Image from Effects Of Nuclear Weapons TestsWhere Have All The Suitcase Nukes Gone? -- Strategy Page
October 24, 2008: Despite the low risk of terrorists using nuclear weapons, there is still a great fear of this kind of attack taking place. One opinion survey found that 40 percent of Americans believed that terrorists would use nuclear weapons in an attack in the next five years. This is unlikely for several reasons.
First, there is the myth of the "suitcase nuke," a nuclear weapon that could be carried by a man in a container similar to a large suitcase. Such weapons don't exist, at least not to any extent that terrorists could get their hands on one. To this day, for example, the media continues to chatter on about Russian suitcase nukes. This is a myth. The Soviet Union did have hundreds of portable nuclear weapons for use by engineers and commandoes. These weapons would be of great interest to terrorists. But the reality was that, like similar American weapons, these "atomic demolition munitions" had yields under a kiloton. But the weapons were the size of footlockers, not suitcases. The idea of their being suitcase size came from a mistranslation of comments made before the U.S. Congress by Russian General Lebed. The Russians were adamant that their footlocker nukes were securely stored, heavily guarded and supervised by officials who are selected for their immunity to bribes by terrorists looking for nuclear weapons. This is nothing new for Russia. During the Soviet period, nuclear weapons were guarded by a special department of the KGB (secret police), who proved to be highly effective. That approach continued, with similar success, after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
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My Comment: There are enough weapons out there to cause a lot of grief.