Stopping a Nuclear Nightmare: How We Can Secure Loose Nuclear Materials

Stopping a Nuclear Nightmare: How We Can Secure Loose Nuclear Materials 10/24/14 Kenneth N. Luongo Nonproliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Security, United States "Since the collapse of communism, there have been 664 reported incidents involving the theft or loss of nuclear and other radioactive materials..." The faltering international response to the Ebola epidemic and the rise of ISIS in the Middle East starkly highlight the need for a modernized global architecture that can effectively address rapidly mutating challenges to the world order. In response to the recent cascade of global instability, President Obama acknowledged that, “to keep pace with an interconnected world . . . we cannot rely on a rule book written for a different century.” He should heed his own advice. The international forum he created to strengthen the security of vulnerable nuclear materials and facilities is heading into its endgame, still relying on twentieth-century rules that leave glaring gaps unaddressed. The United States will host the fourth and likely final Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in 2016, and later this month, representatives from over fifty nations will start planning the agenda. They need to overcome the prevailing complacency about the strength of the current security system and its ability to prevent a nuclear nightmare. The current system suffers from three fundamental weaknesses. It mostly relies on voluntary obligations that nations can take or leave. There are no mandatory international standards that would allow for effective evaluation of security consistency and competency across borders. And, there is no requirement for peer review or even communication among countries about their security strategy and practices. The result is an opaque global patchwork, with the weakest links offering tempting targets for increasingly emboldened terrorists. U.S. leadership is essential for addressing these problems. The three previous gatherings have yielded important results, in particular the accelerated removal of bomb-grade materials from a variety of countries. But many of the accomplishments plucked low-hanging fruit. Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/stopping-nuclear-nightmare-how-we-can-secure-loose-nuclear-11542