LAST week, terrorist bombs ripped through three London underground trains and a bus, killing more than 50 people. Thousands more innocent people from Madrid to Bali and New York to Baghdad have died in similar circumstances. Terrorist attacks have become the defining global security issue of recent years.
Yet as we struggle to detect, prevent and mitigate their effects (see 鈥淣o easy way to stop tube terror鈥�), it is worth remembering that other threats to global peace are still with us. The defining security issue of the late 20th century, the nuclear arms race, remains a real and present danger (see 鈥�60 years on, is the world any safer?鈥�).
Until recently, the Soviet Union and the US dominated the agenda. Now many more countries are joining in, and others are making plans to do so. Old 鈥渃omforts鈥� such as the notion of mutually assured destruction look increasingly irrelevant, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is in crisis. So how are we to stop the race for nuclear weapons?
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One of the boldest ideas is to ban production of highly enriched uranium and of plutonium from spent fuel, or to place them under international control. Such moves could stem the flow of material that can be easily turned into weapons. They will not find favour with the nuclear industry or countries that have plans for these materials, civil or military. But they would stop not only states from acquiring nuclear weapons, but terrorists too. Imagine if such material had fallen into the hands of the London bombers.