The Nuclear Weapons Complexes: Meeting the Conversion Challenge -- A Proposal for Expanded Action

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have undertaken a serious effort to convert their nuclear complexes to non-weapons work. However, it has been difficult to achieve significant progress toward this goal. Since the conversion process is very important for both countries, it seemed timely to review the successes and problems encountered to date and to evaluate and recommend new approaches for action. As a first step, the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (RANSAC) sought to identify more effective methods of facilitating conversion activities at five key Russian nuclear facilities. These included the two nuclear weapon design laboratories, Arzamas- 16 and Chelyabinsk-70, and the three plutonium production and separation facilities, Tomsk-7, Krasnoyarsk-26, and Chelyabinsk-65. A meeting on this subject was convened in Moscow on May 24 and 25, 1997. The goal of the meeting was to generate new ideas that would allow the U.S. and Russian governments to build on existing conversion efforts, perhaps as part of a new initiative launched under the auspices of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission (GCC). The principal participants from Russia included the First Deputy Minister of the Ministry for Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, the Directors of Arzamas-16, Chelyabinsk-70 and Tomsk-7, and the Chief Engineer of Krasnoyarsk-26. Additional details on the participants and the agenda are located in Annexes One and Two. A synopsis of the presentations made by the Russian participants is located in Annex Three.