Recommendations on the Development of Methodologies and Attributes for Assessing Terrorist Threats of WMD Terrorism

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) strives to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by disseminating timely information and analysis and training the next generation of nonproliferation specialists. CNS at the Monterey Institute of International Studies is the largest nongovernmental organization in the United States devoted exclusively to research and training on nonproliferation issues. Dr. William Potter established the Center in 1989 with a handful of Institute students. Today, CNS has a full‐time staff of more than 65 specialists and over 75 graduate student research Each program supports the Centerʹs mission by training graduate students, building a worldwide community of nonproliferation experts, publishing both on‐line and print resources on all aspects of WMD, providing background material to the media, and producing analysis for use by educational institutions, government, and the general public. The WMD Terrorism Research Program conducts work on the use or potential use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons by non‐state actors. The Program focuses on the motivational aspects of terrorism in the WMD context, bringing together terrorism scholars from the social sciences (history and political science) and technical experts from the sciences (microbiology, medicine, chemistry, and physics) to approach the WMD terrorism problem in an interdisciplinary fashion.