How to Prevent Nuclear Terror

With all the talk about nuclear proliferation and the possibility of a terrorist nuclear attack on American soil, not to mention our allies, it has become a major issue recently with the nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran going full speed ahead.

Dirty bombs, suitcase nukes, missing fissile materials, unaccounted for nuclear weapons and and the desire for terrorists to aquire such weaponry and materials is just the tip of the iceberg.

A new book written by Graham Allison titled , Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe provides insights to prevent a catastrophe from happening.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

The Three Noes

The first and most important No requires that the United States help secure Russia's huge and poorly guarded stockpiles of fissile material (enriched uranium and plutonium) and nuclear weapons. Of particular concern is its supply of so-called suitcase nuclear bombs, an unhealthy fraction of which are unaccounted for.


The second No requires that we ensure that more fissile material is not produced by countries such as Iran whose generators' avowed rationale is the peaceful production of electricity. Easier said than done, but he recommends strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's terms regarding these reactors. The deal that would be needed for this to work might include a program whereby countries with nuclear capabilities would sell enriched uranium to those countries that want or need electricity from nuclear reactors.


Allison's third No requires that the so-called nuclear club (which ideally should have no members) should be limited to the present eight members (the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Pakistan, India and Israel) or else the membership will mushroom (sorry) out of control. Both Iran and North Korea, which probably already has a couple of bombs, must be persuaded in one way or another to give up their nuclear aspirations, and this "persuasion" should not be a simplistic choice between ineffective pleading and counterproductive bombing.

The entire article is very interesting reading and the Graham Allison makes some interesting points that shouldn't be overlooked. We can all be a part of this endeavor to halt nuclear proliferation by contacting our Representatives and Senators. If you don't think that it is possible for a nuclear attack to come to our shores, then we should remember 3 years ago when no one believed that airliners could ever be used as missiles.




[edit on 7/10/04 by Intelearthling]