The Ukraine-Russia conflict is more than one month old now, yet there is no immediate solution in sight. Just before starting the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin had given a clear-cut 'nuclear' message to the world by mentioning that any western intervention would witness consequences the West had never seen or thought of before. Putin is systematically raising the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) bogey over the last month. Traditionally, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons are classified as WMD.

The newly unveiled U.S. Nuclear Posture Review focuses on five key objectives; one of them is preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. The report underscores nuclear terrorism as ‘today’s most immediate and extreme danger.”

What is Nuclear Terrorism and how serious is the threat? Is it an overrated nightmare? Some facts here:

The Chemical Weapons Convention which marked its tenth anniversary on April 29 bans the development, production, acquisition and use of chemical agents (e.g. Vesicants and nerve agents) and requires the destruction of existing stockpiles.

In recent times North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear adventurism has become so significant that an important news was found missing from the current global strategic discourse on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The news was concerning the acceptance by North Korea of the presence of bio-weapons in their country. The North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju has declared to Japanese sources that: “Other than nuclear, we also have many other things. We also have bio-weapons.”

Intelligence is the first line of defence in any war; unfortunately for the Americans, this most important aspect of war was the weakest link during recent Iraq confrontation. Their failure to find Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq made them realise the need of reassessment of overall intelligence gathering procedures. The recent re-evaluation by adopting more stringent standards towards analysing their earlier estimates about Cuba’s bio-weapons programme has made them conclude that Cuba has no active bio-weapons programme.