"...Bin Laden would develop an idea that would breathe life back into Zawahiri's dreams: the United States must become the target of the jihad. If the Americans could be provoked into war, they could be defeated like the Soviets, and expelled from Muslim lands for good. The fall of the U.S. superpower would lead to the overthrow of secular Arab states. This insight led to successive Al Qaeda strikes against the U.S., including the unsuccessful bombing of the World Trade Center (1993), bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa (1998), and the bombing of the USS Cole (2000).  It was not evident at the time, but the road to 9/11 began on the day Al Qaeda was formed."

"In order to achieve success, the intelligence leadership must ensure that every officer in the community understands that the DNI is here to stay, and that the FBI requires their full support. Internal dissonance and institutional rivalries are the surest ways to leave holes in our nation's defenses."

"While the total amount of material that has been recovered and publicly disclosed is not sufficient to make a nuclear weapon, the matter is deadly serious. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, none of the recovered nuclear material was reported missing by its owners. Incredibly, none of these cases has been sufficiently investigated to determine the origin, destination, and all those responsible for the theft of the material."

"Liaison is an important key to overall U.S.-Russian relations, said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University at a 17 May 2010 Kennan Institute talk. Having spent 23 years as a CIA intelligence officer in various domestic and international posts, Mowatt-Larssen discussed the role of intelligence in the U.S.-Russia relationship, the history of the two countries’ intelligence liaison, and areas of cooperation for the future."

"The United States and Pakistan recently initiated a promising series of high level talks to develop a strategic relationship between the two countries. Even in pursuit of such an expanded bilateral agenda, however, lowering the risks associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons must stand at the top of the list of priorities."

Where are the sources of greatest threat today? Where is nuclear catastrophe most likely to occur over the next decade?  If we are able to anticipate the breaking news of a nuclear security meltdown, it stands to reason we might be able to prevent it from becoming tomorrow's news.

President Obama's first-ever Nuclear Security Summit, which brought nearly 40 heads of state to Washington, D.C., this week, was an unprecedented opportunity to focus global leaders' attention on the threat of nuclear terrorism. Experts from Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs offer their takeaways from the Summit and what to do next.

"...Germany has an opportunity at the Washington summit — and thereafter — to step up and lend non-American leadership to the problem. Recognizing that in many of the world's capitals the threat of nuclear terrorism is not yet being taken seriously, and when in some of them the very notion is even considered an American pretext for an entirely different, potentially hostile political agenda, non-American leadership is most urgently needed."

Several terrorist groups have actively sought weapons of mass destruction (WMD) of one kind or another. To date, however, al Qaeda is the only group known to be pursuing a long-term, persistent and systematic approach to developing weapons to be used in mass casualty attacks. There are many plausible explanations for why the world has not experienced an al Qaeda attack using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but it would be foolish to discount the possibility that such an event will occur in the future.

"A troop surge in Afghanistan and strategic partnership with Pakistan may be important, but they are not enough. It would be a pyrrhic victory to deny terrorists sanctuary in Afghanistan and Pakistan, only to discover that al Qaeda and associates have moved operational capability and built terrorist cells in new sanctuaries in order to launch strikes across the globe."