Global Security Newswire

The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in August helped to ensure the security of five nuclear-weapon train shipments, according to Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) (see GSN, Sept. 26).

The Nunn-Lugar program that month also supported destruction of 13.43 metric tons of Russian chemical warfare agents, the lawmaker said in a recent press release (see GSN, Oct. 24).

Since being established in 1991 to secure and eliminate weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states, the CTR program has assisted deactivation of 7,601 strategic nuclear warheads and destruction of 791 ICBMs, 498 ICBM silos, 182 mobile ICBM launchers, 670 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 492 SLBM launchers, 33 ballistic missile-capable submarines, 155 strategic bombers, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles and 194 nuclear test tunnels.

The effort has also provided safeguards for 541 nuclear-weapon train shipments, boosted security at 24 nuclear weapons storage facilities and constructed 34 biological agent monitoring stations. It supported the removal of all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, nations that once respectively held the world's third-, fourth- and eighth-largest nuclear arsenals.

The Nunn-Lugar program aided the elimination of Albania's small stockpile of chemical warfare materials, its first effort outside the former Soviet Union. In total, 2,260.73 metric tons of Albanian and Russian chemical agents have been eliminated with assistance from the U.S. initiative (U.S. Senator Richard Lugar release, Oct. 6).