Removing Nuclear Weapons From Ex-Soviet States
Prepared statement by Harold P. Smith Jr., assistant to the
secretary of defense (atomic energy), to the Defense
Subcommittee, House Appropriations Committee, March 9, 1994.
... I am pleased to have this opportunity to discuss with
you today our efforts and progress in implementing the
Cooperative Threat Reduction/Nunn-Lugar program to assist Russia,
Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in the elimination of the former
Soviet Union's weapons of mass destruction and the prevention of
weapons proliferation.
I believe the Cooperative Threat Reduction, or CTR, program
can take great credit thus far in reducing the nuclear weapons
threat that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union and
continuing instabilities in the former Soviet Union, and in
helping to ensure a safer and more stable world order in the
future.
The administration considers the spread of weapons of mass
destruction and of related nuclear materials and know-how to be
one of the most serious threats to U.S. national security
interests in the post-Cold War period. Our execution of the CTR
program is one of the pivotal ways by which we are meeting this
threat as well as the other dangers associated with the breakup
of the Soviet Union.
The CTR program is playing a necessary role in the complete
and timely denuclearization of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Additionally, the program is critical to the Russian federation's
ability to meet and accelerate fulfillment of its obligations
under the strategic arms reduction treaties and the Chemical
Weapons Convention and to ensure safety and security in the
dismantlement of its thousands of nuclear warheads. In short, the
CTR program is accomplishing what its name entails: It is
reducing the threat, and it is doing so through implementation in
a steady, constructive and economical manner.
During our session today, I will describe our progress thus
far in implementing the CTR program, our vision concerning where
we go from here and how we are fulfilling the vital objectives
established by Congress in 1991 and reaffirmed since by Congress
and this administration.
I am proud to tell you that as we speak right now, equipment
supplied by the United States under the CTR program is being used
in and by the recipient countries on various individual projects
to fulfill the program's objectives. In other cases, equipment is
being procured under CTR, and within a few weeks additional
equipment for assisting the dismantlement of strategic missiles
in Ukraine will have arrived in that country.
Key Areas Outlined
The program, as a whole, consists of over 30 projects which
have resulted from negotiations and agreements between the United
States and the four recipient countries. These projects have been
proposed and approved by Congress and address the following key
thrust areas: strategic offensive arms elimination in Russia,
Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan; safety and security of nuclear
weapons; chemical demilitarization in Russia; defense conversion;
nonproliferation; and CTR support efforts that do not fall neatly
into the above categories but contribute importantly to the
program's progress and goals.
I believe it is important for us to remain mindful of the
events and conditions that led to the initiation of this program
2« years ago, because these conditions largely exist today and
the clock is still ticking. Congress decided in late 1991 that
the following types of danger to nuclear safety and stability
existed in the rapidly disintegrating Soviet Union and that the
Soviet successor entities would require assistance to address
them:
o Ultimate disposition of nuclear weapons that would not be
favorable for nuclear weapons safety or international stability;
o The possibility of seizure, theft, sale or use of nuclear
weapons or components; and
o Transfer of weapons, weapon components or weapon know-how,
contributing to worldwide proliferation outside of the territory
of the former Soviet Union.
In light of these identified risks, Congress established a
set of objectives that continue to guide the program. These
objectives affirm the U.S. intention to provide assistance to the
former Soviet Union for implementing and facilitating:
o The destruction of nuclear, chemical and other weapons;
o The safe and secure transport, storage and safeguarding of
weapons in connection with their destruction; and
o The prevention of proliferation of weapons, materials,
technology and know-how from the former Soviet Union.
Fulfillment of these objectives within the CTR program, in
turn, has become essential to other efforts critical to U.S.
national interests. These include the Russian ability to meet
START and CWC reduction schedules; the complete denuclearization
of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and these countries'
corresponding ability to meet their START and Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty obligations; and efforts (such as defense
conversion and defense-and-military contacts) that will have
profound, lasting, positive effects on the infrastructures in the
recipient countries toward the building of democracies and market
economies. The administration is committed to meeting all of
these objectives and programs and has given CTR the highest-level
attention and interest.
Program Expanded
Although Cooperative Threat Reduction began ostensibly as a
one-year program under the original Nunn-Lugar legislation, it
has expanded into a continuing effort because of the longer-term
and more complex nature of the tasks we need to complete. Even
for the United States with our relatively robust economy and high
level of technical and manufacturing capability, the dismantling
of a major part of our Cold War stockpile and the meeting of
treaty timetables is a prodigious and costly endeavor that will
take us into the next century.
For the new independent states of the former Soviet Union,
the relative burden and effort required are even greater. As I
will discuss below, we have a vision encompassing this continuing
effort and a corresponding plan for implementing it.
It has taken about two years for the mutual trust between
the U.S. and former adversaries in the new independent states of
the former Soviet Union to develop to the point where it is now,
based on an ongoing record of demonstrated sincerity and
progress. As recently as just a few months ago, there were 18 CTR
projects under way with the four recipient states; today there
are over 30. The CTR program has also become intertwined with our
arms control and counterproliferation objectives and initiatives,
as well as even broader interests, in serving our national
security.
To date $400 million has been authorized for the CTR program
in each of the fiscal years 1992, 1993 and 1994. Of that amount,
Congress has been notified of over $900 million to be spent in
support of a wide range of CTR projects in the four recipient
states.
Our implementation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction
program is guided by detailed planning, with a clear vision of
CTR's directions in currently programed areas with a defined end
point. This vision for the overall Cooperative Threat Reduction
program is best exemplified by how we have approached the CTR
project for assisting in the demilitarization and destruction of
Russia's chemical weapons stockpiles, and this CW destruction
project serves as a microcosm of and model for how we would like
to conduct the other parts of CTR.
In the CW destruction project, we have a comprehensive plan
and approach that addresses the chemical weapons life cycle from
its current stage -- storage -- all the way to destruction and
final disposition, or neutralization, of the munitions and
materials. Our assistance to Russia in the CW area extends to
potentially helping with the actual building of a nerve agent
munitions destruction facility, and we have a clear conception of
the future end-game and desired end-point of the program.
In the nuclear areas of CTR, too, our planning considers the
final fulfillment of our objectives, the meeting of related (such
as START) timetables and how we and the former Soviet states want
things to look in the final analysis in terms of
denuclearization, safety and security of stored fissile
materials, and nonproliferation.
Our planning and vision with respect to the nuclear-related
elements of CTR consider the entire weapon life cycle and
associated measures for ensuring that the chain of custody
remains intact and, accordingly, that warheads and materials
remain safeguarded and their disposition accountable. CTR
projects currently under way address the entire chain of custody,
and we have conducted discussions with the Russian federation on
how to enhance the transparency of warhead storage,
transportation and dismantlement by means of mutually acceptable
techniques for monitoring and accounting.
Dismantling Warheads
We will continue to engage the Russians in this sensitive
area to provide confidence that warheads are, in fact, being
dismantled and to enhance the means for physical security by
deterring, preventing or detecting diversions of warheads or
materials. The Clinton administration has taken an unprecedented
step in determining unilaterally that excess U.S. fissile
materials will be brought under the monitorihg program of the
International Atomic Energy Agency. This, we hope, provides an
incentive for the Russian federation to do likewise in enhancing
the transparency of its nuclear materials cycle and of its
weapons dismantlement efforts.
We have developed concepts for monitoring and auditing the
warhead dismantlement and fissile materials disposition processes
without revealing sensitive warhead design features, and we will
continue to press for Russia's acceptance and implementation of
such measures within CTR. Each agreement also includes provisions
for audit and examination, which the United States will exercise
at appropriate times to determine whether the equipment supplied
under the agreement is being used for its intended purpose.
In addition, ... our vision also considers the synergism and
future convergence of projects (for instance, HEU [highly
enriched uranium] purchase, plutonium storage and strategic
offensive arms elimination) as forming, together, a coherent
picture of nuclear warhead safety, security and dismantlement. No
one project stands alone in our thinking and planning, and we use
a comprehensive systems approach in working toward and measuring
progress toward satisfying the program's threat reduction
objectives.
Transforming Economies
Our vision looks to a future in which the economic and
social infrastructures in the former Soviet states are
transformed into productive and stable entities. Through the CTR
defense conversion projects, we are assisting in the
transformation of defense-industrial complexes into enterprises
that will produce civilian goods on a profitable, self-sustaining
and long-term basis, thus contributing to both demilitarization
and economic stabilization in these states. As a key aspect of
our defense conversion projects, the engineering, managerial and
work forces will learn new skills and orientations, thus giving
CTR's effects in reducing the threat even greater constancy and
value.
Finally, and most importantly, our vision and the associated
planning look ahead to a successful end to the program, when the
requisite weapons dismantlement and safe storage objectives will
have been met completely by the end of this century. Measures for
monitoring and safeguarding the chain of custody of remaining
warheads and materials in Russia, as described above, will
require continuing maintenance beyond that time frame, but at a
relatively modest cost with a hugely effective return in terms of
our national security.
In the defense conversion area, our plans for helping the
profound transformation of former Soviet economic infrastructures
into peaceful and productive assets include a rapid infusion of
assistance to selected enterprises and sectors, followed by
investment by Western firms through a demilitarization enterprise
fund and, finally, self-maintenance that will permit CTR funding
disengagement.
Our vision for the implementation of the CTR program is
coherent and complete, and we are working toward the final and
lasting fulfillment of ambitious but achievable objectives.
I would like to highlight the CTR program's accomplishments
in meeting the administration and Congress' threat reduction
objectives and provide some examples of the program's progress
and impact to date. First, I will discuss our assistance to the
recipient states in the related thrust areas of strategic
offensive arms elimination and safety, security and storage of
nuclear weapons. These areas address many of the major concerns
that led to the original Nunn-Lugar legislation in 1991 and the
initial safety, security and dismantlement program.
The Russian federation has not requested and has even
rejected offers for direct assistance in the actual dismantlement
and destruction of nuclear warheads. Nonetheless, the ongoing CTR
projects in both the strategic offensive arms elimination and the
nuclear warhead safety and security areas, when considered
together in a complementary and coherent program as we are doing,
have a distinct effect in reducing the threat tantamount to
direct involvement in or monitoring of dismantlement. We are
undertaking projects and an integrated approach that enable us to
make assessments about the progress of the program in real-world
terms of threat reduction.
We are prepared to offer the Russian federation assistance
in instituting measures for nonintrusive monitoring of the chain
of custody of nuclear warheads and the fissile materials removed
from them. This will permit even more confident assessments of
the progress of safe and secure dismantlement. Measures of this
type will not only ameliorate our concerns but will also enable
the Russians to have better accounting and physical security over
the weapons and materials. In light of the political and social
turmoil and instabilities in Russia, this will benefit not only
them but us as well.
The CTR program has had tangible results in reducing the
threats to U.S. security emanating from the breakup of the Soviet
Union. In the immediate wake of the Nunn-Lugar legislation,
officials of the Commonwealth of Independent States gained
confidence as a result of the newly emergent U.S. cooperative
assistance program to return to Russia from the other republics
the tactical nuclear warheads identified in the fall 1991
unilateral declarations.
It is apparent that CTR gave them this confidence by
offering the promise, now being delivered, of equipment and
training enabling them to deal safely and securely with the
severely increased warhead transportation and storage demands. In
the area of eliminating strategic offensive arms, our assistance
under CTR has had a comparable impact in providing the confidence
and additional material means for accelerating the weapon system
dismantlement and elimination process.
Providing Assistance
We are providing Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan with the
equipment and training necessary for ridding them of all
strategic nuclear armaments on their territories so they can
comply with the terms of START, the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty and other international obligations. In addition, we are
providing assistance to the Russian federation to help it
accelerate the reductions required under the START treaties.
For example, we are supplying Russia with cranes, bulldozers
and various tools to eliminate missile silos; incinerators,
intermodal tank containers, railroad flatcars and heavy cranes
for rocket propellant elimination; cutting equipment for
destroying submarine missile launchers; and cranes, vehicles and
tools for eliminating strategic bombers. Ukraine is receiving
similar types of equipment for dismantling ICBMs and ICBM silo
launchers and for eliminating rocket propellant. Training in the
use and maintenance of the equipment is provided as part of the
assistance.
Russia has begun to dismantle its own missile silos already,
using its own equipment in anticipation of receiving equipment we
are providing under CTR. This is in compliance with START, even
in anticipation of START's entry into force. Without our CTR
assistance in this area, these countries' abilities to comply
with the schedules for eliminating these weapons would be in
grave doubt, by their own admission.
By the end of the year 2000, CTR will have supported or
assisted the reduction of a large number of strategic weapon
systems under the START I and II treaties, amounting to an
overall reduction of deployed strategic warheads by over 7,900.
Specifically, CTR projects are supporting the elimination of 896
ICBM silos, 33 rail-mobile launchers, 552 SLBM
(submarine-launched ballistic missile) launchers, 39 SSBNs
(strategic missile-carrying submarines) and 115 heavy bombers, as
well as the conversion of 90 SS-18 ICBM silos to house small,
single-warhead missiles instead of the destabilizing,
multiwarhead systems currently deployed in those silos.
The CTR program established an atmosphere of cooperation and
helped give Ukraine a needed incentive to enter into the
Tripartite Agreement recently signed by Presidents [Bill]
Clinton, [Leonid] Kravchuk [of Ukraine] and [Boris] Yeltsin [of
Russia] for Ukraine's complete denuclearization. Equipment we are
providing for Ukraine's denuclearization under CTR is being put
to use there to assist in removing all of the warheads from the
46 SS-24 ICBMs on Ukrainian territory under this agreement; CTR
will continue to provide the necessary equipment for seeing it
through to completion.
We also are procuring and will soon ship equipment to
Ukraine for elimination of the 130 SS-19 ICBMs located on its
territory. Belarus, in which SS-25 road-mobile ICBMs are based,
is another case in which CTR-created incentives helped to
stimulate denuclearization by the recipient. Prospective CTR
assistance for restoring the SS-25 sites and transforming them to
productive use, as well as for housing and retraining the
associated military personnel, provided the principal incentive
for the Belarus[si]an government to agree to, and begin the
process of, returning the missiles to Russia.
Kazakhstan Efforts
Similarly, in the case of Kazakhstan CTR efforts will assist
the elimination of all SS-18 ICBM silos and launch control
facilities in a safe manner to enable Kazakhstan's fulfillment of
its START obligations and its pledges to become a nonnuclear
weapons state under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. As a
model for future efforts of this type, we expect to use an
integrating contractor to undertake planning and implementation
of the many tasks that comprise the process of Kazakhstani silo
dismantlement.
Our efforts under CTR in ensuring the safety and security of
nuclear weapons transport and storage in Russia add further to
the threat reduction picture. The key bottleneck to progress in
warhead dismantlement, according to Russian officials, has been
the lack of containers for safely transporting and storing
fissile materials removed from dismantled warheads. We will
supply Russia with up to 10,000 containers (and potentially more)
under the existing bilateral agreement for safe transport of
these materials to storage facilities and for long-term storage
in the facilities. Prototype containers have been manufactured in
the United States and shipped to Russia, and in a few months we
will begin shipment of the actual storage containers.
Additionally, we are assisting Russia in designing and
supplying equipment for construction of a facility for long-term
storage of the materials in these containers. Russian officials
have made it known that their eventual needs will exceed the
currently agreed upon quantities of containers and the one
storage site for which we are providing CTR assistance.
Our continued and potentially expanded help in these areas
will enhance the likelihood that Russia will be able to dismantle
its nuclear warheads and to reduce its strategic inventory to
agreed START II levels according to the timetables of both START
I and START II. Without our assistance under CTR, meeting these
levels and timetables appears impossible.
The United States is purchasing from Russia, at no cost to
the U.S. taxpayer, 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium
from dismantled warheads for blending down to civil-grade power
plant fuel. When this HEU purchase and the above-described CTR
plutonium storage facility and container projects are taken
together, they comprise efforts to remove and account for a major
portion of the materials removed from warheads dismantled in
Russia. Although we are not assisting in direct warhead
dismantlement, we are providing the assistance that enables
dismantlement to proceed more quickly than it would otherwise and
gives us a means of accounting for this progress.
Therefore, we can see dramatic results from CTR in reducing
the nuclear threat from the former Soviet Union when we consider
the various projects as complementary and as contributing to a
larger picture, even though we are not involved currently in
direct assistance to or monitoring of warhead dismantlement. We
are responding quickly to take advantage of windows of
opportunity in U.S. mutual relations with the recipient
countries, relations among these countries, their various
domestic political and economic situations and the timetables for
treaty compliance.
As I noted above, CTR is instrumental in Russia's
eliminating its chemical weapons stocks once and for all. The
chemical demilitarization portion of CTR is envisaged as a
comprehensive, start-to-finish project, a microcosm of the
overall CTR program and a virtual model for it.
Transition a Challenge
When the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of 1991,
approximately 40 percent of its economy was dedicated to defense
work, employing some of the best and the brightest among the
country's work force. As the countries that comprised the Soviet
Union attempted to transition to a commercial economy, they found
the challenge overwhelming. The defense conversion thrust in CTR
with Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan is an investment in
a demilitarized, peaceful and productive future for those new
independent countries.
Like the CTR thrust areas described above, defense
conversion contributes to the goals of the Cooperative Threat
Reduction program by helping to reduce the threat. Although the
impact may not be as dramatic or direct as the removal of a
missile from a silo or the containerization and secure storage of
weapon-grade nuclear material, the long-run consequences are
similar and can be even more profound in terms of building a safe
and stable future for the United States and the world.
We recognize that the modest amount of money allocated for
this area could never fund all the needs of the four recipient
countries; that is not our intent. Rather, this is seed money to
foster further investments, to create ripple effects in the
economies and, as an indirect benefit, to provide incentives for
the recipient countries' continued path toward denuclearization.
We also recognize that the needs of the four countries are
different, and we allow far these differences and the respective
goals in the way we plan and implement defense conversion. Our
plan, as I noted above, is to fund incentives for private
investment and then to let the private sector proceed from there.
The CTR defense conversion effort works in concert with the
interagency Defense Conversion Commission chaired by [Defense]
Secretary [William] Perry, which, in turn, interacts with the
World Bank, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private
Investment Corp. and other investment leaders.
In general, the defense conversion efforts under CTR are
directed toward industry conversion and housing and retraining
for demobilized former Soviet military personnel. The response
from U.S. industry to our requests for proposals has been
extremely enthusiastic, indicating the intense interest among
U.S. firms to become engaged in these countries when given the
support from the U.S. government and the opportunity to work on
clearly defined endeavors.
A defense conversion project we are undertaking in Belarus,
to install a computer training center at the former Soviet
missile base at Lida to retrain former strategic rocket forces
personnel, is exemplary of CTR's defense conversion initiatives.
This computer training center, set up by a U.S. contractor, will
be operational next month, and the first class of about 30
students has already enrolled. Many more projects of this type
will be under way within the next few months. In short, defense
conversion is defense by other means in terms of U.S. security
interests.
In addition, CTR is promoting U.S. nonproliferation
objectives through establishment of science and technology
centers in Moscow and Kiev to employ Russian and Ukrainian weapon
scientists in productive civilian endeavors. These will help
prevent a potential brain drain from contributing to the global
proliferation problem and, at the same time, is an investment in
a demilitarized future for former Soviet science.
One additional area bears mentioning, and that is the CTR
support effort. The support effort will provide a single,
in-country point of contact for integrating and coordinating
CTR-related tasks; a capability for planning and monitoring the
transportation of items provided under CTR to their point of use;
and a means for providing maintenance, spare parts and repair to
ensure that the equipment provided is available for its intended,
agreed use. The Defense Nuclear Agency, which is our executing
agency for CTR, has had a major role in setting up this
initiative. The On-Site Inspection Agency, which maintains
personnel within the recipient countries, will play a major part
in its implementation.
Monitoring System
The CTR program also has developed an audit and examination
process in accordance with the implementing agreements that have
been signed between the U.S. and recipient governments for each
CTR project. This will enable us to monitor, through the audit
and examination process, that the U.S. assistance provided is
being used for the purposes intended under the agreement and in
accordance with U.S. policy and law. Together with the CTR
support process, A&E helps to guarantee that the U.S. taxpayer is
getting the expected return on his or her dollars in terms of
cooperative threat reduction.
In summing up CTR's achievements, as described briefly
above, I want to reiterate that our planning for CTR and our
ongoing assessments of the program's impact consider the
complementary nature of the projects in achieving threat
reduction. The program began little more than two years ago, and
already we are seeing results in terms of the actions of the
recipient countries, at their own initiative, in dismantling the
dangerous nuclear forces that have confronted us for several
decades.
The Clinton administration's positive and supportive
attitude toward CTR has helped spark added incentive and
motivation on the part of the recipients. Additionally, our
implementation of CTR has become more vigorous since I took
office on June 1 of last year, leading to a marked increase in
the number of projects under way and in the pace of progress. Our
active cooperative assistance appears to have a magnifying effect
by giving these countries the confidence to use their own
resources in concert with ours in accomplishing the necessary
tasks, sometimes in anticipation of the actual assistance.
Implementation has begun slowly in some areas, because of
difficulty in agreeing on specific requirements with our
bilateral partners and then in defining the requirements with
these partners for accomplishing a certain set of tasks so the
U.S. government could solicit competitive bids from U.S.
industry. The countries receiving CTR assistance are still
turbulent politically, and their respective bureaucracies have
not yet completely sorted out the optimal divisions of labor or
ways of operating efficiently in a post-Soviet environment.
For example, although an agreement was signed in September
1993 between the U.S. and Russian governments for the provision
of equipment for a long-term storage facility for fissile
materials from dismantled weapons, the Russians -- despite
constant prodding by the United States -- failed until January
1994 to deliver the list of required equipment. As a result, we
were unable to issue requests for proposals for U.S. businesses
to procure and ship the necessary items in time for a
spring/summer construction start on the facility. It is worth
noting our experience that once an RFP has been issued, the
Defense Nuclear Agency is able to award a contract within 120
days.
We have begun to move toward use of integrating contractors
within projects, such as in the case of Kazakhstan, and this will
expedite the process of defining requirements and procuring the
equipment needed to satisfy them, as well as capitalizing on the
expertise of U.S. industry. In all, the process is moving
smoothly under the program management and execution of DNA and
the assistance of OSIA and other DoD components and U.S.
departments and agencies.
The CTR program has made tremendous strides in reducing the
threats that attended the breakup of the Soviet Union and the
breakdown of economic, social and political stability in the
successor states. As noted above, the program is meeting the
objectives established by Congress in 1991 and reaffirmed
repeatedly since then by Congress and this administration.
This administration is committed to the Cooperative Threat
Reduction program and to the farther-reaching national security
goals whose fulfillment depends on continuation of the program.
As I have indicated, our planning is done with a clear vision of
how the various projects fit together to fulfill the program's
objectives and of how we will disengage when the objectives have
been met at the end of this century. When CTR is viewed as a
whole, its impact on reducing warheads, delivery systems,
proliferation risks and even future risks and threats is clearly
evident. ...
Published for internal information use by the American Forces
Information Service, a field activity of the Office of the
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs),
Washington, D.C. This material is in the public domain and may be
reprinted without permission.
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