The Bush Administration’s Policy To Counter Nuclear Terrorism In Post-9/11Era

Human beings have fallen in the deep shadow of the Armageddon since nuclear weapons were invented. Like a ghost, the risk of nuclear war haunted in the times of Cold War. Nonetheless, such kind of thing did not happen and the world underwent half-century cautious and dangerous peace time. After the end of the Cold War, for the USA, the main enemy-the Soviet Union collapsed. So the USA became the only undoubted super power. It seems that the environment of American national security became very optimistically. However, another kind of enemy-terrorists rose up, with covert network and stone-hearted members. The US faced another kind of severe threat other than nuclear war, that is-terrorism. From the most unfortunate angle, what if the most destructive nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists with the most desire of destruction? It will be the nightmare of American national security.The9/11attack broke the myth of American homeland security. Moreover, it broke the myth of the extent of destruction from the non-state actors. In case of the perspective of the conjunction of nuclear weapons and terrorists, the Bush administration released many related national security strategies, giving the policy of countering nuclear terrorism a prominent place in the national security agenda. In the practice of countering nuclear terrorism, the Bush administration adjusted the federal government to adapt to the new security environment. Meanwhile, it also announced a lot of initiatives to counter nuclear terrorism in the international level, with unilateral, bilateral and multilateral forms. The efforts of Bush administration earned some fruits. It established a multi-layered defense system to counter nuclear terrorism from the geographic angle; formulated the framework of international law to counter nuclear terrorism; and forged the international alliance to counter nuclear terrorism. The purpose of my thesis is to give a systematic analysis and evaluation of the Bush administration’s policy to counter nuclear terrorism since9/11, hoping that a thorough picture of the Bush administration’s policy and efforts will be presented clearly.The body of this thesis is comprised of four chapters.The first chapter gives a definition of "nuclear terrorism", sorts the phenomenon of nuclear terrorism, and makes a historical review of the cognition to nuclear terrorism in Americans’ minds. Nuclear terrorism is such kind of behavior:run by the non-state actors, with some political conspiracy, it use or threaten to use nuclear attack or attacks on nuclear facilities in order to enforce some people, international organizations or countries to do or not to do something. Nuclear terrorism takes four forms:attacks on nuclear facilities, detonation of a complete nuclear weapon, detonation of an improvised nuclear device, and detonation of a "dirty bomb" which contains radioactive material. If phased by the end of the Cold War, the cognition of nuclear terrorism in Americans’minds was strengthened gradually.The second chapter presents how the Bush administration’s policy to counter nuclear terrorism was released and what the content was, against the background of the9/11attack. The Bush administration’s policy to counter nuclear terrorism is mainly reflected in some related national security strategies which were released after9/11, which can be summarized into four pillars, i.e. proactive counterproliferation, strengthened nonproliferation, effective consequence management and reformed intelligence community.The third chapter depicts the practice of the Bush administration’s policy to counter nuclear terrorism. Bush’s practice to strike nuclear terrorism is clearly reflected in three dimensions as follows:establishing of the multi-layered defense system; formulating of the international law framework; and forging of the alliance to counter nuclear terrorism.The fourth chapter is an evaluation to the Bush administration’s efforts to counter nuclear terrorism. Firstly, on the characteristics of the practice to counter nuclear terrorism, by the dimension of action, Bush’s efforts evolved from words to actions; by the dimension of means of countering, Bush’s efforts evolved from counterproliferation to both kinds of counterproliferation and nonproliferation; by the dimension of regions, Bush’s government extended the efforts of countering nuclear terrorism from the former Soviet Union countries (FSU) to much more countries around the world, moreover, the international network to counter nuclear terrorism also contained many countries of the world. Secondly, on the achievements of Bush’s efforts to counter nuclear terrorism, on one hand, Bush’s practice to counter nuclear terrorism established a multi-layered defense system containing four layers-terrorists, the source of nuclear and radioactive materials, marine security, and homeland defense; on the other hand, Bush’s efforts to formulate the international law framework and his forging of the alliance to counter nuclear terrorism helped form an inform international regime to counter nuclear terrorism to some extent. Lastly, on the problems which the Bush administration are facing in the efforts to counter nuclear terrorism, there are mainly three problems:the vacancy of the position to exclusively manage the work relating to nuclear terrorism; the insufficiency of fund to support the effort to counter nuclear terrorism; the damage of the international reputation during some work to counter nuclear terrorism.