Nuclear security

The End of Nuclear Diplomacy Between Russia and US

In 2000, Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin signed a deal calling on both countries to reduce their stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. The deal, called the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), was the hallmark of an era when both countries were committed to healing the deep wounds left by the Cold War.

Earlier this month, following two years of conflict and disagreements that shook US-Russia relations, Putin suspended the 16-year-old deal with America. In a statement on October 3, President Putin said the decision stemmed from “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation”—a reference to the uproar caused by Russia’s continued bombing of civilians in Aleppo.

Ostensibly, the reason the PMDA was scuttled is because President Barack Obama recently proposed changing the method that was used to render plutonium unusable. Instead of irradiating the plutonium and transforming it into mixed-oxide (MOX) in a special facility that is currently under construction in South Carolina, the administration switched to something called “immobilization” by which the material is mixed with radioactive waste that renders it unusable in bombs.