New Start and Beyond: Nuclear Modernization and US-Russian Nuclear Arms Control

Abstract

In this chapter, the prospects for continued success or failure in US-Russian strategic nuclear arms control are evaluated and their implications drawn out. At this writing, turbulent political relations as between the United States and Russia have been roiled by many factors: including Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequent destabilization of eastern Ukraine, Russia’s military intervention in Syria, US and European Union economic sanctions against Russia and other issues. Among the other issues has been Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to restore Russia’s military power and extend its geostrategic reach into former Soviet space. This agenda includes pushing back against NATO expansion, against US missile defenses deployed in Europe and against “color revolutions” such as those in post-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine that threatened to spread the idea of democratization to the Kremlin’s very doorstep. Deteriorating Russian-American political relations also placed into jeopardy two landmark nuclear arms control agreements: the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and the New START agreement.