During the 1990–1994 period, the Cooperative Security program made a number of grants to facilitate the convening of high-level experts concerned with nuclear nonproliferation issues in a post-Soviet climate. The first such effort was the Committee on Reducing the Nuclear Danger, formed at the request of Carnegie Corporation and spearheaded by McGeorge Bundy, a former advisor to President John F. Kennedy, Sidney Drell of New York University and William Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The formation of a Prevention of Proliferation Task Force followed, funded through grants to the Brookings Institution; it was this task force that produced a report instrumental in the development of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Entitled Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union, the 1991 report shook up the policy establishment with its explanation of how the Soviet Union’s system of control—weak to begin with, and riddled with problems—for its nuclear weapons could break down under political revolution, republican secession and widespread civil chaos, resulting in nuclear weapons, fissile material or nuclear know-how falling into dangerous hands. Many agree that Nunn-Lugar was essential in turning the potentially disastrous situation in the former Soviet Union into a victory for nuclear nonproliferation activists.

Not only is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program one of the most notable results of Corporation funding during the latter half of the 20th century, it is also, arguably, the most important nuclear nonproliferation step taken by the world up to that point. Since its 1991 inception it has deactivated 5,990 nuclear warheads, destroyed 479 ballistic missiles, 435 ballistic missile silos, 97 bombers, 336 submarine-launched missiles, 396 submarine missile launchers, and 24 strategic missile submarines. It has sealed 194 nuclear test tunnels and also helped more than 22,000 scientists formerly working on programs relating to weapons of mass destruction find employment in other fields.

These accomplishments have been achieved by establishing a cooperative presence in the former Soviet Union, where American firms carry out a large proportion of program-related work. A side benefit of the program has been the development of many and varied ties between Russian and U.S. military officials and government entities.

The Nunn-Lugar program also has facilitated several politically sensitive operations in the former Soviet Union. In 1994, Project Sapphire removed 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan. The amount of material was sufficient to make between 20 and 30 nuclear weapons. In 1997, 21 nuclear-capable MIG-29C attack aircraft were acquired from Moldova before they could be purchased by another country. In 1998, Operation Auburn Endeavor removed 8.8 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet state of Georgia.

“[Nunn-Lugar] was clearly a huge victory,” says Ashton Carter, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the Clinton administration and currently, co-director of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project, a Corporation grantee. He adds, “If you are familiar with the current leadership of Belarus, it is clearly a place that today would not have given up those nuclear weapons. But instead of fac-ing that situation, we successfully de-nuclearized the Soviet states,” notes Carter, who was principal author of the Soviet Nuclear Fission report when he was director of the Corporation-supported Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

During this period, additional grants were made to organizations that had begun to analyze and understand the potential for and the structure of an international cooperative security regime. The Brookings Institution took the lead in this Corporation-supported program, with Columbia University looking at the future of European security and the Washington, D.C.-based Henry L. Stimson Center (established with Corporation funding in the late 1980s) working on the verification of compliance with multilateral arms control agreements.

The notion of a culture of nonproliferation evolved and took root at the Corporation in the 1990s, prompting grants to the Monterey Institute in California and to the Stimson Center for research and education in this area. A few years later, funding was aimed at stimulating the nonproliferation culture in Russia through the Center for Policy Studies in Russia, a Monterey Institute “spin-off.” Integral to the Corporation’s focus on cooperative threat reduction has been the work of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, which worked with Russia and other former Soviet states to develop programs aimed at preventing breakdown in the Russian nuclear complex. The grant supported efforts to develop new and peaceful pursuits for the scientists and technicians engaged in the nuclear field and enabled outreach activities aimed at policymakers in the United States and Russia, journalists, national laboratories and foreign governments to draw international attention to the issue.

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