Defense Ministry Oversees
Itself.
Russian President Deprives Himself of Reliable
Information About Nuclear Security in Armed Forces
Moscow NEZAVISIMOYE VOYENNOYE OBOZRENIYE (SUPPLEMENT TO
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA),
24 Feb 96 No
4, p 6
by Nikolay Filonov, former commanding officer
of a nuclear-technical unit
Russian Presidential Edict No.
350-rp of 26 July 1995, which withdrew the function of state
oversight of nuclear weapons and nuclear generators in the
Russian Defense Ministry from the Russian Federal Service
for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security, continues
to elicit extremely conflicting reviews from experts in
various relevant departments. And understandably so, for
the Defense Ministry itself has effectively become an
"independent" oversight agency for its own nuclear
facilities. For example, in the December (1995) issue of
the journal YADERNYY KONTROL [Nuclear Oversight], in an
article entitled "Nuclear Security: A View From the Defense
Ministry," Colonel-General Yevgeniy Maslin, head of the
Russian Defense Ministry's 12th Chief Administration,
writes approvingly of the presidential edict. "There are no
grounds for alarm," the general assured. But is that really
so?
I think it appropriate to recall if only briefly the
background of relations between the Russian Defense Ministry
and the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear
and Radiation Security. The Russian President, as the
Supreme Commander-in-Chief, in Directive No. 137-rp of 31
December 1991, which was tantamount to an order to the
Defense Ministry, charged the Russian Federal Service for
Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security with
responsibility for the organization and exercise of state
regulation and oversight of the safe production and use of
nuclear materials, nuclear energy, and radioactive
substances for peaceful and military purposes with no
exceptions whatsoever. This was reiterated in subsequent
directives issued by the Russian President--No. 283-rp of 5
June 1992 and No. 636-rp of 16 September 1993. But
noncompliance with these directives on the part of senior
officials of the Russian Defense Ministry reduced them to
pro forma requirements. An unquestionably paradoxical
situation arose in which the functions assigned to the
Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and
Radiation Security were effectively blocked by the Russian
Defense Ministry. And this situation continued not for
months but for years, until the Russian President issued the
latest directive, No. 350-rp of 26 July 1995.
The very appearance of Russian Presidential Directive
No. 137-rp was a step forward in creating a system of
effective extradepartmental state oversight throughout the
country, with jurisdiction even over such monsters as the
Russian Defense Ministry and the Russian Ministry of Nuclear
Energy. It was necessary to start somewhere. In keeping
with these functions, the Russian Federal Service for
Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security created a
Nuclear-Weapon Nuclear and Radiation Safety Administration,
headed by General Anatoliy Tikhankin, who had served 37
years in the Russian Defense Ministry's 12th Chief
Administration and in units subordinate to it and was a
professional in the field of special activities in military
units and industry. The administration was staffed with
senior officers from the aforementioned 12th Chief
Administration and from nuclear-technical units and
administrations of the Armed Forces branches. The Ministry
of Defense could not have been unaware of this. Therefore,
Gen Maslin's assertion that the staff of the Russian
Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation
Security lacked relevant experience and professionalism is
groundless.
Let me remind Yevgeniy Maslin that those veterans'
expertise and experience made for far better nuclear-weapon
combat readiness and security that the current level being
maintained under his supervision. We were reared on the
highest requirements and best traditions of the Ministry of
Medium Machine-Building; in short, we were (and remain)
both professionals and patriots in the broadest sense of
these terms. The principles of the system that we
established and introduced, even amid the breakup of the
Soviet Union, ensured the safekeeping, security, and high
readiness of nuclear weapons, and they remain in effect
today. But everything has its limits, and the fact that the
system has developed glitches and cracks is something that
only a blind person or careerist intent on presenting his
area of responsibility in the best possible light could
fail to see.
It is now being charged that the Russian Federal
Service for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security,
while laying claim to exercise oversight, failed to assume
responsibility. What responsibility? It is indeed true that
representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry, acting
through the 12th Chief Administration, made attempts when
approving various documents to relieve themselves of a
certain amount of responsibility for nuclear-weapon
security by shifting it onto the Russian Federal Service
for Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security. The
development and production of nuclear weapons is the
prerogative of the relevant theorists and designers, and
the Russian Federal Service for Oversight of Nuclear and
Radiation Security never laid claim to coauthorship in this
regard. To follow the logic of the Defense Ministry
representatives, if a compressed-air cylinder explodes
somewhere as a result of a violation of prescribed operating
regulations, responsibility should rest with the Boiler
Room Inspectorate, not by the people who were working with
the cylinder. This is the kind of logic used to "blur"
responsibility with the aim of protecting from punishment
those who are truly at fault for some accident or incident.
Nuclear-technical units are a component part of not
just the Russian Defense Ministry, but of our entire
society, and so their functioning cannot help but reflect
the processes under way in our country. Under these
circumstances, to say that there is no reason to show
concern for the safekeeping and reliability of nuclear
weapons is indiscreet and could be viewed as an attempt to
conceal the actual state of affairs.
Can we help but be unsettled by press reports about a
system of bribe-taking on the part of officials of rayon
military commissariats in the course of conscription, about
sales of weapons and explosives by agents of the Defense
Ministry's Chief Intelligence Administration, about the
dismantling of an entire regiment (32 aircraft) under the
direction of its own commanding officer, and so on and so
forth?
In his arguments, Gen Maslin cites U.S. experience. He
claims that nuclear weapons there are not under
extradepartmental oversight. But the situation in the United
States is hardly comparable to that in our country. Or does
the U.S. Army have officers working with nuclear weapons
who go unpaid for months at a stretch (not to mention their
failure to receive other types of compensation) and who, in
order to ease the hunger of their wives and children and
feed them somehow, go out to collect empty bottles and
gather mushrooms in the forests and the hills? One can only
be unsettled by the fact that a number of nuclear-technical
units in the various branches of the Armed Forces are being
assigned officers whose have refused to serve on ships and
in other line units (or who were discharged from them). It
is also widely known that 100 percent of all thefts of
radioactive materials (albeit not materials intended for
the production of nuclear weapons) have been committed not
by outsiders, but by the people who work with them directly.
This is also evidenced by thefts of nuclear fuel rods
intended for nuclear generators in the Northern Fleet.
After all this, how can one possibly claim, as does Gen
Maslin, that "there are no grounds for concern or
apprehension," as "all problems relating to nuclear weapons
in Russia are being handled by a governmental commission on
nuclear weapons under the direction of Prime Minister
Viktor Chernomyrdin"? What is this--an attempt to shift
responsibility from oneself onto the prime minister?
One cannot disagree with the assertion that we have
too many kinds of inspectors. That the money being spent on
their upkeep and on the proliferation of inspecting generals
would be better spent on the program to upgrade nuclear
weapons. I don't see any particular need for the Defense
Ministry to have a nuclear security inspectorate. In my
opinion, the Army should have more of the kind of generals
who pull triggers, as they say, and who are not just
administrators. For the people and for the treasury, it is
cheaper to have overseers and inspectors who do not wear
shoulderboards. By contrast, people wearing shoulderboards
should know mainly how to fight, not create the appearance
of well-being by overseeing and monitoring themselves.
Mindful of the fact that nuclear weapons are above all
a political weapon possessing tremendous destructive power,
and bearing in mind the unpredictability of the political
situation in the country, rising crime, and stress caused by
crime and terrorism, it is clear that we should:
1. Remove all nuclear-technical units, above all those
of the Armed Forces branches, from the subordination of the
Defense Ministry and reassign them to the Russian Ministry
of Nuclear Energy or to a specially created civilian
authority formed under the Security Council of directly
under the nation's president.
2. Create a truly extradepartmental, state
inspectorate for nuclear security in the handling and
intended use of nuclear weapons, one that would exercise
oversight not only in nuclear-technical units, but also in
nuclear-weapon combat units. If it is felt that creating
such an authority under the Russian Federal Service for
Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security is ill advised
on security or other grounds, it should be set up under the
Federal Security Service or, again, under the Security
Council. But this agency should be a working body, not one
composed of representatives.
3. In order to lower the risk of a military conflict
involving nuclear weapons, to discuss the advisability of
having all the "nuclear club" member countries withdraw
their nuclear-technical units from direct subordination to
their defense ministries at the April meeting on nuclear
security problems in Moscow. There is no question that
splitting up the functions of handling both nuclear weapons
and equipment relating to their use (delivery vehicles)
from the single pair of hands (read: the Defense Ministry)
in which they are currently concentrated would help lower
the risk that nuclear weapons might be used without the
authorization of the country's supreme political
leadership.
I personally need no answer to the questions raised. I
understand the motives of the Defense Ministry's generals:
Their personal well-being is directly dependent on a
monopolistic right to information about the true state of
affairs with respect to nuclear security in the units they
supervise.
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