Nuclear Force Reductions, Missile Defenses, and U.S.-Russian Relations: Managing Contextual Complexity

Changing technologies and geopolitical alignments, together with the spread of nuclear weapons outside of Europe, have created a more complex template for the pursuit of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control. Security cooperation and reassurance are as important as mutual deterrence, and either American or Russian missile defenses would influence not only their respective calculations of deterrence stability, but also those of new and aspiring nuclear states. The analysis considers a variety of Russian and U.S. post-Moscow Treaty forces and their interactive stability with, or without, missile defenses in the mix.