Welcome to the President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States.

I'm Jim Lindsay, Director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This week's topic is The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism.

With me to discuss the steps the U.S. government should be taking to prevent and respond

to nuclear terrorism is Dr. Stephen Flynn. Steve is a professor of political science and

founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University. He was an active duty

officer in the United States Coast Guard for 20 years, has served on numerous government

commissions, and spent a decade as Senior Fellow for National Security Studies here at the

Council on Foreign Relations. Steve is the chair of the National Academies of Sciences,

Engineering, and Medicine Committee on assessing and improving strategies for preventing,

countering, and responding to weapons of mass destruction terrorism, nuclear threats,

which has recently released a detailed report on the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Steve, good to see you, and thanks for coming on the president's inbox.

Yeah, I'm delighted to be back here with you, Jim, and a chance to chat with the council.

Well, let's dive into the topic.

And maybe I should begin with sort of first questions, which is when your committee thinks

about, thought about nuclear terrorism, what does you mean by it?

Yeah, well, it was really to look at the risk associated with potentially a non-state

actor or terrorist organization getting a hold of a nuclear weapon,

or improvised nuclear device, or the more likely scenario, but still sobering, not quite as frightening,

and that's the dirty bomb scenario, a radiation dispersal device. And finally, potentially attacking

something like a nuclear power plant as a way to emit radiation by going

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