Material Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC&A) refers to the safeguarding of nuclear assets, including nuclear fuel and weapons. In the United States, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a component of the Department of Energy, oversees MPC&A as part of its non-proliferation program. The United States-Russia MPC&A program began in 1994, separate and in parallel with the United States Department of Defence (DOD) Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, following the passage of the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991. It sought to improve the security of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons' material through upgrades to material protection, material control and accounting at nuclear sites in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, through cooperation between the United States Department of Energy and the Russian Federal Agency on Atomic Energy (Rosatom). The program improved the security of thousands of tons of weapons-grade nuclear material in the Former Soviet countries (FSU).
MPC&A Overview MPC&A systems are intended to protect nuclear materials from theft or diversion, and to detect such events if they occur. The elements of a modern MPC&A system are
Physical protection systems that "allow for the detection of any unauthorized penetration of barriers and portals, thereby triggering an immediate response, including the use of force if necessary." Material control systems that "prevent unauthorized movement of materials and allow for the prompt detection of the theft or diversion of material." Material accountability systems that "should ensure that all material is accounted for, enable the measurement of losses, and provide information for follow-up investigations of irregularities." Personnel reliability through "security screening, indoctrination, and training." Procedural controls such as "two-man rule"
US-Russia MPC&A program
Background After the Cold War, the Department of Energy estimated that Russia and the New Independent States (NIS) possessed "603 metric tons of weapons-usable nuclear material - enough to produce 41,000 nuclear devices" at 53 sites. The nuclear material, enriched uranium and plutonium-239, at Russian sites was determined to be vulnerable to theft because the "security system that protected this material during the Soviet period has weakened considerably due to a sustained period of political and economic upheavals." In addition to the MPC&A program, the United States and Russia also made agreements to dispose and protect Russian nuclear weapons. The U.S. provided two billion dollars through the START program to help transport nuclear materials from Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to safe locations in Russia.
Government-to-government program The United States Department of Defense began the government-to-government program in 1992. However, formal U.S.-Russian Federation MPC&A cooperation began on 2 September 1993 with an implementing agreement under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (or Nunn-Lugar) Program between the Department of Defense and the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Min Atom). An initial $10 million was allocated from the Nunn-Lugar funds. The government-to-government program was initiated in 1994 at the ELEMASH Machine-Building Plant (MSZ) low-enriched uranium production facility in Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast. The United States allocated an additional $20 million to establish MPC&A processes at Sverdlovsk, however the Russian government, wary of establishing MPC&A efforts and reject the offer to preserve the historically secretive nuclear complex. However, on 20 January 1995, the U.S. and Russian governments agreed to joint MPC&A efforts at five sites – highly enriched uranium fuel fabrication facility at Elektrostal, the Mayak Production Association in Ozersk, formerly Chelyabinsk-65; the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, Obninsk; the Luch Scientific Production Association (Podolsk) (NPO Luch); and the All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (SRIAR) in Dimitrovgrad-10. The government-to-government program struggled to develop for numerous reasons. Both the Department of Defense and Min Atom were weighed down by bureaucracy, regulations and suspicion due to concerns about divulging nuclear secrets that had been closely guarded for 50 years during the Cold War. The stringent "buy-American" clause of the Nunn-Luger legislation stated that funds for MPC&A training and equipment were to be spent in the United States and not in the former Soviet Union. The program would eventually be merged into the Department of Energy's (DOE) laboratory-to-laboratory program, with DOE being able to secure better cooperation with Min Atom and the program no longer constrained by the spending limits of the Nunn-Luger legislation. The DOE would become the Executive Agent for all U.S. cooperative MPC&A efforts under Presidential Decision Directive 41.
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