Following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been cooperation between the United States and Russia in reducing their nuclear arsenals. The nuclear power reactors in the U.S. have been burning diluted Russian nuclear materials from nuclear warheads left over from the Soviet Era. U.S. scientists helped clean up the area in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons. These are only two out of a number of examples of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in dealing with problems involving nuclear materials and issues. For over two decades, scientists in the U.S. and Russia have worked together to evaluate each other's nuclear research establishments. One great benefit of this cooperation was the reduction of the possibility of deadly miscalculations and technological surprises.
About a year ago, the U.S. Secretary of Energy traveled to Vienna to sign a new agreement called the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation on Cooperation in Nuclear- and Energy-Related Scientific Research and Development. The Russian Energy Secretary signed for Russia. The agreement would have allowed Russian nuclear scientists to visit U.S. nuclear laboratories and U.S. scientists would have been allowed to visit Russian nuclear laboratories. This reciprocal sharing agreement extended to very sensitive sites where nuclear weapons were developed. The agreement also mentioned the possibility of U.S. and Russian nuclear scientists repurposing nuclear warheads to alter the course of or destroy an asteroid that is headed for collision with the Earth.
The confrontation between Russia and the U.S. over Ukraine is threatening the recent agreement between the two countries that would have brought the most comprehensive collaboration to date between nuclear scientists in the two countries. I have blogged about the missiles being tested by the Russians that the U.S. government claims violates the terms of one of the nuclear disarmaments treaties that the U.S. and Russia have signed. There are people in the government and armament industries in the U.S. that are lobbying for the U.S. to develop a missile that would definitely violate the same treaty.
Now the U.S. has cancelled nuclear conferences, nuclear symposia and visits to nuclear labs because of the cooling relations between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy explicitly stated that the reason for the cancellations could be traced directly to Russia's recent annexation of the Crimea. He did say that cooperation between the U.S. and Russia would continue with respect to insuring the security of nuclear materials. The U.S. and Russia are still cooperating on the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. The U.S. has been relying on Russian rockets to carry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station. The U.S. is currently buying Russian engines to install in U.S. rockets.
It is of great concern that the two nuclear superpowers on Earth are slipping back into a posture of hostility. The U.S. and Russia each have enough nuclear warheads to destroy human civilization many times over. U.S. missiles are pointed at Russia and can launch in minutes. Russia has their missiles pointed at the U.S. and ready to launch. Any program that increases cooperation and understanding between the U.S. and Russia moves the world away from nuclear war. And the loss of any such program moves the world closer to nuclear war.
Signing the agreement:
