Nuclear terrorism, in real, is quite a petrifying phenomenon, but there is no tangible study available that this threat is genuine in a world where nuclear technology is heavily regulated and secured. Since no incident of terrorism has yet been reported that involves nuclear weapons, there is disagreement among analysts how serious the threat of nuclear terrorism could be. However, such arguments should not be a source of complacency.
Only a few states have played this threat up for political purposes as a lever against countries that are not likeminded. For example, the same approach was used after 9/11 when terrorism was being used to achieve certain interests. The main aspect of the nuclear security summits, started from 2010 and beyond, was to highlight nuclear dangers emanating from Iran and other countries; the same were also played up. While there was a narrative against these countries, none of the forums allowed them space to appear and give their perspectives on the issue.
The 2015 annual report of the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies is a yardstick on global incidents of nuclear theft or loss. The US tops the rank in the world with 59.4 percent of negligence, loss or theft incidents, followed by France 5.9 percent, Canada 5.9 percent, Ukraine 5.3 percent and Russia 5.3 percent. For instance, in 2007, six American nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly transported from the Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base. There are innumerable such reported faux pas in this regard.
Similarly, a truck carrying a radioactive source that could be used in radiological dispersion device — i.e., almost a dirty bomb — was stolen near Mexico City in 2013. Broken Arrow is the known term for accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of a nuclear weapon. Since 1950, there have been 32 incidents of Broken Arrows in the US among which, disturbingly, six nuclear weapons were never recovered.
In December 2015, Adrian Levy and Jeffrey Smith penned a detailed report on the vulnerability of Indian nuclear weapons programme. Previously in 1994, 2003, 2008 and 2013 terrorist groups obtained uranium from India’s state-owned mines. Recently, in June 2016, a criminal group was uncovered in India that was involved in smuggling radioactive substances.
Israel is said to be in possession of nuclear weapons and lies in a region where terrorist organisations like ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas are more powerful than the Taliban in the South Asian region. Even the Israeli nuclear reactors are ‘an easy target’ of missiles possessed by these terrorist groups.
However, the western media completely ignores these incidents, and creatively sets alarm bells in other countries. In July, The Economist, in its edition “The World In 2016” created a “What-if” scenario, and wrote that terrorists have intentions to acquire nuclear material to make a nuke and can kill millions of people. And that Pakistan’s short-range battlefield nuclear weapons and authorities in command are constantly accused as “destabilising at best” factor, and the pressure to “use them or lose them,” respectively.
Critically, to some extent, Pakistan’s development of battlefield nuclear weapons has startled India’s gigantic military build-up and doctrinal transformation. Positively, there is no proven case study available to assume that in a case of a crisis how the National Command Authority (NCA) would move missiles or codes, and if they will even be put under control of junior officers.
The Economist posits without any evidence that “up to 40 percent of Pakistan’s middle-ranking army officers are to some extent radicalised.” Contrarily, former CIA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that billions of dollars are spent to spy on Pakistan’s nuclear programme just because of the anxiety “driven more by uncertainty about how it is run than specific intelligence indicating that its systems are vulnerable.”
Pakistan’s commanding authorities are well aware of the threat of nuclear terrorism and accordingly, physical protection measures are improved with several real time training courses. “Nobody knows how they truly do it. Vehicles move in a stealthy manner and move with security. But it’s not clear whether the cores are moved to the warheads or the warheads are moved to the core locations.”
Unfortunately, the nuclear security issue has been hijacked by interests-based international politics in which an undue focus has been brought on the Middle East and South Asia. Therefore, in reality, it is not a stern effort to curb the dangers of unseen nuclear terrorism, but it is, in fact, a measured struggle to brand some countries so weak so that it could be argued nuclear technology is not safe in their hands. A rational approach should be taken in churning out reports on nuclear security.
Ahsan Ali Zahid is an M. Phil scholar in the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad
Hasan Ehtisham is an M. Phil scholar in the Department of Strategic Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad