News

International Affairs
February 1992, p. 30

The West is now watching the Soviet central government grow weaker, and may soon see it disappear. With the resulting confusion comes the risk that Soviet nuclear weapons may escape responsible control or go on sale to Third World bomb-makers. If this happens, Soviet nuclear weapons may become a greater threat to the West than they were during the Cold War.

Leonid Kravchuk, president of Ukraine, is hardly known to most Americans, but he may soon inherit the power to destroy US cities with nuclear missiles. In early December the newly-independent Ukraine became the biggest country in Eastern Europe and potentially the third greatest nuclear power in the world. On its soil are about one thousand nuclear warheads mounted on long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States, and thousands of other warheads capable of reaching Moscow aboard nuclear bombers and short-range missiles. These numbers dwarf the atomic arsenals of Great Britain, France and China.

Ukraine is also home to the largest missile-making complex in the world-at Dnepropetrovsk-and has in Pavlograd a plant for making solid-fueled missile engines and in Kiev other important facilities for missile work. Of the republics, Ukraine’s large missile production potential is second only to Russia’s.

Kazakhstan, another independence-minded republic, has two bases filled with the biggest Soviet ICBMs-some of which are believed to be aimed at the United States-and roughly a thousand nuclear warheads aboard bombers and short-range missiles. Kazakhstan also designs nuclear warheads and has a testing site.

Byelorussia, another non-Russian republic on the way to independence has over a thousand nuclear warheads and the latest mobile long-range missiles to carry them. It also has five fields for nuclear bombers.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the leaders of the other republics are trying to decide who should control these weapons. To protect the weapons from misuse, Moscow runs a complex network requiring codes from different leaders to activate the warheads on the longer-range missiles. But the short-range warheads have less protection. In any case, if the republics decide to keep the warheads they will eventually figure out how to use them.

In August, Boris Yelstin announced that Ukraine’s nuclear weapons should be moved to Russia under “central control.” But Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Byelorussia all rejected the idea. As things stand now, neither Yeltsin nor Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev can openly transfer the warheads of the smaller republics to Russia.

This raises the question of what US policy on this point should be. Since Western aid now seems vital to help the republics survive, Western policy on this issue could carry a lot of weight. Should Washington urge the smaller republics to send their bombs to Russia? Should Washington accept the idea that the republics keep their bombs under some form of “central control”? Or should Washington advocate an international solution?

Each of these alternatives has problems. Some Ukrainians see nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Russian imperialism-a last-ditch guarantee of national independence. It is also difficult politically for the smaller republics to give nuclear weapons to Russia. More bombs would only increase Russia’s military dominance. In addition, the citizens of the smaller republics helped pay for the Soviet arsenal, so they can fairly claim a portion of it for themselves. The republics are shouldering the Soviet debt, so they are entitled to a share of the Soviet assets. The Ukrainian leadership already sees nuclear weapons as a ticket to sit at the negotiating table with the other militarily powerful nations of the world.

But keeping the weapons will not be cheap. Maintaining them will be enormously expensive at the very time when the republics are going broke. Keeping them also means staying on the Pentagon’s nuclear target list and possibly jeopardizing Western aid. Will US taxpayers really send money to Ukraine while Ukraine is paying troops to man missiles pointed at US cities? If the Ukrainians can afford a giant nuclear arsenal, critics will say, they don’t need economic aid.

The second option-central control-is only feasible as long as there is a center. Mr. Gorbachev, Muscovites are now fond of saying, is “president of a non-existent country”. An independent Ukraine will control its own industry, banks and borders. Its parliament has even voted to create an army larger than Germany’s. As a sovereign nation it will want to command all the military forces within its borders. This means that Ukraine will become a new nuclear weapon power unless central military control is somehow preserved. With military units now switching allegiance to individual republics, this hardly seems likely.

A third option is to control the smaller republics’ weapons under international inspection. The smaller republics could put their arsenals under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency and then join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear weapon states. This would put them on the same legal footing as West Germany, which had nuclear weapons on its soil for years but didn’t control them, and promised not to make nuclear weapons of its own. The difficulty, however, is that the International Atomic Energy Agency is a rather toothless watchdog, not at all like the United States, which controlled the nuclear weapons in Germany. To make “control without destruction” acceptable, the smaller republics would probably have to dismantle the warheads and store them a form that would prevent them from being put quickly to military use. The main benefit would be to make advantage of a loophole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Treaty allows a member to withdraw on three months’ notice if its “supreme interests” are threatened. If Ukraine ever faced a Russian takeover, it could drop out of the treaty and have the arsenal to fall back on.

A fourth option is to completely destroy the weapons under international inspection. This would allow the republics to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as non-nuclear weapon states, and also enable them to declare themselves nuclear weapon-free zones.

Joint measures regarding nuclear weapons agreed upon by 11 independent states members of the Commonwealth, primarily Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, in Alma-Ata on December 21, 1991 may not fully correspond to any of the above options, but are a timely development in the right direction. In their declaration the 11 independent states declared that to provide international strategic stability and security, a joint command over military-strategic forces and a single control over nuclear weapons will be preserved; the parties will respect each other’s effort to achieve the status of a non-nuclear or neutral state.

Joint measures with regard to nuclear weapons are made more specific in the agreement signed by heads of the referred to four states. Particularly, they have agreed upon the following: first, nuclear weapons within the joint strategic armed forces are to provide collective security of all participants in the CIS; second, member states of the agreement will jointly elaborate their policy on nuclear questions; third, Byelorussia and Ukraine commit themselves to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty as non-nuclear states and to conclude with the IAEA a corresponding agreement on guarantees; fourth, the states participants to the agreement commit themselves not to hand over nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices to anybody, nor control over such nuclear or explosive devices, whether directly or indirectly, or to help or encourage any non-nuclear state to produce or obtain in any other way nuclear weapons or other nuclear devices as well as control over them; fifth, these states participants to the agreement will promote annihilation of nuclear weapons in accordance with the international treaty.

From the American point of view, the fewer fingers on the nuclear trigger the better. Thus, the ideal solution for Washington would be for the republics to send their bombs to Russia. This would be the quickest, cleanest, and cheapest outcome. But it now seems unlikely. There is simply not enough political support for it in the smaller republics. The next best alternative would be destruction under international inspection, which Washington should urge the republics to begin at once.

As part of an aid package, the West should offer to pay for the destruction of Soviet nuclear weapons outside Russia. The US Congress has just authorized a $500 million down-payment for this job, but more will be needed. It is surely cheaper to destroy bombs than to defend against them. The money spent on destruction would also have a side benefit: it would employ many Soviet nuclear scientists and engineers who now face unemployment across the Soviet Union. It would be far safer to keep these experts on a republic’s payroll destroying bombs, than to have them on a Libyan or Iranian payroll building them. There are reports that some Soviet nuclear experts have already been solicited by foreign employers.

DANGEROUS SOVIET EXPORTS

This brings us to the other main issue: Soviet missile and nuclear exports. The Soviet Union is now poised to help Brazil develop an intercontinental ballistic missile. To win a lucrative contract to launch Brazilian satellites, the Soviets are offering to teach Brazil how to produce large liquid-fuel rocket engines. In addition, the Soviets would install an ICBM-sized launch pad and tracking station at Alcantara, Brazil’s new rocket center near the equator. This aid will inevitably help Brazil build big missiles. Brazil’s first three space rockets, the Sonda I, II and III, were all developed into surface-to-surface missiles that Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia purchased directly off Brazil’s production line. The Sonda IV, Brazil’s fourth space rocket, is now being transformed into an intermediate-range missile as fast as Brazilian scientists can do so, and Brazil is trying to develop a fifth, much larger space rocket called the VLS, which as a missile could deliver a nuclear-sized warhead over 2,000 miles. The Soviet aid will help Brazil perfect both the Sonda IV and the VLS.

The Soviet Union has also offered to sell its latest upper-stage space rocket to India. In addition to the rocket motor itself, the Soviets would help India set up plants to mass-produce it. India would become self-sufficient in rocketry and could become a supplier to other countries. Because of the rocket’s size, the $10 million deal offers India the means to build an ICBM. Since India, like Brazil, freely converts its space rockets to missiles, the sale would be an egregious act of proliferation.

The deals with India and Brazil will eviscerate the main international device for halting missile proliferation. In 1987 Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, West Germany and the United States signed the Missile Technology Control Regime, an agreement not to sell any rocket that could carry a 500 kilogram payload more than 300 kilometers. The Soviet Union refused to join the regime, but later promised to abide by its provisions. The pending Soviet missile sales would fatally wound the regime.

The Brazilian and Indian offers are not anomalies. Since the 1960s, the Soviet Union has been willing to sell short and medium-range nuclear-capable missiles throughout the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and Kuwait have all been customers. The missiles include FROG-7s, SCUD-Bs and the more accurate SS-21s. The Soviet SCUD-B, made infamous by Iraq, flies about 170 miles in its original version. Iraq used an extended-range Soviet SCUD as the first stage, and a Soviet liquid-fuel surface-to-air missile as the second stage, to make a 2,000 kilometer ballistic missile called the Tammuz I.

The Soviet Union has also been willing to put high performance bombers in unstable hands. In 1989, Soviet President Gorbachev sold Libya’s Qaddafi advanced bombers able to reach Israel. As part of the deal, the Soviets agreed to train Libyan pilots to fly the new plane, which carries a payload of up to 24,000 pounds 800 miles. The sale squarely contradicted Moscow’s standing commitment to reduce regional tensions and cut back on the sale of destabilizing weapons.

The Soviet Union’s record on nuclear exports is not much better than its missile record. Unless Soviet policies change, the Soviet Union could become the supplier of last resort to the few countries that still reject the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Treaty-holdouts India, Israel and Pakistan have all recently become candidates for Soviet nuclear reactors. When the Soviets made their now-pending reactor offer to India, they broke a de facto embargo on reactor sales to India that had held since the Indian nuclear test in 1974. If the Soviets also offer a reactor to Israel, a possibility that the Soviets have considered, they would break a similar embargo on that country. And in Pakistan, the Soviets apparently have considered stepping in behind an improvident reactor offer from France that is receding because of US pressure. The effect of all these deals is to undermine the Western effort to bar reactor sales to countries that have not joined the non-proliferation treaty.

In October, it suddenly seemed that this behavior might change. At a Moscow meeting with one of the authors, a high Soviet official stated that beginning in 1992 the Soviet Union would no longer make major nuclear sales to countries that do not accept international inspection of their entire nuclear programs (i.e., “full-scope safeguards”). This would have barred the reactor sales to Israel and Pakistan. But in November, Moscow dashed hopes by officially telling Bonn that such a policy would not be adopted.

The Soviet breakup will put the republics to the economic test. The lure of foreign exchange could either pull them together so they can export better as a group, or push them apart into competition, with each selling whatever in has to the highest bidder. The Soviet Union has thousands of scientists and engineers who know how to design nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has a vast network of equipment and material makers who produce the actual hardware. All of this is now plunging into decentralization. The risk that it could all go up for sale, scientist by scientist, component by component, is palpable. There are already reports that private cooperatives have sold zirconium, used in reactors to make nuclear weapon fuel, and beryllium, used to boost the yield of fission bombs and to ignite thermonuclear bombs. If bomb-makers in the developing world now go prospecting in the republics, they could bring home a nuclear mother lode.

SOVIET AID TO INDIA

The case of Soviet nuclear aid to India is especially instructive. It explodes the myth that the Soviet Union has a good record on nuclear exports. It also shows that unless export controls are strengthened and guaranteed by each of the republics, dangerous sales will probably continue.

During the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union secretly sold at least 80 tons of unsafeguarded Ukrainian “heavy water” to India in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Heavy water looks and tastes like ordinary water, but is used to run reactors that produce plutonium, the explosive metal at the core of atomic bombs. Eighty tons is enough to produce about six bombs’ worth of plutonium per year.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty bars its members-including the Soviet Union-from exporting more than a ton of heavy water to any country that does not put it under international inspection. This means that any plutonium made by a reactor using the water must be inspected and confined to peaceful use. To evade this obligation for their Indian clients, Soviet exporters hid behind transit trades and phony freight documents.

Government records from five countries show that Moscow’s secret sales to New Delhi were deliberate, and that Moscow was content to help its ally build a nuclear arsenal. The paper trail begins in West Germany. In July 1985, a coded cable marked “urgent and confidential” arrived from Bonn’s embassy in Bern, Switzerland. In a transit zone in Zurich, a Swiss customs agent had accidentally discovered 6.8 tons of Soviet heavy water cargo traveling without international inspection. The water was consigned to a West German broker named Alfred Hempel, an ex-Nazi who later died in 1989. Hempel was the Soviet Union’s exclusive marketing agent in Europe. According to the Soviet freight papers, firms in seven different European countries were each supposed to get .99 tons of the precious liquid. “Switzerland,” said the embassy, “cannot imagine what the recipient countries were supposed to do with such a large amount of heavy water.” And, since the shipment had only been discovered by accident, the Swiss feared that the 6.8 tons might only be “the tip of the iceberg.”

Twenty-seven minutes later, a second cable arrived. Coded and marked “most urgent,” it reported that the heavy water had been flown out the previous day from Basel to Sharja in the United Arab Emirates. The cable also said that “Switzerland considers it proven that misdealings occurred and made this clear to the Soviet Union”.

By August 28, the West German foreign office had discovered more. Dr. von Stuelpnagel reported to Bonn’s Embassy in Paris that Bombay was the “final destination for the total amount”. He also reported that “the Soviet Union had officially ignored the … Swiss questioning”. The Soviets, it seemed, would only say “unofficially that the whole chain of events was completely harmless since all individual amounts were each below … 1 ton of heavy water”. Dr. von Stuelpnagel had also learned something else: India’s uninspected Dhruva reactor had started operating only two weeks after the shipment arrived. Thus, he said, “a connection cannot be excluded”.

On February 14, 1986, Bern was on the wire to Bonn again. The Swiss had discovered that Hempel had planned to send India four more tons of Soviet heavy water cargo through Switzerland the preceding December. But this time, the Soviet agent Hempel had been forced to change his plans. “The Swiss authorities had caught wind” of the shipment, the cable said. How did the Swiss find out? “Last but not least,” said the cable, “through the [Swiss government’s] intervention at the Soviet embassy.” The Swiss believed that after they contacted the Soviet embassy to protest the shipment the embassy had alerted Hempel. The result was that “the heavy water shipment was rerouted to Amsterdam”, where “additional shipments of Soviet heavy water are supposed to have arrived”. Bern also reported that during the preceding August, Hempel had routed an additional ton of Soviet heavy water through Basel from Greece.

So the Soviets were secretly shipping India heavy water on a regular basis, and were willing to use their embassy to help their agent avoid detection. The Swiss concluded that “the Soviet Union… is looking for ways to send India large amounts of heavy water for the non controlled Indian nuclear sites … obscuring the ways of shipment”.

On April 24, 1986, the Germans finally called the Soviets in. It fell to Dr. von Stuelpnagel to pose the question: Why was the Soviet Union secretly shipping large amounts of heavy water to India through Switzerland? If the Soviet shipments were intentional, they would be deliberate acts of nuclear arms proliferation. The heavy water would enable India’s reactors to make enough plutonium for a stockpile of atomic bombs. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Guidelines, Moscow had promised not to export more than one ton of heavy water per year to any given country without notifying the International Atomic Energy Agency. Notifying the Agency meant that its inspectors would insure that any plutonium the heavy water might make in a reactor could not be used for bombs.

Soviet Counsellor Gelisarov responded with an incredible note which he read to German official Achem Bach. It admitted that on July 11, 1985, the official Soviet export agency, Techsnabexport, had shipped 5.98 tons of heavy water to its agent Hempel in Zurich in a single lot. It also claimed, however, that the lot was composed of smaller parts for “further shipment to final destinations”. There were .99 tons for a firm in Switzerland, .99 tons for a firm in Austria, .99 tons for the Merck firm in West Germany, .99 tons for a firm a Denmark, .99 tons for a firm in Belgium, .99 tons for a firm in the Netherlands, and .04 tons for a Hempel-owned firm in West Berlin. “Thus,” said Gelisarov, “the amount of heavy water, according to each contract, did not exceed the amount of one ton, thus not raising the question of bringing this amount under the guarantees of the London agreement.” He added, for good measure, that “the embassy expresses its hope that the Federal Republic of Germany will take all necessary steps to foil the dirty attempts of certain circles to ruin the image of the policy of the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear exports”.

In response to this amazing performance, a German official penned the words “fresh rascal” on the bottom of the note. The Germans also informed Gelisarov that Merck had not received any heavy water. And making inquiries, they discovered that none of the other supposed recipients had received any either.

In 1988, a third Soviet shipment was revealed. The deal was discovered by the Norwegian police, who were investigating a diversion of Norwegian heavy water that had happened in 1983. It turned out that in December of 1983 Techsnabexport had sent 4.67 tons of Soviet water on Soviet trucks overland to Hempel in Basel, where 15 tons of illegally-imported Norwegian water were waiting. Hempel then combined the two cargoes and sent the whole lot to Bombay. The consignee was the “Director of Purchases and Stores”, the official purchasing arm of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.

Until now, the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have winked at the Soviet Union’s export behavior. US intelligence knew about the secret heavy water shipments to India but did not reveal them or take effective action to stop them. The IAEA has been just as guilty. Under a safeguards agreement negotiated in the 1970s, India was required to notify the IAEA whenever it imported Soviet heavy water. The agreement also authorized the Soviets to declare its exports to India, so that the heavy water could de inspected. Despite the undisputed evidence of the shipments, the IAEA has still not asked India to allow inspection on the Soviet water. The International Atomic Energy Agency should now require that the Soviet heavy water in India be put under international inspection, as well as the fissionable material made by the reactors using Soviet heavy water.

Only Techsnabexport knows how much heavy water the Soviet Union has secretly sold to nuclear weapon programs over the years. In 1989, a fourth series of Soviet shipments were revealed by German audit of Hempel’s books. From July to September 1987, an additional 70 tons of Soviet heavy water cargo, apparently diverted from a defunct reactor, were shipped to India via a Romanian firm. Court documents also prove that four to five tons of Soviet heavy water secretly went to Israel through Luxembourg as early as 1974. What has come to light is undoubtedly the “tip of the iceberg”.

Independent Ukraine can now turn off the dangerous Soviet heavy water spigot. If Ukraine limited its heavy water exports to countries that have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India would be under great pressure to join too. India cannot run all of its reactors without yearly imports of Soviet heavy water. So India would have to choose between making electricity and making atomic bombs. Such an export policy would bring Ukraine into line with Western countries, all of whom have now adopted this policy as a means of combating nuclear arms proliferation. Ukraine should be willing to take such a step in return for Western aid.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

The Soviet republics are now in economic free-fall and things are sure to get worse. If conditions become truly desperate, local rebellions could arise in areas containing nuclear weapons. During the transition from central to republican government, there may be a legal no man’s land through which dangerous exports will go out.

The republics should act immediately to reduce these risks. The republics have endorsed the Bush-Gorbachev pledges to destroy short-range nuclear weapons. If they implement the pledges quickly, more than 10,000 Soviet warheads will be identified for destruction. Moving these warheads to a safe location-for destruction later-would be a giant step in the right direction. The republics should also offer to begin destroying their long-range weapons, as suggested above, with American aid. The sooner the republics begin to take these steps, the safer everyone will be.

As for exports, the republics now believe what all legal authority will henceforth flow from them. They, not the disappearing Soviet center, will decide who can sell- what to whom. But for the moment, none of the republics can control its exports because none has the necessary laws or personnel.

In the past, Soviet controls have never relied primarily on “law,” as understood in the West. All sales were made by state ministries, so top management approved them administratively. But in the future, as industry becomes privatized, this administrative control will disappear. Capitalist-style rules will be needed to regulate entrepreneurs. The West should start helping the republics set up such controls as soon as possible.

According to knowledgeable Soviet officials, the immediate solution to export controls will probably be delegation. The republics are likely to delegate the export control function to a committee acting on their behalf. The committee would then hire the same experts who have regulated Soviet exports in the past. The committee would also follow the same procedures. The committee’s decisions would formally bind the republics, which would use their courts to punish anyone violating the committee’s authority.

In forming US policy toward the republics, President Bush should heed the advice of Yevgeny Velikhov, director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, overseer of the Soviet nuclear complex. In August, Velikhov argued that any non-Russian republic seeking independence should first sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. By signing as a non-nuclear weapon state, a republic would automatically open all of its nuclear sites to international inspection. Velikhov cautioned that inspection would be essential to keep the republics’ nuclear weapons under control. The United States should openly endorse this idea, and then urge the republics to start destroying their weapons under international supervision.

The United States should also urge all of the republics, including Russia, to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime-two multilateral efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group would put the republics at the international table where controls on sensitive “dual-use” technology is now being fashioned-the technology that fueled the Iraqi bomb program. Joining the Missile Technology Control Regime would bar the pending rocket deals with Brazil and India.

To encourage the republics to take these steps, the West should make trade relations and economic aid depend on them. If the republics like Ukraine want to join the community of trading nations, they should accept the duties that go with a membership card. They cannot proliferate long-range missile technology across the world and expect to be embraced by the West.

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Soviet Transfers of Sensitive Nuclear and Missile Technology As Reported by the PressImporting Country, Date, Item Exported:

Afghanistan
1980s:
Supplied several hundred 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles and about 30 launchers

Algeria
mid-1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles

Brazil
1988:
Signed space accord for the joint development of guidance systems, fuels and rocket propulsion

Brazil
1990:
Soviet company Glavkosmos offered rocket technology in exchange for a Brazilian satellite launch contract and use of a Brazilian launch site

Bulgaria
1987-1988?:
Sold an undetermined number of SS-23 intermediate- range missiles (a total of 72-100 were sold to Bulgaria, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia)

Cuba
1961:
Supplied an unspecified number of 40-kilometer range FROG-4s

Cuba
mid-1980s:
Supplied 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles, bringing Cuba’s total arsenal up to 65 missiles

Czechoslovakia
1987-1988?:
Sold an undetermined number of SS-23 intermediate- range missiles (a total of 72-100 were sold to Bulgaria, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia)

East Germany
1987-1988?:
Sold an undetermined number of SS-23 intermediate- range missiles (a total of 72-100 were sold to Bulgaria East Germany, and Czechoslovakia)

Egypt
1968:
Supplied an unspecified number of 40-kilometer range FROG-4 missiles

Egypt
1971:
Supplied an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles

Egypt
1972:
Agreed to provide assistance with guidance systems for medium-range missiles

Egypt
1973:
Supplied an unspecified number of 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles

India
1983:
Techsnabexport sold 4.7 tons of heavy water, shipped illegally via the United Arab Emirates to India by West German broker Alfred Hempel

India
July 1985:
Techsnabexport sent 6 tons of heavy water cargo to Bombay via Zurich

India
Dec. 1985:
Techsnabexport sent 4 tons of heavy water cargo via truck to West Germany, for re-export via Zurich to Bombay in violation of German export law

India
Jul-Sept. 1987:
Seventy tons of Soviet heavy water, apparently diverted September from a defunct reactor, were shipped in three lots to India by the KIMIKA company of Romania

India
1988:
Concluded agreement to supply two 1,000-megawatt power reactors without requiring full-scope safeguards

India
1988-1990:
Supplied two Charlie I class nuclear-powered submarines that are usually equipped with eight SS-N-7 anti-ship, nuclear-capable cruise missiles

India
1990:
Offered to sell cryogenic rocket engines and the technology to produce them

Iran
1989:
Signed agreements on scientific and technological cooperation in the field of nuclear energy

Iran
1990:
Signed an agreement for cooperation that may include building two 440-megawatt power reactors

Iraq
1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles and about 30 launchers

Iraq
1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles and an estimated 36 launchers

Iraq
1978 or bef.:
Constructed a small radioisotope laboratory

Iraq
1986:
Sold 300 Scud B missiles, some of which have been used to form the first stage of Iraq’s large new space rocket and the first stage of Iraq’s 2,000-kilometer Tammuz I missile (Soviet SA-2 missiles form the second stage)

Israel
1974:
Shipped four to five tons of heavy water via Luxembourg

Kuwait
1980:
Sold an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles

Libya
1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles and approximately 39 launchers

Libya
1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles and 72 launchers

Libya
bef. 1981:
Built safeguarded Tajoura research reactor (light water/ highly-enriched uranium,10 thermal megawatt) and zero-power critical assembly; supplied 5 kilograms or more of 80% enriched uranium to power the reactors

North Korea
1956:
Trained approximately 30 North Korean scientists at the Dubna Combined Nuclear Institute; North Korea later built the Yongbyon 30 megawatt reactor outside international inspection

North Korea
1969-1970:
Supplied an unspecified number of FROG-5 and FROG-7 missiles and about 39 launchers

North Korea
1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles and 24 launchers

North Yemen
1988:
Supplied an unspecified number of 120-kilometer range SS-21 Scarab missiles

South Yemen
1980s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles and approximately 12 launchers

South Yemen
1980s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles and 6 launchers

South Yemen
1988:
Supplied an unspecified number of 120-kilometer range SS-21 Scarab missiles and approximately 4 launchers

Syria
1970s:
Supplied an unspecified number of 280-kilometer range Scud B missiles and 18 launchers

Syria
1973:
Supplied an unspecified number of 70-kilometer range FROG-7 missiles

Syria
1983:
Supplied an unspecified number of 120-kilometer range SS-21 Scarab missiles