The past year was highlighted by Ukraine's accession to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state and the subsequent entry into force of the START I Treaty. The entry into force of the Treaty concluded one of the key pieces of `unfinished business' left over from the cold war and paved the way for further reductions in Russian and US strategic nuclear arsenals. It also marked an important milestone in settling the contentious legacy of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.
The resolution of the diplomatic impasse over START I was facilitated by the intensified bilateral denuclearization cooperation between the USA and Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. US-funded Cooperative Threat Reduction programmes shifted decisively from the negotiation to the implementation phase, as large-scale financial and material assistance began to be delivered to the former Soviet republics. The bulk of this assistance was earmarked for strengthening central control over former Soviet nuclear weapons, improving their physical security and safety, dismantling warheads and disposing of the fissile materials they contain.
International efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons continued to occupy a prominent place on the arms control agenda. Seven states acceded to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states, and regional non-proliferation efforts made some headway. A framework agreement was reached between North Korea and the USA that held out the prospect of resolving a serious crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme. Despite these hopeful developments, the future of the NPT remained clouded in the run-up to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.
The nuclear arms control agenda is by no means completed. Ratification of START II is in jeopardy as opposition to the accord mounts in the Russian Parliament. International efforts to negotiate a legally binding global ban on the production of fissile material for weapons were in 1994 stalled in the Conference on Disarmament (CD).
The progress made in eliminating nuclear weapons has added new issues to the arms control agenda. The disposal of fissile materials from dismantled nuclear warheads poses a serious technical and financial challenge for both Russia and the USA. They have been unable to reach agreement on a dismantlement regime with reciprocal inspection arrangements and on cooperative measures to increase the transparency of national stockpiles of fissile materials.
The major post-cold war trend in nuclear arms control continued in 1994: the emergence of `deals' in which nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon capabilities are exchanged for financial and other assistance. Although this approach proved to be fruitful, concerns have been expressed that it could gradually become a counterproductive `reward' system for would-be proliferator states.
* Appendix 16A, by Rick Kokoski. With the implementation of the 1987 US-Soviet Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and with the START I and II treaties, the dismantlement of nuclear weapons is creating a substantial and rapidly growing surplus of weapon-usable fissile material.
Warhead dismantlement has been proceeding in both the USA and Russia at a rate of about 2000 warheads per year. Since each warhead contains some 3 kg of plutonium and 15 kg of HEU, this process is releasing about 6 tonnes of plutonium and 30 tonnes of HEU per year in each country.
It is important to make the elimination of these weapons as irreversible as possible to avoid the proliferation dangers associated with the fissile material removed. The difficulty lies in eliminating fissile material. HEU can be dealt with by blending it down for use as reactor fuel, but there is no such procedure for plutonium and effectively dealing with the proliferation danger inherent in plutonium stockpiles requires substantially more effort.