many years ago
i went to a conference in oxford about nuclear terrorism. the upshot of it was- it is incredibly easy to procure nuclear materials from ex-soviet sources, any idiot can set it off because you don't need it to produce a proper thermonuclear explosion to work, you just need to irradiate a large area.
in summary, it's pretty surprising we still haven't been subjected to an attack.
certainly back then (15 years ago) there was no proper auditing of the warheads in ex soviet bases, or more worryingly nuclear waste, uranium oxide etc, low level stuff from soviet civilian nuclear projects. The guys tasked with guarding them were paid a pathetic pittance, compared to the massive sums they could get for the stuff they were guarding.
a lot of money from the west has gone in to securing the nuclear stuff in the east since then, but i doubt it is anything apporaching properly secure even now.
(
crab_bloke), Fri 13 Jul 2012, 23:47,
Reply)
There is a lot of security now regarding nuclear material.
Much better than it was during the chaos of post USSR collapse & most stuff has been traced, mostly.
(, Sat 14 Jul 2012, 0:11, Reply)