THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION

Abstract

Since its beginning in 1991, Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) has grown to include a host of programs aimed at securing former Soviet weapons of mass destruction, weapons-relevant materials, and expertise. Multiple U.S. and Russian agencies are involved, and some programs have expanded beyond the former Soviet Union. CTR has demonstrated considerable success, but much work remains. Moreover, it is likely that the CTR agenda will be re-evaluated and refocused owing to reviews by the Obama administration, increasingly strained relations with Russia, and the global economic crisis. Any such analysis, however, should proceed from a clear understanding of both CTR's performance to date as well as lessons learned from this experience. This article provides a start by summarizing progress toward CTR's main goals, outlining the scope of remaining tasks, and looking at persistent problems in both the United States and Russia. In particular, CTR's future progress depends upon forging a new U.S. domestic consensus on the national security benefits of CTR, encouraging Russia to become a true partner in CTR activities, and improving interagency leadership and coordination. In turn, these improvements can help resolve emerging questions about the cooperative nonproliferation agenda as it expands beyond the former Soviet Union.

Keywords:

• Cooperative Threat Reduction
• United States
• Soviet Union
• Russia
• nuclear weapons
• weapons of mass destruction

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the support provided for this research by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and American University. She also thanks Jacob Poushter for his research assistance and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. For a comparison of country contributions to CTR, see “Russia: International Assistance Programs,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, <www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/forasst/intnatl/intnatl.htm#G8>.

2. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Interactive Threat Reduction Database,” <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/charts/cnm_funding_interactive.asp>.

3. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Interactive Threat Reduction Database,” <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/charts/cnm_funding_interactive.asp>.

4. General Accounting Office (GAO), “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Observations on U.S. Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs in Russia,” GAO-03-526T, March 4, 2003, pp. 2–3; and Natural Resources Defense Council, Index of Nuclear Data, “Table of USSR/Russian Nuclear Warheads,” December 6, 2008, <www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab10.asp>.

5. Hans Kristensen, “United States Reaches Moscow Treaty Limit Early,” Federation of American Scientists, Strategic Security Blog, February 9, 2009, <www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/02/sort.php>.

6. In 1991, when the Soviet Union broke up, the precise number and location of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons was not known. Of the approximately 10,000 operational Soviet strategic nuclear weapons, about 7,000 were located in Russia, 1,500 in Ukraine, 1,300 in Kazakhstan, and 80 in Belarus. See “The Former Soviet Union: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan, and Belarus,” in Federation of American Scientists, “The Regional Proliferation Challenge,” <www.fas.org/irp/threat/prolif96/fsu.html>.

7. GAO, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Status of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,” GAO/NSIAD-96-222, September 1996, p. 13.

8. DOD, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, “Cooperative Threat Reduction Scorecard,” <www.dtra.mil/oe/ctr/scorecard.cfm>.

9. For the most recent updates on DOD's work under CTR, see Office of Senator Richard J. Lugar, “The Nunn-Lugar Scorecard,” <lugar.senate.gov/nunnlugar/scorecard.html>.

10. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Interactive Threat Reduction Database.” This includes efforts aimed at the security and storage of biological and chemical weapons.

11. GAO, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Observations,” p. 2; Jonathan B. Tucker and Kathleen M. Vogel, “Preventing the Proliferation of Chemical and Biological Weapon Material and Know-How,” Nonproliferation Review 6 (Spring 2000), p. 88; and Amy E. Smithson, Toxic Archipelago: Preventing Proliferation from the Former Soviet Chemical and Biological Weapons Complexes (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 1999), pp. 10–11.

12. GAO, “Cooperative Threat Reduction: DOD Needs More Reliable Data to Better Estimate the Cost and Schedule of the Shchuch'ye Facility,” GAO-06-692, May 2006, p. 2.

13. GAO, “Cooperative Threat Reduction: DOD Needs More Reliable Data to Better Estimate the Cost and Schedule of the Shchuch'ye Facility,” GAO-06-692, May 2006, p. 1.

14. Clifford J. Levy, “In Siberia, the Death Knell of a Complex Holding a Deadly Stockpile,” New York Times, May 26, 2009, p. A10.

15. See Global Fissile Materials Report 2007 (Princeton: International Panel on Fissile Materials, October 2007), pp. 24–42.

16. USEC, “Megatons to Megawatts,” as of April 7, 2009, <www.usec.com/megatonstomegawatts.htm>.

17. “Historical Budgets for Warhead Security,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/Project on Managing the Atom, July 8, 2008, <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/charts/cnm_funding_graph.asp?chart_id=9>. This does not include funding for biological and chemical weapons security that is already included in the budgets for chemical and biological weapons demilitarization.

18. “Historical Budgets for Warhead Security,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/Project on Managing the Atom, July 8, 2008, <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/charts/cnm_funding_graph.asp?chart_id=9>. This does not include funding for biological and chemical weapons security that is already included in the budgets for chemical and biological weapons demilitarization.

19. Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007 (Cambridge: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, September 2007), pp. 70–71.

20. Robert S. Norris and Hans Kristensen, “Russian Nuclear Forces, 2009,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2009, pp. 55–64.

21. Gunnar Arbman and Charles Thornton, “Russia's Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Part II: Technical Issues and Policy Recommendations,” Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI-R-1588, February 2005, p. 63; Matthew Bunn estimates that there are a total of 110–130 warhead storage sites in Russia. See Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 68–69.

22. Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2008 (Cambridge: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, November 2008), p. 117.

23. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2008 (Princeton: Princeton University, 2008), p. 11, 16.

24. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report 2008 (Princeton: Princeton University, 2008), p. 113.

25. Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 64–66. Bunn estimates there are perhaps as many as 245 buildings that need security upgrades.

26. DOE, National Nuclear Security Administration, FY 2009 Congressional Budget Request, vol. 1, February 2008, p. 464.

27. For a summary of issues that have arisen with the MPC&A program, see Oleg Bukharin, Matthew Bunn, and Kenneth N. Luongo, Renewing The Partnership: Recommendations For Accelerated Action To Secure Nuclear Material In The Former Soviet Union (Washington, DC: Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, August 2000).

28. “Historical Budget Tables for Material Protection, Control and Accounting,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/ Project on Managing the Atom, July 8, 2008, <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/charts/cnm_funding_graph.asp?chart_id=8>.

29. GAO, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reducing the Threat from the Former Soviet Union: An Update,” GAO/NSIAD-95-165, June 1995, pp. 21–22.

30. For a summary of concerns about Russia's nuclear material security efforts, see Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2007, pp. 26–30.

31. For legal and bureaucratic obstacles in Russia as well as Russian attitudes on this problem, see Igor Khripunov and James Holmes, eds., Nuclear Security Culture: The Case of Russia (Athens: University of Georgia, 2004).

32. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Part II, 104th Cong., 2nd sess., March 13, 20, and 22, 1996, p. 53. For higher estimates, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Proliferation Threats of the 1990s, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., February 24, 1993, p. 11.

33. Matthew Bunn and Anthony Weir, Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives (Cambridge, MA: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, May 2005), p. 55; International Science and Technology Center, “10 Year Anniversary,” November 14, 2005, <www.istc.ru>, and “Fact Sheet,” July 15, 2008, <www.istc.ru/ISTC/sc.nsf/html/public-info-fact-sheet.htm>; Science and Technology Center in Ukraine, “Nanophotonics” (computer CD), September 2005; DOE, FY 2009 Congressional Budget Request, p. 464.

34. IPP requires that 60 percent of project participants have weapons credentials. However, according to a 2007 GAO investigation, fewer than half of the project participants were WMD experts. See GAO, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: DOE's Program to Assist Weapons Scientists in Russia and Other Countries Needs to be Reassessed,” GAO-08-189, December 2007, p. 5. About half of the Science Center participants have weapons credentials. See GAO, “Weapons of Mass Destruction: State Department Oversight of Science Centers Program,” GAO-01-582, May 2001, p. 15. The Nuclear Cities Initiative does not require weapons credentials.

35. The Nuclear Cities Initiative claims to have created 1,600 jobs. See Bunn and Weir, Securing the Bomb 2005, p. 55. Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention claims to have created 2,800 jobs. See United States Industry Coalition, “Annual Report 2005–2006,” p. 6. The Science Centers do not report job creation totals, but interviews by the author with Science Center managers and officials routinely resulted in an estimate of “a few thousand.”

36. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Interactive Threat Reduction Database.”

37. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Interactive Threat Reduction Database.”

38. Don Oberdorfer, “First Aid for Moscow: The Senate's Foreign Policy Rescue,” Washington Post, December 1, 1991, p. C2.

39. Aspin as quoted in Adam Clymer, “Soviet Turmoil; U.S. Swords Into Plowshares for Soviets?” New York Times, August 29, 1991, A22.

40. Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill, “America's Stake in the Soviet Future,” Foreign Affairs 70 (Summer 1991), pp. 77–97.

41. U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 137, no. 177, part 3, H11496; Congressional Research Service, “The Future of Arms Control: New Opportunities,” report prepared for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 102nd Cong., 2nd sess., April 1992, p. 65; and U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 137, no. 90, H4356-H4357.

42. U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 137, no. 90, H4356; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Soviet Crisis and the U.S. Interest: Future of the Soviet Military and Future of the Soviet Economy, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., June 6, 19, 1991, p. 100.

43. Richard Wolf and Jessica Lee, “Lawmakers: Use Military Funds for Aid,” USA Today, August 29, 1991, p. 4A.

44. House Committee on Armed Services, Potential Threats to American Security in the Post-Cold War Era, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., December 10, 11, 13, 1991, p. 92.

45. House Committee on Armed Services, Potential Threats to American Security in the Post-Cold War Era, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., December 10, 11, 13, 1991, p, 92.

46. Concern for the possibility that CTR money may inadvertently contribute to Russia's own military capabilities has also influenced CTR implementation decisions. For example, concerns about contributing to Russia's operational nuclear capabilities mean the DOD does not fund security upgrades at sites where Russian warheads are stored, pending loading onto launch platforms or at transit points. These points, however, remain vulnerable. I thank an anonymous reviewer for noting this problem.

47. Rose Gottemoeller, “Presidential Priorities in Nuclear Policy,” in John M. Shields and William C. Potter, eds., Dismantling the Cold War: U.S. and NIS Perspectives on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 69–70.

48. Richard G. Lugar, “Revving up the Cooperative Nonproliferation Engine,” Nonproliferation Review 15 (July 2008), p. 351.

49. Judith Miller, “U.S. to Help Reduce Threat of Russian Arms,” New York Times, August 9, 2002, p. A8.

50. Project Manager, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (name withheld by request), interview with the author, February 20, 2003.

51. Thomas Neff, “Privatizing U.S. National Security: The U.S.-Russian HEU Deal at Risk,” Arms Control Today 28 (August/September 1998), pp. 8–14. For a summary of disagreements and problems with the HEU Purchase Agreement, see Matthew Bunn, “Reducing Excess Stockpiles: U.S.-Russian HEU Purchase Agreement,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/Project on Managing the Atom, March 5, 2003, <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/reducing/heudeal.asp>.

52. According to Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2008, p. 127, Russia can make more money selling commercial LEU than it can converting and selling HEU.

53. During 2003–2008 the author interviewed project managers (who requested anonymity) at several national labs—Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Sandia, and Pacific Northwest. Some of the managers explained that their projects could not go forward because they lacked a commercial partner.

54. For a brief history of these efforts, see GAO, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: Progress Made in Improving Security at Russian Nuclear Sites, but the Long-Term Sustainability of U.S.-Funded Security Upgrades Is Uncertain,” GAO-07-404, February 2007, especially pp. 26–28.

55. GAO, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: Progress Made in Improving Security,” pp. 8, 16; and National Research Council, Strengthening Long-Term Nuclear Security: Protecting Weapon-Usable Material in Russia (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2005), pp. 39–46.

56. Although disagreements remain, Mayak was finished in 2003 and began loading fissile material in 2006. For a discussion of problems with transparency at Mayak, see Matthew Bunn, “Monitoring Stockpiles: Mayak Storage Facility Transparency,”Nuclear Threat Initiative/Project on Managing the Atom, October 19, 2007, <www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/monitoring/mayak.asp>.

57. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this point.

58. During almost 100 interviews conducted with IPP and Science Center project managers from 2002 to 2007, the author was told on numerous occasions that funding was restricted to institute employees because otherwise it was too hard to verify how scientists were spending their time. Interviews took place at the Science Centers in Moscow and Kiev and at the U.S. national labs of Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia.

59. For the details of the liability dispute and the resulting problems, see Kenneth Luongo and William Hoehn, “An Ounce of Prevention,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2005, pp. 29–35.

60. State Department, “Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1999.”

61. Also significant were problems caused by language and cultural differences and, in the case of job creation efforts, the need to explain market-based production and investment.

62. Alexei Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin, Nuclear Weapons After the Cold War (Moscow: Carnegie Moscow Center, 2008), p. 47.

63. Russian government official (name withheld by request), personal interview with the author, January 13, 2009.

64. For other disagreements over priorities, see House Committee on International Relations, U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs, 108th Cong., 1st sess., May 8, 14, 2003, p. 50.

65. This example is taken from Bukharin et al., Renewing the Partnership, p. 66.

66. PIR Center, Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Guidebook (Moscow: Human Rights Publishers, 2006), pp. 111–15.

67. See for example Dina Pyanykh (transcribed and translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service), “Russia to Review WMD Elimination Programs Based on Foreign Aid,” Moscow ITAR-TASS, December 3, 2003.

68. For one example of the importance of such reciprocity, see Matthew Bunn, “Cooperation to Secure Nuclear Stockpiles: A Case of Constrained Innovation,” Innovations (Winter 2006), p. 125.

69. Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material (Cambridge: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, April 2000), p. 48.

70. Matthew Bunn, The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material (Cambridge: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard University, April 2000), p. 47.

71. For options to improve access arrangements, see National Research Council and the Russian Academy of Sciences, Strengthening U.S.-Russian Cooperation on Nuclear Nonproliferation (Washington, DC:National Academies Press, 2005), pp. 17–18.

72. For details see Bukharin, Renewing the Partnership, p. 50.

73. In some ways the success of this plan came from U.S. agreement with Russian priorities, not genuine cooperation. Also, disagreements persist about whether U.S. funding can be used to decommission multipurpose submarines. For a summary of the decommissioning plan and some controversies, see Cristina Hansell Chuen, “Russian Nuclear-Powered Submarine Dismantlement and Related Activities: A Critique,” James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, CNS Research Story, May 24, 2007, December 27, 2008, <cns.miis.edu/stories/070524.htm>.

74. National Research Council, Strengthening U.S.-Russian Cooperation, p. 24.

75. Caitlin Talmadge, “Striking a Balance: The Lessons of U.S.-Russian Materials Security Cooperation,” Nonproliferation Review 12 (March 2005), p. 18.

76. For an example of the role of lab-to-lab cooperation in MPC&A progress, see Talmadge, “Striking a Balance,” pp. 1–35.

77. See National Research Council, Strengthening U.S.-Russian Cooperation, pp. 23–25.

78. Frederick P. Kellett, “USIC and the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention: A Survey of Companies Doing Business in the Former Soviet Union,” Henry L. Stimson Center, March 2007, p. 29.

79. See for example Peter Baker, “Task Force Urges Bush to be Tougher With Russia,” Washington Post, March 5, 2006, p. 16.

80. Moreover, under the second Bush administration the NSC was reorganized such that Russia was part of Eurasian affairs.

81. Brian D. Finlay and Elizabeth Turpen, Cooperative Nonproliferation: Getting Further, Faster (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2007), p. 71.

82. National Research Council, The Biological Threat Reduction Program of the Department of Defense: From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable Partnerships (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2007), p. 51.

83. GAO, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: Progress Made in Improving Security at Russian Nuclear Sites, but the Long-Term Sustainability of U.S.-Funded Security Upgrades Is Uncertain,” February 2007, p. 20.

84. From 2002 to 2005 the author conducted interviews with program managers at IPP, Nuclear Cities Initiative, and the Science Centers, and no one was aware of any such coordination. Moreover, two former U.S. government officials interviewed in April and October 2007 claimed that there was no formal mechanism for this coordination. The interviews were conducted in Washington, DC; at the national labs in Los Alamos, Livermore, and Richland, Washington (Pacific Northwest); and in Moscow and Kiev. All interviews were in person.

85. Bukharin, Renewing the Partnership, p. 51.

86. Bukharin, Renewing the Partnership, During interviews with project managers at the U.S. national labs conducted from 2002 to 2007, the author frequently encountered people who expressed frustration with the travel clearance process, including concerns that the State Department intentionally delayed clearance for lab employees out of concern for competition with the Science Centers or to force the labs to limit what State considered to be excessive visits to Russia.

87. According to Finlay, there has not been a strategic review of CTR programs and the threats they were designed to respond to since the early days of CTR. See Finlay, Cooperative Nonproliferation, p. 69.

88. For example, Nunn-Lugar II and the Baker-Cutler Report (Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, co-chairs, “A Report Card on the Department of Energy's Nonproliferation Programs with Russia,” DOE, Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, January 10, 2001) all emphasize the need for a coordinator. In October 2000, Congress added a “sense of Congress” provision to the defense authorization bill calling for more coordination between CTR-related programs. See House Committee on Armed Services, Enactment of Provisions of H.R. 5408, the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2001, 106th Cong., 2nd sess., October 6, 2000, section 3174. In early 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Gary Samore as U.S. coordinator for the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and terrorism, a position mandated by Congress in response to the terrorist attacks of 2001 but which was never filled by the Bush administration. Although this position could potentially improve coordination of CTR activities, it is likely that the broad mandate and inclusion of antiterrorism efforts will leave less time to focus on CTR.

89. Elizabeth Turpen, “The Global Partnership Goes Global,” Henry L. Stimson Center, July 25, 2008, <www.stimson.org/pub.cfm?id=648>.

90. Finlay, Cooperative Nonproliferation, p. 72. According to an anonymous reviewer, however, the Russian government requires members of the Global Partnership to get Russia's permission before exchanging information about their cooperation. In turn, Russia uses this leverage to get countries to fund projects that others have refused, or to at times get two countries to fund the same project.

91. According to a Russian government official (name withheld by request) in a personal communication with the author on January 13, 2009, Russia is not opposed to this expansion as long as it comes in the form of the Global Partnership and does not take money away from projects in Russia.

92. This expansion came in the form of the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, part of the fiscal 2004 Defense Authorization Bill.

93. For example, see Rose E. Gottemoeller, “Cooperative Threat Reduction beyond Russia,” Washington Quarterly, 28 (Spring 2005), pp. 145–58.

94. For broader questions about the expansion of CTR, see Amy F. Woolf, “Expanding Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs: Concepts and Definitions,” Congressional Research Service, RS21840, October 5, 2004; and Sharon Squassoni, “Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: A Survey of Options,” Congressional Research Service, RL32359, October 5, 2006.