FPRI Wire

The Failure of Supply-Side Nuclear Control

Volume 7, Number 6
April 1999

by Rensselaer W. Lee III

Rens Lee is an Associate Scholar at FPRI and president of Global Advisory Services. For more information on illegal nuclear trafficking, you can order a copy of Rens Lee’s book Smuggling Armageddon: The Nuclear Black Market in the Former Soviet Union and Europe (St. Martin’s Press, 1998) directly from FPRI at the discounted price of $22. Call 215-732-3774, ext. 201 or send us email at fpri@fpri.org.

Since the end of the Cold War the United States has invested at least $500 million to prevent nuclear materials, components and know-how in the newly independent states (NIS) of the former Soviet Union from falling into the hands of “rogue” states and malevolent non-state actors such as organized crime formations and terrorist groups. At the heart of the U.S. strategy are two programs operated by the Department of Energy (DOE). One aims to improve “materials protection, control and accountability” (MPC&A) by enhancing security at enterprises housing fissile materials. The other, known as the “Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention,” helps place Russian weapons scientists in civilian jobs. These “supply side” efforts, however, are conceptually and technologically inadequate—and will remain so because of economic and political conditions in Russia that are largely beyond the range of U.S. influence.

Too Little

Supply-side controls of illicit commodities, whether drugs or nuclear materials, are intrinsically difficult to implement under any circumstances, and the notion that the United States might effectively protect Russian nuclear secrets against leakages is wildly optimistic. If the United States could not prevent its own closely held atomic secrets from gravitating to the Soviet Union in the 1940s, and apparently to China in the past decade, how can it possibly expect to keep Iran or Iraq from obtaining nuclear bomb-making specifications from an unemployed Russian scientist, even one receiving stopgap assistance from the United States?

Compounding the difficulty is the unrealistically high rate of interdiction that a supply-side nuclear control effort would require in order to be effective. For comparison, consider that perhaps 25 percent of the cocaine refined in Colombia is seized internationally before it reaches consumers in the United States and Europe. A 25 percent interdiction rate obviously would not be acceptable for weapons-usable uranium or plutonium; indeed, the rate would have to reach close to 100 percent for the effort to be considered successful.

Aside from patently unrealistic expectations, another general weakness of supply-side controls is that the impetus for them often comes from without rather than from within. Again, the U.S. war against drugs provides a useful analogy. In that sphere, Washington has provided both the funding and the agenda for efforts elsewhere in the world, but has had little success in countries whose own leaders lack the political will to control lucrative narcotics exports. In dealing with sovereign states, Washington is limited to the power to “decertify” them if their cooperation is found wanting. Similarly, nuclear non-proliferation programs that emanate from Washington are headed for defeat as long as the NIS leaders are principally concerned with their own countries’ economic and political survival.

The DOE efforts to improve MPC&A through technological safeguards might be expected to keep nuclear materials out of reach of would-be thieves, regardless of the political will (or lack thereof) of the local authorities, but here, too, such hopes are unwarranted. First, nearly eight years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, those controls have yet to be installed at most of the 80 to 100 NIS sites housing nuclear materials. This is due at least in part to poor administration by the DOE, which has put far more of the allocated funds into U.S. laboratories providing oversight than into NIS enterprises and institutes themselves. Second, the deterrent capacity of even the new systems is questionable, since they depend upon the integrity, diligence and competence of the people tending them. “I would certainly know how to remove fissile materials from here,” says the director of one Russian laboratory equipped with the latest American locks and alarm systems.

The single greatest motivation for nuclear proliferation is economic gain, and even in a best-case scenario the DOE programs might have little impact in the face of widespread economic uncertainty coupled with pervasive official corruption and indifference. Just as impoverished people in the Andes flocked to the cocaine industry in search of a better future as a result of the Latin American economic reverses of the 1980s, the current hardships in the NIS might make the lucrative black market an irresistible temptation to scientists, administrators, or security personnel with access to weapons-usable materials.

Those who traffic in nuclear materials or intelligence can expect Russia’s internal and external political situation to pose little problem, and perhaps even enhance their chances of success. First, as stated above, when leaders are preoccupied by fundamental threats to their economic and political future, proliferation becomes a lower priority, and vigilance might relax. In addition, Russia’s generally good relations with states such as Iran and Iraq makes these countries important potential markets for nuclear goods—both official deals sanctioned by the government and, conceivably, black market trade without official approval. In 1995, for example, Russia signed a protocol to sell a centrifuge plant for uranium enrichment to Iran. (It backed off under U.S. pressure.) According to some accounts, plans are currently underway to transfer specialized reactors and other tools that could accelerate Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Too Late

Perhaps the most fundamental flaw of supply-side nuclear control is that it comes much too late. Thefts of radioactive materials in the NIS, propelled by the strains of privatization and defense conversion, surged in the early 1990s—well before any DOE measures had been implemented. Most of those incidences were militarily insignificant, but a few high-profile episodes pointed to a spreading ethos of corruption within the nuclear complex. In two recorded cases, Russian managers of top-secret defense plants offered plutonium for sale to visiting foreign scientists. Elsewhere, military officers stole highly-enriched uranium fuel from a submarine base in Murmansk. In a bizarre episode suggesting a wider conspiracy, agents of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service reportedly masterminded the delivery of almost a pound of plutonium oxide from Moscow to Munich in August 1994.

Less well documented but nonetheless ominous are reports from Russia that large quantities of uranium and plutonium were removed from nuclear labs in the early 1990s, that scores of “suitcase"-sized nuclear weapons are missing from storage, and that certain labs are engaged in criminally brokered schemes to enrich uranium and sell the weapons- grade product internationally. According to one calculation, Iran might have acquired enough highly-enriched uranium to make at least five high-yield nuclear warheads—as long ago as 1996. If any such reports are true, nuclear proliferation is no longer a threat but a fact.

Confronting the Danger

Non-proliferation programs should not be abandoned—their evident flaws notwithstanding. Even though not perfectly effective, they send an important message to the NIS governments and public, as well as to potential buyers, that the United States is determined to combat criminal nuclear proliferation. Changes in the programs, however, are clearly in order.

We must confront this ugly reality: the proliferation window is likely to remain open for some time, and Washington’s efforts to close it cannot be considered reliable on their own. If the spread of nuclear materials and intelligence is a fact—and it is irresponsible to assume otherwise—then it is imperative to devise new strategies to discourage or prevent recipient states or groups from building nuclear weapons. None of the economic, diplomatic or military options that might come into play will be easy to implement or free of risk, but when confronting proliferation there are no risk-free alternatives. Nor can the available options be pursued as though in a political vacuum: we must bear in mind that bombing campaigns in the Balkans and Iraq could easily heighten small states’ craving for a nuclear deterrent of their own. Thus, contrary to expectations, a more nuclear rather than a less nuclear world appears to be in the offing, even if the stockpiles of the U.S. and Russia are reduced.

You may forward this email as you like provided that you send it in its entirety, attribute it to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and include our web address (www.fpri.org). If you post it on a mailing list, please contact FPRI with the name, location, purpose, and number of recipients of the mailing list.

If you receive this as a forward and would like to be placed directly on our mailing lists, send email to FPRI@fpri.org. Include your name, address, and affiliation. For further information, contact Alan Luxenberg at (215) 732-3774 x105.