{"id":4923,"date":"2010-04-19T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T22:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=4923"},"modified":"2010-04-18T22:09:55","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T20:09:55","slug":"the-nuclear-weapons-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/04\/the-nuclear-weapons-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nuclear-Weapons Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nuclear-security summit in Washington on 12-13 April 2010, attended<\/a> by forty-seven states, resulted in a four-point communiqu\u00e9 and seven-page work plan that outlined tasks to be achieved by 2014.<\/p>\n

The sense of progress<\/a> was reinforced by the deal between the United States and Russia to destroy weapons-grade nuclear material; the decision by Ukraine to abandon its stockpile; and the scheduling of a follow-up meeting in Seoul in 2012. But the atmosphere of the gathering was shadowed by the prospect President Barack Obama described in his opening address<\/a> as one of the greatest threats facing the world, namely the possibility that terrorists might acquire and use a nuclear weapon:<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo decades after the end of the cold war, we face a cruel irony of history – the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The imagery of such illicit action by dangerous non-state networks such as al-Qaida<\/a> is alarming enough. But Obama\u2019s remarks also raise practical questions that deserve to be probed in a bit more detail than is usual:<\/p>\n

* is there a real risk that a paramilitary movement could make or obtain a nuclear weapon?<\/p>\n

* are there groups that would explode such a weapon?<\/p>\n

* are there responses to this putative threat that are being ignored or neglected?<\/p>\n

The trying game<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the first question, there is a small but definite possibility that a determined<\/a> group could obtain a useable nuclear device illicitly either from a major existing nuclear state or from one of the newer powers.\u00a0It is impossible to estimate the size of that risk, but it is probably the case that there was a greater danger in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.\u00a0Even so, as nuclear weapons slowly proliferate, especially in countries with weaker security controls, then the chances of this outcome grow.<\/p>\n

The availability of nuclear material<\/a>, whether highly-enriched uranium or reprocessed plutonium, does tend to rise as nuclear power and research reactors proliferate. At the same time, turning even weapons-grade fissile-material into a deployable weapon is very difficult – far more so than developing chemical or biological weapons, even though its destructive effects might usually be much less (see Pam Benson, \u201cOfficial: Terrorists seek nuclear material, but lack ability to use it<\/a>\u201d, CNN, 13 April 2010).<\/p>\n

On the second question, there is no clear way of assessing the chance of unofficial groups gaining access<\/a> to a nuclear capability; but it exists. The important issue then becomes the level of motivation and willingness to use such destructive weapons if they were to become available (see Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality?<\/em><\/a>, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, January 2010).<\/p>\n

Most paramilitary groups since the 1980s have had clear and usually defined and regional- or national-related political agendas that endorsed violence in the context of furthering those agendas.\u00a0Some groups developed very sophisticated tactics.\u00a0The Provisional IRA<\/a>, for example, by the early 1990s effectively faced a stalemate after two decades of its \u201clong war\u201d against British rule in Northern Ireland: it could not win in any terms but could not readily be defeated militarily either.\u00a0It chose at that point to place considerable emphasis on economic targeting in Britain, with much of the focus being on financial districts and transport links in London – as in the huge bombs<\/a> of July 1990, April 1992, April 1993, and February 1996, which rendered great destruction but caused minimal loss of life (see \u201cThe asymmetry of economic war<\/a>\u201d, 14 February 2008).<\/p>\n

The effects were considerable, as London was at the time competing intensively with Frankfurt for financial-market pre-eminence.\u00a0Although no British politicians would admit it, this strategy made Westminster and Whitehall far more ready to recognise the need for a genuine peace process and to act on it.<\/p>\n

The Provisional IRA was not strategically<\/a> or ideologically committed to indiscriminate mass casualties, indeed when its bombs did kill civilians (as in Birmingham in 1974) this was almost always seen as counterproductive<\/a> to its aims. This applies to many other paramilitary movements, though not all.\u00a0Algerian militants who hijacked<\/a> an Airbus A300 on 24 December 1994 intended to crash it on central Paris, for example; the operation was foiled by French commandos during an attempted refuelling stop at Marseilles. When the Sri Lankan<\/a> army sought to clear the Jaffna peninsula of Tamil Tiger (LTTE) fighters<\/a> in January 1996, the LTTE responded<\/a> with a massive truck-bomb in the financial heart of Colombo that killed nearly a hundred people and injured 1,400.<\/p>\n

Moreover, two potentially catastrophic attempts were<\/em> made around the same period – and each is more indicative of possible future motives.\u00a0Three months after the Algiers operation, on 20 March 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo<\/a> sect attacked the Tokyo subway by releasing sarin nerve-gas.\u00a0The nihilist attempt<\/a> to \u201cdestroy the world to save it\u201d killed twelve people and affected thousands, numbers that meant it failed to have the full global impact that the death of thousands would have guaranteed.<\/p>\n

The most potent anticipatory incident occurred earlier, on 26 February 1993, when a radical Islamist group exploded<\/a> a van-bomb containing 1.5 tonnes of explosive in the car-park under the north tower of the World Trade Center (WTC<\/a>) in New York.\u00a0The aim was to bring the entire tower down across the twenty-six-storey Vista Hotel and into the south tower, which might have killed perhaps 30,000 people in a matter of seconds.\u00a0The wholesale attempt failed, although six people were killed and many injured, and the Vista Hotel came very close to collapse.<\/p>\n

Aum Shinrikyo was a rare example of a well-financed religious sect that espoused<\/a> millennial and potentially self-destructive aims. But the much more significant consideration is whether networks whose roots lie in more established movements (religious, ethnic or nationalist) would<\/em> act, if they could<\/em>, to kill many thousands of people.\u00a0The WTC attack of 1993 suggests a positive answer; but this must be put in context, even at the cost of some intellectual discomfort.<\/p>\n

The view from afar<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest mistake is to assume that a group such as al-Qaida<\/a> is based on entirely irrational thinking. Rather, its planners and theoreticians are far more likely to be highly intelligent and rational, as well as thoroughly infused with a sense of purpose.<\/p>\n

Moreover, that motivation is almost certain to have its own context.\u00a0Its components from an al-Qaida perspective<\/em> might include the felt need to respond to a \u201cfar enemy<\/a>\u201d that has brought wars to Afghanistan and Iraq that have killed tens of thousands of people (100,000-plus in the latter case); is using armed drones<\/a> on an almost daily basis in Pakistan; and is a close ally of the Zionist state of Israel that has too killed thousands of Muslims in its many wars<\/a> (including over 10,000 civilians killed during the weeks-long siege of west Beirut in 1982).<\/p>\n

None of that cuts any ice in the west, and a nuclear blast in New York or London is almost too terrible to contemplate.\u00a0But it is also worth remembering that nuclear targeting at the height of the cold war – only a generation ago – involved a willingness to commit to \u201cfirst-use\u201d of nuclear weapons, including so-called \u201cdemonstration-shots\u201d; a policy that carried the risk of escalation to a nuclear holocaust that would leave scores of millions of people dead.\u00a0Both Nato and the Warsaw Pact<\/a> were all too ready to equip, train for and contemplate such destruction.\u00a0Whatever might come from a paramilitary group at some time over the next decade or two would still be very small compared with that.<\/p>\n

The hard lesson<\/strong><\/p>\n

The implication of all this is that Barack Obama is one sense absolutely right to highlight the danger<\/a>, and to use it to encourage movement towards a denuclearised world.\u00a0But this is not enough.\u00a0The risk of nuclear, or indeed chemical or biological attack will continue to exist; and far greater attention must be paid to the background of groups that might be tempted in this direction, and<\/em> to the policies of powerful states that provide them with much of this motivation (see Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century<\/em><\/a> <\/em>[Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010]).<\/p>\n

Roger W Barnett<\/a>, a United States navy captain who went on to run a Washington think-tank, made a key point soon after the cold war ended<\/a> when he spoke of the \u201c[impact] of high-technology weapons and weapons of mass destruction on the ability – and thus the willingness – of the weak to take up arms against the strong\u201d (see Asymmetrical Warfare: Today’s Challenge to U.S. Military Power<\/a>,<\/em> Potomac, 2003).<\/p>\n

The point is even more valid now, with the qualification that as much attention needs to be paid to \u201cwillingness\u201d as to \u201cability\u201d. That lesson has yet to be learned. If it is, the answer to the third question above might begin to come into focus.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University and is openDemocracy\u2019s international-security editor.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article is published by Paul Rogers, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence<\/a>. You may republish it without needing further permission, with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines<\/a>. These rules apply to one-off or infrequent use. For all re-print, syndication and educational use please see read our republishing guidelines<\/a> or contact us<\/a>. Some articles on this site are published under different terms. No images on the site or in articles may be re-used without permission unless specifically licensed under Creative Commons.<\/em><\/p>\n

GO TO ORIGINAL \u2013 OPEN DEMOCRACY<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington-hosted summit on nuclear security heard Barack Obama warn of the fearful prospect of a non-state group using a nuclear weapon. How realistic is it, and how to prevent it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}