Entrepreneurial proliferation: Russia`s nuclear industry suits the buyers market. Master`s thesis
The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, bringing an end to four decades of the Cold War. A system of tight centralized controls has given way to chaotic freedom and un-managed, entrepreneurial capitalism. Of immediate concern to most world leaders has been the control and safety of over 30,000 Soviet nuclear weapons. After 1991, the Soviet, centralized system of management lost one key structural element: a reliable `human factor` for nuclear material control. The Soviet systems for physical security and material control are still in place in the nuclear inheritor states - Russia, Ukraine, Khazakhnstan, and Belarus - but they do not restrain or regulate their nuclear industry. In the chaos created by the Soviet collapse, the nonproliferation regime may not adequately temper the supply of the nuclear materials of the new inheritor states. This could permit organizations or states seeking nuclear weapons easier access to fissile materials. New initiatives such as the United States Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which draws upon U.S. technology and expertise to help the NIS solve these complex problems, are short-tern tactics. At present there are no strategies which address the long-tern root problems caused by the Soviet collapse.This thesis demonstrates the extent of the nuclear control problems in Russia. Specifically, we examine physical security, material control and accounting regulation and enforcement, and criminal actions. It reveals that the current lack of internal controls make access to nuclear materials easier for aspiring nuclear weapons States.
- Research Organization:
- Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 250579
- Report Number(s):
- AD-A-303201/8/XAB; TRN: 61490367
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: TH: Master`s thesis; PBD: Jun 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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