Lugar Seeks to Expand Threat Reduction’s Reach
Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced legislation March 18 that
would allow the Defense Department to pursue Cooperative Threat
Reduction (CTR) projects outside the former Soviet Union.
Under the terms of the legislation, the secretary of defense would
be authorized to use up to $50 million in unspent CTR funds for
“proliferation threat reduction projects and activities outside
the states of the former Soviet Union.” Before undertaking
such efforts, the secretary would have to determine that they would
either help to resolve a “critical emerging proliferation threat”
or allow the United States to “take advantage of opportunities
to achieve long-standing…nonproliferation goals.”
Lugar foreshadowed the legislation’s introduction in a March
4 address to the Council on Foreign Relations in which he suggested
“globalizing the Nunn-Lugar program,” the informal term
for the CTR projects, which aim to help secure and downsize the
nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union.
In his address, Lugar cited India and Pakistan as potential “future
partners in…threat reduction programs focused on improving
the safety and security of weapons, materials, and delivery vehicles
of mass destruction.” Lugar explained that “under the
right conditions and with the requisite transparency, such programs
would be a great service to U.S. national security interests.”
Lugar said the pending legislation was only a “first step”
and said that “a satisfactory level of accountability, transparency,
and safety can and must be established in every nation with a WMD
[weapons of mass destruction] program.” Recognizing that many
nations are unlikely to allow the United States access to their
sensitive facilities, Lugar said that when countries “resist
such accountability…then NATO nations should be prepared to
apply all their collective diplomatic and economic power, as well
as military force.”
Asked whether Lugar was calling for prompt action against such
states, a member of the senator’s staff said March 26 that,
although Lugar would like to implement the proposals immediately
and fully, he is cognizant that “the United States with all
of its allies fully engaged could not apply these standards to every
country in the world where they would need to be applied now or
in the near future.” Instead, the staff member indicated the
senator was arguing that the United States needs to “set priorities”
and to “begin to apply all of our powers to these situations.”
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