Forget START
Anywhere I see the words "Soviet arms" published, something about it immediately catches my attention. This article in The New York Times is no exception to the rule.
Huge depots of conventional weapons and ammunition remain in much of the former Soviet borderlands, many of them vulnerable to the elements, inadequately secured or watched over by security agencies with histories of corruption and suspicious arms sales. Largely unaddressed while Western nations and post-Soviet states have worked to secure and dispose of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the conventional stockpiles pose problems as yet unsolved.
The article goes on to outline these problems, which fall mainly into two categories: threats to security and the environment.
Such stockpiles endanger global security not only because they may arm rebel groups, but also because military munitions can readily be disassembled and their explosives used to make powerful bombs. This risk is among the prospective worries in Ukraine.
"Based on the record of the Ukrainian military over the last several years, in diverse settings, there is a certain probability that it might sell explosives to terrorists," said Andreas Heinemann-Gruder, a senior researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion, a private organization working on demilitarization and military conversion that has studied the Ukrainian stockpiles. "Sectors of the Ukrainian military have cooperated with whoever offered them money, and there have been no moral considerations."
"No moral considerations." That's what we need to put an end to. The introduction of free markets into post-Soviet Eastern Europe has fused two very dangerous things: the moral decadence of communism with capitalism's love of profit.
The dangers are not limited to the munitions' travels and use. Ukrainian officials and military analysts have warned that as Soviet-era munitions have aged, environmental and safety risks have mounted. This was made clear last year when a depot exploded near Melitopol, in the south, scattering tons of ammunition in the surrounding countryside. The blasts killed five people and forced the evacuation of at least 5,000 more.
Clean up on aisle 7. That's been the West's policy towards Eastern Europe for pretty much the last 15 years.
Huge depots of conventional weapons and ammunition remain in much of the former Soviet borderlands, many of them vulnerable to the elements, inadequately secured or watched over by security agencies with histories of corruption and suspicious arms sales. Largely unaddressed while Western nations and post-Soviet states have worked to secure and dispose of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the conventional stockpiles pose problems as yet unsolved.
The article goes on to outline these problems, which fall mainly into two categories: threats to security and the environment.
Such stockpiles endanger global security not only because they may arm rebel groups, but also because military munitions can readily be disassembled and their explosives used to make powerful bombs. This risk is among the prospective worries in Ukraine.
"Based on the record of the Ukrainian military over the last several years, in diverse settings, there is a certain probability that it might sell explosives to terrorists," said Andreas Heinemann-Gruder, a senior researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion, a private organization working on demilitarization and military conversion that has studied the Ukrainian stockpiles. "Sectors of the Ukrainian military have cooperated with whoever offered them money, and there have been no moral considerations."
"No moral considerations." That's what we need to put an end to. The introduction of free markets into post-Soviet Eastern Europe has fused two very dangerous things: the moral decadence of communism with capitalism's love of profit.
The dangers are not limited to the munitions' travels and use. Ukrainian officials and military analysts have warned that as Soviet-era munitions have aged, environmental and safety risks have mounted. This was made clear last year when a depot exploded near Melitopol, in the south, scattering tons of ammunition in the surrounding countryside. The blasts killed five people and forced the evacuation of at least 5,000 more.
Clean up on aisle 7. That's been the West's policy towards Eastern Europe for pretty much the last 15 years.
posted by Remz Pokorny @ 1:26 PM
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