When Nations Divide, Who Gets the Bombs? : Arms: As the Soviet Union fragments, smaller states might gain control of nuclear weapons. The delicate nuclear balance may be tipped.

As we contemplate the latest transformation of the Soviet Union, it is as important as ever--perhaps more so--to examine the knotty questions of the security of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation.

During the abortive putsch by Kremlin hard-liners, the nuclear-forces command took measures to safeguard strategic weapons. Analysts, now aware of these measures, generally agreed that Soviet nuclear-weapons safeguards were necessary and responsible. In all the history of nuclear weapons, however, observers have focused on the physical safety of nuclear weapons--not their political security.

Events in the Soviet Union have accelerated a trend toward political disintegration. While the consensus is that an all-union political structure will remain for the foreseeable future, the individual republics will acquire far greater weight and independence of action, both political and economic, in the international arena. This is as true of nuclear affairs as in any other field.

What garnered most press attention in the wake of the coup is but one aspect of the political security problem: What would happen to all those Soviet nuclear weapons in the territories of successor states to the Soviet Union? Pundits marvelled over a nuclear Ukraine or Kazakhstan--instant nuclear powers with the stature of Britain or France. Soviet tactical nuclear weapons, dispersed across the country, created the potential for other instant powers. President George Bush’s announcement of unilateral arms-control measures is designed to encourage Soviet reciprocal actions, limiting the potential for the evolution of Soviet successor nuclear powers.

The whole sequence of events in the Soviet Union points up an important aspect of the political security dilemma: the problem of safety of both nuclear weapons and expertise in a nation undergoing political upheaval. In the relatively simple Soviet case, there were good means of control--under the previously existing system, the KGB had responsibility for the physical security of weapons. The plotters had no desire to threaten foreign governments and the strategic- force command took positive steps to reduce the combat readiness of Soviet nuclear forces. Everything turned out all right. With some notion of responsibility, and some idea of the awful potential of nuclear weapons, the Soviets safeguarded theirs. But not all actors will be so careful.

In fact, the world is beset with many animosities that ambitious coup plotters might exploit to divert attention from their political manipulations. Foreign entanglements have been a traditional palliative for domestic crisis. What about the security of Iraqi nuclear weapons in the event of a Baghdad coup, or North Korean ones in an identical situation in Pyongyang? What about India or Pakistan or South Africa? The list goes on. Not all political systems are as stable as the American or, for that matter, the Soviet. Remarkably, a number of the nations usually cited as on the verge of going nuclear have shown some degree of political instability.

Most frightening of all is the possibility that an entrenched political leader faced with a coup might attempt a “scorched earth” policy by ordering the detonation of nuclear weapons under his control. Just the threat of such action could have uncalculable consequences. Alternatively, coup plotters successful in seizing nuclear weapons might threaten detonation--either to consolidate their power or to protect their retreat. There is also the danger that terrorists might use a coup situation as an opportunity to seize control of nuclear weapons themselves.

In short, there is reason to suspect that the trans-coup security of nuclear weapons will become a generic problem as the world moves into the 21st Century. The problem can only become worse as more nations acquire nuclear weapons.

Nuclear technology, in general, poses similar dilemmas. The centrifugal forces at work in the world today are leading toward the multiplication of nations, the creation of micro-states. We see this phenomenon not only in the Soviet Union but in Yugoslavia, Albania, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Successor states may well suffer from economic woes identical to those of the nations they supplant.

Almost by definition, the successor states will possess fewer resources and less bargaining power than former nation-states. Nuclear expertise, even nuclear weapons, may become stock in trade for small states desperate for money to offset trade imbalances. The perception of nuclear power as a great equalizer can only enhance the incentives for emergent micro-states to gain access to the technology. The nature of nuclear technology, unforgiving as it is, and nuclear weapons, ultimate as they are, have as yet unforeseen implications for bargaining in the international system.

Until now, U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy focused on the “suppliers group”--the relatively small number of countries that already possess nuclear technology and hence the ability to export it. An epidemic of national separatisms can only undermine this supplier-group approach by creating new potential suppliers not bound by existing commitments. Should market activity in nuclear exports increase, the supplier group may even be tempted to cast off existing restrictions.

It is no longer enough to say that nuclear exports are subject to controls and verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Iraqi atomic- bomb program demonstrates that IAEA controls can be evaded with clever maneuvers and a little imagination.

Widening nuclear proliferation will call into question existing safeguards over nuclear weapons--even simple physical ones. U.S. weapons have had a relatively good safety record, Soviet arms may continue to be safe--but neither the IAEA nor anyone else can ensure the safety of nuclear technology in the hands of micro-states. The only real solution to the nuclear quandary is no proliferation. Recent events in the Soviet Union remind us it is high time to rethink nonproliferation policy.