The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism

Review of Right of Boom: The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism Review of Benjamin E. Schwartz’s Right of Boom: The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism (Overlook Press, 2015) By Edward A. Friedman Roadside bombs were devastating to American troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The press has categorized the moment prior to such an explosion as “left of boom,” and that following the explosion as “right of boom.” Defense Department analyst, Benjamin E. Schwartz, has chosen to title his book about nuclear terrorism, Right of Boom. While capturing the mystery of the weapon’s origin, the title does little to convey the enormity or complexity of the issue being addressed. This obscure reference adds to a list of euphemisms that shield readers from the shock of confronting nuclear terrorism head on. Homeland Security refers to a nuclear bomb fabricated by a terrorist as an IND (Improvised nuclear device). President Obama has named a series of World Summits on nuclear terrorism, “Nuclear Security Summits.” International affairs analysts and commentators refer to potential perpetrators of nuclear terrorism as non-state actors. The “T-word” is too often hidden in obfuscation and awkward verbal constructs. It is difficult to come to grips with what is perhaps the world’s most serious threat, when a verbal veil shields us from apocalyptic implications. For more than forty years, serious commentators have drawn public attention to the possibility that terrorists, a.k.a. non-state actors, might detonate a nuclear weapon in a major American metropolitan location, but few have grappled with the question of what action should be taken by America’s President in response to such an attack by a perpetrator whose identity may not be known. Schwartz shares his thoughts with us on the forces that might drive the President to take dramatic action, knowing that it is predicated on a web of conjectures and guesses, rather than on hard intelligence and evidence. He also explores possible unilateral and multilateral actions that might prevent future additional attacks, as well as new world government initiatives for the control of atomic materials. By Federation of American Scientists | Public Interest Report | Summer/Fall 2015– Volume 68 Number 3 Review of Right of Boom: The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism introducing these hypothetical situations of extreme complexity, Schwartz has made a valuable contribution to civil discourse. He lifts the rock under which these issues have been addressed by security specialists and government agencies that are out of view of the general public. However, he only provides a peek under the rock, rather than a robust examination of the issues. Schwartz does grapple with the implications of an existential threat to the nation coming from a non- state entity. The norms of international relations go out the window when it is impossible for a government to protect itself through government-to-government relations. Even when dealing with the drug cartels of Colombia and of Mexico, the United States coordinates its efforts through the governments of those countries; but given the extreme threat of a nuclear weapon, if rogue gangs of nuclear terrorists were operating in Mexico, it is likely that the U.S. government would not hesitate to take unilateral action across international borders, much like the drone attacks in the frontier areas of Pakistan or the military operation that captured and killed Osama bin Laden. Furthermore, alliances needed to confront nuclear terrorism might take the form of collaboration with militias that have only a loose affiliation with nation states. Such new forms of international security liaison are emerging as the United States increasingly relies on the efforts of Kurdish and Shiite militias in combat against ISIS. Schwartz is strongest when he explores the logical non-traditional opportunities for action and weakest when he seeks to draw wisdom from nineteenth century accounts of dealing with the likes of Comanche warriors of the Great Plains and Pashtun tribes of the Khyber Pass. His efforts of gaining guidance in dealing with unprecedented terrorist groups by learning from experiences in historic guerrilla warfare encounters lack credibility. Right of Boom makes a particularly valuable contribution to discourse about the threat of nuclear terrorism by reviewing a key section of the 2004 book1 by Graham Allison, entitled, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. Dr. Allison was the founding Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant secretary of defense under President Clinton. Allison ably summarized the dangers and potential policy initiatives in 2004, when he wrote: The centerpiece of a strategy to prevent nuclear terrorism must be to deny terrorists access to nuclear weapons or materials. To do this we must shape a new international security order according to a doctrine of “Three No’s”: 1 Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. Graham Allison. Henry Holt and Company, LLC (2004). Federation of American Scientists | Public Interest Report | Summer/Fall 2015– Volume 68 Number 3 Review of Right of Boom: The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism 1. No Loose Nukes; 2. No New Nascent Nukes; and 3. No New Nuclear Weapons States. The first “No” refers to insecure weapons or materials that could be detonated in a weapon. The second refers to capacity to develop new nuclear weapons material such as enriched uranium or purified plutonium. The third goes beyond the development of fissile materials to the design and development of operational new weapons. Schwartz details how each of these three barriers has been breached within the past decade. This road to instability has been paved by North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. Schwartz makes it resoundingly clear that the mechanisms for preventing the catastrophe described by Allison need to be reviewed and recast. Schwartz frames his discussions in the hypothetical context of a Hiroshima-type bomb, known as Little Boy, being detonated on the ground by terrorists in Washington, D.C., but with the executive branch of government having been out of harm’s way. The President is, thus, in a position to deal with needed actions of response and restructuring. He argues that the President must take military action, even if he or she is ignorant of the origin of the nuclear attack. While not completely convincing, his exposition is engaging. Schwartz speculates other anticipated outcomes following a nuclear terrorist attack that echo post- World War II ideas about international control, including the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan of 1946. While thought-provoking, those ideas, which did not gain traction back then, are still not compelling today. In order for readers to take the threat of nuclear terrorism seriously, they need to understand how such a cataclysmic event could occur in the first place. For the vast majority of readers, nuclear realities are quite remote and unknown. Most individuals make an implicit assumption that the many layers of security that have evolved since 9/11 adequately protect society from the development of rogue nuclear weapons. Even if there is not full clarity on the issue, there is most likely a vague understanding in the minds of most that the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima required an enterprise, the Manhattan Project, and that it was perhaps the greatest scientific, militaristic, and industrial undertaking in human history. How then, could an equivalent of that Hiroshima bomb arrive in a truck at the corner of 18th and K Streets in Washington, DC, delivered by a team of perpetrators, perhaps no larger than the team of nineteen jihadists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11? Federation of American Scientists | Public Interest Report | Summer/Fall 2015– Volume 68 Number 3 Review of Right of Boom: The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism Schwartz does a poor job of providing a clear description, for a layperson, regarding the plausibility of nuclear terrorism. He provides some history about the development of nuclear weapons, the subsequent declassification of the designs and knowledge needed for weapons production, and the 1966 case study of how three young scientists, without nuclear background, successfully designed a Nagasaki type weapon at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as an exercise to demonstrate national vulnerability. His only reference to the Hiroshima bomb design, which would be the likely objective of a terrorist plot, is inserted as a passing phrase in the commentary about the Lawrence Livermore exercise. He states that the three young scientists “... quickly rejected designing a gun-type bomb like Little Boy, which would have used a sawed-off howitzer to crash two pieces of fissile material together, judging it to be too easy and unworthy of their time.” (P.42-43) It is precisely the ease of both designing and building a Little Boy model that makes nuclear terrorism so feasible! The trio of young scientists succeeded in designing a Nagasaki bomb, known as Fat Man, but did not attempt to actually build one. Schwartz neglects to mention that the Little Boy design uses enriched uranium for its explosive power (which is only mildly radioactive and easy to fabricate into a weapon) while Fat Man uses plutonium (that is quite radioactive and difficult to fabricate into a weapon). Schwartz identifies uranium 235 as a form of uranium that undergoes fission and he notes that uranium 238, which has three more neutrons in its nucleus, is a much more common form of the element. In the ore that is mined, there are ninety-nine atoms of uranium 238 for every one of uranium 235. Schwartz does not clearly state that bomb fabrication requires enrichment levels of uranium 235, which brings the composition of that component from 1% to 90%. Uranium composed of 90% uranium 235 atoms is known as “Highly Enriched Uranium” (HEU). One way of producing this bomb grade material is with the use of centrifuges.

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