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The US-Russian strategic nuclear balance continues to be a destabilizing factor in the international security system. Both nations maintain thousands of nuclear
weapons, and both nations continue to target each other. Additionally, Russia and the US
maintain a reciprocal Launch on Warning (LOW) posture, allowing the bulk of active
strategic missiles to be launched in under twenty minutes. This remains true despite the
deterioration of Russian launch-detection abilities. In the decade and a half since the
end of the Cold War, both nations gradually moved towards decreasing the numbers, uses,
and legitimacy of nuclear weapons. However, with Russia's renunciation of its no-first-use
pledge, and as the US continues to fund research into earth-penetrating nuclear weapons and
to develop a limited national missile defense system, this movement seems to have stopped.
Moreover, it is likely that the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, coming out
later this year, will continue to emphasize the importance of nuclear weapons. Finally,
in spite of the great importance both nations place on preventing terrorist access to nuclear
weapons and materials, Russia's vast arsenal and nuclear infrastructure remains far from secure.
This security problem is significantly aggravated by the large numbers of nuclear weapons and
the LOW posture Russia maintains. As correctly pointed out by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice: "America is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence."
From CIAO's database:
Hair-Trigger Missiles Risk Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism
Russia: Grasping Reality of Nuclear Terror (PDF)
Illusory Security: Nuclear Weapons in the Second Nuclear Age
Nuclear Conflicts of the Twenty-First Century
The Global Nuclear Balance: A Quantitative and Arms Control Analysis (PDF)
U.S.-Russia Nuclear Reductions November 2001
Slipping Down the Nuclear Slope: Bush Administration Nuclear Policy Lowers Bar Against Usage
Bush's Nuclear Revolution: A Regime Change in Nonproliferation
Dangerous Doctrine: How New U.S. Nuclear Plans Could Backfire (PDF)
The Trajectory of the Russian Military: Downsizing, Degeneration, and Defeat
Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces
Outside Links*:
Federation of American Scientists nuclear weapons page
http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=325&projectId=7
Excerpts of the Nuclear Posture Review
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm
US Bureau of Nonproliferation
http://www.state.gov/t/np/
State Deptartment page on the WMD threat
http://www.state.gov/t/np/wmd/
Natural Resources Defense Council nuclear weapons site
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/default.asp
* Outside links are not maintained. For broken outside links, CIAO recommends the Way Back Machine [http://www.archive.org/].
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