Cooperative Threat Reduction in the former Soviet states: legislative history, implementation, and lessons learned

摘要

The US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, founded in the early 1990s to secure Soviet weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-nuclear, chemical, and biological-and promote WMD nonproliferation, has enjoyed great success. CTR has spent over $10 billion in the last twenty-five years to help eliminate thousands of nuclear warheads, dozens of nuclear submarines, 35,000 metric tons of chemical agent, and thousands of strategic missiles, bombers, and missile silos in former Soviet states. But it has also been beset with numerous funding, political, bureaucratic, technical, and planning challenges. The author reviews the history of CTR funding and legislation, discusses obstacles to implementation, and identifies five broad lessons from the program's early experiences that are applicable to future global security projects.