THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 23 Laura Holgate (center right) with members of her “sherpa team” at the final National Security Summit, in Washington, D.C., in March 2016. tions of how to carry out a nuclear attack. This screed, along with the dystopian novel The Turner Diaries, continues to inspire violent attacks around the globe. Theft of actual weapons from the nine countries that currently have them would be extremely difficult, but hundreds of tons of uranium and plutonium exist in 22 countries, whether in weapons programs or as part of civilian nuclear energy fuel cycles or research facilities. These materials are often transported by land and water to and through other countries. Were terrorists to steal or divert even modest quantities of uranium or plutonium, they could fashion it into one or more improvised nuclear devices that could be delivered by truck or small boat into cities or critical infrastructure locations and detonated. In today’s interconnected world, even a single nuclear weapon could have devastating consequences, not only from initial blast and radiation effects that could kill hundreds of millions of people and decimate infrastructure, but also the political and economic consequences that would circle the globe along with the physical fallout. No matter where the attack took place, the global impacts would fall hardest on regions least capable of managing them. The truth is inescapable: Terrorists are seeking the combination of public shock and physical devastation that even a crude nuclear weapon can provide, and no country can stop them alone. Keeping America safe means working through multilateral bodies and with partners around the world to raise standards and improve implementation for securing nuclear materials. The Summit Initiative The United States has been a leader in the international response to these threats. The U.S. Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Commerce have put in place domestic laws and export controls, delivered bilateral assistance, and supported multilateral treaties and institutions to build our own and other nations’ capacities to prevent nuclear terrorism. The Nuclear Security Summits, an initiative that I led from 2010 to 2016, is a good example of these efforts. The summit idea reflected President Barack Obama’s intent to use and strengthen multilateral institutions to achieve U.S. policy goals. When I arrived at the National Security Council as senior director for WMD Terrorism and Threat Reduction in August 2009, I was handed a thin file labeled “NSS” and the responsibility to design this initiative. Working with a few talented experts from the relevant agencies, our group set as its first goal defining the objectives and participants in the summit: What outcomes would make it worthwhile to convene presidents, prime ministers, and kings? We identified some 50 countries, from every continent and with a wide range of experiences with nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, and nuclear materials. While these countries hold more than 98 percent of the world’s total weapons-usable highly enriched uranium and plutonium, participants were far from like-minded. President Obama wanted a group small enough and with enough at stake to have a meaningful discussion, which meant holding the summit outside existing multilateral structures. COURTESY OF LAURA HOLGATE
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