With the fall on the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War around 1991, a great deal of radioactive material was left in the former members of the Soviet Union in the form of missile and artillery warheads, uranium, plutonium, and waste from processing and other military and industrial activities. A great deal of this material was sent to Russia but not all of it. Some of it remains unaccounted for. In the social, political and economic turbulence following the breakup of the Soviet Union, concern grew that nuclear materials would find their way into the black market and be purchased by terrorist organizations bent on wrecking havoc with dirty bombs or actual atomic bombs.
In the mid 90s, the Center of Strategic & International Studies created the Transnational Threats Project (TNT) This Project was set up to assess a variety of international threats to the security of United States including terrorism, insurgencies and criminal networks trafficking in people, narcotics, weapons and other illegal commodities. There is increasing cooperation and overlap between ideological organizations such as terrorist networks and insurgencies and criminal networks.
In 1996, the TNT set up a task force on the nuclear black market and the report of the task force was the first report issued by the newly formed TNT. The report was well received and was often quoted in discussions of the threat of black market trafficking in nuclear materials. It was cited in Congressional hearings which resulted in legislation that led to the Defense Preparedness Act. The DPA is dedicated to helping one hundred and twenty cities prepare to deal with nuclear terrorist attacks.
The main focus of the report was the threat posed by nuclear materials in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries with regard to supply, illegal trafficking and demand for nuclear weapons and weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. The report dealt with possible involvement of organized crime in the FSU in the nuclear black market. The first step in dealing with such threats lies in strict security at facilities which contain such materials. Capabilities for detecting nuclear materials, seizing such materials in transit and prosecuting smugglers was analyzed. Anticipating the failure to prevent such materials from falling into terrorist hands, measures to prevent their use in terrorist attacks are also covered in the report.
After producing the report, the task force created scenarios and a game called Wild Atom to give participants experience in dealing with such threats. Wild Atom was hosted by CSIS and the National Defense University in 1996 and was consider to be huge success by the participants. The seventy participants were drawn from law enforcement, the intelligence community, experts in the technology of sensors, nuclear forensics experts, legislators and private businessmen.
The threat of a nuclear black market in the FSU countries continues to be a grave concern for U.S. security and the focus of ongoing investigations.
