Placing Terrorist Risks in Context

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 Terrorismo y el Embarque Marítimo de Material Nuclear, Dr. Ron Smith, Director de Relaciones Internacionales y Estudios de Seguridad en la Universidad de Waikato, Hamilton, Nueva Zelanda (PDF) »

How likely is a terrorist attack against a ship carrying nuclear material? That is the question addressed in a new report entitled “Terrorism and the Maritime Shipment of Nuclear Material” (PDF Format) by Dr. Ron Smith, Director of International Relations and Security Studies at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand.

	Dr. Ron Smith Director of International Relations and Security Studies at the University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand

In his 35-page report, Dr. Smith focuses in particular on PNTL ships because, he says, they invariably attract the most public attention.

His report was written, at least in part, at the suggestion of industry officials who also gave him access to information normally kept under wraps. “This is the first report that looks systematically and objectively at various attack scenarios, whether they are likely to be initiated and what results might follow. It is therefore, to some extent, groundbreaking, although plenty of additional and more detailed work can be carried out on this subject in the future.

“The industry opened the door but they did not pressure me in any way to draw particular conclusions. I think they are confident about their security systems – and with good reason.

“Of course, they couldn’t show me everything and I wouldn’t have expected them to given that this a security issue. But I was cleared to have access to certain classified information and was privileged to interview a number of the top nuclear security specialists in the UK, France, USA and Japan.”

For more than a decade Dr. Smith has been a notable advocate of nuclear energy in a country that has deliberately shunned the technology. New Zealand still prohibits ships that are nuclear powered from entering its ports so the development of nuclear power for electricity generation would appear to be a long shot at best.

The New Zealand International Review has published a series of his papers on nuclear power, nuclear weapons, disarmament and international security issues and he has also penned a number of commentaries in New Zealand newspapers. In August, in the New Zealand Herald, Dr. Smith wrote that a coastal nuclear power station close to Auckland “could give an unobtrusive, reliable and safe source of electricity, which could obviate the need for more unsightly reticulation development to bring power from the south.”

He says that New Zealand has to think “the unthinkable” in order to ensure secure supplies of electricity and could work in parallel with Australia to establish nuclear power. “We have to challenge orthodoxies in government if we are to get the most rational and well thought out policies,” he says.

Dr. Smith’s interest in PNTL shipments was prompted by the second shipment of High Level Waste from France to Japan in 1997, which attracted some negative comments in New Zealand. Following a visit to nuclear facilities in the UK and France, he took an increased interest in the safety and security arguments surrounding the shipments.

At the same time, he was drawn to the issue of nuclear proliferation and from 1997-2003 was a member of the Nuclear Experts Group of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP).

After 9/11, he began to consider in detail the risks of nuclear terrorism around the world.

In 2004, he watched as PNTL shipped weapons-grade plutonium from the USA to France as part of a “swords into ploughshares” agreement. The resultant mixed oxide fuel is now generating electricity in a nuclear reactor in South Carolina. (See “Making the World Safer”).

The Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail are fitted with fixed naval guns when shipping MOX fuel or plutonium Office for Civil Nuclear Security (OCNS) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC)

In his new report, Dr. Smith analyzes some of the security arrangements for PNTL shipments and presents various “what if” scenarios covering the seizing of a ship and its cargo, the removal of nuclear material and what use terrorists could make of it.

After analyzing each one, Dr. Smith concludes that “the actual risk that terrorists might take material and make a bomb or radiological device is extremely small… there is little prospect of an attack having any serious consequences beyond the psychological.”

And he writes that “enormous thought and effort have gone into appropriate counter-measures, and this is reflected in the security arrangements… they provide a very formidable deterrent to any attempt at diversion or sabotage.”

Asked whether he expects his report to reassure opponents of nuclear power, particularly in New Zealand, Dr. Smith is matter of fact.

“Anti-nuclear groups claim that these ships could be easily targeted by terrorists and that the consequences would be catastrophic. When you take the time to study the situation, as I have done, it is clear that this is not the case. Nuclear shipments present a very difficult target and there are few, if any, plausible disaster scenarios.

“One thing we do know is that the maritime transport of nuclear material, and other hazardous cargo such as Liquid Petroleum Gas, Liquid Natural Gas and many common chemicals, is likely to increase in the future. It is extremely difficult to predict with any certainty what will become a terrorist target. You can only say what would be logical or non-logical, what is likely or unlikely given the potential consequences of an attack and put the question into a broader context.”

And providing that context and enabling a more informed debate, he continually stresses, is what he set out to achieve.

December 2006

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