Status of the United States-Russian Federation safeguards, transparency and irreversibility (STI) initiative for nuclear arms reductions

The US-Russian Federation initiative to provide safeguards, transparency, and irreversibility (STI) of nuclear arms reductions has been emphasized by several Presidential Joint Summit Statements as well as various agreements between the two parties. Beginning with the US and Russian Federation agreement in March, 1994, to host reciprocal inspections to confirm the stockpiles of plutonium removed from nuclear weapons, the US and Russia have been negotiating an STI regime to increase the transparency and irreversibility of nuclear arms reduction. In December, 1994, the US presented a paper to the Russian Federation proposing a regime of specific transparency measures to provide broader transparency and irreversibility of nuclear arms reductions. Presently the US considers STI to consist of the following measures: (1) agreement for cooperation (AFC); (2) stockpile data exchange agreement (SDEA); (3) mutual reciprocal inspections (MRI); (4) spot checks to confirm data exchanges (SC); and (5) limited Chain of Custody of Warheads Being Dismantled (LCC). The US and Russian have begun negotiations, which are in various stages of progress, on the first three of these measures. This paper will present a brief historical background of STI and discuss the transparency measures including the status of negotiation for each of the measures.