The Mushroom Cloud That Wasn't

At the height of the Cold War, almost no one was bold enough or foolish enough to predict the Soviet Union's collapse, let alone without the eruption of a nuclear exchange between the two superpowers. One of the few who prophesied its demise, George Kennan, was deeply worried about a nuclear cataclysm. Kennan, a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and the father of containment policy, warned repeatedly that unwise U.S. nuclear policies could lead to Armageddon. The Cold War is now history, but warnings of an impending nuclear catastrophe are still very much alive. Anxieties today stem not from the threat of a surprise Soviet missile attack but from the fear of Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and terrorist groups seeking to carry out catastrophic attacks against soft targets in the United States.

And yet, not a single death has occurred as a result of nuclear terrorism. Since 9/11, there have been more than 36,000 terrorist attacks, resulting in approximately 57,000 fatalities and 99,000 casualties. A terrible, mass-casualty attack using nuclear or biological weapons could occur at any time, and much more can be done to keep the United States safe. As the attacks that have occurred have repeatedly demonstrated, terrorists do not need weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to cause grievous harm; they can do so using hijacked airplanes, fertilizer, automatic weapons, and grenades.

But the situation is far from bleak. It is not easy for terrorist groups to acquire the skills and materials necessary to construct a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, Washington and Moscow have reduced their nuclear arsenals by 34,000 weapons over the past two decades, nuclear testing is now rare, the list of countries with worrisome nuclear programs is very short by historical standards, and the permanent members of the UN Security Council now have less to fight about -- and more reasons to cooperate in preventing worst-case scenarios from occurring -- than ever before.