Issue Briefs

The conventional wisdom of the Cold War era was that, even in times of ultimate tensions, arms control served as a kind of bridge over seemingly intractable differences between two rival alliances - ostensibly immune from ideological or geopolitical rows. In the period of the post-Cold War “New World Order” illusions, with their maverick schemes of the “End of History” or the “Clash of Civilizations”, arms control seemed to be eclipsed by wider geopolitical ambitions or hopes that it was just a relic of the Cold War and did not need judicially enforceable mechanisms in the era of collaboration and trust between the West and Russia (predictably, that ended quite soon).

The conventional wisdom of the Cold War era was that, even in times of ultimate tensions, arms control served as a kind of bridge over seemingly intractable differences between two rival alliances - ostensibly immune from ideological or geopolitical rows. In the period of the post-Cold War “New World Order” illusions, with their maverick schemes of the “End of History” or the “Clash of Civilizations”, arms control seemed to be eclipsed by wider geopolitical ambitions or hopes that it was just a relic of the Cold War and did not need judicially enforceable mechanisms in the era of collaboration and trust between the West and Russia (predictably, that ended quite soon).

As part of the modernization process of the Russian Army, Moscow has ordered a significant qualitative overhaul of the Russian nuclear forces in all three legs of the Russian triad. While Moscow is modernizing, its overall arsenal of nuclear warhead still exceeds massively any reasonable security needs. Efforts at reducing the Russian arsenal in a mutually agreed manner with the United States beyond New START are experiencing considerable problems. The fallout from the Ukraine conflict has already damaged bilateral relations. There is the danger that the standstill in U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control relations might severely affect the NPT regime.