By Lt. General Robert Gard, Jr. and Candice DeNardi

On Monday, November 8, 2010, two Armenians—Sumbat Tonoyan, a retired physicist, and Hrant Ohanyan, a failed businessman—pleaded guilty during a secret trial held in Tbilisi to smuggling 18 grams of highly enriched uranium (HEU) into Georgia.

In March 2010, a month before the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C. where 47 world leaders pledged to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years, Tonoyan and Ohanyan were arrested for smuggling HEU into Georgia.  The two Armenians placed the 18 grams of uranium, enriched to a weapons useable level, in a pack of Marlboro cigarettes lined with strips of lead to fool radiation detectors at the Georgian border.  Tonoyan and Ohanyan then smuggled the HEU via a train bound from Yerevan to Tbilisi, and attempted to sell it to someone they thought was an agent representing Islamic radicals; instead, he turned out to be an undercover agent of Georgia’s radioactive materials investigations team.    

There are several disturbing facts about this incident.  It illustrates the very real threat of the theft, smuggling, and sale of nuclear materials to prospective buyers, especially terrorists.  But what’s equally chilling about this case, and others for that matter, is that the uranium the men were smuggling wasn’t even missed.  No one knows where exactly it came from, although most suspect it originated in Siberia, perhaps even up to ten years ago.  During the Cold War, many Soviet factories produced and stockpiled excess quantities of HEU or plutonium in order to make up for potential shortfalls in production quotas for future accounting periods (you didn’t want to fall behind on quotas in the Soviet Union, lest you be sent to the GULag).  Much of this was unaccounted for; it is impossible to know for sure, therefore, how much of this material was produced, where it is located, how it is stored, and—most importantly—how much is missing.

According to the Guardian’s Julian Borger, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been “21 seizures or attempted thefts of weapons-grade material, uranium or plutonium, in the region.”  In each of these cases, the stolen material was never accounted for in the first place.  These incidents highlight the need for strengthening and extending efforts to inventory, consolidate, and secure nuclear materials. The potential for theft or sale of Russian HEU has been substantially reduced, but by no means eliminated, by cooperative efforts between the U.S. and Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  While the materials stockpiles have received at least minimum security measures, the 445 metric tons of HEU that remain in some 220 buildings at 52 sites in Russia present a tempting target.

It is essential, therefore, to continue to focus on Russia as an indispensable part of the larger program to secure all weapons grade fissile materials in four years, as outlined by President Obama in Prague and reaffirmed at the Nuclear Security Summit in April. Obviously, Russian cooperation is critical. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, START I and programs to secure Russian nuclear weapons and fissile materials, popularly if erroneously grouped together under the “Nunn-Lugar” legislation, have facilitated collaboration, even during low points in U.S.-Russian relations.  If the Senate fails to approve or indefinitely delays New START, the U.S. will not only lose a crucial window into the size and makeup of Russia’s still enormous deployed strategic nuclear arsenal, but it could also lose a vital partner in efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.  In the words of Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN):

Russia and the United States have agreed, based on the Nunn-Lugar Umbrella Agreement and the understanding between Presidents Obama and Medvedev, to continue to cooperate on Nunn-Lugar projects while ratification of the New START Treaty is pursued. But it is unlikely that Moscow would sustain cooperative efforts indefinitely without the New START Treaty coming into force.

We must ratify New START and accord top priority to ensuring that other attempts similar to the Sumbat Tonoyan and Hrant Ohanyan effort don’t succeed, either.

Adding to the suspense building up to his Tuesday talk in Washington, DC, Siegfried Hecker has again disclosed pertininent information about North Korea’s nuclear development. On Sunday November 21, Hecker purported that Pyongyang has built a new pilo…

Straight from the mouths of our military leadership and current and former high-ranking government officials from both parties…

Gen. Chilton: Russians unconstrained, lose insight into Russian nuclear arsenal
Without New START, we would rapidly lose insight into Russian strategic nuclear force developments and activities, and our force modernization planning and hedging strategy would be more complex and more costly. Without such a regime, we would unfortunately be left to use worst-case analyses regarding our own force requirements.  Further, we would be required increasingly to focus low-density/high demand intelligence collection and analysis assets on Russian nuclear forces.”
 [General Kevin Chilton, STRATCOM Commander, 6/16/10]  

Adm. Mullen: Lost of trust weakens deterrence
“And as I have said many times, in many different contexts, in this fast-paced, flatter world of ours, information, and the trust it engenders, is every bit as much a deterrent as any weapon we deploy.”
[Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, 11/12/10]

Brent Scowcroft: Nuclear negotiations thrown into chaos
“The principal result of non-ratification would be to throw the whole nuclear negotiating situation into a state of chaos.”
[General Brent Scowcroft (Ret.), President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Advisor, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, 6/10/10]

James Schlesinger: U.S. non-proliferation efforts undermined
“Failure to ratify this treaty “would have a detrimental effect on our ability to influence others with regard to, particularly, the nonproliferation issue.”
[James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense for Presidents Nixon and Ford and the Secretary of Energy for President Carter, 4/29/10]

William Perry: U.S. leadership on non-proliferation forfeited
“If we fail to ratify this treaty, the U.S. forfeits any right to leadership on nonproliferation policies.”
[Former Defense Secretary William Perry, 4/29/10]

Sen. Richard Lugar: Work to secure nukes in Russia would suffer
“It is unlikely that Moscow would sustain cooperative efforts indefinitely without the New START Treaty coming into force.”
[Sen. Richard Lugar,11/8/10]

Henry Kissinger: Adversaries and allies unsettled
“This START treaty is an evolution of treaties that have been negotiated in previous administrations of both parties. And its principal provisions are an elaboration or a continuation of existing agreements.  Therefore, a rejection of them would indicate that a new period of American policy had started that might rely largely on the unilateral reliance of its nuclear weapons, and would therefore create an element of uncertainty in the calculations of both adversaries and allies. And therefore, I think it would have an unsettling impact on the international environment.”
[Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor to President Nixon and Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford, 5/25/10]

Robert Kagan: Strengthens Putin, undermines cooperation on Iran, Afghanistan
“There’s no getting around it: Failure to pass START will help empower Putin . . . On Iran, Russia will become less cooperative . . . Russia’s refusal to deliver the S-300 air defense system to Tehran and its earlier agreement to allow the U.S. military to ship material to Afghanistan across Russian territory have been the reset’s big tangible payoffs.”
[Robert Kagan, Brookings Institution senior fellow, 11/12/10]

Los Alamos director: Less information about Russians
“Without data from new START, would that create more uncertainty for us about Russia? Certainly the country would not get as much information that the monitoring program would provide through new START.”
[Michael Anastasio, Director of The Los Alamos National Laboratory, 7/15/10]

Lawrence Livermore director: Less certainty
“I think that it is certainly true that the START treaty that is under your consideration does offer the ability to understand, provide more data on what’s going on in Russia with their systems. As a technical person, data is always valuable and so it will certainly reduce our uncertainties.”
[George Miller, Director of The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,7/15/10]

Former Senator Chuck Hagel: U.S. leadership on non-proliferation compromised
“If this were to go down, the ripple effect consequences around the world would be the worst possible outcome we’ve seen since World War II. It would set in motion the disintegration of any confidence in the leadership of the two major nuclear powers to deal with this and it would set in motion a disintegration of any structural boundaries and capacities to deal with this. This would devastating not just for arms control but for security interests worldwide.”
[Chuck Hagel, former Republican Senator from Nebraska, 7/19/10]

Lt. General John Castellaw (US Marine Corps, retired): lose inspections, worst-case planning
“U.S. ability to conduct on-site inspections will continue to be suspended . . .U.S. is obliged to plan on worst-case scenarios with regard to our own deployments.”
[Lt. General John Castellaw (US Marine Corps, retired), 11/15/10]

Lt. General Dirk Jameson (USAF, retired): Less information about Russians
“Without it [New START] we’d be poorly equipped to monitor Russia’s arsenal.”
[Lt. General Dirk Jameson, former Deputy Commander in Chief and Chief of Staff of U.S. Strategic Command, 7/19/10]

Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates had an op-ed in The Washington Post yesterday urging prompt Senate approval of the New START treaty.

Their message to the Senate is clear and simple: It’s time to get your act together because “our national security depends on it”.

Clinton and Gates highlight three key national security objectives that will fall by the way side without New START:

1.    Essential data about and verification of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, which we have not had since the START I Treaty expired last December , just over 340 days ago.

2.    A “reset” in the relationship between Russia and the United States that has important benefits far beyond the issue of nuclear stability.

3.    A reduction in the U.S. deployed strategic arsenal to an acceptable level that in no way hurts our national security interests

Last week Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen also spoke out about the importance of New START…   At a gathering at Stanford University, Mullen explained that militarily, this treaty, “allows us to retain a strong and flexible American nuclear deterrent.” Mullen added that, “it [also] strengthens openness and transparency in our relationship with Russia.”

Mullen also noted: “as I have said many times, in many different contexts, in this fast-paced, flatter world of ours, information and the trust it engenders, is every bit as much a deterrent as any weapon we deploy.” As Clinton and Gates point out, “Ronald Reagan’s favorite maxim was ‘trust, but verify.’” Without New START, all we have is trust.

Other national security heavyweights have also recently spoke to the consequences of failing to ratify New START.

Senator Lugar stated in a November 8th speech in Madrid re: the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program, which has been protecting the U.S. from the threat of Russian “loose nukes” for twenty years, “it is unlikely that Moscow would sustain cooperative efforts indefinitely without the New START Treaty coming into force.”

No New START means no verification of Russia’s still enormous deployed nuclear arsenal, no future agreement to increase transparency over or reduce Russia’s tactical nuclear arsenal, and perhaps no future cooperative efforts to safeguard Russian nuclear materials, warheads, and delivery systems from potential loss or theft by terrorists.

And that is just what would happen to our relationship with Russia. We must remember that the world is watching the U.S. Senate’s deliberations on the treaty. If we fail to ratify New START, we’re essentially telling the rest of the world that we’re incapable of leadership on nonproliferation and that we’re unwilling to adhere to our obligation under the NPT to take steps to reduce our own nuclear arsenal.  As former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel explained:

[Failure to ratify New START] would set in motion the disintegration of any confidence in the leadership of the two   major nuclear powers to deal with this [nonproliferation] and it would set in motion a disintegration of any structural boundaries and capacities to deal with this. This would be devastating not just for arms control but for security interests worldwide.

So the question is simple: Are we really willing to give up verification of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and future arms control treaties, and hurt our relationship with not only Russia but all nuclear and non nuclear weapon states, all at a time when the threat of proliferation and nuclear terrorism pose the greatest threat to our national security?  You certainly don’t need me to tell you what the answer should be.