The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear terrorism is an urgent threat, but policy debates have been dangerously dominated by caricatured depictions of terrorist groups and potential plots. In his latest book, On Nuclear Terrorism, Michael Levi argues that an obsession with worst-case scenarios and finding perfect defenses has blinded us to important opportunities to confront the nuclear threat.

On Jan. 30, the Nuclear Strategy & Nonproliferation Initiative drew together Levi and New America’s Priscilla Lewis and Jeffrey Lewis to engage in a discussion of this issue. A brief summary follows, while an MP3 audio recording of the 86-minute event can be downloaded below and the video can be viewed at right.

Worrying about the obsession with worst-case scenarios and its impact on policymaking, Levi tried to bring this discussion back to reality with a list of facts that debunk the presumptions generally made of our defense system and the terrorists. For instance, he noted the chance for nuclear terrorists to successfully implement an attack inside the United States is indeed minute when one considers our defense network as a whole rather focusing on individual layers. Moreover, he argued that the terrorists’ opportunities to acquire nuclear technology does not necessarily translate into their capability to operate a nuclear weapon or a terrorist attack.

Levi called for an improved intelligence assessment that includes not only the worst case but also all possible outcomes. He also urged the audience to neither underestimate nor overestimate the threat of nuclear terrorism, but instead to be “pragmatic agnostic” in confronting it.

Priscilla Lewis, director of New America’s U.S. in the World Initiative, elaborated on Levi’s perspective by pointing to the power of framing. She noted the dramatic change in public opinion about public policy’s priority when fear, as the word “nuclear terrorism” suggests, becomes a factor. Indeed, surveys show that the normally low-priority “prevention of nuclear weapons smuggling into the country” was named the top of the list when "nuclear terrorism" was referred to. Framed by fear, she argued that no wonder why the public desires “perfect defense”.

To minimize the fear factor, Lewis suggested that, instead of focusing on the problem, we should focus on our capability to handle the nuclear threat and prevent nuclear terrorism from standing alone as the symbol of terrorism itself.

A framing focused on nuclear terrorism, according to Lewis, has also resulted in an increasingly narrow-minded public that believes this is a national security issue rather than a nuclear proliferation problem shared globally, inadvertently damaging our effort to curb the nuclear arms race. And this, as she concluded, should prompt us to carefully revise and select our frame.

The robust Q&A session, moderated by NSNI director Jeffrey Lewis, touched on a variety of topics, including the use of nuclear detector and how to measure the scale of response, pointing to the political means that draw people’s attentions, and the relationship between state proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism and its implication on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. -- Event summary by Ronald Tang

Participants

• Michael A. Levi
  Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on Foreign Relations
  Director, Program on Energy Security and Climate Change, Council on Foreign Relations
  Author, On Nuclear Terrorism

• Priscilla Lewis
  Director, U.S. in the World Initiative
  New America Foundation

• Jeffrey G. Lewis (Moderator)
  Director, Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative
  New America Foundation
  Publisher, ArmsControlWonk.com