established several international agreements and initiatives to ensure that all states’ nuclear security standards are adequate and effective, and to secure all vulnerable and unprotected nuclear stockpiles around the world over the next few years. Cyberterrorism In the developing age Information Technology, many political scientists and prominent government officials have become increasingly concerned about the ability of terrorist groups to execute cyber attacks and states’ vulnerabilities to these attacks. Cyberterrorism could potentially become an increasingly desirable tactic for terrorist groups given that they can be executed thousands of miles away from the target and are difficult to trace back to the perpetrator. In an October 2012 speech, United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described the seriousness of a cyber attack on the United States: “A cyber attack perpetrated by nation states or violent extremists groups could be as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11. Such a destructive cyber terrorist attack could paralyze the nation.” The term “cyberterrorism” was first coined by Barry Collin, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security and Intelligence in California, in the 1980s. The Center for Strategic and International Studies defines cyberterrorism as “the use of computer network tools to shut down critical national infrastructures (such as energy, transportation, government operations) or to coerce or intimidate a government or civilian population.” Many experts believe that new vulnerabilities will be created as nations and their critical infrastructures become more dependent on computer networks for their operation. While concern is growing, cyberterrorism attacks still largely remain hypothetical, especially in the United States. In his report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, James A Lewis writes that so far cyberterrorism has meant little more than propaganda and intelligence collection, and that no critical infrastructures have ever been shut down by cyber terrorist attacks. Lewis also describes how terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda have made significant use of the Internet, but only as a tool for intra-group relations, fundraising, and public relations. An Al-Qaeda training manual entitled “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants” explicates that explosives are the preferred weapon of terrorists because “explosives strike the enemy with sheer terror and fright.” While explosions are dramatic, strike fear into the hearts of opponents, and do lasting damage, cyber attacks, like some other types of terrorism tactics, simply do not have the same dramatic and political effect that terrorists seek. Some political scientists, like