When could terrorists launch an attack?

If terrorists bought or stole a nuclear weapon in good working condition, they could detonate it today. If the weapon had a lock, the date of detonation would be delayed for several days. If terrorists acquired the 100 pounds of HEU needed for an elementary nuclear bomb, they could have a working bomb in less than a year.

How could terrorists transport a nuclear weapon ?

Two plausible methods would be to “follow the golf clubs” or “follow the drugs.” Imagine a woman who lives in Tokyo, wants to play golf at Pebble Beach, and prefers to avoid the hassle of carrying her clubs through US customs. How would she get her clubs to the resort? She would call a freight forwarder, provide a plausible description of the contents of her shipment, and have her golf bag picked up at her home. The clubs would travel by ship from Tokyo to the Port of Oakland and then by truck to the golf course. The chance of anyone inspecting her bag between her house and the links is less than six percent.

If that seems too risky, terrorists might “follow the drugs,” tons of which find their way to US cities everyday. The illicit economy for narcotics and illegal immigrants has built a vast infrastructure that terrorists could exploit. As a former colleague of mine has noted, no one should doubt the ability of terrorists to bring a nuclear weapon to New York: they could simply hide it in a bale of marijuana, which we know comes to US cities everyday.

Lest this seem too hypothetical, reflect on an actual incident that occurred one month after 9/11. A CIA agent code-named Dragonfire reported that Al Qaeda had acquired a nuclear weapon produced by the former Soviet Union and had successfully smuggled it into New York City. Under a cloak of secrecy that excluded even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Teams were dispatched to hunt for the 10-kiloton bomb whose Hiroshima-sized blast could have obliterated a significant portion of Manhattan. Fortunately, Dragonfire’s report turned out to be a false alarm. But the takeaway truth is this: the US government had no grounds in science or logic to dismiss the warning.

The Erosion of the Nonproliferation Regime

In preparing for the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan established a panel of leading thinkers to assess global threats to the world’s more than six billion people. The Commission gave primacy of place to renewed nuclear danger, driven by the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the possibility of nuclear terrorist attacks, warning starkly that the nonproliferation regime has eroded to the point of “irreversibility” that could trigger a “cascade of proliferation.” How might such a catastrophic cascade occur? Simply by continuing the trends of the past decade.

North Korea’s nuclear test on October 9 announced the arrival of a “new nuclear age,” in the words of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Like a bolt of lightening that illuminates the landscape, this blast exposes deep fissures in the regime that has held back the nuclear tide for more than four decades. In essence, Kim Jong-Il has forced entry into the nuclear club, and his successful defiance will fuel further challenges to the international system and the global nuclear order.

North Korea has successfully defied not just its NPT commitment and the IAEA, but the United States, China, and the world. US intelligence analysts now estimate that North Korea has enough plutonium for eight to ten weapons. This includes two weapons worth that went missing in 1999; six bombs worth that had been frozen in warehouses under the 1994 Agreed Framework and constantly inspected by the IAEA until 2003 when North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; and two bombs worth of material in spent fuel unloaded in February 2006. The Yongbyon reactor, on standby for most of the 90’s, is now churning out enough plutonium for two more bombs a year. If, despite unambiguous warnings to North Korea, the United States and the world cannot roll back Pyongyang’s nuclear advances, the United States’ ability to deter the North from using a weapon will be in doubt.

The governments of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have so far reiterated their societies’ long-standing commitment to reject nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, my best bet is that over the decade ahead, both Japan and South Korea will arm themselves with nuclear weapons—undermining the security and stability that has been the foundation of East Asia’s extraordinary economic growth.

Meanwhile, Iran is testing the line in the Middle East. On its current trajectory, the Islamic Republic will become a nuclear weapons state before the end of the decade. According to the leadership in Tehran, Iran is exercising its “inalienable right” to build Iranian enrichment plants and make fuel for its peaceful civilian nuclear power generators. These same facilities, however, can continue enriching uranium to 90 percent U-235, which is the ideal core of a nuclear bomb. No one in the international community doubts that Iran’s hidden objective in building enrichment facilities is to build nuclear bombs. If Iran crosses its nuclear finish line, a Middle Eastern cascade of new nuclear weapons states could trigger the first multi-party nuclear arms race, far more volatile than the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Given Egypt’s historic role as the leader of the Arab Middle East, the prospects of it living unarmed alongside a nuclear Persia are very low. The IAEA’s reports of clandestine nuclear experiments hint that Cairo may have considered this possibility. Were Saudi Arabia to buy a dozen nuclear warheads that could be mated to the Chinese medium-range ballistic missiles it purchased secretly in the 1980s, few in the US intelligence community would be surprised. Given Saudi Arabia’s role as the major financier of Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear program in the 1980s, it is not out of the question that Riyadh and Islamabad have made secret arrangements for this contingency.

Such a multi-party nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be like playing Russian roulette—dramatically increasing the likelihood of a regional nuclear war. Other nightmare scenarios for the region include an accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch from Iran, theft of nuclear warheads from an unstable regime in Tehran, and possible Israeli preemption against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has implied, threatening, “Under no circumstances, and at no point, can Israel allow anyone with these kinds of malicious designs against us to have control of weapons of destruction that can threaten our existence.”