Nuclear Terrorism: Assessment of U.S. Strategies to Prevent, Counter, and Respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction (2024)

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8 Detection and Interdiction Efforts Within and Outside the Global Supply System BOX 8-1 Summary Non-state actors can move nuclear weapons, materials, and equipment by exploiting well- established criminal pathways for smuggling. This is true even in the face of the many detection and interdiction measures put in place since 9/11. Opportunities exist to enhance supply chain transparency and accountability by strengthening industry partnerships and taking advantage of improvements in technologies to include artificial intelligence and machine learning. Within the global supply system, these technologies can expand the means for identifying anomalies and dangerous materials hidden within legitimate shipments. They can also help provide rapid forensics that can support incident response and recovery. Concurrently, strengthening efforts to counter cross-border smuggling outside the legitimate trade and travel routes also remain critical for managing the nuclear terrorism risk. Highlights • Efforts to detect and intercept nuclear materials within the global supply system and along traditional and non-traditional smuggling routes require increased attention. • The consequences of a nuclear terrorist incident that both exploits and targets the global supply system could be devastating as demonstrated by the fragility of the supply chains during the pandemic. • The efforts to detect radiological and nuclear material entering into the United States remain almost exclusively at international ports of entry, even with criminal and terrorist organizations moving other materials outside of these entry points along traditional and new smuggling routes. Arms control and non-proliferation treaties and agreements and other efforts to bolster the security of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials outlined in earlier chapters have made important contributions to reducing the nuclear terrorism risk. With fewer weapons and enhanced transportation and storage safeguards for nuclear materials, there are fewer potential opportunities for non-state actors to gain access to the means for carrying out a nuclear terrorist attack. However, as Chapter 6 and 7 have outlined, there is still much work to be done to minimize and secure weapons usable fissile and radiological materials. If the security measures and safeguards currently in place are compromised, weapons and nuclear materials might end up in the possession of those who seek to move them or use them. This potentiality translates into the need for enhancing capabilities to detect and intercept weapons or nuclear materials before they get into the hands of a terrorist or, if not then, before a nuclear device reaches its intended target--a layered approach to defense. This risk places a premium on developing and sustaining robust international and domestic counter-smuggling capabilities within the legitimate global trade and transportation system and along traditional and new smuggling routes outside those systems. Prepublication Copy 92 

Detection and Interdiction Efforts Within and Outside the Global Supply System 8.1 THE LONGSTANDING CHALLENGE OF POLICING THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN The Cold War was followed by a surge in global economic activity, fueled by economic liberalization policies and free trade agreements to ease the movement of people, conveyances, and goods across national borders.1 This led to a dramatic expansion in the variety and volume of goods circulating around the world and the rapid expansion of the cargo and transportation networks that facilitated that growth.2 Intermodal logistics were revolutionized; dramatically lowering the cost of operating complex global supply chains. Increasingly companies realized that they could dispense with the expense of maintaining large inventories in warehouses or in the backrooms of department stores. They instead relied on “just-in-time shipping” where the transportation system effectively served as a mobile warehouse. As these companies grew, so did their global transportation needs, with the biggest companies acquiring the leverage to lower shipping rates. The small profit margins generated as a result, increased the pressure on the transportation industry to reduce costs by achieving greater economies of scale and efficiency in operations. One outcome of the speed with which the global supply system evolved in the 1990s, was that security measures within the maritime, aviation, and surface transportation sectors did not keep pace. Criminals took advantage of this situation. Given the limited capacity to inspect the huge number of conveyances and containers crossing borders and transiting through ports and airports each day, traffickers found that there were ample opportunities to smuggle all forms of contraband ranging from stolen vehicles, and illicit narcotics to small arms and counterfeit goods. In the aftermath of 9/11, efforts to bolster the security of the system had to overcome three challenges: (1) the complexity and multiplicity of actors involved with an increasingly globalized system, (2) uneven oversight of the system, both internationally and among agencies, with no overall lead, and (3) private sector cost-burden concerns associated with any new security measures. 8.2 EFFORTS TO IMPROVE DETECTION AND INTERDICTION FINDING 8-1: Post-9/11 efforts to improve transportation, cargo, and border security have significant limitations but provide a strong foundation for enhancing industry and international partnerships. Such partnerships are required to effectively deter and counter nuclear and radiological materials smuggling within the global supply system. Concerns about the poor state of transportation, cargo, and border security received significant attention after September 11, 2001. The U.S. national security community’s guard 1 Prominent examples of cross-border liberalization efforts include the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and the Schengen Convention of 1990 that launched the end of internal border controls among the now 27 European countries who are party to the agreement. 2 The number of containers handled by the world’s port terminals in 1993 doubled by 1998 and doubled again by 2001. Larger vessels were constructed to meet this demand and as the ships grew in size so too did the port facilities to handle them. In the mid-1970s, the typical growing container ship carried 1,500 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs). Today, the latest ships carry more than 20,000 TEU from “mega- ports” such as Singapore, Rotterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Prepublication Copy 93 

Nuclear Terrorism: Strategies to Prevent, Counter, & Respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction had been down, in part due to what the 9/11 Commission would later call a “failure of imagination.” After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, attention was directed to how terrorist groups might exploit other transportation conveyances, including vessels, cargo planes, trains, trucks, and intermodal containers. Multiple federal agencies embarked on stepped-up efforts to bolster transportation and cargo security, but no single department or agency had overarching responsibility for security. The current array of transportation, cargo, and border security measures were largely developed in the George W. Bush Administration with the most prominent measures including: • The International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code In the fall of 2001, the USCG worked through the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, headquartered in London, to establish the International Ship and Port Facility Security code (U.S. Coast Guard 2014). ISPS went into effect on July 1, 2004, establishing minimum-security requirements for vessels, shipboard personnel, and port facilities to “detect security threats and take preventative measures against security incidents affecting ships or port facilities used in international trade.” • Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) and the Container Security Initiative The U.S. Customs Service (later Customs and Border Protection or CBP) launched the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2023) followed in 2002 with the Container Security Initiative (CSI). CTPAT identified supply chain security “best practices” that companies involved with importing goods into the United States were encouraged to adopt voluntarily. CSI involved foreign customs officials agreeing to host CBP inspectors and collaborate on inspecting U.S.-bound containers identified as high risk at ports of loading. • Second Line of Defense and Megaports Programs (currently the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence Program) After 9/11, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) provided direct assistance to strengthen the technological capabilities of partner countries to combat radiological and nuclear materials smuggling. In 2003, NNSA launched the Megaports Initiative (Clarke 2009) providing radiation detection equipment, training and technical support to foreign customs and overseas port authorities and terminal operators. In 2005, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office was established within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and assigned responsibility to manage the nuclear terrorism risk at U.S. border crossings and within U.S. ports of entry. • Proliferation Security Initiative The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) was launched in May 2003, enlisting countries to endorse the PSI Statement of Interdiction Principles “which commit participants to establish a more coordinated and effective basis through which to impede and stop WMD, their delivery systems, and related items” (U.S. Department of State 2023a). The PSI countries commit to interdict transfers to and from state and non-states of proliferation concern, develop procedures to facilitate exchange, strengthen national legal Prepublication Copy 94 

Detection and Interdiction Efforts Within and Outside the Global Supply System authorities to facilitate interdiction and take specific actions in support of interdiction efforts (U.S. Department of State 2023b). To date, 107 countries have endorsed these PSI principles. • United National Security Council Resolution 1540 The U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1540 in 2004, establishing the 1540 Committee to provide legislative guidance and technical support to UN member states who agree to “refrain from providing any form of support to non-State actors to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery, in particular for terrorist purposes.” The resolution has been reaffirmed on nine occasions, most recently on November 30, 2022, for an additional 10-year period. Notwithstanding the good work of the departments and agencies and these post-9/11 programs, there are gaps in the overall security picture. The ISPS code addresses the security of the ships, terminal, and personnel but not the cargo they handle and transport. The U.S. Coast Guard’s International Port Security (IPS) program, which is responsible for confirming compliance with the ISPS Code, has never been adequately funded to carry out regular inspections at the individual port facility level. CTPAT currently has more than 11,000 certified partners that account for more than 50 percent of cargo (U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2023), by value, imported into the United States, but CBP does not have adequate staffing to validate that the security measures of CTPAT members are reliable, accurate, and effective. They are not able to conduct periodic audits of CTPAT certified partners. This makes it difficult to distinguish between those companies who are making good faith efforts to implement supply chain security best practices and those who are not. CBP’s Container Security Initiative is operating in 61 ports and prescreens cargo manifests and other trade information for more than 80 percent of U.S.-bound maritime containerized cargo (U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2022) . Only a fraction of one percent of containers, however, are subject to non-intrusive inspection at the overseas ports of loading. Upon arrival in a U.S. port, CBP typically inspects just 3% of inbound cargo containers (Green Worldwide Logistics 2019). The selection of which containers warrant such an inspection is based primarily on an algorithm developed to identify high-risk shipments. In 2021, however, when the National Cargo Bureau conducted inspections of 500 containers that are not traditionally inspected they found that 55 percent of containers were out of compliance with safeguard regulations and 2.5% of inspected dangerous goods containers were found to include misdeclared cargo that “represented a serious risk to crew, vessel, and the environment.” (National Cargo Bureau 2020) Nine major containership fires reported in 2019 were attributed to poorly stowed, undeclared or misdeclared dangerous cargo (National Cargo Bureau 2020). The post-9/11 programs to counter nuclear terrorism and proliferation launched by the U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and Department of State also have significant limitations. In the absence of non-intrusive inspection equipment that can identify shielding, the stand-alone radiation portals that have been deployed at major seaports and border crossing under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Second Line of Defense, MeagPorts, and successor programs are not able to detect shielded radiological materials. Thus, criminals or terrorists could use readily available materials such as lead to encase nuclear materials or a weapon that might then be able to pass through a radiation portal without setting off an alarm. Prepublication Copy 95 

Nuclear Terrorism: Strategies to Prevent, Counter, & Respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction Interdiction efforts of suspected nuclear shipments that are pursued under the Proliferation Security Initiative face the practical challenge of gaining access to the contents of individual containerized cargo shipments once they are loaded aboard a container ship. When containers are stowed, there typically is only 18-24 inches of space between them. They are placed in stacks that can be 10 or more deep below and above decks, and as many as 20 across. A boarding team has no practical way to gain access to an individual container while it is aboard a vessel. Instead, the ship must come into a port equipped with a gantry crane to remove the containers stacked on top of and around the suspected container. This may mean the ship must divert to a port where the container can be safely offloaded. Consent of the state that has registered the ship (flag state consent) or other permissions such as ship’s master or owner must first be obtained. Consideration must also be given to liability if the cargo ship is significantly delayed from its schedule. UNSCR 1540 has played a helpful role in advancing the norm that UN member states should independently and collectively work to reduce the nuclear terrorism risk. It calls for each state to prepare a national implementation action plan, but these are done on a voluntary basis and not all states have done so. The 1540 Committee can respond to requests for technical assistance, but the Committee is not authorized to confirm compliance by member states. With respect to preventing shipments of nuclear and other materials, the Committee has not yet developed programs to guide member states on what they should be doing to mitigate the risk of non-state actors transporting nuclear materials within their jurisdictions and across their national borders. Nor has the Committee established a collaborative relationship with its fellow UN agency, the International Maritime Organization, to undertake counterproliferation efforts in seaports and within global shipping channels. Today, many developing countries simply lack the resources and capabilities to prevent the transport of nuclear materials within and across their borders. To summarize, the authorities and programs that touch on ports, ships, cargo, counterterrorism, and counterproliferation are spread across an array of U.S. departments and agencies with varying levels of domestic and international reach. Individually and collectively, these efforts have raised awareness, helped to advance global norms, engage international partners, facilitate closer cooperation with the private sector, and have provided expanded capacity for detection and interception of illicit nuclear materials. Yet all these efforts have been advanced in an uncoordinated manner with uneven funding and staffing support to sustain them. No one agency or department has been assigned to serve as the overall lead for detection and interdiction efforts.3 8.3 THE RISK NUCLEAR TERRORISM POSES TO THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN FINDING 8-2: A nuclear incident involving the global supply system would expose gaps in the system’s security and lead to catastrophic economic consequences arising from system-wide delays while new security measures were developed and deployed. 3 The one attempt to develop a comprehensive approach to global supply chain security occurred during the Obama Administration. After a two-year interagency process, the result was a strategy document (The White House 2012) that only set very general goals such as calling for the integration of federal efforts and enhancing coordination with the international community. The strategy did not provide for or lead to any modifications or additions to the many programs launched in the aftermath of 9/11 to prevent the movement of nuclear materials, technology, and expertise to hostile states and terrorist organizations. Prepublication Copy 96 

Detection and Interdiction Efforts Within and Outside the Global Supply System Highly dangerous materials continue to evade safeguards within the maritime transportation system upon which the smooth operation of global trade flows depend. (National Cargo Bureau 2020) Should a terrorist organization decide to put the current security measures to the test by intercepting a container from a “trusted shipper” and inserting a shielded Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD), it would be very difficult to detect the shipment in the absence of an intelligence tip. If the RDD were detonated at an arrival port, the efficacy of all the post-9/11 port and container security measures would be called into question.4 Beyond the direct damage done by the nuclear device itself, the aftermath of a nuclear incident would have widespread economic consequences. These consequences would arise from the inevitable public anxiety that the incident would generate about the dangers posed by uninspected cargo containers. Addressing this anxiety by physically inspecting all inbound cargo containers would lead to supply chain gridlock. These inspections could not be done aboard a loaded vessel at anchor or at sea, and suspect vessels might not even be allowed to dock and unload uninspected containers so that they can be examined within a port. Under the “Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act” of 2007, there is already a legal requirement mandating 100-percent of U.S. bound cargo containers undergo non-intrusive imaging and pass through radiation detection equipment prior to their being loaded overseas. This requirement has been waived by the Secretary of Homeland Security at two-year intervals since 2007, but there would likely be enormous public and political pressure to immediately implement the law in the aftermath of a terrorist incident. One hundred percent inspections would result in the kind of vessel backups that took place during the COVID-19 emergency with the associated cascading global supply chain effects and impacts on worldwide economic activity. 8.4 ENHANCING THE MEANS TO MONITOR CARGO SHIPMENTS FINDING 8-3: Technologies are available to enhance supply chain transparency and the means to detect contraband including nuclear materials. These improved methods include non-intrusive inspection technologies and processing scanned images with the assistance of AI and machine learning to better detect and intercept contraband to include nuclear materials. It is possible to adapt port facility operations to use non-intrusive inspection (NII) technology to routinely scan all containers entering a port facility so as to confirm that the contents do not pose a nuclear or radioactive risk to the terminal, ship and its crew (Bakshi, Flynn, and Gans 2011).5 Note, scanning for nuclear materials is part of the overall contraband 4 By compromising a “trusted shipper” to send a compromised shipment to the United States, a terrorist organization would expose the limitations of the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) safeguards, the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code, and the ability to CBP to target a high-risk container at an overseas port under the Container Security Initiative protocol. If shielded, the compromised shipment is likely to have evaded any radiation technology equipment deployed at the original and arrival ports. 5 When it comes to integrating NII equipment into port operations, terminal managers are in the best position to address the operations management and system engineering issues. Embedding drive- through portals into the terminal gate structure is relatively straight forward. Placing the equipment in the container yard or quay-side to support the scanning of transshipment containers is a more Prepublication Copy 97 

Nuclear Terrorism: Strategies to Prevent, Counter, & Respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction identification process, along with other types of contraband. When a container triggers an alarm, it can be transferred to a secondary inspection area to scan the contents by more sensitive NII equipment. In most instances, this more detailed examination would resolve the concern in minutes6 and the container could then be cleared and transferred back into the container yard in time to make its scheduled voyage. This additional scanning data could then be forwarded to customs inspectors in the destination port to supplement their information.7 In the rare instances where alarms are not be resolved by the secondary inspection scanning, the appropriate protocol complicated traffic management challenge, but not an insurmountable one since the images can be typically collected in under a minute. The logic of making this fundamental shift⎯from a default of no inspection to a default of inspection⎯derives from the fact that in this case it is easier to prove a negative than a positive. That is, in order for a container to pose a risk of nuclear terrorism, it would have to contain both radiological material and shielding to prevent detection of that material so the goal is to determine that neither is present. A radiation portal monitor can determine the presence of radiation, but the contents of the container would need to be scanned in order to identify heavy metals with sufficient density that can be provided by shielding to defeat radiation detectors. These metals would need to be lead or another element with a high atomic number, generally referred to as “high-Z” materials. Accordingly, the use of non-intrusive inspection (NII) could be largely automated. If a container driven through a radiation detection and scanning portal had neither radioactivity or high-Z materials⎯and the overwhelming majority of containers do not⎯it could be automatically cleared to be stored in the container yard or transferred directly for loading aboard a vessel. 6 NII technology continues to improve to include new passive system technology first invented at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The current version allows for automated alerts on radiological material, material discrimination based on density and automated material identification alerts, and a machine learning library that can support the continued refinement of algorithms to accurately interpret images. The Generation 3 Multi-Mode Passive Detection System (MMPDS Gen3) is a product of Decision Sciences International Corporation (Decision Sciences 2023). 7 It is the ability to use NII data to “pull bits” instead of “pulling boxes” that can make it cost effective. In the first comprehensive analytical and technical assessment of the operational impact of container inspections in international ports, a 2010 study collected detailed data on the movement of more than 900,000 individual containers at two of the world’s largest international container terminals. bond containers after those containers had been placed in the container yard (Bakshi, Flynn, and Gans 2011) (Finklea 2020). Since containers typically arrive two to three days before their voyage, by the time they are identified for inspection by U.S. customs officials, they are almost always already sitting in a stack in the container yard, waiting to be loaded on a container ship. Containers are typically stacked up to six high in most major ports. This translates into the need to lift and move out of the way the containers on top of a targeted container in order to transport it. Then the container must be placed on drayage to be carried to the customs inspection facility, await scanning, and then transported back to the stack. The study The project used these records as the basis for a simulation analysis that estimated the effect of a number of inspection protocols on terminal operations. It determined that automatically scanning all containers upon arrival would be more operationally efficient and cost effective than conducting targeted pre-loading inspections of a very small percentage of U.S.-calculated that the cost of these inspection would average $110 each and could create a significant backlog at the inspection facility if overseas officials were directed to inspect as little as five percent of U.S.‐bound cargo at any given time using the Container Security Initiative protocol. Alternatively, the study found that automatically scanning all containers upon arrival could be covered by a $15 per container Terminal Security Charge. Prepublication Copy 98 

Detection and Interdiction Efforts Within and Outside the Global Supply System would be for officials in both the loading and destination ports to be alerted8 and the container moved to a secure holding area where its contents could be inspected by local officials or in collaboration with the Container Security Initiative team that the United States has deployed overseas.9 Any breaking of the container seal to gain physical assess to the container’s contents would only be done by authorized inspectors. 8.5 DETECTION AND INTERDICTION AT PORTS OF ENTRY FINDING 8-4: The efforts to detect radiological and nuclear material entering into the United States remain almost exclusively at official ports of entry despite the ongoing risk that criminal and terrorist organizations may move this material along traditional and new smuggling routes. Detection and interdiction efforts at official ports of entry and commercial ports remains the nearly exclusive focus of current efforts to find potential inbound radiological and nuclear materials. This is true even though small groups or even a single individual could transport IND- and RDD-relevant materials. Personal smuggling would probably appeal to terrorists who want to retain direct possession of the material to construct and use a weapon within the United States. Therefore, illegal means of entering the country at a location between official ports of entry represents a threat vector that deserves stepped-up attention. The difficulty of comprehensively monitoring the vast and diverse national boundaries between official ports of entry are manifold and well known. For the United States, much of these “frontier” regions are remote and characterized by rugged, difficult to navigate terrain where law-enforcement staffing is very sparse. Despite these challenges, there are longstanding efforts to prevent drug and human trafficking and other contraband along illicit maritime, air, and land transit routes and as a part of border control efforts outside legal ports of entry. These counter-smuggling efforts position federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agents to play 8 Another way to minimize the impact on cargo handling by port-of-loading inspections is to have inspections that support the interception of contraband such as drugs, currency, or counterfeit goods be done at the port of arrival. Contraband that does not pose a direct threat to the safety of the terminal or the vessel transporting it, does not need to be interdicted before loading. Furthermore, the laws defining contraband are not universal which translates into goods being potentially legal in the exporting jurisdiction even though they are illegal in the importing jurisdiction. Accordingly, the appropriate locus of non-nuclear contraband enforcement is at the port of arrival where customs officials can use the risk management tools normally available to them, augmented by the additional data provided by the non- intrusive image captured at the port of loading. 9 Beyond deploying equipment to routinely collect images of a container’s content, port operators should also put in place the secure data management processes that can support the automatic transfer of NII data to officials who may be interested in reviewing it. The objective should be for this data to be shared as soon as it is collected. Rapid sharing assures that government agents can exercise oversight of the port operators or (more likely) the bonded third-party entities that operators contract with to manage the on-the-ground container screening process. Having direct access to the data would also allow government inspectors to examine images of cargo in advance of loading that they have determined might pose a high-risk. In this way, they could resolve their concerns without needing to alert the port operator or even the local government. In the case of contraband, they may also decide to allow the container to move through the supply system unmolested to gather intelligence and secure evidence of trafficking without alerting the criminal conspirators. Prepublication Copy 99 

Nuclear Terrorism: Strategies to Prevent, Counter, & Respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction a frontline role in nuclear counter-terrorism efforts. To be successful agents would need ongoing training and access to specialized equipment to allow them to identify and safely handle radiological and nuclear materials. RECOMMENDATION 8-1: The United States should lead an international effort to enhance security across all elements of the global supply system by building on the post-9/11 transportation and cargo security programs and deepening international and private industry cooperation. Agencies and organizations involved with this effort should include the United Nations 1540 Committee, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), DHS to include USCG and CBP, DOS, NNSA, and IAEA. Countries and industry require uniform global standards and procedures to ensure legitimate trade and transportation systems are not being used to move prohibited nuclear materials and contraband. The international arrangements for putting in place a system-wide approach to achieve this uniformity are largely in place. Under the UNSCR 1540 mandate, member states are required to develop and maintain “appropriate effective border controls and law enforcement efforts to detect, prevent, and combat … the trafficking in nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery.” However, without the means to routinely monitor the commercial goods and conveyances that transit through and depart from their jurisdiction, states cannot meet this obligation. The UN 1540 Committee is tasked with engaging relevant international organizations and forging effective partnerships with the private sector and industry so as “to support national and international efforts to meet the objectives of the resolution.” Accordingly, the 1540 Committee would be well within its mandate to work with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to incorporate new requirements into the International Ship and Port Facility (ISPS) Code. Similarly, close collaboration between the IMO and the 1540 Committee to prevent the nuclear materials smuggling would be fully consistent with the maritime shipping safety and security imperative that drove creation of the ISPS Code; i.e., to “establish the new international framework of measures to enhance maritime security and through which ships and port facilities can operate to detect and deter acts which threaten security in the maritime transport sector.” Such cooperation would provide the 1540 Committee with a means to further member state compliance with the 1540 mandate and the IMO and would provide guidance to meet the mandates on the ISPS Code, while at the same time enhancing security at maritime borders worldwide.10 10 Specifically, the guidance contained in part B of the ISPS Code should include recommended practices for ensuring cargo entering port facilities does not pose a nuclear risk to the ships and crews transporting that cargo. This would have the constructive result of making the maritime industry a full-security partner in bolstering cargo security while simultaneously establishing common standards for the entire global maritime transportation system. The principal tenet of this part B guidance should be that port facilities should confirm before cargo is loaded aboard a ship, that it does not possess a nuclear and radiological device or materials This approach would also bolster forensic capabilities to more surgically identify where breaches to security may have occurred. That is, in the event of a scenario where a terrorist targets the global supply system itself as a critical infrastructure with the goal of generating mass disruption and the associate economic consequences, universal cargo scanning would support isolating the source of the attack and quickly allowing the operations of other cargo and conveyances by being able to confirm they pose a low risk of follow-on attacks. Prepublication Copy 100 

Detection and Interdiction Efforts Within and Outside the Global Supply System The U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Coast Guard should take the lead in linking the currently disconnected global counterproliferation mandate set by UN Security Council Resolution 1540 and the global port security requirements embedded in the International Maritime Organization’s ISPS code to advance universal cargo scanning to detect prohibited nuclear materials at ports of loading. Shipping companies and marine terminal operators who directly handle most of the world’s maritime containers should also be enlisted as full partners.11 With the technical support of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the National Nuclear Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Department of State should work to have the IMO incorporate, within Part B of the ISPS Code, recommended guidance for uniform, performance-based standards for non-intrusive inspection (NII) and radiation detection equipment to be used in marine terminals. These agencies should also provide guidance to port industry partners on how data collected by the NII equipment can be securely shared with government inspections officials at both the port of loading and the port of arrival if requested.12 Artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities are reaching a level of maturity to routinely match cargo manifests with scanned images, and thus reduce false-positive rates. RECOMMENDATION 8-2: DOJ, FBI, DOE, and DHS, with support from the U.S. Department of State, should continue to deepen ongoing international law enforcement cooperation and intelligence sharing to counter nuclear smuggling efforts along illicit transit routes and between legal ports of entry. These agencies should also ensure that federal, state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement agents involved in interdiction and border control efforts receive on-going nuclear detection training and have ready access to specialized equipment, expertise, and the means to handle radiological and nuclear materials safely. Criminals and terrorist organizations that face enhanced security measures within the legitimate flows of global trade and the transportation conveyances will adapt by engaging in cross-border smuggling outside those flows. Countering that evolution will require more closely coordinated detection and interdiction efforts by law enforcement authorities between jurisdictions where weapons and materials may originate and the adjacent transit countries (Finklea 2020; Jancsics 2021). 11 Eight large companies handle and transport more than half of the containerized cargo worldwide to include virtually all the major ports and most smaller regional ports. These companies adopt standards of safety and security that are consistent across all their port terminal operations and that in most cases exceed the minimum standards outlined in various international instruments. Most importantly, their operational capabilities and global presence makes then best suited to cost effectively and efficiently implement security requirements that enhance the ability to detect and intercept dangerous materials. 12 Partnering with industry should include authorizing bonded-third parties to work with customs inspectors to address and resolve alarms generated by the NII equipment when they occur. Authorization also should be provided for leveeing of a security fee for industry partners to recover the cost of their implementing these actions as a part of the authorized Terminal Security Charge that supports investments to comply with the ISPS code. As this comprehensive approach is put in place, an interagency working group that includes NNSA, DHS’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Officer (CWMD), the U.S. Coast Guard, and CBP, should design and conduct exercises that can support identifying gaps in the transportation and cargo security measures as well as test the response and recovery to an incident. Industry partners should be included, facilitated by non-profit organizations such as the National Cargo Bureau. Prepublication Copy 101 

Nuclear Terrorism: Strategies to Prevent, Counter, & Respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction References Bakshi, Nitin, Stephen E. Flynn, and Noah Gans. 2011. “Estimating the Operational Impact of Container Inspections at International Ports.” Management Science 57 (1): 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1100.1252. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/ mnsc.1100.1252. Clarke, Stephanie P. 2009. Radiation Detection, Response & Recovery. edited by Office of the Second Line of Defense National Nuclear Secuirty Administration. Decision Sciences. 2023. “Our Product: the next generation of non-intrusive inspection.” https://www.decisionsciences.com/products-solutions/. Finklea, Kristin. 2020. Illicit Drug Smuggling Between Ports of Entry and Border Barriers. edited by Congressional Research Service. Green Worldwide Logistics. 2019. “The Difference Between Cargo Screening vs. Inspection.” https://www.greenworldwide.com/the-difference-between-cargo-screening-vs-inspection/. Jancsics, David. 2021. “Law enforcement corruption along the U.S. borders.” Security Journal 34 (1): 26-46. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-019-00203-8. https://doi.org/10.1057/ s41284-019-00203-8. National Cargo Bureau. 2020. “A comprehensive holistic approach to enhance safety and address the carriage of undeclared, misdeclared and other non-compliant dangerous goods.” Safety of Life and Cargo at Sea. https://natcargo.org/wp- content/uploads/2022/07/Holistic-Approach-For-Undeclared-Misdeclared-And-Other- Non-compliant-Dangerous-Goods_White-Paper-by-NCB.pdf. The White House. 2012. National Strategy for Global Supply Chain Security. U.S. Coast Guard. 2014. “International Port Security Program ‑ Best Practices.” Last Modified April 14, 2014. https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Our-Organization/Assistant-Commandant-for- Prevention-Policy-CG-5P/Inspections-Compliance-CG-5PC-/International-Domestic- Port-Assessment/International-Port-Security-Program-Best-Practices/. U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 2022. “CSI: Container Security Initiative.” Last Modified October 6, 2022. https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/ports-entry/cargo-security/csi/csi- brief. ---. 2023. “CTPAT: Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.” Last Modified June 21, 2023. https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/ports-entry/cargo-security/CTPAT. U.S. Department of State. 2023a. “Proliferation Security Initiative: Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.” https://www.state.gov/proliferation-security-initiative/. ---. 2023b. “PSI Interdiction Principles.” https://www.state.gov/psi-interdiction-principles/. Prepublication Copy 102 

FIGURE 9-1 Blast damage zones after a 10 kT detonation. The response and recovery will be different for each zone, including degrees of assistance and timing with which first responders can arrive. Varying sizes of blast zones are shown in Figure 2-1. SOURCE: Federal Emergency Management Agency 2022. Prepublication Copy 103