Small Steps Toward Nuclear Control

In September 2000, the U.S. and Russian governments signed the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, obligating each to destroy 34 tons of plutonium. As the White House announcement said, this was "enough plutonium to make thousands of nuclear weapons"— 8,000, to be precise. How many of these potential nuclear bombs have been eliminated to date? Zero.

Why? The reasons provide a textbook case of failure to combat what President George W. Bush has rightly identified as "the biggest threat facing this country": nuclear terrorism.

Until recently, this commitment remained hopelessly bogged down in a quagmire created by both governments' bureaucracies. But fortunately, after several months of intense engagement by a new secretary of state and her team, the liability dispute is effectively resolved. The success offers insight into the new level of imagination, energy and determination of the second-term national security team.

Why did this not happen sooner? Both governments agree that the plutonium in question is in excess. Both recognize that it could fall into the hands of Osama Bin Laden or the Chechen terrorists who killed hundreds of schoolchildren in Beslan last September. Both presidents declared that this would be done. But between best intentions and acceptable results lies a world of details.

The American responsible for this issue in the first term was the newly minted U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. Left to him and equivalently recalcitrant Russian bureaucrats, this agreement would never have been implemented.

The central stumbling block has been competing demands about liability of American contractors providing assistance to Russia in modifying the nuclear reactors that will be fueled by plutonium. The United States insisted on zero liability — even for damage caused by intentional sabotage by U.S. personnel.

Russian negotiators argued that the agreement should be governed by normal business practices that would hold U.S. contractors accountable for accidents resulting from negligent behavior on their part.

In negotiating complex deals, whether in business or in government, it is often noted that both sides have lunatic fringes. If unleashed by one, the other frequently reciprocates. In such conditions, no deal is possible until the mad-dogs are sidelined.

Why does this matter? As the Cold War bumper sticker reminds us: "One nuclear bomb can spoil your whole day."

As a result of Cold War competition, the United States and Russia each acquired grossly excessive arsenals of weapons and weapon-usable materials. With the end of the Cold War, both are now significantly reducing these excesses. But in the meantime, Russia has thousands of potential "loose nukes."

The first priority of both governments should be to lock down all weapons and potential weapons beyond the reach of terrorists or thieves. The vast majority of weapons and materials should be eliminated quickly and safely, not just in Russia, but in the United States and worldwide.

A counterpart of the plutonium agreement has been working over the past decade under the Nunn-Lugar program to dismantle nuclear bombs, blend down core, highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium that can be used as fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, and burn it up.

Today, about 10 percent of the electricity in the United States comes from uranium that previously powered Russian bombs. The "megaton-to-megawatt" program has thus far eliminated more than 9,800 former nuclear warheads.

Over four decades of Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union expended $5 trillion in amassing nuclear arsenals. The challenge of safely eliminating the deadly detritus of the Cold War is similarly demanding. Ironically, it requires greater imagination and strategic subtlety, since it requires causing organizations and individuals, especially in the former Soviet Union, to engage in unnatural acts.

No one should confuse success in one important battle with victory in the larger war. But this evidence that the Bush administration's new national security team can think strategically and engage pragmatically in professional diplomacy offers a welcome gleam of hope.

By Graham Allison, director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."