The Group of Eight countries formally agreed yesterday to a plan to provide $20 billion during the next 10 years for WMD nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet Union (see GSN, June 27).

The priorities of the new effort — dubbed Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction — include scrapping chemical weapons, dismantling decommissioned nuclear submarines, disposing of fissile material and employing former weapons scientists, according to a G-8 statement (G-8 release, June 27).

“The Global Partnership will initiate new bilateral and multilateral projects and enhance existing ones,” the U.S. government said.  While the focus will be on projects in Russia, other states, including former Soviet states, could receive assistance. 

Countries outside the G-8 are also invited to participate in the partnership (White House fact sheet, June 27).  Each donor country would set up its own projects in Russia, a senior Bush administration official said (James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times, June 28).

The G-8 will create a senior-level group to coordinate members’ activities by monitoring progress and discussing priorities (White House fact sheet).  The G-8 members adopted guidelines “that will form the basis for the negotiation of specific agreements for new projects … to ensure effective and efficient project development, coordination and implementation,” the G-8 statement said. 

According to the G-8 agreement, bilateral and multilateral projects should include “auditing and transparency measures” and should “be implemented in an environmentally sound manner,” provide for high safety levels and include clear milestones with the option to cut funding if milestones are not met (G-8 statement).

Funding

The United States — the driving force behind the agreement — plans to provide $10 billion of the $20 billion over the next 10 years, according to the White House statement (see GSN, May 20).

All the donor countries have several options for financing nonproliferation programs, including swapping Russian debt (see GSN, April 18) for nonproliferation projects (White House fact sheet).

There is no way to guarantee that other countries will raise the remaining $10 billion, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said.  She added, however, “we’re confident, given the spirit around this global partnership, that the commitments are going to reach into that area.”

The new partnership will bring Europe and Japan much more into nonproliferation and counterterrorism projects that have been mostly a U.S. effort so far (see GSN, May 3), another senior administration official said (Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times).

U.S. Role

European leaders originally resisted the U.S.-sponsored partnership proposal because of the cost and concerns about financial accountability in Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal.  U.S. President George W. Bush, however, secured Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for the plan during a private meeting.

Putin agreed to provide European countries with the same monitoring power and protections the United States has for its nonproliferation programs, including full access to Russian sites, audit rights and exemption from taxes and contractor liability, the Journal reported.  With that agreement, the other G-8 countries — Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and Canada — signed on to Bush’s plan (Jeanne Cummings, Wall Street Journal, June 28).

The United States already has several nonproliferation and threat reduction programs in the former Soviet Union, and the new partnership will enhance some of those, according to the White House.  Those programs include: “reducing strategic missiles, bombers, silos and submarines, ending weapons-grade plutonium production, reducing excess weapons-grade plutonium, upgrading storage and transport security for nuclear warheads, upgrading storage security for fissile material, reducing nuclear weapons infrastructure, destroying chemical weapons, eliminating chemical weapons production capability, securing biological pathogens, providing peaceful employment for former weapons scientists, enhancing export controls and border security and improving safety of civil nuclear reactors” (White House fact sheet).

Principles to Deny Terrorists Access to WMD

The G-8 also established six principles to “prevent terrorists or those that harbor them from acquiring or developing” weapons of mass destruction.  Those principles are:

*         Strengthen multilateral treaties and other instruments to prevent WMD proliferation and strengthen the institutions established to implement such agreements;

*         Develop and maintain measures that ensure that the production, use, storage and transport of WMD materials is safe and secure and provide such assistance to countries lacking the ability to secure such materials;

*         Ensure that WMD storage facilities are physically secure and provide assistance to states where facilities lack protection;

*         Implement border controls, law enforcement efforts and international cooperation to detect and interdict attempts to smuggle WMD materials and items and provide assistance to countries that lack appropriate resources;

*         Maintain export controls over items that could be used to develop weapons of mass destruction and missiles; and

*         Work to manage and dispose of fissile materials stocks that are no longer required for defense purposes, destroy all chemical weapons and “minimize” stockpiles of dangerous biological agents (G-8 statement).

For further information, see:

G-8 Summit site

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