Word: gorbachev
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...effect proclaimed the old Soviet Union dead -- is bringing the problem to a head. In the wake of the vote, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoli Zlenko is reportedly proposing that the four nuclear republics set up a joint command over "the Soviet nuclear force" -- which might imply cutting Gorbachev out of the action entirely. It would also leave 1,300 tactical warheads in the hands of the other eight republics...
Though Zlenko might be grandstanding, other Ukrainian leaders are using the nukes as a kind of diplomatic weapon. If Western powers want to see destruction of the bombs and missiles in Ukraine -- as called for by the START treaty and an exchange of pledges between Gorbachev and Bush on tactical arms -- well then, the Ukrainians hint, the West will have to grant diplomatic recognition, find some way of adding Ukraine to the START treaty and negotiate any further reductions with Kiev as well as Moscow. All this will surely complicate U.S. Senate hearings, beginning in late January, on ratification...
...almost the only institution left in the country still operating under genuine central control. Eighteenth century Prussia, according to an old wisecrack, was not a country with an army but an army with a country. The Soviet Union today could almost be defined as an army without a country. Gorbachev and his generals will hardly be eager to see their control diluted. Before the referendum, in fact, the Soviet Defense Ministry pointedly told troops in Ukraine, including those controlling nuclear weapons, that whatever happened, they would remain under Moscow's command, not Kiev...
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, according to British diplomats, has already grabbed a share of control of strategic nuclear weapons. He supposedly has custody of the codes for arming the warheads, though Gorbachev would still have to give the order to launch the missiles. Yeltsin wants more; he has proposed that all the old union's nuclear weapons be put under Russian authority alone. Ukraine objects -- it wants warheads moved to Russia only for purposes of having them destroyed, and then only if the destruction is verified by international inspectors...
...krytron triggers. And the key is to move immediately. The forces of dissolution in the former Soviet Union are picking up startling momentum, and the West must not be lulled by the fact that for the moment, the nuclear warheads remain under the hands of relatively responsible leaders like Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk. That could change all too quickly -- and disastrously...