REFORMULATING THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION REGIME: AL-QAEDA, GLOBAL TERRORISM, AND THE ROGUE STATE PARADIGM.

As demonstrated by the September 11th attacks, state-centric concepts of international security are evolving. The increased global mobility of non-state actors, weapons of mass destruction and radical fundamentalism are changing the dynamics of terrorism. Globalization amplifies both the likelihood of nuclear proliferation and the potential range of nuclear destruction. Unlike twentieth century revolutionaries or ethnonationalist guerrillas, al-Qaeda is not affiliated with any government or indigenous population. Al-Qaeda does not rely on the support of sovereign states and operates a global network, across jurisdictional and territorial boundaries. Despite these changing dynamics, nuclear proliferation strategies remain anchored in state centric legal and strategic frameworks. Under this model, the gravest threat to international nuclear security stems from states developing and proliferating weapons to terrorist syndicates in violation of a nuclear proliferation regime. This rogue state proliferation paradigm obscures the role of non-state actors and creates a phase-lag between the existing nuclear nonproliferation regime and the emerging global threat mix. This paper argues that unique challenges posed by contemporary Islamic extremism will ultimately force policy makers to abandon the unqualified conflation of rouge states with transnational terrorist syndicates and adopt market-based and other nontraditional strategies for mitigating nuclear proliferation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]