We strive to examine issues important to U.S. national security from a post-partisan perspective, meaning we try to break through the spin to find ideas we can use to encourage fresh thinking and build genuine consensus.
Measuring the Nuclear Threat
posted by Matthew Wallin on January 11, 2012 at 1:49 pm
The Nuclear Threat Initiative just released its new Nuclear Materials Security Index, which ranks countries on based on the condition of nuclear materials security. It’s an impressive report on a difficult subject, especially due to the difficulty of finding publicly available information on nuclear security measures.
Credit NTI
The results are interesting, as can be seen by the clickable chart to the right. Of particular interest are the 5 nuclear weapons states permitted under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which I’ve highlighted in yellow. Also take note of “countries of concern,” which I’ve highlighted in red.
However, there is some confusing—if not contradictory—reasoning that goes into determining the ranking. With regards to the United States, its ranking takes a big hit due to the vast amount of nuclear material and number of sites within the country.
NTI explains this inherently increases the risk of material vulnerability, which is a fair argument, until you see that the U.S. scores a perfect 100 on security and control measures. If security and control measures rank at the highest level, then the number of sites and amount of material technically shouldn’t matter. This score also doesn’t seem to account for the incident in 2007 in which a B-52 was mistakenly armed with 6 nuclear weapons before flying across the country.
NTI does acknowledge that if their quantities and sites category was removed from the report, the U.S. would rank 2nd.
The report also points out that the U.S. has yet to ratify certain international treaties relating to nuclear terrorism, including the 2005 International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT). ICSANT criminalizes acts of nuclear terrorism and creates an international framework for cooperating in the investigation and prosecution of these acts. Though the U.S. has signed the treaty, and the Obama administration has submitted draft implementation legislation, but it has not yet been ratified by Congress.
It’s great that NTI has put this out. As they explain, it creates a benchmark by which involved countries can measure their progress in securing nuclear materials. Policy makers should take a good look at the report and consider its recommendations in order to implement policies that make the world a safer place.
Also, be sure to check out our Nuclear Security Index, which ties in with this quite well.
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