By Richard Weitz
The IAEA has confirmed almost two dozen incidents of theft or loss of fissile materials. Last week’s nuclear (Summit), though, ended with no agreement on enforcement to stop terrorists acquiring them.
Last week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul was a further demonstration of Asian countries’ growing importance on the emerging issue of nuclear materials security. But while these states are becoming vital for preventing nuclear and radiological materials from falling into terrorists’ and criminals’ hands, the region faces some key tests of will.
For a start, there’s the problem of the sheer volume of dangerous nuclear material that exists. Individual countries normally don’t publicize the size of their nuclear material holdings, but the world’s estimated stockpile of fissile material is sufficiently large to make approximately 100,000 nuclear bombs. Roughly 1,600 metric tons of HEU and 500 metric tons of plutonium have been produced around the globe for both civilian and military purposes, while manufacturing a simple (although inefficient) Hiroshima-type atomic bomb requires as little as 50 or 60 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium by some estimates, and less than half that amount to power a sophisticated Nagasaki-type implosion bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed almost two dozen incidents of theft or loss of fissile material. However, it’s unclear how many cases may have gone unreported, or the extent to which the stolen HEU or plutonium is available on the black market.
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