Cooperative Threat Reduction: Complex decisionmaking and the politics of denuclearization

The Nunn-Lugar, or Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program was an innovative policy response to an urgent security need at Cold War's end. The Soviet collapse yielded four nuclear-inheriting new independent states (NIS) and called into question the ultimate disposition of the formerly-Soviet nuclear arsenal. The U.S. Congress created CTR as a denuclearization initiative, a hybrid nonproliferation and security assistance program which its supporters dubbed "defense by other means." Under time-urgent conditions and in an environment characterized by uncertainty, CTR constituted a novel approach to security policy. While the initial program was limited in scope, Nunn-Lugar's objectives expanded to eventually include: destruction and dismantlement, chain of custody and nonproliferation, and demilitarization and defense conversion. Between 1991 and 1996, Congress authorized approximately $2.6 billion for these efforts. To some extent the result of CTR aid, Belarus, Kazakstan, and Ukraine became nuclear weapons-free, and, by the end of 1996, Russia was two years ahead of schedule for START I compliance. Other program objectives met with varying degrees of success. This dissertation is a case study of Nunn-Lugar program. Within the CTR context it examines the relationship between the domestic political process and policy outcomes, and seeks to determine the extent to which a strategy predicated on cooperative security principles achieved its objectives in the NIS. While some have suggested a two-level framework for understanding policy evolution, this case suggests a more complex, multidimensional decisionmaking process in operation. Over time, CTR was profoundly affected by politics within the U.S. executive branch, in the U.S. Congress, and between the United States and NIS recipients. An initially skeptical Bush Administration became increasingly program-friendly, while the Clinton Administration actively supported the initiative. The 102nd, 103rd, and 104th Congresses (1991-96) each treated the program differently, variously expanding and curtailing Nunn-Lugar's mandate. The NIS overcame initial skepticism and cooperated extensively with the United States in the highly secretive domain of nuclear policy. However, by 1996 U.S. and NIS (particularly Russian) security objectives differed considerably, and the political compromise in Washington between CTR-friendly agencies in the executive branch and an increasingly skeptical Congress effectively called into question Nunn-Lugar's future.