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When the Soviet Union dissolved, three newly independent republics, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, inherited an arsenal of nuclear weapons. All three chose to send the missiles and nuclear warheads to Russia and become non-nuclear states.
In January 1996 U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry was present at the Pervomaysk missile base in Ukraine when an empty missile silo was blown up. After the hole was filled in, Secretary Perry returned and joined Ukraine and Russian defense officials in planting sunflower seeds at former missile site. After the sunflowers grew and were harvested, Perry received a bottle of sunflower oil produced from the site.
Since then the sunflower has become a symbol of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry (right) Ukraine Minister of Defense Valeriy Shmarov (center) and Russian Federation Minister of Defense General of the Army Pavel Grachev (left) celebrate the completed dismantlement of Silo 110 by planting sunflowers in the field where the missile silo used to be near Pervomaysk, Ukraine, June 4, 1996. Silo 110 was one of 160 Ukrainian missile silos being dismantled under the Nunn-Lugar/Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Todd P. Cichonowicz, U.S. Navy.
Commentary Ukraine is now safer without nuclear weapons than with them. The same with Belarus and Kazakhstan. They threaten no one, and no one threatens them. We believe that the United States and Russia would likewise be safer without nuclear weapons than they now are with their massive nuclear arsenals.
We will know that we are on our way to that goal when U.S. and Russian defense officials plant sunflower seeds on each others' former missile sites. |
President
Reagan's secretary of state, George Shultz, observed
that states design policy not on the basis of intentions
of other states but rather on their capabilities. Even
though the United States and Russia are now said to
be friends, each retains the capability of launching
a massive nuclear attack on the other. Therefore, each
retains its capability to retaliate. That means the
cold war doctrine of mutual assured destruction remains
in effect. The solution for achieving true national
security for both the United States and Russia would
be to mutually reduce nuclear capability to zero.