Clara Weiss
Russia and the United States ended their collaboration in the
disposal of nuclear waste in mid-December, according to a report in the Boston Globe
on Monday. After the US, Russia is the second largest nuclear power in
the world. Together Washington and Moscow own 90 percent of global
nuclear weapons.
Within the framework of nuclear disarmament treaties, which came into
force in the early 1990s, the US and Russia had agreed that American
specialists would assist with the securing and destruction of nuclear
weapons and materials so that they were not sold or passed on to
terrorists.
According to the Globe report, the US has spent $2 billion
to date on the so-called cooperative threat reduction programme, and had
planned a further $100 million for this year. “Since the cooperative
agreement began, US experts have helped destroy hundreds of weapons and
nuclear-powered submarines, pay workers’ salaries, install security
measures at myriad facilities containing weapons material across Russia
and the former Soviet Union, and conduct training programmes for their
personnel,” the newspaper wrote.
At a three-day meeting in Moscow in mid-December, the Russians
declared that they rejected all further cooperation with the US in the
securing and destruction of nuclear weapons. Prior to the Globe report, there had been no official statement about this ending of cooperation.
The newspaper reported that several dozen leading figures had
participated on both sides, including officials from the US Energy
Department, the Pentagon and the State Department, as well as several
Russian military experts and government representatives.
From 1 January, the expansion of security equipment was halted at
some of Russia’s seven closed nuclear sites, where large quantities of
highly enriched uranium and plutonium are located. The joint securing of
18 civilian nuclear depots, as well as two sites that transform highly
enriched uranium into a harmless substance, has been stopped. The
construction of hi-tech surveillance systems at 13 nuclear depots and
the installation of radiation detectors at Russian ports, airports and
border crossings are also at risk.
The ending of cooperation did not come as a surprise. In November,
the chairman of the Russian federal agency for nuclear energy, Sergei
Kiriyenko, told US government representatives that Russia was not
planning any new joint contracts in 2015 for nuclear disarmament.
US government officials expressed their disappointment to the Boston Globe
about the ending of cooperation. In reality, the Russian move was
predictable and effectively provoked by last year’s aggressive policies
on the part of the US and European Union (EU).
The ending of cooperation is above all the result of the provocative
actions of US and German imperialism in Ukraine. Washington and Berlin
supported a putsch last February that brought a regime to power that not
only intends to join NATO, but also has raised the prospect of
Ukraine’s nuclear rearmament.
Until the Budapest Agreement of 1994, the world’s third largest
nuclear stockpile was in Ukraine. In the Budapest memorandum, the
Ukraine government promised to relinquish all nuclear weapons. In
exchange, the US, Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany guaranteed
the borders of Ukraine at the time.
The announcement of the ending of cooperation in nuclear disarmament
reflects extreme military tensions. In the face of a civil war in
Ukraine and NATO’s rearming against Russia, the Kremlin is signalling
that it no longer trusts American specialists with the checking and
destruction of nuclear weapons.
The nuclear disarmament New START treaty, which came into force at
the beginning of 2011, will still apply. According to the
Stockholm-based peace research institute SIPRI, however, the US and
Russia disarmed much more slowly between 2013 and 2014 than they had
done between 2012 and 2013.
According to the report, the US had reduced its total number of
warheads by 400 to 7,300. Of these, 1,900 are ready to be deployed. In
Russia, the total fell by 500 to 8,000, of which 1,600 are ready for
deployment. According to New START, each country is expected to reduce
its strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550. SIPRI expert Phillip Schell told
German news channel NTV, “It is relatively clear that this has nothing to do with a genuine process of disarmament.”
Shortly before the final ratification of the treaty in 2011, cables released by WikiLeaks exposed plans for war by NATO against Russia.
Both Russia and the US are once again rearming their nuclear
arsenals, although the US invests by far the largest sums of money in
its nuclear weapons programme. As the New York Times reported
in November 2014, the Obama administration plans to begin the investment
of what will eventually amount to $1.1 trillion in nuclear weapons over
the coming three decades. $350 billion is to be used up in the coming
10 years alone.
In addition, the US published a military blueprint at the end of 2014, outlining US preparations for military interventions around the globe, as well as for a third world war.
In contrast to the United States, Russia is not an imperialist
country. It functions chiefly as a supplier of energy to the world
market and as a sales market for global concerns. The total value of all
Russian shares was put at $531 billion in November, above all due to
western sanctions. This is less than one US company alone, Apple, with a
share value of $620 billion.
But precisely because of Russia’s economic and political weakness,
the Kremlin sees nuclear weapons as the only possibility of
strengthening its position in negotiations with the imperialist powers
and preparing for a potential war with NATO member states.
In this context, the cancelling of the agreement on disarming Russian
nuclear weapons is a further sign of the growing danger of a war
between the two nuclear powers, the US and Russia.
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