ILLICIT NUCLEAR TRAFFICKING: WHAT’S NEW? WHAT’S TRUE?

Until very recently, conventional wisdom among the Western nonproliferation community was that nuclear smuggling involving proliferation significant material had declined markedly since late 1994. This alleged lull in nuclear trafficking activity was attributed to a variety of factors including the positive impact of nonproliferation assistance programs in the former Soviet Union, enhanced law enforcement and customs and border controls, and an increase in information and intelligence sharing among different national governments. More pessimistic interpretations for the apparent lull also have been proffered, including the rise of more sophisticated smugglers able to avoid detection and capture. Following September 11, 2001 there has been a spate of news reports which suggest a far more active nuclear black market. Many, but not all of these reports, relate to alleged efforts by the Al-Qaida terrorist network to procure nuclear weapons. Although few of these accounts provide much concrete or corroborated information, they are cited widely and create the impression of a resurgence in nuclear trafficking. This paper reviews the body of confirmed, proliferation-significant cases of illicit nuclear trafficking involving the former Soviet Union in the past ten years. It pays particular attention to those cases in the 1998-2001 period, which have not received adequate analysis to date. A comparison of these cases with those in the 1992-1997 period provides a basis for discerning possible trends in illicit nuclear trafficking. An effort also is made to analyze the problem of data reliability and to suggest steps that should be taken to improve our knowledge of illicit trafficking incidents.