Security threats

Worst-case scenarios that are more likely than you think

The likelihood that a Russian charter airplane, Metrojet 9268, was felled by a bomb after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, highlights how many national security stories we may be missing — stories that pose at least as much of a threat to the United States as the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Consider: Al Qaeda is still fixated on blowing up airplanes, a dream that may have just played out in the Sinai. But other risks include loose nukes in Pakistan, three-stage rockets in North Korea that can hit the United States, radiological weapons on the Russian black market and the possibility that terrorists with a demonstrated interest in biological warfare will make use of the next major infectious disease outbreak to turn human beings into weapons.