IngentaConnect Nuclear Terrorism and Warhead Control in Russia

Authors: J.B. Wolfsthal¹; T.Z. Collina¹

Source: Survival, Volume 44, Number 2, 2002 , pp. 71-83(13)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

Russia possesses the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials. This Cold War legacy, inherited from the Soviet Union, is housed in an oversized, underfunded and poorly secured weapons complex that has proven vulnerable to infiltration and theft. Yet, at a time when the United States has made preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction a top priority, the Bush administration has unveiled the outlines of a nuclear policy that is exacerbating the security problem in Russia and will likely lead Russia to maintain an unnecessarily large and insecure weapons complex. The proposed policies of the administration would result in the US deploying some 2,200 strategic nuclear weapons, but maintaining a force twice as large in active reserve, ready for rapid redeployment. Russia is likely to follow suit. The proposed US policy is misguided. Instead, the United States and Russia should be pushing each other to negotiate and adopt a monitored regime to securely store and eliminate nuclear weapons removed from active deployment, and ensure that the materials released from dismantled weapons are quickly, safely and securely eliminated.

Document Type: Original article

Affiliations: 1: Jon B. Wolfsthal is an Associate with the Non-Proliferation Project with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Tom Z. Collina is Director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists

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