|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Russia I: Security-Focused Culture Would Protect Fissile Materials, Report Says By Mike Nartker The report, The Human Factor and Security Culture: Challenges to Safeguarding Fissile Materials in Russia, explores several cultural factors at Russian nuclear sites that might pose security concerns, including corruption, inadequate infrastructure, shortcomings of various personnel, and underdeveloped standards and guidelines. “The lack of nuclear security in Russia ... has more to do with the practices of personnel than with the presence or absence of technology,” the report says. “The dismal conditions under which nuclear personnel toil, combined with pervasive lax attitudes towards nuclear security, mean that nuclear material in Russia is at much greater risk of diversion than in other nations. Thus, efforts to enhance nuclear security through new gadgetry alone will fall short,” it adds. There have been several examples of personnel at Russian nuclear sites misusing security equipment, according to the report. For instance, a 2001 U.S. General Accounting Office study found several cases where security gates were left open and unattended, guards failed to check identification of personnel entering sensitive areas, and security equipment was uninstalled or inoperable. Russian nuclear sites often lack the infrastructure needed to support security system upgrades, according to the report. For example, power outages at nuclear sites occur often, which can deactivate security equipment. Site security systems also often suffer from a lack of necessary training and funds for repairs. Almost 30 percent of managers at Russian nuclear sites reported that security equipment was “sometimes” broken, while less than half said they had personnel on site capable of repairing inoperative systems, according to the report. While many nuclear security experts believe that nuclear sites are most vulnerable to attack or theft by an insider, Russian nuclear personnel still do not fully grasp the threat of such an attack, according to the report. Studies have shown that many Russian top- and mid-level nuclear site managers see the threat of an attack by an insider as no greater than an attack by a terrorist group, the report says. Russian Cultural Effects Overall sociological and economic conditions in Russia also have affected security culture at nuclear sites, the report says. Because personnel are often underpaid, nuclear materials have been stolen and diverted in several cases. Rising levels of drug and alcohol use among site personnel also has security implications, the report says. “The requirements for drug and alcohol tests among nuclear personnel are often ignored, so there is no way of knowing how many people working at nuclear sites are actually intoxicated on the job,” the report says. The reduced prestige of the Russian nuclear sector further helps to undermine the security culture, according to the report. During the Soviet era, many top scientists went to work in the civilian and military nuclear sectors out of patriotism — a motivation that has severely waned after the fall of the Soviet Union, the report says. Now, qualified personnel often choose instead to pursue higher paying jobs in the private sector, it adds. A lack of security regulations for fissile materials, when combined with a workplace culture that values compliance with superiors over compliance with established rules, also poses a security threat, the report says. Much of Russia’s fissile material regulatory system is underdeveloped, according to the report, with few national accountability standards and site-level security procedures. “Some Russian experts characterize the volumes of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and DOE [U.S. Energy Department] security regulations as excessive, but admit that the dearth of adequate normative and regulatory guidelines that is the norm in Russia is a real problem,” the report says. What guidelines do exist are often unclear and contain too many generalities, according to the report. Such vagueness enforces the idea that security is a low priority and gives individuals more freedom to choose courses of action, the report says. It also frustrates cooperation among agencies because each defines the same guidelines and procedures in different ways, it says. Recommendations The center outlined several recommendations for improving Russian nuclear security culture. Any such improvement efforts must not, however, be undertaken solely by Western countries, the report says. Western standards and guidelines cannot be imposed onto Russia unaltered, it says Russia should work to promote a commitment to strong security, starting from the top down, the center recommended. Senior Russian officials should use their positions to increase public support for strengthening security arrangements, according to the report. Officials also need to emphasize security when they allocate resources, promoting quality control and additional training, it says. The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry needs to end a Cold War-era policy of placing military and intelligence officials in important positions in material protection, control and accounting programs, the center recommended. “Most of these people barely understand the technical side of the nuclear sector, especially its technologies and production processes,” the report says. Moscow also needs to improve its nuclear security regulations and guidelines to make them clearer and easier to use, the report says, noting serious flaws in the Soviet-style of creating instructions. The new guidelines should be solution-based instead of process-based, laying out step-by-step solutions to various scenarios in clear language. New instructions should also be computer-based, and manuals should be tailored for various personnel with different levels of training and experience at different sites, according to the report. Nuclear site personnel recruitment and training practices also need to be improved, the report says. Reliability tests should be conducted often, including before students enter educational institutions to begin the necessary training for work in the nuclear sector, it says. Selective tests, including psychological and drug testing, should also be conducted frequently. One key area is a need to change how Russian nuclear site personnel perceive the level of threat to fissile materials, according to the report. Concrete examples should be used to illustrate to workers that the threat of an insider-aided attack is higher than an attack conducted by an outside terrorist group, it says. “Given Russia’s recent experiences with terrorism and the widely publicized cases of military personnel essentially supplying potential terrorists with weaponry and special equipment in exchange for money — an egregious example of an insider job — getting the point across to nuclear managers may not be such a daunting task after all,” the report says.
| ||||||||||
Back to top
