The most frightening prospect involves not nations but terrorists—and the theft or sale of weapons-grade material from the countries of the former Soviet Union, or from rogue states like North Korea.
During the Cold War, the U.S.S.R. used a system of "guns, guards, and gulags" to protect its external borders and ensure domestic security, so that the nuclear materials dispersed throughout its far-flung network of weapons complexes and research centers were inherently secure, if not particularly well guarded or documented. When the U.S.S.R. dissolved and its zealously guarded perimeter opened, the Russian government faced (and failed at first to appreciate) a host of new challenges—ranging from an army of suddenly unemployed nuclear scientists to the monumental task of keeping up with its nuclear material and preventing it from being stolen and smuggled to outside groups or states.
The U.S., with its more porous borders, had long ago learned to track and account for nuclear materials and offered its expertise to Russia. While scientists on both sides urged cooperation, mistrust lingering from the Cold War delayed agreement between the two countries well into the 1990s, and even then the joint effort was underfunded and hobbled by suspicion.
Since 1991 the U.S.'s Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has supported efforts to secure and eliminate these weapons and materials, but former Senator Sam Nunn, co-sponsor of the legislation with Senator Richard Lugar, estimated at the beginning of this year that the job of securing Russia's nuclear materials was only "between 25 and 50 percent" complete.
"Increasingly," Nunn says, "we are being warned that an act of nuclear terrorism is inevitable. I am not willing to concede that point. But I do believe that unless we greatly elevate our effort [to secure nuclear materials] and the speed of our response, we could face disaster."
