Bellona Archive

The Co-operative Threat Reduction Act (CTR) also known as the Nunn-Lugar act after the two US Senators―Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn―who conceived it, took force in 1992 and is the longest running bilateral nuclear security effort to date. Funded by US congress and administered by the Department of Defence programme envisioned the destruction with US help of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons and launchers targeting the US. As of 2006, the program was well over three quarters of the way to completing these tasks. CTR has also been crucial in installing security upgrades at facilities where nuclear weapons materials are stored, but CTR authorities have indicated that they have installed security upgrades only at some one third of the sites the would like to, meaning that there is an uncomfortably high amount of poorly guarded weapons grade material in Russia.