The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2007

Goloskokov, who was then deputy general director of a massive nuclear complex in Siberia, discusses a plethora of problems with the forces that guard nuclear installations: • Security routines are still based on procedures of the old Soviet GULAG system of the 1940s and 1950s, which the Ministry of Inter- nal Affairs refuses to update. • During training exercises in which mock terrorists attempt to breach defenses the attackers are usually successful, yet the guards’ tactics remain unchanged. • Corruption is widespread and endemic — for instance, night-vision goggles are kept in the comman- dant’s safe so they won’t disappear. • Guards are ineffective and poorly trained, often patrolling without any ammunition in their guns. • Pay is low and funds are in short supply. Moreover, the old Soviet system of keeping track of nuclear materials was sloppy in the extreme. Matthew Bunn said that at some sites, any difference between input and output was defined as “losses to waste.” In effect, theft was ruled out as a possibility. Those rules persisted for many years after the disintegration of the USSR. Militants and Mafiyas The weakness of Russia’s nuclear security measures wouldn’t be of such concern if it weren’t for the fact that it faces a capable and desperate foe: the Chechen nationalist movement. Fighting for the independence of their small province, Chechen militants have shown time and again that they can form armed detachments of more than 20 fighters, deceive and overpower Russian guards, and seize poorly guarded facilities and hold them for several days. Simon Saradzhyan, an editor at Moscow News , exam- ined the threat of Chechen nuclear terrorism in a 2004 discussion paper for Harvard’s Belfer Center. He pointed out that as the Chechen fighters lose hope of beating the Russian forces by conventional or guerrilla warfare (and they have been losing in recent years), “committing a cat- astrophic nuclear terrorist attack will become an even more appealing option for them.” Gottemoeller confirms that when she was a DOE offi- cial working on nonproliferation programs between 1997 and 2000, “I would meet with Russian facility directors and securi- ty people. They would comment to me that their biggest nightmare was a truckload of Chechen terrorists pulling up at the gates and shooting their way into the facility — and then either exploding a truck bomb next to the reactor that would cause radioactive material to be dis- persed, or stealing fissile materials.” And Allison points out that Chechen forces are reported to have contemplated seizing a nuclear research reactor in Moscow, and have obtained small quantities of radioactive materials on several occasions. Researchers at Harvard’s Managing the Atom Project concluded in their comprehensive report, Securing the Bomb 2006 , that “Russia remains the only country where senior officials have confirmed that terrorists have carried out reconnaissance at nuclear warhead storage facilities. In late 2005, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev ... confirmed that in recent years ‘international terrorists have planned attacks against nuclear and power industry installations’ intended to ‘seize nuclear materials and use them to build weapons of mass destruction.’” Chechen militants are not just a concern for Russia. From the viewpoint of U.S. security, the situation is made more grave by the probability that al-Qaida has ties to Islamist radical separatists in Russia’s North Caucasus region and has had Chechen members. Adds Bunn, “Some Chechen factions are known to have close ties to al-Qaida. By some accounts, the Chechen leader Khatab (who was Jordanian) may have been sent to Chechnya by bin Laden.” Allison states that there are definite links between Chechen and jihadist forces, and that Chechen militants have received funds from al-Qaida. As he comments, “While the Chechens’ target of choice for their first nuclear terrorist attack will surely be Moscow, if the Chechens are successful in acquiring several nuclear bombs, their al-Qaida brethren would be likely cus- tomers.” Saradzhyan of Moscow News emphasizes that the Chechen militants are more dangerous because of the “corruption and ideological conversion of law enforce- ment officers,” who frequently steal weapons, fuel and F O C U S 38 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 Technical fixes to the security of nuclear facilities can only achieve a limited amount if the human element is deficient.