Liquidating the Cold War
Leo Szilard Award Presentation-19 April 1997
Thomas L. Neff
Approximately sixty years ago, the world began a technological revolution that would transform the nature of war, alter the relationships between nations, and ultimately restructure the economies and governance of the United States, Russia, and other nations. The invention and deployment of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union led to a different world, a bipolar one in which regional struggles were often merely proxies for the main adversaries in the Cold War, where nuclear weapons arsenals were the measure of greatness, and where domestic economies and decision-making were often dominated by Cold War considerations. This was also a new world in which scientists -- particularly physicists -- actually seemed important to government and the public.
This was the world in which most of us -- in the Soviet Union as well as the United States -- grew up, chose careers, paid taxes, and served our countries. A much higher fraction of Soviet national wealth went into weapons infrastructure and into training and supporting the best and the brightest, most of whom disappeared into secret cities to work for the motherland. In the US, a strong domestic economy made the Cold War relatively cheaper.
Both the Soviet and US governments and societies-the institutions, businesses, and decision making-were reshaped by the imperatives of the Cold War. Ministries and departments with Cold War roles were ascendant. Close to the centers of power, advisors with Cold War portfolios (some of them physicists) commanded a level of attention they may never have again. Unfortunately, institutional rigidities and Cold War conditioning remain serious obstacles to liquidating the Cold War, potentially resulting in dangers greater than those faced previously.
It became clear that the Soviet Union was nearly bankrupt, politically and economically, and was forced to turn Westward to survive. It only gradually became clear that future relations would be based, not on technological capabilities in weapons and traditional diplomatic relations derived from great power status, but rather on economic forces in a politically fragmenting world. Russian scientists, engineers and technicians in secret cities lost their privileged positions and began to look for other things to do.
While Russia was forced to change, the US continued in Cold War mode. Yes, the national labs had to look for work (largely by recasting what they were already doing), but at the highest levels, policy making remained organized along Cold War lines. Today we are pursuing NATO expansion (under the rubric of bringing "democratic values" to former Eastern Bloc States); negotiating around the ABM treaty to pursue a US perimeter missile defense, and actually increasing weapons spending (with the justification that we must be sure that nuclear weapons will always work).
It seems at this point that we do not need more fathers of the H-bomb or modern equivalents, but rather morticians of the Cold War. The fundamental challenge is to find ways to restructure and redirect both the US and Russia along lines that simultaneously liquidate the dangers of the Cold War and create practical ways to use the valuable talents of scientists and engineers. The HEU deal is but the first of many possible initiatives.
The HEU Deal: In September of 1991, Presidents Bush and Gorbachov reached agreement on reduced deployments of nuclear weapons, setting the stage for the first major reduction in numbers of nuclear weapons. At the same time, it became clear that the Soviet Union was disintegrating. I soon began to worry about what would happen to surplus nuclear weapons, to surplus fissile material, and to the weapons capabilities, including a large number of highly trained people. It was immediately apparent that a potential outcome was that the weapons and personnel could be transformed in short order from a well-controlled force to a major weapons proliferation threat to the world.
The basic problem, then, was to find a way to motivate and finance post-Soviet control of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and personnel, in a country where central authorities might not have the power to do so. It occurred to me that the highly enriched uranium (HEU) in surplus weapons has a high value when blended down to enrichment levels usable in civil power reactors. The destruction of weapons and fissile material could be a self-financing process, without cost to the US taxpayer.
Highly enriched uranium (HEU) in surplus weapons has a high value
Ideally, much of the money should flow to the Russian enterprises and secret cities that had produced the weapons, as they would be essential to reversing the process. If the material in each nuclear weapon had commercial value on the order of a half million dollars, not only would it be watched carefully, but the destruction of it and the uranium fissile material would be expedited. The highly capable scientists and engineers would continue to be supported, reducing the likelihood that they would be forced to sell their talents to other national or sub-national groups. I could not think of a similar good use for the plutonium that would come from weapons, but it seemed that if weapons-most of which contain both HEU and plutonium-were to be valued for their HEU content, there was a good chance that the plutonium would be more tightly controlled than otherwise.
Once begun, the enterprises involved in the destruction of weapons and the blending of HEU to civil fuel would demand weapons and weapons material to destroy. Weapons destruction would not be driven by Russian compliance with treaty requirements, but by powerful self-interested forces within Russia. Politically, these large enterprises would enlist regional support in the fragmented post-Soviet system, ultimately helping to shift national policy away from new military spending.
One would think that such a simple idea would immediately appeal to US officials, however, the responses were largely bureaucratic. In some frustration, I submitted the proposal to the New York Times as an Op-Ed piece. By timely coincidence, I was invited to a meeting organized by the Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington involving Russian and American weapons specialists to discuss the build-down of nuclear weapons. At the prompting of Frank von Hippel, I outlined the idea of fissile material destruction and presented a draft of the Op-Ed piece, just days before publication, to Victor Mikhailov, then Deputy Minister for the nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Ministry for Atomic Energy (MinAtom).
The Op-Ed was published and circulated to US government agencies by mid-level State Department officials. This led to requests for a more detailed analysis of the idea, which I drafted and circulated. However, because of the institutional rigidities of the US interagency process, it was not possible for the US to come a quick decision, let alone take action. As usual, studies were commissioned.
In November, Senators Cranston and Pell drafted and introduced legislation to implement the purchase of Soviet HEU (S.2011). The legislation did not pass.
Just before Christmas, I went with an FAS/NRDC group to Moscow and Kiev. The week of meetings was extremely intense, reflecting the imminent breakup of the Soviet Union and arguments about the future roles of the weapons complex. An ongoing emotional debate among the Russians themselves was whether they should sell the precious products of their life-long work for the motherland. In Kiev, new Ukrainian officials were taken with the idea that the Soviet weapons stationed on their territory could be worth money. By 1993, it was possible for the US to use this interest to help de-nuclearize the new country, by sponsoring a plan that shipped warheads back to Russia in exchange for the financial equivalent in fuel for Ukrainian reactors.
In April of 1992, I made a trip to Russia, Central Asia and Ukraine, for the purpose of further discussions, and to explore the potential for joint ventures between mineral enterprises in the former Soviet Union and Western companies. It was success in the latter that allowed me to work for the past five years to implement the HEU deal without institutional or other support. Ironically, one can get a grant to study something but not to do something.
Despite the power of the HEU idea, it was difficult to get governments to act. In the US, the interagency process makes it difficult to do anything new. But, paradoxically, the disruption of the Soviet world also meant the end of the Soviet equivalent of the interagency process. A minister could act alone. In June of 1992, I sent a letter to Victor Mikhailov, who had become head of MinAtom, suggesting that a Russian initiative would precipitate a positive US decision to proceed.
I do not know who ultimately approached whom (both sides remember it differently), but by August of 1992, the US and Russia were in serious discussion of a framework for an HEU purchase agreement. On August 31, President Bush announced that the US and Russia had agreed in principle for the US to purchase fuel products from produced Russian HEU.
On February 18, 1993, the US and Russia signed a bilateral Agreement for the US to undertake the purchase of 500 metric tonnes of HEU, the quantity contained in roughly 20,000 nuclear weapons. The initial rate was set at 10 tonnes HEU per year, increasing to 30 tonnes per year.
Under the terms of the inter-governmental agreement, Russia and the US were to appoint commercial executive agents to carry out the deal. Russia chose Techsnabexport (Tenex), essentially a government export agency, and the US chose the enrichment arm of the Department of Energy, which is now a government corporation (the US Enrichment Corporation or USEC) on its way to privatization. By May of 1993, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and Tenex officials had initialed a draft contract for the purchase of 500 tonnes HEU over 20 years, with an expected value of $12 billion. Used for making fuel, a kilogram of HEU is worth about $24,000, about twice the value of gold.
While these developments appeared to be a major victory for arms reductions and non-proliferation, it turned out to be only the beginning of a very difficult process of implementation. Some of these problems have been technical, some institutional, some relating to safeguards and "transparency," and some due to the difficulty of ensuring that commercial forces cooperate with national policy and the HEU deal rather than conflict with them.
Technical Problems: At least some Russian HEU contains small amounts of plutonium, most likely the result of hybrid weapon designs in which HEU came into metallic contact with plutonium. To meet commercial specifications, it has been necessary to purify the HEU by reprocessing.
When uranium is enriched to very high levels in the isotope U-235, those isotopes that are even lighter go to the "high end" faster than U-235. In other words, the ratios of isotopes change. Natural uranium contains U-234 and reprocessed uranium contains U-233 as well. The ratios of these lighter isotopes to U-235 in HEU will thus be higher than in natural or reprocessed uranium. As a result, blending down HEU with natural uranium does not result in a low-enriched uranium product (LEU) with the same ratios as in LEU produced from natural uranium. These ratios can exceed those specified as acceptable for commercial use if the level of HEU enrichment is above about 40 percent. While some weapons use HEU of such enrichment levels (typically in so-called "secondaries"), much is at or above 90 percent U-235. It has thus been necessary for Russia to enrich tails (the depleted stream from original enrichment) with up to 1.5 percent U-235 to produce a blend stock that has lower than natural ratios of U-234 and U-233 to meet commercial specifications.
Trade Problems: In November 1991 an antidumping action was brought against the Soviet Union for selling nuclear fuel products at too low a price. The antidumping action would have prevented the import into the US of fuel products made from Russian HEU, as well as conventional nuclear fuel products from successor states. It was thus necessary to negotiate a settlement, called a "Suspension Agreement." Because I was assisting the lawyers for Kazakhstan in negotiating a settlement, I was able to assist the Commerce Department in developing the Russian Agreement.
USEC Privatization and the Executive Agent: The US Enrichment Corporation took over the enrichment business of DOE in July 1993, and with it the draft commercial contract to buy LEU from Russian HEU. The final contract was signed by USEC and Tenex at the January 1994 summit meeting in Moscow. Even though USEC was a government corporation, there was little independent or effective oversight or control by US policy-makers. This set the stage for possible conflicts between the commercial objectives of the new Corporation and the national security objectives of the US government.
The first of these soon became apparent. The commercial contract called for USEC to take title to the LEU from HEU and to pay immediately for the enrichment content (the SWU) but to pay for the uranium content only "when used or sold." US trade restrictions allowed the enrichment content to be sold but effectively prevented Russia from being paid for the uranium; it could not even be returned to Russian control for sale outside the US. Lack of payment for the uranium component, about one-third of the value of the HEU, reduced incentives for Russia to continue in the HEU deal.
the first response to a new idea will be "It is impossible!" the second that "It is not my job!" and finally, "We did it!"
Legislation: After several unsuccessful efforts to resolve this administratively, it became apparent that the only remedy was through legislation. In the Fall of 1995, and working with Senator Domenici and his staff, who were drafting the legislation to privatize USEC, I met with affected US mining interests, USEC management, and other concerned parties to develop a compromise that could be legislated. The legislation, passed in 1996, returned title to the uranium to Russia and created a new quota for sales in the US. This combination allows Russia to sell the uranium forward, directly or with a partner, and receive cash today.
Because of likely delays in Russia finding workable commercial arrangements for the uranium, the US agreed to buy the uranium from HEU deliveries in 1995 and 1996. Russia is currently negotiating with several private companies to sell uranium from deliveries in 1997 forward.
Transparency: To alleviate concerns that Russia might simply enrich natural uranium to make LEU, instead of destroying weapons, the US has insisted on monitoring the destruction and blend down of HEU. Russia has understandably been sensitive about this issue, for general political reasons and because of fears that weapon design information might be disclosed. The solution to this problem was achieved in December 1996: US monitors are placing measurement devices at key points in the HEU destruction facilities. Russia has a reciprocal right to monitor the use of LEU from HEU in the US to make sure it is not being used to produce new weapons material.
Progress To Date: The above technical, economic, and institutional difficulties initially led to some delays in the original schedule for destruction of HEU. However, the resolution of the problems above and beginning of cash flow to Russia is rapidly eliminating bottlenecks.
As of today, reactor fuel equivalent to 21 tonnes HEU has been delivered to the US, the equivalent of about 1,000 nuclear weapons. By the end of the five year contract, a total of 150 tonnes HEU, equivalent to about 6,000 nuclear weapons, will have been destroyed. MinAtom recently disclosed that more than half of Russian nuclear weapons have been destroyed, yielding 400 metric tonnes of HEU. Capacity limits on purification and blending are the only factors impeding more rapid destruction of the fissile material.
This year, Russia will receive about $450 million for the destruction of nuclear weapons; this will increase to more than $750 million per year by 1999. Minatom asserts that monies not spent on actual weapons destruction and LEU production will be used for improvements in reactor safety and other purposes.
A potential danger is that some of these funds will be used to enhance weapons design and production capabilities. However, the HEU deal was not primarily intended as a disarmament program-it would never succeed as such-but rather as a non-proliferation action that Russia and the US could agree on. Moreover, the US is hardly stopping its design activities, nor destroying its ability to produce nuclear weapons. There is thus still an important role to be played by traditional arms negotiations. The agreement to ban testing of nuclear weapons is an important first step. With some luck, the HEU deal will foster a better climate for arms agreements.
Reflections: In hindsight, the HEU deal -"A Grand Uranium Bargain" as the editors of the New York Times took the liberty of titling my article - appears to be an obvious idea. However, it follows Leo Slizard's axiom about colleagues confronted with a new idea: First, "They will say it's not true!" Next they'll say "If true, it's not very important." Finally, they'll say, "We knew it all along!" In the policy world, my experience is that the first response to a new idea will be "It is impossible!" the second that "It is not my job!" and finally, "We did it!"
In reality, a new idea is much like a child: conceiving one is nowhere near as hard and time-consuming as raising one. With a lot of work, as described above, the HEU deal has survived its childhood. Unfortunately, it may be entering adolescence, where outside influences may lead it astray. The large amounts of money involved are likely to tempt opportunists. The deal has already been challenged in Russia by conservative nationalists and some in the Russian government have been tempted to defend the HEU deal by saying that it is financing the weapons program. In the US, the privatization of USEC continues to raise the larger question about the relationships between domestic economic matters and international security imperatives.
In the case of plutonium, some new ideas are needed. For several years I have quietly been trying to encourage a relatively brief delay in civil reprocessing that would free up existing capacity in Europe to fabricate mixed uranium and plutonium fuel (MOX) from weapons plutonium. While the reprocessing industry has previously opposed such actions, their customers in Europe and Asia would welcome a slowdown in civil reprocessing and corresponding delay in return of nuclear waste. If the MOX industry can be convinced to take this course, the real challenge will be to convince the US and Russian governments to let their weapons plutonium be fabricated in Europe and potentially burned elsewhere.
In all of this we need better agreements with Russia, as well as with other nations. As Szilard wrote, the "problem is not to write an agreement that Russia will sign but to write one which Russia will be eager to keep, not only for the next few years but ten years and twenty years hence." Impatient with traditional diplomacy, Szilard went on to argue that "to devise such an agreement requires imagination and resourcefulness," qualities he obviously found wanting in government. I do not agree with Szilard on this point-there are many creative people in government-but do share the impatience. It seems better to make small timely efforts to direct the course of events than to respond more heavily to the crisis of events gone badly astray. The entropy of multiple actors and agendas in government may require the injection of large amounts of political energy to get anything done.
The broader challenge is to build on the success of the HEU deal to redirect both political systems and technological capabilities toward more peaceful and more economically productive ends. The US-Russian lab-to-lab and other programs are some help but they are elitist programs that reach only hundreds of top scientists, not the hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians that constitute a potentially enormous economic capability. Because the HEU deal is bringing money to a number of secret cities, I have been approached by directors of other defense enterprises for ideas that would give them an economic role in the world. One person cannot do this alone, and the one US government program that was trying to do this was eliminated in the new budget.
To receive the Leo Szilard Award for 1997 is a great satisfaction. As Szilard himself said: "In life you must often choose between getting a job done or getting credit for it." Thanks to this award, I need not worry about that choice.
Thomas L. Neff is at the
Center for International Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology