Nuclear Terrorism: A Brief Review of Threats and Responses

Publication Date: February 2005

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Military and defense

Type:

Abstract:

It would be difficult for terrorists to mount a nuclear attack on a U.S. city, but such an attack is plausible and would have catastrophic consequences, in one scenario killing over a half-million people and causing damage of over $1 trillion.

Terrorists or rogue states might acquire a nuclear weapon in several ways. The nations of greatest concern as potential sources of weapons or fissile materials are widely thought to be Russia and Pakistan. Russia has many tactical nuclear weapons, which tend to be lower in yield but more dispersed and apparently less secure than strategic weapons. It also has much highly enriched uranium (HEU) and weaponsgrade plutonium, some said to have inadequate security. Many experts believe that technically sophisticated terrorists could, without state support, fabricate a nuclear bomb from HEU; opinion is divided on whether terrorists could make a bomb using plutonium. The fear regarding Pakistan is that some members of the armed forces might covertly give a weapon to terrorists or that, if President Musharraf were overthrown, an Islamic fundamentalist government or a state of chaos in Pakistan might enable terrorists to obtain a weapon. Terrorists might also obtain HEU from the more than 130 research reactors worldwide that use HEU as fuel.

If terrorists acquired a nuclear weapon, they could try many means to bring it into the United States. This nation has thousands of miles of land and sea borders, as well as several hundred ports of entry. Terrorists might smuggle a weapon across lightly-guarded stretches of borders, ship it in using a cargo container, place it in a crude oil tanker, or bring it in using a truck, a boat, or a small airplane.

The architecture of the U.S. response is termed "layered defense." The goal is to try to block terrorists at various stages in their attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon and smuggle it into the United States. The underlying concept is that the probability of success is higher if many layers are used rather than just one or two. Layers include threat reduction programs in the former Soviet Union, efforts to secure HEU worldwide, control of former Soviet and other borders, the Container Security Initiative and Proliferation Security Initiative, and U.S. border security. Several approaches underlie multiple layers, such as technology, intelligence, and forensics.

Many policy options have been proposed to deal with nuclear terrorism, such as developing new detection technologies, strengthening U.S. intelligence capability, and improving planning to respond to an attack. Congress funds programs to counter nuclear terrorism and holds hearings and less-formal briefings on the topic. Several bills have been introduced in the 109th Congress related to nuclear terrorism.

This report is intended for background, not for tracking current developments. It will be updated occasionally. It does not cover radiological terrorism; see CRS Report RS21766, Radiological Dispersal Devices: Select Issues in Consequence Management, and CRS Report RS21528, Terrorist `Dirty Bombs': A Brief Primer.