## Dismantling the Nuclear Weapons

Legacy of the Cold War

Author:  James E. Goodby, Distinguished Visiting Fellow

Note: Opinions, conclusions, and
     recommendations expressed or implied in
     this paper are solely those of the
     authors and do not necessarily
     represent the views of the Institute
     for National Strategic Studies,
     National Defense University, the
     Department of Defense or any other government agency.



## Conclusions

The Greatest Disarmament Program in Human History

Nuclear arms reduction agreements and
parallel commitments since 1987 will remove
from active deployment about 27,000 former
Soviet Union bombs and warheads.  When START
I and II are fully implemented,  Russia will
have eliminated 1,000 strategic delivery
vehicles and removed from active deployment
4,500 strategic warheads.  Ukraine will give
up 176  SS-19s and -24s and 1,240 strategic
warheads as well as cruise missile warheads. 
Kazakhstan will relinquish 104 SS-18s and
1,040 strategic warheads.  The 81 SS-25
single-warhead missiles placed in Belarus by
the Soviet Union will be withdrawn and
probably redeployed on Russian territory. 
The United States will eliminate over 1,300
strategic delivery vehicles under the START
agreements, and will remove from active
deployment more than 6,000 strategic
warheads.

These reductions, in terms of systems
scheduled for elimination and the destructive
potential they represent, amount to the
greatest program of disarmament in human
history.  The process also signals a change 
in relations between Washington  and Moscow,
if only by dramatically reversing the trend
to increase nuclear weapons targeted against
each other's homeland.

The Nunn-Lugar Legislation:  A Cooperative Approach to Security

Certain problems that arose from this
unprecedented  dismantlement  program  could 
not have been foreseen when Senator Lugar
(R-IN) and Senator Nunn (D-GA) sponsored the
Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991
(PL 102-222). But the general  shape  of the
problem  was  identified with  
considerable accuracy.  The initial legislation showed that
Congress supported actions to facilitate dismantlement of
nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union and to encourage
counter-proliferation.  The scope was then broadened to
apply to the newly independent states of the former Soviet
Union, with useful cooperation coming from Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine--the countries where 
strategic nuclear weapons were still located.

This program has been known by several names--the
Nunn-Lugar program, Safe and Secure Dismantlement
(SSD), and Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR).  A
remarkable feature of it is how Americans, Belarusians,
Kazakhstanis,  Russians,  and Ukrainians have joined forces
in a problem-solving style reminiscent of how General
George C. Marshall said problems should be attacked: all of
the players on one side of the table and the problem on the
other.  Within the constraints of legislation, funding, and
Executive Branch procedures, the prospective partners
analyzed what kinds of cooperative programs would best suit
their needs.  The dialogue led to joint conclusions and a
series of agreements made possible by the resources
provided under the Nunn-Lugar legislation.

Joint problem-solving began while the political-legal
framework for cooperation was being developed, and it
flourished throughout the implementation phase.   The intent
was to provide the basic legal foundations and a general
outline of the areas of cooperation, while leaving open for
subsequent development most of the specific description of
goods and services to be provided.

For each country an umbrella agreement was negotiated
addressing the scope of the cooperation, tying cooperation
to objectives defined by U.S. legislation, and defining the
general rights and obligations of the two parties. 
Implementing agreements were then negotiated identifying
specific areas for cooperation and the maximum amount of
Nunn-Lugar money to be made available for each
agreement.  As of December 1994,  36 implementing
agreements were in effect.

Difficult issues included the auditing provisions needed
to protect U.S. Government funds, the rights and privileges
to be accorded to Americans working on these projects in
each of the partner countries, and customs relief for U.S.
equipment furnished in accordance with the agreements.

Ukraine

Nunn-Lugar funds played a vital role in gaining
Ukraine's adherence to START I, the  Lisbon Protocol, and
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  To facilitate
implementation of the Lisbon Protocol, President Bush
committed $175 million in Nunn-Lugar assistance to
Ukraine in 1992.  After lengthy discussion and debate,
Ukraine signed its umbrella agreement October 25, 1993
during Secretary Christopher's visit to Kiev.  In December
1993, Ukraine and the United States concluded an
implementing agreement for dismantlement of the strategic
offensive forces deployed in Ukraine, initially envisaging the
expenditure of up to $135 million.  Assistance to help offset
Ukraine's cost of dismantling nuclear weapons was one of
the conditions set by the Ukrainian Parliament for ratifying
START I and the Lisbon Protocol. In December 1993,
Ukrainian authorities also informed the U.S. negotiating
team that their government had decided to deactivate all of
their missiles, including their most modern missiles, the
SS-24s. Deactivation of SS-24s, arrangements for Russian
compensation to Ukraine for the value of the enriched
uranium in nuclear warheads shipped to Russia for
dismantling, and commitments to provide security assurances
for Ukraine made possible the trilateral accord of January
14, 1994. Signed by Presidents Clinton, Kravchuk, and
Yeltsin, the accord placed Ukraine on the road to adherence
to the NPT as well as START I and the Lisbon Protocol.

Status of Cooperative Programs

There are two useful ways of evaluating how these
cooperative programs are proceeding. One is to identify how
the resources  are being used.  The other is to review the
programs on a country-specific basis.  Table 1 uses the first
method and Table 2 the second.  As Table 1 shows, there
are three principal categories of cooperation:



- Destruction and dismantlement
- Chain of custody
- Demilitarization

Destruction and dismantlement includes heavy 
equipment  for  destroying  nuclear  delivery vehicles and silos, government-to-government
communication links for transmitting data related to START elimination progress,
chemical weapons destruction
assistance, and elimination of strategic missile bases and site 
restoration.

Chain of Custody includes assistance in the safe and
secure transport and storage of fissile material, material
control and accounting, export controls, weapons security,
and nuclear reactor safety.

Demilitarization includes cooperation in the transition
from defense to civilian production, housing for demobilized
strategic rock.

By the end of 1994 about $900 million had been
committed to support cooperative programs between the
United States and Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and
Ukraine, half to weapons dismantlement, a third to chain of
custody, and most of the rest to demilitarization.

As Table 2 indicates, U.S.-Russian cooperative
programs account for the largest share, $450.7 million.
Ukraine has the second largest program at nearly $280
million.  The Kazakhstani program is third with about
$100 million, and the Belarus program is just over $70
million.

Table 2 also shows that assistance provided by the
United States as of December 1994 has not caught up with
the amount the United States has agreed to provide, but
substantial progress was made during calendar 1994 in
translating agreements into real goods and services. From
not much over $100 million in January 1994, U.S.
obligations  rose to well over $450 million by December. 
(In U.S. budgetary practice, "obligations" refers to funds
that have been transferred through contracts for goods and
services.)

Solving an Old Problem, Confronting New Ones

The effort to eliminate a large part of the Cold War
nuclear weapons legacy has surfaced several practical
problems:



- finding resources for dismantling nuclear weapons
systems rapidly
- managing rapid dismantlement while maintaining
absolute control over the fissile materials released
- protecting fissile materials in a deteriorating
security environment
- accommodating the economic and intellectual needs
of displaced scientific and technical personnel
- coming to terms with economic problems in the
former Soviet Union that make it more difficult to
dismantle nuclear weapons systems in a sustained and
vigorous manner
- dealing with the perceived security and political
needs of newly independent countries where Soviet nuclear
weapons were deployed.Paradoxically, removing warheads from deployment
with missiles and disassembling missiles pose new dangers
for the United States and other countries that did not exist
when the warheads and missiles were kept in securely
guarded missile sites. Transporting fissile materials and
weapons components over great distances to storage and
dismantling facilities operating in a difficult economic and
security environment, then filling those facilities to
capacity or beyond, creates problems for the safety and
security of nuclear warheads.  In societies under enormous
stress, warheads, fissile materials, or missile components
could become more vulnerable to "insider" thefts or
criminal actions.  These risks need to be addressed
urgently by the United States and its partners in the
process of dismantling nuclear weapons.Evidence to date supports the thesis that the products of
disarmament are safeguarded with great care by responsible
agencies.  So far, the smuggling attributed to leakages from
within the former Soviet nuclear establishment appears to
have come from  civilian research centers and not from
materials released by the process of dismantling nuclear
weapons systems.  Improvements in controlling fissile
materials would greatly reduce the potential for trouble in
the years ahead.  Cooperative programs can develop and
strengthen safeguards over fissile materials to prevent
sub-state threats to effective government control. This is
especially important in Russia, where the dismantling and
storage of warheads and components are taking place in a
difficult environment.The Resource CrunchBudget requests for dismantlement and related activities
will face close scrutiny as they compete for funding,
requiring priorities within the Nunn-Lugar program to be
reviewed in the context of diverse threats to U.S. and
international security.Rapid nuclear weapons deactivations can proceed with
a modest amount of additional assistance.  Eliminating
nuclear delivery vehicles will take more time and money,
although perhaps not as much as in past years.  Working
with Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine in
chain-of-custody cooperation to improve fissile materials
control and accountability systems, customs controls, storage
facilities for dismantled nuclear warhead components, and
safe and secure rail transport of fissile materials entails 
potentially much more support than has been allocated by the
United States in the past.  Special reciprocal monitoring and
safeguards procedures also will be required if Russia and the
United States can agree on how to assure each other that
warheads are being dismantled and that excess fissile
materials  will not be re-used for weapons.Whether the ratio between the nearly 50% devoted to
dismantling nuclear delivery systems and the 30%  devoted 
to chain  of custody is the right proportion of Nunn-Lugar commitments to project into the
future is a question deserving of special attention.  If the
greater  relative need at present is to enhance the
management and control of fissile materials, then a greater
priority in funding should be attached to this task.Are Nuclear Weapons Being Eliminated?If the provisions of START II are fulfilled by Russia
and the United States, by the year 2003 (or by 2000, with
U.S. assistance) their deployed strategic forces will be
reduced to levels corresponding to 3500-3000 nuclear
warheads. Although the launchers and nuclear delivery
vehicles not needed to reach these levels must be eliminated
by prescribed and verified procedures, there is no obligation on either party to eliminate nuclear warheads removed
from active deployment status. Warheads, seemingly, are
being dismantled in Russia as they are in the United States,
but no agreed procedure is in place that enables either to
know for sure that the other side is dismantling these
warheads, nor that the dismantling process is irreversible.In light of this gap in the arms control process, on
September 28, 1994, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin decided
to "direct their joint working group on nuclear safeguards,
transparency and irreversibility to pursue by March 1995
further measures to improve confidence in and increase the
transparency and irreversibility of the process of reducing
nuclear weapons."Their joint working group will consider various methods
of accomplishing these goals, including an exchange of data
on inventories of fissile materials removed from dismantled
warheads and reciprocal inspections of storage facilities
containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium removed
from weapons.The working group will report its progress at the next
summit meeting.  These talks, a vital link in the process of
eliminating nuclear weapons and safe-guarding fissile
material, will need the sustained commitment of the most
senior policy makers in both nations to succeed.About the Author:  Ambassador James E. Goodby is a Distinguished
Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  He is also a
Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National Defense
University and has been chief negotiator for the Nunn-Lugar
program.  For further information regarding this article, call:
(202) 287-9418.