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Cold War Enemies Partner to Safeguard Nuclear Materials WASHINGTON, DC, February 25, 2002 (ENS) - For decades the United States and the Soviet Union had hosts of nuclear weapons pointed at one another. Today, the world's two largest nuclear superpowers are working together to keep nuclear technology out of terrorist hands.
The presidents of the U.S. National Academies and the Russian Academy of Sciences issued a joint statement on February 5 that affirmed their intention to keep terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons and weapons grade nuclear materials. "Nuclear weapons or nuclear materials that could be used to develop nuclear weapons or radiological devices must not fall into the hands of terrorists or states with hostile intentions," the presidents jointly warned. Biochemist and molecular biologist Bruce Alberts is president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and chair of the National Research Council, the principal operating arm of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. He and William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering, and Kenneth Shine, M.D., president of the National Institute of Medicine signed the joint statement with Yuri Osipov, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and director of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics.
The United States and the Russian Federation, as the nations with the largest nuclear weapon complexes and the custodians of the largest inventories of nuclear weapons and materials of all types, "share a special responsibility for preventing unauthorized access to these weapons and materials," the presidents said. Newly planned joint activities will continue the long standing cooperation between the Russian Academy of Science and The National Academies in support of their governments' efforts to respond to urgent international security problems. For the past 10 years, the two governments have cooperated to protect nuclear weapons and weapons grade nuclear materials from theft or diversion. But a great deal remains to be done to place all nuclear weapons and materials under adequate protection, the presidents acknowledged. "With clear indications that terrorist organizations are seeking nuclear and radiological weapons, cooperative efforts to deny them this option must be accelerated. These efforts should include plans for the ultimate disposition of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium made surplus by the downsizing of the U.S. and Russian arsenals." Since the end of the Cold War, a new multi-million dollar nuclear weapons black market has sprung up in Moscow, Germany, and other European countries. The growing black market is known to national security experts as the "loose nukes" problem. U.S. allies, recognized nuclear states, and non-nuclear powers alike worry about the possible consequences of loose nukes - terrorist organizations like the Russian Mafia and the antifada becoming nuclear powers or the likelihood that some of this dangerous material being transferred to rogue states like Iran, Iraq, or North Korea. On September 7, 1997, the CBS newsmagazine Sixty Minutes broadcast an alarming story in which former Russian National Security Adviser Aleksandr Lebed claimed that the Russian military had lost track of more than 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, any one of which could kill up to 100,000 people.
"I'm saying that more than a hundred weapons out of the supposed number of 250 are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia," Lebed said in the interview. "I don't know their location. I don't know whether they have been destroyed or whether they are stored or whether they've been sold or stolen, I don't know." The presidents said their academies are "encouraged" by the recent actions of President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress to restore funding and a high priority to the joint activities in this domain. "They provide the basis for the Russian and American governments to accelerate their cooperative programs to ensure adequate security of all nuclear weapons and weapons grade material throughout Russia. We urge the two governments to move forward rapidly," they said. The world has not yet given adequate attention to the dangers of misuse of radioactive sources, spent nuclear fuel, and radioactive waste to make radiological devices, said the presidents. They called for new cooperative activities between the two governments to address these issues - in the United States, in Russia, and throughout the world. To assist their respective governments, over the next six months the National Academies and the Russian Academy of Sciences will prepare an assessment of the immediate steps that should be taken to upgrade the two governments' collaborative efforts in this domain.
Working together, the Academies will develop an agenda for long term U.S. Russian cooperation to reduce the risks from nuclear weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists or states with hostile intentions. This will include continuing interacademy attention to problems that may arise and how they can be overcome, such as problems associated with access to sensitive facilities. Four initiatives are already under way or will soon be started to provide more detailed insights and recommendations for consideration by the two governments.
The Russian Academy of Sciences and The National Academies called on the national academies of sciences of all countries possessing nuclear weapons or using radiological materials "to cooperate with them in this most important sphere of national and international security." Read a National Academy of Sciences analysis of this issue, "Protecting Nuclear Weapons Materials in Russia," online at: http://bob.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nwm_russia Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved. |
Atomic bomb detonated June 24, 1957 at the Nevada
Test Site (Photo courtesy 
Bruce Alberts (Photo courtesy 
Mockup of a suitcase nuclear bomb, made
by Congressional staffer Peter Pry. Small enough to be carried by a single
person and produce a blast about 500 times more than the largest
conventional bomb used in WW-II, plus massive radiation. (Photo
courtesy 
Russian nuclear weapon (Photo courtesy 