Fewer countries have nuclear weapon-usable nuclear materials, but the risk of nuclear terrorism and cyber attacks on nuclear facilities has increased, the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative said this week in its latest biennial report on global nuclear threats.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) published its 2018 Nuclear Security Index on Wednesday. The organization crafted the 132-page report in cooperation with the the Economist Intelligence Unit: the research and analysis arm of the London-based Economist Group.
“The 2018 NTI Nuclear Security Index finds that, since 2016, risk environment factors (including political instability, ineffective governance, pervasiveness of corruption, and presence of groups interested in illicitly acquiring nuclear materials or in committing acts of nuclear terrorism) have deteriorated in 54 countries,” NTI said in its fourth-edition of the report. “Such deterioration has occurred at a time when well-organized, well-financed, and increasingly capable terrorist organizations are actively seeking the materials necessary to build weapons of mass destruction; additionally, cyber threats to nuclear facilities are rapidly expanding and evolving.”
Among the 54 countries for which NTI identified greater risk since its last report, seven possess a combined 1,000 metric tons of weapon-usable nuclear materials, the organization estimated. Twelve of those countries have a combined 120 nuclear sites, NTI said.
Overall, the number of countries with weapon-usable material has dropped to 22 from 24 since 2016, NTI said. Argentina and Poland eliminated their stockpiles of weapon-usable materials since NTI published its last threat index. Meanwhile, 10 countries have shed their stockpiles of weapon-usable material in the past six years, NTI said.
The assembly of simple nuclear weapons, or even so-called dirty bombs that spread radiation over wide areas using conventional explosives, is widely considered more difficult than obtaining sufficient quantities of fissile or radioactive material for such weapons.
Also as of 2018, 44 countries and Taiwan had nuclear facilities that could release significant radiation if attacked, NTI said. The number is set to climb in 2019, when Belarus plans to begin operating a new nuclear power plant, the report says.
To improve global nuclear security, NTI recommended national governments find some means of talking with one another to aid in establishing and maintaining nuclear-security best practices. The organization said such opportunities are fewer now that the multilateral Nuclear Security Summit process, coordinated by the Barack Obama administration from 2010 to 2016, has been discontinued.
To improve resistance to cyber attacks on nuclear facilities, which could aid attempts to sabotage those facilities or steal nuclear materials from them, NTI said more countries should establish formal national regulations for cybersecurity, and attract and retain qualified nuclear-cyber professionals — a type of expert NTI admitted is in short supply. Cyber readiness tends to be worse in countries with fewer nuclear facilities, such as Argentina, than in countries with many nuclear facilities, such as Russia, NTI said.
Founded in 2001 by former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), with backing from billionaire Ted Turner, NTI tracks nuclear, radiological, and biochemical threats to the global population, with the aim of persuading governments to adopt strategies for minimizing those threats. Ernest Moniz, secretary of energy during the second term of the Barack Obama administration, is NTI’s chief executive officer.
