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Detecting Nuclear Materials Smuggling: Performance Evaluation of Container Inspection Policies

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  • Gary M. Gaukler
  • Chenhua Li
  • Yu Ding
  • Sunil S. Chirayath

Abstract

In recent years, the United States, along with many other countries, has significantly increased its detection and defense mechanisms against terrorist attacks. A potential attack with a nuclear weapon, using nuclear materials smuggled into the country, has been identified as a particularly grave threat. The system for detecting illicit nuclear materials that is currently in place at U.S. ports of entry relies heavily on passive radiation detectors and a risk‐scoring approach using the Automated Targeting System (ATS). In this article we analyze this existing inspection system and demonstrate its performance for several smuggling scenarios. We provide evidence that the current inspection system is inherently incapable of reliably detecting sophisticated smuggling attempts that use small quantities of well‐shielded nuclear material. To counter the weaknesses of the current ATS‐based inspection system, we propose two new inspection systems: the Hardness Control System (HCS) and the Hybrid Inspection system (HYB). The HCS uses radiography information to classify incoming containers based on their cargo content into “hard” or “soft” containers, which then go through different inspection treatment. The HYB combines the radiography information with the intelligence information from the ATS. We compare and contrast the relative performance of these two new inspection systems with the existing ATS‐based system. Our studies indicate that the HCS and HYB policies outperform the ATS‐based policy for a wide range of realistic smuggling scenarios. We also examine the impact of changes in adversary behavior on the new inspection systems and find that they effectively preclude strategic gaming behavior of the adversary.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary M. Gaukler & Chenhua Li & Yu Ding & Sunil S. Chirayath, 2012. "Detecting Nuclear Materials Smuggling: Performance Evaluation of Container Inspection Policies," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 531-554, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:32:y:2012:i:3:p:531-554
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01696.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. John E. Kobza & Sheldon H. Jacobson, 1996. "Addressing the Dependency Problem in Access Security System Architecture Design," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(6), pages 801-812, December.
    2. Gary Gaukler & Chenhua Li & Rory Cannaday & Sunil Chirayath & Yu Ding, 2011. "Detecting nuclear materials smuggling: using radiography to improve container inspection policies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 65-87, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jorge González-Ortega & Refik Soyer & David Ríos Insua & Fabrizio Ruggeri, 2021. "An Adversarial Risk Analysis Framework for Batch Acceptance Problems," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 25-40, March.
    2. Chenhua Li & Gary M. Gaukler & Yu Ding, 2013. "Using container inspection history to improve interdiction logistics for illicit nuclear materials," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(6), pages 433-448, September.

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