Articles

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Test launching of Pakistan-made Ghaznavi missile at undisclosed location in Pakistan Thursday, May 10, 2012. Pakistan successfully test-fired a short-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, Pakistan's military said.

AP Photo/ Uncredited

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Why States Won't Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists

    Authors:
  • Keir A. Lieber
  • Daryl Press
| Summer 2013

Many experts consider nuclear terrorism the single greatest threat to U.S. security. The fear that a state might transfer nuclear materials to terrorists was a core justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and, more recently, for a strike against Iran’s nuclear program. The logical basis for this concern is sound: if a state could orchestrate an anonymous nuclear terror attack, it could destroy an enemy yet avoid retaliation. But how likely is it that the perpetrators of nuclear terrorism could remain anonymous? Data culled from a decade of terrorist incidents reveal that attribution is very likely after high-casualty terror attacks. Attribution rates are even higher for attacks on the U.S. homeland or the territory of a major U.S. ally—97 percent for incidents in which ten or more people were killed. Moreover, tracing a terrorist group that used a nuclear weapon to its state sponsor would not be difficult, because few countries sponsor terror; few terror groups have multiple sponsors; and only one country that sponsors terrorism, Pakistan, has nuclear weapons or enough material to manufacture them. If leaders understand these facts, they will be as reluctant to give weapons to terrorists as they are to use them directly; both actions would invite devastating retaliation.

The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flies in front of the Vienna headquarters at the Vienna International Center on March 27, 2009.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Daedalus

Alternative Nuclear Futures

| Winter 2010

"Our crystal ball is not clear enough to predict with confidence whether the global nuclear future will be characterized by peace and prosperity or by conflict and destruction. But we do believe that the choices made in the coming few years will be crucial in determining whether the world can have more nuclear power without more nuclear weapons dangers in the future."

A nuclear security officer armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and 9mm hand gun patrols the coastal area of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, May 5, 2004, in Avila Beach, Calif.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Daedalus

Reducing the Greatest Risks of Nuclear Theft & Terrorism

| Fall 2009

"Keeping nuclear weapons and the difficult-to-manufacture materials needed to make them out of terrorist hands is critical to U.S. and world security — and to the future of nuclear energy as well. In the aftermath of a terrorist nuclear attack, there would be no chance of convincing governments, utilities, and publics to build nuclear reactors on the scale required for nuclear energy to make any significant contribution to coping with climate change."

A supporter of Pakistan Muslim League-N party arranges an oil lamp at the model of Chaghi Mountain, the site of Pakistan’s nuclear test, in connection with the celebrations of its 10th anniversary, May 27, 2008 in Islamabad, Pakistan.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Daedalus

The Minimum Deterrent & Beyond

| Fall 2009

"...[A] primary goal in the next decades must be to remove this risk of near global self-destruction by drastically reducing nuclear forces to a level where this outcome is not possible, but where a deterrent value is preserved — in other words, to a level of minimum deterrence. This conception was widely discussed in the early years of the nuclear era, but it drowned in the Cold War flood of weaponry. No matter how remote the risk of civilization collapse may seem now — despite its being so vivid only a few decades ago — the elimination of this risk, for this century and centuries to come, must be a primary driver for radical reductions in nuclear weapons."

U.S. President Barack Obama chairs a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Sept. 24, 2009. The council unanimously adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution seeking to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote nuclear disarmament.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Foreign Affairs

Nuclear Disorder: Surveying Atomic Threats

| January/February 2010

The current global nuclear order is extremely fragile, and the three most urgent challenges to it are North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. If North Korea and Iran become established nuclear weapons states over the next several years, the nonproliferation regime will have been hollowed out. If Pakistan were to lose control of even one nuclear weapon that was ultimately used by terrorists, that would change the world. It would transform life in cities, shrink what are now regarded as essential civil liberties, and alter conceptions of a viable nuclear order.

Journal Article - American Scientist

Bombs We Can Stop

| September/October 2007

"William Langewiesche has the reputation of being one of America's best investigative reporters. Unfortunately, he has written a very bad book on nuclear proliferation." Matthew Bunn reviews The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor, by William Langewiesche.

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Magazine Article - Terrorism Monitor

Asfandyar Wali: Profile of Pakistan's Progressive Pashtun Politician

| Feb. 01, 2007

On January 10, Pakistan's secular and Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) won a critical electoral battle in Bajaur Agency. The ANP political party is led by the seasoned politician Asfandyar Wali Khan. The election struck a blow to pro-Taliban elements in the region, and also marks the revival of a party that appeared to be hibernating during the recent Talibanization process. The Pakistani military's hidden alliance with religious political parties made it difficult to effectively tackle the Taliban threat in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States. After 2003, the military opted for a show of brute force in Pakistan's tribal belt which created more problems than it solved. The ANP was routed in national and provincial elections in 2002 because anti-Musharraf and anti-American sentiments were at their peak leading to support for the religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). The mistakes committed by the United States in Afghanistan in terms of not providing enough financial resources for reconstruction and overwhelming dependence on military options to tackle extremists also contributed toward the marginalization of the liberal and progressive forces in the region, including the ANP.