Nuclear Issues

Ambassador Douglas Lute, former ambassador to the North Atlantic Council, NATO's principal decision-making body, spoke at the Future of Diplomacy project on NATO's role today, adapting to current threats, and Russia's relationship with NATO and its member States.

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."

The Right Honourable Douglas Alexander offered his views on European security in a discussion moderated by FDP Executive Director Cathryn Cluver.

Putin and his government seek respect, stability from next U.S. administration, panel says.

In the United States and Europe, many believe that the best way to prevent Russia’s resumption of its historic imperial mission is to assure the independence of Ukraine. They insist that the West must do whatever is required to stop the Kremlin from establishing direct or indirect control over that country. Otherwise, they foresee Russia reassembling the former Soviet empire and threatening all of Europe. Conversely, in Russia, many claim that while Russia is willing to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (with the exception of Crimea), Moscow will demand no less than any other great power would on its border. Security on its western frontier requires a special relationship with Ukraine and a degree of deference expected in major powers’ spheres of influence. More specifically, Russia’s establishment sentiment holds that the country can never be secure if Ukraine joins NATO or becomes a part of a hostile Euro-Atlantic community. From their perspective, this makes Ukraine’s nonadversarial status a nonnegotiable demand for any Russia powerful enough to defend its national-security interests.

Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Crimea, much attention has been focused on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which provided Ukraine with security assurances in return for Kyiv signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and giving up the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the collapse of the USSR. Twenty years ago––before that memorandum was signed by the Russian Federation, the United States and the United Kingdom––Ukraine and Crimea were also plunged into a state of turmoil. The Russian government of President Boris Yeltsin put economic, security and territorial pressure on Kyiv to press Moscow’s advantage in a series of disputes about Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal and the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and other Crimean peninsula ports.

"Many Russian futures are possible. At one extreme, some view Russia as an industrialized banana republic whose corrupt institutions and insurmountable demographic and health problems make decline inevitable. Others argue that reform and modernization will enable Russia to surmount its problems, and that its leadership is headed in this direction."

Kevin Ryan is director of the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism.

"In an effort to address this [nuclear terrorism] threat, the Belfer Center has teamed with other United States and Russian partners to form the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. The goal of the Initiative is to contribute to improved joint U.S.-Russian assessment of the threat of nuclear terrorism and concepts, strategy, and actions to prevent a successful nuclear attack by terrorists."