The Missing Link? Nuclear Proliferation and the International Mobility of Russian Nuclear Experts UNIDIR/95/27
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RESEARCH PAPERS/TRAVAUX DE RECHERCHE NE 35 The Missing Link? Nuclear Proliferation and the International Mobility of Russian Nuclear Experts UNIDIR/95/27 UNIDIR United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research Geneva RESEARCH PAPER NE 35 August 1995 The Missing Link? Nuclear Proliferation and the International Mobility of Russian Nuclear Experts* Dorothy S. Zinberg** ** Dorothy S. Zinberg, Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University UNITED NATIONS New York and Geneva, 1995 NOTE The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. * * * The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations Secretariat. UNIDIR/95/27 UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION Sales No. GV.E.95.0.18 ISBN 92-9045-104-1 ISSN 1014-4013 Preface The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), which has been in existence since 1 October 1980, was established by the General Assembly as an autonomous institution within the framework of the United Nations to carry out independent research on disarmament and related international security issues. The Institute's work, which is based on the provisions of the Final Document of the Tenth Session of the General Assembly, aims at: 1. Providing the international community with more diversified and complete data on problems relating to international security, the armaments race and disarmament in all fields, particularly in the nuclear field, so as to facilitate progress, through negotiations, towards greater security for all States, and towards the economic and social development of all peoples; 2. Promoting informed participation by all States in disarmament efforts; 3. Assisting on-going negotiations on disarmament and continuing efforts being made to ensure greater international security at a progressively lower level of armaments, particularly nuclear armaments, by means of objective and factual studies and analyses; 4. Carrying out more in-depth, forward looking and long-term research on disarmament so as to provide a general insight to the problems involved, and stimulating new initiatives for new negotiations. In publishing this series of research papers, UNIDIR wishes to make available to the international diplomatic as well as scientific community analyses prepared by the staff of the Institute or persons working within its framework who express their personal points of view on current questions. The papers will deal with a very broad range of subjects and will vary in scope, depending on the evolution of security, disarmament and arms limitation problems, as well as on the specialization of the authors, although it will invariably be related to the Institute's programme of work. UNIDIR takes no position on the views and conclusions expressed in these papers which are those of their authors. Nevertheless, UNIDIR considers that such papers merit publication and recommends them to the attention of its readers. Sverre Lodgaard Director, UNIDIR iii Table of Contents Page Introduction ................................................. 1 Background ................................................. 7 Scale of Emigration ........................................... 8 Developments Between December 1993 and 1994 .................. 12 The Long Hot Summer ....................................... 14 Intimations of the Complicity of Scientists........................ 16 Making Inquiries about Scientists and Nuclear Proliferation .......... 17 Iran and China: Working Closely with Russia ..................... 18 The Mafia.................................................. 20 Responses to the Availability of Nuclear Material .................. 21 Related Problems............................................ 22 A Bright Spot: The Joint Efforts of Los Alamos and Arzamas 16 ....... 23 Conversion from a Military to a Civilian Economy ................. 26 Update.................................................... 28 v vi Promising Initiatives: The International Science and Technology Committee (ISTC) and the International Science Foundation (ISF) . 29 Conclusions................................................ 32 Recommendations........................................... 33 1 Introduction The Nuclear Non-Proliferation-Treaty (NPT) review and extension conference held at the United Nations in May 1995, proclaimed by acclamation, after much political wrangling, that the treaty negotiated 25 years ago, "shall continue in force indefinitely." (NPT Article X-2.) The overall provisions of the treaty allow the United States and the former Soviet Union, along with Britain, France and China to keep their nuclear arsenals. In many respects the treaty has been a great success.1 Predictions in the 1960s of some future 25 nuclear weapons states has not materialized, although several states, especially Israel, India, and Pakistan, are presumed to have nuclear weapons. Except for India's "peaceful nuclear explosion" in 1974, there have been no confirmed reports of other tests. More recently, the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) that possessed nuclear weapons - Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine - have promised to relinquish all such weapons in their territory. South Africa covertly assembled six nuclear weapons, but then dismantled them and belatedly signed on to the NPT. The Treaty has been signed by 170 countries.2 But Israel, India, and Pakistan still refuse to sign the agreement. If the Gulf War had not intervened, Iraq would undoubtedly have acquired nuclear weapons even though it had signed the NPT. North Korea, despite having signed the NPT, "worked to develop nuclear weapons while a member and then openly defied the demands of international inspectors".3 Its recent promise to forego building a bomb does not inspire confidence. Iran was estimated to be some 10 years away from developing nuclear weapons, but according to 1995 CIA reports, it appears to be significantly closer. Much of the proliferation that has occurred was, if not precisely predicted, at least envisioned as a possibility at the time the NPT was negotiated. The dramatic breakup of the former Soviet Union, however, was not anticipated. The radical changes that have overtaken these countries since 1989 - the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the forced end to Soviet Union domination of Eastern Europe as the 1 For a full evaluation see "Nuclear Proliferation: Confronting the New Challenges", New York 1995 Task Force Report, Chair, Stephen J. Hadley; Project Director, Mitchell B. Reiss, Council on Foreign Relations, NY 1995. 2 Official vote taken at the United Nations, 11 May 1995. 3 Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, in Michael R. Gordon, "Iraq Played UCatch Me if You CanU North Korea Says, UWhat if You Do?U", New York Times, 5 June 1994, Section 4, p.1. 2 secession of the near-abroad states began - have contributed new, dangerous problems to an already-heated proliferation fray. With the end of Soviet domination over its satellites in Eastern Europe, and shortly afterwards, over its member states, political reality was dramatically reconfigured. On the positive side, the potential for nuclear stability has vastly increased. Long-range nuclear weapons have been retargeted and serious denuclearization has begun in the US and Russia. Both countries have agreed to halt all further production of plutonium for weapons purposes and to allow reciprocal inspection of their nuclear facilities.4 When the NPT treaty was drafted, there was little thought that several decades later, Soviet scientists, engineers and technologists (SE&Ts) would be able to move so freely around the world. Travel had been tightly controlled, and was often used as a reward for loyalty to the party. Even at international scientific meetings, the KGB member of the delegation was easily discerned. Neither had the corollary of this vast mobility been anticipated - the potential for scientists to disseminate their knowledge and technical skills, and the possibility of the complicity of SE&Ts, either in the direct sale of fissile materials, or in the facilitation of access to nuclear and other critical materials by criminals. Freedom of international travel and emigration is to some extent a result of the FSU's new openness. But it is also a consequence of the decline of the economy that entails large-scale cutbacks in employment, devastating inflation that penalizes those on government salaries, a sharp drop in the funding of military SE&T, and a virtual shut-down in the design and production of new nuclear weapons. The results have brought about a movement of SE&Ts away from science as well as out of the country. Many new entrepreneurs in chemical start-up companies and software industries, or employees of foreign firms with recently- established research institutes in Russia, had been employed in government institutes and military establishments. In some instances, they have remained in place but have entered into business using the research institute as a base. Many of those individuals are flourishing. Others are less fortunate. From an admittedly bloated workforce that numbered in the millions, many former SE&Ts now work at menial jobs and barely eke out