Guest columnist: Lawrence Sheets on Uranium Smuggling

Apologies to O and G readers for the long absence. I've been trying to finish up the Russia book. That's no excuse, so here we go.

We have as a guest Lawrence Scott Sheets, who will be taking any questions on a piece he's got on uranium smuggling in next month's Atlantic magazine, called "A Smuggler's Story." The story isn't posted yet, but Atlantic has put up an interview with Sheets on its web site. The theme is the back story to a scoop that Sheets broke in The New York Times a few months back about a hair-raising scheme to sell weapons-grade uranium from former Soviet Georgia. This is a story of the highest order.

I've known Sheets for some fifteen years, since both of us were Tbilisi-based correspondents covering the Georgian-Abkhazian civil war, he for Reuters, and I for Newsweek and The Washington Post. At a time and place when there simply was no infrastructure -- everything in the Caucasus seemed to have fallen apart -- Sheets demonstrated a superlative ability to make his bureau work. He went on to become NPR's Moscow correspondent, and is now working on what appears likely to be a classic, book-length account of his couple of decades in the former Soviet Union.

Here is how The Atlantic leads into the interview with Sheets:

Uranium on the Loose

When the Soviet Union finally collapsed in December 1991, the United States could claim victory in the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama could declare the end of history, and some 280 million people could look forward to a liberated future. But in fact the Soviet Union left its 15 successor states to navigate their own way to democracy and a market economy. And with some 22,000 tactical nuclear weapons—along with perhaps 1,200 tons of bomb-grade uranium—scattered under uncertain ownership and questionable supervision, the securing of the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear materials became a matter of pressing concern.

Over the past decade and half, with extensive help from the United States, Russia has tried to lock down this atomic detritus, at great expense. But the task is a massive one, and as of 2008, the two nations face nuclear concerns that scarcely registered during the upheaval of the 1990s. Seven years after 9/11, Russia has become something of a terrorists’ nirvana—with 12,500 miles of borders, a military so corrupt its members have sold weapons to their battlefield enemies, and vast networks of poorly safeguarded nuclear facilities.

Russia is likely the only place in the world where a man like Oleg Khintsagov, an ordinary, destitute, and dimwitted hustler, can pick up weapons-grade uranium and try to hawk it from his pockets. Khintsagov, along with two other smugglers of similar means and aptitude—Garik Dadayan and Tamaz Dimitradze—are the subject of “A Smuggler’s Story,” Lawrence Scott Sheets’ piece in the April issue of The Atlantic. To a man, the couriers Sheets describes are poorly prepared for their missions, yet they have their hands on potentially catastrophic atomic ingredients. The story Sheets tells is of a society in collapse in the face of separatist anxieties, ethnic animosities, and ambiguous borders—and of impoverished people seeking to feed their families in a radioactive land.

Read interview

Putin's Legitimate Point

Given the fires the U.S. is attempting to extinguish around the world, many the result of incompetence and not happenstance, why is it fanning a deliberate one in Russia?

At issue is the anti-missile batteries that the Bush administration insists on installing in Poland and the Czech Republic. Earlier this month, the Pentagon yet again crowed over a false test of the anti-ballistic system in which a missile unprotected by decoys was shot down by another missile.

In short -- after more than a quarter-century of development, the technology still does not yet work under authentic conditions. Even if it gets installed, even with hard-fought Russian agreement, North Korea, Iran or whomever will know that the system can be confounded with simple diversion.

Considering the many crucial matters on which to debate Russia (Iran, Iraq, Syria, abuse of petro-power, trans-Caspian pipelines, to name a few), one wonders why Condi Rice and Robert Gates were in Moscow pounding the table on an empty issue.

Moscow makes a practice of provoking incredulity on the world stage. But this is an example of Washington's immature foreign policy leadership.

After six years of repudiated treaties, Gates also kept a straight face while nettling Putin over his threats to withdraw from a couple. ``Europeans are beginning to wonder what the Russians are all about,'' he said deadpan today in Moscow. Read Bloomberg account

The West needs to get serious. Drop the non-issues and talk turkey. Warsaw and Prague will still be game when the system is actually functioning.

Georgia and Russia: The Bigger Battle to Come

The Economist is in a snit that the OSCE white-washed over Georgia's missile row with Russia. A studiously neutralist RFE/RL interview with the author of the offending OSCE report ends up making the Vienna-based mini-U.N. organization look egregiously non-judgemental.

The pieces are must-reading. Edward Lucas, the author of the Economist piece, is legitimately outraged. But the OSCE -- the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- was right to punt. The incessant friction between Russia and Georgia over border incursions is a diversion from the main issue, which is getting Georgia ready for full NATO membership.

The two neighbors are not going to become friends any time soon. The Kremlin's loyal spokesmen say that the Georgians' main foreign policy is irritating their northern neighbor. The Georgians in turn ascribe most of their ills to malign conspiracies from Moscow.

These competing claims informed their most recent series of disputes, in which Georgia accused Russian military jets of illegally penetrating Georgian airspace, and firing a missile that allegedly missed its intended target, a radar installation. In the most recent flare-up, Georgia said it had possibly shot down an invading Russian jet.

The record in general supports Georgia's assertions. Since the 1991 Soviet breakup, Georgia has been the victim of repeated aggressive acts from the north -- the dismemberment of the country through military support of Abkhazia; the severing of natural gas and electricity supplies; and the cutoff of trade and air service between the countries.

Yet Russia and Georgia themselves have seemed to try to cool the flareup. Neither has raised the issue of the apparent crash of the errant jet recently, for instance. That is wise from Georgia's standpoint when it has much work to do to achieve its ultimate foreign policy aim, which is tying itself formally to the West through NATO and EU membership.

The West has a long-standing interest in making Georgia's NATO membership happen; the EU portion will happen far down the road if at all.

Here is where it makes sense not to get too involved in these predictable sibling squabbles. Russia will accuse NATO of encirclement. The West will have to forcefully argue that it has a legitimate interest in Georgia's independence and stability. That will be a battle writ large.

Putin: Final Piece in Place

President Putin has all the pieces in place now to remain Russia's ruler in name or fact as long as he wishes. But does he want to? Given Putin's habitual caution, the rush to figure out his intentions is almost wholly in vain. We probably won't know for another four years.

Putin's selection of a retirement-age loyalist as prime minister seems to be the last in a three-prong strategy. It fits into the article of faith among both Russian and foreign analysts that Putin intends to rule over Russia in one way or another for the foreseeable future. Under an eminently reasonable scenario, Putin would return to eight more years of power in 2012, when he will be just 58. He could even do another round, his supporters say, returning for a third set of terms in 2024.

Here has been the puzzle: If Putin adheres to his pledge to honor the constitution and step down following the March elections -- which he almost certainly will do -- how can he be sure that his successor, after four years of the heady experience of governing a nuclear-armed petro-power, will surrender power?

Another bit of entirely reasonable logic heard in Moscow is that Putin isn't necessarily seeking to rule the country as long as he wishes. Instead, he simply wants to give his potential rivals the impression that he wants to in order to retain the option come 2012; following this argument further, Putin also would want to keep the sharks at bay and protect his personal and business interests over the coming years.

As recently as yesterday morning, the betting money was that fellow former spy Sergei Ivanov, one of his first deputy prime ministers, had the job of succeeding Putin in the bag. But what makes sense now is that Ivanov is prong one of Putin's strategy.

The Ivanov prong meets the prerequisite of loyalty to Putin, and the probabily of no or few changes in Russian foreign and domestic policy. So he is still in the running.

The second prong is Dmitri Medvedev, who as another first deputy prime minister is another presumed Putin heir. Medvedev has also displayed unflagging loyalty to Putin, and would be his choice if he wants a more liberal Kremlin. He also remains in the race.

The trouble with both Ivanov and Medvedev, however, is that both are relatively young. They are 54 and 42, respectively.

Loyalists so far to a fault, can they truly be trusted to step down four years from now should Putin wish them to?

Hence prong three. Russia's new prime minister, Viktor Zubkov, turns 66 on Saturday. He will be 70 in 2012, not at all a young age in Russia. Such a person would arguably be more amenable to retirement, or even if he did not wish to surrender power might simply not be healthy enough to continue.

When Putin selects his successor, if it is prong three, he will be asserting a cautious strategy.

Yet that still will not answer the ultimate question -- does he intend to return to power or not? He will not tip his hand until he needs to, meaning at this time four years hence.