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Abstract
U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear materials, protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) grew rapidly in the 1990s, but then stagnated. What explains this pattern, and what steps could be taken to revitalize joint efforts to secure nuclear material? This article contends that MPC&A cooperation is most effective when government officials set overall policy goals, lobby for political support and funding, and provide central coordination, while scientists build trust with their Russian counterparts, develop technical plans, and oversee implementation on the ground. MPC&A cooperation has faltered since the late 1990s primarily because this balance has shifted too far in favor of bureaucratic control in both the United States and Russia. The article recommends steps to re-establish a balance between government oversight and scientific leadership, and offers lessons from U.S.-Russian MPC&A cooperation for possible future dealings with Iran, North Korea, and other proliferant states.
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the advice and feedback of numerous colleagues in the preparation of this article, as well as the time and assistance generously given by the many interview subjects. Special thanks go to Stephen Peter Rosen, Matthew Bunn, Siegfried Hecker, Steven Lehotsky, and two anonymous reviewers. The author also appreciates the early support the project received from the Institute of Politics at Harvard and the Brookings Institution. The viewpoints expressed here and any shortcomings are the author's own.
Notes
1. For a technical explanation of the components of MPC&A see Kenneth Sheely, “MPC&A Program Overview—Incentives for Acceleration and Expansion” (Powerpoint presentation prepared for the Institute of Nuclear Materials Managements: June 2002), available from the author. Following the convention of the non-proliferation literature, and of the U.S. government, this article will treat MPC&A as one interrelated set of tasks addressed by U.S.-Russian cooperation. In fact, reports indicate some variation in the levels of progress the United States and Russia have achieved with regard to different aspects of MPC&A. For instance, “considerable progress has been achieved in installing physical protection systems,” while “little progress has been made in upgrading the primitive material accountancy systems used at almost all sites.” Maintenance of MPC&A systems is also a serious problem. Office of International Affairs, National Research Council Protecting Nuclear Weapons Material in Russia (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), pp. 18–19. The nature of the Soviet accounting measures—or lack thereof—may explain why developing accurate baseline inventories and monitoring changes in them continues to be so difficult in Russia, even when protection and control measures have been successfully implemented. Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Materials (Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC: The Project on Managing the Atom and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2000), pp. 10–16; and Jessica Stern, “Cooperative Activities to Improve Fissile Material Protection, Control, and Accounting,” in John Shields and William Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 309–44.
2. For the most detailed and recent figures on MPC&A work to date and projected rates of progress, see Matthew Bunn and Anthony Weir, Securing the Bomb. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, May 2004, pp. 45–7.
3. A summary of the program is available at <www.usun-vienna.usia.co.at/Statements/Global_Threat_Reduction_Initiative_Highlights.html>. For more on HEU in other countries, see Philip Bleek, “Project Vinca: Lessons for Securing Civil Nuclear Material Stockpiles,” Non-Proliferation Review 10.3 (fall/winter 2003), pp. 2–3.
4. A summary of these efforts is available at <http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/na-20/glob_nuc.shtml>.
5. See the Lugar Doctrine, stated Dec. 6, 2001, available at <http://lugar.senate.gov/lugar_doctrine.html>.
6. A transnational network need not be formally coordinated, nor need its members give up their national identities. Most important is the subjective belief among participants of their membership in a shared community, often based on common bodies of knowledge, and the importance of particular policy goals. Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: the Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 83. See also Thomas Risse-Kappen, ed., Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures, and International Institutions (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
7. For background on U.S.-Russian scientific cooperation, see Richard G. Hewlitt and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989); David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: the Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); and Glenn E. Schweitzer, Scientists, Engineers, and Two-Track Diplomacy: a Half-Century of U.S.-Russian Interacademy Cooperation (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004).
8. John Shaner, quoted in “Russian-America Collaborations to Reduce the Nuclear Danger,” Los Alamos Science 24 (1996), available from the author, p. 3.
9. “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 22.
10. “Russian-American Collaborations,” pp. 3–41.
11. Siegfried Hecker, “Increasing Our Nonproliferation Efforts in the Former Soviet Union,” prepared testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 23, 2002. <www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/programs/globalpartnerships/safeguarding/senate-nonproliferation.htm.>
12. Laboratory directors have a fixed discretionary percentage of the lab's total budget, known as Lab-Directed Research and Development. It was from this source that early cooperation was funded. Matthew Bunn, e-mail correspondence with author, Oct. 15, 2004. For more information on the financial relationship between DOE and the labs, see Victor Rezendes, “Department of Energy: Observations on the Future of the Department,” testimony before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, US Senate, General Accounting Office report GAO/T-RCED-96-224, Sept. 4, 1996, pp. 1–2. <www.gao.org>.
13. “Russian-American Collaborations,” pp. 8–9, 26–7.
14. For more on the history of Nunn-Lugar, see Ashton B. Carter and William Perry, Preventive Defense: a New Security Strategy for America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), pp. 70–2.
15. Oleg Bukharin, “U.S.-Russian Cooperation in the Area of Nuclear Safeguards,” Nonproliferation Review (fall 1994), p. 32.
16. Government-to-government MPC&A originally fell within the bureaucratic jurisdiction of the DOD. As will be discussed below, the program was transferred to the DOE in fiscal year 1996 so that one department could oversee both the government-to-government and lab-to-lab efforts.
17. Quoted in Oleg Bukharin, “Minatom and Nuclear Threat Reduction Activities,” in Potter and Shields, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 222–3.
18. Kenneth Luongo, “A Case Study in Post-Cold War Security Policy Formulation and Implementation: The United States-Former Soviet Union Fissile Material Security Program,” remarks before The Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs Conference on Fissile Material Security in Russia and the CIS, April 7, 1997. <www.ransac.org/new-web-site/pub/reports/bonnspeech.html>.
19. Ron Aug.on, quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” pp. 33–4.
20. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 46.
21. Paul White, quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 33.
22. Paul White, quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 35.
23. For a full review of which types and amounts of fissile material are required to produce which types of nuclear weapons, see Owen R. Coté, “A Primer on Fissile Materials and Nuclear Weapon Design” in Graham Allison et al., Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), pp. 203–28. On the attractiveness of different types of nuclear materials to proliferants, see David Albright, “A Proliferation Primer,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 49.5 (June 1993), pp. 14–23; and Joel Ullom, “Enriched Uranium Versus Plutonium: Proliferant Preferences in the Choice of Fissile Material,” Nonproliferation Review (fall 1994), pp. 1–15.
24. Allison et al., Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy, pp. 80–3.
25. On the thefts, see Bunn, The Next Wave, pp. 16–19.
26. “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 9.
27. “Russian-American Collaborations,” pp. 8–9, 31–3.
28. Quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 34.
29. Steve Younger, quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 35.
30. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 46; Charles Curtis, “Securing Fissile Material in the Former Soviet Union,” transcript of the Henry L. Stimson Center Nuclear Roundtable, Feb. 28, 1996. <www.bits.de/NRANEU/NonProliferation/docs/Curtis_remarks1996.htm>.
31. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
32. During this period the lab-to-lab MPC&A program was still funded by the DOD, even though it was run by the DOE.
33. Younger, quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 36.
34. Katherine Johnson, “Sustaining Nuclear Threat Reduction Programs: the Bottom-up Approach,” in Potter and Shields, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, p. 246.
35. Younger, quoted in “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 35.
36. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
37. Personal interview by author, Washington, DC, Aug. 14, 2002.
38. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
39. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
40. Jason Ellis, Defense by Other Means: the Politics of US-NIS Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Cooperation (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001), p. 127.
41. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, pp. 53–4.
42. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 54.
43. Program Plan: Government to Government Cooperation with Russia on National Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials, US Department of Energy Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, March 1, 1996. Available from the author.
44. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 54.
45. Through fiscal year 1996, both the DOD and DOE contributed funds to MPC&A. The specific breakdown of funding was as follows: in 1995, DOD contributed $30.577 million, while DOE contributed $10.18 million; in 1996, DOD contributed $14.277 million, while DOE contributed $85 million. As might be inferred from these numbers, the DOD's commitment to MPC&A declined throughout the early 1990s as the DOE assumed more and more responsibility for the actual funding, management, and execution of both tracks of MPC&A. After one last lump sum payment from the DOD in 1996, the DOE became totally responsible for funding all MPC&A in fiscal year 1997. The substantive effects of this transfer of authority on cooperation will be discussed below. For now, it is important simply to note the overall trend of increasing funding for MPC&A in the mid-1990s; regardless of source, the overall amount of money supporting this cooperation rose significantly. All figures from Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier, “Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials,” report issued by Managing the Atom and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, March 2003. <www.nti.org/cnwm>.
46. Senior national laboratory official (name withheld by request), telephone interview by author, Aug. 15, 2002.
47. Telephone interview by author, Aug. 22, 2002.
48. Johnson, “Sustaining Nuclear Threat…,” p. 245.
49. Michael McClary, personal interview by author, Washington, DC, Aug. 27, 2002.
50. Siegfried Hecker, e-mail correspondence with author, Oct. 29, 2004.
51. “Under Russian law, information on the design, operation, construction, or security provisions of facilities in the nuclear weapons complex, as well as information on materials used in nuclear weapons, is considered a state secret.” Law of the Russian Federation on State Secrets, passed July 23, 1993. Discussed in Gary Jones and Harold Johnson, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: Limited Progress in Improving Nuclear Material Security in Russia and the Newly Independent States,” General Accounting Office report GAO/RCED/NSIAD-00-82: 18, March 2000, p. 11. <www.gao.org>.
52. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 72.
53. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, pp. 72–3.
54. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, pp. 72–3.
55. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
56. John Wolfsthal, Cristina-Astrid Chuen, and Emily Daughtry, eds., Nuclear Status Report: Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material, and Export Controls in the Former Soviet Union (Monterey, CA and Washington, DC: the Monterey Institute of International Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2001), pp. 75–174.
57. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 73.
58. Department of Energy, FY1998/FY1999 Congressional Budget Request <www.cfo.doe.gov/budget/98budget/index.htm> See specifically the section titled “Arms Control and Nonproliferation: International MPC&A.”
59. Jason Ellis, Defense, pp. 122–4; and Rose Gottemoeller, “Presidential Priorities in Nuclear Policy,” in Potter and Shields, eds., Dismantling the Cold War, pp. 69-72.
60. Joint Statement of Control, Accounting, and Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, July 16, 1996. <www.ransac.org/new-web-site/primary/secure/ mpca.html>
61. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
62. Senior national laboratory official (name withheld by request), personal interview by author, Washington, DC, Aug. 26, 2002.
63. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
64. Luongo, “A Case Study.”
65. Bunn, e-mail correspondence; and Wolfsthal et al., Nuclear Status Report, p. 106.
66. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, pp. 45, 47, 52.
67. Former senior MPC&A official, personal interview by author, Aug. 2002.
68. Jack Caravelli, personal interview by author, Washington, DC, Aug. 26, 2002.
69. Current and former laboratory and DOE officials (names withheld by request), personal and telephone interviews by author, Aug. 2002; and David Kostorowski, “Cost Effectively Addressing the Challenges of MPC&A Program Implementation,” paper from the annual meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, available from the author, 2001, p. 2.
70. Victor Rezendes, “DOE's National Laboratories: Adopting New Missions and Managing Effectively Pose Significant Challenges,” testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, General Accounting Office report GAO/T-RCED-94-113, Feb. 3, 1994, pp. 1, 3, 5. <www.gao.org>. For more general information on problems in the management of the DOE-lab relationship, see also Gary Jones, “Department of Energy: Views on DOE's Plan to Establish the National Nuclear Security Administration,” testimony before the Special Oversight Panel on Department of Energy Reorganization, Armed Services Committee, House of Representatives, General Accounting Office report GAO/T-RCED-00-113, March 2, 2000 <www.gao.org>; and Rezendes, “Department of Energy: Observations on the Future”.
71. Personal interview by author, Washington, DC, Aug. 23, 2002.
72. Mary Alice Hayward, telephone interview by author, Aug. 20, 2002.
73. Personal interview by author, Aug. 2002.
74. Senior national laboratory official (name withheld by request), telephone interview by author, Aug. 21, 2002.
75. Former senior Department of Energy officials (names withheld by request), personal interviews by author, Aug. 6, 2002 and Aug. 14, 2002.
76. “Russian-American Collaborations,” p. 37
77. Former senior MPC&A official, personal interview by author, Aug. 2002.
78. Siegfried Hecker, telephone interview by author, Aug. 22, 2002.
79. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 49.
80. Personal interview.
81. Personal interview.
82. Personal interview.
83. This pervasive culture of secrecy accounts for the anonymity of many interviews in this article. Officials in the national labs and even in the lower ranks of the DOE repeatedly redirected all efforts at communication to the MPC&A leadership at headquarters, citing fear of internal repercussions if they were perceived to have revealed the program's secrets or to have criticized the program, even constructively.
84. Former senior MPC&A official, personal interview, Aug. 2002.
85. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 51.
86. Bunn, e-mail correspondence.
87. Telephone interview.
88. Personal interview.
89. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 46. For a general discussion of the FSB's increased presence in Russia during this period, see Bartosz Weglarczyk, “Just Like the Bad Old Days?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52.6 (Sept./Oct. 1996). <www.thebulletin.org>.
90. Hecker, “Increasing Our Nonproliferation Efforts.”
91. Igor Khripunov, “Russia's Nukes: Minatom at the Edge,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55.3 (May/June 1999), p. 2. <www.thebulletin.org>
92. Keith Bush, “Yeltsin Fires His Prime Minister—Again,” Russian and Eurasian Expert Briefs, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Aug. 9, 1999. <www.csis.org/ruseura/ex995.html>.
93. Viktor Mizin, telephone interview by author, Aug. 15, 2002.
94. (Name withheld by request), telephone interview by author, Aug. 13, 2002.
95. Bunn, e-mail correspondence; Hecker, e-mail correspondence.
96. Mizin, telephone interview; Oleinikov, telephone interview.
97. Nikolai Petrov, “Broken Pendulum: Recentralization Under Putin,” PONARS Policy Memo 159 (Nov. 2000) <www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/ policymemos/pm_index.htmetrov>; and Georgi Derluguian, “Reflections on Putin's Rise to Power,” PONARS Policy Memo 104, (Jan. 2000) <www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/policymemos/pm_index.htm>; McClary, personal interview.
98. “Professional Holiday of Chekists,” City Courier at Sarov, Dec. 20, 2001, available from the author; and “Spies at South Urals,” Chelyabinskiy Rabochiy, May 8, 2002, available from the author.
99. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 51.
100. Igor Khripunov, “Minatom: Time for Crucial Decisions,” Problems of Post-Communism 48.4 (July/Aug. 2001), p. 51.
101. For a fairly positive account of Primakov, see Jeffrey Checkel, “Primakov in Context: Myths and Realities of Russia's New Prime Minister,” PONARS Policy Memo 41 (Nov. 1998). <www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/policymemos/pm_index.htm> For a more pejorative account of Primakov's “suspicion and distrust of US foreign policy intentions,” see Marian Leighton, “From KGB to MFA: Primakov Becomes Russian Foreign Minister,” CSIS Post-Soviet Prospects 4.2 (Feb. 1996), pp. 1–6.
102. Pavel Oleinikov, telephone interview by author, Aug. 9, 2002.
103. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 73.
104. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 74.
105. Nuclear Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program, US Department of Energy, Office of Inspector General, Office of Audit Services. available as Audit Report DOE/IG-0452, Sept. 1999, p. 6. <www.ig.doe.gov/igreports.htm# cal1999>.
106. Gregory H. Friedman, “Memorandum for the Secretary,” addendum to Nuclear Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program, p. 1. <www.ig.doe.gov/igreports.htm#cal1999.Friedman>
107. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, pp. 73–5.
108. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 49.
109. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 56.
110. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 75.
111. Hecker, telephone interview.
112. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 75.
113. Funding information from database in Bunn and Wier, “Controlling Nuclear Warheads”.
114. McClary, personal interview; and Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 56.
115. Senior national laboratory official (name withheld by request), telephone interview by the author, Aug. 21, 2002.
116. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 61.
117. McClary, personal interview.
118. Morten Bremer Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Naval Security Upgrades: Lessons Learned and Future Steps,” Yaderny Kontrol (Nuclear Control) Digest 7.4 (fall 2002), p. 40.
119. Morten Bremer Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Naval Security Upgrades: Lessons Learned and Future Steps,” Yaderny Kontrol (Nuclear Control) Digest 7.4 (fall 2002), p. 42.
120. Bunn, e-mail correspondence.
121. Bunn, e-mail correspondence. p. 41.
122. Bunn, e-mail correspondence. p. 42.
123. Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 60; Maerli, “US-Russian Naval,” p. 38. For a list of the sites involved in the program, see Wolfsthal et al., Nuclear Status Report, pp. 127–57.
124. Wolfsthal et al., Nuclear Status Report, p. 137.
125. Maerli, “US-Russian Naval,” p. 40.
126. Maerli, “US-Russian Naval,” pp. 42–3.
127. Maerli, “US-Russian Naval,” p. 39.
128. Gottemoeller, “Presidential Priorities,” pp. 61–81.
129. Bunn, The Next Wave, pp. 16–19.
130. Bunn, e-mail correspondence.
131. Morten Bremer Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Naval Security Upgrades: Lessons Learned and the Way Ahead,” Naval War College Review vol. LVI, no. 4 (autumn 2003), p. 30.
132. Jones and Johnson, “Nuclear Nonproliferation”, p. 18.
133. Department of Energy, FY 2002 Budget Request <www.cfo.doe.gov/budget/02budget/index.htm>
134. The DOE's budget justifications from 1998 to the present are available at www.cfo. doe.gov/budget/. All GAO reports from the last decade are available at www.gao.gov.
135. Bunn, e-mail correspondence.
136. Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Naval Security Upgrades: Lessons Learned and the Way Ahead,” p. 30; and Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Naval Security Upgrades: Lessons Learned and Future Steps,” p. 46.
137. Maerli, “U.S.-Russian Naval Security Upgrades: Lesson Learned and Future Steps,” pp. 41, 46.
138. On Iran, “the U.S. National Academies, along with other U.S. organizations, have been engaged in scientific cooperation on a very limited scale with Iranian counterparts for a number of years.” A report on these activities is forthcoming from the National Academies. Glenn Schweitzer, electronic mail correspondence, Nov. 15, 2004. On North Korea, see Siegfried Hecker, “The Nuclear Crisis in North Korea: a U.S. Delegation Was Shown North Korea's Nuclear Facilities,” The Bridge 34.2 (summer 2004), pp. 17–23. For a history of science as a tool of soft power, see Norman P. Neureiter, “Science and Technology in the Department of State,” Technology in Society 26 (2004), pp. 303–20.