The possibility of a terrorist attack using nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons is an ongoing debate in the national security policy arena. While terrorist motivations have traditionally been political ones that would not benefit from such an attack, concern is now voiced over a possible trend of inflicting greater numbers of casualties. Terrorists most likely to attempt attacks with weapo...

Public institutions such as governmental facilities, hospitals, universities, and amusement parks may be targeted by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction due to their potential to cause large numbers of casualties. Consequentially, these institutions should be prepared to manage such an event by the development and implementation of specific preparedness guidelines for any conventional ...

Dr. Bruce Hoffman is Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence and Chairman of the Department of International Relations, St. Andrews University, Scotland. The face of terrorism is changing. New adversaries, new motivations, and new rationales have surfaced in recent years to challenge the conventional wisdom on both terrorists and terrorism. More critically, perh...

By the end of the Clinton administration, the claim that terrorists armed with biological weapons represented a huge threat to the security of the United States had achieved the status of received knowledge. How this linkage was forged, despite informed dissent not only outside the Clinton administration but also within it, and how it was used to justify a radical reframing of biological knowle...

Modern China has been linked with the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and missile weapons technology to states of proliferation concern, and its compliance with arms control and disarmament is seen as key to the effectiveness of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) nonproliferation efforts. In this context, the answer to Gerald Segal’s question, “Does China really matter?” is most definitely, ...

The enormous destructive power of present stocks of nuclear weapons poses the greatest threat to public health in human history. Technical changes in weapons design are leading to an increased emphasis on the ability to fight a nuclear war, eroding the concept of deterrence based on mutually assured destruction and increasing the risk of nuclear war. Medical planning and civil defence preparati...

The spread of nuclear weapons to potential U.S. adversaries raises important questions for U.S. nuclear strategy and foreign policy. During the Cold War, U.S. nuclear strategy was designed to meet the challenges posed by the Soviet Union, a superpower adversary that deployed an enormous nuclear arsenal and was viewed as a threat to vital U.S. interests. Today the United States faces a strikingl...