History

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, its vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction was left in an unprotected state. Concern that the tons of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials might be accessible to rogue states or terrorists prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991, sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar. This legislation was renamed the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in 1993. The dual aims of this program were to facilitate the safeguarding and elimination of nuclear and other weapons in the former Soviet Union, and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

In the mid 1990s, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) recognized the need for increased focus on the issues of nonproliferation and counterproliferation of WMD. DTRA, created in 1998, consolidated DoD organizations already addressing these issues. The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program office was transferred from the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs into the new agency. DTRA's new CTR directorate was given the responsibility of managing and implementing this major, multinational, congressionally mandated program. In the directorate's first year of existence, Congress appropriated $440 million for the CTR program.

With funding, program management and contractor support from CTR, Kazakhstan had eliminated all of its 104-SS-18 ICBM silos and all of its 40 heavy bombers by the end of 2000, thus fulfilling all of its obligations under the Stategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). CTR funds also assisted Ukraine in eliminating its intercontinental ballistic missiles, missile silos, and heavy bombers after it ratified START in 1994. On October 30, 2001, DTRA program managers attended a ceremony at Pervomaysk to observe the destruction of Ukraine's final SS-24 silo that fulfilled its START obligations. On that date, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense and the U.S. CTR program manager signed an agreement that extended the U.S.-Ukrainian cooperative threat reduction program until 2006, providing for the removal of all the weapon systems-related support and maintenance infrastructure from the Ukrainian SS-24 sites.

In 2002, CTR funds helped Uzbekistan destroy anthrax buried by the Soviet military at the biological weapons testing complex on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea. CTR also assisted with the dismantling of the former Soviet chemical weapons research, development and testing facility at Nukus, Uzbekistan.

Since 1991, over $4.4 billion has been appropriated for the CTR program. CTR has played a substantive role in affecting fundamental changes to the strategic landscape of the former Soviet Union, while assisting in the achievement of U.S. national security objectives and promoting global stability.