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| After the Georgia War
Part Two: Regional U.S. Nonproliferation Programs Complicated |
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| November 2008 Issue | |||||
Many observers feared that the Georgia War would disrupt Russian-American collaboration on diverse nonproliferation issues, such as dealing with Iran over its nuclear weapons and addressing the continuing WMD legacy of the Soviet Union. Laura Holgate of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, for example, warned that U.S. policy makers might seek to punish Russia for its military intervention in Georgia by curtailing bilateral Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs designed to eliminate or secure nuclear, biological, and chemical agents in Russia: “The temptation has certainly been in the past – especially from Congress – to lash out at these kind of cooperative programs under the mistaken perception that these are favors to Russia.” [1] Both Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn, the authors of the original CTR legislation over a decade ago, expressed concern that the recent conflict would undermine joint U.S.-Russian threat reduction efforts. [2] Thus far at least, CTR programs in the Russian Federation, which have persisted despite other downturns in U.S.-Russian relations since the mid-1990s, appear unaffected by the recent clash. Our world today is full of historic opportunities for progress, as well as challenges to it – from terrorism and proliferation, to climate change and rising commodity prices. The United States has an interest in building partnerships to resolve these and other challenges. And so does Russia.…The United States and Russia shared all of these interests on August 7th. And we share them still today on September 18. [7]The United States cancelled joint military exercises with Russia following the outbreak of fighting in Georgia. NATO also suspended some collective projects, and the Russia government reciprocated by freezing others. Nevertheless, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, cautioned against severing relations entirely with the Russian armed forces despite its intervention in Georgia. He told an audience in Los Angeles a few days after Secretary Rice’s speech that, “I don’t believe we should discontinue engagement on the military side because that relationship is going to be very important in the future.” [8] Mullen cited the need to cooperate regarding Iran’s nuclear program and other potential WMD proliferation threats as justifying renewed efforts at engagement with Moscow. Yet, the Georgia War has complicated Russian-U.S. collaboration regarding Iran’s nuclear program. After the fighting started, Foreign Minister Lavrov warned that Washington’s continued support for the Georgian government could have consequences for U.S.-Russian cooperation: “at some time it will be necessary to choose between the prestige of this virtual project [the Georgian government] and partnership on questions that require collective action.” [9] Russian diplomats subsequently resisted U.S. efforts to impose new sanctions on Iran for its continued defiance of UN Security Council resolutions relating to its nuclear research and development program. In late September, Russian opposition forced the Council to adopt a resolution that lacked any new sanctions and simply urged Tehran to adhere to earlier Security Council decisions. In the case of the negotiations over North Korea’s denuclearization, however, U.S.-Russian nonproliferation cooperation has continued. Whither the Global Partners One indicator of the extent of continued Russian-Western nonproliferation collaboration might be the future of the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. This initiative serves as an important mechanism for multilateral threat reduction projects in Georgia and the other former Soviet republics. Launched at the 2002 G8 Summit, the Global Partnership provides for enhanced coordination of national programs aimed at limiting the proliferation of dangerous chemical, biological, and nuclear agents. The United States has pledged $10 billion to the initiative over 10 years, and the other G8 members have promised a comparable amount. As part of its Global Partnership contribution, the Russian government has committed $2 billion for threat reduction activities during the 10-year period. Russia and Ukraine are the only officially designated recipients of assistance under the Global Partnership, but at this July’s G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, the partners agreed to expand the Global Partnership program beyond these two countries to support WMD threat reduction programs anywhere in the world. “We are determined in our commitment to accomplish priority projects under this initiative in Russia as well as in Ukraine,” the summit’s Report on the G8 Global Partnership stated. “We also recognize that the GP must evolve further to address new, emerging risks worldwide if we are to prevent terrorists or those that harbour them from acquiring chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons and/or missiles.” [10] “To this end,” the report later explains, “other recipient states and donor states accepting the GP principles and guidelines could be included on a case-by-case basis in an expanded GP for the implementation of projects in line with GP goals.” [11] The summit’s statement on “Political Issues” elaborated that, “Since the risks of the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction exist worldwide, we agree that the Partnership will address these global challenges in areas where the risks of terrorism and proliferation are greatest.” [12] In addition, the partners are considering whether to extend the program beyond 2012. Before last year’s G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, some nonproliferation experts in the U.S. government lobbied other member countries to endorse another so-called “10+10 over 10” plan that would have extended G8-led multinational WMD threat reduction efforts. As in 2002, the United States would have pledged $10 billion, with the other seven G8 governments contributing another $10 billion during the decade after 2012. [13] The G8 governments, however, both at Heiligendamm and Hokkaido, declined to commit to a follow-on program. Delaying the launch much further could jeopardize future threat reduction efforts by complicating project planning and leading firms, organizations, and specialists that have developed unique assets and expertise to seek alternative livelihood before funding for their current jobs ends. The 2008 G8 Global Partnership Report acknowledges that, “Reliable long-term planning and predictable disbursement of funds are equally essential for successful completion of projects.” [14] The Georgia conflict appears to have disrupted realization of these plans to extend the G8 partnership to encompass other countries or support projects beyond 2012, and the more than dozen governments now participating in the Global Partnership continue to direct most of their funding towards dismantling Russia’s nuclear submarines and eliminating its chemical weapons, reflecting Russian and European environmental priorities. Smuggling incidents in Georgia have highlighted the need to move beyond these limited objectives and provide greater support to nuclear security projects in the South Caucasus and other non-Russian regions. Georgian Nuclear Smuggling Threats The Georgian government has sought to enhance the safety and security of the nuclear materials under its control. In February 1997, Georgia joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and in June 2003, ratified the IAEA Additional Protocol, which grants IAEA inspectors enhanced authority and rights of access to potential undeclared nuclear material or activities in a country that, like Georgia, is a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. [15] Georgia has also supported other global nonproliferation efforts concerning nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. For example, Georgia has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Weapons Infrastructure Elimination (BWIE) program to enhance the safety and security of dangerous pathogens located at the National Center for Disease Control in Tbilisi. Under the BWIE program, moreover, Bechtel National, Inc. constructed a Zonal Diagnostic Laboratory at the main laboratory of the Georgian Ministry of Agriculture. The BWIE has also supported construction of a central reference laboratory in Georgia, which the Georgian government has proposed converting into a joint U.S.-Georgia laboratory. The U.S.-Georgia Biological Threat Reduction Implementing Agreement, signed in December 2002 and amended thereafter, remains in force. [16] Despite these efforts, Georgia remains vulnerable to nuclear trafficking through its territory. [17] The anarchic conditions, weak law enforcement measures, and porous borders in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia – which constitute over a fifth of Georgian territory – permit easy transit with neighboring Russian regions. By transiting through these separatist regions or by exploiting Georgia’s mountainous terrain, which law enforcement personnel find difficult to control, smugglers enter and exit Georgian territory without passing through a border checkpoint under central government control. These conditions facilitate trafficking in nuclear materials as well as more conventional forms of contraband (e.g., narcotics, counterfeit currency, and young women). In addition, U.S. officials have been concerned about the level of corruption in Georgian law enforcement agencies, the strength of transnational criminal organizations in the South Caucasus, and the republic’s pivotal location at the crossroads between Europe, Russia, Asia, and the Middle East. [18] During the 1990s, Georgia suffered a series of worrisome incidents involving the discovery of scattered, radioactive materials “orphaned” after the USSR’s collapse, when their owners lost control of these items. [19] The country has many scientific, medical, and other facilities containing radiological sources such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, but the Ministry of Environmental Protection and National Resources has lacked adequate personnel, equipment, and training to regulate and monitor these radioactive sources effectively. [20] Although Georgia lacks a major nuclear power plant, for example, it has two nuclear research institutes that have produced dangerous nuclear material. The E. Andronikashvili Institute of Physics of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, located some 20 kilometers from Tbilisi, operated an IRT-2000 light-water research reactor from 1959 to1988. [21] The I. N. Vekua Institute of Physics and Technology also operated a research reactor that emerged as an object of considerable nonproliferation concern following the breakup of the Soviet Union, largely because of its location in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, which has become a hotbed of smuggling and other lawless activity. According to some sources, up to two kilograms of HEU disappeared from that Institute in the early 1990s during the civil war in that breakaway region. [22] Guram Bokuchava, the institute’s former director who fled to Tbilisi during the civil war, subsequently acknowledged that Georgian authorities no longer know the status of the facility’s nuclear materials. Bokuchava said that when IAEA inspectors went to Sukhumi in 2002 to examine the uranium stored at the institute, the local separatist authorities would not let them visit the site. [23] The Vekua reactor has remained outside IAEA safeguards. [24] Georgia’s law enforcement activities related to smuggling radioactive materials have been underway for some time. In June 2003, Georgian authorities apprehended Garik Dadayan, an Armenian national, in the border town Sadakhlo for attempting to smuggle 170 grams of weapons-grade HEU across Georgia’s borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Dadayan told investigators that he had acquired the material from Russian and other intermediaries in Vladikavkaz. Georgian authorities concluded that the HEU originated in Novosibirsk. [25] That same year, Georgian police seized containers filled with cesium-137, strontium-90 and Yprite (mustard gas), that Georgian officials contended was likely en route to Turkey, where it was to be resold. [26] On January 25, 2007, Georgian authorities made public the February 2006 arrest of a citizen from the Russian region of North Ossetia who sought to sell 79.5 grams of uranium enriched to 89 percent on the black market. [27] The authorities had detained Oleg Khintsagov following a sophisticated sting operation that eventually involved the CIA, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Energy. [28] These cases highlight the vulnerability of the South Caucasus, especially Georgia, to the smuggling of nuclear materials. According to the IAEA, of the 481 occurrences of nuclear smuggling voluntarily reported between May 2002 and early 2006, only the Dadayan incident involved weapons-grade nuclear material. [29] Other less serious radiological trafficking cases continue to occur. Levan Gogua, an expert at the Department of Nuclear and Radiation Security at the Georgian Ministry of Environment, related that the Khintsagov case represents “the sixth incident of this kind in Georgia within a few years.” [30] U.S. Government Response Efforts Concerns over the situation in Georgia have led the U.S. government to undertake multiple initiatives to curb nuclear smuggling into and through the republic. In March 1998, the United States collaborated with the governments of Georgia and the United Kingdom to remove approximately 4.3 kilograms of enriched uranium, in the form of both fresh and spent nuclear fuel, from the IRT-M closed research reactor located at the E. Andronikashvili Institute of Physics near Tbilisi. Under the coordination of the National Security Council, the American interagency team included representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Department of State (DOS). [31] Since 1998, DOE has included Georgia in its counter-smuggling Second Line of Defense (SLD) “Core” program, which provides radiation detection equipment and training to Russia and other former Soviet republics such as Georgia. The Core Program seeks to install radiation monitors at approximately 450 land, air, and sea transportation points in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean. (The other SLD element, the Megaports Initiative, is equipping major international seaports with radiation equipment designed to scan cargo containers for nuclear and other radiological materials.) Since 2002, the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which now runs the SLD program, has also been maintaining radiation detection equipment provided earlier by other U.S. government agencies under various programs to countries in the former Soviet bloc. These consist primarily of x-ray vans, fixed portal monitors, and supporting handheld detection equipment. Since these single-channel devices can only detect gamma radiation, the DOE has sought to replace them in high priority countries –such as Georgia – with more effective dual-channel equipment. [32] The Department of Defense has provided a range of training and equipment related to border security and law enforcement to Georgia and other former Soviet republics, while the U.S. Coast Guard has supplied the Georgian Coast Guard with boats, training, and other support to monitor and interdict contraband in the country’s maritime zones. Fuel shortages, inadequate maintenance, and insufficient coordination between the Georgian Coast Guard, the Georgian Navy, the administration of Georgia’s main ports, and other bodies have impeded this maritime interdiction program. [33] The DOS Export Control and Related Border Security Program has provided radiation detection equipment and other counter-smuggling support to 30 countries, mainly in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. [34] Neither the Georgian Patrol Police nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs have had adequate equipment and training to operate effective mobile checkpoints against radioactive materials in transit. [35] To help deal with this shortcoming, the U.S. Georgia Border Security and Law Enforcement Assistance Program has also provided equipment and training to help the Border Police conduct border and internal patrols against smugglers.  In February 2007, Georgia joined the U.S. Nuclear Smuggling Outreach Initiative (NSOI), a multi-agency effort coordinated by the Office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism in the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN/WMDT). Under the NSOI, which is part of the DOS Preventing Nuclear Smuggling Program that contributes to realizing the envisaged Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, the United States is working with Georgia, Afghanistan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ukraine, and Tajikistan to build capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to incidents of nuclear smuggling. A NSOI team conducts a joint assessment with the host country to identify capability gaps and craft a joint action plan of agreed measures to overcome the shortcomings. The team then seeks U.S. and other foreign assistance for projects that the partner nation cannot complete on its own. [36] The European Union, the IAEA, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, and many individual governments have provided financial contributions through the initiative. [37] The United States and other Global Partners can credit this assistance to meeting their Global Partnership financial commitments. [38] The NSOI also solicits foreign contributions to projects supported by the SLD Program and the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Foreign countries might find it easier to provide assistance directly to these two programs because working through existing U.S. programs allows them to support nonproliferation goals without having to negotiate a separate bilateral agreement with the recipient. [39]The February 2007 agreement with Georgia identifies 50 priority areas for joint action to improve Georgia’s capabilities to counter nuclear smuggling. [40] Half of the steps involve ongoing efforts that need to be completed, while the remaining half are new efforts that the NSOI assessment concludes should be undertaken. Georgian authorities pledged to conduct some activities on their own, while the NSOI team committed to identifying additional U.S. or other foreign sources of assistance for implementing the action plan. The list of priority assistance projects includes one project regarding radioactive sources, five concerning border and internal detection, and one dealing with nuclear forensics. [41] Under the auspices of the NSOI, the U.S. government has specifically pledged to provide additional U.S. equipment and training for Georgian agencies engaged in countering nuclear smuggling. The NNSA agreed to strengthen Georgia’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency and its border patrol forces, while the U.S. European Command committed to fund the establishment of a Joint Maritime Coordination Center as well as upgrade the Georgian Coast Guard’s communications, information, and headquarters capabilities. U.S. officials also agreed to work with the European Union in facilitating participation of Georgian scientists, technical experts, and law enforcement personnel in the Nuclear Smuggling International Technical Working Group (ITWG), the leading expert body for analyzing intercepted nuclear materials to determine its characteristics, origin, and diversion path. This nuclear forensics information can be used to identify sources of nuclear leakage as well as prosecute those engaged in nuclear trafficking. [42] At the time of the Georgia War, a NNSA-led team was in Georgia installing new U.S.-provided radiation detection equipment at major transportation nodes such as border crossings and air and sea ports. On August 9, however, the NNSA withdrew the Americans working on the project for safety reasons. NNSA spokesperson Casey Ruberg simply observed that, “We look forward to continuing this work as soon as advisable” because the NNSA “regards work in Georgia as a priority due to its location with respect to potential nuclear smuggling routes.” [43] In early October, the NNSA inspectors who had left returned to find that the fighting had damaged some of the radiation detectors they installed. A Russian cluster bomb, for example, destroyed the sophisticated sensors that had been installed in Georgia’s main Black Sea port of Poti. The team also worried that the damage caused by the Russian attack on Kutaisi airport would also require replacing the radiation monitors deployed there. Even so, David Huizenga, Assistant Deputy Administrator of the NNSA Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation, reaffirmed the NNSA’s determination to complete installation of all twenty planned sites by the end of next year. [44] Richard Weitz – Hudson Institute
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SOURCES AND NOTES