Year
1999
Abstract
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union amassed vast stockpiles of plutonium (Pu) and higly enriched uranium(HEU), the essential nuclear materials needed for producing nuclear weapons. These nuclear materials were protected and accounted for utilizig strict controls and procedures. In the Soviet Union, large investments were made in \"guards, gates, and guns\" to control thier nuclear materials and to ensure thses materials did not leave thier location. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent social, political, and economica changes that followed, these systems began to erode and Russian and former Soviet Union states' cuclear materials became increasingl vulnerable to theft. Losses of even small amounts of these highly attractive nuclear materials could enable rogue states of terrorists to builda nuclear device and subsequently threatedn vast population to nuclear terrorism. in 1994, this threat compelled the United States, Russia, and former Soviet Union states to initiate a cooperative program to imporve the security and controls of these highly attractive \"weapons-usable\" nuclear materials at identified sites throughout Russia and former Soviet Union. The Materials Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program, led by the U.S. Department of Eneregy, is installig in Russia and the former Soviet Union statesmodern safeguards stsyems that include security fences, barrers, and gates, personnel and vihicle prtals and monitors, locks, interior and exterior motion sensors, video cameras, alarm communication and display equipment, scales, bar codes, computerized accounting systems, and badging and access control equipment. These are being installed at sites with these nuclear materials (Pu and HEU_ to deter and prevent the theft of this highly attractive material.