US strategic nuclear arms control: Campaign Echoes and Obama's options

Stephen J. Cimbala discusses the impact of the reductions made by Russia and the US in the numbers of their operationally deployed, long-range nuclear weapons on nuclear deterrence, crisis stability, and efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons through a hypothetical model. Russia and the US will each be assigned four alternative and hypothetical future force structures. It will include a balanced triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and bomber-delivered weapons, together with three alternative forces for the purpose of comparison. The force sizes for Russia and the US will be set at significantly lower than-SORT and present START levels in order to provide meaningful tests for the null hypothesis. Smaller Russian and American strategic nuclear forces can be important incentives for restraint by existing nuclear weapons states, and for international cooperation in preventing the growth of additional nuclear weapons states.