Broadly speaking, the US – Russian disarmament talks have continued in the same cold war relationship dynamics between the United States and Soviet Union. The brief interlude of the Yeltsin years was an exception. As soon as Putin took over the helms of Russia, the old cold war dynamics of mistrust and paranoia have come to the fore again.
The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 underscored the need for responsible nuclear leadership and was a precursor to the détente. During the early Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1), the two superpowers even agreed to expose themselves to each other in order to ensure neither side would cheat on arms control agreements. The US strategic triad consisted of land, air and submarine based warheads. Furthermore, …show more content…
Once an agreement has been signed and ratified, it sets a benchmark for acceptable level of risk. This stabilizes the strategic landscape, moderates hysterical calls for new nuclear capabilities and the unproductive impulse to demonize the other side.
The New START, which took effect in 2011, requires both US and Russia to reduce the number of deployed strategic weapons to no more than 1550 by February 2018. US have achieved this goal and Russia is on track to compliance. Unless extended, the treaty will expire in 2021. The new START treaty did little to solve the strategic problems both countries face. A more ambitious treaty would have addressed both US and Russian modernization plans and would have stabilized the strategic balance for decades to come. Since signing the treaty, both sides have exchange nearly 10,000 notifications containing information about their respective …show more content…
An agreement in the expanded scope can help those countries to pare back their modernization programs, reducing the defence bill for both countries. The main problem lies in the asymmetry between the US and Russian modernization schedules. Russia has almost replaced its Soviet era SS-19s and SS-25 single warhead missiles with SS-27s. The US is only recently issuing calls to replace single warhead minutemen, rendering the prospect on limiting current ICBMs little
The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 underscored the need for responsible nuclear leadership and was a precursor to the détente. During the early Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1), the two superpowers even agreed to expose themselves to each other in order to ensure neither side would cheat on arms control agreements. The US strategic triad consisted of land, air and submarine based warheads. Furthermore, …show more content…
Once an agreement has been signed and ratified, it sets a benchmark for acceptable level of risk. This stabilizes the strategic landscape, moderates hysterical calls for new nuclear capabilities and the unproductive impulse to demonize the other side.
The New START, which took effect in 2011, requires both US and Russia to reduce the number of deployed strategic weapons to no more than 1550 by February 2018. US have achieved this goal and Russia is on track to compliance. Unless extended, the treaty will expire in 2021. The new START treaty did little to solve the strategic problems both countries face. A more ambitious treaty would have addressed both US and Russian modernization plans and would have stabilized the strategic balance for decades to come. Since signing the treaty, both sides have exchange nearly 10,000 notifications containing information about their respective …show more content…
An agreement in the expanded scope can help those countries to pare back their modernization programs, reducing the defence bill for both countries. The main problem lies in the asymmetry between the US and Russian modernization schedules. Russia has almost replaced its Soviet era SS-19s and SS-25 single warhead missiles with SS-27s. The US is only recently issuing calls to replace single warhead minutemen, rendering the prospect on limiting current ICBMs little