In an age of a mass terrorism, there is no greater threat than the nuclear. Writing in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristoff is right to sound the alarm, and he’s right to say that the administration may not doing enough. Ignore Kristoff’s snark and concentrate on the facts. Here are some extracts:

“So what should we be doing? First, it’s paramount that we secure uranium and plutonium around the world. That’s the idea behind the U.S.-Russian joint program to secure 600 metric tons of Russian nuclear materials. But after 12 years, only 135 tons have been given comprehensive upgrades. Some 340 tons haven’t even been touched.The Nunn-Lugar program to safeguard the material is one of the best schemes we have to protect ourselves, and it’s bipartisan, championed above all by Senator Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican. Yet President Bush has, incredibly, at various times even proposed cutting funds for it.”

Chuck Schumer, who has (for all his many faults) been good on security issues, has, Kristoff notes, pushed an effort “to develop powerful new radiation detectors and put them on the cranes that lift shipping containers onto American soil. But while Congress approved $35 million to begin the development of these detectors, the administration has spent little or none of it.”

Given the profligacy of this administration on other matters (NEA, anyone?), that seems truly astonishing.

Finally, there’s the question of ‘bunker-busters’. The US has an overwhelming military superiority, technologically and otherwise. That’s the way it should be, and that’s the way it should continue, but I’m at a loss to understand whether the addition of nuclear bunker-busters will add much that is really meaningful to this country’s arsenal, particularly given the cost it comes with. The cost? Kristoff sums it up:

“Finally, Mr. Bush needs to display moral clarity about nuclear weapons, making them a focus of international opprobrium. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush is pursuing a new generation of nuclear bunker-buster bombs. That approach helps make nukes thinkable, and even a coveted status symbol, and makes us more vulnerable.”

Kristoff’s right.