(Deutsche Übersetzung - Hier Klicken!, German translation now available!)
(Here is a guest article by one of our readers and commenters, Helian. Helian is a nuclear physicist and writes about Iran's nuclear program, the threat of nuclear weapons and European media's approach to the problem. He provides an expert's view of the frightening potential combination of terrorists and nuclear materials.)
There’s a strange detachment in the many articles that have been appearing in the German media lately about Iran’s nuclear program. There is no sense of urgency about the problem. On the other hand, the snarky one line zingers aimed at the US are notable by their absence. They’re usually commonplace in any coverage of foreign news if the US happens to be in any way relevant to the story. Not this time. Perhaps, at some level of consciousness, the Germans, and, for that matter, the rest of the Europeans, realize that, once again, they have a big problem, and, once again, they need the US to get them out of it. Meanwhile, they’re doing their best to whistle past the graveyard. For example, SPIEGEL ONLINE portrays a “peaceful” Iran, one open to negotiations to find “a good solution and a good end.” Focus lulls us with the story that, “According to a newspaper report, the US military considers it possible that Iran will have the technical capability to build an atomic bomb in five to eight years,” and this, “allows the US government a corresponding period of time in which to decide whether to attack the Iranian atomic facilities.” I rather suspect the reality of the situation is not quite so rosy. Let me explain my reasons why.
No one doubts the destructive power of nuclear weapons. We have already seen what “small” ones can do when dropped on a city. During the decades of the cold war, we became conditioned to thinking of nuclear war in terms of a massive attack and counterattack with hundreds or thousands of weapons launched on each side. We think of the nuclear danger from Iran and other states that may develop nuclear weapons in the future in this context. Possible threats from a nuclear-armed Iran mentioned in the media and elsewhere include an attack on Israel with missiles or bombers, or diversion of one or more complete weapons to a terrorist organization such as Hezbollah. We reassure ourselves that only sophisticated weapons will be used, devices at least as sophisticated as the ones used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which may (or may not) take Iran five to eight years to develop. Should Iran develop such a weapon, it is not out of the question that it will use it. Its current president is a dangerous lunatic, and we are familiar with his rants about wiping Israel from the map. However, there are other scenarios which are, in my opinion, much more likely. There has been a notable lack of “out-of-the-box” thinking in this area. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate the nuclear danger in the context of the modern world, not the one that existed before the demise of the Soviet Union, and consider the likelihood of scenarios involving “unconventional” nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists as well as states. It is on such scenarios that I would like to focus.
The most likely form of nuclear attack in the modern world is one carried out by terrorists. In carrying out such an attack, the attackers might well use a device quite different from the sophisticated weapon that military experts suggest it will take Iran “five to eight years” to develop. Current thought on this subject is often informed by what one might call the “Hiroshima fallacy,” the belief that terrorists would not consider the use of a nuclear weapon significantly less sophisticated than the first weapon used against Japan, or one with a yield significantly less than the yield of that weapon. This is simply not true. Terrorists could inflict tremendous damage in terms of both human life and economic disruption with much simpler devices. Another potentially dangerous fallacy is the notion that terrorists could not attack without transporting a complete weapon to the target. This, too, is nonsense.
The one essential ingredient for making a nuclear weapon is fissile material, otherwise known as special nuclear material, or SNM. By far the most common types of SNM are uranium 235 (U235) and plutonium 239 (Pu239). According to the unclassified literature, 4 kg of Pu239 or 25 kg of U235 is considered sufficient to build a nuclear weapon. There are already many tons of both these materials on the planet today. Any state or terrorist organization that manages to get its hands on the amounts of SNM mentioned above will have the bomb, PERIOD. Forget five to eight years. The reality is a great deal grimmer. It is not necessary to have a degree in nuclear engineering to understand why.
Energy release in a super-critical mass begins with the initiation of a nuclear chain reaction by an ambient neutron, arriving randomly from some external source, such as cosmic radiation, or internally due to spontaneous fission in the SNM itself. The amount of energy released by this chain reaction will depend on the level of super-criticality the mass can reach before the process starts. The more quickly one can assemble the mass, the greater the energy release will be. Modern weapons achieve enormous yields by assembling the mass very quickly, either with powerful guns that propel one piece of the SNM into another, or via implosion caused by an explosive charge surrounding the material, and then injecting neutrons at precisely the optimum time. There are, however, many other ways of simply assembling a critical mass.
Perhaps the crudest method one could think of would be to simply drop one sufficiently large chunk of SNM on top of another. An ambient neutron would likely set off a nuclear chain reaction in such a mass at very nearly the point at which it became critical. Before such a mass again became sub-critical due to melting, burning, etc., it would release significant amounts of radiation, comparable to what one might expect of an effective Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) or “dirty bomb.” While this might not result in significant numbers of actual casualties, it would certainly have a devastating psychological impact and, depending on location, cause potentially major economic disruption as well.
As one gradually increased the speed of assembly of the SNM, it would be possible to assemble larger, super-critical masses before a random neutron set off a chain reaction. To achieve these higher assembly speeds one might use, for example, a stiff spring, or a small explosive charge. At some point a measurable explosive yield would result. The size of this yield would be unpredictable, depending on when an ambient neutron happened along to set off the chain reaction.
If terrorists could secure the necessary SNM, would they be likely to build such a “sub-Hiroshima” weapon? I suspect that they would. Assuming they have the necessary SNM, it is hardly out of the question that terrorists could build a bomb with a yield similar to that used at Hiroshima. However, should they succeed in securing the necessary SNM, they might consider it risky and dangerous to keep it for the length of time necessary to build a sophisticated device, or they might lack access to the technical skills necessary to build one. They might conclude that a small yield rather than a large nuclear blast would be more effective from a “propaganda,” or “public relations” point of view. Creating an enormous number of victims would be likely to alienate large segments of the international community that might otherwise sympathize with or adopt a neutral attitude towards the terrorists. Terrorists might deem the psychological trauma caused by the knowledge that they had and could use nuclear weapons, and the economic dislocation that a smaller blast with subsequent dispersal of large amounts of radioactive material would certainly cause, sufficiently effective. This would be especially true if terrorists feared massive retaliation to possible sponsor states should they use a larger device.
Another common fallacy is the notion that terrorists could only attack a target by transporting a complete weapon. Governments worldwide are currently wasting vast amounts of money emplacing sophisticated radiation detection devices at transportation nodes such as ports, major border crossings, etc., based on this fallacious assumption. These detection devices will certainly succeed in causing traffic delays. The chances that they will ever detect a terrorist nuclear weapon are between slim and none, inclining towards the latter. Terrorists will simply bypass this latter day Maginot line. They are most likely to do so by transporting a weapon to its target by components, rather than in complete form. SNM itself is the greatest liability to anyone attempting to move a weapon or components of a weapon to its target. It could be carried by individuals in backpacks, on “dirt bikes,” ATV’s, light planes, personal submarines, or whatever. Even in the unlikely event that a carrier of small amounts of SNM is detected, the consequences for the terrorist attackers and the state that supplied them the material are likely to be minimal. Indeed, such material has already been seized from smugglers without serious consequences. Smugglers can simply deny any motive other than selling the material on the black market, and can plausibly claim they stole or bought it from corrupt guards, diverting blame from the actual supplier state.
Conversely, non-SNM weapons components would also become easier to transport if smuggled separately. They could be transported to the target in normal shipping containers or otherwise, as convenient, without fear of interdiction due to radiation detection devices. Even in the unlikely event that such components were found, their replacement would be easy compared to that of the SNM. Installation of the SNM in an otherwise complete weapon at the target would not necessarily be a difficult operation for a technically qualified individual, or even for one with reasonable mechanical skills, depending, of course, on the sophistication of the design. It could likely be done in a matter of minutes. In addition to its other advantages, separate transport of the SNM would be an effective safing mechanism, insuring that detonation would not occur until the desired moment.
These, then, are some very realistic possibilities, in addition to the “conventional” ones occasionally mentioned in the media, which must be considered when deciding on the magnitude of the danger of nuclear proliferation, and what we should do to counter it. That danger is not five to eight years away, but will become an immediate reality as soon as terrorists get their hands on a critical mass of SNM. The threat to the cities of Europe is at least as great as that to the cities of America. The likeliest sources of SNM are much closer, and transporting it to a potential target much less risky. We have been lulled into a false sense of security during the long interval of more than 60 years since nuclear weapons were last used in anger. They will be used again. It is not a question of if, but when. “When” might be in a century, or it may be tomorrow. “When” will approach ever more quickly the more states we allow to build nuclear arsenals of their own. I will not speculate here on the wisdom of a preemptive attack against Iran. However, I suspect that, if we once again see a mushroom cloud rise over one of our cities, there will be a very significant rearrangement of attitudes regarding this matter, in Europe and elsewhere.
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