Nuclear terrorism in a globalizing world: assessing the threat and the emerging management regime.

• Author: Joyner, Christopher C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. BACKGROUND A. The Cause for Concern III. ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUE A. Dimensions B. Ramifications: Early Problems Created by the Threat C. Economic, Political, and Legal Impacts of Nuclear Terrorism on International Relations IV. RECOMMENDATIONS AND REMEDIES A. International Law and Enforcement B. National Policy V. CONCLUSION On November 8, 2007, four gunmen attacked the Pelindaba nuclear facility located near the Hartbeespoort Dam, eighteen miles west of Pretoria in the Republic of South Africa. News reports suggested that the attackers gained access to the building by using a ladder to climb over a wall. They then broke into the emergency control center in the center of the facility, stole a computer, which they eventually left behind, and breached a control room that was electronically sealed. When confronted by a senior emergency officer at the facility, they shot and seriously wounded him. The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, the national agency that operates the Pelindaba facility, revealed that the intruders disabled several security devices, including a 10,000-volt electrified fence, which intimated inside familiarity of the system. Although closed circuit television cameras detected their presence, no security guards were viewing the cameras at that time. The four men spent forty-five minutes inside one of South Africa's most heavily guarded "national key points, " i.e., a place considered by the government to be so vital that damage to or disruption of it might compromise the Republic's national interests. At the same time that these four gunmen entered Pelindaba from its eastern perimeter, a second group of attackers unsuccessfully attempted to break in from the west. That these episodes occurred coincidentally suggests a coordinated attack.

Pelindaba is regarded as one of the most secure nuclear facilities in South Africa. It is surrounded by electric fencing, maintains twenty-four hour closed-circuit television surveillance, has armed security guards, and has special security controls at various checkpoints. It is also the facility where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade uranium--enough to make an estimated twenty-five nuclear bombs--are stored. Nevertheless, what makes the November 2007 attack on the Pelindaba facility all the more worrisome is that had the intruders been successful, they would have achieved the first known theft of fissile materials from a nuclear power plant leading to production of the "world's first terrorist nuclear bomb." (1)

1. INTRODUCTION

   In the period after the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), nuclear terrorism has emerged as the foremost threat to Western security. The prospect of a suicide bomber driving a truck armed with a crude nuclear device into the heart of a major urban area is today considered the ultimate nightmare. During that debates preceding the 2004 U.S. presidential election, both George W. Bush and John Kerry agreed that the gravest security concern to the United States in the twenty-first century was that a nuclear weapon might fall into the hands of terrorists. (2) Similarly, after United Nations experts issued a report in 2004 on major threats to world security that included nuclear terrorism, Secretary-General Kofi Annan underscored this concern by asserting that, "nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction ... I wish it were. But unfortunately we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties." (3)

   The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. remain a stark reminder of the vulnerability of the United States to foreign terrorist strikes. Those events also raise serious concern over the prospect that terrorists might acquire and detonate nuclear weapons in order to achieve their radical aspirations. The reality of this threat is magnified today by the increasing availability of nuclear weapons, the inadequate security of nuclear materials, and magnified by the enhanced capability that globalization affords terrorist groups to plan, coordinate and launch transnational assaults on a large scale. (4) While an array of multilateral legal instruments and other international initiatives have emerged since 9/11, the ability to counter the threat of nuclear terrorism requires wider and closer cooperation among governments--circumstances that still appear to be lacking.

   This study argues for governments to develop a multi-layered strategy to secure and protect nuclear weapons and materials from theft or armed assault. Such a strategy should emphasize the expansion of international legal norms, but more importantly, it must provide for genuine implementation and enforcement of existing international agreements and U.N. Security Council resolutions concerned with nuclear terrorism. At the same time, policymakers must elevate the threat of nuclear terrorism to the highest priority for their national political, legal and security systems. The reasons for this are plainly obvious. In 2007 at least 25,000 nuclear weapons as well as 1400-2000 tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and separated plutonium capable of producing another 200,000 weapons, are known to exist worldwide. (5) Almost ninety-five percent of this stockpile is found in the United States and Russia; (6) however, more than forty states are believed to possess fissile materials. (7)

   For four decades, the principal legal instrument dealing with the spread of nuclear weapons has been the 1969 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). (8) This convention governs the distribution and sale of nuclear technologies and material between nuclear and non-nuclear states and is overseen by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA). (9) During the early twenty-first century, however, globalization has markedly facilitated the rise of terrorist groups throughout the world, empowering them to operate transnationally. The effort by these groups to acquire nuclear weapons presents profound challenges for the legal structure erected by the NPT.

   Globalization has fundamentally altered the structure of the international community by making all transnational actors--governments of states, peoples, international organizations and multinational corporations--more interconnected and interdependent. (10) The modern proliferation of transnational jet aircraft, inexpensive telephone service, e-mail communication, easy access to vast amounts of computer information, enormous ocean-going vessels, and instant capital flows all make the world more interdependent than ever before. (11) Massive amounts of money, technology, information, people and raw materials move ever more speedily across national borders. Ideas, cultures and values circulate more widely, to more people, with less restraint.

   The technologies and processes that make globalization beneficial to societies simultaneously empower sub-national actors and ideological extremists and thus render states more porous to external penetration and more vulnerable to violent disruption. (12) Terrorists, too, can use cell phones, computers, fax machines, e-mail, the internet, monetary transfers, and air transportation to plan, coordinate, and carry out violent attacks against Western societies. (13) This capability of terrorist groups was dramatically demonstrated by the tragic consequences of 9/11, and it was in the immediate aftermath of these events that the threat of nuclear terrorism became soberly evident. Indeed, the recovery of al-Qaeda documents in Afghanistan depicting the design of nuclear weapons and the interception of information regarding meetings between Osama bin Laden and nuclear specialists in August 2001 highlighted the undeniable determination of al-Qaeda to seek ways and means to commit acts of nuclear terrorism. (14)

   The study of nuclear terrorism's ramifications for international law and foreign relations is particularly critical given the reality of the threat it now poses. Since September 11, 2001, concern over the possibility that a nuclear terrorist attack could occur has increased significantly. (15) As a result of the expressed desire by terrorist groups to detonate a nuclear device--and the paucity of fissile materials needed to produce one--every effort must be made to counteract the possibility of such an attack occurring. (16) The international community is currently struggling to develop the legal, political and technological means necessary to combat this threat. However, through select modifications to international law and robust enforcement of current nuclear conventions by an empowered IAEA--as well as greater cooperation between governments in initiatives for strengthening nuclear safeguards and policing black market trafficking--threats associated with nuclear terrorism may be diminished.

   To address these issues, this study seeks to accomplish three main purposes. First, the study strives to analyze the nature of the threat of nuclear terrorism; second, an effort is made to assess various strategies adopted thus far by the international community to prevent nuclear terrorism from occurring; and third, the study seeks to evaluate and suggest possible recourses for new international actions aimed at deterring terrorist acts involving the use of nuclear materials. Toward these ends, Part II sets the stage by discussing the background relevant to the current threat of nuclear terrorism. Part III then analyzes the dimensions of the nuclear terrorist threat and the multifaceted impact of this threat. Recommendations for policy actions by governments and international institutions are treated in Part IV. Finally, Part V proffers some conclusions for critical reflection.

2. BACKGROUND

   Three key factors portend the possibility that nuclear terrorism might actually occur. First, the porous...