The Threat That Lingers

The threat once posed by the Soviet military machine has vanished along with the Soviet Union, but Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons that could destroy the U.S. in less than an hour. As President and commander in chief, Boris Yeltsin has the power to use them. In a political crisis, the West naturally seeks reassurance that the finger on the nuclear trigger is steady and that the missiles are under control.

"We are monitoring that very closely," Bill Clinton said last week. "We have no reason to be concerned that the command-and-control procedures have been interrupted." That process is more complicated in Russia than in Washington, where Clinton has instant access to the "nuclear football," an attache case containing the codes that launch U.S. missiles.

According to a new study by Bruce Blair of the Brookings Institution, the Russian President and Defense Minister must jointly transmit an order to fire missiles to the uniformed chiefs of the general staff and the rocket forces, who both hold the launch codes. This Russian form of group responsibility depends on the military's obedience to political leaders. If Yeltsin was ever forced out of office, Vice President Alexander Rutskoi would be his legal successor; if Yeltsin refused to accept dismissal, which of the two would the generals choose to obey? Whatever they might decide, the ability to launch the missiles would remain in the hands of the military.

Just as worrisome are the former Soviet warheads outside Russia's control. Ukraine, where 176 intercontinental missiles are based, has pledged to dismantle them under the two START treaties and sign the nuclear nonproliferation agreement. But it has taken no steps in that direction, and Foreign Minister Anatoli Zlenko said last week that the political turmoil in Russia made his country less willing to let go of its missiles. Even "more precarious" and harder to control, says Blair, are 600 nuclear bombs stockpiled in Ukraine that belonged to the former Soviet Union. Ukraine wants security guarantees and aid from the U.S. and Russia before it agrees to give up all its nuclear arsenal.