Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?

Ever since President Barack Obama made securing nuclear weapons assets a top priority for his global arms control agenda, guarding and disposing of these holdings have become an international priority. Every 2 years, high-profile nuclear summits on how to prevent nuclear theft and sabotage have been held the first in Washington, DC; the second in Seoul, South Korea; and the third in The Hague, the Netherlands. With each summit, more and more states have agreed to dispose of what weapons-grade nuclear fuels they have. In between these meetings, scores of studies have been commissioned and nearly as many workshops (official and unofficial) have been held. Yet, in all of this, almost no attention has been focused on what to do about the nuclear weapons-usable plutonium and highly enriched uranium that we have lost track of. This is odd.