Nuclear Terrorism - Overview

Overview

Nuclear terrorism could include:

• Acquiring or fabricating a nuclear weapon
• Fabricating a dirty bomb
• Attacking a nuclear reactor, e.g., by disrupting critical inputs (e.g. water supply)
• Attacking or taking over a nuclear-armed submarine, plane or base.

Nuclear terrorism, according to a 2011 report published by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, can be executed and distinguished via four pathways:

• The use of a nuclear weapon that has been stolen or purchased on the black market
• The use of a crude explosive device built by terrorists or by nuclear scientists who the terrorist organization has furtively recruited
• The use of an explosive device constructed by terrorists and their accomplices using their own fissile material
• The acquisition of fissile material from a nation-state.

U.S. President Barack Obama calls nuclear terrorism "the single most important national security threat that we face". In his first speech to the U.N. Security Council, President Obama said that "Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city -- be it New York or Moscow, Tokyo or Beijing, London or Paris -- could kill hundreds of thousands of people". It would "destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life".