Cooperative Threat Reduction and its Lessons

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent States were faced with the extraordinary challenge of securing approximately 30,000 nuclear weapons. ¹ United States security officials were alarmed at the threat these weapons, in potentially unsecure sites, presented to national and global security. Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar launched the US Department of Defense (DOD) Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to reduce these nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) dangers. Although the Nunn-Lugar CTR program was created in response to a unique historical circumstance, the urgent threat of WMD proliferation and terrorism makes its lessons relevant today.