United States non-interventionism

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Non-interventionism is the diplomatic policy whereby a nation seeks to avoid alliances with other nations in order to avoid being drawn into wars not related to direct territorial self-defense, has had a long history among government and popular opinion in the United States. At times, the degree and nature of this policy was better known as isolationism, such as the period between the world wars.

Background

Robert Walpole, Britain's first Whig Prime Minister, proclaimed in 1723: "My politics are to keep free from all engagements as long as we possibly can." He emphasized economic advantage and rejected the idea of intervening in European affairs to maintain a balance of power. Walpole's position was known to Americans. However, during the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress debated about forming an alliance with France. It rejected non-interventionism when it was apparent that the American Revolutionary War could be won in no other manner than a military alliance with France, which Benjamin Franklin successfully negotiated in 1778.

After Britain and France went to war in 1792, George Washington declared neutrality, with unanimous support of his cabinet, after deciding that the treaty with France of 1778 did not apply.^[3] Washington's Farewell Address of 1796 explicitly announced the policy of American non-interventionism:

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

No entangling alliances (19th century)

President Thomas Jefferson extended Washington's ideas about foreign policy in his March 4, 1801 inaugural address. Jefferson said that one of the "essential principles of our government" is that of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." He also stated that "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be" the motto of the United States.

In 1823, President James Monroe articulated what would come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, which some have interpreted as non-interventionist in intent: "In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defense." It was applied to Hawaii in 1842 in support of eventual annexation there, and to support U.S. expansion on the North American continent. 

After Tsar Alexander II put down the 1863 January Uprising in Poland, French Emperor Napoleon III asked the United States to "join in a protest to the Tsar." Secretary of State William H. Seward declined, "defending 'our policy of non-intervention—straight, absolute, and peculiar as it may seem to other nations,'" and insisted that "[t]he American people must be content to recommend the cause of human progress by the wisdom with which they should exercise the powers of self-government, forbearing at all times, and in every way, from foreign alliances, intervention, and interference."

President Ulysses S. Grant attempted to Annex the Dominican Republic in 1870, but failed to get the support of the Radical Republicans in the Senate.^[8] The United States' policy of non-intervention was wholly abandoned with the Spanish–American War, followed by the Philippine–American War from 1899–1902.

20th century non-interventionism

Wake Up, America! Civilization Calls, poster by James Montgomery Flagg, 1917

 

Theodore Roosevelt's administration is credited with inciting the Panamanian Revolt against Colombia in order to secure construction rights for the Panama Canal (begun in 1904). 

The President of the United States Woodrow Wilson, after winning reelection with the slogan "He kept us out of war," was able to navigate neutrality in World War I for about three years. Early on, their historic shunning of foreign entanglements, and the presence in the US of immigrants with divided loyalties in the conflict helped maintain neutrality. Various causes compelled American entry into World War I, and Congress would vote to declare war on Germany; this would involve the nation on the side of the Triple Entente, but only as an "associated power" fighting the same enemy, not one officially allied with them. A few months after the declaration of War, Wilson gave a speech to congress outlining his aims to end the conflict, labeled the Fourteen Points. While this American proclamation was less triumphalist than the aims of some of its allies, it did propose in the final point, that a general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. After the war, Wilson traveled to Europe and stayed for months to labor on the post-war treaty; no president had previously enjoined such sojourn outside of the country. In that Treaty of Versailles, Wilson's association was formulated as the League of Nations. 

Protest march to prevent American involvement in World War II before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Isolationism Between the World Wars

In the wake of the First World War, the non-interventionist tendencies gained ascendancy. The Treaty of Versailles, and thus, United States' participation in the League of Nations, even with reservations, was rejected by the Senate in the final months of Wilson's presidency. Republican Senate leader Henry Cabot Lodge supported the Treaty with reservations to be sure Congress had final authority on sending the U.S. into war. Wilson and his Democratic supporters rejected the Lodge Reservations. 

The strongest opposition to American entry into the League of Nations cam from the Senate where a tight-knit faction known as the Irreconcilables, led by William Borah and George Norris, had great objections regarding the clauses of the treaty which compelled America to come to the defense of other nations. Senator William Borah, of Idaho, declared that it would "purchase peace at the cost of any part of our [American] independence." Senator Hiram Johnson, of California, denounced the League of Nations as a "gigantic war trust." While some of the sentiment was grounded in adherence to Constitutional principles, most of the sentiment bore a reassertion of nativist and inward-looking policy.

The United States acted independently to become a major player in the 1920s in international negotiations and treaties. The Harding Administration achieved naval disarmament among the major powers through the Washington Naval Conference in 1921-22. The Dawes Plan refinanced war debts and helped restore prosperity to Germany, In August 1928, fifteen nations signed the Kellogg–Briand Pact, brainchild of American Secretary of State Frank Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand. This pact that was said to have outlawed war and showed the United States commitment to international peace had its semantic flaws. For example, it did not hold the United States to the conditions of any existing treaties, it still allowed European nations the right to self-defense, and it stated that if one nation broke the Pact, it would be up to the other signatories to enforce it. The Kellogg–Briand Pact was more of a sign of good intentions on the part of the US, rather than a legitimate step towards the sustenance of world peace. 

The economic depression that ensued after the Crash of 1929, also continued to abet non-intervention. The attention of the country focused mostly on addressing the problems of the national economy. The rise of aggressive expansionism policies by Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan led to conflicts such as the Italian conquest of Ethiopia and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. These events led to ineffectual condemnations by the League of Nations. Official American response was muted. America also did not take sides in the brutal Spanish Civil War.

Non-interventionism before entering World War II

As Europe moved closer to war in the late 1930s, the United States Congress continued to demand American neutrality. Between 1936 and 1937, much to the dismay of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts. For example, in the final Neutrality Act, Americans could not sail on ships flying the flag of a belligerent nation or trade arms with warring nations. Such activities had played a role in American entrance into World War I. 

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland; Britain and France subsequently declared war on Germany, marking the start of World War II. In an address to the American People two days later, President Roosevelt assured the nation that he would do all he could to keep them out of war. However, his words showed his true goals. "When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger," Roosevelt said. Even though he was intent on neutrality as the official policy of the United States, he still echoed the dangers of staying out of this war. He also cautioned the American people to not let their wish to avoid war at all costs supersede the security of the nation.

The war in Europe split the American people into two camps: non-interventionists and interventionists. The two sides argued over America's involvement in this World War II. The basic principle of the interventionist argument was fear of German invasion. By the summer of 1940, France suffered a stunning defeat by Germans, and Britain was the only democratic enemy of Germany. In a 1940 speech, Roosevelt argued, "Some, indeed, still hold to the now somewhat obvious delusion that we … can safely permit the United States to become a lone island … in a world dominated by the philosophy of force." A national survey found that in the summer of 1940, 67% of Americans believed that a German-Italian victory would endanger the United States, that if such an event occurred 88% supported "arm[ing] to the teeth at any expense to be prepared for any trouble", and that 71% favored "the immediate adoption of compulsory military training for all young men".

Ultimately, the ideological rift between the ideals of the United States and the goals of the fascist powers empowered the interventionist argument. Writer Archibald MacLeish asked, "How could we sit back as spectators of a war against ourselves?" In an address to the American people on December 29, 1940, President Roosevelt said, "the Axis not merely admits but proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and our philosophy of government."

However, there were still many who held on to non-interventionism. Although a minority, they were well organized, and had a powerful presence in Congress. Pro-German or anti-British opinion contributed to non-interventionism. Roosevelt's national share of the 1940 presidential vote declined by seven percentage points from 1936. Of the 20 counties in which his share declined by 35 points or more, 19 were largely German-speaking. Of the 35 counties in which his share declined by 25 to 34 points, German was the largest or second-largest original nationality in 31. Non-interventionists rooted a significant portion of their arguments in historical precedent, citing events such as Washington's farewell address and the failure of World War I. "If we have strong defenses and understand and believe in what we are defending, we need fear nobody in this world," Robert Maynard Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago, wrote in a 1940 essay. Isolationists believed that the safety of the nation was more important than any foreign war.

As 1940 became 1941, the actions of the Roosevelt administration made it more and more clear that the United States was on a course to war. This policy shift, driven by the President, came in two phases. The first came in 1939 with the passage of the Fourth Neutrality Act, which permitted the United States to trade arms with belligerent nations, as long as these nations came to America to retrieve the arms, and pay for them in cash. This policy was quickly dubbed, 'Cash and Carry.' The second phase was the Lend-Lease Act of early 1941. This act allowed the President "to lend, lease, sell, or barter arms, ammunition, food, or any 'defense article' or any 'defense information' to 'the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.'" American public opinion supported Roosevelt's actions. As United States involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic grew with incidents such as the sinking of the USS Reuben James (DD-245), by late 1941 72% of Americans agreed that "the biggest job facing this country today is to help defeat the Nazi Government", and 70% thought that defeating Germany was more important than staying out of the war.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor caused America to enter the war in December 1941, isolationists such as Charles Lindbergh's America First Committee and Herbert Hoover announced their support of the war effort. Isolationist families' sons fought in the war as much as others.

Non-interventionism after World War II

Ohio Senator Robert A Taft was a leading opponent of interventionism after 1945, although it always played a secondary role to his deep interest in domestic affairs. Historian George Fujii, citing the Taft papers, argues:

Taft fought a mostly losing battle to reduce government expenditures and to curtail or prevent foreign aid measures such as the British loan of 1945 and the Marshall Plan. He feared that these measures would "destroy the freedom of the individual, freedom of States and local communities, freedom of the farmer to run his own farm and the workman to do his own job" (p. 375), thereby threatening the foundations of American prosperity and leading to a "totalitarian state" (p. 377).

In 1951, in the midst of bitter partisan debate over the Korean War, Taft increasingly spoke out on foreign policy issues. According to his biographer James T. Patterson:

Two basic beliefs continued to form a fairly consistent core of Taft's thinking on foreign policy. First, he insisted on limiting America's overseas commitments. [Taft said] "Nobody today can be an isolationist.... The only question is the degree to which we shall take action throughout the entire world." America had obligations that it had to honor – such as NATO – and it could not turn a blind eye to such countries as Formosa or Israel. But the United States had limited funds and problems at home and must therefore curb its commitments....This fear of overcommitment was rooted in Taft's even deeper faith in liberty, which made him shrink from a foreign policy that would cost large sums of money, increase the power of the military, and transform American society into what he called a garrison state.

Norman A. Graebner argues:

Differences over collective security in the G.O.P. were real in 1952, but Taft tried during his pre-convention campaign to moderate his image as a "go-it-aloner" in foreign policy. His whole effort proved unsuccessful, largely because by spring the internationalist camp had a formidable candidate of its own in Dwight D. Eisenhower. As the personification of post-1945 American commitment to collective security, particularly in Europe, General Eisenhower had decided to run because he feared, apparently, that Taft's election would lead to repudiation of the whole collective security effort, including NATO.

Eisenhower won the nomination and secured Taft's support by promising Taft a dominant voice in domestic policies, while Eisenhower's internationalism would set the foreign-policy agenda. Graebner argues that Eisenhower succeeded in moving the conservative Republicans away from their traditional attacks on foreign aid and reciprocal trade policies, and collective security arrangements, to support for those policies. By 1964 the Republican conservatives rallied behind Barry Goldwater who was an aggressive advocate of an anti-communist internationalist foreign policy. Goldwater wanted to roll back Communism and win the Cold War, asking "Why Not Victory?"

Non-interventionism in the 21st century

During the presidency of Barack Obama, some members of the United States federal government, including President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, considered intervening militarily in the Syrian Civil War. A poll from late April 2013 found that 62% of Americans thought that the "United States has no responsibility to do something about the fighting in Syria between government forces and antigovernment groups," with only twenty-five percent disagreeing with that statement. A writer for The New York Times referred to this as "an isolationist streak," a characterization international relations scholar Stephen Walt strongly objected to, calling the description "sloppy journalism." According to Walt, "the overwhelming majority of people who have doubts about the wisdom of deeper involvement in Syria—including yours truly—are not 'isolationist.' They are merely sensible people who recognize that we may not have vital interests there, that deeper involvement may not lead to a better outcome and could make things worse, and who believe that the last thing the United States needs to do is to get dragged into yet another nasty sectarian fight in the Arab/Islamic world."

In December 2013, the Pew Research Center reported that their newest poll, "American's Place in the World 2013," had revealed that 52 percent of respondents in the national poll said that the United States "should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." This was the most people to answer that question this way in the history of the question, one which pollsters began asking in 1964. Only about a third of respondents felt this way a decade ago.

A July 2014 poll of "battleground voters" across the United States found "77 percent in favor of full withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2016; only 15 percent and 17 percent interested in more involvement in Syria and Ukraine, respectively; and 67 percent agreeing with the statement that, 'U.S. military actions should be limited to direct threats to our national security.'"

Conservative policies

Rathbun (2008) compares three separate themes in conservative policies since the 1980s: conservatism, neoconservatism, and isolationism. These approaches are similar in that they all invoked the mantle of "realism" and pursued foreign policy goals designed to promote national interests. Conservatives, however, were the only group that was "realist" in the academic sense in that they defined the national interest narrowly, strove for balances of power internationally, viewed international relations as amoral, and especially valued sovereignty. By contrast, neoconservatives based their foreign policy on nationalism, and isolationists sought to minimize any involvement in foreign affairs and raise new barriers to immigration. Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul favored a return to the non-interventionist policies of Thomas Jefferson and frequently opposed military intervention in countries like Iran and Iraq.

Nuclear terrorism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Nuclear terrorism refers to any person or persons who detonate a nuclear weapon in an act of terrorism (meaning illegal or immoral use of violence for a political or religious cause). Some definitions of nuclear terrorism include the sabotage of a nuclear facility and/or the detonation of a radiological device, colloquially termed a dirty bomb, but consensus is lacking. In legal terms, nuclear terrorism is an offense committed if a person unlawfully and intentionally “uses in any way radioactive material … with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or with the intent to cause substantial damage to property or to the environment; or with the intent to compel a natural or legal person, an international organization or a State to do or refrain from doing an act”, according to the 2005 United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

The possibility of terrorist organizations using nuclear weapons (including those of a small size, such as those contained within suitcases) is something which is known of within U.S. culture, and at times previously discussed within the political settings of the U.S. It is considered plausible that terrorists could acquire a nuclear weapon. However, despite thefts and trafficking of small amounts of fissile material, all low-concern and less than Category III Special nuclear material (SNM), there is no credible evidence that any terrorist group has succeeded in obtaining Category I SNM, the necessary multi-kilogram critical mass amounts of weapons grade plutonium required to make a nuclear weapon.

Scope

Nuclear terrorism could include:

• Acquiring or fabricating a nuclear weapon
• Fabricating a dirty bomb
• Attacking a nuclear reactor, e.g., by disrupting critical inputs (e.g. water supply)
• Attacking or taking over a nuclear-armed submarine, plane, or base.

Nuclear terrorism, according to a 2011 report published by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, can be executed and distinguished via four pathways:

• The use of a nuclear weapon that has been stolen or purchased on the black market
• The use of a crude explosive device built by terrorists or by nuclear scientists who the terrorist organization has furtively recruited
• The use of an explosive device constructed by terrorists and their accomplices using their own fissile material
• The acquisition of fissile material from a nation-state.
• The creation of a device that may give information about the configuration of components needed for a nuclear weapon

Former U.S. President Barack Obama called nuclear terrorism "the single most important national security threat that we face". In his first speech to the U.N. Security Council, President Obama said that "Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city -- be it New York or Moscow, Tokyo or Beijing, London or Paris -- could kill hundreds of thousands of people". It would "destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life".

History

As early as December 1945, politicians worried about the possibility of smuggling nuclear weapons into the United States, though this was still in the context of a battle between the superpowers of the Cold War. Congressmen quizzed the "father of the atomic bomb," J. Robert Oppenheimer, about the possibility of detecting a smuggled atomic bomb:

Sen. Millikin: We... have mine-detecting devices, which are rather effective... I was wondering if anything of that kind might be available to use as a defense against that particular type of use of atomic bombs.
Dr. Oppenheimer: If you hired me to walk through the cellars of Washington to see whether there were atomic bombs, I think my most important tool would be a screwdriver to open the crates and look. I think that just walking by, swinging a little gadget would not give me the information.

This sparked further work on the question of smuggled atomic devices during the 1950s.

Discussions of non-state nuclear terrorism among experts go back at least to the 1970s. In 1975 The Economist warned that "You can make a bomb with a few pounds of plutonium. By the mid-1980s the power stations may easily be turning out 200,000 lb of the stuff each year. And each year, unless present methods are drastically changed, many thousands of pounds of it will be transferred from one plant to another as it proceeds through the fuel cycle. The dangers of robbery in transit are evident.... Vigorous co-operation between governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency could, even at this late stage, make the looming perils loom a good deal smaller." And the New York Times commented in 1981 that The Nuclear Emergency Search Team's "origins go back to the aftershocks of the Munich Olympic massacre in mid-1972. Until that time, no one in the United States Government had thought seriously about the menace of organized, international terrorism, much less nuclear terrorism. There was a perception in Washington that the value of what is called 'special nuclear material' - plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU) - was so enormous that the strict financial accountability of the private contractors who dealt with it would be enough to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. But it has since been revealed that the physical safeguarding of bomb-grade material against theft was almost scandalously neglected."

This discussion took on a larger public character in the 1980s after NBC aired Special Bulletin, a television dramatization of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States. In 1986 a private panel of experts known as the International Task Force on the Prevention of Terrorism released a report urging all nuclear-armed states to beware the dangers of terrorism and work on equipping their nuclear arsenals with permissive action links. "The probability of nuclear terrorism," the experts warned, "is increasing and the consequences for urban and industrial societies could be catastrophic."

The World Institute for Nuclear Security is an organization which seeks to prevent nuclear terrorism and improve world nuclear security. It works alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency. WINS was formed in 2008, less than a year after a break-in at the Pelindaba nuclear facility in South Africa, which contained enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs.

The Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) is an international partnership of 86 nations and 4 official observers working to improve capacity on a national and international level for prevention, detection, and response to a nuclear terrorist event. Partners join the GICNT by endorsing the Statement of Principles, a set of broad nuclear security objectives. GICNT partner nations organize and host workshops, conferences, and exercises to share best practices for implementing the Statement of Principles. The GICNT also holds Plenary meetings to discuss improvements and changes to the partnership.

Militant groups

Nuclear weapons materials on the black market are a global concern, and there is concern about the possible detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon by a militant group in a major city, with significant loss of life and property.

It is feared that a terrorist group could detonate a dirty bomb, a type of radiological weapon. A dirty bomb is made of any radioactive source and a conventional explosive. There would be no nuclear blast and likely no fatalities, but the radioactive material is dispersed and can cause extensive fallout depending on the material used.  There are other radiological weapons called radiological exposure devices where an explosive is not necessary. A radiological weapon may be very appealing to terrorist groups as it is highly successful in instilling fear and panic among a population (particularly because of the threat of radiation poisoning) and would contaminate the immediate area for some period of time, disrupting attempts to repair the damage and subsequently inflicting significant economic losses.

al-Qaeda

According to Bunn & Wier, Osama bin Laden requested a ruling (a fatwa), and was subsequently informed via a cleric of Saudi Arabia during 2003, of it being in accordance with Islamic law for him to use a nuclear device against civilians if it were the only course of action available to him in a situation of defending Muslims against the actions of the U.S. military.

According to leaked diplomatic documents, al-Qaeda can produce radiological weapons, after sourcing nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build "dirty bombs". Al-Qaeda, along with some North Caucasus terrorist groups that seek to establish an Islamic Caliphate in Russia, have consistently stated they seek nuclear weapons and have tried to acquire them. Al-Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons for almost two decades by attempting to purchase stolen nuclear material and weapons and has sought nuclear expertise on numerous occasions. Osama bin Laden stated that the acquisition of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction is a “religious duty.” While pressure from a wide range of counter-terrorist activity has hampered Al-Qaeda's ability to manage such a complex project, there is no sign that it has jettisoned its goals of acquiring fissile material. Statements made as recently as 2008 indicate that Al-Qaeda's nuclear ambitions are still very strong.

ISIS

ISIS has demonstrated ambition to use weapons of mass destruction. Although the chances of them obtaining a nuclear bomb are small, the group have been trying/suspected of trying to obtain a nuclear dirty bomb. In July 2014, ISIS militants captured nuclear materials from Mosul University. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said that the materials had been kept at the university and "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction". However, Nuclear experts regarded the threat as insignificant. International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that the seized materials were "low grade and would not present a significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk".

In October 2015 it was reported that Moldovan authorities working with the FBI have stopped four attempts from 2010 to 2015 by gangs with suspected connections to Russia's intelligence services that sought to sell radioactive material to ISIS and other Middle Eastern extremists. The last reported case came in February 2015 when a smuggler with a large amount of radioactive caesium specifically sought a buyer from ISIS. The Criminal organizations are thriving on black market nuclear materials in Moldova. Since relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated, it is difficult to know whether smugglers are succeeding in selling radioactive material originating from Russia to Islamist terrorists and elsewhere.

In March 2016, it was reported that a senior Belgian nuclear official was being monitored by ISIS suspects linked to the November 2015 Paris attacks leading Belgium authorities to suspect that ISIS was planning on abducting the official to obtain nuclear materials for a dirty bomb.

In April 2016, EU and NATO security chiefs warned that ISIS are plotting to carry out nuclear attacks on the UK and Europe.

North Caucasus terrorists

North Caucasus terrorists have attempted to seize a nuclear submarine armed with nuclear weapons. They have also engaged in reconnaissance activities on nuclear storage facilities and have repeatedly threatened to sabotage nuclear facilities. Similar to Al-Qaeda, these groups’ activities have been hampered by counter-terrorism activity; nevertheless they remain committed to launching such a devastating attack within Russia.

Aum Shinrikyo

The Japanese terror cult Aum Shinrikyo, which used nerve gas to attack a Tokyo subway in 1995, has also tried to acquire nuclear weapons. However, according to nuclear terrorism researchers at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, there is no evidence that they continue to do so.

Incidents involving nuclear material

Information reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shows "a persistent problem with the illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials, thefts, losses and other unauthorized activities". The IAEA Illicit Nuclear Trafficking Database notes 1,266 incidents reported by 99 countries over the last 12 years, including 18 incidents involving HEU or plutonium trafficking:

• There have been 18 incidents of theft or loss of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium confirmed by the IAEA.
• British academic Shaun Gregory alleged in 2009 that terrorists had attacked Pakistani nuclear facilities three times; twice in 2007 and once in 2008. However, the then Director General ISPR Athar Abbas said the claims were "factually incorrect", adding that the sites were "military facilities, not nuclear installations".
• In November 2007, burglars with unknown intentions infiltrated the Pelindaba nuclear research facility near Pretoria, South Africa. The burglars escaped without acquiring any of the uranium held at the facility.
• In June 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released to the press the name of Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah, allegedly the operations leader for developing tactical plans for detonating nuclear bombs in several American cities simultaneously.
• In November 2006, MI5 warned that al-Qaida were planning on using nuclear weapons against cities in the United Kingdom by obtaining the bombs via clandestine means.
• In February 2006, Oleg Khinsagov of Russia was arrested in Georgia, along with three Georgian accomplices, with 79.5 grams of 89 percent HEU.
• In November 2006, the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning with radioactive polonium "represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism," according to Andrew J. Patterson.
• In June 2002, U.S. citizen José Padilla was arrested for allegedly planning a radiological attack on the city of Chicago; however, he was never charged with such conduct. He was instead convicted of charges that he conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas.
• There have been incidents where individuals such as David Hahn (aka the radioactive boy scout) and others have been initially charged under the relevant legislation due to the extent of contamination but the charges later withdrawn either due to lack of evidence or other reasons. This can be problematic when it is later proven that the intent was benign such as scientific research without the appropriate licenses or affiliation with an institution.

Pakistan

In 2009, a paper published in West Point Military Academy's journal alleged that Pakistan's nuclear sites had been attacked by al-Qaeda and the Taliban at least three times. However, Pakistan's military rejected the allegations. Talat Masood, a political analyst, said that the nuclear link was "absolute nonsense". All three attacks were suicide and appeared to aim at causing maximum damage and not seizing weapons. In January 2010, it was revealed that the US army was training a specialised unit "to seal off and snatch back" Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants would obtain a nuclear device or materials that could make one. Pakistan supposedly possesses about 80 nuclear warheads. US officials refused to speak on the record about the American safety plans.

A study by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University titled "Securing the Bomb 2010," found that Pakistan's stockpile "faces a greater threat from Islamic terror groups seeking nuclear weapons than any other nuclear stockpile on earth." In 2016, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Vincent R. Stewart said that Pakistan "continues to take steps to improve its nuclear security, and is aware of the threat presented by extremists to its program".

According to Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former investigator with the CIA and the US Department of Energy, there is "a greater possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Pakistan than anywhere else in the world. The region has more violent extremists than any other, the country is unstable, and its arsenal of nuclear weapons is expanding." In 2015, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the US has confidence that Pakistan is "well aware of the range of potential threats to its nuclear arsenal". He added that the US is "confident that Pakistan has a professional and dedicated security force that understands the importance and the high priority that the world places on nuclear security".

Nuclear weapons expert David Albright and author of "Peddling Peril" has also expressed concerns that Pakistan's stockpile may not be secure despite assurances by both Pakistan and U.S. government. He stated that Pakistan "has had many leaks from its program of classified information and sensitive nuclear equipment, and so you have to worry that it could be acquired in Pakistan". In 2015, Richard G. Olson, former US Ambassador to Pakistan, expressed confidence in the capabilities of the Pakistani security forces to control and secure its nuclear weapons. He added that Islamabad has "specifically taken into account the insider threat".

A 2016 study by the Congressional Research Service titled 'Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons', noted that Pakistan's "initiatives, such as strengthened export control laws, improved personnel security, and international nuclear security cooperation programs, have improved Pakistan's nuclear security".

United States

While in office, President Barack Obama reviewed Homeland Security policy and concluded that "attacks using improvised nuclear devices ... pose a serious and increasing national security risk". In their presidential contest, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry both agreed that the most serious danger facing the United States is the possibility that terrorists could obtain a nuclear bomb. Most nuclear-weapon analysts agree that "building such a device would pose few technological challenges to reasonably competent terrorists". The main barrier is acquiring highly enriched uranium.

In 2004, Graham Allison, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Clinton administration, wrote that “on the current path, a nuclear terrorist attack on America in the decade ahead is more likely than not". In 2004, Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information stated: "I wouldn't be at all surprised if nuclear weapons are used over the next 15 or 20 years, first and foremost by a terrorist group that gets its hands on a Russian nuclear weapon or a Pakistani nuclear weapon". In 2006, Robert Galluccii, Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, estimated that, “it is more likely than not that al-Qaeda or one of its affiliates will detonate a nuclear weapon in a U.S. city within the next five to ten years." Despite a number of claims, there is no credible evidence that any terrorist group has yet succeeded in obtaining a nuclear bomb or the materials needed to make one.

Detonation of a nuclear weapon in a major U.S. city could kill more than 500,000 people and cause more than a trillion dollars in damage. Hundreds of thousands could die from fallout, the resulting fires and collapsing buildings. In this scenario, uncontrolled fires would burn for days and emergency services and hospitals would be completely overwhelmed. The likely socio-economic consequences in the United States outside the immediate vicinity of an attack, and possibly in other countries, would also likely be far-reaching. A Rand Corporation report speculates that there may be an exodus from other urban centers by populations fearful of another nuclear attack.

The Obama administration will focus on reducing the risk of high-consequence, non-traditional nuclear threats. Nuclear security is to be strengthened by enhancing "nuclear detection architecture and ensuring that our own nuclear materials are secure," and by "establishing well-planned, well-rehearsed, plans for co-ordinated response." According to senior Pentagon officials, the United States will make "thwarting nuclear-armed terrorists a central aim of American strategic nuclear planning." Nuclear attribution is another strategy being pursued to counter terrorism. Led by the National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center, attribution would allow the government to determine the likely source of nuclear material used in the event of a nuclear attack. This would prevent terrorist groups, and any states willing to help them, from being able to pull off a covert attack without assurance of retaliation.

In July 2010 medical personnel from the U.S. Army practiced the techniques they would use to treat people injured by an atomic blast. The exercises were carried out at a training center in Indiana, and were set up to "simulate the aftermath of a small nuclear bomb blast, set off in a U.S. city by terrorists."

Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Nuclear power plants

After 9/11, nuclear power plants were to be prepared for an attack by a large, well-armed terrorist group. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in revising its security rules, decided not to require that plants be able to defend themselves against groups carrying sophisticated weapons. According to a study by the Government Accountability Office, the N.R.C. appeared to have based its revised rules "on what the industry considered reasonable and feasible to defend against rather than on an assessment of the terrorist threat itself". If terrorist groups could sufficiently damage safety systems to cause a core meltdown at a nuclear power plant, and/or sufficiently damage spent fuel pools, such an attack could lead to widespread radioactive contamination. The Federation of American Scientists have said that if nuclear power use is to expand significantly, nuclear facilities will have to be made extremely safe from attacks that could release massive quantities of radioactivity into the community. New reactor designs have features of passive safety, which may help. In the United States, the NRC carries out "Force on Force" (FOF) exercises at all Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) sites at least once every three years.

The peace group Plowshares have shown how nuclear weapons facilities can be penetrated, and the groups actions represent extraordinary breaches of security at nuclear weapons plants in the United States. The National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged the seriousness of the 2012 Plowshares action. Non-proliferation policy experts have questioned "the use of private contractors to provide security at facilities that manufacture and store the government's most dangerous military material".

Hoaxes

In late 1974, President Gerald Ford was warned that the FBI received a communication from an extortionist wanting $200,000 ($1,000,000 today) after claiming that a nuclear weapon had been placed somewhere in Boston. A team of experts rushed in from the United States Atomic Energy Commission but their radiation detection gear arrived at a different airport. Federal officials then rented a fleet of vans to carry concealed radiation detectors around the city but forgot to bring the tools they needed to install the equipment. The incident was later found to be a hoax. However, the government's response made clear the need for an agency capable of effectively responding to such threats in the future. Later that year, President Ford created the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), which under the Atomic Energy Act is tasked with investigating the "illegal use of nuclear materials within the United States, including terrorist threats involving the use of special nuclear materials".

One of its first responses by the Nuclear Emergency Search/Support Team was in Spokane, Washington on November 23, 1976. An unknown group called the "Days of Omega" had mailed an extortion threat claiming it would explode radioactive containers of water all over the city unless paid $500,000 ($2,200,000 today). Presumably, the radioactive containers had been stolen from the Hanford Site, less than 150 miles to the southwest. Immediately, NEST flew in a support aircraft from Las Vegas and began searching for non-natural radiation, but found nothing. No one ever responded despite the elaborate instructions given, or made any attempt to claim the (fake) money which was kept under surveillance. Within days, the incident was deemed a hoax, though the case was never solved. To avoid panic, the public was not notified until a few years later.

Policy landscape

Recovery

The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR), which is also known as the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction, is a 1992 law sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar. The CTR established a program that gave the U.S. Department of Defense a direct stake in securing loose fissile material inside the since-dissolved USSR. According to Graham Allison, director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, this law is a major reason why not a single nuclear weapon has been discovered outside the control of Russia's nuclear custodians. The Belfer Center is itself running the Project on Managing the Atom, Matthew Bunn is a co-principal investigator of the project, Martin B. Malin is its executive director (circa. 2014).

In August 2002, the United States launched a program to track and secure enriched uranium from 24 Soviet-style reactors in 16 countries, in order to reduce the risk of the materials falling into the hands of terrorists or "rogue states". The first such operation was Project Vinca, "a multinational, public-private effort to remove nuclear material from a poorly-secured Yugoslav research institute." The project has been hailed as "a nonproliferation success story" with the "potential to inform broader 'global cleanout' efforts to address one of the weakest links in the nuclear nonproliferation chain: insufficiently secured civilian nuclear research facilities."

In 2004, the U.S. Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) was established in order to consolidate nuclear stockpiles of highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, and assemble nuclear weapons at fewer locations. Additionally, the GTRI converted HEU fuels to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuels, which has prevented their use in making a nuclear bomb within a short amount of time. HEU that has not been converted to LEU has been shipped back to secure sites, while amplified security measures have taken hold around vulnerable nuclear facilities.

Options

Robert Gallucci, President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, argues that traditional deterrence is not an effective approach toward terrorist groups bent on causing a nuclear catastrophe. Henry Kissinger, stating the wide availability of nuclear weapons makes deterrence “decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous.” Preventive strategies, which advocate the elimination of an enemy before it is able to mount an attack, are risky and controversial, therefore difficult to implement. Gallucci believes that “the United States should instead consider a policy of expanded deterrence, which focuses not on the would-be nuclear terrorists but on those states that may deliberately transfer or inadvertently lead nuclear weapons and materials to them. By threatening retaliation against those states, the United States may be able to deter that which it cannot physically prevent.”.

Graham Allison makes a similar case, arguing that the key to expanded deterrence is coming up with ways of tracing nuclear material to the country that forged the fissile material. “After a nuclear bomb detonates, nuclear forensic cops would collect debris samples and send them to a laboratory for radiological analysis. By identifying unique attributes of the fissile material, including its impurities and contaminants, one could trace the path back to its origin.” The process is analogous to identifying a criminal by fingerprints. “The goal would be twofold: first, to deter leaders of nuclear states from selling weapons to terrorists by holding them accountable for any use of their own weapons; second, to give every leader the incentive to tightly secure their nuclear weapons and materials.”

Nuclear skeptics

John Mueller, a scholar of international relations at the Ohio State University, is a prominent nuclear skeptic. He makes three claims: (1) the nuclear intent and capability of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda has been “fundamentally exaggerated;” (2) “the likelihood a terrorist group will come up with an atomic bomb seems to be vanishingly small;” and (3) policymakers are guilty of an “atomic obsession” that has led to “substantively counterproductive” policies premised on “worst case fantasies.” In his book Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda he argues that: "anxieties about terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons are essentially baseless: a host of practical and organizational difficulties make their likelihood of success almost vanishingly small".

Intelligence officials have pushed back, testifying before Congress that the inability to recognize the shifting modus oparandi of terrorist groups was part of the reason why members of Aum Shinrikyo, for example, were “not on anybody’s radar screen.” Matthew Bunn, associate professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, argues that “Theft of HEU and plutonium is not a hypothetical worry, it is an ongoing reality." Almost all of the stolen HEU and plutonium that has been seized over the years had never been missed before it was seized. The IAEA Illicit Nuclear Trafficking Database notes 1,266 incidents reported by 99 countries over the last 12 years, including 18 incidents involving HEU or plutonium trafficking.

Keir Lieber and Daryl Press argue that despite the prominent U.S. focus on nuclear terrorism, "the fear of terrorist transfer [of nuclear weapons] seems greatly exaggerated... [and] the dangers of a state giving nuclear weapons to terrorists have been overstated." A decade of terrorism statistics show a strong correlation between attack fatalities and the attribution of the attack, and Lieber and Press assert that "neither a terror group nor a state sponsor would remain anonymous after a nuclear terror attack." About 75 percent of attacks with 100 or more fatalities were traced to the culprits; also, 97 percent of attacks on U.S. soil or that of a major ally (resulting in 10 or more deaths) were attributed to the guilty party. Lieber and Press conclude that the lack of anonymity would deter a state from providing terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.

The use of HEU and plutonium in satellites has raised the concern that a sufficiently motivated rogue state could retrieve materials from a satellite crash (notably on land as occurred with Kosmos-954, Mars-96 and Fobos-Grunt) and then use these to supplement the yield of an already working nuclear device. This has been discussed recently in the UN and the Nuclear Emergency Search Team regularly consults with Roscosmos and NASA about satellite re-entries that may have contained such materials. As yet no parts were verifiably recovered from Mars 96 but recent Wikileaks releases suggest that one of the "cells" may have been recovered by mountain climbers in Chile.

Security summits

On April 12–13, 2010, President of the United States Barack Obama initiated and hosted the first-ever nuclear security summit in Washington D.C., commonly known as the Washington Nuclear Security Summit. The goal was to strengthen international cooperation to prevent nuclear terrorism. President Obama, along with nearly fifty world leaders, discussed the threat of nuclear terrorism, what steps needed to be taken to mitigate illicit nuclear trafficking, and how to secure nuclear material. The Summit was successful in that it produced a consensus delineating nuclear terrorism as a serious threat to all nations. Finally, the Summit produced over four-dozen specific actions embodied in commitments by individual countries and the Joint Work Plan. However, world leaders at the Summit failed to agree on baseline protections for weapons-usable material, and no agreement was reached on ending the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civil nuclear functions. Many of the shortcomings of the Washington Nuclear Security Summit were addressed at the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit in March 2012. 

According to Graham Allison, director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the objectives of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul are to continue to, “assess the progress made since the Washington Summit and propose additional cooperation measures to (1) Combat the threat of nuclear terrorism, (2) protect nuclear materials and related facilities, and (3) prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear materials."

Media coverage

In 2011, the British news agency, the Telegraph, received leaked documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The documents cited Khalid saying that, if Osama bin Laden is captured or killed by the Coalition of the Willing, an al-Qaeda sleeper cell will detonate a "weapon of mass destruction" in a "secret location" in Europe, and promised it would be "a nuclear hellstorm". No such attack occurred.