Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism: WMD Threats Explained

Introduction: WMDs and the Terrorist Threat

In 1945, the United States brought a definitive end to World War II when it used two atomic bombs on Japan, forcing their surrender. At that moment, the entire world learned of the terrible potential of weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, as major nations have backed away from such weapons, terrorist organizations have sought to acquire them. Worse, technological advances have made it possible for these devices to be constructed on a small enough scale that they could feasibly be smuggled anywhere in the world.

We have already seen isolated use of such weapons. Terrorists released the nerve agent Sarin into a Tokyo subway, anthrax was used in the United States through the postal service as a delivery method, and al-Qaeda killed thousands in 2001 by flying fuel-laden passenger planes into buildings (Quillen, 2002). The last event in particular demonstrated that some groups seek to leave a massive mark through their terrorist activities, making the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in their hands very real.

Nuclear Weapons vs. Dirty Bombs

One of the greatest concerns of those charged with protecting the public from terrorist attacks involves nuclear and radiological devices. The word "nuclear" immediately instills fear because what most people know of nuclear weapons is the kind of wide-scale obliteration that occurred in Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II. However, there are two kinds of nuclear weapons terrorists might use, and one threat is considerably more realistic than the other.

Nuclear weapons are strategic armaments built by nations for offensive and defensive purposes. They are relatively difficult to build and to deploy, and most countries keep careful track of them, making them hard for terrorist organizations to acquire or use effectively. A second kind of nuclear device has been called a "dirty bomb," but is more formally known as a radiological dispersion device, or RDD. One of the biggest risk factors associated with RDDs is that they can be constructed from nuclear waste materials, which are far less carefully controlled than nuclear weapons. They can be detonated using conventional explosives such as dynamite (Litman, 2003). While they would not have tremendous destructive power, they could contaminate areas with radioactivity. Their capacity for inflicting terror, as well as radiation sickness in a localized area, makes them of great concern to governments worldwide.

Post-Soviet Nuclear Material Instability

Major political changes in some countries over the past several decades have compounded these concerns. With the breakup of the U.S.S.R., the resulting independent states have demonstrated some lack of ability to track their nuclear materials. Individuals have seen opportunities to sell nuclear materials on the black market, and it is quite possible that both weapons and raw materials needed to make atomic and RDD weapons have been surreptitiously sold — likely to countries and organizations antagonistic to the United States.

Among the countries that once made up the U.S.S.R., up to 650 tons of nuclear material is stored in scattered locations. Experts estimate that it would take only 8 kilograms of plutonium and 15–25 kilograms of enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb capable of inflicting great damage (Lee, 2003). However, this is still a large amount of material. Transporting such a bomb and successfully detonating it would be highly problematic for a small organization. The more realistic risk from terrorists remains the dirty bomb, which would do less physical damage but could have serious environmental effects in the area near detonation.