In a 1963 address to the American people on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, President Kennedy warned: I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament. There would only be the increased chance of accidental war (Mattern 2007, 563). Nuclear terrorism. Why is this topic so important that summits are being held to discuss this? The terrorist attack conducted on September 11, 2001, an attack that was thought to be impossible to carry out, resulted in the loss of over 2,800 lives and changed our countries forever. Fourteen years later, 2,236 service members are killed in action and 19,911 are …show more content…
Nuclear terrorism has become a major topic of discussion because of the realism of this type of incident happening again and after all these years, the thought of a nuclear attacks looms in the forefront of everyday thinking. But the focus has been solely on terrorists conducting such an attack. With all the news about North Korea conducting nuclear weapons tests, Iran asking everyone who is listening for nuclear material, and Israel who has not officially admitted to owning nuclear weapons, should the object of attention be expanded to include non-state actors? Nuclear terrorism after all, is a reality and the ability for a terrorist organization or non-state actor to acquire nuclear weapons and use them to make a statement can happen. So