Russia's vanishing deterrent

Even in the post-Cold War world, the stability of nuclear deterrence as between not-unfriendly US and Russian governments remains significant. Nuclear stability implies mutual confidence that the minimum conditions of rational deterrence models are fulfilled with high confidence. As US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals are gradually reduced in conformity with the Moscow Treaty to levels far below current deployments, the qualities of forces and the performances of their command and control systems matter as much as do the exact quantities of weapons held by the two sides. Data analysis shows that both the US and Russia can expect to maintain a minimum counter-city deterrent even at levels below the once proposed START III or agreed Moscow treaty limits, but defense deployments add uncertainty to projections and might compromise second strike retaliation under some conditions of launch readiness or warning.