BACKGROUNDER: PROLIFERATION OPTIONS GROW IN POST-COLD WAR ERA
(Counterproliferation is at top of NATO's agenda)
By Jacquelyn S. Porth
USIA Security Affairs Writer
10 March 1997
Washington -- Today's most serious nuclear proliferation threat stems from "material coming out of nuclear weapons as a result of disarmament and finding its way into the wrong hands," says U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) Director John Holum.
"The highest obstacle to someone who wants to make a nuclear weapon," he says, "is not the technology, but the material -- the highly enriched uranium or plutonium."
Holum warned, in recent testimony before the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, that such material is stored in "too many places; too many people have access," and security is lax at some nuclear establishments and nuclear research reactors in Russia and other Eastern European states. In addition, he said, U.S. officials are concerned about the potential diversion of nuclear expertise from the former Soviet Union to other parts of the world.
The United States is working "in discrete ways" with the Russians to address this concern, he told the subcommittee March 5, by helping to set up basic security systems, including chain-link fences and "sensitive locks with access codes." The U.S. also is working with Russia to consolidate the number of storage sites, so there are fewer points of vulnerability, and to help establish chain-of-custody programs to enhance security of weapons and weapons material both in storage and during transport to dismantlement and storage areas.
These efforts are part of the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, which is designed to provide financial and technical assistance to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakstan to encourage the reduction of nuclear warhead and fissile material stockpiles and ensure the safety and security of what is left over. The CTR also aims to help dismantle chemical and biological weapons production facilities and expand military-to-military contacts beyond these four countries.
Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Franklin Miller told another congressional subcommittee March 5 that a high priority CTR project in Russia is the fissile material storage facility at Mayak, which will provide a safe and secure place for fissile material coming out of dismantled weapons. Miller said the United States is willing to pay for half of the storage facility. Such aid to Russia is important, he noted, because it "still possesses vast quantities of fissile material."
Another CTR project aimed at reducing the amount of fissile material involves the conversion of the fuel cores of three plutonium-producing reactors at Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. Planned for completion by the year 2000, this project would allow continued use of these reactors for heat and electricity while preventing their use to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
But more must be done, Miller told the Senate Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, to encourage Russian dismantlement of excess nuclear warheads, to reduce weapons-grade material, and to help ensure the safety and security of what remains. "CTR is on the front lines of ensuring adequate controls" on weapons of mass destruction, he said.
In many of the places where the United States is likely to dispatch military forces, including Northeast Asia and the Middle East, Miller said, "potential adversaries are pursuing the development or acquisition of NBC (Nuclear, Biological or Chemical) weapons."
Miller said the United States recognizes that nations that are determined to obtain such weapons and associated means of delivery, and those willing to violate global non-proliferation norms, "can in all likelihood succeed despite the strongest prevention efforts."
Counterproliferation efforts, carried out in cooperation with U.S. allies, are underway to develop "common approaches" to the problem, he said, noting that counterproliferation is a top priority for NATO's agenda in the post-Cold War period.
"NATO's counterproliferation initiative is an integral part of the alliance's adaptation to the post-Cold War strategic environment, in which the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons can pose a direct threat to alliance security," he noted. As NATO embraces greater security responsibilities outside its immediate geographic area, Miller said, the alliance particularly needs to develop "defenses against the threat or use of biological weapons."
The United States also has sought to forge common approaches for improving military capabilities against such risks with allies, including Australia and New Zealand.
Asked about Iran's efforts to obtain technology applicable to weapons systems, Holum said the United States objects to moves by Russia and China to share peaceful nuclear technology with Iran.
Why does Iran need nuclear energy, the ACDA director asked, when it is sitting on top of so much oil and gas? Seeking to develop nuclear energy instead of using Iran's large conventional energy resources for electric power doesn't make economic sense, he said, and is "explicable only in terms of a nuclear weapons program."
Congressman Matt Salmon (Republican, Arizona) told Holum that new countries who are acquiring nuclear, biological, and chemical capabilities in the post-Cold War era do not seem to be reluctant to use them as the superpowers have been. He said the fact that the notion of deterrence carries less weight among some of the smaller nations reinforces his commitment to ensuring the development of an Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system for the United States.
Holum said the United States should not automatically rely on deterrence as a defense in dealing with non-former Soviet states, and should consider active defenses against missile capabilities.
"I don't rule out the possibility," he said, that either the United States or Russia might design a limited national missile defense system "that is effective against a small number of missiles...(and) that wouldn't interfere with strategic stability because it would have specifically limited capabilities."
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