We have just had the second Nuclear Security Summit, in Seoul. It got surprisingly little attention from the international media although 53 countries attended. For the media, nuclear weapons are yesterday's issue, because nobody expects a nuclear war. But a nuclear weapon in terrorist hands is the defining nightmare of the post-9/11 decade, and that's what the summit was actually about.
"It would not take much, just a handful or so of these (nuclear) materials, to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and that's not an exaggeration," said U.S. President Barack Obama on his way home from Seoul. "There are still too many bad actors in search of these dangerous materials, and these dangerous materials are still vulnerable in too many places."
Keeping bomb-grade nuclear material out of the wrong hands requires a high level of international cooperation. Some progress was made on this issue in Seoul, in terms of coordinating police and intelligence operations, but the real problem is that there are far too many nuclear weapons in the world.