The Origins of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

Lessons Learned

Charles L. Thornton
Ph. D. Seminar
School of Public Policy
University of Maryland

November 6, 2007

Pretend you’ve never heard of CTR.

And now picture this:

• 1991
– The United States and the Soviet Union had been engaging in a Cold War
for 4 decades
– For the previous 2 years, since 1989, tremendous political changes had
occurred across Eastern Europe
 The Berlin Wall had come down.
 The communist governments in many states had been swept
away.
 _________
– The future of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government was
increasingly unclear
 Gorbechov had introduced more political openness in the 1980s.
 There was no guarantee that the relatively non-violent politic
changes in Eastern Europe would carry over to the USSR.
 __________
• Soviet WMDs
– Of course, the West had been observing and collecting information on the
Soviet military since WWII. But, our knowledge was far from perfect.
– It was clear that the USSR had stockpiles vast quantities of nuclear
weapons and fissile materials, and chemical and biological weapons and
agents.
• Loose Nukes
– In the late 1980s, the Soviets began the unilateral removal of tactical
nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe. The last train with Soviet tactical
nuclear weapons was dispatched from Germany to Russia in late June
1991, thereby eliminating all TNWs from the territory of Warsaw Pact
member countries.
– At this same time, and into the early 1990s, the Soviet and Russian
leadership decided to accelerate the removal of tactical nuclear weapons
from the former Soviet Republics. This was mostly carried out from
1990-1992, under difficult conditions.

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 – Articles began to appear, particularly in the NY Times, calling attention to
the danger of Soviet loose nukes.
– By early 1991, there was a real concern that any fragmentation of the
USSR could provoke civil war.
– In October and November of 1991, U.S. and Soviet delegations met in
Moscow and Washington. At those meetings, the United States pressed
the Soviets to disable and to consolidate its widely dispersed tactical
nuclear weapons, which the U.S. believed posed the greatest danger as the
Soviet Union disintegrated. The main purpose of Secretary of State
Baker's December 1991 trip to the four capitals [Russian, Belarus,
Ukraine, Kazakhstan] was to push for rapid disabling and consolidation of
these tactical nuclear weapons for dismantling.
• The Numbers
– Approximately 30,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons
– 1,000 tons of highly enriched uranium
– 200 tons of plutonium
– 40,000 tons of chemical weapons agent
– amassive biological weapons program.
– The Soviet collapse created three new nuclear weapons states in Belarus,
Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.
• Secretary Baker’s Trips
• Arms Control Agreements & Declarations
– NPT
– INF
– START
– PNIs
• Harvard Study
–
• Cooperative Threat Reduction
– Historically, managing the decline of a major military power has not been
the concern of other states in the international system. Indeed, states have
typically viewed relative decline by former rivals as a major benefit with
few, if any, negative repercussions.
 In this case, however, the breakup of the Soviet Union reduced
one set of threats to U.S. national security, but created another —
the threat posed by the vast quantities of poorly secured Russian
fissile materials and warheads. The nuclear material at Russian
sites became more vulnerable to theft because the security
system that protected this material during the Soviet period had
weakened considerably due to a sustained period of political and
economic upheavals.
– The CTR program came very close to early defeat in Congress, actually.
An initial threat reduction initiative sponsored by Senator Nunn and
Representative Aspin had been removed from legislative consideration
when an America-first and anti-foreign aid attitude swept through
Congress in 1991.

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  Proposal was too broad, covering WMD matters plus food and
medical aid and other assistance: too much “foreign aid.”
– But as the Soviet Union dissolved and concerns over the control of Soviet
mass destruction weapons increased, Senators Nunn and Lugar were able
to solidify broad co-sponsorship of a redesigned initiative.
 Based on Harvard study, which was briefed to Nunn and Lugar
in November 1991.
 Unlike the Nunn-Aspin initiative, which was labeled foreign aid,
the new CTR proposal was sold as a national security program.
– The original December 12, 1991 legislation that created CTR states the
following:
 “Findings. -- Congress Finds --
(1) that Soviet President Gorbachev has requested Western help
in dismantling nuclear weapons, and President Bush has
proposed United States Cooperation on the storage,
transportation, dismantling, and destruction of Soviet nuclear
weapons;
(2) that the profound changes underway in the Soviet Union pose
three types of danger to nuclear safety and stability, as follows:
(A) ultimate disposition of nuclear weapons among the
Soviet Union, its republics, and any successor entities that is not
conducive to weapons safety or to international stability;
(B) seizure, theft, sale, or use of nuclear weapons or
components; and
(C) transfers of weapons, weapons components, or
weapons know-how outside of the territory of the Soviet Union,
its republics, and any successor entities, that contribute to
worldwide proliferation; and
(3) that it is in the national security interests of the United States
(A) to facilitate on a priority basis the transportation,
storage, safeguarding, and destruction of nuclear and other
weapons in the Soviet Union, its republics, and any successor
entities; and
(B) to assist in the prevention of weapons proliferation.”
– Definitions
 Collective security: states banding together to enforce
international norms of behavior (League of Nations, UN).
 Collective defense includes the more traditional military alliance
structures, based more on national interests (NATO).
 Common security has as its core themes interdependence, multi-
dimensional, and the security of people rather than states.
 Cooperative security is concerned with promoting mutual
reassurances. A new conception of cooperative security evolved
with the introduction of CTR. Since core deterrence had long
since been recognized and established, the threat had shifted with

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 the demise of the Soviet Union to the safe management of
nuclear weapons.
• How Unique?
– Marshall Plan
 U.S. sponsorship of the Marshall Plan following World War II.
The Marshall Plan for European aid was proposed in 1947 by
Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who noted that it was
"...logical that the United States should do whatever it was able
to do to assist in the return of normal economic health to the
world, without which there can be no political stability and no
assured peace...[it] should provide a cure rather than a mere
palliative." (=A treatment that provides symptomatic relief but not a
cure.)
 The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods
from the United States.
 The first substantial aid went to Greece and Turkey in January
1947, which were seen as being on the front lines of the battle
against communist expansion.
o Marshall Plan offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and
its allies, if they would make political reforms and accept
certain outside controls.
o Soviet Union rejected the Marshall Plan, describing it as
dollar imperialism.
– Arms Control
 The entire notion of arms control is premised on a form of
cooperation. Formal arms control may be constructed between
two or more adversarial parties, but successful negotiations and
implementation must be collaborative. Aspects of arms control
arrangements may be confrontational—intrusive challenge
inspections, for example—but if the goal of each party is to
enhance its own security, then some level of trust must be
inherent.
– Confidence Building Measures
– Track II Efforts
• Russian Perspectives
• Lessons Learned: Tensions
– Foreign Aid vs National Security
– Money Talks
 Benefits to US economy and private sector
 Benefits to recipient government, agencies, industries, etc.
– Money Also Walks
 Neither the Bush I, Clinton, nor Bush II administrations, nor the
U.S. Congress has ever treated this issue as a high-priority
national security problem and hence has never appropriated more
than small sums of money to address it.

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  Much of the money appropriated by Congress for addressing this
issue has been subject to a web of constraints and conditions that
has made it difficult to spend quickly and flexibly, and that has
directed most of the money to U.S. contractors and consultants.
– Building Relationships
– Flexibility
 Known Unknowns
 Unknown Unknowns
– Political Environment
 Does not exist in a vacuum.
 John’s letter
 The US never embraced cooperative security as its organizing
strategy. Nuclear reductions, transparency, and accountability
required some degree of reciprocity by the US, plus thorough
political and economic engagement to overcome decades of
enmity and estrangement. In Washington, however, nuclear
conservatism and nuclear autonomy took priority over
cooperation.
– Establishing Permissive Environment vs Creating a “Beachhead”
– Donor-Client Psychology
• CTR succeeded in its principal purpose, which was less to finance specific
technical steps than to set an agenda for denuclearization and cooperation. (Carter,
Perry, and Steinbruner)
• sss