A New International Framework for Bolstering Global Supply System Security and Resilience
Given the longstanding vulnerabilities of the global supply system, it is surprising that the counterproliferation community has not made embedding greater safeguards into transportation and logistics networks a priority. Importantly, the community has focused on discouraging non-nuclear states from seeking to develop or to acquire nuclear weapons. They have also actively worked to reduce the overall number of nuclear weapons within the arsenals of nuclear powers and closely monitor and secure those that remain. However, after a rash of generally fragmented efforts led by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, over the past decade there have been few meaningful efforts to prevent the unauthorized movement of nuclear materials within the global transportation and logistics system. This has been so despite the continued growth in the amount of containerized cargo shipments circulating the globe and a rising concern that some states and non-state actors are seeking access to nuclear materials and the associated technologies to develop weapons of mass destruction.