The US government ... has great trouble moving beyond puny measures where a poorly defended collection of nerve gas canisters in Siberia is concerned -- a collection that could kill each person on the planet 46 times.

The government already has officials whose job descriptions include pestering scientists around the country not to publish information about their research methods in certain fields of study out of the nonspecific worry that it might fall into the "wrong" hands.

However, the government has enormous difficulty making an effort to get into any of four former biological weapons sites in what used to be the Soviet Union -- places terrorist networks have known about for years in frightening detail.

[Discussion of the Nunn-Lugar program ... ]

The biggest successes have involved strategic nuclear weapons, but great gobs of chemical, biological, tactical nuclear, and conventional submarines capable of carrying cruise missiles remain on the agenda. The miracle is that to date nothing has been stolen or sold to a terrorist network and that no scientist on the edge of poverty has succumbed to the financial incentives from those networks and rogue nations to turn traitor.