June 23, 2005, 7:49 a.m.
Loose Nukes
Last Best Chance is not sure bet.

By Derek Reveron

Though 9/11 illustrated the horrific violence of terrorism, the absence of a follow-on attack in the United States has prompted a number of policymakers and politicians to beat the drum about the dangers of terrorism. Ignoring the counterterrorism successes and reorientation of the U.S. government to combat terrorism, every few months, a former counterterrorism official leads headlines with a doom-and-gloom prophesy amid concerns that the United States has become "complacent." This month, former senator Sam Nunn is leading the charge through the Nuclear Threat Initiative's (NTI) new film Last Best Chance. As he and his cochairman Ted Turner see it, the U.S. is "in a race between cooperation and catastrophe."

The film opens with a smuggler negotiating with a security officer at a Russian nuclear-weapons storage site. For two tactical nuclear weapons, the smuggler offers five years' pay (about $10,000). When the security officer hesitates, the smuggler counsels, the terrorists will get the weapons from somewhere, so why shouldn't they get them from us?

The rest of the film is not quite the cat-and-mouse game we've come to expect from films on the subject or the real world where the terrorists don't hold very many cards. But I was left the impression that the terrorists are omnipotent; they sip tea and take delight in the forthcoming nuclear terrorism while the U.S. government is confused, hampered by an unwieldy bureaucracy, and downright befuddled on how to confront nuclear terrorism. This is a serious flaw and an annoyance in the film.

In Nunn's words, the film was produced because "it is urgent that people learn about these dangers and what they can do to help prevent terrorists from getting nuclear weapons." But the film amounts to no more than a 45-minute infomercial to further publicize the dangers of nuclear terrorism — fairly obvious even to those outside of policy circles.

The popularity of Fox's hit action drama 24 should also be good evidence that Americans have been grappling with the realities of nuclear terrorism. In the latest installment of the award-winning show, the secretary of Defense is kidnapped and is threatened with execution; scores of nuclear reactors nearly melt down; Air Force One is shot down to steal the nuclear football; a nuclear warhead is stolen; and a cruise missile with that warhead is launched from the midwest to destroy Los Angeles.

As an avid 24 fan, I had high hopes for Last Best Chance. My expectations were further raised when I learned that the film would not be broadcast or carried on cable. Could it be more violent than The Sopranos, more morose than Six Feet Under, and more intense than 24?

But after the opening scene, I discovered the answer. The film is just not that good. The Nuclear Threat Initiative would have been better off running commercials during 24 to explain the policy choices that need to be made today. A commercial after the show's hero liberates the secretary of defense could solicit the needed funds NTI is hoping to raise to reduce the threats from nuclear weapons.

While the director of Last Best Chance clearly had 24 in mind as a way to compose the film, it just falls short in execution. Even as a docudrama, it is not very good. It is not easy to discriminate the facts from the fiction in the film. For example, while a nuclear weapon or nuclear material is fundamentally necessary to the ability to commit nuclear terrorism, the film portrays acquiring such stuff as too easy. This in fact underlies the film's basic message: Act now while we still have a chance. When senior administration officials quibble on the rate it will take to secure Russia's nuclear materials, former U.S. senator Fred Thompson — who plays the president — warns, "we'll all be dead at that rate."

The threat of nuclear attack has been real for decades and the policy to secure loose nukes is familiar. Before the Soviet Union fully collapsed, Congress passed the 1991 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. In the past 14 years, the program claims to have eliminated more than 6,000 nuclear warheads and to have secured hundreds of tons of nuclear material. While the policy is working (albeit slowly), the film does point out that there is enough material in Russia today to produce more than 60,000 weapons and hundreds of weapons could be made from material in more than 100 research facilities in more than 40 countries (NTI has programs in several of these).

The goals of Last Best Chance and the Nuclear Threat Initiative are noteworthy — no one should be against making the world's nuclear materials more secure. But the overly didactic film and banal plot is probably what kept it off the air — not the treatment of the subject. At times, the film even strays from its prime purpose to criticize the current nuclear posture. Echoing Robert McNamara's recent concerns about accidental launches, the film argues the current strategic-deterrence posture is dangerous. This is very much out of place from the film's emphasis on nuclear terrorism, doesn't reflect 55 years of safety, or the improvements in command-and-control measures in the 37 years since McNamara left the Defense Department.

The film does give the appearance that it is easy to steal nuclear material. Ironically, Russia is not portrayed as the weak link. With the help of the U.S., the Russian government was able to prevent the theft of nuclear weapons. A facility in Belarus, a factory in Poland, and a scientist in South Africa are the sources of vulnerability. While the film doesn't end with mushroom clouds, the scenario just isn't plausible.

As I argued on NRO earlier this year, the lessons of Iraq teach us that it is not that easy, even for a country with substantial resources, to develop and conceal weapons of mass destruction. While it is technically possible for non-state actors to produce a nuclear weapon, it is overly simplistic to say that they will develop and execute a WMD attack.

As a film, Last Best Chance echoes the Fox hit, but it fails because it misunderstood the popularity of 24. The reason so many fans tuned in every week was not only the threat of destruction, but also to watch Counterterrorism Unit agent Jack Bauer race against the clock to save the United States. It was balanced and reflected the move-countermove nature of counterterrorism. Last Best Chance ignores reality and portrays the United States as a sitting duck. I think high-level al Qaeda detainees in American or allied custody would also contest this one-sided view of the film.

— Derek Reveron is the editor of America's Viceroys: the Military and U.S. Foreign Policy, associate professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College, and a former intelligence analyst for the FBI.

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