Jamie Wilson

CULF 3331.05

Margaret Peacock

Weapon Proliferation in Russia and the surrounding region and the West’s Apathy

The Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was an effort directly resulting from the faulty

deterrence based animosity between the US and former soviet union during the Cold War. The

internationally agreed upon policy (with few exceptions) helped settle tensions post-Cold War

and also helped to prevent the spread of nuclear weaponry to rogue states and aide in the

decommissioning of active warheads and nuclear fuel. Despite the document’s success in

assuaging tensions and helping to prevent Nuclear proliferation, after the Fall of the soviet union

in 1991, the burden that the NPT would place on Russia would be too much for the struggling

republic to handle by itself. A lack of western and international support for Russia has left the

country to deal with the task of implementing controls and preventing weapon proliferation by

regional states such as the Caucasus and Balkans by itself. This is, at best, ineffectual and

dangerous.

At the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the USSR and the US were the two largest

supporters of the Non-Proliferation treaty, in terms of financial support to programs focus on

ending the spread of weaponry (Kesseler 30). The collapse of the soviet union meant intense

infrastructure rebuilding and a shift to a semi-democratic nation . With focus turned on the most

basic necessities for nation, Russia had little time or resources to focus on enforcing provisions
of the NPT domestically, let alone internationally among the recently created Common Wealth of

Independent states. Although a great deal of nuclear fuel and weaponry was turned over to

Russia by some of the commonwealth states, much still went un-accounted for (Anderson,

Cassady, and Grillot 40). The result of the poorly implemented portions of this treaty is that

nuclear fuel and materiel for WMD programs is now spread across the Central Asia and

Caucasus region (Anderson, Cassady, and Grillot 42). The mere fact of nuclear materiel is

readily accessible is not enough to cause great concern, or violate specifically the terms of the

NPT, but the ease of access by which these nations can transport this material via smuggling to

countries who possess the technology to develop these remnants of soviet warfare into WMDs, is

quite troubling not only for the NPT, but for global safety.

The inherent instability of some of the Commonwealth states due to failed post-soviet

transitions and poor socio-economic conditions is perpetuating an intense fervor to possess and

distribute weapon building materials. On top of this inherent instability, there is a perceived

external pressure from the surrounding states such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine

who have legitimate claim to possess nuclear weapons. Put bluntly, if a state possesses a nuclear

arsenal, it significantly increases their geopolitical influence in the region; for countries who

have weak, ineffective governments (such as the Caucasus region and the Balkans), this is their

only source of diplomatic clout. Beyond the Confederation of Russian states, more concern is

placed on the proliferation that is occurring with other close nations such as Iraq, Iran and

Afghanistan. Attempts by the US to halt supposed proliferation and weapon development

activities in Iraq brought about the second Gulf War, that is presently on-going. The debacle that

the Iraq war became due to a lack WMD building evidence and flagrant unilateral actions,
seriously illegitimated the US’ ability to prevent proliferation (Jones 7). Along with recent

cutbacks in non-proliferation program funding implemented by the Bush Administration

(Mackenzie 2), Russia is now being given virtually to no support from the west in preventing

proliferation along the Central Asia region.

The real concern facing the region is not only the idea of nuclear weapons and WMDs

falling into the hands of the leaders of unstable commonwealth states, but the export of these

weapons to countries like Iran and North Korea. The most recent international proliferation issue

came about when Iran refused when America and the UN demanded that it should disband all

Uranium enrichment and weapons programs. Russia , who had been deepening its ties with Iran

in the past decade (Anderson, Cassady, and Grillot 41). worked the hardest with Iran to work out

a compromise to ostensibly allow for uranium enrichment for the purposes of using it as an

energy source, while limiting weapon development programs, and calling for Iran to allow for

international transparency and cooperation (Gottemoeller 2). The US and UN however have not

been willing to give an inch of compromise in the situation, further alienating Iran and allowing,

for the time being, unrestricted proliferation from Central Asia into and out of Iran. With the

growing threat of Islamic fundamentalist based terrorism in areas like Chechnya and Iraq, the

threat of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists is all possible and frightening.

The Russian-Iranian alliance should be the microcosm of how Russia should deal with

the threat of proliferation by the former Commonwealth States and the rest of the region. It will

be impossible however, without the support of the west and international organizations such as

the UN and NATO. Although the UN and NATO have been more willing to work on these issues

multilaterally with these nations, the clout that the US and its allies have in the security council
prevent any real progress from being made. If any progress is to be made in preventing the

continued proliferation, it must be done multilaterally by implementing import-export controls in

the Caucasus and the Balkans(Anderson, Cassady, and Grillot 43). These countries are

vulnerable and do not have the infrastructure to implement these advanced controls on

technology, which is why a multilateral effort is needed in this region, with Russia spearheading

this project.
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