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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
How threat of loose Soviet nukes was avoided
2012-01-09
The doomsday scenario of Soviet nukes falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorists has, as far as is known, remained fiction, thanks to a massive U.S.-Russian effort to lock the weaponry up safely after the Soviet Union fell apart.

The vast nuclear arsenal, scattered among several newly independent nations, was secured because Russian military officers acted with professionalism and honesty, Moscow and Washington shared clear priorities, and the U.S. taxpayer coughed up billions of dollars, former top officials who dealt with the Soviet nuclear legacy say.

Even so, as the world marks the 20th anniversary of the Soviet demise at the end of 1991, occasional doubts surface about whether the system was airtight. There's the Russian scientist who perhaps went to work for Iran's nuclear program, an old claim that portable nuclear devices went astray, the seizures of smuggled fissile material in the 1990s.
That's just the intro. Rest at link for evaluation.
Posted by:gorb

#3  Unfortunately, not unlike GWCC = MMAGW, the international/universal Govts, Perts consensus on alleged missing Cold-War Soviet nukes [Nukes-WMDS] is that there is no consensus.

As things stand in January 2012, we are not going to know until a Nuke-WMDS = CBRNE "Mushroon Cloud(s)" goes off in one or more major cities.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2012-01-09 19:20  

#2  Pifer said that some Ukrainian officials longed to keep them, but around 1992 concluded their country had neither the money nor the expertise to remain a nuclear power.

Right, that's for rich countries, like Pakistan. And North Korea, of course.
Posted by: Bobby   2012-01-09 12:56  

#1  See Rantburg's Sunday Morning Coffee Pot review of The Dead Hand for more on this.
Posted by: lotp   2012-01-09 09:11  

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