The U.S. and Russia have been pursuing a "Nuclear Cities Initiative"(NCI) to help develop new, non-military job opportunities for excess weaponscientists and workers in Russia’s ten closed "nuclear cities."  TheNCI, in conjunction with other programs led by the Energy, State, and DefenseDepartments, is designed to guard against so-called "brain drain" risks,to allow the Russian government to close facilities and eliminate excessweapon production capacity in an orderly way, and to eliminate nuclearweapons and their delivery systems.  The U.S. Congress, however, hasrecently expressed doubts about the value and effectiveness of this engagementby scaling back funding for the NCI and other programs.  The purposeof this meeting was to present a variety of perspectives – from U.S. andEuropean analysts, Congress, and the Clinton Administration – on the challengesfaced by efforts to help Russia transform its nuclear cities.

Briefing Moderator:

Jesse James, Director, The Committee on Nuclear Policy, The HenryL. Stimson Center

Speakers:

Oleg Bukharin, research staff of PrincetonUniversity’sCenter for Energy and Environmental Studies;
Jack Segal, Director for Nonproliferation andExport Controls, National Security Council;
Madelyn Creedon, Counsel, Senate Armed ServicesCommittee;
Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, University of Milan andthe Landau Network – Centro Volta; and
Kenneth N. Luongo, Executive Director of theRussian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.

Summary:

Oleg Bukharin reviewed recent and possible future changes inthe Russian nuclear weapon complex.  According to Bukharin, Russiahas increased its reliance on nuclear weapons to guarantee its nationalsecurity.  The Russian nuclear weapons complex is still oversized,however, and it is not configured much differently than during the ColdWar.  The strategic rationale for maintaining such a massive complexhas diminished, and the limited available funding means further reductionsand contractions in the complex are inevitable.  Moreover, the physicalinfrastructure of the complex is likely to contract due to aging and lackof maintenance, and the pool of qualified scientific and technical talentis likely to shrink due to demographic shifts in the closed cities.
 
Bukharin noted that the trajectory of the complex is of great importanceto the West because of nonproliferation and arms control reasons and becauseits effects on cooperative programs.  In particular, business developmentcooperation with locations and facilities where defense work takes placeis inhibited because of restricted access and investment limitations. The Western objective in Russia therefore is the rapid consolidation ofweapons work to the smallest number of facilities possible.  Russia’sobjective is the controlled, phased reduction of the nuclear weapons productioninfrastructure.
 
During the Cold War, the mission of the Soviet nuclear complex wasto produce fissile material for weapons and develop improved modernweapons. Recent developments have changed this mission dramatically.  Despitethe U.S. failure to ratify the CTBT, the future of the Treaty remains importantin defining the future missions of the Russian nuclear weapons developmentcenters.  Bukharin added that Russian stockpiles would fall below1,000 deployable strategic weapons (and 2,000 tactical weapons) in lessthan ten years.  Furthermore, the Russian nuclear complex is limitedby budget constraints.  Next year’s planned budget for the Ministryof Atomic Energy’s (Minatom) defense program is approximately $100 million.
 
Bukharin highlighted several post-Cold War missions for Russia’s nuclearweapon establishment: (a) science support and stockpile surveillance(stewardshipis a secondary concern); (b) warhead life extension; (c) replacement oflimited life components (stockpile management); (d) warhead safety andsecurity; (e) dismantlement of retired warheads; and (f) arms control andnonproliferation.
 
At its Cold War height, Russia’s nuclear complex consisted of overtwenty major facilities, most important of them spread among ten closednuclear cities, which could produce 3,000-4,000 warheads per year. The complex now consists of eighteen facilities, with a total employmentof about 100,000 (75,000 personnel are in seven closed cities).  Bukharincontrasted this situation with the downsizing of the U.S. complex, whichhas consolidated down to eight facilities, and reduced its personnel fromapproximately 75,000 (in 1985) down to 25,000 (in 1998).
 
Russia has halted production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutoniumfor weapons purposes and has put three cities out of the defense programaltogether.  Warhead production is less than one tenth of Cold Warlevels (now about 200-300 warheads per year).  While there is a large-scalewarhead dismantlement effort underway, defense research and developmenthas declined; there is simply no money for new projects.  Employmentin nuclear weapons institutes in the open cities has contracted to one-thirdCold War levels.

Despite these changes, Russia still maintains twice as many nuclearfacilities and four times as many defense program personnel than the UnitedStates.
 
Minatom’s summer 1998 program for nuclear complex restructuring andconversion called for ending warhead production at two of four facilitiesby 2000, halting warhead dismantlement at two facilities by 2003, andconsolidatingHEU/plutonium component manufacturing at one site and consolidating otherdefense program activities in smaller areas within facilities by an undetermineddate.  By 2004, the plan called for a reduction in the number of defenseprogram personnel in all closed cities to 40,000, and a reduction at theserial production complex from 40,000 to 15,000 workers.  Bukharincharacterized this as a useful first step, but even after the plan isimplementedthe complex would likely have a capacity to manufacture 1,000-2,000 warheadsper year (the U.S. complex is sized to produce 200-300 per year). More work therefore needs to be done to design a plan for further reductionsof the complex.

According to Bukharin, phase two of reductions could include theconsolidationof assembly/disassembly work at one site, and in phase three all warheadactivities could be consolidated at Chelyabinsk-70 (Snezhinsk) and Arzamas-16(Sarov).  Bukharin noted that there have been no significant resultsin the restructuring program to date.
 
Finally, Bukharin listed a number of caveats that will influence Minatom’sability and desire to restructure the weapon complex, including: (1) shortageof funds, (2) limited opportunities for redirection of excess workers,(3) political issues – including up coming election results in the U.S.and Russia and creeping anti-Western sentiment, and (4) arms controluncertainties. With these variables in mind, Bukharin felt that the steady erosion orcollapse of the nuclear complex without consolidation could not be ruledout.

Jack Segal outlined the Clinton Administration’s perspectiveon nonproliferation cooperation with Russia’s nuclear cities.

At the time of Segal’s remarks, the Administration and the Congresswere engaged in a battle over the foreign operations (foreign aid spending)bill, which provides funding for State Department nonproliferationprograms. President Clinton vetoed the bill passed by Congress in part because itwould have drastically reduced funds from the requested amount for assistanceto Russia and the Newly Independent States, including support fornonproliferationactivities.  Segal noted that many members of Congress are supportiveof assistance to the Former Soviet Union and understand the national securitybenefit of the support, while others do not understand that this assistancecontributes to the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He characterized the current deadlock as more of a political battle thana substantive battle.
 
Segal described some of his previous experiences as a U.S. foreignservice officer stationed in Russia, and how these experiences and thepolitical-economic realities have shaped his personal views toward economicre-development efforts there.  He felt it has not and would not workfor the U.S. to rely on high-powered consultants with excessive travelbudgets to go to Russia and tell them how to re-structure their economyand their lives.

Segal segued to a discussion of the President’s proposed Expanded ThreatReduction Initiative (ETRI), which would increase funding over the nextfive years for programs led by the Defense, Energy, and State Departmentsto help contain proliferation risks emanating from Russia and the otherpost-Soviet countries.  Calling ETRI a proven program that will builddown Russian weapons of mass destruction, Segal described the CooperativeThreat Reduction (CTR, aka "Nunn-Lugar") program as "a stroke of genius." Citing several examples of success under CTR and related programs, Segalsaid that since 1992, the U.S. taxpayer has facilitated disassembly of5,000 Russian strategic nuclear weapon delivery systems, assisted relocationof nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, and has helpedengage 30,000 Russian nuclear scientists in productive, peaceful work.

The ETRI seeks to expand and internationalize support for U.S.-Russiannuclear security programs.  Additionally, the ETRI would bolster U.S.-ledprograms to assist NIS countries in elimination of non-nuclear weaponsof mass destruction (WMD), science and technology cooperation, and militaryrelocation and stabilization.
 
The Department of Energy (DOE) is the lead U.S. agency focused on helpingRussia stabilize and downsize its nuclear weapon complex.  The DOErequest for nuclear security work with Russia under ETRI was $265 million,including $60 million designated for two programs helping develop new,non-weapons jobs for Russian nuclear scientists.  Congress appropriated$240 million, with the deepest cuts applied to the Initiatives for ProliferationPrevention (IPP) and the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI).  Both programsreceived funding for fiscal year 2000, but at reduced levels – $22.5 millionfor IPP, and only $7.5 million of the Nuclear Cities Initiative’s $30 millionrequest.  In addition to limiting the number and types of activitiesthe NCI can undertake with the Russian complex next year, this fundinglevel also sends a signal to the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom)that the United States is not seriously interested in helping Russia downsizeand re-develop its nuclear complex.  This could endanger Russianwillingnessto cooperate with the DOE, and could undermine chances for further opennessof the Russian complex.

Segal believed that there are some "very real and legitimate concerns"in Congress behind the funding cuts, stemming from doubts about the efficacyof the approach of the Nuclear Cities Initiative and the implementationof the program.  The Administration shares these concerns, and Segalfelt it is extremely difficult to carry out a program of NCI’s scope andsize in the remote regions in Russia, particularly in cities with strictaccess control.  Calling the problems of Russia’s ten nuclear citiesa "difficult nut to crack," Segal called the nuclear cities closed"institutions"that are organized far differently – culturally, politically, economically– than the U.S. weapon complex.

Under the NCI, the U.S. has so far approached three of the closed citiesas a "pilot project," to become more familiar with the sites.  Hecharacterized NCI’s initial forays to the cities as a difficult, sometimesextremely strange process that has at times strained other parts of theU.S.-Russian relationship.  It has been a hard transition for Minatomto make, and an even more difficult change for the Russian state securityservices (FSB) since these institutions had acted as strict gatekeepersover the complex for decades, prohibiting access to any of the sites andtightly controlling information about activities in the cities.

Now, under the auspices of the NCI, the closed nuclear cities are beingsubjected to "industrial tourism."  In order to become more familiarwith the challenges of the closed cities and to survey potential opportunities,there have been hundreds of requests from the Energy Department, its labs,and others to gain access to cities that have never allowed visitors. Local Russian authorities would like to open up the closed cities and loosenregulations to compete with other Russian cities in the regions that haveno such restrictions.  Yet these desires clash with the extensivesecrecy and security regulations promulgated by the FSB, including a forty-fiveday review period for all foreign visit requests to the closed cities.
 
Stating that the Administration would move ahead and try to make themost of the funds provided by Congress, Segal highlighted the importanceof engaging other nations in the conversion of the Russian nuclear weaponscomplex.  In June, the Administration had its first meeting with otherdonor countries, and in November it plans to join European and Japaneserepresentatives at another meeting in the Hague to prioritize the problemsin the closed cities and identify potential projects other countries couldcarry out in the closed cities.  Segal added that non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) could play a useful role in drawing the attentionof foreign governments to the challenges of the Russian nuclear weaponcomplex, and coaxing them to undertake nonproliferation activities in Russiathat are not included in U.S. efforts.

Madelyn Creedon reviewed Congressional attitudes toward theNCI and U.S. nuclear security work with Russia more broadly, and speculatedas to why Congress cut FY 2000 funding for DOE programs aimed at transformingRussia’s closed cities.  Creedon noted at the outset that she couldnot provide definitive reasons for the funding cuts and new restrictions,but offered to embellish some of the "clues" that might explain Congress’sactions.
 
The first major problem Creedon identified is the fundamental absenceof a strong constituency in Congress for DOE programs.  She contrastedthe lack of DOE support with the fairly strong Congressional backing forthe Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) activities. Even though funding for one of CTR’s major projects – construction of achemical weapons destruction facility in the Russian city of Shchuch’ye– was fiercely opposed by the House and was ultimately cut in the DefenseAuthorization and Appropriations conference bills, these funds werere-distributedto other CTR activities so that the total CTR program cut was minimal. These actions reflect a generally strong level of support across the boardfor the rest of the DOD nonproliferation effort.
 
Creedon attributed much of CTR’s success to Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN),who founded the bipartisan initiative in 1991 with former Senator Sam Nunnand who continues to champion it.  Lugar is seen as "the father" ofCTR, and there is much consultation with him on how that program shouldbe structured.  Lugar has intervened on timely occasions, and hasbeen able to build effective coalitions with other Senators to troubleshootCTR implementation problems and issues, such as pushing the State and DefenseDepartments for prompt certification of CTR funds so that the program isnot slowed down.
 
Creedon described several clues to explain why a constituency supportiveof DOE programs has not taken root on Capitol Hill.

For starters, a February 1999 GAO report that criticized implementationof the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program and raiseddoubts about the ability of the Nuclear Cities Initiative to achieve itsgoals provoked a Congressional backlash.  The conference report forthe fiscal year 2000 Defense Authorization Act and the House Energy andWater Appropriations Act cite the GAO report and use its findings to justifynew restrictions on and deep funding cuts to both the IPP and NCI programs.
 
At the same time, other committees without jurisdiction over EnergyDepartment programs have vied to direct how DOE’s nonproliferation effortsare managed.  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by SenatorJesse Helms (R-NC), in particular has shown a stronger hand in shapingDOE’s work with the Russian weapon complex.  Senator Helms requestedthe GAO report mentioned above, and the Foreign Relations Committee’s increasingassertiveness may signal the beginning of increased competition betweenit and the Armed Services Committee and the Energy and Water AppropriationsSubcommittee.
 
There is Congressional concern overall about the management of theNuclear Cities Initiative and whether it has a real chance for success. Many of these concerns stem from over a year ago, when the NCI was unveiledwith a good deal of fanfare and money, but with little explanation of itsplans, goals, and strategy.  Creedon felt that the NCI was still carryingthis baggage, and that it has a "doubly hard effort" to show that thereis a workable program plan, and that this plan will result in the "seriousemployment" of the scientists in the closed cities in a way that will allowthe Russian government to close weapon facilities.  As a result ofCongressional concerns about NCI’s attempt to do too much, too quicklyin the closed cities, the Defense Authorizers decided to limit NCI’s scopenext year to only three Russian nuclear cities and two serial productionplants.
 
Creedon felt the appropriation for NCI was no doubt a big blow theEnergy Department, particularly since the cut is one of the biggest ona percentage basis for all the programs under ETRI.
 
Creedon noted the pages of criticisms directed toward the NCI and IPPin the defense authorization conference report, including restrictionson the amount of money that can go to U.S. laboratories, prohibitions onthe payment of Russian taxes, and expressions of concern about how littlemoney is going to Russian scientists.  Creedon says she also seesconfusion in both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees aboutthe goals of IPP program, which was designed to get support to both Russianinstitutes and scientists.  She noted a declining Congressional interestin general in seeing U.S. funds go through Russian institutes.  Tothe extent there is support for IPP, Congress’s preference is to see fundsgo more directly to individuals.

Looking down the road, Creedon suggested that the first thing to bedone is for the Energy Department to build a constituency in the Senateand the House, and outside of Congress, comparable to the level of supportthat CTR receives.  A constituency of this sort is vital to demonstratethat there is interest in the NCI and other DOE programs, that there aresuccesses, and that there are real plans.  In a related area, oneof DOE’s major obstacles is that it does not have a good metric for measuringits accomplishments in the Russian nuclear cities, making it more difficultto convey the value of these programs to Congress.  The DefenseDepartment’sCTR program, on the other hand, has a relatively simple concrete metric,such as the number of missiles that have been destroyed or dismantled. The Energy Department needs a comparable yardstick of judging its performancethat is easy for Members of Congress and their staff to grasp.

The confusion about the NCI’s goals and plans has caused some in Congressto question whether the Energy Department is the best agency to implementthe program, despite the agency’s technical competence and all of the accessit has achieved in the closed cities.  While Creedon disagrees, someMembers have argued that the Commerce Department might be better suitedto oversee the Initiative.  In Creedon’s mind, Congressional doubtsabout DOE’s ability to run a large commercialization program should betreated as a significant warning sign.  It is important for the ExecutiveBranch to get all of the Departments involved in the NCI, and that resourcesare brought to bear to NCI from each agency in order to show Congress thatit is a focused, strategic program.

Finally, Creedon noted that industry could be a strong advocate forthe NCI and related programs on the Hill.  Demonstrating private sectorinvolvement in the Initiative and industry "success stories" from the closedcities would carry a lot of weight with Congress, even those success storiesthat create alternative commercial jobs for only a handful of nuclear scientistsand workers in the closed cities.

Paolo Cotta-Ramusino described European interest in Russia’snuclear cities and the possible creation of a European "Nuclear CitiesInitiative."  As a departure point for his presentation he posed thequestion, "What has Europe done to assist the Russian nuclear weapon complex,and why isn’t that enough?"
 
Cotta-Ramusino described the prevailing European perspective on Russiannuclear security as a strictly bilateral U.S.-Russia problem.  Europeis largely passive on this and other large, global issues.  The reportsof smuggling over the last nine years have not brought Russian nuclearproliferation to the forefront of the European mind.  Since no significantsmuggling cases have been reported since 1994, many Europeans are underthe impression that the dangers have dissipated.   Thus, theefforts to downsize the Russian complex and secure Russian nuclear materialsare seen as assistance problems rather than as urgent security issues requiringglobal attention.  As a result, Europe is doing little to help withthe transformation of the Russian nuclear complex.  While the U.S.contributes $1 billion a year to control nuclear weapons, Europe as a wholeis only contributing about a 50% equivalent of the total ISTC budget ($34million).  The European Union (EU) has provided a total of $1 billionover the past seven years to the TACIS program (which provides developmentassistance and technical training to the CIS), yet the EU has a higherGNP than the United States.
 
Cotta-Ramusino believes that the disproportionate funding levels aredue more to political circumstances than economics.  European governmentsneed to be sensitized to the crises brewing inside the Russian weapon complexand the potential impact of Russian nuclear instability on European securityin order to secure more European aid.  Toward that end, Cotta-Ramusinoproposed creating a European Nuclear Cities Initiative (ENCI) to call Europeanattention to the difficulties facing the Russian nuclear complex, and toleverage greater European resources in the conversion effort.

Cotta-Ramusino indicated that the Europeans are generally more sympatheticthan Americans to the whole notion of converting defense enterprises toalternative, commercial production, and that therefore there should bea good philosophical fit between European interests and the objectivesof the NCI.  He stressed, however, that U.S. resources remain criticalto the effort, and that the idea behind the ENCI is not to compete withthe U.S. program, but to cooperate with it.

This cooperation might include ENCI carrying out activities that complementthe U.S. program, or conducting projects that the Nuclear Cities Initiativehas chosen not to emphasize.  For example, Cotta-Ramusino noted thatEuropean countries could focus on joint environmental clean-up researchwith the closed cities (an area which the U.S. program has not activelyembraced) or decommissioning of nuclear submarines, as well as helpingfacilitate worker transitions to other high-tech fields, such as computerprogramming (which is more in line with the NCI’s current objectives).

Cotta-Ramusino argued that certain requirements should be stressed inthe administration of European efforts to help the Russian complex. He noted that some programs, like TACIS, are afflicted by a number ofbureaucraticconstraints, which need to be minimized in order to save time and reducemanagement costs.  Ha said activities under a European NCI shouldbe careful not to adopt a heavy bureaucratic structure, and that they shouldremain flexible to allow for creative thinking and for different arrangementsthat can bring the most resources to bear on the problems in the closedcities.
 
Following the November meeting at the Hague between the U.S., European,and Japanese governments mentioned by Jack Segal, the Landau Network-CentroVolta will convene a conference in Rome in mid-December to further discussa possible European role.  The conference plans to draw about 70 peopleincluding European government officials, European analysts, American experts,U.S. government and lab representatives, scientists from the Russian nuclearcities, and various European industries.

Ken Luongo expressed concerns and uncertainties about the currentdirection of the NCI, and questioned whether the activities it has emphasizedso far have been particularly effective.  Many officials andnonproliferationobservers have expressed concern about the instability within the Russianclosed cities, and the U.S. government has undertaken over the past severalyears a variety of "band aid" programs to deal with the short-term risksof "brain drain."  But the fundamental question of how to help facilitatea full-scale transformation and downsizing of the Russian complex has notbeen attacked systematically until the last year and a half under the NCI.

Luongo took issue with the way in which the NCI program has been configuredby the Energy Department, arguing that the current strategy and plan isa significant departure from the NCI "blueprint" put forward by thenon-governmentalcommunity two years ago.  Instead of adopting the whole blueprint,which advocated activities in multiple areas – economic development,nonproliferationresearch, joint environmental clean-up technology development – the governmentonly adopted a narrow segment of the plan, placing priority on creationof sustainable civilian jobs in the nuclear cities.  Luongo is notconvinced that this narrow focus is the right path since leveraging newcommercial investment in the closed cities is the most difficult objectiveand because it may take some time for these activities to demonstrate tangiblesuccesses.

Luongo identified the various programs and actors currently focusedon the Russian nuclear complex:

• Nuclear Cities Initiative ($15million last year; $7.5 million next year)
• Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, IPP (about $22.5 million)
• International Science and Technology Centers, ISTC (about $20 million)
• U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, CRDF (outsidegovernment)
• European Effort, ENCI
• U.S. non-governmental organization and university efforts

Luongo essentially agreed with Bukharin that the Russian nuclear complexcan go one of three ways: (1) rapid consolidation, (2) gradual consolidation,or (3) nothing happens, and the complex decays over time or collapses. At this point in time, with a combination of low funding, fighting amonggovernment agencies, and questionable programmatic priorities, there isa possibility that U.S. efforts to facilitate consolidation will fail,and the Russian complex will continue to deteriorate under its own weight.
 
There is a misconception that Minatom cannot be dealt with and thatit will resist cooperation between its nuclear cities and the U.S. Luongo declared that there is, in actuality, an unnatural willingness inMinatom to participate in the NCI; Minatom wants to downsize its complex,shut down its facilities, and develop new opportunities for its scientistsand workers, but it needs help to achieve these objectives.
 
However, because the NCI budget has been severely cut for next year,political support for the Initiative within Minatom is eroding.  Luongoadded that the Energy Department has been hobbled in the wake of the Chinesenuclear espionage scandal, including new limitations on its exchanges withforeign labs, and the reorganization of the Department’s nuclear weaponsprograms.  In short, Luongo felt that DOE could not solely carry theburden of assisting Russia with the transformation of its weapon complex. He noted that the ISTC could do a lot, that it has a capable office inMoscow, and is interested in helping create employment opportunities inenvironmental and energy issues.  The CRDF is another example of aneffective organization that is helping stimulate joint ventures betweenRussian scientists and corporations in the U.S.  Finally, Minatomhas endorsed and given positive feedback on a RANSAC proposal to createa university/NGO consortium which would (with foundation funding) undertakeactivities within the closed cities that complement what is being doneon an official level under the NCI.
 
Luongo closed out the session by underscoring that this moment in historyprovides us with a window of opportunity to transform Russia’s nuclearcomplex.  Unfortunately, this window is slowly closing, and it isnot clear the existing efforts are well enough oriented to have the greatestimpact.  After the elections in Russia and the U.S. next year, itis difficult to predict if the same opportunities for involvement andcooperationwill be available.