Defense Ministry Oversees
Itself.
Russian President Deprives Himself of Reliable
Information About Nuclear Security in Armed Forces
Moscow NEZAVISIMOYE VOYENNOYE OBOZRENIYE (SUPPLEMENT TO NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA),
24 Feb 96 No 4, p 6
by Nikolay Filonov, former commanding officer of a nuclear-technical unit
Russian Presidential Edict No. 350-rp of 26 July 1995, which withdrew the function of state oversight of nuclear weapons and nuclear generators in the Russian Defense Ministry from the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security, continues to elicit extremely conflicting reviews from experts in various relevant departments. And understandably so, for the Defense Ministry itself has effectively become an "independent" oversight agency for its own nuclear facilities. For example, in the December (1995) issue of the journal YADERNYY KONTROL [Nuclear Oversight], in an article entitled "Nuclear Security: A View From the Defense Ministry," Colonel-General Yevgeniy Maslin, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's 12th Chief Administration, writes approvingly of the presidential edict. "There are no grounds for alarm," the general assured. But is that really so?
I think it appropriate to recall if only briefly the background of relations between the Russian Defense Ministry and the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security. The Russian President, as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, in Directive No. 137-rp of 31 December 1991, which was tantamount to an order to the Defense Ministry, charged the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security with responsibility for the organization and exercise of state regulation and oversight of the safe production and use of nuclear materials, nuclear energy, and radioactive substances for peaceful and military purposes with no exceptions whatsoever. This was reiterated in subsequent directives issued by the Russian President--No. 283-rp of 5 June 1992 and No. 636-rp of 16 September 1993. But noncompliance with these directives on the part of senior officials of the Russian Defense Ministry reduced them to pro forma requirements. An unquestionably paradoxical situation arose in which the functions assigned to the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security were effectively blocked by the Russian Defense Ministry. And this situation continued not for months but for years, until the Russian President issued the latest directive, No. 350-rp of 26 July 1995.
The very appearance of Russian Presidential Directive No. 137-rp was a step forward in creating a system of effective extradepartmental state oversight throughout the country, with jurisdiction even over such monsters as the Russian Defense Ministry and the Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy. It was necessary to start somewhere. In keeping with these functions, the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security created a Nuclear-Weapon Nuclear and Radiation Safety Administration, headed by General Anatoliy Tikhankin, who had served 37 years in the Russian Defense Ministry's 12th Chief Administration and in units subordinate to it and was a professional in the field of special activities in military units and industry. The administration was staffed with senior officers from the aforementioned 12th Chief Administration and from nuclear-technical units and administrations of the Armed Forces branches. The Ministry of Defense could not have been unaware of this. Therefore, Gen Maslin's assertion that the staff of the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security lacked relevant experience and professionalism is groundless.
Let me remind Yevgeniy Maslin that those veterans' expertise and experience made for far better nuclear-weapon combat readiness and security that the current level being maintained under his supervision. We were reared on the highest requirements and best traditions of the Ministry of Medium Machine-Building; in short, we were (and remain) both professionals and patriots in the broadest sense of these terms. The principles of the system that we established and introduced, even amid the breakup of the Soviet Union, ensured the safekeeping, security, and high readiness of nuclear weapons, and they remain in effect today. But everything has its limits, and the fact that the system has developed glitches and cracks is something that only a blind person or careerist intent on presenting his area of responsibility in the best possible light could fail to see.
It is now being charged that the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security, while laying claim to exercise oversight, failed to assume responsibility. What responsibility? It is indeed true that representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry, acting through the 12th Chief Administration, made attempts when approving various documents to relieve themselves of a certain amount of responsibility for nuclear-weapon security by shifting it onto the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security. The development and production of nuclear weapons is the prerogative of the relevant theorists and designers, and the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security never laid claim to coauthorship in this regard. To follow the logic of the Defense Ministry representatives, if a compressed-air cylinder explodes somewhere as a result of a violation of prescribed operating regulations, responsibility should rest with the Boiler Room Inspectorate, not by the people who were working with the cylinder. This is the kind of logic used to "blur" responsibility with the aim of protecting from punishment those who are truly at fault for some accident or incident. Nuclear-technical units are a component part of not just the Russian Defense Ministry, but of our entire society, and so their functioning cannot help but reflect the processes under way in our country. Under these circumstances, to say that there is no reason to show concern for the safekeeping and reliability of nuclear weapons is indiscreet and could be viewed as an attempt to conceal the actual state of affairs.
Can we help but be unsettled by press reports about a system of bribe-taking on the part of officials of rayon military commissariats in the course of conscription, about sales of weapons and explosives by agents of the Defense Ministry's Chief Intelligence Administration, about the dismantling of an entire regiment (32 aircraft) under the direction of its own commanding officer, and so on and so forth?
In his arguments, Gen Maslin cites U.S. experience. He claims that nuclear weapons there are not under extradepartmental oversight. But the situation in the United States is hardly comparable to that in our country. Or does the U.S. Army have officers working with nuclear weapons who go unpaid for months at a stretch (not to mention their failure to receive other types of compensation) and who, in order to ease the hunger of their wives and children and feed them somehow, go out to collect empty bottles and gather mushrooms in the forests and the hills? One can only be unsettled by the fact that a number of nuclear-technical units in the various branches of the Armed Forces are being assigned officers whose have refused to serve on ships and in other line units (or who were discharged from them). It is also widely known that 100 percent of all thefts of radioactive materials (albeit not materials intended for the production of nuclear weapons) have been committed not by outsiders, but by the people who work with them directly.
This is also evidenced by thefts of nuclear fuel rods intended for nuclear generators in the Northern Fleet. After all this, how can one possibly claim, as does Gen Maslin, that "there are no grounds for concern or apprehension," as "all problems relating to nuclear weapons in Russia are being handled by a governmental commission on nuclear weapons under the direction of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin"? What is this--an attempt to shift responsibility from oneself onto the prime minister?
One cannot disagree with the assertion that we have too many kinds of inspectors. That the money being spent on their upkeep and on the proliferation of inspecting generals would be better spent on the program to upgrade nuclear weapons. I don't see any particular need for the Defense Ministry to have a nuclear security inspectorate. In my opinion, the Army should have more of the kind of generals who pull triggers, as they say, and who are not just administrators. For the people and for the treasury, it is cheaper to have overseers and inspectors who do not wear shoulderboards. By contrast, people wearing shoulderboards should know mainly how to fight, not create the appearance of well-being by overseeing and monitoring themselves.
Mindful of the fact that nuclear weapons are above all a political weapon possessing tremendous destructive power, and bearing in mind the unpredictability of the political situation in the country, rising crime, and stress caused by crime and terrorism, it is clear that we should:
1. Remove all nuclear-technical units, above all those of the Armed Forces branches, from the subordination of the Defense Ministry and reassign them to the Russian Ministry of Nuclear Energy or to a specially created civilian authority formed under the Security Council of directly under the nation's president.
2. Create a truly extradepartmental, state inspectorate for nuclear security in the handling and intended use of nuclear weapons, one that would exercise oversight not only in nuclear-technical units, but also in nuclear-weapon combat units. If it is felt that creating such an authority under the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security is ill advised on security or other grounds, it should be set up under the Federal Security Service or, again, under the Security Council. But this agency should be a working body, not one composed of representatives.
3. In order to lower the risk of a military conflict involving nuclear weapons, to discuss the advisability of having all the "nuclear club" member countries withdraw their nuclear-technical units from direct subordination to their defense ministries at the April meeting on nuclear security problems in Moscow. There is no question that splitting up the functions of handling both nuclear weapons and equipment relating to their use (delivery vehicles) from the single pair of hands (read: the Defense Ministry) in which they are currently concentrated would help lower the risk that nuclear weapons might be used without the authorization of the country's supreme political leadership.
I personally need no answer to the questions raised. I understand the motives of the Defense Ministry's generals: Their personal well-being is directly dependent on a monopolistic right to information about the true state of affairs with respect to nuclear security in the units they supervise.
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