as I have been alive - about 72 years. I suspect my grandchildren will be able to say the same when they reach my age.
Nuclear explosives are not like TNT or plastique explosives, and they never will be. My guess is that nuclear explosions will remain something done by nations and not terrorists for the next many years.
Hoppy in Sacramento
December 7, 2007 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd say extremely unlikely but not never. If groups wanted to wage terror, there are simpler means. Timothy McVeigh hardly had to smuggle things into the country, and his bomb was not overly sophisticated.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 7, 2007 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink