Politics and the Bomb: The Role of Experts in the Creation of Cooperative Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreements by Sara Z. Kutchesfahani

Author:Sara Z. Kutchesfahani [Kutchesfahani, Sara Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Public Policy, Arms Control, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781136299261
Google: DcavAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-09-05T12:33:07+00:00

5.1 Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine’s Inherited Nuclear Weapons

As the Soviet Union was collapsing in December 1991, many uncertainties arose surrounding its future and that of the new independent republic states. The main uncertainty—from an international security perspective—centered on the question of the command and control of the 27,000 Soviet nuclear weapons, including Russia’s share. In addition to the uncertainty relating to the fate of the 27,000 nuclear weapons, there were other concerns, including the impending disintegration of the Soviet Union, food shortages, the lack of sufficient heating in the forthcoming cold winter months, intermittent electricity, the impending “brain drain” crisis, the prospect of high unemployment, the hoarding of food, rampant inflation, and an absence of governmental authority. Furthermore, the fate of the future of the command and control of these weapons, the thousands of trained nuclear scientists, the secret nuclear cities and laboratories, the nuclear production facilities, and missile assembly facilities that would be inherited by the Soviet successor states were equally uncertain.

Such an unprecedented event confronted the international community with many immediate and unanswerable questions, including, who would control the weapons? Would the new nuclear states retain their inherited nuclear weapons? How would the international community cope with four more nuclear weapon states? How could the United States and the Soviet Union ideologically and technically cooperate on the most secretive and closely guarded elements of the nuclear weapon complex? How would the dismantling of the new republics’ nuclear arsenals be financed and managed? How could the international community prohibit the development of illicit trade in nuclear weapons or fissile material and other components from the weapons? Considering the number of nuclear weapons at stake (illustrated in Table 5.1) and the overnight creation of three more nuclear weapon states, these questions required immediate attention.

In order to understand the context within which the epistemic community emerged in addressing these questions, it is important to first illustrate what exactly Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine inherited, which are considered in turn in the following paragraphs. Please note that the following figures focus specifically on the number of inherited nuclear weapons; they do not include the number of biological and chemical weapons inherited.

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