May 19, 2026 · 20 min · 15 segments
When people think about war, they picture missiles and mushroom clouds. But what if the greatest threats today are the ones most people never see coming? Christine Wormuth, former U.S. Secretary of…
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Let me start with something very basic but also a little unsettling.
When people hear nuclear threat, they think bombs, but how real is the risk from radioactive material just falling into the wrong hands?
Well, we've been worried about the possibility of a dirty bomb for a long time, particularly since the 9/11 attacks, you know, well over twenty-five years ago.
And the reason we've been worried is because there is radioactive material in all kinds of places you wouldn't think.
So there's a lot of it out there in the world, but interestingly, for all these years, there has not ever been an exploded dirty bomb, and there's been a lot of work done to try to better secure all of those sources of radioactive material to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
That is horrifying that radioactive materials are in hospitals, in labs, and elsewhere.
How easy would it be to use those radioactive materials to create a dirty bomb?
Well, building a dirty bomb is certainly much easier than making a full-up nuclear weapon, but it is not a trivial exercise.
Uh, essentially, what a dirty bomb is is a conventional explosive that has some nuclear, you know, radioactive material packed inside it so that when the bomb blows up, it sprays that radioactive material around, and it would contaminate the environment.
Unlike a nuclear weapon, it would not kill people through radiation poisoning, but it could contaminate real estate, property, things like that.
So the difficult part about building a dirty bomb is, first, getting your hands on the radioactive material, which isn't easy, thankfully, uh, which is why we haven't seen it happen yet, and then, two, whoever's trying to build that dirty bomb is gonna wanna make sure they don't expose themselves to the radioactive material, so they need to know how to handle it properly.
Let me start with something very basic but also a little unsettling.
When people hear nuclear threat, they think bombs, but how real is the risk from radioactive material just falling into the wrong hands?
Well, we've been worried about the possibility of a dirty bomb for a long time, particularly since the 9/11 attacks, you know, well over twenty-five years ago.
And the reason we've been worried is because there is radioactive material in all kinds of places you wouldn't think.
So there's a lot of it out there in the world, but interestingly, for all these years, there has not ever been an exploded dirty bomb, and there's been a lot of work done to try to better secure all of those sources of radioactive material to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
That is horrifying that radioactive materials are in hospitals, in labs, and elsewhere.
How easy would it be to use those radioactive materials to create a dirty bomb?
Well, building a dirty bomb is certainly much easier than making a full-up nuclear weapon, but it is not a trivial exercise.
Uh, essentially, what a dirty bomb is is a conventional explosive that has some nuclear, you know, radioactive material packed inside it so that when the bomb blows up, it sprays that radioactive material around, and it would contaminate the environment.
Unlike a nuclear weapon, it would not kill people through radiation poisoning, but it could contaminate real estate, property, things like that.
So the difficult part about building a dirty bomb is, first, getting your hands on the radioactive material, which isn't easy, thankfully, uh, which is why we haven't seen it happen yet, and then, two, whoever's trying to build that dirty bomb is gonna wanna make sure they don't expose themselves to the radioactive material, so they need to know how to handle it properly.
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