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  • Depleted Uranium Weapons – A Threat to Human Health?

    The use of Depleted Uranium (DU) Weapons in the Gulf War, and more recently in the Balkan Wars, has drawn a lot of attention.

    This short review will explain what is DU, for what purpose DU weapons have been manufactured, and how many of them were used, first in the Gulf War and then later on in the Balkan Wars in Herzegovina and Kosovo.

    Widespread leukemia and other ailments have been claimed in the media. They were mostly attributed to the radioactivity of DU and partially to the chemical effects of the heavy metal. A critical analysis of these claims needs a brief review of basic physics and relevant radiation regulations as well as legal limits on toxic chemicals. How is DU ammunition dispersed on impact, and how can minute particles find their way into the human body. Possible health risks will be put in perspective and compared with other risks in war and in daily life. The question is raised, if DU weapons can be called still conventional or if they fit better the definition of radiological and chemical weapons. DU weapons and their “efficiency” have to be seen also in the context of treaties on so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), which are signed and even ratified, but do not yet have an implementation procedure or the political will to enact.

    1. What is Depleted Uranium (DU)?

    1.1 Activity of Uranium Ore Before and After Extraction

    Uranium is a chemical element that is more abundant than silver, gold, mercury and cadmium and is contained by 2 to 4 millionths in the Earth’s crust. It can be found on surface and in ore mines in many countries, among them Zaire, South Africa, and Canada and also in the Czech Republic. One ton of ore contains on the average about 3 kg of uranium.

    Uranium comes essentially in three isotopic forms. Isotopes are any of two or more forms of an element having the same atomic number (i.e. the same chemical property) but different atomic weights due to a different number of neutrons in the nucleus. Natural uranium contains 99.274% of 238U, 0.720% of 235U, and 0.0055% of 234U, they all have 92 protons in the nucleus, but 146, 143 and 142 neutrons, respectively. The half-life of 238U, 235U, and 234U is 4.49·109, 7.10·108, and 2.48·105 years, respectively, ranging from billion to million years. The longer the half-life the less radioactive decay products appear in a given time interval and could effect human health. When uranium is dug out of the Earth its radioactive decay products come along. However, in the chemical process of uranium extraction of the three isotopes from the ore, all radioactive daughter products in the radioactive decay series’ 238U and 235U are eliminated, with the exception of the radiogenic isotope 234U.

    In short, radiation background in mines and in extraction facilities is different and so are the health risks. There is an extensive evidence of excess lung cancers in underground uranium miners caused by the decay products of the radioactive gas radon (222Rn). But uranium mill workers have not shown increased mortality or excess lung cancers despite their increased exposure to uranium dust and radon decay products. There is no obvious explanation for this difference.

    1.2 Enriched and Depleted Uranium

    The extraction of energy from uranium for peaceful or military purposes asks for well-defined ratios of the two isotopes. In order to sustain the chain reaction of nuclear fission, uranium has to be enriched by the fissible isotope 235U to a reactor grade of 3.2 – 3.6% or weapon grade (90%+) uranium. This process not only produces the enriched product, but also a waste stream depleted in 235U, typically to less than 0.3%, which is often called the tail. The 235U content in the depleted uranium in the U.S. are lowered to 28% of its content in natural uranium.

    Depleted uranium is a byproduct of uranium enrichment process, with a relatively small contribution from reprocessing of nuclear spent fuel. In addition to the 3 natural isotopes 238U, 235U, and 234U, depleted uranium from this latter source also contains a minute quantity (0.003%) of a man-made isotope 236U. The specific activity of DU is 15,902 Bq/gram (for definitions of radioactive units see annex). Traces of 236U were found in Kosovo after the war and gave rise to – unjustifiable – concern in various press reports.

    Based on the measured isotopic composition of depleted uranium, the total activity (a-particles = helium nuclei, b-particles = electrons, g-rays) can be calculated as 22% less and the a-activity as 43% less compared to natural uranium.

    The gaseous diffusion process for enrichment of the fissible isotope 235U is used in the United States. This process requires uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), primarily because the compound can be used in the gas form for processing, in the liquid form for filling containers, and in the solid form for storage. At atmospheric pressure, UF6 is solid at temperatures below 57°C and a gas above this temperature.

    Workers in metal processing plants, including those who make DU penetrators, do not exhibit increased mortality or excess cancers.

    2. Application of DU

    Depleted Uranium is a low cost material that is readily available, since it was produced during the separation of weapon grade uranium. The Department of Energy in the U.S., as of June 1998, is in possession of almost 3/4 of a million metric tons (725·103 tons) stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride. This corresponds to a total activity of 527,000 Ci and a-activity 193,000 Ci. The a-activity per mass amounts to 0.389 mCi/kg.

    Depleted uranium’s high density (19.05 g/cm3, 1.7 times more than 11.35 g/cm3 for lead) and its high atomic number Z = 92 also provide useful solution for g-radiation shielding. It has been used at various occasions at particle accelerators, e.g. at CERN in the UA2 detector.

    Control surfaces on wide body aircraft require heavy counterweights. Tungsten (with density 19.3 g/cm3) or DU is ideal materials for this application where volume constraints prohibit the use of less dense metals. An airplane such as Boeing 747 needs 1,500 kg of counterweight. However, DU for this purpose gets out of fashion due to a few accidents and problems with surface embrittlement.

    2.1 DU Ammunition

    The US Army considered high-density materials such as tungsten and DU as metal in kinetic energy penetrators and tank armor already in the early 1970’s. DU was ultimately selected due to its availability and pyrophoricity. While 50% of tungsten has to be imported, mainly from China (US$ 150/kg in 1980), DU is provided for free to arms manufacturers. Tungsten also has much higher melting point than uranium and lacks pyrophoricity. DU penetrators contain no explosives; they act only by impact and immediate ignition of the dust (500°C). Conventional ammunition does not penetrate DU armor, however DU projectiles are capable of piercing it.

    2.2 Proliferation of DU Weapons

    The United States is no longer the only country with DU munitions. 17 countries including Britain, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries have acquired depleted uranium weapons. Probably NATO countries will follow soon. These weapons were extensively tested on at least 14 sites in the U.S. and also in Britain.

    As of early 1994 already more than 1.6 million tank penetrators and 55 million small caliber penetrators had been manufactured in the U.S. and another 200 million rounds (some part made out of tungsten) had been ordered by 1998. The approximate cost per shell of a 120-mm tank round is US$ 3,300, implying that handling of DU and manufacturing of ammunition takes the lion’s share, whereas the material itself comes almost for free.

    3. Combat and Accidents

    The US military used depleted uranium ammunition on the battlefield for the first time during the Gulf War in 1991. The amount of DU munitions released in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq during the Operation Desert Storm totals to 860,550 rounds and corresponds to 294,500 kg DU, for a total activity of 312 Ci and a-activity of 115 Ci. In addition, 9,720 DU aircraft rounds and 660 DU tank rounds (6,430 kg of DU) burned as a result of a monstrous fire in the ammunition storage area and motor pool at the US Army base in Kuwait.

    Data on the use of DU ammunition are still less well known for the war in Bosnia in 1994-1995 and in Kosovo in 1999. They are estimated to 11,000 and 31,000 rounds, corresponding to a total of 10,000 kg of DU.

    4. Effects of Depleted Uranium

    4.1 Effects of DU Penetrator Impact

    When a depleted uranium penetrator impacts armor, 18 – 70% of the penetrator rod will burn and oxidize into dust. The DU oxide aerosol formed during the impact has 50 – 96% of respirable size particles (with diameter less than 10 mm, conditions very similar to “desirable” particle size for efficiency in chemical or biological warfare), and 17 – 48% of those particles are soluble in water. Particles generated from impact of a hard target are virtually all respirable. While the heavier non-respirable particles settle down rapidly, the respirable DU aerosol remains airborne for hours.

    The solubility of the uranium particles determines the rate at which the uranium moves from the site of internalization (lungs for inhalation, gastrointestinal tract for ingestion, or the injury site for wound contamination) into the blood stream. About 70% of the soluble uranium in the blood stream are excreted in urine within 24 hours without being deposited in any organ and the remainder primarily depositing in the kidneys and bones. The kidney is the organ most sensitive to depleted uranium toxicity. When DU particles of respirable size are inhaled, roughly 25% of the particles become trapped in the lungs, where the insoluble particles can remain for years. Approximately 25% of the inhaled DU is exhaled (particle diameters between 1 and 5 mm) and the remaining 50% is subsequently swallowed.

    4.2 Radiological effects

    4.2.1 The Regulations

    The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US (NRC) mandates an occupational annual dose equivalent for the whole body no more than 5 rem/year and no more than 10 rem in 5 years. No short-term health effects are detectable at this dose equivalent.

    The non-occupational annual dose equivalent limit for the general public is selected as 100 mrem/year, which is comparable to the average background of 363 mrem/year.

    There are well-defined legal limits for inhalation and digestion of DU.

    4.2.2 Calculated and measured doses

    The impact of one 120-mm tank round with the 5.35 kg DU penetrator on an armored target, with 18 – 70% of the penetrator rod oxidizing into aerosol, is taken as an example. The initial contaminated area from the impact of one DU tank round inaccessible to general public (50 m radius circle) is about 0.8 hectares. If contamination spreads with weather elements up to 38 hectares become inaccessible to general public, with 0.9 nCi/m2 the allowed surface contamination for general public.

    The air contamination after the impact and before the DU dust settles can be estimated to maximum of soluble uranium 16 times higher than the NRC limit for radiation workers and 3,500 times higher than the allowed air concentration for general public. The maximum air concentration of insoluble uranium is 800 times higher than the NRC limit for radiation workers and 180,000 times higher than the allowed air concentration for general public.

    The residual contamination in Iraq 8 years after the end of the Golf War in the oil fields north of Kuwait was measured. It showed radiation levels 35 times above the background over parts of the battlefield and 50 times above the background over the rusting tanks hit by DU ammunition.

    The accumulated dose equivalent becomes significant when spent but unexploded DU penetrators are worn by army personnel as war souvenirs in direct contact with the skin (1,800 rem/year) or when used by children as toys. The skin dose equivalent limit of 50 mrem/year for radiation workers would be reached in about 10 days.

    4.3 Chemical Toxicity

    4.3.1 Uranium Effects on Kidney

    The RAND review on radiological and toxic effects of uranium puts the overall maximum permissible concentration, i.e. concentration of metal in the kidney associated with no significant increase in the frequency of kidney malfunction, at 3 mg/kg of kidney for uranium and calls it a de facto standard.

    Soluble uranium, which is absorbed in the blood circulation within the body, is eliminated rapidly through the kidney in urine. About 67% are excreted within the first day without being deposited in any organ. Approximately 11% is initially deposited in the kidney and excreted with a 15-day half-life. Most of the remaining 22% is initially deposited in the bone (up to 20%), which is the principle storage site in the body, and the rest is distributed to other organs and tissues.

    The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) established occupational limits for inhalation of heavy metals. The values for tungsten, lead, uranium in soluble form are 1, 0.05, and 0.05 mg/m3, for insoluble form 5, 0.10, and 0.25 mg/m3, respectively. Current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards set the values at 44 mg/l for groundwater and 20 mg/l for drinking water.

    4.4.2 Gulf War Illness

    An estimate for exposure of a veteran from the Gulf War is difficult to make and studies on the illness came not yet to a final conclusion. More than 10,000 veterans (out of a total of 695,000) reported mysterious illnesses, like muscle and joint pain, chronic fatigue, depressed immune systems, neurological disorders, memory loss, chemical sensitivities, rashes. They may have exceeded the OSHA limit for inhalation of DU by a factor of 3 and the ATSDR minimal risk level intake for general public by 17 times.

    Many factors may have contributed to the ailments, such as·

    • Multiple vaccinations against anthrax and botulinum toxoid
    • Medical treatment with pyridostigmine bromide to counter effects of potential chemical exposure
    • Petroleum from oil fire
    • Pesticide and insect repellants
    • Tropical parasites such as leishmaniasis
    • Depleted uranium dust and shrapnel from DU ammunition and armor.

    It is not clear to which extend DU contributed to the reported illnesses.

    However, there is ample evidence to show that contact with DU ammunition had consequences, especially for children, among them an increase of childhood leukemia in southern Iraqi provinces by a factor of 3 between 1989 – 93, while in the Central Provinces the incidence remained normal. Local concentrations of DU may have been exceedingly high producing this high incidence of leukemia.

    It appears premature to attribute reported illnesses of military personnel to effects of DU ammunition in Kosovo. In Kosovo, similar to Iraq, many parameters may have played a role in producing symptoms, that could be also attributed to the release of chemicals after bombing of factories.

    A study of possible health effects has been made [2], assuming that 100 tons of DU were distributed uniformly over a one-kilometer-wide strip along 100 kilometers on the “Highway of Death” between Kuwait City and Basra, a city in southern Iraq [2]. Under this assumption average dose for someone who lived in the area for a year would be about one millirem – or about 10 percent of the dose from uranium and its decay products already naturally occurring in the soil. The authors came to the conclusion that an individual’s estimated added risk of dying from cancer from such a dose would be about one in 20,000. The doses for heavy metal effects are probably also far below the exposure limits set by OSHA. However, since no exposure and urine tests had been done for two years after the war, it is now too late to draw any conclusions.

    5. Comparison of DU with other risks

    DU is a dangerous material when used as ammunition in war fighting. Obviously, the driver of an armored tank or vehicle, that is hit by a DU penetrator, has a high chance to die from the blast and/or the heat immediately, and he is no longer subject to the consequences of inhaling or digesting DU.

    The spread of DU weighs on the environment and the population, civil or military, in the vicinity of the impact as a long-term consequence. For DU, and likewise for chemical, biological or radiological weapons, the local concentration and time constants of the dispersed material play the important role.

    The legal limit for exposure to chemicals and radioactivity is set such, that values just beyond are not detrimental to human health or the environment. Only an excess value by order(s) of magnitude should give rise to serious concern.

    The consequences of the use of DU ammunition pale in comparison with the other direct and indirect effects of war. As an example may serve the estimated 30,000 unexploded fragmentation bomblets lying on Kosovo’s ground, adding substantial danger to the not yet cleared land mines.

    In order to put the danger from radioactive exposure into perspective the following example may be instructive.

    The risks associated with radioactivity and irradiation in general are, usually, measured in Sieverts. For most people, even scientists, this unit has no real meaning. Therefore, following a suggestion [3], a comparison is made with the risk with similar consequence of producing cancer. Cigarette smoking is such a case. The data are based on the following dose-effect relations: 0.04 lethal cancers per Sievert, 1 lethal cancer per eighty thousand cigarette packs.

    Comparison between effects of some irradiation exposures and cigarette smoking
    Annual dose in millisieverts Equivalent number of annual cigarette packs
    Natural total irradiation
    3
    9
    Radon
    2
    6
    Cosmic Rays
    0.3
    0.9
    Medical X-rays
    0.4
    1.2

     

    Comparison of allowed doses of irradiation to effects of cigarette smoking
    Maximum allowed dose in millisieverts/year Equivalent in cigarette packs/year
    Professionals 20 60
    Public 1 3

     

    6. Conclusions

    Depleted uranium produced as a by-product of uranium enrichment is classified as radioactive and toxic waste and it is subjected to numerous regulations for handling and disposal. Yet the US regulatory limits for general public exposure are exceeded – at least locally and temporarily – up to five orders of magnitude for airborne radioactive emissions and up to 3 orders of magnitude for residual radioactive contamination when DU ammunition has been used in battlefield. The use of DU ammunition, perhaps the most effective new weapon, was not publicly revealed until a year after the Gulf War. These weapons have an indiscriminate character and can have adverse health effects not only on combatants but also on the population at large. Precautions could have been taken to limit possible health effects for the combatants and the civil population, and immediate medical tests could have removed a lot of ambiguities of the effects of DU ammunition.

    Cancer can be the expected long-term consequence of both the radiological and toxic effects of depleted uranium exposure, albeit with an extremely low probability.

    In 1996 the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities passed a resolution in which they “urged all States to be guided in their national policies by the need to curb production and spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, biological weaponry, and weaponry containing depleted uranium”.

    If nothing else, the double standard for DU in radiation protection and handling of low radioactive waste in the civilian sector on one hand and by the military on the battlefield on the other is morally and legally untenable.

    The manufacturing and use of DU weapons is a new man-made problem that should be addressed by the international community on an appropriate level. However, it pales compared to major, other unsolved problems in arms control. There is not yet an implementation program for the biological weapons convention (BWC, ratified in 1972!)! The elimination of enormous stockpiles of chemical weapons may take decades, but there is at least a working implementation body of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The number of nuclear warheads does not shrink, only some of their delivery vehicles are being discarded, slowly approaching the limit set in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II). The Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) is in danger to be discarded, the Test-Ban Treaty (TBT) is not yet ratified by all Nuclear Weapon States (NWSs), and major possessors of land mines have not signed up to the Ottawa Treaty.

     

    7. Some Selected References

    [1] Review of Radioactivity, Military Use, and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium Compiled by Vladimir S. Zajik, July 1999 http://members.tripod.com/vzajic/

    [2] After the dust settles Steve Fetter & Frank von Hippel The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, November/December 1999, pp. 42-45

    [3] Global warming or nuclear waste – which do we want? H. Nifenecker and E. Huffer europhysics news March/April 2001, pp. 52- 55

    Some radiation units:

    1 Curie = 1 [Ci] = 37·109 decays/second or = 37·109 Becquerel = 37·109 [Bq] 1 milliCurie-of-intensity-hour = 1 Sievert = 1 [Sv] 1 Sievert corresponds approximately to 8.38 Roentgen

    1 rem = roentgen equivalent man
    The dose equivalents for the uranium isotopes 238U, 235U, and 234U and their decay products uniformly distributed in the whole body are 1.28, 1.30, 1.32 [(mrem/year)/(pCi/kg)].

  • The History of Defense Systems and Remarks on the National Missile Defense

    “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

    Martin Luther King, Jr.

    1. Introduction

    This is a timeless article, for there has never been a time in history when some tribe or nation has not been contemplating actions and policies that lead to war or peace. During the history struggle arose frequently between families, clans, small and large population groups, first about chasing ground for animals, then possession of arable land, and finally about mineral resources. Local fights spread with time to larger areas. Was it first fists and teeth the main weapons, soon humans learned to prepare special tools for fighting each other. In parallel they developed means of body protection by armor, and to surround their living quarters with fortifications. Each advance in offensive weapons was countered by defensive structures, mostly in this time sequence. First all developments stretched over longer periods, but intervals are getting smaller and smaller with progress in technologies and science. It is the aim of this talk to describe briefly the major defense systems, culminating in the proposed Star War idea, developed by President Reagan, who claimed that it would make all other weapons obsolete. This claim had already been made for other weapons at earlier times in history. Will the National Missile Defense idea do what is advertised, or will it lead only to new arms race? Are we willing to learn from historical precedents?

    There is another underlying pattern to defense policy. Soldiers and statesmen are forever laying the pavements of good intentions that lead to the hell of military conflict. The process is endless and will not be interrupted before there is societal understanding of the patterns that lead to destruction and a modification of the behavior on the basis of that understanding. One such pattern is the predilection of tribes and nations to choose their statesmen from the ranks of a military hero [1]. The transition from soldier to statesman may occur at any phase of the career. We all know of the political path taken by General Eisenhower, Captain Truman, Lieutenant Kennedy, Corporal Hitler, and Shepherd David as they make the transition from military hero to national leader. We see the same pattern with General Powell, becoming Secretary of State, and perhaps in four years time President of the strongest nation in the world. It looks that the training, temperament and skills of the soldier are diametrically opposed to the training, temperament and skills of the statesman.

    2. Lifetime and efficiency of defense systems

    Built-up of defense systems is as old as any offense activity. There is no defense system that could withstand forever attack, and no defense system is even at the start perfect. To quote Hellmuth von Moltke: Offence is the straight way to the goal, whereas the defense is the long way around. A few of such systems will be briefly discussed:

    2.1 The Great Wall

    The Chinese Great Wall can be considered as the longest living defense system. It stretched over a length of 6’300 km from the Yalu River (Gulf of Chihli) to Jiayuguan (Central Asia). It has been built and rebuilt during almost 2’000 years, beginning with the interconnection of walls which surrounded small kingdoms. The major construction periods start with the 4th century BC, were accelerated by the first Chinese Emperor Qin 220-206 BC, using almost a million compulsory labor including some 300’000 soldiers. Maintenance work in the 7th century caused a death toll of half a million workers within ten days. A major upgrade was made during 1368-1644 in the Ming Dynasty (5’660 km). The fortification consisted of a 9-meter high wall and about twenty-five thousand alarms towers 13-meters high. Signals could be transmitted over a distance of 2’000 km in 24 hours. During the Qin reign 180 million cubic meters rammed earth provided for the core of the wall (10 meter thick, 5 meter high). The aim of the Wall was to protect against Huns. However, this fortification never performed properly as defense line. In 1208 Dschingis-Khan broke through the Wall and China was liberated again only in 1368. In 1644 the Wall was opened by the treason of a general near Shanghaiguan, where it had the formidable height of 16 meter and a width of 8 meters. The Wall degraded and its remains are since not more than a tourist attraction.

    2.2 The Roman Limes

    In comparison the Roman Limes was a much less ambitious defense building. The best known part was in the western part of Germany spanning between the Rhine and Danube Rivers. Building had been started in 9 AD, and it was reinforced between 117-161 AD. It had a length of 480 km, and consisted of a 3-meter high palisades and watch towers. It fulfilled its intended function only until 260 AD, when Alemanni broke through. Romans built similar Limes in Great Britain, Anatolia, and Syria in 2nd century AD, again with relatively short lifetimes.

    2.3 Castles and city walls

    Castles and city walls were the preferred fortifications for small city-states. Their efficient lifetime was at the best a couple of hundred years, before they were destroyed with the help of gunpowder, canons, and fireballs. Metallic armor of mercenaries turned out to reduce mobility, could not protect the horses of the horsemen, and got soon out of fashion.

    2.4 Defense lines in the 20th century

    The lifetime of fortifications built in the first half of the 20th century decreased rapidly.

    2.4.1 The French Maginot Line connected some modern fortresses, which hold out during World War I. Built in the 1930s, it presented a tremendous advance over previous fortifications and had all imaginable comfort for the defenders to offer. It was built along the French-German border, but not extended to the French-Belgium border, assuming Germans would respect in any conflict the neutrality of Belgium and The Netherlands. Germany did not behave as expected in World War II and its troops marched in 1940 through the northern flank into France, attacking the fortifications from the rear side.

    2.4.2 The counter part of the Maginot Line was the German West-Wall, a much less elaborated defense structure. It was not needed at the very beginning of World War II, but demonstrated some efficiency towards its end in 1945.

    2.4.3 Following the occupation of France in 1940 Germany built up the Atlantic-Wall. Its major fortifications were built near the smallest part of the English Channel, where it was expected that allied troops would try to land. This turned out to be a miscalculation by the German headquarters combined with an underestimation of air troopers that could land behind the Atlantic Wall.

    2.4.4 Antiaircraft canons, developed between the two World Wars, became increasingly worthless due to countermeasures in form of chaff (aluminized paper) used in WW II, that distorted radar images and simulated planes where there were none. High-flying planes flying could only be reached with insufficient accuracy.

    2.4.5 Reagan’s Star War program did not get beyond a preliminary design study, since scientists showed that laser canons could neither produce nor send the desired energy density towards incoming missiles to destroy them.

    The above examples show that time intervals are getting shorter between building of new defense systems and for their efficient use. This very preliminary study of some major defense systems and their “effective” lifetime has been made in order to find out if there is a pattern that might help to predict the performance of future developments. Any such development starts slowly, rises to maturity, and then declines in its efficiency. Rise and decline time may vary considerably from case to case, may have a steep rise and a slow decline, or vice versa, or may be Gaussian. A reasonable scientific description could be done by fitting the data by a Gaussian-like curve and define the efficiency by the full-width at halve maximum. This was not (yet) done for the present study. Instead best estimates for the start-up and complete demise were given. Figure 1 shows a plot (for convenience on a double logarithmic scale) of the so defined useful lifetime of defense installations/methods over two-and-a-half thousand years. In this plot is indicated for each system by whom or by which technical development the system became obsolete. A straight line can represent the data. No effort has yet been made to evaluate error bars, to define the slope, and to represent this line by an equation.

    Since this eyeball-fitted line represents so well the events during a very long period of human history, temptation is great to extrapolate it into the future. Doing so leads to the conclusion that defense mechanisms will become obsolete almost immediately after putting them into place. Taking an extreme view, it could mean that the National Missile Defense would not even see the light of the day before being made obsolete by countermeasures.

    Only time will show the validity of our extrapolation.

    2.5 Shift of warfare from ground to air

    A change in theory and practice of warfare becomes obvious during the later part of the 20th century. Was the practice in earlier epochs mainly composed of political, economic and military elements, it is now increasingly influenced by technological, scientific and psychological elements. In previous centuries the theory of warfare had been subdivided into a strategic part, considering wide spaces, long periods of time, large amount of forces as a prelude to battlefield, and the tactic part, which was just the opposite to the former. A distinction between strategic and tactic blurred since World War I (WW I) and especially during World War II (WW II). Surprisingly to the author, this distinction between strategic and tactic is still kept for nuclear weapons, and finds expression in the START and INF treaties.

    Whereas warfare during WW I was mainly on ground and at sea, and airplanes played only a secondary role for recognition purposes, a dramatic shift occurred during WW II. Weapon systems reached further and beyond front lines.

    Defense systems crumbled, anti aircraft canons became militarily impotent during massive air raids. German V1 and V2 rockets reached almost unimpeded their targets on the British Island. The only defense against these rockets in the forties was to bombard their launch pads. The recent Kosovo War demonstrated even more vividly that defense against planes, now flying at considerably higher altitudes, by anti-aircraft canons is a hopeless enterprise.

    The second half of the 20th century witnessed a dramatic improvement of the rudimentary German WW II rocket technology, promoted on the other side of the Atlantic and now common knowledge in most industrialized countries. These missiles can transport nuclear warheads, and of less military value, chemical and biological weapons [2]. A majority of people condemns these weapons, called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and demands their elimination. However, some countries believe they need WMDs for deterrence, but deny their possession for others. The escalation of the arms race during the Cold War led to plan for comprehensive antimissile defense systems for both super powers. Fortunately, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), concluded in 1972, limited drastically, and still does, such an out-of-control development.

    3. Missile defense activities since the 1980s

    President Reagan’s speech on March 23, 1983 was the starting point for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The military-industrial complex eagerly picked up the idea. Even the industry in several NATO countries was encouraged to get involved, however not in their desired way in front-element technologies.

    Concerned, eminent scientists made feasibility studies, culminating in the “Report to The American Physical Society of the study group on Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons” [3]. Soviet scientists made a similar study [4]. Both groups came to the conclusion that most of the systems would not work as advertised or even not at all. The latter is the case for space-based laser canon [5]. The software aspects cause another tremendous hurdle [6]. A discussion of the results of these two documents is beyond the scope of the present paper. The reader is referred to the original literature, which remains a valid document up to date.

    Considerable amount of money was wasted during the years following Reagan’s proposal. Deception of the public about supposed successes played a role in promoting SDI [7, 8]. However, the topic did for several years no longer make any headlines. Public awareness was reawakened only during the first Gulf War. Unfounded success stories and tests were then sold to the public, which does mostly not understand the basic science and technology behind such claims. During CNN broadcasts, the military commanders claimed a widely exaggerated success rate of the Patriot missile in shooting down Scud missiles coming from Iraq. The General Accounting Office found that only nine percent of the Patriot-Scud engagements are supported by the strongest evidence that an engagement resulted in a warhead kill. The Patriot’s supposedly near-flawless performance may be one of the greatest myths in weapons history. As Winston Churchill once said “In war truth is such a precious good that it has to be surrounded by a strong body guard of lies”.

    The Patriot was originally designed to shoot down aircraft. In the 1980s, it was given an upgrade and a modified warhead to give it a limited capability to defend against short-range ballistic missiles. The Scuds were flying over 3,600 km per hour faster than the Patriot had been designed to deal with. The Patriot must detonate when it is within a few meters of the Scud to have a high probability of destroying the warhead [9-11].

    During the Clinton presidency SDI was revived, now only under another name, as National Missile Defense (NMD). An excellent description of all aspects of NMD, written for general public, can be found in [12]. NMDs task is advertised as a defense against a small number of missiles coming from rogue states. NMD consists actually out of two components: the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). A shift of SDI from Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) to Kinetic Energy Weapons (KEW) occurred [13, 14].

    NMD does no longer rely on space-based laser canons, in so far becoming more realistic. It is supposed to destroy warheads in mid-course, but this policy may still change to the easier boost-phase interception [15].

    NMD is planned to protect against both, so-called theatre missiles and strategic (intercontinental) missiles. Such a development is seen by the departing and the incoming administration of the U.S. as a positive step in the right direction, but by a majority of other countries as counterproductive and giving rise to an unlimited arms race [16-20].

    3.1 Countermeasures

    First tests of BMD are very far from successful [21-23]. Will the BMD system be effective? The answer will depend among many other questions to be solved on the effect of countermeasures on the kill probability. It appears to be highly impossible to protect entire countries against missile attacks, as it is claimed by the United States.

    The kill probability is one of the key technical parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of a missile defense system. The higher the kill probability is, the more effective the defense system will be. Inevitably, a missile defense system will be challenged by countermeasures, which may decrease the kill probability. There are three different kinds of them against THAAD system: infrared stealth, radar interference and decoys. A brief qualitative discussion of these measures follows.

    3.1.1 Infrared stealth

    The endgame phase of an intercept begins when the infrared (IR) sensor built in interceptor’s kill vehicle (KV) acquires the target. The distance between the KV and the target at the beginning of the endgame is the so-called acquisition range. During the whole endgame phase, the KV maneuvers according to target’s trajectory information provided by the IR sensor to put itself on a path that leads to a direct hit with the target. For realizing a hit, enough endgame time, which is to say large enough acquisition range, is needed for the KV to correct its current velocity and position errors.

    Against IR sensors, there may exist several kinds of countermeasures; among which to shorten the acquisition range to an unacceptable level is a common one, known as IR stealth. For a given IR sensor and background noise, the acquisition range depends mainly on temperature, material and sizes of the target. The most effective way of realizing IR stealth is to chill the target to very low temperature since IR radiation decreases quickly with temperature. Dry ice or liquid nitrogen will do the job, being filled into the space between shroud and thermally insulated layers.

    3.1.2 Radar interference

    The X band ground based radar (GBR) is one of the most important components of the THAAD system. The GBR detects, acquires and tracks targets before interceptors could launch. When a certain tracking accuracy is achieved, interceptors are committed to their targets and launched, then the GBR continues to track the targets and issues updated target information through BMC4I system to the interceptors and KVs to guide their boost phase flights and midcourse flights respectively. When a KVs midcourse flight finishes and its endgame flight begins, the KV is delivered to the hand over point where the IR sensor of the KV is expected to acquire the target. The so-called hand over point is actually an error basket in space. To achieve a successful intercept, the basket has to satisfy two conditions: (1) at the hand-over point, the KV is at the position where it can acquire the target, (2) the KV’s position and velocity vector at the moment insures that the resulting zero effort miss distance (ZMD) error is within the KV’s maneuvering capability. On the one hand, the above two conditions depend mainly on the GBR’s capability to accurately predict the trajectory of the target. On the other hand, the KV’s capability of removing ZMD error is limited by the amount of fuel it carries and the total time of flight (TOF) during the endgame that is available for the KV to maneuver.

    In addition to GBR information obtained from satellites may be used for tracking. Their jamming could then be also being an effective countermeasure.

    3.1.3 Decoys

    Decoys or false targets are a most commonly used countermeasure. They are required to simulate some physical characteristics of the real reentry vehicle (RV), like size, shape, and temperature, speed etc., according to their task. The discrimination distance plays an important role. KP drops as discrimination distance decreases.

    Typical velocities of strategic targets are 7 km/s, and for theater targets 5 km/s. Calculations show that the KV with a speed of about 5 km/s will have nearly the same kill probability against strategic missiles as against theater missiles. It strongly suggest that a defense system with same performances would be nearly as capable in intercepting strategic missiles as in dealing with theater missiles if its performances and reliability are proved in testing against theater missile targets. The KV should explode when it is at about 4 meters away from the target. This requires timing within a fraction of a millisecond.

    3.2 Kill what and when?

    There is no doubt that weapons attain more destructive power over time, as was the case with the switch from TNT to nuclear explosives. There is no longer a strong relation between power and number of weapons as in a classical war. The population agglomeration gets denser, and therefore the vulnerability of the civil population increased and effects them physically and morally.

    BMD is advertised as an efficient means to protect the United States and its allies from weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It assumes that the main threat is coming from missiles, which could transport nuclear, chemical or biological warheads. The author has argued that delivery of biological and chemical agents this way is extremely inefficient and highly improbable [2]. The main danger is originating from nuclear warheads. They are getting so compact that countries of concern or terrorists can choose many other ways for transportation.

    Whatever the load the warhead contains, an intercept with a kill vehicle can cause two effects, which are rarely discussed in detail: Firstly, it can destroy either the propulsion part of the weapon (if any is still connected with the warhead), or the warhead itself, or both. Secondly, it could leave the warhead intact, but gives an additional momentum to it, causing a deviation of its trajectory.

    Can warhead destruction always considered to be an advantage or can it have detrimental effects?

    The destruction of the warhead will leave debris behind, which will essentially follow the original trajectory. The parts will hit ground somewhere. Since an intercept will happen at high altitude, chemical or biological material will be distributed over wide space. The agent will probably not have severe effects on humans, since its density at ground level will not reach the necessary, critical value to cause adverse health effects. An exception might be with plutonium, where strong negative long-term effects at ground level might be expected.

    In case the warhead remains intact and its trajectory is changed in an unpredictable way, effects during landing at another than the originally targeted place may be advantageous or not for the attacked country.

    4. Who should make decisions?

    Clemenceau once said: Modern war is too serious a business to entrust it to soldiers. This statement could be modified and enlarged: “Preparation for peace through building of defense systems is too serious a business to be handled by military heroes, since it may lead to modern war.”

    The 20th century has seen already one hero as statesman, Adolf Hitler, who considered himself as the greatest strategist of all times (Grösster Feldherr aller Zeiten). The world experienced the consequences of his ‘leadership’. The 21st century needs diplomats and not heroes, heads of state who are able to address questions of the international economy, market interventions, unanticipated crisis, all by peaceful methods.

    Fortunately, no decision on NMD had been made during the Clinton administration [24, 25]. However, the probability for a rush into failure at the beginning of the Bush administration looms on the horizon. A starting point of the new government could have been to limit the influence of military people in the decision making process. However, the choice of a military hero, General Colin Powell, to head the State Department, points in the wrong direction. General Powell is three things Mr. Bush is not: a war hero, worldly wise and beloved by Afro-Americans. That gives him a great deal of leverage. It means that Mr. Bush can never allow him to resign in protest over anything. The Bush team will be serious about what the Clinton team was not serious about, which is about intervening militarily [26]. This is the way generals are trained for.

    There should be an open discussion within the largest existing military pact, the NATO, on its necessity after the end of the Cold War and of its eventual dissolution. Building new defense systems should not jeopardize disarmament treaties. In particular the cornerstone, the ABM Treaty, should be maintained.

    For some four decades, deterrence was at the center of U.S. defense policy. There were three important features to it. First, it sounded robust without being reckless. Second it was hard to think of a better way to make sense of a nuclear inventory. Third, it seemed to work. A re-evaluation started with Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which was based on the idea that it was better ‘to protect than avenge’. The problem with NMD is that it is likely to aggravate other problems, in particular the already tense relations with Russia and China. Worse, it could provide an illusion of security that, if ever tested, might come tragically apart. It may be wise to use deterrent threats only sparingly, but it can hardly make sense never use them at all [28.29].

    Many prominent scientists should reevaluate, if deemed necessary, their assessment of SDI and extend it to NMD. Scientists in the big weapon laboratories should be given tasks that are addressing more urgent problems of society, such as changes in means of energy production, protection of the environment, to name a few challenging tasks. Scientific evaluation, like the one that had been done by a group of prominent experts in the case of SDI, should get more weight than the judgement of military heroes.

    Should the American government pay more attention to the will of the people? Answers during a recent poll in the U.S. [18] on the question “Which of the following do you think is the most important issue facing the country today: Education, Medicare, health care, fight crimes/drugs, economic growth, crack down on illegal guns, cut taxes, strong military, national missile defense?” show that NMD has an extremely low priority of 1 percent, and a strong military a marginal 4 percent. This overwhelming disinterest is a clear sign that the drive for NMD is to search elsewhere. A good candidate may be the military-industrial complex.

    5. Conclusion

    There are an infinite number of better and necessary actions to be taken by any responsible government than to build the equivalent of a “National Missile Defense”, that has a high chance not to work at all. Not long ago a well-known physicist had to testify on the feasibility and efficiency of such a system during a hearing at an U.S. Senate’s Committee. He had been asked if NMD would work. It is reported that he thought for a short while, then came up with a resounding “YES”, and after a pause he added, “provided the adversary collaborates.” Even such an answer seems to me still too optimistic.

    6. References:

    [1] Hero as Statesman, Political Leadership in Military Defense Edited by John P. Craven Readings for Leaders, Harland Cleveland, Volume I Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University Press of America, 1988

    [2] The Concept of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Chemical and Biological Weapons, Use in Warfare, Impact on Society and Environment, Gert G. Harigel Seventh ISODARCO-Beijing Seminar on Arms Control, Xi’an, October 8-13, 2000,

    [3] Report to The American Physical Society of the study group on Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons N. Bloembergen, C.K.N. Patel, P. Avizonis, R.G. Clem, A. Hertzberg, T.H. Johnson, T. Marshall, R.B. Miller, W.E. Morrow, E.E. Salpeter, A.M. Sessler, J.D. Sullivan, J.C. Wyant, A. Yariv, R.N. Zare, A.J. Glass, L.C. Hebel Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol.59, No.3, Part II, July 1987, S0- S201

    [4] Space-Strike Arms and International Security, Report of the Committee of Soviet Scientists for Piece, Against the Nuclear Threat, Moscow October 1985

    [5] Physics and Technical Aspects of Laser and Particle Beam Weapons for Strategic Defense, R.L. Garwin, 1986, submitted to Physikalische Blätter

    [6] Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems, David Lorge Parnass, American Scientist, Volume 73, 432-440, September-October 1985

    [7] Aspin Confirms Deception Plan Existed to Promote SDI Program Dunbar Lockwood Arms Control Today, October 1993, pg. 18

    [8] Strategic ‘Deception’ Initiative John Pike Arms Control Today, November 1993, pp. 3-8

    [9] The Patriot Myth: Caveat Emptor John Conyers, Jr. Arms Control Today, November 1992, pp. 3-10

    [10] The Patriot Debate: Part 2, Letter to the Editor Frank Horten Arms Control Today, January/February 1993, pp. 26/27 Author’s Response, Arms Control Today, January/February 1993, pp. 27, 29

    [11] The Patriot Debate: Part 3, Letter to the Editor Theodore A. Postol and George N. Lewis Arms Control Today, March 1993, pg. 24

    [12] Defense Mechanisms Kosta Tsipis The Sciences, November/December 2000, pp. 18-23

    [13] Theater Missile Defense Programs: Status and Prospects John Pike Arms Control Today, September 1994, pp. 11-14

    [14] The Clinton Plan for Theater Missile Defenses: Costs and Alternatives David Mosher and Raymond Hall Arms Control Today, September 1994, pp. 15-20

    [15] Boost-Phase Intercept: A Better Alternative Richard L. Garwin Arms Control Today, September 2000, pp. 8-11

    [16] Missile Defense: The View From the Other Side of the Atlantic Camille Grand Arms Control Today, September 2000, pp. 12-18

    [17] A Pause in Unilateralism? Jack Mendelsohn Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 21-23

    [18] No Pressure From the People Mark S. Mellman, Adam Burns, Sam Munger Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 19, 20, 23

    [19] Security: The Bottom Line Jack F. Matlock, Jr. Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 17, 18, 24

    [20] Facing the China Factor Banning Garrett Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 14-16

    [21] Ballistic Missile Defense: Is the U.S. ‘Rushing to Failure’? John Pike Arms Control Today, April 1998, pp. 9-13

    [22] Mixed Results in U.S. TMD Tests Wade Boese Arms Control Today, September 2000, pg. 29

    [23] Officials Testify on National Missile Defense, Assess Program Wade Boese Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 25, 29

    [24] National Missile Defense, the ABM Treaty And the Future of START II Arms Control Association press conference, Arms Control Today, November/December 1998, pp. 3-10

    [25] Where Do We Go From Here? Harold Brown Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 12-13

    [26] Powell, a Serious Man to Be Tested Before Long Thomas L. Friedman International Herald Tribune, December 20, 2000

    [27] Does Deterrence Have a Future? Lawrence Freedman Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 3-8

    [28] Finding the Right Path Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Arms Control Today, October 2000, pp. 11, 24

    Years “Efficient lifetime” of defense systems

    2000 – ————– Chinese Great Wall – Huns

    1000 –

    500 –

    —- Upgraded Great Wall – Traitor 200 – — Roman Limes — Complete metal armor – Horses unprotected Alemanni — Castles in Europe – Gun powder

    100 –

    50 –

    20 – Antiaircraft canons – Planes too high

    10 – — Maginot Line – Attack from behind

    5 – – German West Wall – limited efficiency (‘Siegfried Line’) – Atlantic Wall – Disembarkation in Normandy

    2 – – SDI – Scientists

    1 –

    0.5 – – Safeguard ABM – Maintenance cost

    0.2 – NMD ? Decoys Jamming Cooling of radars of missiles

    0.1 500 500 1000 1500 1800 1900 1950 1980 1990 1995 1998 2000 BC AC Year

    Forum on “The Missile Threat and Plans for Ballistic Missiles Defense: Technology, Strategic Stability and Impact on Global Security”

    Istituto Diplomatico “Mario Toscano” and Parliament, Library Room “Il Refettorio” Rome, Italy, 18-19 January 2001

  • A Terrorist Threat – The Movement of Black Market Nuclear Materials into the United States

    “What is the problem? The breakup of the Soviet Union left nuclear materials scattered throughout the newly independent states and increased the potential for the theft of the those materials, and for organized criminals to enter the nuclear smuggling business. As horrible as the tragedies in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center were, imagine the destruction that could have resulted had there been a small-scale nuclear device exploded there.”

    — President William Jefferson Clinton

    Overview

    The problem is recognizing that the nuclear threat from terrorists acquiring weapons grade fissile material is greater than all the other threats combined and that it has to be treated independently for the specific set of threats it poses.

    Biological and chemical threats are scalable in their level of threat because they create damage in proportion to the amount of material distributed over a given geographical area. The effects, while deadly, are relatively short term and perishable with proper treatment. Also, they are dependant on effective distribution systems and environmental conditions. They can be used in small amounts in small areas quite easily but use in large areas requires techniques that lend themselves to detection and prevention. If an event occurs, rapid response can mitigate their effects substantially in a relatively short time.

    In comparison, the nuclear threat is that it will cause the greatest damage over a large area from a single point with a small amount of material. A nuclear blast is its own distribution system and its effects are persistent over larger areas for longer periods. Rapid response to an event will offer little in the mitigation of the effects other than defining the areas of destruction and contamination. It will create its own environment for distribution as it expands into the prevailing environment.

    Level of Threat

    Dealing with nuclear terrorism requires an understanding of what the potential threats are, at what level they exist and what their consequences will be. The most formidable characteristics of terrorism are variability and unpredictability. Target selection, time of use, degree of destruction and psychological impact are all open questions.

    Where any nuclear threat is perceived, maximum effort has to be expended to verify its potential and prevent the occurrence of an event. There are no options to this action. However, reaction at this level will require a mobilization of resources in a given area in a very short period of time. Therefore, the overall consequences of a nuclear threat by terrorists have to be evaluated within its probability of occurrence. Multiple threats of nuclear events would quickly paralyze the response systems and produce wide scale vulnerabilities, increasing the probability of a successful terrorist event at some location .

    Specific scenarios of prevention and reaction need to be developed by posing postulates for as many methods of acquisition, assembly and deployment as can be imagined. Unfortunately, it appears that no focused effort in this regard has coalesced. The most discernible appreciation for the nuclear threat seems to be to prepare for an after-the-fact reaction to it.

    Background

    Proliferation in the production of fissile materials in many countries has increased the probability that such materials will fall into the hands of terrorist groups who have the capability for assembling crude nuclear weapons.

    During the Cold War, nuclear materials were highly controlled by the nations that developed them. With the end of the Cold War, the controls have slipped to an unacceptable level; security for nuclear inventories has been dangerously degraded. In fact, there are unknown amounts of fissile material for which there has been no accountability. Locations for these materials are scattered and, for the most part, unknown. Additionally, inventory control at many of the existing storage warehouses for nuclear materials is lacking and security measures are generally unsophisticated and inadequate.

    The major threat these unaccounted for materials present is that they will fall into the hands of terrorist groups whose purpose is to bring about, for their own cause, destruction, distraction from national purpose and general social upheaval. Secondary threats will be the creation of unbridled fear, distrust, economic instability and the sense of a loss of personal security should the possession become known.

    Preventive Measures

    The imperative for detecting and controlling these materials is recognizing that for them to be useful for terrorist purposes the materials must be moved from their points of origin or storage to points of utilization. If a concentrated effort is directed toward identifying potential transfer methodologies and routes of distribution then it might be possible to interdict the materials before they can be transformed into weapons status.

    In the area of import/export accountability there is much work to be done. There are no international standards that can be effectively applied for maintaining control during the transportation of nuclear materials and, even if there were, It would take a prodigious effort to oversee the extremely complex interconnected network of international transportation and commerce. The proliferation of the drug traffic throughout the world presents strong evidence of this fact. Gaps in import/export controls almost insure that distribution of fissile materials will occur undetected.

    Once the material is in the distribution system the unknown factors increase – Where did it go? To whom? And for what purpose? Even when lost it bequeaths a set of hazardous conditions that are unacceptable in normal commerce.

    Yet, movement is a key to interdiction. To be useful, the materials must be sent to a central location for additional processing and assembly. At some point sufficient material must be present to construct a nuclear device. Movement of large quantities of fissile material to a construction site is unlikely because it presents a greater possibility for interdiction than do small quantities. Also, large scale movements present additional hazards to the handling facilities because of the possibilities of radioactive leakage and accidental detection.

    Movement of small quantities of the material, on the other hand, afford a greater probability that the movement will be undetected by conventional means and will be delivered successfully to a destination of choice. Smaller shipments are more likely to remain undetected during transport.

    Established commercial conveyance systems probably will be used where small quantities of fissile material can be shipped using various packaging techniques and routes to a single destination. Because of the increased detection probabilities, quantities of fissile material will not be shipped in a given container to a single destination.

    Some possibilities for moving this type of material are:

    (1) – Superimpose the shipment of small, well-shielded packages on established drug and contraband routes.

    (2) – Ship materials conventionally in well-shielded, small containers through a surreptitious network of widely dispersed handlers.

    (3) – Man carry many small quantities across the mostly porous borders of the United States.

    (4) – Use diversified distribution techniques (routes and conveyances) by requiring multiple way-points and altering the characteristics of external shipping containers at each point.

    (5) – Mix materials and legitimate products for routine deliveries.

    The formidable nature of the tasks required to detect and identify well packaged fissile materials in small quantities renders the likelihood of detection highly questionable.

    The most complex of the above projections is No. 4. Presuming an originating point in Asia, a small package could be shipped with little notice through Cambodia to the island of Palau into Micronesia or the Phillipines, then through the small Kiribati Islands to the Cook Islands, then to Hawaii and then to the mainland USA through Mexico, Canada or directly through an open area of the US borders. There are literally hundreds of such routes that could be set up and utilized. The detection and surveillance of these multiple transfer shipping points would require the participation of hundreds of specialists examining all arriving and departing packages – a near impossible task, thereby essentially insuring a successful delivery for most attempts.

    The virtual impossibility of providing surveillance at the many points of exit in the Far East and the many potential points for entry into the United States makes this an imposing task but nevertheless it has to be undertaken. It is almost a given that, once in the United States, the free and open access to our highway network and relatively unsecured transportation system, make it a simple task to transport dangerous materials throughout the United States without any great fear of interdiction.

    Where nuclear materials are concerned, individuals involved with national security need to become focused on more effective prevention strategies than ever before. This new era of terrorism demands a dramatic shift in thinking with regard to the possibility of a small-scale, but dramatic and destructive, nuclear catastrophe. No longer are they faced with decisions about extensive arrays of military weapons with comprehensive destructive capabilities, but rather, they are faced with the likelihood of attacks by small covert bands of individuals with crude nuclear weapons which can still deliver substantial destructive power.

    New methodologies incorporating sophisticated sensing devices are needed for the tasks of detecting, containing, and eliminating small-scale movements of nuclear material in order to prevent such terrorist events. The face of war is changing from that of a well-equipped soldier in uniform to that of the nondescript member of a dedicated cult whose very nature is to deceive and remaine hidden from view until their targets are most vulnerable and the political climate is confused.

    Conclusion:

    There are no easy solutions or quick fixes.

    “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, as we drift toward unparalleled catastrophes.”

    – Albert Einstein

    A number of experts predicted that some catastrophic event similar to the Oklahoma City bombing disaster would be needed to energize the international community to work in concert to eliminate this problem. It has happened in New York and Washington. The unfortunate fact is that the US government, as well as other governments, and the American people found themselves in situations for which they were not prepared. This has to change.

    The danger is so great, and the threat so immediate, that US policymakers and the public need to recognize that the diversion of fissile materials is as critical and urgent a national security priority as controlling the theft of a complete nuclear weapon. This will require top-level commitment to public education and sufficient resource allocation if, eventually, we are to prevail in this new security challenge.

    One can only hope that a nuclear tragedy will not be necessary for galvanizing world action, and that we will achieve progress toward an international consensus that it is in no one’s interest to allow these materials to be expropriated for terrorist purposes. The need is to concentrate an effort within existing political structures to build a collective regional security, capped by the United Nations, that would promote collaboration among nuclear weapons states to establish methods and records of control over the inventories of fissile materials.

    In examining current efforts on how to stop the illegal distribution of these materials, it is hard to see how any current strategy, no matter how clever the concept or broad the implementation, could do more than raise the level of awareness of the problem. The responsibility is so fragmented among sovereign states and among competing agencies within these sovereignties that viable methods of control are either paralyzed or, for practical purposes, nonexistent. Because of this, problems in managing the inventories of these materials are too diverse and complex to solve in the short term. Consequently, without international cooperation, the United States cannot expect to control the misappropriation of fissile material that is inherent in nuclear proliferation and inappropriate nuclear disarmament methodologies.

    The reality is that a number of states are actively seeking the technology to manufacture nuclear weapons. Their main requirement is getting the materials to do so. Unfortunately, because of some very lax attitudes toward the security of weapons grade nuclear materials during the current disarmament process, the materials already exist in the Black Market. Indifference to this fact seems to be continuing and will contribute to the likelihood that, within the next two-to-three years, there will be a political crisis involving a terrorist group and nuclear materials.

    Slow progress has been made in establishing global and regional non proliferation measures. Commensurately, little effort has been expended for controlling the illegal movement of fissile materials. There appears to be a blindness to the fact that, in this imperfect world, while no system can be developed that will stop all the determined terrorists; a high level of effort must be expended for understanding the dimensions of the problem and correcting deficiencies. In some measure, all civilized nations should be prepared to respond as effectively as possible when terrorist threats of any kind occur but, especially, where nuclear materials are concerned.

    During the Cold War, high technology warheads sat atop powerful delivery systems. Targeting was a known factor. The world was at risk of a hair-trigger response but the realization of a mutually assured destruction kept these systems under “reasonable” control. Today, the potential weapon size is speculative and the delivery system in all probability will have feet. The targets are completely unpredictable – they can be anything, anywhere, at any time. No negotiating. No advanced warning. No clues of impending danger. Nothing is rational in the equation.

    Ultimately, there can be no foolproof system short of eliminating all inventories of the materials. However, it is an immediate and critical imperative that all nations work in collaboration to eliminate the spread of fissile materials. Control will require the continuous and simultaneous exercise of multiple measures including international intelligence gathering, international cooperation for conflict resolution, import/export accountability, and selective, proportional coercive measures including the use of force. Eventually, a comprehensive set of measures will have to be developed for the international community that will allow it to exercise the political will to stop and ultimately eliminate the threat of a catastrophe involving terrorist and nuclear materials.

    George Washington said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Again, it is time to listen to one of our founding fathers.

    *Gene R. Kelly is a human factors engineer who has consulted for government and industry on issues of nuclear security for the past 22 years.

  • Bush-Putin Nuclear Arms Cuts Are Not Enough

    Bush-Putin Nuclear Arms Cuts Are Not Enough

    Presidents Bush and Putin announced jointly that their countries “have overcome the legacy of the Cold War.” While the new cooperative relationship between the US and Russia is to be applauded, what their Presidents said and what was left unsaid about nuclear arms reductions still resonated with Cold War logic.

    President Bush announced that he would be reducing the US arsenal of long-range nuclear weapons by two-thirds from some 7,000 weapons to somewhere between 2,200 and 1,700 over a ten-year period. President Putin said, “we will try to respond in kind.” These cuts, which need to be viewed in the context of the post Cold War world, will not make us two-thirds safer.

    It was Presidents Bush Sr. and Yeltsin that agreed back in 1993 in the START II agreements to cut long-range nuclear arsenals to 3,500 each by the beginning of 2003. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin moved this date back to the end of 2007, but also agreed in principle to go beyond this in a next step to 2,500 long-range nuclear weapons in START III negotiations.

    Since entering office, President Putin has let it be known that he is prepared to reduce the long-range nuclear arsenals of the two sides to 1,500 or less. Some of his aides have said privately that President Putin was prepared to go down to 1,000 or less. Chances are he still is prepared to move to lower levels.

    Still lower levels of nuclear armaments would be consistent with leaving behind the legacy of the Cold War, while improving the security of both countries. If the US and Russia are no longer using these weapons to deter each other from attacking (since there is no reason to do so), for what reason do they need these weapons at all? It is widely understood that nuclear weapons have no military utility other than deterrence, and even this was shown to be ineffective in preventing terrorist attacks on September 11th.

    China has a minimal deterrent force of only some 500 weapons with only some 20 missiles capable of reaching the United States. India and Pakistan also have small nuclear arsenals, but surely they pose no threat to the US or Russia. The UK, France and Israel also have small nuclear arsenals, but pose no threat to either the US or Russia.

    North Korea, Iran and Iraq have neither nuclear weapons nor missiles with which to attack the US or Russia, and they would certainly be foolish to do so, given the conventional military power alone of these two countries.

    The greatest danger posed to both countries is not from each other or any other country. It is from terrorists, but terrorists cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons. Certainly this was one crucial lesson of September 11th.

    The US and Russia need to ensure that nuclear weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists. The best way to do this is to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons in all states to a level that can be controlled with certainty and to institute controls on weapons-grade fissile materials.

    To achieve such controls, which are truly in the security interests of both countries, will require even deeper cuts made with far more sense of urgency. Such cuts are necessary to keep Russian “loose nukes” out of the hands of terrorists and to demonstrate to the world the US and Russia are truly committed to achieving the nuclear disarmament they promised when they signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty more than three decades ago.

    Presidents Bush and Putin have also left some important things unsaid in regard to nuclear arms. They have made no mention of the continued high alert status of their nuclear weapons. Currently each country has some 2,250 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched within moments of an order to do so. This tempts fate unnecessarily, and could lead to an accidental nuclear war.

    Neither have the two Presidents made reference to tactical nuclear weapons, the smaller battlefield nuclear weapons that would be most likely to be used and that could most easily fall into the hands of terrorists. Nor has President Bush made mention of the serious implications for global stability if the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is amended or abrogated, as the US is seeking, to allow for the testing of space based weaponry.

    President Bush has said that he is prepared to reduce the US nuclear arsenal unilaterally, but this means that it is also possible to reverse this decision unilaterally. Several thousand US and Russian nuclear warheads will be dismantled in the coming ten years, but their nuclear cores will presumably be stored and available for reassembly on short notice. The decision to reduce nuclear arsenals should be committed to writing and made irreversible, such that the nuclear cores are unavailable for future use and subsequent administrations in both countries will be bound by the commitment.

    In the year 2000, the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty agreed that the principle of irreversibility should apply to nuclear disarmament. The US and Russia also agreed, along with the UK, France and China, to an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

    If the US and Russia truly want to prevent future nuclear terrorism, this is the time for leadership to accomplish the “total elimination” that has been promised. The US and Russia are the only countries capable of providing this leadership, but it is unlikely that they will do so unless pressed by the American and Russian people. And this will only happen if our peoples grasp the extent of the nuclear dangers that still confront us.

    We should not be lulled into thinking that reductions of long-range nuclear weapons to 2,200 to 1,700 in ten years time are sufficient. Such arsenals will continue to place at risk our cities as well as civilization and most of life.

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Combat is the Wrong Answer for Alienated Youth

    Re: Raymond Marquez’s Nov. 4 letter, “Draft gang members”:

    The letter by Mr. Marquez asserts that the front lines in war would be a more appropriate place for our gang members than the streets in our country. He does not see America as a war zone, whereas many young people do. They are fighting for attention, for recognition and for legitimacy.

    Because we teach them little about nonviolent power, about changing the dynamic of the “powerful few” and the “powerless many,” about organizing themselves toward a greater good, and about structures of systemic and institutionalized violence, they use what they perceive as their only power: violence through brute force.

    I see every day the origins of their careless, bad attitudes and their sense of disenfranchisement from society. They are concerned about the basics: money, food and their personal safety, things that, as a caring society, we should be providing in an attempt to raise a compassionate generation ready to lead us in the future.

    Yet, nearly 25 percent of kids in America live in poverty, while we spend $350 billion annually on our military. Funding for education, justice, housing assistance and social programs together makes up less than one-third of the military’s budget. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that a “country spending more on its military than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

    Our young people know where our priorities are because the money we spend, or refuse to spend, speaks volumes about what we value: money, weaponry and absolute power.

    When gangs fight on the streets, the violence is illegal and punishable with jail time, but when they train and fight in the military, the violence becomes legitimate. Right time, right place, right enemy and they get a medal of honor and money for college.

    Wrong time, wrong city, wrong enemy, they become immersed in the prison-industrial system of injustice. This mixed message is exactly what Mr. Marquez suggests we employ in our country.

    His suggestion is both classist and bigoted. Instead of only sending the already poor and disenfranchised young people in gangs to war, why do we not also send the sons and daughters of the members of Congress who have voted so adamantly and unilaterally for this war in Afghanistan?

    Not even those orchestrating this war, namely Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, served in the armed forces. Are the lives of gang members less worthy and more disposable than the decision-makers’? Additionally, if Mr. Marquez believes that a healthy dose of combat will shape up our gang members, I wonder if he believes, too, that the veterans of the Vietnam War were better socialized in American society after serving in the armed forces.

    Not even our classrooms are exempt from military indoctrination. Education in America already encourages institutionalized violence through participation in the armed forces. Because administrators and teachers have more to worry about than military recruiters on campus, the Pentagon has an unobstructed avenue into the consciences of our youth in high schools. Whether through brochures in the career counselor’s office, or on television through Channel One, a “news” channel that advertises for one of its primary sponsors, the Pentagon, the captive high school audience is in prime marketing territory for the military.

    In recent years, more than $1 trillion has been cut in aid to cities and those funds have been reappropriated for usage by our military, with little accountability to the American public and certainly no accountability to our youth and future generations who will have to live in the militarized world we have created. When students believe they have no future, their actions reflect their inner emotions.

    In an open letter to a newspaper on May 5, students from Los Angeles High School outlined their gripes in their own words: “How can you blame us for doing poorly as students when you are doing poorly as parents? You should insist on the right to be good parents. If your employers complain when you have to go to a parent-teacher conference, tell them that most juvenile crime would disappear if only the adults would take charge of their children.”

    In this letter, the class demands that we build more schools to accommodate the growing student population, that we take them to museums instead of the malls, and that we, the adults, clean up our acts and take responsibility for our skewed priorities.

    Instead, every day, 200 new prison cells are built, according to the War Resisters League. In March 2000, Proposition 21 was passed in California creating a death penalty for people under 18, and directly violating international law.

    The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country other than the United States and Somalia, clearly identifies people under the age of 18 as requiring special protection and exempting them from being treated as adults, especially in a court of law.

    The solution is not new. We need to provide health care to every person, we need to engage in restorative justice rather than punitive justice, and we need to allocate enough money to schools so that teachers are well-paid, classrooms are well-maintained and higher education is accessible to anyone who wishes to continue studying.

    What we don’t need are more people telling kids how bad they are, and providing suggestions for how to get rid of the problem of delinquent youth in our society.

    Perhaps I have learned more from my students about wisdom, compassion and value than they have learned from me. My students are my role models, all of them. Being around gang members and troublemakers reminds me how far we have to go in creating an equitable society and encourages me in the struggle for justice.

    *Leah C. Wells is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Peace Education Coordinator.

  • The Crawford Summit

    Presidents Bush and Putin will be meeting at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas from November 13-15 at what has been billed as the Crawford Summit. One major purpose of this summit is to discuss reductions in nuclear arsenals. For a few years the Russians have been calling for reducing US and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,500 or less strategic nuclear weapons. The US has said that it needs to evaluate its nuclear posture, and is now in the process of doing so.

    President Bush has said that he wants to move forward with reductions in nuclear arsenals, but he has tried to tie these reductions to Russian agreement on amending the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to allow the US to conduct missile defense tests that are currently banned by the ABM Treaty. In other words, President Bush has been using reductions in nuclear arsenals as a bargaining chip to gain Russian assent to amending the ABM Treaty.

    Perhaps it is not yet clear to President Bush that significant reductions in the Russian nuclear arsenal will make the US safer. In fact, leadership by the US and Russia to eliminate all nuclear weapons, as they are obligated to do in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, would be strongly in the interests of both countries as well as the world at large.

    Why is the US so eager to amend the ABM Treaty? I would suggest that there are three major reasons. First, the US wants to use theater missile defenses to protect its forward based forces throughout the world. This will give the United States greater degrees of freedom to use its military troops anywhere in the world without concern that US bases and troops will be vulnerable to missile attacks in response.

    Second, the US wants to weaponize outer space and wants to be rid of Article V, Section 1 of the ABM Treaty in which each party to the treaty “undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ABM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile land-based.” The US views missile defenses as a way to develop and test space based weaponry.

    Third, amending the ABM Treaty will allow the US to transfer billions of taxpayer dollars to defense industries to develop, test and deploy missile defenses — defenses that have little potential for actually protecting Americans from either major threats such as terrorism or virtually non-existent threats such as missile attacks from so-called rogue states.

    If the Russians do not go along with an amendment to the ABM Treaty, the Bush administration has already announced that it plans to withdraw from the treaty a treaty that Vladimir Putin as well as most of our allies throughout the world consider the cornerstone of strategic stability.

    US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty would be viewed throughout the world as a symbol of US arrogance and unilateralism. It would certainly have negative effects on our ability to hold together a coalition against terrorism, on future cooperative efforts with Russia and China, and on the prospects for nuclear disarmament.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Letter to President Vladimir Putin

    Letter to President Vladimir Putin

    Dear President Putin,

    Please stand firm on your position on upholding the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. You are correct in stating that it remains the cornerstone of global stability, and many knowledgeable Americans understand this.

    The Bush administration wants to eliminate Article V, Section 1 of the Treaty in order to develop a comprehensive ABM system, but with particular emphasis on space-based weaponry that will lead to a new arms race in space. This would be yet another disaster for the prospects of life on our fragile planet.

    If September 11th has taught us anything, it is that even the most powerful nations are vulnerable to those who hate and are wedded to violence. September 11th provides yet another warning that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co exist.

    Please use the occasion of the Crawford Summit with President Bush to call for implementation of a plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons from Earth in accord with existing obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, beginning with immediate major reductions of nuclear weapons into the hundreds rather than thousands. I also urge you to propose that all nuclear weapons be removed from hair-trigger alert. Finally, I urge you to put forward immediately a World Treaty Banning Space-Based Weapons.

    This is a time that calls for bold proposals. Never has global leadership been more important. History has presented you with an opportunity to speak for humanity. Please speak to the world’s people in a clear and unambiguous voice for ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and for preserving outer space as a zone free of all weaponization.

    I am certain that you have the courage and commitment to succeed in accomplishing these goals.

    David Krieger, President Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Stop the Bombing and Bring In the UN

    The US military action in Afghanistan is failing. Many innocent Afghans are being killed, and the US is no closer to finding or defeating the terrorists responsible for perpetrating the September 11th crimes against humanity. The United Nations and other relief organizations are warning that millions of Afghans could die of starvation this winter unless the bombing is halted soon. In other words, the bombing of Afghanistan is leading to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions. We, therefore, call on the US and British forces to halt the bombing to allow relief organizations to do their job of getting food to the Afghan people.

    Terrorism is a global problem that can only be solved globally. Every country on Earth, every person on the planet, has a stake in ending the threat of terrorism. This matter must go back to the United Nations Security Council and must be handled by the United Nations as a matter of priority. If the US and UK continue their bombing, killing more innocent people, they will simply be adding fuel to the fire of terrorism. Some have suggested that they are providing the spark to ignite a global conflagration.

    On the other hand, if the international community joins together in a serious effort to combat terrorism, it could lead to unprecedented cooperation between national police and intelligence services. Such efforts could leave terrorists with no place to hide, and are essential to preventing terrorism.

    A global action through the United Nations will also demonstrate that this is not simply retaliation or vengeance on the part of the United States. To make a United Nations effort effective will require leadership and support by the United States, but it must be an effort that is truly directed by the Security Council of the United Nations.

    The United Nations should also set up a special International Tribunal for terrorists until the International Criminal Court is established, which will probably be next year. A trial before an impartial International Tribunal will help educate the world on the need to put an end to all terrorism. Such a trial will also be acceptable to virtually all countries throughout the world, whereas a trial of terrorists in the US would be viewed as biased in many countries.

    In sum, step one on the path to ending terrorism is to stop the bombing of Afghanistan now; step two is to turn over to the United Nations Security Council the job of preventing terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice.

    Military force is deepening the crisis without producing significant results. The vulnerability of civilization to determined and suicidal terrorists makes prevention the key to victory. Our future security, and that of the rest of the world, will be dependent on multilateral and cooperative efforts under an internationally accepted legal framework.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Geopolitics of War

    There are many ways to view the conflict between the United States and Osama bin Laden’s terror network: as a contest between Western liberalism and Eastern fanaticism, as suggested by many pundits in the United States; as a struggle between the defenders and the enemies of authentic Islam, as suggested by many in the Muslim world; and as a predictable backlash against American villainy abroad, as suggested by some on the left. But while useful in assessing some dimensions of the conflict, these cultural and political analyses obscure a fundamental reality: that this war, like most of the wars that preceded it, is firmly rooted in geopolitical competition.

    The geopolitical dimensions of the war are somewhat hard to discern because the initial fighting is taking place in Afghanistan, a place of little intrinsic interest to the United States, and because our principal adversary, bin Laden, has no apparent interest in material concerns. But this is deceptive, because the true center of the conflict is Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan (or Palestine), and because bin Laden’s ultimate objectives include the imposition of a new Saudi government, which in turn would control the single most valuable geopolitical prize on the face of the earth: Saudi Arabia’s vast oil deposits, representing one-fourth of the world’s known petroleum reserves. To fully appreciate the roots of the current conflict, it is necessary to travel back in time–specifically, to the final years of World War II, when the US government began to formulate plans for the world it would dominate in the postwar era. As the war drew to a close, the State Department was enjoined by President Roosevelt to devise the policies and institutions that would guarantee US security and prosperity in the coming epoch. This entailed the design and formation of the United Nations, the construction of the Bretton Woods world financial institutions and, most significant in the current context, the procurement of adequate oil supplies.

    American strategists considered access to oil to be especially important because it was an essential factor in the Allied victory over the Axis powers. Although the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war, it was oil that fueled the armies that brought Germany and Japan to their knees. Oil powered the vast numbers of ships, tanks and aircraft that endowed Allied forces with a decisive edge over their adversaries, which lacked access to reliable sources of petroleum. It was widely assumed, therefore, that access to large supplies of oil would be critical to US success in any future conflicts.

    Where would this oil come from? During World Wars I and II, the United States was able to obtain sufficient oil for its own and its allies’ needs from deposits in the American Southwest and from Mexico and Venezuela. But most US analysts believed that these supplies would be insufficient to meet American and European requirements in the postwar era. As a result, the State Department initiated an intensive study to identify other sources of petroleum. This effort, led by the department’s economic adviser, Herbert Feis, concluded that only one location could provide the needed petroleum. “In all surveys of the situation,” Feis noted (in a statement quoted by Daniel Yergin in The Prize), “the pencil came to an awed pause at one point and place–the Middle East.”

    To be more specific, Feis and his associates concluded that the world’s most prolific supply of untapped oil was to be found in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But how to get at this oil? At first, the State Department proposed the formation of a government-owned oil firm to acquire concessions in Saudi Arabia and extract the kingdom’s reserves. This plan was considered too unwieldy, however, and instead US officials turned this task over to the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), an alliance of major US oil corporations. But these officials were also worried about the kingdom’s long-term stability, so they concluded that the United States would have to assume responsibility for the defense of Saudi Arabia. In one of the most extraordinary occurrences in modern American history, President Roosevelt met with King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi regime, on a US warship in the Suez Canal following the February 1945 conference in Yalta. Although details of the meeting have never been made public, it is widely believed that Roosevelt gave the King a promise of US protection in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil–an arrangement that remains in full effect today and constitutes the essential core of the US-Saudi relationship.

    This relationship has provided enormous benefits to both sides. The United States has enjoyed preferred access to Saudi petroleum reserves, obtaining about one-sixth of its crude-oil imports from the kingdom. ARAMCO and its US partners have reaped immense profits from their operations in Saudi Arabia and from the distribution of Saudi oil worldwide. (Although ARAMCO’s Saudi holdings were nationalized by the Saudi government in 1976, the company continues to manage Saudi oil production and to market its petroleum products abroad.) Saudi Arabia also buys about $6-10 billion worth of goods per year from US companies. The Saudi royal family, for its part, has become immensely wealthy and, because of continued US protection, has remained safe from external and internal attack.

    But this extraordinary partnership has also produced a number of unintended consequences, and it is these effects that concern us here. To protect the Saudi regime against its external enemies, the United States has steadily expanded its military presence in the region, eventually deploying thousands of troops in the kingdom. Similarly, to protect the royal family against its internal enemies, US personnel have become deeply involved in the regime’s internal security apparatus. At the same time, the vast and highly conspicuous accumulation of wealth by the royal family has alienated it from the larger Saudi population and led to charges of systemic corruption. In response, the regime has outlawed all forms of political debate in the kingdom (there is no parliament, no free speech, no political party, no right of assembly) and used its US-trained security forces to quash overt expressions of dissent. All these effects have generated covert opposition to the regime and occasional acts of violence–and it is from this undergroundmilieu that Osama bin Laden has drawn his inspiration and many of his top lieutenants.

    The US military presence in Saudi Arabia has steadily increased over the years. Initially, from 1945 to 1972, Washington delegated the primary defense responsibility to Britain, long the dominant power in the region. When Britain withdrew its forces from “East of Suez” in 1971, the United States assumed a more direct role, deploying military advisers in the kingdom and providing Saudi Arabia with a vast arsenal of US weapons. Some of these arms and advisory programs were aimed at external defense, but the Defense Department also played a central role in organizing, equipping, training and managing the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), the regime’s internal security force.

    American military involvement in the kingdom reached a new level in 1979, when three things happened: The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by antigovernment forces and Islamic militants staged a brief rebellion in Mecca. In response, President Jimmy Carter issued a new formulation of US policy: Any move by a hostile power to gain control of the Persian Gulf area would be regarded “as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America” and would be resisted “by any means necessary, including military force.” This statement, now known as the “Carter Doctrine,” has governed US strategy in the gulf ever since. To implement the new doctrine, Carter established the Rapid Deployment Force, a collection of combat forces based in the United States but available for deployment to the Persian Gulf. (The RDF was later folded into the US Central Command, which now conducts all US military operations in the region.) Carter also deployed US warships in the gulf and arranged for the periodic utilization by American forces of military bases in Bahrain, Diego Garcia (a British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean), Oman and Saudi Arabia–all of which were employed during the 1990-91 Gulf War and are again being used today. Believing, moreover, that the Soviet presence in Afghanistan represented a threat to US dominance in the gulf, Carter authorized the initiation of covert operations to undermine the Soviet-backed regime there. (It is important to note that the Saudi regime was deeply involved in this effort, providing much of the funding for the anti-Soviet rebellion and allowing its citizens, including Osama bin Laden, to participate in the war effort as combatants and fundraisers.) And to protect the Saudi royal family, Carter increased US involvement in the kingdom’s internal security operations.

    President Reagan accelerated Carter’s overt military moves and greatly increased covert US support for the anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Afghanistan. (Eventually, some $3 billion worth of arms were given to the mujahedeen.) Reagan also issued an important codicil to the Carter Doctrine: The United States would not allow the Saudi regime to be overthrown by internal dissidents, as occurred in Iran. “We will not permit [Saudi Arabia] to be an Iran,” he told reporters in 1981.

    Then came the Persian Gulf War. When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, President Bush the elder was principally concerned about the threat to Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait. At a meeting at Camp David on August 4, he determined that the United States must take immediate military action to defend the Saudi kingdom against possible Iraqi attack. To allow for a successful defense of the kingdom, Bush sent his Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, to Riyadh to persuade the royal family to allow the deployment of US ground forces on Saudi soil and the use of Saudi bases for airstrikes against Iraq.

    The subsequent unfolding of Operation Desert Storm does not need to be retold here. What is important to note is that the large US military presence in Saudi Arabia was never fully withdrawn after the end of the fighting in Kuwait. American aircraft continue to fly from bases in Saudi Arabia as part of the enforcement mechanism of the “no-fly zone” over southern Iraq (intended to prevent the Iraqis from using this airspace to attack Shiite rebels in the Basra area or to support a new invasion of Kuwait). American aircraft also participate in the multinational effort to enforce the continuing economic sanctions on Iraq.

    President Clinton further strengthened the US position in the gulf, expanding American basing facilities there and enhancing the ability to rapidly move US-based forces to the region.Clinton also sought to expand US influence in the Caspian Sea basin, an energy-rich area just to the north of the Persian Gulf.

    Many consequences have flowed from all this. The sanctions on Iraq have caused immense suffering for the Iraqi population, while the regular bombing of military facilities produces a mounting toll of Iraqi civilian deaths. Meanwhile, the United States has failed to take any action to curb Israeli violence against the Palestinians. It is these concerns that have prompted many young Muslims to join bin Laden’s forces. Bin Laden himself, however, is most concerned about Saudi Arabia. Ever since the end of the Gulf War, he has focused his efforts on achieving two overarching goals: the expulsion of the American “infidels” from Saudi Arabia (the heart of the Muslim holy land) and the overthrow of the current Saudi regime and its replacement with one more attuned to his fundamentalist Islamic beliefs.

    Both of these goals put bin Laden in direct conflict with the United States. It is this reality, more than any other, that explains the terrorist strikes on US military personnel and facilities in the Middle East, and key symbols of American power in New York and Washington.

    The current war did not begin on September 11. As far as we can tell, it began in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center. This was succeeded in 1995 with an attack on the SANG headquarters in Riyadh, and in 1996 with the explosion at the Khobar Towers outside of Dhahran. Then followed the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the more recent attack on the USS Cole. All these events, like the World Trade Center/Pentagon assaults, are consistent with a long-term strategy to erode US determination to maintain its alliance with the Saudi regime- and thus, in the final analysis, to destroy the 1945 compact forged by President Roosevelt and King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud.

    In fighting against these efforts, the United States is acting, in the first instance, to protect itself, its citizens and its military personnel from terrorist violence. At the same time, however, Washington is also shoring up its strategic position in the Persian Gulf. With bin Laden out of the way, Iran suffering from internal political turmoil and Saddam Hussein immobilized by unrelenting American airstrikes, the dominant US position in the gulf will be assured for some time to come. (Washington’s one big worry is that the Saudi monarchy will face increasing internal opposition because of its close association with the United States; it is for this reason that the Bush Administration has not leaned too hard on the regime to permit US forces to use Saudi bases for attacks on Afghanistan and to freeze the funds of Saudi charities linked to Osama bin Laden.)

    For both sides, then, this conflict has important geopolitical dimensions. A Saudi regime controlled by Osama bin Laden could be expected to sever all ties with US oil companies and to adopt new policies regarding the production of oil and the distribution of the country’s oil wealth–moves that would have potentially devastating consequences for the US, and indeed the world, economy. The United States, of course, is fighting to prevent this from happening.

    As the conflict unfolds, we are unlikely to hear any of this from the key figures involved. In seeking to mobilize public support for his campaign against the terrorists, President Bush will never acknowledge that conventional geopolitics plays a role in US policy. Osama bin Laden, for his part, is equally reluctant to speak in such terms. But the fact remains that this war, like the Gulf War before it, derives from a powerful geopolitical contest. It will be very difficult, in the current political environment, to probe too deeply into these matters. Bin Laden and his associates have caused massive injury to the United States, and the prevention of further such attacks is, understandably, the nation’s top priority. When conditions permit, however, a serious review of US policy in the Persian Gulf will be in order. Among the many questions that might legitimately be asked at this point is whether long-term US interests would not best be served by encouraging the democratization of Saudi Arabia. Surely, if more Saudi citizens are permitted to participate in open political dialogue, fewer will be attracted to the violent, anti-American dogma of Osama bin Laden.

  • Walk Softly and Look Ahead in Nuclear South Asia

    Before September 11th, South Asia’s problems were legion: over a billion people, most of them desperately poor; a history of war and violent conflicts; rising religious militancy; hard-line Hindu nationalists in power in India, the army in charge in Pakistan; newly tested nuclear weapons and a get-tough mood. Now, it is also the frontline of the US war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. South Asia may not be able to take the strain. The US needs to ensure that it does nothing to worsen the many crises in South Asia and that it thinks long-term, not short-term, about its policies in the region.

    The US bombing campaign against Afghanistan in response to the terrible attacks of September 11th has opened wide the door for Pakistan’s Islamist groups, with their history of anti Americanism and strong ties to the Taliban. Hoping to mobilize the widespread public resentment and anger at the hopelessness of everyday life in Pakistan, these groups have taken to the streets to challenge the military government of President Pervez Musharraf and his decision to support the US. The longer the US bombs Afghanistan and the more civilians get killed, the greater the humanitarian and refugee crisis and the more organized and dangerous the Islamists’ challenge.

    There are obvious steps the US should take in the present crisis that would serve also to strengthen the hand of Pakistan’s government against the militants. The US should heed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and suspend its bombing campaign to allow relief supplies to reach the more than seven million Afghans in direst need. Similarly, the US could acknowledge the vital role of the UN and call in Secretary General and new Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, show him the evidence, and ask him to mediate with the Taliban for a hand-over of Osama bin Laden for trial.

    Pakistan is also trapped by its conflict with India. Reflecting the intensity and depth of this battle, India and Pakistan have each sought to take advantage of the situation since September 11th. India immediately offered political and military support to the United States in its conflict with the Taliban and urged it to include Pakistani-supported Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir as targets of the US assault on terrorism. Pakistan, under enormous pressure from the US, eventually decided to turn a liability into an asset and sought to cash in on its location and its leverage over the Taliban.

    Seeing Pakistan win the US over to its side, and with the militants continuing their attacks in Kashmir, India is now trying another, more dangerous gambit. It has threatened to follow the US example and attack militant training camps and bases in Pakistan. In an ominous development, India has ended a 10 month long effective cease-fire and started shelling Pakistani forces across the border that divides Kashmir.

    The US must press Pakistan to end its support for the militants, restrain India from actions that may trigger a South Asian war, and get serious in working with the international community to resolve the half century-old Kashmir dispute. For this effort to be taken seriously, the US must show by word and deed that unilateral military action is not the order of the day.

    A longer-term danger are the nuclear weapons in South Asia. The May 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan put the world on watch. The US and the international community used sanctions to pressure both countries to exercise restraint, and to signal a refusal to accept new nuclear weapons states. But, in its search for support in the region, the Bush administration has let go the already waning US efforts to reverse the nuclearization of South Asia. The US is lifting all its sanctions against India and most if not (yet) all sanctions against Pakistan–and economic and military assistance is being offered to both.

    India and Pakistan may return with renewed vigor to their conventional and nuclear arms race. India seeks US arms to add to its $4 billion arms deal with Russia and $2 billion deal with Israel. Pakistan’s limited funds have stalled its military purchases. With the army in charge, any resources freed by a blanket lifting of sanctions may go to catching up with India. With political and economic pressures eased, both sides may speed deployment of their nuclear warheads. South Asia may escape the frying pan of terrorism only to fall into the nuclear fire.

    Alternatives to Military Aid

    While military aid will make things worse, economic aid can play an important role. There is no doubt South Asia’s poor need support. But this will be near useless if the money is simply handed over to the very governments that have for so long neglected their people. Resources must be directed to where the people are and in ways that they can usefully manage to improve the conditions of their daily lives. The US, the international community, and institutions like the World Bank would do well to heed Mahatma Gandhi’s advice: “recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?”

    Also long-term is democracy. General Musharraf’s new status as ally in the war against Afghanistan and the man most likely to hold Pakistan together may lead to the lifting of the US sanctions levied after his coup. But, concern about Pakistan’s stability should not translate into abandoning democracy, and Musharraf should not be allowed or encouraged to stay in power. The two previous Pakistani generals who seized power each kept it for the better part of a decade. Civil society withered both times.

    Musharraf should hold to his promise of elections and restoring democracy by next October. Elections may be just what it takes to mobilize the majority of Pakistanis in the battle against radical Islam. Whenever they have been allowed to choose who should govern them in the past, Pakistanis have decisively rejected Islamic political parties. They would do so again now. The small crowds on the streets supporting the Islamist groups are testament to that, but another ten years without democracy may change their minds.

    *Zia Mian researches South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He has also taught at Princeton, Yale, and Quaid-i-Azam University (Islamabad, Pakistan). He is the co-editor of Out of The Nuclear Shadow, a collection of South Asian writing on nuclear disarmament.