All that excess enriched uranium and nuclear material in Russia. What to do,what to do?

Question

This is important folks. I asked a similar question before and didn't get one response. I'll keep paying the 5 points until someone speaks up. Could we maybe buy it? Let's hear your ideas. This stuff is currently being sold to bad people with bad intentions.

Answer 1

I don't know if this question can be answered in as much space as Yahoo Answers will provide.

First, we are very limited when it comes to buying the excess Russian fissible material. One, by our own foreign policy rules and Congressionally mandated budget. Neither the Department of Defense, nor the Department of Energy has the kind of funding it would require to perform this action. Also, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), whose rules we are bound by as a member of the UN, has established policy to restrict the global transportation of fissible and weapons-grade enriched uranium/plutonium. Unfortunately, nations like North Korea (until very recently), Iran, Syria, Egypt, and a host of others don't feel obligated to adhere to all the policies of the IAEA, and frequently find ways to skirt them for their own national interests. Another limitation is the political baggage we have with Russia. As much as we pretend to be friends now, the relationship is still a very tense one. We have to be very careful about placing the Russians in a relationship where they feel like we are subjugating them to an inferior role or "saving" them. They are a proud people who don't feel they need our help.

Second, Russia is a country that is still finding it's identity as a post-socialist society. They are a struggling (no matter what they want us to believe) democracy that feels pressure from both the old socialist tendencies, as well as the modern democratic urges. They are still overcoming decades of state-run industry and poor revenue streams, while trying to learn how to be competitive in the global marketplace where state-of-the-art manufacturing, management, and control is essential to compete with Japan, Germany, China, and the US. They need cash flow to stimulate their economy and provide the much needed stimulus for growth. It is hard to convince them that old allies are a bad place to deal weapons. After all, post-military sales of things like F-16s and such is a huge business for military weapons manufacturers in the US, who are we to interfere in their attempt to replicate that process (their perception, keeping in mind that there is a huge difference between aircraft and nuclear weapons)?

Third, nations like Iran, Syria, and North Korea have recognized a very simple fact ... if you really want to get the attention of the western world (especially America), you need nuclear technology. Middle Eastern nations, especially, understand the complexity of negotiation. They also understand that you have no negotiating leverage in a conversation with a nuclear power, when you yourself have no such technology. We don't go out of our way to craft detailed foreign policy and aid packages with Congo because we have no reason to ... they don't represent a threat to our security or that of our allies and interests overseas. Iran, however, does represent a threat to both us, Israel, and other strategic interests in the Middle East, so their acquisition of nuclear technology gives them the bartering leverage they need to get our attention. Look at what is going on in North Korea right now. Would we have granted the kind of access and aid we are preparing to give if they hadn't presented a nuclear threat to both Japan and ourselves? I don't know that we would have. Yes, we feel sorry for the poeple in North Korea, but if we're really honest with ourselves, we don't really care what goes on there until it starts to affect us.

This issue is primarily encumbered by at least two fundamental problems: (1) the sale of fissile material by former Soviet states to unstable or unfriendly nations and non-nation state actors (terrorist groups); and (2) the sale or sharing of technology to process fissile material and manufacture weapons and weapons-grade materiel. We can't do much about the sale of war materiel. The best thing we could do, I think, is initiate a global outreach program providing aid and other benefits to those former Soviet nuclear states to properly dispose of the material. The logistics of moving it to the US ans subsequent costs involved in transportation and disposition are unsurmountable. We would probably see more sunlight by providing the training and tools to dispose of it in place and to dispose of the facilities left over from the related (but now inert) programs. Many of those facilities are inactive and unprotected, leaving a wide open door for technology and material theft.

The second issue involves a much more robust international intelligence capability (CIA) than we have currently. The Clinton years saw the near elimination of human intelligence capability in the CIA, relying instead on satellite imagery and computer models. We can't operate like that anymore. Knowledge sales are much more difficult to track and regulate. Anymore, a simple email may present the enemy with all the information it needs in a format that is quickly accessible and usable and very difficult to stop.

There are no easy answers, and I fear that the nation is not in the emotional or patriotic state for these kinds of problems right now. We're so focused on what the news tells us about Iraq that we have forgotten what the larger picture looks like. Iraq is but a piece in the larger puzzle, and our presence there allows us the access and ability to collect intelligence on these kinds of problems, as well as to interfere when possible. We are full bore into a global war on terror, and this issue is a part of that war. I hope we have not lost sight of that in our zealousness to extricate ourselves from an unpopular conflict. People don't realize how complicated the war on terror really is, nor do they understand what is really at stake.

You raise a good question that is not easily answered. I fear that the answers available are too unpopular to execute in today's political climate. I don't know what kind of policy, if any, is being crafted or implemented to deal with this issue as the administration in power has it's hands so full with so many other issues that I have not seen any information releases on this. I'm sure it's a part of their comprehensive foreign policy plan, Condy Rice is too smart to overlook it, but I don't what it is.

Answer 2

What bad people? Name them. Name your source. You don't seriously think Russia wants their neighbors getting ahold of this stuff do you? Have you been listening to Rush Limprod?

Answer 3

Why don't we sell it to Romania and then call the Russian prime minister to declare international peace with him.

Answer 4

Bad people like bush are buying lots of the stuff too, ya know?

Answer 5

that would be great! i think we are already helping them destroy lot of chemical and nuclear weapons, but if it speeds up the process, its money well spent!

Answer 6

geez...arent all those muslims just buying this tuff to make smoke detectors for their people...??? your right, needs to be much more oversight and control on this stuff...

Answer 7

I know, I know, I know. Just have a good day is all I can say.

Answer 8

ha ha ur funny...do u seriously think that Russia will sell anything to u? think again..Russians are not stupid.