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Nuclear
Terrorism and
US
Nuclear Policy
By
David
Krieger
President, The
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
TFF
associate
March 5, 2002
As bad as September 11th may have been, it could have
been far worse. Had terrorists attacked with nuclear
weapons, the death toll could have risen into the
millions. It is likely that even one crude nuclear weapon
would have left Manhattan utterly destroyed, and with it
the financial and communications center of the country.
Were terrorists to obtain one or more nuclear weapons and
use them on New York, Washington or other cities, the
United States could cease to exist as a functioning
country. The stakes are very high, and yet the US is
creating new nuclear policies that increase the
likelihood that terrorists will ultimately obtain nuclear
weapons.
A bipartisan commission, headed by Howard Baker and
Lloyd Cutler, concluded that the United States should be
spending some $3 billion per year over the next ten years
to help Russia control its nuclear weapons and
weapon-grade nuclear materials. Rather than spend less
than one percent of the current defense budget on
dramatically curtailing the potential spread of nuclear
weapons and materials to terrorists or unfriendly
regimes, the Bush administration is trying to save money
in this area. It is spending only one-third of the
proposed amount to help Russia safeguard its nuclear
weapons and materials and find alternative work for
nuclear physicists a woefully inadequate amount if we are
truly attempting to quell nuclear proliferation.
The administration's frugality with regard to
protecting potential "loose nukes" in Russia should be
compared with its generosity for defense spending in
general and for missile defenses in particular. The
president has recently asked for another $48 billion for
defense for fiscal 2003, following an increase of $33.5
billion this year. The annual budget for ballistic
missile defense exceeds $8.5 billion. Since the
likelihood of a terrorist using a missile to launch a
nuclear attack against the United States or any other
country is virtually zero, it would appear that the
administration's budget priorities are way out of line in
terms of offering real security and protecting the US and
other countries from the threat of nuclear terrorism.
The administration's approach to nuclear disarmament
with the Russians is to place warheads taken off active
deployment onto the shelf so that they can later be
reactivated should our current president or a future
president decide to do so. While the Russians have made
it clear that they would prefer to destroy the weapons
and make nuclear disarmament irreversible, they will
certainly follow the US lead in also shelving their
deactivated weapons. This will, of course, create even
greater security concerns in Russia and make it more
likely that these weapons will find their way into
terrorist hands.
So what is to be done? The United States must change
its nuclear policies and make good on its promise to the
other 186 parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear
weapons in the world. This goal can only be achieved with
US leadership, and it is a goal that is absolutely in the
interests of the people of the United States. When the
parties to the NPT meet again this April, the US is sure
to come under heavy criticism for its notice of
withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, its
failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, its
new strategy to make nuclear disarmament reversible, and
its recent announcement that it is rescinding its
security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states.
In the end, the country that faces the greatest threat
from nuclear terrorism is the United States, and it is a
threat that cannot be counteracted by missile defenses or
threats of retaliation. Terrorists, who cannot be easily
located and who may be suicidal anyway, will simply not
be deterred by nuclear threat.
If the Bush administration truly wants to reduce the
possibility of nuclear terrorism against US cities and
abroad, it must reverse its current policy of
systematically dismantling the arms control agreements
established over the past four decades. It must instead
become a leader in the global effort to urgently and
dramatically reduce the level of nuclear weapons
throughout the world and bring the remaining small
arsenals of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials under
effective international controls.
©
TFF & the author 2002
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