Cooperative Threat Reduction: Status of Defense Conversion Efforts in the Former Soviet Union.

DODs program to convert former Soviet Union defense industries to commercial enterprises is part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which DOD has supported since 1992 to reduce the weapons of mass destruction WMD threat. The programs priority objectives include helping to 1 destroy nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons 2 transport and store weapons that are to be destroyed and 3 prevent weapon proliferation. In addition to these objectives, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993 authorized DOD to establish a program to help demilitarize former Soviet Union defense industries and convert military technologies and capabilities to commercial activities. The Soviet Union had an enormous defense industrial complex that reportedly consisted of 2,000 to 4,000 production enterprises, research and development facilities, and research institutes and employed between 9 million and 14 million people. Although the main objective of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act focused on WMD reduction, the act did not specifically require the defense conversion program to target WMD capability. Nonetheless, DOD targeted WMD industries for conversion with the goals of stimulating foreign and domestic investment in the former Soviet Union and demonstrating that partnerships between private U.S. companies and former Soviet enterprises can succeed.