Russia's Proliferation Pathways
Abstract
Nuclear proliferation, especially to or by terrorist groups, is commonly regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, threats we and other governments face. Yet the enormous difficulties confronting terrorists who wish to acquire, maintain, and then deploy a nuclear weapon or device suggest that the more likely threat is one posed by a state that either uses such a weapon or makes it available either to other governments or to a terrorist group. This point also applies to the procurement of possible biological weapons by terrorist groups where again dependency on the state plays a large role in obtaining the necessary materials. And if we are to judge from the analogy of the greatly hyped discourse on biological weapons proliferation and the wildly over-inflated assessments of the likelihood of biological warfare and especially such warfare perpetrated by terrorists using advanced bioweapons, the likelihood of terrorists acquiring and using nuclear weapons by themselves may also be comparably overstated, especially in view of the difficulties involved in obtaining, storing, preparing, and using both kinds of weapons.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA517404
Entities
People
- Stephen Blank
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School