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International Response: G-8 Countries Tackle Roadblocks to Cooperative Nonproliferation By Bryan Bender They expressed confidence, though, that much of the money will materialize and projects will be able to get underway as early as the beginning of next year, despite the lack of a dedicated mechanism to coordinate the effort. The officials said the United States, Russia and six other countries have begun the process of turning total pledges of $20 billion over the next decade — $10 billion from the United States and $10 billion from others — into viable nonproliferation programs in Russia and the former Soviet Union (see GSN, June 27). Despite some progress, a series of hurdles remains, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a hearing that examined how the United States plans to work with allies in carrying out the G-8 plan. According to Bolton, a recent meeting of partner nations held in Ottawa highlighted a litany of political, economic and bureaucratic impediments in numerous countries that must be removed before the money can be appropriated and applied to a long list of proliferation threats (see GSN, Sept. 11) The outstanding issues include the need for new and complex legal agreements between Russia and partner countries to pave the way for new cooperation; continued charges in the United States that Russia is providing weapons and nuclear technology to Syria, Iran and other possible proliferation threats; and the bleak economic outlook facing some nations that have yet to specify their contributions. New “Umbrella Agreement” Needed to Clear the Way The most immediate hurdle, Bolton said, is getting a new “umbrella agreement” ironed out between Russia and participating nations that provides for liability protection for the proposed threat reduction projects in Russia, transparency into Russian weapons of mass destruction programs so countries can determine how they want their money spent and audit and access rights. The United States signed such an agreement with Moscow in the early 1990s when the Cooperative Threat Reduction program began the process of destroying Soviet-era strategic weapons, but that agreement has expired and is in need of renewal. In addition to Washington, however, Russia has agreed to extend similar provisions to the G-8 members. “But as we learned in other fora, President [Vladimir] Putin’s biggest obstacle could be his own government bureaucracy,” said ranking Republican committee member Richard Lugar (Ind.), an original sponsor of the CTR program. Bolton said reaching this new agreement is critical before moving forward — with the G-8 efforts or, for that matter, U.S. nonproliferation programs with Russia. “It is something we are committed to working on because we don’t want to come to the Evian [G-8] summit in France next summer and find that we’re in the same position that we were last year; that is to say, with projects stopped, without new money being committed, without the expression of support and progress on the Russian side,” Bolton said. He expressed confidence, however, that the necessary agreements can be reached and that the Russians pledged as much in recent discussions. “President Putin has committed to provide G-8 member states with the umbrella legal agreements necessary to permit the initiative to go forward,” he assured lawmakers. A Variety of Potential Impediments Beyond the legal hurdles, a variety of other factors could delay action. Politically, Bolton accused Moscow of making future cooperation more difficult by continuing to provide missile and nuclear technology and materials to countries that Washington considers potential threats and supporters of international terrorism. He called on Russia to “reduce the flow of technology and materials to countries like Syria and others in the field of nuclear weapons cooperation, ballistic missile technology” and to cease “being a source for proliferation by these rogue states.” Simple economics could hamper the G-8 efforts. For one thing, some partners have been unable to commit large amounts of funding to the project. “Many of our international partners will find it difficult to increase nonproliferation funding in a period of stagnating domestic economy,” Lugar said. Officials said that it is unclear how much of the $20 billion will actually materialize. Japan, for example has yet to make any commitments, saying it must first resolve a stalled program with Russia to help destroy nuclear submarines, which pose an environmental threat to Japan. Bolton said Japanese officials told him that their parliament, the Diet, would not allocate more funds until money dedicated to submarine dismantlement is spent. Another economic impediment could be countries’ unwillingness to relieve Russian debt to free Moscow to allocate more of its own funds for nonproliferation — a proposal gaining steam in the United States. While Russia owes relatively little to the United States, other G-8 members are owed significant amounts and may be unwilling to go that route. “It is not a subject that carries a lot of favor with some,” Bolton said. Nevertheless, Bolton said the United States has “been in the forefront … in considering the option of debt-for-programs swaps, whereby official Russian debt could be converted or utilized in ways that provide additional resources inside Russia.” On other fronts, however, critical funds and diplomatic support are being provided to back up the G-8 pledge, officials said. The United Kingdom has said it would earmark as much as $1.17 billion over the next decade, while French officials said in Ottawa that the global partnership would be a priority for president Jacques Chirac, Bolton said. He singled out Canada for taking a leadership role as president of the G-8, also noting that France will take over the role at the end of this year. Current U.S. plans call for spending about $1 billion annually, matching levels requested for fiscal 2003, Bolton said. Since 1991, the United States has spent $7 billion to secure weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. Officials also said that once a clearer program structure is established — including a new umbrella agreement — officials would be able to go back to their parliaments and get more solid financial commitments. U.S. Leadership Bolton said the G-8 partners have decided that each country will pursue its own nonproliferation programs in Russia and are opting against creating a separate organization to oversee the G-8-funded projects. “We made a very basic decision … that each country would essentially run its own program,” Bolton said. “We would not set up a new multilateral organization.” Some have warned that a lack of an overarching coordinating structure could hamper the joint efforts, but Bolton said the necessary national structures should be in place by the start of the year (see GSN, Sept. 26). “I am confident that by the time of the Canadian handover to the French at the end of this year, that we will have in place the requisite reporting mechanisms so that countries can lay out in a more common system exactly what programs are involved,” he added. Bolton and other officials said countries such as Canada have already established internal structures to coordinate their nonproliferation contribution, but acknowledged that the United States will play a unique advisory and leadership role given its decade-long experience of implementing threat reduction programs with Russia. “For over a decade of CTR experience, success and lessons learned, the department is prepared to work with our G-8 partners to help them address implementation and government-to-government procedural issues,” such as contracting guidelines, testified Lisa Bronson, deputy under secretary of defense for technology, security and nonproliferation.” “We are confident that a common approach to the challenging implementation issues will strengthen our efforts of each participating party.” In a technical example, she said, U.S. expertise in destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles under CTR could help countries that have expressed interest in destroying short-range Russian missiles. “We are prepared to share with them what we have learned about the capabilities of a variety of Russian enterprises involved in this area,” she added.
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