Abstract:
A founding dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Allison applies a long, distinguished career in government and academia
to this sobering—indeed frightening—presentation of U.S. vulnerability
to a terrorist nuclear attack. While he begins by asserting such an
attack is preventable, the balance of his text is anything but
reassuring. Allison begins by describing the broad spectrum of groups
who could intend a nuclear strike against the U.S. They range from an
al-Qaeda with its own Manhattan Project to small and determined doomsday
cults. Their tools can include a broad spectrum of weapons, either
stolen or homemade from raw materials increasingly available worldwide.
Once terrorists acquire a nuclear bomb, Allison argues, its delivery to
an American target may be almost impossible to stop under current
security measures. The Bush administration, correct in waging war
against nuclear terrorism, has not, he says, yet developed a
comprehensive counter strategy. Arguing that the only way to eliminate
nuclear terrorism's threat is to lock down the weapons at the source,
Allison recommends nothing less than a new international order based on
no insecure nuclear material, no new facilities for processing uranium
or enriching plutonium and no new nuclear states. Those policies,
Allison believes, do not stretch beyond the achievable, if pursued by a
combination of quid pro quos and intimidation in an international
context of negotiation and a U.S. foreign policy he describes as "humble." A humble policy in turn will facilitate building a world
alliance against nuclear terrorism and acquiring the intelligence
necessary for success against prospective nuclear terrorists. It will
also require time, money and effort. Like the Cold War, the war on
nuclear terrorism will probably be a long struggle in the twilight. But
no student of the fact, Allison asserts, doubts that another major
terrorist attack is in the offing. "We do not have the luxury," he
declares, "of hoping the beast will simply go away."
Website