Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume 7, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2006

CIAO DATE: 08/07

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Frozen Legacy: US-Russian Strategic Nuclear Relations
Martin Senn

Excerpt

Martin Senn is a research assistant in the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He is a member of the International Security Research Group.

In the Post-Cold War era focus has shifted from the strategic nuclear relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation to more contemporary issues like ballistic missile defense, bunker-busting low-yield nuclear weapons, and nuclear prevention. There is a public perception that the bilateral strategic disarmament process is advancing. President George W. Bush announced that the signing of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, or Moscow Treaty), which obliges the U.S. and Russia to reduce their operationally deployed strategic warheads to a level of 1,700 to 2,200 respectively, “ended a long chapter of confrontation, and… liquidates the Cold War legacy of nuclear hostility.”1 In fact, however, nuclear relations between the United States and the Russian Federation have changed very little.

This article argues that the amicable rhetoric and quantitative nuclear weapons reductions of the past fifteen years simply obscure the fact that U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear relations are still structured around old patterns of the East-West conflict. Sections one and two review bilateral strategic disarmament and outline current nuclear force levels and modernization efforts. The third section investigates nuclear weapons’ contemporary role in U.S. and Russian security and defense policies as well as each country’s attitude toward contractual disarmament. The final section traces additional underlying causes freezing the nuclear legacy of the East-West conflict.

Strategic Disarmament: Where do we come from, where do we stand?

Bilateral arms control/disarmament between the United States and Russia developed in three phases. The arms control phase started with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) process in 1969. Early efforts to reduce the pace of the arms race were made possible due to the overall East-West détente and the development of U.S. and Russian arsenals to the level of mutually assured destruction (MAD). The SALT I treaties (May 1972) limited both offensive and defensive strategic weapon systems through the Interim Agreement and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The prohibition of nation-wide missile defense systems by the ABM Treaty sustained the mutual vulnerability of both powers and was a necessary foundation for limiting strategic defense platforms. Neither the SALT I Interim Agreement nor SALT II halted the increase of U.S. and Russian strategic offensive arsenals; nevertheless, this early phase built confidence between East and West and was a precondition for the later reversal of the armament process. 2

The disarmament phase began in 1982 with the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START). When Mikhail Gorbachev assumed office as General Secretary of the Soviet Central Committee in March 1985 he renewed the faltering détente between Washington and Moscow and paved the way for serious and successful reduction negotiations.3 In 1987 the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was the first treaty in which the two superpowers committed themselves to reductions of nuclear forces. Moreover, against the backdrop of the dissolving East-West conflict, the United States and the USSR were already engaged in informal strategic reductions of deployed warheads.

START I eventually established a legal framework for strategic disarmament. It obliges the parties to deploy not more than 6,000 accountable warheads on 1,600 delivery vehicles and to destroy deactivated launch vehicles.4 Like the INF treaty, START I provided a complex verification regime intended to guarantee successful implementation with measures like the inspection of data and facilities.5 Overall, START I has been a very successful disarmament framework; between 1990 and 2006, Russia and the U.S. reduced their arsenals of deployed strategic warheads from about 10,000 each to 3,500 (Russia)6 and 5,521 (U.S.).7

Although START I marked a success, the strategic disarmament process soon entered the third and current structural crisis phase. In contrast to earlier disarmament crises which resulted from external conflicts (e.g. the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) or the inability to agree on treaty provisions, this structural crisis represents a considerable weakening of the overall value and substance of the disarmament process. Symptoms of this current phase include the drawn-out ratification process and eventual failure of START II, U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the signing and ratification of SORT...

1President Bush, Russian President Putin Sign Nuclear Arms Treaty, Moscow, 24 May 2002, <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020524-10.html> (12 September 2005).
2SALT II never entered into force, but the United States and Russia fulfilled some of its obligations.
3See Pavel Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, MA / London: MIT Press, 2001), p. 19-20.
4Due to the specific counting rules of START I, the number of accountable warheads may differ from the number of deployed warheads. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine also became parties to the treaty.
5For the text of START I see http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/starthtm/start/toc.html (21 September 2005).
6Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen. “Russian nuclear forces, 2006,” NRDC: Nuclear Notebook, vol.62, no.2, < http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=ma06norris > (20 March 2006).
7Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen. “U.S. nuclear forces, 2006,” NRDC: Nuclear Notebook, vol.62, no.2, < http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf06norris > (20 March 2006).