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Nuclear Summit Must Convince Nations of Terror Threat, Experts Say

Martin Matishak
Global Security Newswire
April 8, 2010

The greatest challenge to U.S. President Barack Obama's goal of securing the world's loose nuclear material within four years will be convincing other countries of the dangers posed by nuclear terrorism, experts following the issue say (see GSN, March 11).

The president intends to press his message next week in talks with nearly 50 world leaders during a two-day summit in Washington.

"The fundamental key is going to be convincing policy-makers and nuclear managers around the world that this is in fact a real threat, that there's more action that needs to be taken on nuclear security," Matthew Bunn, a principal investigator at Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom, said during a panel discussion this week at the National Press Club.

"Overcoming the widespread complacency about this threat that exists in countries all over the world is the single biggest challenge among many difficult challenges that will have to be overcome for us to succeed in securing these stockpiles," he told the audience.

"If I were writing a speech for President Obama, I would hit the points saying we're all in this together," Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists, said in a recent telephone interview. "If there was a terrorist attack anywhere in the world it affects all of us."

Loose nuclear material usually refers to warheads, highly enriched uranium or plutonium and even nuclear expertise from the former Soviet Union and beyond that could fall into the hands of rogue nations or nonstate actors. How much actually exists is impossible to know, according to experts.

Locking down that danger has become a tenet of the nonproliferation agenda Obama laid out last year in a speech in Prague. The president returned to the Czech capital this week to sign a new nuclear arms reduction deal with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev (see related GSN story today). Both men will be present at next week's summit, along with the heads of 46 other nations, including nuclear-armed states like China, India and Pakistan.

A proposed communique for the event urges leaders to endorse a global crackdown on illicit trading of nuclear materials, the Wall Street Journal reported. The draft document calls for tougher criminal prosecution of traffickers, better accounting for weapon-grade nuclear materials and more international collaboration in resolving smuggling cases.

Principal Deputy Defense Undersecretary James Miller told reporters yesterday that countries would be encouraged to "accept responsibility for taking practical steps to reduce the likelihood that terrorist will get their hands on nuclear materials and be able to build a bomb."

"They'll be talking about a variety of nuclear security measures that each of them can take within their own countries to prevent theft or seizure of nuclear materials and prevent transit, smuggling of nuclear materials through their territories," he said.

The administration signaled its commitment to the president's nuclear-security vision when it unveiled its fiscal 2011 budget request in February.

The spending request for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation portfolio -- which encompasses a number of programs within the National Nuclear Security Administration intended to stop the spread of nuclear materials -- is roughly $2.7 billion, an increase of about 26 percent from the current budget cycle.

The agency, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, maintains the country's nuclear stockpile and conducts nonproliferation activities around the globe.

Some other states are less aggressive in moving against the threat because they often have different worries, Ferguson noted, "from keeping their people fed to making sure that they address other security concerns." Therefore, the president must convey that nuclear terrorism is a "serious threat," he said.

"Maybe not the absolute No. 1 threat for all countries but it is a top concern that needs worldwide attention and he must try to achieve consensus on that point," he told Global Security Newswire.

In order to bring other countries -- including those attending the summit -- on board, world leaders must come up with a "package" of proposals that offers multiple benefits, according to Ferguson.

"It's can't just be about nuclear security or securing facilities against possible nuclear attacks or even radiological attacks," he said. "It has to address other countries' concerns and you have to say that if you put in place a security culture in your country it has spin-off benefits" such as enhanced border safeguards against other threats.

Ferguson said countries attending next week's event could demonstrate their commitment to nuclear security by arriving with their own proposals, such as announcing they will contribute more money to the International Atomic Energy Agency's nuclear security fund.

That program implements a variety of nuclear security activities to prevent, detect and respond to nuclear terrorism, according to an agency fact sheet. The effort is funded in part by the regular IAEA budget but also receives voluntary contributions from member states.

The fund's budget should be doubled from around $20 million to $40 million annually and continue to ramp up to enable the security department to hire more staff and buy more equipment, he said.

"These things would be very concrete, they would make headlines," he said. "It's not just rhetoric."

Bunn said the prime nuclear targets for terrorists are the stockpiles of weapons and nuclear materials in Pakistan and Russia as well as highly enriched uranium-fueled research reactors, many of which are located on university campuses and have "very minimal security."

Today, there are 1,650 pounds of highly enriched uranium in research reactors worldwide.

"Nuclear theft is not a hypothetical worry, it's an ongoing reality," Bunn said, adding that there are 18 cases documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency involving theft or loss of weapon-grade plutonium or uranium.

The actual figure is likely higher because some states chose not to report such incidents to the monitoring agency, according to Bunn

He called for a "fast-paced global effort" to secure all nuclear weapons and materials, saying next week's summit is designed to jump-start that program and move it onto "a faster track than the one we have been on."

"We are not yet today on a track that would lead to success in securing all nuclear stockpiles within four years," Bunn told the audience.

The Nuclear Security Framework

The first of its kind summit must also make strides toward establishing a more cohesive international legal framework that would make it easier to prevent nuclear terrorism, observers say.

If the conference "just focuses on ratifying the status quo that's going to be inadequate because the status quo for preventing nuclear terrorism is inadequate," Kenneth Luongo, president of the Partnership for Global Security, said during the discussion at the National Press Club.

Creating a nuclear security framework requires "first achieving consensus regarding the threat and then making the resources available," according to Elizabeth Turpen, an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton. She added that the existing international system is a "patchwork" of efforts.

For example, the U.N. Security Council has passed three resolutions related to international terrorism, including Resolution 1540, which is intended to prevent nonstate actors from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, their means of delivery and related materials, she said.

There is also the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. The 1980 compact establishes measures on the prevention, detection and punishment of offenses relating to nuclear material, according to an IAEA fact sheet.

Only 30 of the original 122 signatories have ratified the convention, which requires that two-thirds of those states formally sign on before the pact can enter into force, Turpen told the National Press Club audience. Only 11 of those nations that have ratified the pact have been invited to next week's event.

She called the compact the "most traditional and therefore most legitimate" approach to achieving a more cohesive framework.

There are also a number of separate programs, including the U.S.-Russian Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, she said. The international effort is designed to bring together experience and expertise from the nonproliferation, counterproliferation and counterterrorism discipline and integrate them to strengthen the global architecture against nuclear terrorism.

The Proliferation Security Initiative, launched in May 2003 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush, has enlisted more than 90 nations to voluntarily assist in interdicting suspected weapons of mass destruction materials in transit.

"It's a dizzying array of efforts," Turpen told the audience.

Igor Khripunov, interim director of the Center for International Trade and Security, also decried the number of nonbinding and binding agreements that exist today, saying much of the current international legal standing is "irrelevant" to other countries because it does not reflect their national security concerns.

One way to increase their interest is to demonstrate how such accords can help with domestic problems, he said.

"If you enhance control of your border as a result of security-related conventions, you are helping your national authorities to deal with human trafficking, arms control trafficking and other problems that are much higher on the priority list," he told GSN in a recent phone interview.

"As you get assistance for implementing security-related conventions you implicitly improve your interagency process, you improve your general governance system and many other aspects that can benefit from it," he added.

Khripunov called on participants to next week's summit to address the problems that exist in today's framework and warned against calling for the creation of new legal agreements to address nuclear terrorism.

"Given the fragmented nature and often ad hoc approach toward specific issues, further proliferation of security-related instruments ... in addition to what we already have in this sometimes unmanageable pile can only complicate and frustrate our targeted response to the threat of nuclear terrorism," he said

"I would urge to avoid any new far-reaching agreement or initiatives because the first priority is to fix the foundation," Khripunov added.

Beyond the Summit

Luongo predicted that Obama would press participants to sign on or ratify existing agreements like the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material or implement the Additional Protocol to their safeguards agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which grants IAEA inspectors more extensive access to a nation's nuclear program information and facilities.

Next week's summit is not likely to identify specific countries or nuclear sites as specific problems, he said. Nor will any "significant" new government initiatives be announced during the event.

Luongo said he hopes participants would agree on "time-bound" security goals the international community would be able to track in annual reports.

There should also be regular technical dialogues among nuclear experts, he said, and the United States should reach out to other nations beyond the countries invited to next week's event.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is the "right place" to carry out future efforts on nuclear security but the U.N. nuclear watchdog would need a "much expanded mandate and greater capacity to tackle that aspect," according to Turpen.

"One of the main things that could come out of the summit is if you can get 40-plus leaders signing onto a statement saying, 'Yes, this a top issue. We need to more to address it,'" Ferguson told GSN.

Luongo said it is unclear what the future holds for nuclear security because it is different from other nuclear-related efforts like the just-signed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty follow-on agreement, which is a byproduct of the Cold War.

"We don't know where this nuclear security issues is going to go because it's a lot more difficult, there's a lot more countries, it's more expensive and there's a lot more moving parts than just dealing with Russia," he said.