Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 09/2009

The Armageddon Test

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen

August 2009

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University

Abstract

How much nuclear material has leaked, and is it in the hands of terrorists, in storage somewhere, or still in circulation? No one knows for sure, but the task of cleaning up the nuclear black market amounts to an Armageddon test for global intelligence. The standard for success is unforgiving: all nuclear material must be recovered before it finds its way into an improvised nuclear device.