MUST READ: Deterring the Arsenal of Terror

Writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius squarely confronts what may be the greatest challenge to the security of the United States:  finding a way to deter a mass attack.  Ignatius concludes, correctly, that one must deter the sponsors and suppliers:

Allison believes that the world must focus on what he calls “the principle of nuclear accountability.” The biggest danger posed by North Korea isn’t that it would launch a nuclear missile but that this desperately poor country would sell a bomb to al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. Accountability, in Allison’s terms, means that if a bomb explodes in Manhattan that contains North Korean fissile material, the United States will act as if the strike came from North Korea itself — and retaliate accordingly, with devastating force. To make this accountability principle work, the United States needs a crash program to create the “nuclear forensics” that can identify the signature of fissile material of every potential nuclear state. Arms control expert Robert Gallucci describes this approach as “expanded deterrence” in his article in the September Annals.