Among supporters of the so-called “War on Terror”, it’s a popular thing to suggest that Muslim terrorist groups actually pose an existential threat to the United States of America. That is, that the United States should actually fear a “takeover” from Muslim fundamentalists who use a combination of terrorism and military force to impose sharia and religious rule. One article that made the rounds a couple of years ago addressing this very point was this one by Dan Simmons. But it’s hardly unique in the genre.

This is, of course, a ridiculous assertion. In order for this nightmare scenario to occur, three things have to happen.

(1) The Muslim World has to almost completely overcome centuries of violent strife between Sunni, Shi’ite, Sufi, Ba’athist, and other groups in order to united under one Calphate state that imposes sharia as the law of the land.

(2) This sharia-controlled state, despite its totalitarian trappings, intolerance of dissent, and complete disdain for the free-market, must rapidly advance its science, infrastructure, and social organization to surpass that of the United States–whose science and technology, I might add, is unlikely to stand still. In other words, the primary lesson of the 20th century–that totalitarian, centrally controlled states invariably fall behind in technological development and manufacturing capability compared to free-market democracies (see Union, Soviet and Revolution, Cultural; see also History of East and West Germany for an empirical comparison controlling for most factors) — must turn out to be false.

(3) The sharia state must then construct enough ships, planes, and munitions that will enable them to cross the oceans and actually invade and pacify the United States. The United States, I might add, is a country of about 300 million people, over 100 million of whom are armed and 250 million of them have access to both the information (internet) and resources (local grocery store) to build homemade military arsenals. Not to mention that we’re talking about a country that currently has a defense budget so large that it almost drawfs the next ten. Combined.

Sorry, but I guess I just don’t see the odds of that as being very likely.

Look, Islamic Fundamentalist terror groups do pose a threat to the United States. But that danger is not that they might conquer the United States and impose Islamic law. The danger of Islamic Fundamentalism is that some nutjob group might get ahold of a nuclear weapon and destroy a major American city. That is the only real and pervasive threat of Islamic Fundmentalism.

Now, don’t get me wrong–rioting, suicide bombers on busses–all of those things might happen, too. But those dangers are manageable. The country that managed to reduce the mafia to a shadow of its former terror and almost destroy the “boss” system of politics shouldn’t have much trouble weeding out the occasional terrorist cell.

So the major threat, and what we need to be focused on, is the nuclear threat. Not some far-fetched, crazy theory that somehow the Muslim radicals are actually gong to attain power in the United States of America. But here’s the thing: even this risk is a small one, and can be reasonably tackled.

To stop this threat, then, we need to understand (1) what it takes to obtain and deliver a nuclear device into an American city and (2) do our best to minimize the risks of such a thing happening.

First things first: what is required to deliver a nuclear device into an American city? Well, first and foremost, one requires a nuclear device. This is the tricky part. In order to obtain a nuclear weapon, a terrorist organization would have to do one of three things: (1) be given one by a nuclear power, (2) buy one on the black market or (3) build one itself.

Now, being completely realistic here, I would say that the odds of a country with nuclear weapons voluntarily giving one of them to a terrorist organization range from slim to none. There’s just nothing really in it for the government involved. First off, that government has no guarantee that a terrorist organization will actually do with the bomb what they say they will. (You’d hate to hand one over, only to find out that they plan on using it to blackmail you for billions of dollars.) Second, that government has no guarantee that, if it’s used, the bomb won’t be tracked back to it, thereby risking nuclear retaliation. There’s just really no upside for a government.

That leaves either the black market or just building a nuke. Of these, obtaining one on the black market seems to be the most likely option. Building a nuclear weapon would require billions of dollars, hundreds of skilled laborers, the proper equipment, and a couple of years at least worth of time in a facility that, frankly, is kind of hard to hide. There simply isn’t any existent organization with that type of capability.

Even the “black market” nuke isn’t a very big likelihood. For one thing, there’s no evidence that there even is a black market in nuclear weapons. While there is a black market in nuclear parts and equipment, there’s nothing to suggest that there are any live weapons are out there and waiting for the highest bidder. Of course, this doesn’t mean that one exists, but it does mean that such a market, if it exists, is very small.

Thus, in order to obtain such a weapon and deliver it successfully, you would need an extremely well-organized, well-financed organization comprised of competent men who can keep secrets and outbid Iran and North Korea. The way to prevent the delivery of this weapon is to ensure that such a group not be formed and that live weapons don’t go onto to any kind of black market.

It’s these goals that should be the focus of minimizing terrorist threats. To accomplish them requires international cooperation to prevent the illegal proliferation of nuclear weapons, and an understanding of what, exactly, drives people to join terrorist organizations.

These are hard tasks which involve more than just hysterical fantasizing about imaginary threats and trying to stop them militarily. It means that we have to be willing to work with all nuclear powers and it means that we have to make serious strides to understand the psychology of terrorists and what drives them to their causes. Hopefully, the incoming Administration will focus on exactly that.