WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - More than a decade after the Cold War, the world faces a possible "perfect storm" of security factors that has increased the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear arms attack between the United States and Russia, experts said on Wednesday.
A study by the RAND think tank, strongly endorsed by former Sen. Sam Nunn and his nonprofit group The Nuclear Threat Initiative, paints a devastating picture of Russia's strategic capabilities and challenges assumptions about the degree to which better U.S.-Russian relations have improved security.
In the report and at a news conference, they called for world leaders to address the problem and said this should be on the agenda when President George W. Bush meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Europe next month.
The post-Cold War decline in hostility has lessened chances of a premeditated nuclear strike by Washington or Moscow but "on balance my belief is that the risk has increased (and the ingredients could exist for) a perfect storm in terms of a nuclear miscalculation or an accident," Nunn told reporters.
The RAND study cites three reasons for this.
First, even with ratification of the new Moscow Treaty on reducing long-range arms, the United States and Russia retain large nuclear forces on "hair-trigger" alert, meaning they could be launched in minutes and destroy both societies in an hour.
Second, economic and social problems have led to a situation where Russia relies increasingly on nuclear arms. The number of Russian weapons that could survive a U.S. first strike attack has declined dramatically and its early warning system has deteriorated to the point of "serious disrepair."
Russia's submarine fleet has been "decimated" with only one or two vessels at sea at any one time; few of its mobile missiles are deployed in the field; and many of its intercontinental ballistic missiles are "well beyond their planned service lives," the report said.
Moreover, "the breakdown of order in Russia, economic difficulties, and low morale of its military personnel and the rise of organized crime and separatist violence have increased concern" about nuclear force security, it said.
Third, the vulnerability of Russian forces is enhanced by the increasing capability of U.S. forces to deliver accurate and devastating strikes, the report concluded.
'USE IT OR LOSE IT'
All this means "the incentive (for Moscow) is to launch quickly -- use it or lose it," said David Mosher, one author of the study.
The report foresaw three scenarios: an intentional unauthorized nuclear weapon launch by a terrorist or rogue commander; a missile launched by mistake; and an intentional launch of nuclear weapons that is based on incorrect or incomplete information.
Nunn, whose group works to reduce threats from nuclear, chemical and biological arms, said the greatest risk of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons is in Russia, not Iraq or Iran.
But the Bush administration has not made securing Russia's nuclear stockpiles a priority, he said.
Nunn noted that while running for the White House in 2000, Bush said the United States "should remove as many weapons as possible from high-alert, hair-trigger status" and promised that as president, he would ask for an assessment on this proposal. But this has not been done, Nunn said.
The RAND study recommends ways to reduce the threat, including U.S. assistance for improving Russia's early-warning radars or satellites; moving U.S. attack submarines away from Russia; removing W-88 nuclear warheads from Trident missiles; reducing day-to-day launch readiness of all nuclear forces; establishing a joint early-warning system by placing sensors outside U.S. and Russian missile silos.
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