The Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council was created inMarch 1997 with the purpose of preserving and expanding U.S.-Russian cooperative nuclear security activities. As one of its first actions,RANSAC has undertaken an examination of the progress the U.S. and Russiannuclear complexes have made in transitioning from their reliance on nuclear weapons work to peaceful activities.The first step in this evaluation was an examination of the conversionsuccesses and problems encountered to date at five key Russian nuclearfacilities. These included the two nuclear weapon design laboratories,Arzamas-16 and Chelybinsk-70, and the three plutonium production andseparation facilities, Tomsk-7, Krasnoyarsk-26, and Chelyabinsk-65. Theobjective was to determine if there were additional U.S-Russian activitiesthat could be undertaken to assist in the conversion process at thesefacilities. A workshop on this subject was convened in May 1997. As aresult of the workshop and subsequent analysis, RANSAC is proposing a setof recommendations for expanded Russian-American cooperation on theconversion of these nuclear facilities. These recommendations are:
- Build on existing cooperative nuclear security activities by creatingarms control and non-proliferation analysis centers at Russian laboratories and establishing a joint U.S.-Russian technical team to focuson issues related to the transparency and irreversibility of the nucleardisarmament process.
- Expand cooperation in the area of environmental restoration of contaminated nuclear sites by initiating a laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation similar to that which exists in the nuclear security area. Afirst step is to review the numerous clean-up technologies that both theU.S. and Russia are developing and consider their applicability to problems that exist in both countries.
- Improve Russian-American cooperation on the commercialization of products produced by the nuclear cities and the establishment of new self-sustaining commercial enterprises. Existing programs have been helpful in redirecting the activities of many nuclear scientists, but business skills and products must be developed for the facilities tosuccessfully convert from weapons work.
- Share the financing of the new activities equally between the U.S. andRussia, with the Russian financing derived from the proceeds of the saleof blended-down highly-enriched uranium to the United States.
- Convene a U.S.-Russian working group to examine existing conversionprograms and to evaluate legal, tax and other issues that may affect thecommercial viability of nuclear city products.
- Establish the nuclear complex conversion as a high priority issueunder the mandate of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission.
- Take specific short-term steps to expand U.S.-Russian cooperation onthe conversion of the five nuclear cities between the September and January/February Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission meetings to determine how expanded collaboration will work.
A more detailed explanation of these recommendations as well as a description of the presentations made at the Moscow workshop and the participants is included in the formal RANSAC proposal on this website. The members of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Councilwould like to thank the Ford Foundation, the W. Alton Jones Foundation,the John Merck Fund, and the Ploughshares Fund for their generous support.RANSAC would also like to thank the Federation of American Scientists forits support of the Moscow workshop.
