The Most Urgent Security Threat?
By
Dimitri K. Simes and Paul J. Saunders
Reprinted
from the The Washington Times, January 19, 2001
Although Russian nuclear weapons and nuclear materials present a great danger, overstating the threat does a disservice to broader American interests. A recent draft report released by the Secretary of Energy’s Russia Task Force—the Clinton Administration’s eleventh-hour guidance to its successors—is a case in point.
The report argues that "the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States" is the possible theft of nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material from Russia for use against Americans. On this basis, it calls for a significant expansion in the Clinton Administration’s non-proliferation programs in Russia in order to "secure and/or neutralize in the next eight to ten years all nuclear weapons material in Russia" and to stop the flow of dangerous technologies out of the country.
Though high-powered official commissions are rarely willing to admit that their topic of study is not the greatest challenge facing America today, Russia’s "loose nukes" are indeed a major problem with potentially devastating consequences for the U.S. But the notion that protecting Russia’s nuclear materials from its own population is our "most urgent" priority, as the report argues, is a dangerous one—particularly coming from a prominent and bi-partisan (though not fully balanced) group.
Most troubling, it suggests that American policy toward Russia—and other matters that affect it—should be subordinated to the goal of maintaining and expanding U.S. access to super-secret Russian nuclear facilities. This would have a profound effect on other American objectives, including national missile defense, further NATO enlargement, and Russia’s payment of its debts. How could we then risk alienating or undermining the Russian government by taking positions contrary to Russian preferences? It would also give Moscow enormous leverage once Kremlin leaders sensed the depth of our commitment to such programs.
Offering the Kremlin such leverage is particularly inappropriate because the nature of Russia’s evolution makes the nuclear stockpile, like everything else under Vladimir Putin’s rule, subject to greater state control. Boris Yeltsin’s Russia—simultaneously anarchic and semi-authoritarian—is giving way to the growing stability of Putin’s "guided democracy." As prominent Russian journalist Masha Gessen writes, the result has been that "safety—or at least stability of a sort—is not so unattainable" and "trains run on time, planes fly, and the postal service works once again." This trend affects "loose nukes" as well.
Though the growing role of the security services is (to put it mildly) not a universally encouraging development, it has a clear silver lining with respect to the security of Russian nuclear materials. Russia need not become a totalitarian police state for its security agencies to perform adequately in the area of nuclear safety. In fact, they seem to have been quite capable of rounding up suspects when it is a political priority. The relative effectiveness of the Russian security apparatus in "political" cases calls attention to a fundamental point: as Russia’s transition comes to an end, the deliberate decisions of its leadership will become more important than potential accidents resulting from its decreasingly chaotic internal condition. For example, Russia’s atomic energy ministry, Minatom, has been a vocal champion of expanding technology transfers to Iran; the Russian government more generally has tolerated if not encouraged the provision of nuclear and other sensitive technologies to the Islamic Republic. Moscow also recently reneged on an agreement between Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin that was to have restricted Russian dealings with Tehran.
To its credit, the Russia Task Force acknowledged the problem of Russian cooperation with Iran, noting that further developments could "have a major adverse effect" on U.S. nonproliferation programs in Russia. But the problem is much broader: Russia is also renewing its ties with former Soviet client states, like North Korea, Libya, and Cuba, and according to some reports has moved tactical nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad. In this context, short of abandoning its other important interests and principles, the U.S. seems likely to enjoy less rather than more access to Russian nuclear materials, weapons complexes, and research centers.
Putin’s Russia is increasingly capable, both economically and politically, of ensuring the security of its nuclear stockpile. It is counterproductive to continue to treat Russia, as Clinton has, like an adolescent unqualified even to perform the most basic functions of a state without U.S. guidance and subsidies. If Mr. Putin wants Russia to be viewed as a serious power, he should be told that reliably controlling nuclear materials, rather than the media, would win him respect in Washington.
Dimitri K. Simes is President of The Nixon Center; Paul J. Saunders is the Center’s Director.
