The Effects of Nuclear Terrorism: Fizzles

Abstract

The September 11 terrorist attack against America has caused a lot of concern to the American public and the entire world, which is suspecting a new attack sooner or later. The most frightening scenario is the one involving the detonation of a nuclear device at the heart of a large metropolitan city. Unless the terrorists are in possession of a fully assembled modern nuclear weapons it is very likely that they will possess a crude nuclear device which has been assembled in a terrorist camp by people with relatively limited technological resources. It well known that the Oppenheimer team, which designed and tested the first nuclear weapon (the gadget), had a lot of reservations as to whether the first test at Alamogordo would produce any yield at all. Therefore, the most likely scenario is that the terrorists will achieve either a nominal yield or no yield at all (Fizzle). In this study we will investigate all those parameters that play a decisive role in the number of casualties after such an attack so that we can propose effective means of avoiding mass destruction.