Sixty-five years after mushroom clouds ascended over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world is faced with a new menace to nuclear deterrence: The use of nuclear weapons by rogue non-state actors.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of the most irresponsible and desperate actors is a specter more haunting than a showdown of nuclear weapon countries. Nuclear terrorism is as real a threat as suicide car bombers and Molotov cocktails.
The recently concluded nuclear summit in Washington, DC was appropriately held to acknowledge the danger and take international precautions to limit such a possibility.
Unlike other forms of terrorism, the raw materials, know-how and processing of a nuclear bomb require resources that are generally still privy to state scrutiny. Acquisition of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium are not as easily purchasable as a stick of dynamite.
The problem is that some (state) actors, for whatever misguided national interest or even perhaps for simple profit, do produce material potentially accessible to questionable groups.
With an estimated 2,000 tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium available worldwide, some nuclear weapon states, while they have no intention of distributing such material, may not have adequate security checks to guarantee these materials are not stolen and released in the black market.
Indonesia should fully support the state of intent declared in the summit's final communiqu*. Its presence, represented by Vice President Boediono, is testimony of its concern on the issue.
Accordingly, it should not be shy in supporting follow-up mechanisms, which ensure that these concerns of proliferation are imposed.
Despite not being a nuclear weapons state, nuclear issues have historically been a major concern for Indonesia. Through ASEAN, Jakarta introduced the region we live in as a nuclear weapons free zone.
It has brokered meetings and conferences to help improve, or at least sustain, the viability of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It was also one of the few Asian countries active in the KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) initiative to peacefully avert North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
The most notable result from the summit is its potential.
United States President Barack Obama rightly described the historical summit as a "testament of what is possible when nations come together in a spirit of partnership to embrace our shared responsibility and confront a shared challenge."
One of the underlying values of the summit has to be that for the first time, nuclear weapons countries, both parties and non-signatories of the NPT including those that refuse to either admit or deny possession of a nuclear arsenal - the US, France, Great Britain, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel - for the first time sat down together to discuss the nuclear issue.
We hope that these discussions can propel a regeneration of a fresh regime to keep proliferation in check.
The age of nuclear rivalry has been surpassed by economic competition. Let us not reinvigorate the nuclear age, which was pass* the new vogue for the second decade of the 21st century.
