TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121691/1216000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 9KB | 186 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 40

PROLIFERATION

Soviet Nukes On the Loose


As the Kremlin's power shrivels, the West worries about who has
control of the disintegrating superpower's vast atomic arsenal

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- Reported by James Carney/Kiev, William
Mader/London and Bruce van Voorst/Washington


    The idea once seemed terrifying: tens of thousands of
nuclear weapons of every size and range, all under the control
of a dictator in Moscow who could order them launched at will.
Now that seems like the good old days. The world gradually came
to trust whoever ruled in the Kremlin to exercise caution lest a
nuclear war annihilate the Soviet Union along with the rest of
the planet. But suppose the arsenal was so split up that no one
would even know who might be able to order the detonation of how
much of it. It could happen soon, and there are no precedents
for dealing with that prospect; never before has a nuclear
superpower disintegrated.

    The situation holds promise as well as threat. Four
republics -- Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belorussia -- stand
to inherit all the long-range strategic warheads and perhaps 90%
of the tactical weapons. The republics talk of dismantling many
of these arms; Ukraine and Belorussia insist they eventually
want no nukes whatsoever on their soil. But it is by no means
certain that the republics can agree, among themselves and with
what remains of Mikhail Gorbachev's Kremlin government, on any
program for actually achieving those aims before the momentum
of dissolution leads to far different results: bitter squabbles
over who controls the strategic weapons and a possible leakage
of tactical warheads into irresponsible hands.

    Says Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee: "We are on the verge of either having
the greatest destruction of nuclear weapons in the history of
the world or the greatest proliferation of nuclear weapons,
nuclear materials and the scientific know-how to make these
weapons." What most concerns many experts in Washington is that
President Bush has dallied inexcusably in developing any
strategy to use the potentially critical influence of the U.S.
to push the republics in the right direction.

    The task will not wait. The Dec. 1 referendum in which
Ukrainians voted 9 to 1 to make their country a fully sovereign,
independent nation -- and in effect proclaimed the old Soviet
Union dead -- is bringing the problem to a head. In the wake of
the vote, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoli Zlenko is
reportedly proposing that the four nuclear republics set up a
joint command over "the Soviet nuclear force" -- which might
imply cutting Gorbachev out of the action entirely. It would
also leave 1,300 tactical warheads in the hands of the other
eight republics.

    Though Zlenko might be grandstanding, other Ukrainian
leaders are using the nukes as a kind of diplomatic weapon. If
Western powers want to see destruction of the bombs and missiles
in Ukraine -- as called for by the START treaty and an exchange
of pledges between Gorbachev and Bush on tactical arms -- well
then, the Ukrainians hint, the West will have to grant
diplomatic recognition, find some way of adding Ukraine to the
START treaty and negotiate any further reductions with Kiev as
well as Moscow. All this will surely complicate U.S. Senate
hearings, beginning in late January, on ratification of the
treaty.

    Ukraine's demands are likely to meet stiff resistance. The
Soviet armed services, and specifically the Strategic Rocket
Forces, are almost the only institution left in the country
still operating under genuine central control. Eighteenth
century Prussia, according to an old wisecrack, was not a
country with an army but an army with a country. The Soviet
Union today could almost be defined as an army without a
country. Gorbachev and his generals will hardly be eager to see
their control diluted. Before the referendum, in fact, the
Soviet Defense Ministry pointedly told troops in Ukraine,
including those controlling nuclear weapons, that whatever
happened, they would remain under Moscow's command, not Kiev's.

    Russian President Boris Yeltsin, according to British
diplomats, has already grabbed a share of control of strategic
nuclear weapons. He supposedly has custody of the codes for
arming the warheads, though Gorbachev would still have to give
the order to launch the missiles. Yeltsin wants more; he has
proposed that all the old union's nuclear weapons be put under
Russian authority alone. Ukraine objects -- it wants warheads
moved to Russia only for purposes of having them destroyed, and
then only if the destruction is verified by international
inspectors.

    Western experts do not doubt the sincerity of Ukraine and
the other republics in wanting to carry out massive nuclear
disarmament -- for the moment. Their fear is that minds might
change in six months or so if no satisfactory arrangements for
control can be worked out and if republic leaders become
enamored of the diplomatic and political clout that possession
of nukes confers. Ukraine and some other republics fear they
will be unable to resist Russian domination if they turn over
responsibility for any of their nuclear arsenal to Yeltsin's
government. The danger would become greater still if military
or right-wing coups overthrew the present Kremlin and republic
leaders, as could happen if winter food and fuel shortages touch
off street riots. Talk of just such a coup is rampant these days
in Moscow.

    Even then, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney judges
"remote" the likelihood of intercontinental ballistic missiles
coming under the thumb of anyone who would fire them at the U.S.
The real menace, most experts believe, is a breakdown of the
command structure that would put the easily mobile tactical
weapons into dangerous hands. These nukes -- artillery shells,
warheads on short-range missiles, nuclear mines -- are much
easier to seize than ICBMs stored in underground silos. Already
the southern republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan have
"nationalized" all military property on their soil, prompting
Moscow to announce that the army would shoot to repel any
seizure. Nonetheless, local riot police in Azerbaijan have
hijacked some army trucks full of ammunition. It is not
inconceivable that future raiders or army mutineers might grab
some nukes.

    In addition, economic chaos has fostered a
sell-anything-you-can-get-your-hands-on mentality in the Soviet
military. It is only too possible that some commanders could
peddle tactical nuclear arms to foreign governments or even
terrorist gangs. Even now, says Vladlen Sirotikin, a Soviet
historian and political columnist, "give me a million bucks, and
I'll have a nuclear-tipped missile stolen for you and delivered
anyplace you want."

    Another threat is that some Soviet atomic scientists and
weapons designers, either already unemployed or about to lose
their job, will sell their bomb-building skills to foreign
countries eager to become nuclear powers. "Just half a dozen
could make a crucial difference" to the weapons program of a
Third World nation, says Michael Dewar, deputy director of the
London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

    The White House last week dispatched Assistant Secretary
of State Thomas Niles to Ukraine to talk about nuclear weapons;
Secretary of State James Baker will follow next week. But Niles
was instructed only to listen and not to broach any new
American ideas. Congress voted just before Thanksgiving to put
up $400 million to help the U.S.S.R. and its republics dismantle
nuclear weapons, but the Administration has yet to plan how it
will disburse that drop in the bucket.

    Far more should be done, and urgently. The U.S. and its
allies could make recognition of Ukraine and other former Soviet
republics, and distribution of badly needed economic aid,
conditional on a prompt agreement to maintain effective control
of nuclear weapons. The West should then offer to pay for, and
send experts to supervise, the disabling of as many weapons as
the republics want to shed. Great masses of warheads could
quickly be rendered harmless by removing their tritium bottles
and krytron triggers. And the key is to move immediately. The
forces of dissolution in the former Soviet Union are picking up
startling momentum, and the West must not be lulled by the fact
that for the moment, the nuclear warheads remain under the hands
of relatively responsible leaders like Gorbachev, Yeltsin and
Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk. That could change all too
quickly -- and disastrously.