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The National Interest
The New Containment
by Graham Allison and Andrei Kokoshin
. . . During the Cold War, American and Russian policymakers and citizens thought long and hard about the possibility of nuclear attacks on their respective homelands. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the threat of nuclear weapons catastrophe faded away from most minds. This is both ironic and potentially tragic, since the threat of a nuclear attack on the United States or Russia is certainly greater today than it was in 1989.
In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's September 11 assault, which awakened the world to the reality of global terrorism, it is incumbent upon serious national security analysts to think again about the unthinkable. Could a nuclear terrorist attack happen today? Our considered answer is: yes, unquestionably, without any doubt. It is not only a possibility, but in fact the most urgent unaddressed national security threat to both the United States and Russia. . . .
The argument made here can be summarized in two propositions: first, nuclear terrorism poses a clear and present danger to the United States, Russia and other nations; second, nuclear terrorism is a largely preventable disaster. Preventing nuclear terrorism is a large, complex, but ultimately finite challenge that can be met by a bold, determined, but nonetheless finite response. The current mismatch between the seriousness of the threat on the one hand, and the actions governments are now taking to meet it on the other, is unacceptable. . . .