The first large-scale effort to secure nuclear weapons and radioactive material from rogue countries and terrorists was triggered by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fear of loose nukes turning up stolen or for sale on dangerous black-markets. The second prompt was 9/11, when the world perceived the massive threat of suit-case bombs in the hands of al-Qaida and like-minded fanatics. Yet there still remains no uniform international mechanism or ratified treaty to secure nuclear material that could be used to build dirty nuclear bombs. If President Obama can gain traction in the Nuclear Security Summit he is presently sponsoring in Washington among 47 key countries, it would be a huge step forward.
The threat is abundantly clear. Global stockpiles of potent nuclear material, from enriched uranium to weapons-grade plutonium, are estimated to be enough to build more than 100,000 nuclear bombs. Moreover, new weapons-grade nuclear material is being produced every day.
Pakistan, for example, is presently building two new reactors for making weapons-grade plutonium. It’s also building a reprocessing plant that can extract plutonium from used reactor fuel. Though Pakistani officials say they are capable of securing their nuclear fuel, the world has good cause to fear that’s not so.
The country is presently fighting the Taliban on two fronts, and al-Qaida as well. It’s also focused on the threat it perceives from India, which itself has become a nuclear power since their prior two wars. With its history as the source of the world’s largest black market in nuclear technology, and its intelligence service’s empathy toward the Taliban, the risk that nuclear bomb material could turn up in the hands of extremists is frightening.
There are also nuclear threats from North Korea, Iran and Syria — none of which were invited to the Nuclear Security Summit. It’s no wonder that President Obama on Sunday said the possibility of a terrorist group obtaining material for a nuclear bomb represented “the single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term.”