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Stopping Nuclear Terrorism

The Dangerous Allure of a Perfect Defense
By Michael Levi
January/February 2008
Article Summary and Author Biography

Nuclear terrorism poses a grave threat to global security, but seeking silver bullets to counter it does not make sense. Instead of pursuing a perfect defense, U.S. policymakers should create an integrated defensive system that takes advantage of the terrorists' weaknesses and disrupts their plots at every stage, thereby chipping away at their overall chances of success.

MICHAEL LEVI is Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of On Nuclear Terrorism.

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A successful nuclear attack by terrorists would be catastrophic. Intense fears of nuclear terrorism have led to a search for a perfect defense: destroying all terrorist groups that threaten the United States, sealing U.S. borders against loose nukes, or locking up all existing nuclear weapons and materials. Yet none of these strategies is a silver bullet. It is fantasy to believe that terrorism can be eliminated or that thousands of miles of U.S. borders -- not to mention the borders of U.S. allies -- can be sealed. Initiatives to secure nuclear weapons and materials are vital, but they will always fall short, too.

Rather than search for a perfect defense, which will never exist, counterterrorism strategists must use the many imperfect tools at their disposal to confront the many imperfect terrorist groups that they face. To pull off a nuclear attack, a group would need to acquire nuclear materials or a weapon, build a bomb or unlock an existing one, move that weapon to its target, and detonate it. Securing nuclear weapons and materials, although critical, confronts only one part of a plot and cannot eliminate the threat entirely. Strategists must build on this one defense to develop an integrated defensive system that also draws on border security, law enforcement, intelligence operations, military and diplomatic initiatives, and emergency response efforts. To do so properly, they must develop a more realistic picture of nuclear terrorism that draws on a careful understanding of how terrorist groups work and how their plots can fail.

FIGHTING A MIRAGE

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