Globalizing Cooperative Threat Reduction: A Survey of Options

Publication Date: October 2006

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Military and defense

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Abstract:

Increasingly, Congress and the Bush Administration are looking to utilize nonproliferation assistance programs, including cooperative threat reduction, to help reduce the risk of terrorist access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In the FY2004 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 108-176, Sec. 1308), Congress authorized the Bush Administration to spend $50 million of unobligated funds from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in states outside the former Soviet Union. As of September 2006, the Administration had spent such funds only in Albania ($38.5 million) for the purpose of eliminating chemical weapons stockpiles. The report of the 9/11 Commission called for continued support for threat reduction assistance to keep WMD away from terrorist groups. This report, which will be updated as needed, analyzes the range of possible applications of CTR funds, the kinds of assistance that might be supplied, and describes legal, financial, technical, and political constraints on possible assistance.

A key underlying issue is that the countries posing the greatest risks may be the least amenable to cooperative approaches. A second issue is that there is an array of U.S. domestic and international legal restrictions on the most useful kinds of cooperation. Both the executive branch and Congress may need to consider domestic and international legal and political restrictions on cooperation with states outside the nonproliferation regimes, low levels of transparency exhibited by most of the potential recipient states, and the lack of incentives for many of these states to pursue threat reduction measures. In addition, Congress may wish to consider whether potentially expanding the geographic scope of CTR may have a negative effect on existing programs. One school of thought believes Russia, as the largest source of stocks of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, should continue to be the main focus of attention. Other observers believe there is now an opportunity to focus on states within the nexus of terrorism and WMD.

This report complements CRS Report RL31957, Nonproliferation and Threat Reduction Assistance: U.S. Programs in the Former Soviet Union; CRS Report RL31589, Nuclear Threat Reduction Measures for India and Pakistan; and CRS Report RS21840, Expanding Threat Reduction and Nonproliferation Programs: Concepts and Definitions.