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Abstract
This article uses a geographic approach to examine one aspect of the nuclear black market: the coordinators who bring buyers and sellers together, and transport goods between them. The most important factor in determining the geographical structure of a proliferation network is the network coordinator's access (or lack thereof) to unique state resources. Coordinators with access to state resources and prerogatives can avoid embedding themselves in hostile countries or relying on commercial infrastructure, often leading to territorially diffuse logistical networks. Coordinators without such access are forced to rely on commercial infrastructure and favorable local political, economic, and social conditions, often resulting in territorially centralized logistical networks. This is illustrated through case studies of Abdul Qadeer Khan's supply networks to Pakistan, Libya, and Iran. The article concludes with some observations about the implications of a geographical approach for understanding nuclear proliferation networks.
Notes
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11. This point has been made in the literature on areas of failed governance and the opportunities they provide (or do not provide) for illicit groups to operate. See Angel Rabasa, Steven Boraz, Peter Chalk, Kim Cragin, Theodore W. Karasik, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Kevin A. O'Brien, and John E. Peters, Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007); Justin V. Hastings, “Geographies of State Failure and Sophistication in Maritime Piracy Hijackings,” Political Geography 28 (May 2009), pp. 213–23; James A. Piazza, “Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism?,” International Studies Quarterly 52 (2008), pp. 469–88; Clint Watts, Jacob Shapiro, and Vahid Brown, “Al-Qaida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa,” Harmony Project, (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center) <www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/al-qaidas-misadventures-in-the-horn-of-africa> United States Military Academy, 2007).
12. Zaitseva and Hand, “Nuclear Smuggling Chains,” pp. 822–44.
13. See Flint, “Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Geographic Research Questions and Agendas,” p. 164.
14. Braun and Chyba, “Proliferation Rings.”
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20. Weissman and Krosney, The Islamic Bomb, p. 184; Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 71.
21. Weissman and Krosney, The Islamic Bomb, p. 185.
22. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 70–71.
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27. This is particularly true of terrorist networks. Al Qaeda, for instance, seems to have failed in its ability to establish a network in Somalia in the early 1990s precisely because it had neither state prerogatives such as embassies nor a deep understanding of the local culture. See Watts, Shapiro, and Brown, “Al-Qaida's (Mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa.”
28. Weissman and Krosney, The Islamic Bomb, p. 181.
29. Weissman and Krosney, The Islamic Bomb, pp. 186–87; Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 91–92; Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 99–101.
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31. Weissman and Krosney, The Islamic Bomb, p. 217; Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 102–06.
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36. Kupatadze, “Organized Crime and the Trafficking of Radiological Materials,” pp. 230–31.
37. Kenney, “Turning to The ‘Dark Side,’” pp. 79–102, discusses this in the context of Colombian drug cartels.
38. Neil Brenner, “Beyond State-Centrism? Space, Territoriality, and Geographical Scale in Globalization Studies,” Theory and Society 29 (February 1999), p. 29.
39. Hastings, “Geography, Globalization, and Terrorism,” pp. 509–14.
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43. Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) pp. 107–08.
44. Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 108–09.
45. IAEA Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,” p. 4.
46. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 273–74.
47. IAEA Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,” pp. 5–6.
48. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 238–41.
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51. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 186–87.
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53. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 212.
54. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 214; Polis Diraja Malaysia, “Press Release by Inspector General of Police in Relation to Investigation on the Alleged Production of Components for Libya's Uranium Enrichment Programme,” February 20, 2004, <http://isis-online.org/uploads/iaea-reports/documents/Malaysian_Police_Report.pdf>; Corera, Shopping for Bombs, p. 114.
55. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 240–41.
56. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 261, 291; Corera, Shopping for Bombs, p. 117.
57. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 41, 261; Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 182, 194–95.
58. Corera, Shopping for Bombs, pp. 113–15.
59. Salama and Goren, “Special Report: The A.Q. Khan Network: Crime … And Punishment?”
60. Salama and Goren, “Special Report: The A.Q. Khan Network: Crime … And Punishment?”; Sammy Salama and Lydia Hansell, “Issue Brief: Companies Reported to Have Sold or Attempted to Sell Libya Gas Centrifuge Components,” (Washington, DC: Nuclear Threat Initiative, March 2005).
61. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, p. 299.
62. Hafner-Burton, Kahler, and Montgomery, “Network Analysis in International Relations,” p. 572.
63. United Nations, Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2008 Revision (New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2009).
64. Corera, Shopping for Bombs, p. 118.
65. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 181.
66. American Association of Port Authorities, “World Port Rankings—2006,” (Alexandria, VA: American Association of Port Authorities, 2006).
67. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 215; William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “After Ending Arms Program, Libya Receives a Surprise,” New York Times, May 29, 2004, <www.nytimes.com/2004/05/29/world/after-ending-arms-program-libya-receives-a-surprise.html>.
68. This is not unheard of among particularly wealthy smuggling networks. Colombian drug traffickers are known to have their own fleets of planes and cargo ships to move drugs into the United States and Europe from transshipment hubs in the Caribbean and West Africa. See Kenney, From Pablo to Osama, pp. 38–40, 67–69, and Vivienne Walt, “Cocaine Country,” Time, June 27, 2007, <www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1637719,00.html>.
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70. Bill Keller, “South Africa Says It Built 6 Atom Bombs,” New York Times, March 25, 1993, p. A1; David Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, pp. 37–47.
71. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, pp. 261–62.
72. This is notably true of the Taiwanese criminal organizations operating in China, which tend to prey on the Taiwanese business community. See Ko-lin Chin, Heijin: Organized Crime, Business, and Politics in Taiwan (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003). See also “Sniffy Customers,” Economist, March 7, 2009, <www.economist.com/node/13234124>. on how European drug traffickers exhibit the same dependence on members of their particular ethnic groups, which limits their spread.
73. Sheldon X. Zhang and Mark S. Gaylord, “Bound for the Golden Mountain: The Social Organization of Chinese Alien Smuggling,” Crime, Law & Social Change 25 (1996), pp. 1–16, and Sheldon X. Zhang and Ko-lin Chin, “The Chinese Connection: Cross-Border Drug Trafficking between Myanmar and China,” Final Report to United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, April 2007, <www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/218254.pdf>; Ko-Lin Chin, The Golden Triangle: Inside Southeast Asia's Drug Trade (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009).
74. According to IAEA Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” GOV/2007/58, November 15, 2007, p. 3, Iran was provided with a one-page offer for components and equipment in 1987. See also Corera, Shopping for Bombs, p. 64, and Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 159, 161–62. Pakistan and Iran apparently signed a training agreement in February 1986.
75. See Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, p. 156.
76. See Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, p. 158.
77. Corera, Shopping for Bombs, pp. 65–66.
78. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist., pp. 159–161. See also Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 158.
79. Corera, Shopping for Bombs, p. 67.
80. See Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 167.
81. See Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb, p. 168.
82. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, p. 212.
83. Corera, Shopping for Bombs, pp. 69–70.
84. Frantz and Collins, The Nuclear Jihadist, p. 212.
85. Armstrong and Trento, America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise, p. 168 See also IAEA Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” p. 4. It is unclear if the documents handed over at the 1994 meeting between Khan and Iran were complete designs for the P-2.
86. IAEA Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” p. 4; IAEA Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” GOV/2005/87, November 18, 2005, p. 3; Corera, Shopping for Bombs, p. 67.
87. Richard N. Cooper, “Tariffs and Smuggling in Indonesia,” (New Haven, CT: Economic Growth Center, Yale University, 1974).
88. David Rohde and David E. Sanger, “Key Pakistani Is Said to Admit Atom Transfers,” New York Times, February 2, 2004. <www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/world/key-pakistani-is-said-to-admit-atom-transfers.html>.