Russian Scientists and Rogue States: Does Western Assistance Reduce the Proliferation Threat?

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 engendered widespread concern that Russian nuclear weapons and material could end up in the hands of proliferants or terrorists. The ensuing decline in border security and the diminution of the role and power of the formerly ubiquitous security services significantly reduced the ability of Russia to safeguard these weapons and material. Another threat, the focus of this article, took a human form: Russian scientists with knowledge about nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons suddenly had greater leeway to visit or emigrate to any country of their choice, including so-called rogue nations seeking to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD).¹ And because of the greater ease with which Russian scientists could interact with the outside world, they could even sell their knowledge while remaining at home.

Russia inherited the largest WMD complex in the world, with little government support for sustaining it at anywhere near Cold War levels. As a result, Russian science fell into a protracted crisis: salaries plummeted, funding for research dropped sharply, and the number of students pursuing careers in science dwindled. These developments gave Russian scientists both greater incentives and greater opportunities to sell their knowledge to governments or terrorist organizations that harbor hostile intentions toward the United States and other Western democracies.

In response, the United States and other Western governments created a host of nonproliferation assistance programs designed to reduce the likelihood that Russian scientists would sell their WMD knowledge to rogue states or terrorists. Yet to date, there have been no studies that present empirical data assessing the impact of these programs on the threat of Russian WMD brain drain.²

Our data from an unprecedented survey of 602 Russian scientists indicate that the brain drain threat from Russia should still be at the forefront of policymakers' and the public's attention: roughly 20 percent of Russian physicists, chemists, and biologists say they would consider working in Iran, Iraq,³ North Korea, or Syria—nations that, for the sake of brevity, we refer to as "rogue."⁴ To be sure, the vast majority of Russian scientists feel a great weight of responsibility for how their WMD knowledge is used and would not help rogue states or terrorists acquire weapons of mass destruction. Yet given the enormous security implications, the possibility that one-fifth of the scientists would consider working in rogue countries is cause for concern.

The question that remains is: have Western efforts to stem the willingness of Russian scientists to sell their WMD expertise to rogue countries been effective? The data reveal that U.S. and Western nonproliferation assistance programs do indeed work. They significantly reduce the likelihood that Russian scientists would consider working in such countries. To our surprise, the data also suggest that Russian, as opposed to Western, grants do not lessen such scientists' propensity to work in these rogue countries.

We begin by examining the nature of the threat and provide some background information on several Western grant assistance programs aimed at keeping Russian WMD scientists employed in Russia by providing them with research grants. Next we describe how the survey was implemented and discuss how we measured the key variables. We then present the survey results, briefly examine the policy implications, and point to areas requiring further research.

The Decline of the Russian Scientific Establishment

The Russian scientific establishment, once highly respected throughout the world, has experienced a precipitous drop in its prospects and status since the demise of the Soviet Union.⁵ Between 1991 and 1994, federal funding for scientific research declined by roughly 75 percent and has since remained at that level.⁶ Unlike in the West, where science has numerous commercial sources of funding in addition to federal funds, in the Soviet Union, federal funds provided the vast majority of support. In fact, at the end of the...