| |
 |
As detailed in Chapter 3, the amount of fissile material around the world is enormous, and large quantities of HEU and plutonium are not adequately protected. As long as this material exists in a form that can be readily used in nuclear weapons, the potential exists for terrorists to employ it for destructive purposes.
Significant efforts are under way to try to alleviate this global danger, and the United States and other countries have pledged billions of dollars toward this goal. These efforts include:
- Internationally funded programs to assist Russia to secure its huge holdings of fissile material; consolidate these holdings into fewer sites; halt new production of military plutonium; and render hundreds of tons of HEU and plutonium unsuitable for use in nuclear weapons. These efforts are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense CTR (Nunn-Lugar) Program; the U.S. Departments of Energy and State; and USEC (formerly the United States Enrichment Corporation), a private U.S. uranium enrichment company; as well as by other advanced countries, through the Group of Eight (G-8) Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
- U.S. and Russian programs to end civilian commerce in HEU and remove U.S.-origin and Soviet/Russian-origin HEU from research reactors, critical assemblies, and storage sites around the globe.
The centerpiece of this effort is a U.S.-Russia-IAEA program, known as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative.
- A variety of UN resolutions, international treaties, agreements, and voluntary guidelines
to enhance the security of fissile material around the world, to reduce the quantity of the stockpiles, and to suppress terrorism.
While much has been done to protect, consolidate, reduce, and, where possible, eliminate fissile materials, less than half of the work has been done after more than a decade. In some cases, it will still be a decade or more before the work is completed. Click here for
descriptions of the most important U.S. programs that address this danger.
All are far from complete, leaving significant gaps in the protection of Russian fissile material.
For a detailed description of international efforts to secure and consolidate fissile materials, see Bunn and Weir,
Securing the Bomb 2006.
Internationally Funded Programs
to Secure Fissile Material in Russia Russia possesses more than 600 tons of fissile material outside of nuclear weapons, material requiring the highest level of security. Although all of the programs aimed at addressing the potential threats posed by these materials were initiated by the United States, many other countries are now also working with Russia on these efforts. In 1999, the Council of Europe announced a Joint Action to provide Russia with nonproliferation assistance. In June 2002, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States (the G-8 nations) announced the G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, whose participants have pledged to provide $20 billion over 10 years to fund projects, initially in Russia, to prevent terrorists, or those that harbor them, from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical, radiological or biological weapons, missiles, or related equipment and technology. However, only a small fraction of this assistance was earmarked for nuclear material security.
The Global Partnership has not yet reached its goal of $20 billion in pledges,
and of the approximately $17.5 billion in pledges received, only a
portion has been allocated to projects, as of December 2006. In addition
to the G-8 countries, thirteen additional nations have joined the Global
Partnership as donors, and Ukraine has joined Russia as a recipient. For more information on specific projects and pledges, see the
CSIS Strengthening the Global Partnership Project
website.
|
|