Threat of Nuclear Terrorism and its implication for Western Security

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Nuclear Terrorism

Running Head: THREAT OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR

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Threat of Nuclear Terrorism and its implication for Western Security

Introduction

Terrorism and the possible possession by terrorists of WMD, especially nuclear weapons, are part of the “asymmetric” dynamics that have thrust the international community into a new and uncertain situation. These dynamics have been witnessed in the 9/11 (2001) al Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the 3/11 (2004) terrorist attacks against Madrid, and the 7/11 (2005) terrorist attacks against London. Terrorist acquisition and use of WMD, especially nuclear weapons, is an extremely serious problem that must not be dismissed as the subject of works of fiction. Indeed, the U.S. casualties and losses on 9/11 would be seen as relatively minor as compared to a possible terrorist strike using even crude nuclear weapons. Both candidates in the United States 2004 presidential elections agreed that this is the most serious threat the country faces.

The threat of terrorist strikes, particularly those involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) represents one of the most serious threats to the United States and other nations that are potential targets of subnational, national, and transnational terrorist groups or networks. Understanding the economic aspects of terrorism can help to prevent or to mitigate this danger.

Engaging in an impossible task of trying to protect vulnerable sites given the possibility of substitution and the enormous number of potential terrorist targets.
Making the classic mistake of “generals fighting the last war” by concentrating too much of their efforts on airports and airplanes. (See Barnett [2004] on the divide within the Department of Defense over what to do in the post-Cold War world).
Not reacting to terrorist innovation in the 9/11 attacks by innovating but rather by reorganizing, creating an ineffectual bureaucracy in DHS.
Doing too little by way of communication directly with the terrorists or via third parties to address real or imagined grievances.
Doing too little in pursuing the most important way to defeat the terrorists, particularly the al Qaeda terrorist group, which is to deprive it of the means of attack, including the key resources of financing, recruits, weapons, intelligence, support groups, propaganda, etc. (See also de Soto [2002] on the economic dilemmas that create a space within which terrorists can thrive.) Of greatest importance is to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD, especially biological and nuclear weapons.

Terrorists, Antiterrorists and their Interaction

Terrorists are assumed to be maximizing utility in terms of inflicting damage subject to constraints on funding, personnel, technology, etc. leading to the supply of terrorist acts as a perverse type of “good” from the vantage point of the terrorists. Stemming from this utility function there is a derived terrorist demand for weapons, suicide bombers and other recruits, financing, intelligence, etc. Antiterrorists are also assumed to be maximizing utility subject to constraints, in terms of seeking both protection from terrorism and risk reduction. Risk perception affects on economic decisions to prevent terrorism. The overall result is an interaction between terrorists and antiterrorists as economic agents with equilibrium prices and quantities, as in a general equilibrium model of the overall economy. There is a derived demand for weapons, funding, recruits as suicide bombers, etc. on the part of the terrorists and, similarly, a derived demand for various forms of protection of vulnerable assets on the part of the antiterrorists in a situation of asymmetric warfare. In the resulting equilibrium, each agent affects the other and the outcomes—terrorist acts and acts of protection—depend on both sets of actors. This paper uses tools of economic analysis to understand the sources of terrorism and how they could be countered. It builds in part on the work of Todd Sandler alone and with others on terrorism over a period of many years.

The Nature of Terrorism and Terrorists

Terrorism is a tactic used by the weak against the strong in an asymmetric warfare situation, with those outside the mainstream or establishment organizing as terrorists with a political agenda. It is a tactic used by the weak, those without power or access to military command, weapons, etc. but with real or perceived grievances. It can be studied using the rational actor model of economics, attempting to achieve a political agenda subject to financial, organizational, logistical, and other constraints. The terrorists generally seek a political agenda but also publicity, recognition, financing, etc. as a means to their political goals. The terrorist policy is to use violence to impose its will upon another party. According to the classic treatise by Karl von Clausewitz, On War, “It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means.” This is also true of terrorism, which involves the “continuation of politics by other means,” paraphrasing Clausewitz.

There are terrorists in every region, culture, religion, not just Islamic extremists, such as al Qaeda. Thus, it is a mistake to focus only on Islamic extremist terrorists. These various terrorist groups have different agendas, and there is a type of competition among terrorist groups in various countries and in different religions. These groups have different goals, with some intent only on inflicting destruction but others with a clear political agenda, especially the overthrow of a regime. Furthermore, these groups are trying to outdo one another in their competition for publicity, funding, recruits, contacts, etc.

Innovation

The 9/11 strike was an example of innovation on the part of the terrorists because it combined two approaches to terrorism that were each used previously, airplane hijacking and suicide bombing, but never combined before in this form. The response to this innovation on the part of the antiterrorists in the U.S. government was not innovation, as would be expected, but rather reorganization, creating the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is top-heavy, dysfunctional, and has been largely ineffective, as seen in the disastrous response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. There was a need for but lack of comparable innovation on the part of the antiterrorists. More recently, the innovation of improvised explosive devices (IED) in Iraq and Afghanistan was not countered by innovation on the side of the antiterrorists. There is also the innovation of the modern suicide bomber that was pioneered in Sri Lanka, building on the Japanese kamikaze pilots in WW II. The recruitment, training, provision of weapons, control, etc. of these suicide bombers was not countered by comparable innovation on the part of the antiterrorists.

Cycles of Nuclear Terrorism

This is a preview of the whole essay

Cycles of Nuclear Terrorism

There is heightened awareness and interest after a terrorist attack but they then erode in the face of other concerns, leading to cycles that have been observed in the work of Sandler and Enders (1993), as well as Faria (2003). Faria describes the cyclical nature of terrorist attacks in a cause and effect manner. When enforcement is low, terrorists have lesser costs associated with terrorist activities, so terrorist attacks increase. In response, governments increase the level of their enforcement, increasing the costs to terrorists and effectively decreasing the level of terrorist activities. After the frequency of terrorist attacks declines, governments have less incentive to invest in enforcement and the cycle repeats itself. Enders and Sandler offer another explanation for the cyclical nature of terrorist attacks. During periods of increased terrorist activity, terrorists exhaust their finite resources. The subsequent “lull” in terrorist attacks is then a period when terrorist organization replenishes their resources. These cycles are similar to the corn-hog cycle or cobweb model in microeconomic theory. Such cycles also appeared in my earlier work with Dagobert Brito on narco-terrorism, as in Colombia, using the predator-prey model of Lotka-Volterra used to study the interactions of sharks and fish, rabbits and lynx, etc. This model is widely used in biology and other disciplines, and it leads to cycles. In its application to terrorism, it leads to situations where it might appear the antiterrorists are winning against the terrorists when they are actually losing or vice versa.

Importance of Intelligence

Intelligence is of crucial importance to both terrorists and antiterrorists. For the antiterrorists, it is imperative to know the terrorists and their motivation. According to Sun Tzu’s classic treatise The Art of War, from the fifth century B.C. “Know thy enemy and know thyself” is a basic precept of warfare, and terrorism is warfare, although a case of asymmetric warfare. There is a need for in-depth intelligence on terrorists’ motivations and goals as well as their means. There is also great value in communication directly with the terrorists or via third parties as in the terrorist situations in Israel-Palestine (e.g., the Oslo process initiated by the Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jørgen Holst, that was working until Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount), Northern Ireland (e.g., “Good Friday” agreement stemming from the work of U.S. Senator George Mitchell), southern Sudan (e.g., negotiations in Kenya), and other such asymmetric warfare situations. Another example of direct communication was General Alexander Lebed’s negotiations with the Chechen rebels in Russia while he was the national security advisor to President Yeltsin that led to a peaceful outcome while it lasted. There is great value in a classical military approach to terrorism that focuses on both the capabilities and intentions of the other side, whether that of the terrorists from the vantage point of the antiterrorists or that of the antiterrorists from the vantage point of the terrorists.

The Danger of Terrorists acquiring Nuclear Weapons

Graham Allison (2004) discusses this issue in his book, Nuclear Terrorism, where he emphasizes that, as he puts it in the subtitle of this book, nuclear terrorism is the “ultimate preventable catastrophe.” Unfortunately, his conclusion may be overly optimistic in that his proposals of strict control over fissile material and the prevention of the acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional nations, while excellent policies, may not work perfectly and are not yet in place. Furthermore, it may be possible that terrorist groups already have obtained enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon or even already possess such a weapon. Considerable efforts to obtain WMDs have been made by two major terrorist organizations, Aum Shinrikyo and al Qaeda. For a detailed discussion of their attempts, see Daly, Parachini, and Rosenau (2005). Lewis (2006) examines the economic considerations for terrorists interested in acquiring a nuclear weapon. Using a cost per casualty ratio, obtaining a nuclear weapon capable of 100,000 casualties for $10 million ($100 per casualty) would be a bargain for an organization like al Qaeda who normally operate in the $100–$300 per casualty range.

Assuming a terrorist organization already has enough fissile material to make such a weapon, Lewis estimates the cost of building it to be $2 million (leaving $8 million to procure the necessary fissile material). It is possible to identify various “nightmare scenarios.” Most devastating would be a repeat of 9/11 but this time with a nuclear weapon. If a subnational terrorist group could gain access to a nuclear weapon, it could use it or at least threaten to do so. If Osama bin Laden had even a crude nuclear weapon, he could have used it on 9/11 or in other al Qaeda attacks. There is some information about terrorist’s intentions to obtain nuclear weapons. Osama bin Laden has specifically referred to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the al Qaeda terrorist network as a “religious duty,” and documents were found in the al Qaeda caves in Afghanistan regarding their intent to use WMD that even included a schematic diagram of a nuclear weapon. After the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda spokesman Abu Gheith (2002) wrote:

“We have not reached parity with them. We have the right to kill 4 million Americans—2 million of them children—and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with the fatal maladies that have afflicted the Muslims because of the [Americans’] chemical and biological weapons.”

If this stated goal of retribution were true, the only way that al Qaeda could attain this objective would be to use nuclear weapons or a highly destructive and sophisticated biological agent. Other nightmare scenarios involving terrorists using WMD would include a strike with conventional weapons against a nuclear power plant near a major city such as Indian Point just above New York City or a terrorist group placing a nuclear weapon in a container on a freighter entering a major port, such as the Los Angeles/ Long Beach port complex, by far the largest in the United States. Terrorists could place such a bomb in one of the many containers entering U.S. ports as less than 5% of them are inspected. Furthermore, the Los Angeles/Long Beach port represents an important potential target for terrorists as it accounts for more than 40% of all U.S. foreign trade and it borders on a major metropolitan area, the second largest in the nation. Thus, knocking it out of commission would have enormous impacts on the economies of the United States and all its trading partners, potentially disrupting much of world trade as well as potentially inflicting millions of casualties.

Implications of Nuclear Terrorism on Western Security

Zimmerman most fears what he calls “megaterrorism,” involving thousands of casualties, by means of biological warfare agents or nuclear weapons. He postulates that terrorists could use a nuclear weapon stolen from Russia or an improvised nuclear device based on highly enriched uranium built in the United States. Some acts of megaterrorism, including 9/11, were foreseen by the U.S. Commission on National Security in the twenty-first century [the Hart-Rudman Commission] in its 1999 report that stated that,

“Terrorism will appeal to many weak states as an attractive option to blunt the influence of major powers… [but] there will be a greater incidence of ad hoc cells and individuals, often moved by religious zeal, seemingly irrational cultist beliefs, or seething resentment . . . The growing resentment against Western culture and values . . . is breeding a backlash . . . Therefore, the United States should assume that it will be a target of terrorist attacks against its homeland using WMD. The United States will be vulnerable to such strikes.”

It is customary to include as WMD nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological weapons, but there are important differences among these weapons. In fact, it is misleading or even mistaken to lump together all of these weapons as one category of “WMD” because nuclear weapons are in a class all to themselves in view of their tremendous destructive potential. Although nuclear weapons are not now, as far as we know, in the hands of terrorists, they could be sometime in the future, given that this is an old technology that is well understood worldwide and given that there has recently been a proliferation of WMD-related technologies and material.

Furthermore, recent trends in terrorist incidents indicate a tendency toward mass-casualty attacks for which WMD are well suited. There is even a type of rivalry between various terrorist groups to have the largest impact and the greatest publicity, topping the actions of other such groups. If terrorists had admission to the required financial support they could probably find another such expert or middleman to provide them the detailed plans and even the components for a nuclear weapon. Even without a full-fledged nuclear weapon they could assemble a radiological dispersal device that could cause massive disruption and also have massive psychological effects on the population. North Korea could in the future play the role that Pakistan has played in selling nuclear technology or material. The role would repeat their experience in importing scud missiles from the Soviet Union and then exporting improved versions of these missiles using reverse engineering.

One important consequence of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was to eliminate the main base of al Qaeda, destroying its central command structure. In the absence of this central command structure, individual networks appear to have gained greater freedom and independence in tactical decisions than the traditional terrorist cells of the past. This particular trend in terrorism represents a different and potentially far more lethal one than that posed by the more familiar, traditional, terrorist adversaries. The 9/11 attacks have demonstrated that transnational terrorism is now more lethal and that it can have a fundamental political and strategic impact. Furthermore, the threat of terrorist use of WMD is still possible and perhaps inevitable given the goals of al Qaeda, which is probably now rebuilding its central command structure.

There has been to date only one example of a terrorist group using WMD. This historical example is the Japanese terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo’s release of sarin nerve gas on the world’s busiest subway system in Tokyo on March 20, 1995. This attack represented the crossing of a threshold and demonstrated that certain types of WMD are within the reach of some terrorist groups. The attack came at the peak of the Monday morning rush hour, right under the Tokyo police headquarters, in one of the busiest commuter systems in the world, and it resulted in 12 deaths and more than 5,000 injuries. Although the number of deaths was quite small, this was the largest number of casualties of any terrorist attack up to that time. This number of casualties is exceeded only by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well as in Pennsylvania that resulted in approximately 3,000 deaths and almost 9,000 nonfatal casualties. (It should be noted that most of the injuries in the Tokyo subway attack were not serious; most casualties were released from the hospital within one day.

Even before their attack on the Tokyo subway, Aum Shinrikyo had conducted attacks using sarin and anthrax and had been attempting to produce biological weapons. Following the 1995 attack in Japan, President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 39 stating that the prevention of WMD from becoming available to terrorists is the highest priority of the U.S. government. The world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles and the world’s stockpiles of weapons-grade materials (both military and civilian) are overwhelmingly concentrated in the five nuclear weapon states (United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia). Additional nuclear weapons or components exist in Israel, India, Pakistan, and now also in North Korea. In addition, civilian plutonium for many nuclear weapons also exists in Belgium, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and elsewhere, sometimes in quantities large enough to make a weapon. Access to WMDs can be treated as a supply and demand problem: supplies must be limited, with the current huge supplies of WMDs safeguarded or destroyed.

Russian stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons should be safeguarded, whereas Russian stockpiles of chemical weapons and biological weapons, the largest in the world, should be destroyed through an expansion of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. As discussed by Allison (2004), stockpiles of fissile material, both highly enriched uranium and plutonium, must be safeguarded under the same type of protection that the United States gives to its stockpile of gold at Fort Knox, a new type of “gold standard,” as Allison calls it. Furthermore, Allison emphasizes the importance of preventing the acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional states, including Iran. He correctly notes that terrorists can obtain nuclear weapons only through theft of such a weapon or acquisition of the necessary fissile material, as they do not have the technical and financial capabilities to produce this material. Thus, preventing them from acquiring such capabilities can help make the problem of terrorist use of nuclear weapons a preventable one, although he appears to be too sanguine in this regard. Allison stresses the supply side, noting, correctly, that the problem of nuclear terrorism would disappear if terrorists were to be denied access to nuclear weapons and to the fissile material necessary to produce them.

Conclusion

It may be the case, however, that such access cannot be completely denied, and it may also be the case that some of this material is already in the hands of terrorist groups, so it is important to treat the demand side as well as the supply side. To reduce the terrorist demand for nuclear weapons, a new form of deterrence must be developed, with a global deterrence system that would be used against any terrorist group using WMD. New initiatives must be undertaken to deal with the issue of terrorist use of nuclear weapons and other WMD at the global level, including through international institutions. The proposals on reform of the UN system, in the Report of High-Level Threats, Challenges, and Change, are valuable in this regard (United Nations 2004). They must, however, be supplemented by initiatives and reforms that deal directly with this threat, including the sharing of information and the creation of a task force that could take direct action against terrorist groups that could be planning to use WMD.

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Pape, R. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005.

Katona, P., J. Sullivan, and M. Intriligator, editors. Forthcoming. Global Biosecurity and Health Care Preparedness: A Networked Global Approach. London: Taylor & Francis, 2010.

Barnett, T. P. M. The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004.

de Soto, H. The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism, New York: Basic Books, 2002.

Pape, R. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005.

Lake, A. Six Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America Can Meet Them. Boston: Little Brown, 2000.

Makinen, G. The Economic Effects of 9/11: A Retrospective Assessment. Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, September 27, 2002 and Richardson, H. W., P. Gordon, and J. E. Moore II, editors. The Economic Costs and Consequences of Terrorism. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2007.

Ferguson, C. D., W. C. Potter, A. Sands, L. S. Spector, and F. L. Wehling. The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism. Monterey, CA: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute, 2004 and Friedman, T. L. The World Is Flat; A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Expanded and updated edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Abadie, A. “Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism.” American Economic Review, 96, 2006, 50–56.

Krueger, A. B., and J. Maleckova. “Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(4), 2003, 119–144, Fall 2003 and Kurth Cronin, A. Ending Terrorism; Lessons for Defeating al-Qaeda. London: Adelphi Paper 394, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2008.

Davis, P. K., and K. Cragin, eds. Social Science for Counterterrorism; Putting the Pieces Together. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation Project Air Force, 2009.

Allison, G. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. New York: Times Books, 2004.

Zimmerman, P. D., and J. G. Lewis. “The Bomb in the Backyard,” Foreign Policy, November/December 2006, 32–39.

Levi, M. A. On Nuclear Terrorism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007 and Mueller, J. “Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?: The Myth of the Omnipresent Enemy.” Foreign Affairs, September-October, 2006.

Krueger, A. B. What Makes A Terrorist; Economics and the Roots of Terrorism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Landes, W. M. “An Economic Study of U.S. Aircraft Hijacking, 1961–1976.” Journal of Law and Economics, 21(1), 1978, 1–31 and Levi, M. A. (Spring 2004). “Deterring Nuclear Terrorism.” Issues in Science and Technology.

Abrahms, M. “What Terrorists Really Want.” International Security, 32, 2008, 78–105.

Krueger, A. B., and D. D. Laitin. “Misunderstanding Terrorism.” Foreign Affairs, 83, 2004, 8–13 and Walzer, M. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books, 1976.

Allison, G. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. New York: Times Books, 2004.