Therefore, there are several strong reasons to rank the dangerof nuclear terrorism much higher than the danger of nuclear strikesby rogue states-yet U.S. foreign policy, its military, itsintelligence agencies and their covert actions and other resourcesare focused on dealing with rogue nuclear states both alleged andreal, and not the hundreds of sites from which terrorists canacquire nuclear material and the few from which they could obtainready-made bombs.

Pakistan, the state from which terrorists are most likely to beable to seize nuclear weapons by toppling its government, bycooperating with certain dangerous elements of the government, orby corrupting the guardians of the bombs, is not on the Axis ofEvil list. Indeed, the poor security of its nuclear weapons and thefact that it proliferates by selling nuclear designs andtechnologies to other countries are overlooked because of its helpin dealing with conventional, small-potatoes terrorism. True,Pakistan has been instrumental in the capture of severalhigh-ranking Al-Qaeda members who are now in U.S. custody and theseare the very individuals who would be likely to organize a nuclearattack on America. However, there is no shortage of terrorists, andhence the greatest importance is to limit what they can get theirhands on. Luckily, there are only a few nuclear bombs and a limitednumber of sites in which fissile material is stored. Upgradingsecurity at these places or replacing these materials with lessdangerous material is many thousands of times more practical thanlocking up all the dangerous people. All this calls for a radicalshift in prevention priorities from small-scale to massiveterrorism, and from rogue states to the sources from whichterrorists might readily acquire nuclear materials or ready- madebombs.

Russia is a major potential source of trouble. About 90 percentof the fissile material outside the United States and most of thesmall suitcase-sized nuclear arms (some of which are unaccountedfor) are in this chaotic country. The sites from which terroristsmay acquire fissile material run into several scores, because theyinclude nuclear reactors set up in many differentcountries-including underdeveloped states-for the purposes ofproducing energy, medical treatment and various forms of research.HEU of Russian origin is found in twenty reactors in 17 countriesand of U.S. origin in forty countries. In addition, 105 civilianresearch reactors all over the world are using HEU. Still othercountries, for example, China and France, provided various nationswith reactors and HEU. There is not even a full list of all thesereactors.

Uncontrolled Maintenance

A radical change in strategy is required if nuclear terrorism isto be prevented. The sources from which terrorists could gainnuclear weapons or material should be eliminated rather than keptunder one form of control or another, because such controls areinherently unreliable. The typical form of arms control allowsnations to keep nuclear reactors using HEU, but they are expectedto secure them and have their usages verified by inspections.

The controlled-maintenance approach relies largely on the NPT,which seeks to control the spread of nuclear weapons to additionalstates by classifying them into nuclear-weapon states andnon-nuclear-weapon states, and placing specific restraints on eachtype. Five major nuclear-weapons states, identified as the UnitedStates, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom, agreed topursue disarmament and the non-nuclear-weapons states agreed not todevelop or attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. The IAEA isentrusted with inspections to verify that "safeguarded" nuclearmaterial and activities are not used for military purposes. Note,though, that a nation can refuse to sign the treaty (as India,Israel and Pakistan have), terminate its commitments afternotifying the IAEA but keep its nuclear plants (as North Koreadid), or readily mislead the inspectors (as Libya did and Iran isbelieved to be doing). Moreover, for inspectors to have a betteridea of the nuclear activities of each of the 71 states withsignificant programs, these states each have to agree to concludean additional protocol with the IAEA. Forty-seven states do not yethave these protocols in force. Among the nations that have HEUreactors are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana,Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Absurdly, nations still canestablish such plants using HEU with the full blessing of theUnited Nations. Nigeria, one of the most corrupt nations in theworld, just did that. Under the NPT, proliferation is in effectlegal, although the proliferation is not of nuclear arms to roguestates, but of material from which terrorists can make nuclear armsto failing states. The NPT was designed to deal with responsiblestates, not to prevent terrorism.

This pre-9/11 conception of controlled maintenance must bereplaced by one of deproliferation. Deproliferation entailsreplacing HEU with low-enriched uranium (LEU), which cannot be usedfor bomb making, or with other sources of energy, or providingresources such as large-scale investments or foreign aid tocompensate for the loss of the HEU reactors. The construction ofnew HEU plants should be prevented rather than treated as legal andlegitimate, as it is under the NPT and by the IAEA. Given thatdeproliferation cannot be achieved everywhere at once, thosecountries in which security is poor and potential terrorists arerampant or have easy access to nuclear material should be givenpriority over those in which security is high and terroristrecruiting is rare. The difference between the NPT conception andthat of deproliferation is akin to the difference between gunregistration and removal of guns from private hands and most publicones, as is the case in most civil societies; in internationalterms, it is akin to the difference between arms control anddisarmament of nuclear weapons.

Some of the advocates of the obsolescent NPT approach, who fearnot without reason that deproliferation may lead to confrontationsbetween the powers-that-be and those who refuse to give up theirnuclear arms or HEU reactors, suggest that one may rely ondeterrence in the future, even among new nuclear powers. After all,the United States and the USSR kept each other at bay for severaldecades. Pakistan and India will deter each other. North Koreamight be deterred by a nuclear China and Japan, and Iran by Israel.These countries should hence be admitted into the "nuclear club",as long as they assume the same commitments as other nuclear weaponstates under the NPT.

This approach has several serious flaws. First, it invites moreand more nations to build the facilities they need to make orpurchase nuclear arms and their means of delivery. Second, it leadsthese nations into a nuclear arms race in which each hardens itsfacilities and diversifies its means of delivery, which willrequire resources they could better dedicate to other purposes.Finally, it reinforces the notion that nations must have nucleararms to be regional powers, as exemplified by the recenttemptations of Brazil to violate its commitments to the NPTregime.

The more nations that acquire such weapons, the more likely itis that they will be used by unstable leaders, or due tomiscalculations or unauthorized use. The United States and the USSRcame quite close to nuclear blows several times, as did India andPakistan, and Israel seems to have considered using nuclear weaponsin the Yom Kippur War. Above all, the more nations that are in thisdangerous business, the more sources there will be for terroriststo gain nuclear weapons. After all, terrorists cannot get nucleararms or materials from countries that do not have them. Hence,trying to get more and more nations into compliance with theNPT-the current governing strategy-is of limited value.

All these problems are avoided to the extent thatdeproliferation is implemented. Where feasible, nations should begiven incentives, cajoled, or pressured to deproliferate. When allelse fails, under proper conditions, they should be forced to giveup HEU in exchange for LEU or other energy sources or economicassets, and if they have nuclear arms, to give them up as well.This in turn may require, in some cases where there is a greatimbalance in conventional forces, the international community toguarantee the country's borders.

From Theory to Practice

Deproliferation is by no means a pie-in-the sky idea. Indeed,some of the building blocks of a deproliferation strategy arealready very much in place. Before 9/11, several nations gave uptheir programs to develop nuclear arms (but not to build reactorsfueled by HEU). These countries include South Africa, Brazil andArgentina.

The crowning success of diplomacy in the first years of the 21stcentury is the turning about of Libya from a nation that sought andobtained materials to enrich uranium to one that agreed to havesuch materials completely removed, all without a shot being fired.The turnabout came as a result of a combination of economicsanctions, diplomatic isolation and indirect threats. While theexact mix of these factors might not be exactly replicableelsewhere, the event highlights the merits of the deproliferationapproach as compared to that of controlled maintenance. Libya wasbelieved to be in compliance with the NPT, but it fooled inspectorsby using undeclared nuclear materials and small, hard-to-detectfacilities. The crucial point is that, as of 2004, Libya is nolonger a source from which terrorists might get nuclear arms or thematerial needed to make them, nor is it a nation that needs to bedeterred with nuclear arms lest it attack another with theseweapons.

Another program, mostly viewed as part of the NPT project, butactually largely based on deproliferation principles, is theNunn-Lugar legislation. It aims to fund the destruction of nuclear,chemical and other weapons; to assist in their transport from lesssecure republics to Russia; and to establish "verifiable"safeguards against weapons proliferation. However, the Nunn-Lugarprojects do not focus only on nuclear weapons. They also deal withmissiles, biological weapons and labs, and the like. Above all,their scope and budget are much too small to accomplish thelarge-scale deproliferation that is needed. The total expendituresof the variety of initiatives involved amount to about $1 billion ayear, an amount five times smaller than the funds dedicated to theprotection of one industry, airlines, from small-scale terrorism.In June 2004, Undersecretary of State John Bolton announced that$20 billion would be dedicated to deproliferation, but $10 billionof these funds are to be pledged by other nations, pledges that arenot necessarily forthcoming and when they are, often not honored.Moreover, the United States is committing this $10 billion over tenyears, which Congress could well fail to appropriate. In the past,only about $1 billion a year was allocated to Nunn-Lugar projects,and for fiscal year 2005, the Bush Administration's proposed budgetincludes no increase in the funds for Nunn-Lugar programs.Increasing the funding of Nunn-Lugar by at least one order ofmagnitude and including more nations beyond the former Soviet blocin its program would be important steps on the road todeproliferation.

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