In today’s world terrorism has become a constant feature of daily life in almost every corner of the world. Terrorist attacks regularly take hundreds of lives and often times dominate the daily news. These attacks, however, pale in comparison to the devastation of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. There are generally two types of nuclear devices accessible to a terrorist group: a radiological dispersal device (RDD) or an improvised nuclear device (IND).

As a result, NATO is building capacities within and without the Alliance to meet the threat of nuclear terrorism. It is constantly working with allied nations and partners to meet this challenge, but more work is required. This paper discusses the nature of the nuclear terror threat, what the Alliance is doing both unilaterally and multilaterally, and proposes areas for further cooperation and improvement.