Nuclear Terrorism vs. Nuclear Terror: Threat Assessment

Introduction: Fear of the Nuclear Threat

In academic, military, and civilian discussions about terrorism, nothing strikes fear and dread into the hearts and minds of participants quite like the thought of a small, splinter group purchasing and delivering a nuclear weapon. While many experts regard this as an unlikely scenario — primarily due to the complexity required to deliver such a weapon, and partly due to the notion that the harsh reprisals following any such attack would do very little to regain territory in disputed areas — the fear itself remains a powerful force (Maurer, 2009).

During the 1950s and 1960s, America feared a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union above almost all else. Many middle-class Americans built bomb shelters, students were trained in the "duck and cover" method of civil defense, and popular culture reflected this pervasive Cold War paradigm of fear. The literature on the subject, however, shows a great deal of material pointing to the ongoing promulgation of nuclear terrorism as a theme. Scenarios from Tom Clancy novels, motion pictures, and even the dated James Bond film Thunderball abound, but do not begin to convey either the complexity or the reality of acquiring nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. In the public mind, the situation is already settled — terrorists have gone nuclear, and it is merely a matter of time.

Nuclear Terrorism vs. Nuclear Terror

One must make a clear distinction between nuclear terrorism and nuclear terror, because they are fundamentally different concepts. Nuclear terrorism concerns the acquisition and use of a nuclear device against a population group or structure. Nuclear terror, by contrast, is about imagination — about fear, about what might happen — and thus causes panic and dread within the general population without any device ever being deployed. Some analysts believe that exploiting this distinction is quite strategically successful for terrorist organizations, in that it pulls highly trained and badly needed resources away from tactical activities and into expensive equipment, staffing, and planning sessions devoted to something that may never materialize.

In a sense, this most powerful tool for enlisting terror — shaped by myth and religious belief — is also a fixture of popular culture, appearing in films, tabloid journalism, and suspense novels. As the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, who understood better than most what it meant to frighten people, once observed: "The terror is not in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." It goes without saying that if terrorists actually detonated a nuclear device there would be devastating terror — but that terror was already present, long before any explosion, in the form of nuclear terrorism's psychological shadow.

The Post-Cold War Nuclear Black Market

One of the most frequently debated scenarios about terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons focuses on the period following the end of the Cold War, during which both the United States and the former Soviet Union embarked on ambitious programs of nuclear disarmament. While there has been no confirmed diversion or theft of nuclear weapons, or of fissile material in quantities large enough to construct a nuclear device, the instability in the former Soviet republics and the lack of strict control from Moscow seriously eroded confidence that all such materials remained beyond a terrorist's reach. Speaking before Congress, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency warned, "The chilling reality is that nuclear materials and technologies are more accessible now than at any time in history" (Kushner, 234).

One of the most thorough reviews of the potential for a viable nuclear black market was carried out by the Nuclear Black Market Task Force, one of many groups comprising the Global Organized Crime Project. The task force concluded that the probability of a theft of a nuclear weapon or bomb-quality weapons-grade materials from the former Soviet republics was growing, but that by the end of the 1990s — even using sting operations — there was no credible threat. The group admitted that it "could not point to the involvement in nuclear materials trafficking of large organized crime groups with established structures and international connections," and that "there is no consensus among authorities about whether international crime groups will ever engage in nuclear smuggling," since the potential losses to their own criminal enterprises would be too great (GOCP, 1996, 17). Furthermore, although such a market would not be as overt or common as conventional illegal arms dealing, there would be few sellers, few buyers, and a great deal of risk — making it difficult for international intelligence agencies to track, infiltrate, and confirm, but also making successful execution considerably less likely (Bunn, 2006).

The Dragonfire Incident and Psychological Impact

In the days following the World Trade Center attacks, CIA Director George Tenet informed President George W. Bush that an agent code-named Dragonfire had reported that al-Qaeda operatives had managed to secure a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb, stolen from the Chechen region of Russia. Dragonfire indicated that the weapon was somewhere in New York City. The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report but decided it would not be prudent to dismiss such a notification. Question after question led the CIA to backtrack through each step of the supposed operation.

Did the Russian arsenal near Chechnya include a large number of ten-kiloton weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government, with complete certainty, confirm and account for all nuclear weapons on its books during the preceding two decades? No. Could al-Qaeda have acquired one or more of these weapons? Yes. Could a nuclear weapon have been smuggled through American border controls into New York without alerting any law enforcement agency? Yes. And, unlike the Cold War years — when the United States and the USSR both understood that an attack on either side would almost certainly produce a powerful retaliatory response — al-Qaeda had no location to retaliate against. Even if President Bush had wanted to negotiate, there was no contact person, no number to call. Fortunately, neither the CIA nor any New York agency could find any indication of nuclear material in the city (Allison, 2005, 2).

This incident nevertheless illustrates two powerful arguments regarding the purchase, proliferation, and threat of nuclear materials by a terrorist organization. First, after the 9/11 attacks, countries became far more willing to accept that a meticulously planned operation capable of evading international law enforcement could, in fact, succeed. Second, psychologically, a nuclear attack would devastate the world. New York alone contains numerous likely high-value targets. Third, the fear was so acute that the President dispatched Vice President Cheney to an undisclosed location, ensuring continuity of government should the unthinkable occur. The fact that top officials treated the report as a credible threat demonstrates that the true power lay not only in the location of a bomb, but in the terror generated by searching for one.

Finally, if one considers the miniaturization of technology over recent decades, a small "suitcase" bomb or an even smaller device could wreak devastation in any number of international venues — the Vatican, museums, government offices, sporting arenas, or major tourist sites — with the ultimate goal of ensuring that people no longer feel safe anywhere, thereby establishing a pervasive culture of fear and impotence (Bunn, 2006; Ferguson, 2005).