The Boston Globe broke the story today on the suspension of Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction:
In the previously undisclosed discussions, the Russians informed the Americans that they were refusing any more US help protecting their largest stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium from being stolen or sold on the black market. The declaration effectively ended one of the most successful areas of cooperation between the former Cold War adversaries.
“I think it greatly increases the risk of catastrophic terrorism,” said Sam Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia and an architect of the “cooperative threat reduction” programs of the 1990s.
Official word came in a terse, three-page agreement signed on Dec. 16. A copy was obtained by the Globe, and a description of the Moscow meeting was provided by three people who attended the session or were briefed on it. They declined to be identified for security reasons.
[…]
On hand for the Moscow meeting were nearly four dozen of the leading figures on both sides who have been working to safeguard the largest supplies of the world’s deadliest weapons, according to the three-page agreement.
The group included officials from the US Department of Energy, its nuclear weapons labs, the Pentagon, and the State Department, and a host of Russian officials in charge of everything from dismantling nuclear submarines to arms control.
Specialists said the final meeting was a dismaying development in a joint effort that the United States has invested some $2 billion in and had been a symbol of the thaw between East and West and of global efforts to prevent the spread of doomsday weapons. An additional $100 million had been budgeted for the effort this year and many of the programs were envisioned to continue at least through 2018.
Former Senator Nunn also expressed strong concern about Russia’s budgetary ability to continue the programs without US assistance, particularly given current economic conditions with falling oil prices and sanctions.
Reciprocal nuclear arsenal inspections will continue, however, along with cooperation on trying to prevent dirty bombs (i.e. radioactive material dispersed by conventional explosives) from being produced by non-state actors.
Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar leaving the White House after briefing President George H. W. Bush on the Nunn-Lugar legislation (1991). (US government photo via Wikimedia)
