Seven years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the vast nuclear weaponscomplex Russia inherited is teetering on the brink of economiccollapse.

The continuing economic crisis in Russia and the Russian government'sempty coffers worsen the situation in the 10 "nuclear cities,"which house three-quarters of a million people and remain fenced off fromthe outside world. The economic meltdown in these cities increases therisks of theft of nuclear materials or that experts will provide theirknowledge to help Third World nuclear-weapons programs.

Moreover, the gigantic size of Russia's nuclear complex means thatRussiacould still produce new nuclear weapons at Cold War rates that no othercountry could match, should political and economic circumstances radicallychange.

In short, the United States has several urgent reasons to collaboratewith Russia on the economic stabilization and downsizing of its nuclearcomplex-a downsizing that is also in Russia's interests.

Patriotism and empty pockets

While residents of the "closed cities" once received the bestof everything the Soviet Union had to offer, they have shared the pain butnot the benefits of reform. With the post-Cold War collapse of stateorders for nuclear weapons, budgets have been slashed. Wages are far belowwhat is needed to maintain workers' previous standard of living, and theyare paid months late. Desperate to keep their people paid, the facilitieshave taken out high-interest loans from Russian banks, but have no meansto repay them.

In late 1996, Vladimir Nechai, director of Chelyabinsk-70, one ofRussia'stwo nuclear weapons design centers, killed himself. A suicide notereportedlysaid that Nechai could no longer watch his life's work fall apart; he wasashamed to face the people at his center who had not been paid for fivemonths.

The situation today, unfortunately, is much the same. Last February,Viktor Mikhailov, then head of the Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom),reported in a press conference that 1997 had been the worst year ever forfinancing the nuclear complex; it had received only half the money promisedin the budget.

By spring, many at the key nuclear weapons institutes were moredesperatethan ever. They had not been paid in more than seven months and had usedup what was left from the flush years of the Cold War. On July 23,thousandsof workers at Russia's premier nuclear weapons lab-Arzamas-16-went onstrike,protesting the government's failure to provide the institute's promisedfunds.

Only the intense pride and patriotism of Russian nuclear experts hasprevented a proliferation catastrophe. At a time when virtually everythingelse in Russia is for sale on the black market, there is an increasing riskthat the barrier of security and discipline protecting Russia's nuclearmaterials will erode.

Fortunately, there is some hope for improvement. Russia recognizes thatit no longer needs and can no longer afford such a giant nuclear weaponscomplex. Some fissile material production facilities have already beenredirectedto commercial work. In his February press conference, Mikhailov announcedthat three major facilities, including two of the four plants used for theassembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons, will be completely out ofmilitarywork by the year 2000.

Also, the nuclear cities themselves, long totally controlled fromMoscow,are working on their own to shift to new lines of work, using taxincentivesto draw new businesses and to create special funds to finance the startupof new private enterprises.

The reform effort received a boost last March, when Vice PresidentAlbertGore and then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced a"NuclearCities Initiative" to promote conversion in Russia's nuclear cities.The initiative came, in significant part, in response to therecommendationsof the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (ransac), inwhichthree of us-Bunn, Luongo, and von Hippel-participate along with Russiancolleagues, including Evgeniy Avrorin, Nechai's successor.

Federico Pena, then U.S. secretary of energy, and Russia's newminister of atomic energy, Evgeniy Adamov, quickly followed up theGore-Chernomyrdinannouncement with a joint statement outlining the basics of the newapproach.In a government-to-government meeting on the new initiative in Washingtonon July 9, the two sides established an interagency task force to move theeffort forward, and they began discussing funding of specific projects.

On July 24, Gore and Russia's new prime minister, Sergei Kirienko,endorsedthe new initiative and announced their intention to start several majorprojects in the nuclear cities during the remainder of the year.

Achieving the goals of the Nuclear Cities Initiative, however, willrequirean integrated, comprehensive strategy, including both private-sectordevelopmentand concrete steps to address the post-Cold War nuclear challengesRussiafaces.

Some of the tens of thousands of excess nuclear scientists and workersshould be redirected to the tasks of nonproliferation, arms control,managementand disposition of surplus fissile materials, and environmental cleanup.There are opportunities for increased U.S.-Russian cooperation in each ofthese areas. But for the majority of the residents of the nuclear cities,the creation of private-sector jobs is the only long-term answer.

The cities

Built between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, Russia's Cold Warnuclearweapons complex was even more oversized than its huge U.S. analog. Thebiggestfacilities are located in the 10 nuclear cities, although other nuclearweapons-related institutes are scattered throughout Russia-includingMoscow.Of the roughly 730,000 people who live in the closed cities, some 130,000actually work in the key nuclear facilities. The cities are:

• Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70, where the weapons-design laboratories are located. (Arzamas-16 also has a warhead-production plant.)
• Penza-19, Sverdlovsk-45, and Zlatoust-36, which containwarhead-production plants.
• Krasnoyarsk-26, Kransnoyarsk-45, Tomsk-7, Chelyabinsk-65, andSverdlovsk-44, where highly enriched uranium and plutonium were produced.

These names are taken from post office box numbers in nearby"open" cities -- in Soviet times the very existence of the nuclear citieswassecret.The cities now have real names, but they are still commonly known by their"box" numbers. Even today, the nuclear cities and largesurroundingareas are enclosed by double fences, with the perimeters patrolled by armedguards of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Access is restricted andcontrolledby the Federal Security Service.

The nuclear facilities inside the cities lie within even more tightlycontrolled security zones. At Krasnoyarsk-26, where the madness of the ColdWar reached a peak, the plutonium production complex, including threereactors,is located 600 feet beneath a mountain. That way, it could continue toproduceplutonium even after a nuclear war had laid waste to the surface.

Controlled access and armed troops once protected the nuclearinstallationsfrom foreign spies and sabotage. Today, they help limit the influence ofcriminal organizations, which have become ubiquitous elsewhere in Russia.But isolation also insulates the cities from important changes in Russia,including many of the opportunities arising from economic reform.

New realities

Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, state orders fornuclear weapons began to decline and the nuclear weapons missions of thenuclear cities began to change. For example, the fissile-materialproductionfacilities are no longer needed to produce new materials for bombs; nowthey must provide secure storage for and disposal of excess weaponsmaterials.

Warhead production facilities are now mostly devoted to dismantlingnuclearwarheads, but their workload will decline as work on the 10-20,000nuclearweapons retired in the early 1990s is completed. Meanwhile, the weaponsdesign institutes are trying to maintain the continuing safety andreliabilityof Russia's reduced arsenal. But all these tasks require many fewer workersthan were employed during the Cold War.

In his February press conference, Mikhailov said that the registeredunemployment rate in Russia's nuclear cities averaged about 3.5 percentin 1997. But Russia's State Statistics Committee estimates that the realunemployment rate in Russia is at least three times the official figure.Beyond that is the real morale-shattering problem of the nuclear cities,underemployment.

At two nuclear weapons institutes located in Moscow, two-thirds of thestaff have reportedly left for better-paid jobs. The staff of the mainweaponsinstitutes at Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 could shrink by a similarfraction-ifother employment opportunities were available to their workers.

But very little alternative employment is available in the nuclearcitiesand most people do not have enough money to buy apartments in "open"cities such as Moscow, where jobs can be found. Fearful of a socialexplosion,the institute directors avoid layoffs and try to stretch the availablefundsto support their entire staff, which means that salaries are bothinsufficientand intermittent for almost everyone. In the absence of consolidation, therisk increases that the long-feared nuclear leakage may finally begin.

Each of the nuclear cities is unique and faces a somewhat differentsituation.The fissile-material production centers in Sverdlovsk-44, Krasnoyarsk-45,Tomsk-7, and Chelyabinsk- 65 are generally less desperate because they havesubstantial income from blending down highly enriched uranium for theU.S.-Russianuranium purchase agreement, as well as from foreign contracts forcommercialnuclear services.

The warhead assembly/disassembly cities are probably in desperatestraits,but they are considered particularly sensitive by Russia's securityservicesand are closed to virtually all interactions with non-Russian entities.

Krasnoyarsk-26 is no longer paid for the weapons-grade plutonium itcontinuesto produce from the production reactor, which is still needed to provideheat and power to the city's residents. It, along with Arzamas-16 andChelyabinsk-70,should be targeted by the Nuclear Cities Initiative-along with the nuclearweapons assembly/ disassembly cities, if access to them becomespossible.

Self-Help

The city governments of the nuclear cities and the facilities themselvesare desperately struggling to find new sources of income to keep theircommunitiesafloat. They have mounted a number of conversion projects on their own andthere have been a few glimmers of success.

A large plant that produces video and audio tape for basf, aGerman-basedmultinational, has been built in Krasnoyarsk-45, financed in part by thesale of low-enriched uranium; a Korean firm recently announced a $43millioninvestment in diamond-cutting capabilities at Arzamas-16; Intel, a U.S.firm, has a contract with scientists at Arzamas-16 to work on softwarerelatedto new computer chips; and in May, Microsoft's chief technology officer,Nathan Myhrvold, led a mission to some of the closed cities, prospectingfor opportunities for low-cost software development.

Some nuclear cities also have exploited a break in the Russian tax law.In Russia, most taxes go to the federal government, with only a small partremaining with city governments. In contrast, closed cities are allowedto keep virtually all the tax receipts collected within their boundaries-aprovision that was designed to help them through these hard times.

The cities have used this provision to create "investmentzones"where businesses that register within the city get a substantial tax break,even if their operations are located elsewhere. But the tax break expiresat the end of the year, and with the central government under pressure fromthe International Monetary Fund to collect more taxes, prospects for itsrenewal are not bright.

Arzamas-16 took advantage of the provision by having companiesregisteredwithin its investment zone pay a fraction of their tax savings into fundsto finance the startup of new private businesses, municipal infrastructure,and police protection.

Managers of the new-business start-up fund assert that its books aretransparent, that all lending decisions are made on the basis of carefullyreviewed business plans, and that none of the money goes to the nuclearfacility. More than a hundred businesses have registered in the Arzamas-16investment zone. As a result, the city government is in far betterfinancialshape than the nuclear facility.

Overall, however, few conversion efforts have been successful. Thenuclearcities may have many outstanding scientists and engineers, but few havebusiness experience. Moreover, the obstacles to investment in the closedcities are great-tight restrictions on access, limited information aboutcapabilities, remote locations, and significant political risks.

To have any hope of creating enough alternative employment for the largenumber of people no longer needed for weapons work, a concerted effortneedsto be made to create a more investment-friendly environment. This willrequirethe Russian government, the U.S. government, and the private sector to workclosely together.

Foreign Help

The United States and other countries have launched a variety ofcooperativenuclear programs with Russia, which now represent a small but importantsource of income for the nuclear cities. (In meetings in Moscow in May1997,the directors of Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70 told us that in 1996 theseprograms provided their two institutes with seven and nine percent of theirbudgets, respectively.) The two broad areas of cooperation are:

Securing and reducing nuclear materials stockpiles. By far thebiggest source of income for Russia's nuclear complex from U.S. programsis the uranium purchase agreement. This arrangement reduces stocks ofweapons-usablematerial, provides a valuable commercial product to the United States,provideshard currency for Russia, and gives an economic incentive to continuedismantlingnuclear weapons-all at virtually no net cost to the U.S. taxpayer, becausethe purchase price is recouped by selling the blended-down material on thecommercial market.

The annual income from this deal is hundreds of millions of dollars,although how much finds its way to the facilities doing the work-ratherthan being spent on other projects by the central government or by Minatomheadquarters-is not publicly known.

The next most important program in this category is the MaterialProtection,Control, and Accounting program, under which U.S. and Russian expertscooperateto install systems to insure that all the plutonium and highly enricheduranium in Russia is secure and accounted for. Progress in this effort isaccelerating rapidly, with a 1998 budget of $137 million. In 1997,$10-20million of the program's funds were spent in the nuclear cities on laborand equipment; this year the amount will be greater. However, funding isscheduled to decline after 1999.

The U.S. Defense Department, under the Nunn-Lugar program, is alsofundingconstruction of a secure storage facility for weapons-grade material atChelyabinsk-65, with some of the money spent on labor and materialsprocuredin that city.

In the next few years, hundreds of workers could be put to work in theU.S.-Russian program to convert the three operating plutonium productionreactors at Tomsk-7 and Krasnoyarsk-26 so they generate heat and powerwithoutproducing separated plutonium as a now-unwanted byproduct. And, should theg-7 countries provide the financing, the disposition of Russia's excessweapons plutonium could become a major new mission for a few of theplutoniumcities.

Civilian research and development. The International Science andTechnology Center was established in Moscow in 1992 by the United States,the European Union, and Japan to underwrite civilian research by scientistswho formerly worked on the development of weapons of mass destruction.Currently,the center's expenditures in the nuclear cities total about $10 millionannually and support about a thousand scientists there, primarily atArzamas-16and Chelyabinsk-70.

The Industrial Partnership Program-now called Initiatives forProliferationPrevention-was established within the U.S. Energy Department in 1994 touse experts at its national labs to facilitate joint ventures between U.S.companies and technical institutes in the former Soviet Union.

Funding for fiscal year 1998 totals $30 million, but only a smallfractionis being spent in the closed cities-principally in Arzamas-16 andChelyabinsk-70-andthe Clinton administration's 1999 budget request to Congress for thisinitiativewas only $15 million.

The Defense Enterprise Fund- now called the Global Partners Venture-wasestablished by the Defense Department to invest in defense conversion inthe former Soviet Union. Since 1994 it has received a total of $71 millionin Nunn-Lugar funds, which are now fully committed.

Its only project in the closed cities is a joint effort with theIndustrialPartnership Program to develop a business plan for a proposed $200 millionplant in Krasnoyarsk-26, which would produce purified silicon for theRussianelectronics industry and for export abroad. The project has receivedpoliticaland financial backing from the government of the Krasnoyarsk region, butit still needs to find a strategic partner and investor.

A Strategy for Change

The United States and Russia need to mount a more focused andmultifacetedprogram that would more directly help Russia restructure its nuclearweaponscomplex. The Nuclear Cities Initiative announced by Gore and Chernomyrdinin March should be structured around a coordinated plan, with new fundingfor targeted initiatives in four key areas: nonproliferation and armsreduction,nuclear cleanup technology, private sector development, and downsizing.

Such a strategy would require resources. In June, two senators-PeteDomenici,a Republican from New Mexico, and Joseph Biden, a Democrat fromDelaware-attachedan amendment to the Energy and Water appropriations bill setting aside $45million for efforts to promote conversion in Russia's nuclear cities-$15million in additional funding for Energy's Industrial Partnership Program,and $30 million for the Nuclear Cities Initiative itself.

At the Bulletin's deadline in late July, however, it was uncertain howmuch of this funding would survive the House-Senate conference on thebill.

Nonproliferation and arms reduction. At an April workshop inMoscowwith senior Minatom officials and leaders of the Russian nuclear labs, weworked out a broad agenda of potential cooperative work relating to nuclearnonproliferation and arms reduction. The work would range from improvingexport controls to reconciling the differences between U.S. and Russiannuclear secrecy requirements, which impede cooperation.

Weapons laboratories in the United States have already shifted hundredsof weapons experts to specialized centers or divisions focused onnonproliferationand arms reduction programs, providing a broad range of technical supportfor U.S. policy-makers and for international organizations such as theInternationalAtomic Energy Agency.

For example, when a U.S. company requests a license for anuclear-relatedexport, the request is sent to the U.S. national labs, which analyze itagainst databases of sensitive technologies involved in nuclear weaponsprograms and recipients of concern. At present, the Russian government doesnot have a comparable database system to help it make export decisions-butit would be very much in the U.S. interest for Russia to have such asystem.

A central goal of increased cooperation should be to help build upcentersof expertise at the Russian labs to provide similar support to the Russiangovernment. Initial U.S. government support of such centers would have tobe coupled to products of direct interest to the United States. Over time,however, as the Russian labs succeed in demonstrating the importance ofthese capabilities and Russia's economy improves, the Russian governmentshould become the principal customer.

As a first step, the United States should underwrite fellowships forexperts from Russian institutes to visit national laboratories anduniversitiesthat work on nonproliferation and arms control. The fellows would gaininsightinto how the national laboratories operate in these areas, and-whilevisitinguniversities-they could learn how non-governmental analysts contribute topolicy-making. Princeton University and Sandia National Laboratory arecooperatingin a pilot effort by hosting two scientists from Chelyabinsk-70 during the1998-99 academic year.

To initiate these efforts, we recommend that $10 million of the 1999budget of the Energy Department's Office of Nonproliferation and NationalSecurity be set aside for expanding these cooperative nonproliferation andarms reduction programs.

Nuclear cleanup technology. Nuclear cleanup is another key areaof common interest. The nuclear complexes in both countries-particularlythe plutonium production facilities face contamination problems that willcost hundreds of billions of dollars to address.

The United States spends roughly $300 million per year developing newcleanup technologies. A small portion of this research and developmenteffortshould be contracted to Russian experts.

While U.S. laboratory or commercial experts, fully loaded with benefitsand overhead, can cost the U.S. government $250,000 per year, the cost ofa senior Russian scientist is in the range of $10,000 per year. Further,contaminated Russian facilities can be used as test-beds for new cleanuptechnology. This would be a "win-win-win" scenario, in which theUnited States would get technology developed at far lower cost; Russiannuclear experts would get interesting and useful jobs; and Russia wouldbe able to use the technology developed to help clean up its complex aswell.

There is already a small U.S.-Russian program, which has spent about$10 million cumulatively since 1992 in this area-although little of it hasgone to the nuclear cities. We recommend that this effort be substantiallyexpanded. As a first step, it would make sense to set aside roughly$5­10million of 1999 funding for the development of nuclear cleanup technology.That would put 500-1,000 Russian experts to work.

Private sector development. While high-tech research anddevelopmentfunded by the International Science and Technology Center and IndustrialPartnership Program is important, it is not enough. Neither of theseprogramshas yet succeeded in fostering the establishment of a singleself-sustainingcommercial enterprise employing a significant number of people in a nuclearcity.

In any case, the bulk of future private sector employment in thesecitieswill not necessarily be high-tech. Small businesses-most of them low-tech-have provided one of the few bright spots in Russia's largely stalledeconomy.By some estimates, small business employment in Russia had grown from 6.6million in 1994 to 13 million-or 13 percent of Russia's workforce-by1997.

Russian nuclear-city officials estimate that some 30,000 jobs need tobe created in the nuclear cities over the next few years to employ excessnuclear workers, and that a combination of public and private investmenttotalling almost $1 billion might be necessary. (In fact, the number ofnew jobs needed may be even larger. Some experts estimate that two-thirdsof the entire workforce at the nuclear facilities- more than 80,000people-ultimatelywill not be retained.)

During discussions in July, city and Minatom officials proposed a jointprogram involving $100 million each from the U.S. and Russian governments.The program would be designed to leverage several times that amount inprivateinvestment

What is needed now is for both governments, working closely with theprivate sector, to flesh out the reality behind these preliminaryestimates.Both governments should finance some initial projects-after expert reviewby people in firms with experience in private business, not just bygovernmentofficials and laboratory scientists.

The private sector will have to be front and center in any suchinitiative.As Senators Biden and Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, recentlysuggested, the administration should use the power of persuasion to pulltogether a high-level private-sector team that could assess thecapabilitiesand potential opportunities in the nuclear cities, identify promisingprojects,and make recommendations for steps that governments could take to fosterinvestment and reduce barriers to private-sector growth.

In short, the primary role of the U.S. and Russian governments in theNuclear Cities Initiative would be to facilitate efforts by the privatesector. This will require a range of steps that go well beyond researchand development. The governments will have to work together-ideally inconcertwith other governments and international financial institutions, such asthe World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development(EBRD)-to break down the barriers to, and provide incentives for, privateinvestment. If done properly, a little bilateral and multilateral moneycould leverage a lot of private investment.

Meanwhile, Russia's central and local governments need to create anenterprise-friendlyclimate in the nuclear cities, providing information, clarifying tax andproperty-rights issues, cutting through the legal tangles for possibleinvestors,and-where necessary-negotiating new legislation.

The central and local governments should, for instance, provideinformationconcerning the expertise and infrastructure available and the businessesalready in place in each nuclear city, to help interested businesses knowwhere they might look to invest.

They should also loosen restrictions on physical access. Some projectshave already been able to negotiate multiple-entry permits, so that 45-dayadvance notice is no longer required every time a foreign participant needsto visit a facility in a nuclear city.

Over time, however, the nuclear cities will have to become more open,with the perimeter security around the individual nuclear facilitiesbecomingthe principal line of defense, rather than a fence around the entire city.Local law enforcement will have to be beefed up to help limit thepenetrationof organized crime.

On a broader level, international financial institutions should helpstimulate private-sector growth by providing money for:

• Market research, feasibility studies, and preparation of businessplans.
• Investment missions to bring business executives to the closed cities to explore possible investment opportunities, and other assistance inmaking connections with potential investors.
• Equity investment funds and revolving credit lines to provide theinitial capital to start up new businesses, and loan guarantees and politicalrisk insurance to reduce the risks faced by private investors.

This complex program cannot be implemented through occasional visits.In-depth, on-the-ground training by Russian speakers with experience doingbusiness in Russia needs to be provided to give people in the nuclearcitiesthe tools they need to translate their ideas and energy into successfulbusinesses.

A business assistance team is needed in each targeted nuclear city. Eachteam should include a project manager, an investment officer, a scientistor engineer with experience in industry, a business development consultantwith significant work experience in Russia, and a lawyer with experiencein international and Russian corporate law.

It would also make sense to establish permanent business trainingcentersto help foster the creation of new businesses, and to provide consultingservices to help those businesses overcome problems as they arise.

Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank's International FinanceCorporation and the ebrd could sponsor such teams and business centers.They are chartered by the international community to promote private-sectorgrowth and have demonstrated track records of doing so-including hundredsof millions of dollars in investments and in financing for investmentswithinRussia.

These institutions have already created regional business centers inother parts of the former Soviet Union. With sufficient support from theUnited States and other governments, they could also establish a smallinvestmentfund to help provide initial start-up capital for new enterprises in thenuclear cities.

We estimate the total cost of funding business assistance teams andbusinesscenters in three nuclear cities for two years at about $20 million. TheU.S. government should set aside roughly $10 million of its 1999 fundingfor economic assistance in Russia for activities in the nuclear cities.It should also direct the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation(OPIC)and encourage the World Bank Group to make loan guarantees and politicalrisk insurance available for investments. And it should also direct opicand other agencies to organize investment and trade missions to the closedcities.

Downsizing the complex. These initiatives may make it possibleto shrink Russia's nuclear weapons complex from its Cold War size whileemploying the tens of thousands of workers the complex no longer needs.Doing so is in Russia's interest, because a smaller complex would be moreefficient and sustainable in meeting Russia's post­Cold Warrequirements.And it is certainly in the U.S. interest to insure that nuclear armsreductionscould not be rapidly reversed.

In the past, Minatom has sought to maintain its gigantic empire. Now,however, its officials recognize that a major downsizing is needed, andthey are asking for more information on how the United States isconsolidatingits complex.

This discussion has begun at the "lab-to-lab" level, whereit has been established in recent years that productive exchanges can occuron the most sensitive topics. The goal of the dialogue should be to helpMinatom develop a feasible plan to downsize the Russian complex to a levelthat matches its new missions and is sustainable.

Molding all of these disparate initiatives-from nonproliferation andcleanup cooperation, to private-sector development, to complex downsizing-into a coherent, effective, and sustained restructuring will requirehigh-levelleadership in both Russia and the United States. Success is notassured.

On the Russian side, Minatom's Adamov has appointed an energetic andcapable adviser for the Nuclear Cities Initiative, reporting directly tohim. Making U.S. support for this effort effective will require strongleadershipfrom a similar high-level, full-time central coordinator, and sustainedsupport from the White House. Serious business expertise should be broughtto bear on the business-promotion task, something that has not yet beendone.

Making the Nuclear Cities Initiative work will also require sustainedinvestment by both governments. If they are preserved in conference, thefunds set aside by Senators Domenici and Biden would be enough to make asubstantial start on the monumental task of shrinking the Russian nuclearweapons complex and redirecting its workers to productive civilian tasks.But these funds would need to be combined with other U.S. governmentresourcessuch as opic guarantees and Energy Department environmental technologydevelopmentfunding, matched by Russian government support.

High Stakes

The effort proposed here could make a genuine difference in key areasand demonstrate the U.S. commitment to easing Russia's transition. Tosustainsupport both in the U.S. Congress and in Russia, however, it is absolutelycrucial to achieve some tangible successes in the first 12-18months.

The nonproliferation stakes could hardly be higher. Nothing the UnitedStates does to build improved security systems for fissile material islikelyto be enough if workers with access to that material and the guards whorun the security systems continue to go unpaid for months at a time, andthe economies of the nuclear cities continue to collapse around them.

And nothing else the United States can do to prevent nuclearproliferationwill be enough if the essential ingredients of nuclear bombs-and theexpertiseneeded to make them-become available on a nuclear black market.

After the funeral of Vladimir Nechai, Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader ofthe liberal Yabloko party, wrote in the New York Times: "At thefuneral,I could not look at these people without compassion. Here was the prideof Russian science; here were the physicists of world stature, dressed intheir threadbare jackets and faded shirts with frayed cuffs."

Did Moscow not understand, Yavlinsky asked, "how dangerous it isto drive people who hold the nuclear arsenal in their hands to thisstate?"The same question could be asked of Washington.