A major U.S. city is the most likely target of a nuclear attack by a terrorist group, a prominent nuclear disarmament group is warning.
The Global Security Institute, headed by former U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, is hoping to jar the public from its post-Cold War complacency about the dangers of a world where nuclear weapons are ever more easily acquired.
Cranston, 85, on Tuesday received the Averell Harriman Award from the Lawyers Alliance for World Security for what it described as “his lifelong dedication to the worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons.” He served as U.S. senator from 1969 to 1993, and became dedicated to nuclear disarmament after a meeting with Albert Einstein following the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
“The threat that terrorists or rogues like Saddam Hussein will buy, bribe or steal their way to Russian nukes rises,” Cranston said, “as soldiers and scientists supposed to protect them are poorly paid or not paid at all, their morale approaching zero.”
Cranston quoted nuclear experts including former U.S. nuclear weapons negotiator Robert Galluchi and U.S. Gen. Charles Horner, commander of the Allied forces in the Gulf War, who predict nuclear weapons will be used in U.S. territory within 10 years.
But not all nuclear arms experts view the threat of nuclear terrorism as credible.
Sumit Ganguly, a visiting professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said, “I don’t buy it. I know I’m in the minority in this position.”
Building a nuclear weapon is “exceedingly difficult,” said Ganguly, a specialist in nuclear non-proliferation with an emphasis on Pakistan and India. Pakistan had to “beg, borrow and steal” to get materials to build a “rudimentary” nuclear weapon, he said. “It’s almost impossible for a terrorist working in a garage to manufacture a nuclear weapon.”
Cranston also warned about the risk of an accidental launching of a nuclear warhead, citing more than 1,000 “misunderstandings” that have occurred over the years.
Cranston and Ganguly, however, agree that the five main nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, China, France and Great Britain — have failed to adhere to the terms of the 30-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which states as its goals the reduction and eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.
Ganguly said the five have completely violated the principles of the part of the treaty that calls for the five nations to pursue “good faith efforts” to bring about nuclear disarmament. “I have seen little or no good-faith effort in the post-Cold War era.”
Cranston added the lack of results by the five nations will lead other nations to conclude, “Maybe we need (nuclear arms) too.” Pakistan’s recently developed nuclear weaponry “is a pretty good example of the price of our not keeping our bargain,” he said.
The Global Security Institute is involved in the production of a documentary, “Sleepwalking to Armageddon,” which is intended to “wake up people,” said Cranston. The film is planned for release this fall.
He said the “bottom line” of the abolition movement “is that it defies common sense to think that nuclear weapons can be around forever and never be used.”
Ganguly hopes another type of common sense will prevail: “The important thing about nuclear weapons is that their capacity for doing horrific destruction makes people peer into the abyss and pull back.”