Sorry Boris: Cocom Restrictions Are Not Cold War Relics But Vital Anti-Proliferation Measures

(Washington, D.C.): On 12 June, Russian President Boris Yeltsin served notice that one of his major agenda items for the coming Tokyo Economic Summit would be the final dismantling of multilateral restrictions on the transfer of militarily sensitive high-technologies forged during the Cold War. In the face of severe political and economic constraints that will inhibit their ability to respond to Yeltsin’s demands for new financial assistance, his G-7 hosts may be inclined to accommodate him on eliminating these restrictions and the organization established to monitor and foster them — the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (or COCOM).

Can Russia Safeguard Critical Western Dual-Use Technologies?

The Center for Security Policy believes that before the United States and its allies stop controlling the flow of dangerous dual-use equipment and know-how to Russia⁽¹⁾, Moscow must demonstrate not only a willingness to safeguard technologies of mass destruction, but also a capacity to do so. Such a precondition was expressly stated in the Charter for American-Russian Partnership and Friendship signed on 17 June 1992 by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin. It stipulates that:

"The United States and Russia agree that the process of normalization of technology trade is based on Russia’s determination to adhere strictly to world standards of export controls in the area of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and related technologies, missiles and missile technology, destabilizing conventional armaments and dual-use goods and technologies."

 

The truth of the matter is, however, that the Russian government is wholly unable to implement and enforce this commitment to "adhere strictly to world standards of export controls." As then-Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Robert Gates put it in a speech before the Comstock Club in Sacramento, California on 15 December 1992:

"Russia’s economic problems provide new opportunities for those who seek to acquire sensitive technology. Whereas in earlier years, weapons were distributed to client states to gain political influence, these days they are exported for hard cash. For example, Russia has sold missiles and advanced aerospace technology to China, diesel submarines and aircraft to Iran and rocket boosters to India.

 

"Moscow publicly opposes the illegal transfer of technology that would lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But the economic incentives are great — especially if the equipment for sale is dual-use with civilian applications. As a consequence, financially strapped defense industries may hide some questionable transfers from Moscow to gain badly needed sales. Also, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, national boundaries have become more porous to illegal transfers — and this has further complicated efforts by Moscow to prevent the flow of sensitive technology to third countries."

 

Russia’s Ineffectual Export Control Regime

The following are among the systemic problems that prevent Russia from exercising reliable control over technology exports:

Customs: While the Soviet Union once had a strict system of border controls, the break-up of the USSR created 15 new independent states and 5,400 miles of new frontiers. In addition to abutting such proliferation threat nations as North Korea and China, corridors to former Soviet client states and nations aspiring to nuclear weapons capabilities such as Iran, Iraq and Pakistan are now more easily traversed by smugglers.

Although Russia’s custom service has created 100 new border posts over the last two years, officials concede that they still require an additional 750 border stations and another 35,000 personnel and officers to provide a competent level of inspection on incoming and outgoing shipments. It would take years to train such a cadre of officers properly.

Export Licensing: In addition to the serious manpower shortfalls in its customs program, Russia has profound shortcomings in other areas as well. While the United States employs approximately 600 export licensing officials, Russia’s export licensing staff numbers a paltry 15 persons — none of whom are trained in accordance with international standards. What is more, Russia’s export licensing system is not yet computerized, easily lending itself to error or fraud.

Even the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) — which in the past has repeatedly demanded radical reductions in U.S. export controls — concedes that there remain serious shortcomings in Russia’s export control policies and practices. On 1 April 1993, the NAS in conjunction with the Russian Academy of Sciences issued an instructive report entitled Dual-Use Technologies and Export Administration in the Post Cold War Era. Among its findings:

"The United States continues to maintain a number of significant concerns regarding the willingness and actual ability of the Russian Federation, as the largest republic of the former Soviet Union, to control militarily sensitive dual-use technologies….[A major] set of concerns relate to the existence of a competent civil authority with the will and capabilities to enforce the laws, decrees, operating regulations, licensing procedures, and enforcement practices recently adopted by the Government of the Russian Federation."

 

Rampant Corruption of Licensing and Customs Officials: Apart from the absence of resources, manpower and legal instruments needed to protect against the export or re-export of militarily useful technologies, Russia is at present awash with corruption. According to a report filed by the Associated Press on 11 April, Russian officials acknowledge that at least 40 percent of businessmen and two-thirds of state and commercial institutions are involved in corrupt activities, "including financial and trade organizations, law enforcement agencies, tax and customs services."

Soviet-era apparatchiks and former communist party bosses still control the vast majority of state mechanisms, resources and assets. Of these, one of the most lucrative is the ability to issue export licenses. Russian smugglers have been notoriously successful in crossing borders with the help of both forged export licenses and authentic ones obtained through bribery.

Licensing authorities have not been the only Russian officials to cash in on the bribes and other favors offered for improper export licenses. Police, customs agents and even the military have also gotten a piece of the action. According to the head of the enforcement department of the State Customs Committee, Mikhail Vanin, military officers have been more than eager to moonlight by utilizing military aircraft to help transport illegal exports. "We cannot penetrate the army….The generals give the command for the planes to go and come back."

Indeed the April 1993 National Academy of Sciences report notes that military enterprises in particular are eagerly seeking outside sources of income to make up for reduced state funds:

"This process creates a strong incentive for the sale of dangerous technologies (both internally to commercial enterprises and externally to foreign customers) and is especially common in poorly controlled offshore and/or border trade."

 

Strengthening Russia’s Military-Industrial Complex

No less worrisome than the possibility that Russia might recklessly transfer sensitive Western technology is the significant risk that such equipment and know-how might wind up enhancing the offensive power of the Russian military. The former Soviet Union well understood the immense savings that could be realized in this way and there is no reason to believe that the leaders of Russia’s armed forces — many of whom previously led the Soviet military-industrial complex — will miss such opportunities as they confront severe budgetary pressures.

Remarks by Yeltsin Presidential Adviser Mikhail Malei which appeared in the 24 February 1993 edition of the Current Digest of the Soviet Press were instructive on this point:

"Conversion does not mean the destruction of high-level technologies for the sake of producing primitive articles. Conversion means the transformation of the military-industrial complex through the sale of its products that are bought on the world market. Conversion means freeing the meager Russian budget from the need to make outlays on the military-industrial complex and supplementing the budget with hard cash."

 

As a practical matter, it will be exceedingly difficult for the foreseeable future to distinguish between Russian military and civilian production activities. As a consequence, it will be nearly impossible to prevent the exploitation of Western dual-use technologies by the Russian military — either for their own purposes or for resale abroad.

Short-run and Shortsighted Economic Interests over National Security?

Although candidate Bill Clinton frequently emphasized the urgent need to arrest the growing problem of proliferation⁽²⁾, President Clinton has done little since taking office to address the issue meaningfully. Indeed, most of his senior Cabinet officers appear more concerned with expanding — rather than restricting — the supply of militarily-useful high-technologies available to rogue nations and outlaws in the name of advancing U.S. economic interests.

For example, in a speech before the National Association of Manufacturers on 24 March, Robert Rubin, chairman of the National Economic Council said:

"I think the economic component of [export licensing evaluations] has had very — relatively little weight — at least as I understand it, in prior evaluations and analyses. We met with the NSC people the other day, and we are going to reevaluate this whole export control issue and work our way toward some kind of a policy that has a balance between the economic and the national security elements of it."

 

On 9 March, Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown informed an Overseas Private Investment Corporation-sponsored conference that U.S. economic interests will take "a higher priority" in the Clinton Administration’s export control policy. Brown noted that he had requested his staff at the Bureau of Export Administration to come up with strategies to change the "perception" that Commerce was playing a "secondary role" to the Departments of State and Defense on export controls.

When asked about the trade-offs between export controls and export opportunities at his Senate confirmation hearings on 25 February, Deputy Defense Secretary William Perry said "We have to draw a clean distinction between defense-unique systems and…dual-use technology….The former we can and should control the sale [of] whenever we think that’s going to damage our proliferation goals. But in the latter, the dual-use technology, I think that’s a hopeless task, and it only interferes with a company’s ability to succeed internationally if we try to impose all sorts of controls in that area."

So far, the only senior Clinton Administration official who has publicly expressed apprehensions about the wisdom of expanding high technology sales to Russia is CIA Director R. James Woolsey. In testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on 24 February, Woolsey warned that while Russia’s leaders have indicated a desire to implement effective export controls, "legal, personnel and funding problems" as well as "the lure of large, illegal profits" were seriously hampering that effort.

Bottom Line

Before it decides to imperil the remaining multilateral export control regime by bringing Russia (and other former "proscribed destinations"⁽³⁾) into it, the Clinton Administration should be absolutely certain that Russia is not just paying lip service to such commitments but is adhering to them. In this regard, it is illuminating to reflect upon Russia’s attitude toward another multilateral export regime — the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Less than a year ago, President Yeltsin blatantly violated Russian obligations under the MTCR by authorizing the sale of cryogenic engine technology to India’s Space Research Organization. More recently, Russia has been promoting the sale of a derivative of the SS-23 ballistic missile at arms shows, which if exported, would be in clear violation of the MTCR.⁽⁴⁾

While it is seductive to believe that removing COCOM restrictions would serve to draw Russia more closely into the family of democratic nations, the practical effect of such a move under present circumstances would be only to exacerbate the transfer of militarily critical technologies to undesirable parties. Without a rigorous Russian export control system in place and a strong degree of confidence that Russia has successfully weathered the challenges to its present democratic path, there is a high degree of likelihood that currently protected dual-use technologies would end up in the wrong hands and put to the wrong uses.

In the final analysis, the problems that President Yeltsin has encountered in advancing his economic reform program have little to do with whether or not Russia is receiving the most advanced state-of-the-art, militarily sensitive technologies from the West. Russia’s estimated 2000 percent inflation, the government’s bloated bureaucracy and crushing deficit-spending will be much more determinative of the success or failure of Yeltsin’s economic program than does access to the relatively few remaining technologies still too sensitive to transfer to Russia.

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1. Under the Bush Administration the list of controlled technologies was sharply curtailed with only the most militarily sensitive technologies still restricted.

2. For example, on 13 August 1992, Clinton said before the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles that "one of the most dangerous new threats is the spread of military technologies, especially weapons of mass destruction. We can’t afford to wait until a host of Third World nations acquire full arsenals of First World weapons….We need to clamp down on countries and companies that sell proscribed technologies. Violators should be punished, and we should work urgently with all countries for tough, enforceable, nonproliferation agreements."

3. The Center for Security Policy has learned that Under Secretary of State Lynn Davis has concluded that the moment has arrived to invite not only Russia but other successors to the former Soviet Union, nations of Eastern Europe and even China into a refashioned COCOM. Ms. Davis evidently is under the illusion that bringing such major proliferators into the COCOM "tent" would help stem the world-wide spread of dangerous technologies — when in fact, it will actually facilitate proliferation efforts.

4. CIA Director Woolsey recently testified: "I think Russia and Ukraine both are likely to step up their efforts to persuade the West to alter or reinterpret those parts of the MTCR" that interfere with planned foreign sales.