INTRODUCTION
With the United States in political crisis following the President Clinton scandal and Russia in a state of enormous economic turmoil and political weakness that has led to the appointment of Yevgeny Primakov as Prime Minister, there has perhaps never been a time since the end of World War II where U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons seemed less relevant to the future of the bilateral relationship. Although there are sporadic sounds of alarm in both countries about the lack of security of Russian nuclear weapons and the fissionable materials needed for their fabrication, only a small number of specialists retain their attention on what appear more and more to be the arcane remnants of a Cold War competition that long ago passed from the scene. However, it is necessary for the strategic analyst to take a longer view, a view that transcends the vicissitudes of the current political and economic scene. The realization then sets in that both sides retain enormous destructive power that will remain a key element in the relations between these states for years to come.

WHAT DO WE HAVE AND WHAT WOULD WE DO WITH IT?
The United States continues to retain a triad of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles—intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), long-range heavy bombers, and sea-based ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Overall, however, since the end of the Cold War in 1992, the United States has reduced its total number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads from more than 12,000 to fewer than 8,000 and is headed toward the limit of 6,000 warheads specified in the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). By the end of the year 2001, this limit will be reached. The United States also has nuclear weapons in storage and systems that could be deployed on sea-launched cruise missiles which do not count against the START I limits.  The U.S. Congress, in its resolution of ratification of the START II Treaty, which specifies a limit of 3,000 to 3,500 deployed strategic warheads, maintained that the United States would not reduce its forces below the START I levels unless the Russian Federation became a party to the START II Treaty.   As of this writing, the Russian Duma has not ratified this treaty and it is not at all clear that it ever will—Russian domestic politics and sporadic Russian disagreement with U.S. policy toward Iraq continue to impede ratification. Ironically, it appears that it is those in charge of the strategic nuclear forces in both countries that seek to go to lower levels, in part reflecting the realization that they do not have the budgetary support to maintain effective forces at START II levels.

As for declaratory policy, the United States has refused to adopt a no-first-use of nuclear weapons posture on the grounds that to do so would undermine the security guarantees it provides to its European and Japanese allies.  It has agreed to "de-target" Russia, meaning that none of its deployed systems is at present targeted on Russian military, industrial, or civilian targets; yet it is common knowledge that with modern command and control systems, "re-targeting" can be achieved in a matter of minutes.  In a revision to the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review announced by the Clinton administration in November 1997, it was made clear that the United States plans to retain the strategic triad and that it maintains an ambiguous public posture as to whether it would use nuclear weapons in response to a first use of chemical or biological weapons by an adversary against a U.S. ally, U.S. forces, or U.S. territory. The Presidential Decision Directive on this subject issued in late 1997 reconfirmed that the United States would not use nuclear weapons first in a conflict unless the state that attacked the United States, its allies, or military forces is nuclear capable, is in alliance with a nuclear power, or is not in good standing in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.  

Although actual "employment policy" of U.S. weapons is highly classified, it is almost certainly the case that the military strategy behind possible nuclear weapon use would still be based on counterforce objectives; namely, if the U.S. President actually authorized the employment of these weapons, they would be directed to destroy the weapons of mass destruction of the adversary. 

The Russian situation is much less clear.  Russia maintained for many years a triad of strategic nuclear forces, but since the end of the Cold War and the steep decline of the Russian economy, there are numerous authoritative accounts that suggest Russian nuclear forces have declined appreciably in terms of readiness and capabilities. By most published accounts, the long-range ICBM forces remain the centerpiece of Russian nuclear strategy.  Unlike the United States, which has no known follow-on systems to the currently deployed set of forces, Russia has a follow-on ICBM under development.  The other two legs of its triad are in disrepair.  Many accounts no longer include any Russian long-range aircraft as nuclear capable, and the sea-based forces may now comprise perhaps only one or two ballistic missile submarines capable of launching nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles that could reach U.S. territory.

Whereas Russia is not known to possess any cruise missiles capable of detonating nuclear weapons on the United States, it does possess a very large number of so-called tactical (or shorter range) nuclear weapons. These weapons are often justified by Russian officials in order to maintain deterrence on the Sino-Russian border and as a symbol of Russian great power status, a status that has been deeply tarnished by the humiliating military defeat of Russian forces in Chechnya and by Russia’s economic decline. 

The precise nature of Russia’s employment policy and even its declaratory policies remain ambiguous. In recent times Russia has rescinded an earlier adopted posture of accepting a "no first use" pledge. This reversal took place after the Chechyan debacle and the realization that Russian conventional forces were not capable of a credible deterrent posture. In sum, despite occasional public statements in the West ascribing precision of knowledge about the quantity and quality of Russian nuclear forces, there remains a good deal of actual ambiguity concerning their precise operational effectiveness and how they would be used if authorization was provided.

Some American specialists are far less concerned about authorized use of Russian nuclear forces than about unauthorized or accidental use or about theft or sale of such weapons, which could place them in the hands of nongovernmental groups. Because of these serious concerns, there have been numerous calls for "de-alerting" of the forces so that none of them would be in a high state of readiness.  Both governments, however, have yet to accept such calls. The American side has pointed to the difficulty in verifying that SLBMs have been taken off a high state of alert; Russian specialists claim that to de-alert or "de-mate" the weapons from their launch vehicles would actually exacerbate the theft problem because the nuclear weapons would then be more highly dispersed and more difficult to protect. 

Overall, the number of nuclear weapons in the combined U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpile has declined substantially from a peak of more than 50,000 weapons in about 1984 to perhaps 30,000 weapons today. But we have witnessed a period of stagnation for the last few years since the U.S. Senate consented to ratification of the START II Treaty in January 1996.

THE HELSINKI AND MOSCOW SUMMITS
At the March 1997 Clinton-Yeltsin summit in Helsinki, Finland it appeared that important progress had been made. Yeltsin made clear that he needed progress on three issues if he was to garner the support in the Duma to ratify START II:   clarity of the NATO-Russia relationship; progress on bringing Russia into the family of international economic institutions; and successful negotiations of the demarcation between strategic and nonstrategic ballistic missile defenses. At Helsinki, Clinton and Yeltsin signed presidential statements that specified 1) a transparent process for NATO enlargement including the establishment of a role for Russia in certain NATO decisionmaking bodies; 2) the commitment of the United States to work for the inclusion of Russia in the Group of 7 economic body and in other multilateral economic fora; 3) a framework for demarcating strategic and nonstrategic missile defenses; and 4) a road map for a START III negotiating framework once START II was ratified. This framework included:

• Moving down to a total number of 2,000 to 2,500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads by the end of 2007

• A joint willingness to address in the context of START III the issue of nuclear-capable long-range sea-launched cruise missiles (of concern to Russia) and the issue of deployed tactical nuclear weapons (of concern to the United States)

• A willingness to discuss the chain of custody of nuclear materials.

After Helsinki there was considerable optimism in the Clinton administration that U.S.-Russian nuclear relations might soon move to a lower and safer threshold.  This optimism was enhanced after the May 1997 summit clarifying further the terms of NATO enlargement and the completion of the Theater Missile Defense Demarcation Agreement in September 1997.  But Yeltsin’s illnesses and the continued decline of the Russian economy evidently stripped the Russian president of his political ability to deliver on his Helsinki promises. For much of 1998 Clinton held firm and would not meet with Yeltsin until START II had indeed been ratified. But by the summer of 1998 both presidents were in such weakened positions that it was decided to go ahead with the September 1998 summit in Moscow.

This summit focused in the nuclear arms control area not on the strategic nuclear forces of the two powers but on problems of proliferation. First the presidents agreed that the United States and Russia would instantaneously share data about the launching of ballistic missiles and space payloads. The United States in essence has agreed to share its early warning technology so Russian officials, with a deteriorating early warning system, do not misinterpret that it is mistakenly under attack.  As was stated at the time by Robert Bell of the National Security Council staff: "The agreement provides further protection against an inadvertent nuclear exchange triggered by misidentification of a launch." In addition, the two sides agreed to each remove 50 tons of plutonium from military stockpiles, disposing of it by using it as a fuel in nuclear reactors or by mixing it with nuclear waste products. The two sides also agreed to create seven working groups on export controls to strengthen further Russia’s ability to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It is understood that considerable interagency effort has been expended to clarify the U.S. START III position, should START II enter into force. Presumably the U.S. position will be to flesh out in detail the framework agreed upon at Helsinki in 1997. And, as recently as early December 1998 there was some hope in the United States that the Duma would complete ratification. Tensions emanating from the U.S.-British strikes against Iraq later in December have again apparently shelved Russian ratification. To date, the United States has been unwilling to initiate further arms reduction negotiations until START II enters into force.

KEY ISSUES AHEAD
On balance, while incremental shifts in thinking are in evidence on both sides, the status of the nuclear competition between Russia and the U.S. has not reflected the very considerable change in the political relationship that has come into being since 1992. Analysts in both camps call for a shift away from a condition of mutual nuclear deterrence. "Friends don’t aim nuclear missiles at each other" is the refrain.  But with the extraordinary political weaknesses of both governments and the uncertainty that Russia will remain on a democratic course, progress has been negligible in this regard.

Is such a shift feasible? If feasible, is it desirable? In all probability a shift away from a deterrent strategy will not be taken voluntarily by either party as part of their respective "hedge" strategies against a turnabout in the political relationship. What could stimulate a rethinking, however, is material progress in the development of effective ballistic missile defenses.  If either side truly had high confidence that it could protect its forces, its territory, and its people from ballistic missile attack, and if it actually harbored no aggressive intent against the other party, it could slowly but surely draw down its nuclear forces and eventually abandon its nuclear deterrent strategy.

However, we are a far cry from this condition technologically.   Indeed, the U.S. program of land-based theater missile defenses (TMD)—the so-called Theater High Altitude Air Defense System (THAAD)—has experienced such conspicuous difficulties (seven failed tests out of seven tries) that we may be a very long way from fielding TMD systems, no less national missile defense (NMD) systems that could provide sufficient confidence to warrant such a profound doctrinal shift.

What if START stops? Suppose we reach a point—and we may be almost there—where both sides acknowledge that START II will never be ratified by Russia and therefore never implemented.  Are there alternative approaches that could be adopted to move the negotiating process forward or are we at the end not only of the START process, but of negotiated arms control?  It is fashionable in some quarters to look for alternatives to negotiated agreements—such as by exploring the prospect of reciprocal unilateral steps—but this approach is more easily said than done.   Many Republican lawmakers in Congress see no reason to unilaterally cut U.S. nuclear forces at a time when the United States holds such an enormous economic advantage over Russia and can evidently field far larger numbers of systems for far longer.

This reasoning, however, fails to appreciate the importance and prestige still associated with the Russian strategic rocket forces and the ability of Russia to maintain systems far beyond Western estimates of their ability to do so. Complications in the unilateral reciprocal reduction process are introduced by the enormous uncertainty in U.S. intelligence circles of the size and character of Russian tactical nuclear systems, the precise nature of which are exceedingly difficult to verify. Consequently, it is unrealistic to believe that the executive branch would have U.S. military or congressional support to enter into substantial unilateral cuts of its strategic nuclear forces.  On the other side, some analysts argue that Russia, even in the absence of the formal implementation of START II, may well be down to about 1,000 deployed warheads in a few years time. But these analysts do not have direct contact with the operational forces that are determined to field as large a nuclear force as feasible.

What all this means is that we must patiently await the passage out of the political quagmire that currently grips both countries before we can see our way clear to any meaningful change in the nuclear force posture of either side. The only thing that would upset this logic is a first-order event such as a dramatic collapse of the Russian command and control system, clear evidence of a major theft of Russian nuclear materials, or, heaven forbid, a nuclear exchange between the newly announced nuclear states of India and Pakistan.

For more than fifty years the U.S. has sought to maintain what my colleague Tom Schelling has called "the tradition of nonuse" of nuclear weapons. Despite many opportunities—ranging from the Berlin crisis of 1948 to the Korean War to the Quemoy and Matsu crises in the late 1950s, to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to the Vietnam war, to the 1973 war in the Middle East—successive U.S. presidents have all turned away from the nuclear option and sought to use conventional weapons or diplomacy to achieve national objectives. Should this tradition be broken, not by the United States but by another state, and the horror of nuclear war was broadcast on cable television and detailed on the internet around the world, its consequences could be profound and highly unpredictable. Such an eventuality could lead to a rapid stimulation of further weapons proliferation and then use or it could lead to a redoubled effort at deep nuclear reductions.

Short of the stimulus for fundamental change brought about by such a horrific and far-reaching development, the governments are likely to move incrementally on the nuclear question.  The United States for many years has sought to gain better control over the entire disposition of fissionable material and has been willing to complete a far-reaching agreement that includes exchange of classified information about the location and status of this material. Russia, on the other hand, has not shown willingness in such a high level of transparency and indeed may well be involved in more transfer of sensitive technologies to other countries (probably for financial gain) than it has been willing to admit.

Most recently, the detonation of nuclear devices by India and Pakistan have not made progress in the U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship any easier. India and Pakistan are now declared nuclear powers and it is not clear that they will be seen as having suffered by taking this step. Indeed, the overall political status of the two countries may have been elevated even if they are suffering the pains of economic sanctions. With Israel also an undeclared nuclear weapon state, and with Iran, Iraq and North Korea all in the "threshold" category, the overall global trend is clearly one of incremental nuclear proliferation. And such a trend makes it politically less feasible in the United States or Russia to take bold steps to reduce nuclear arsenals.

On balance, then, the present mix of domestic and international conditions is singularly inhospitable to sharp changes in nuclear strategy by either party. Both have extraordinarily weak executives countered by politically hostile legislative branches. Both still obtain prestige from nuclear weapon possession, although there has slowly but surely developed an international norm against nuclear weapon testing.  Both will have difficulty becoming parties to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in light of the India and Pakistan nuclear tests, and neither has developed the missile defense technology that could provide a tangible alternative to reliance on nuclear deterrence. 

Small steps such as sharing missile test data and eventually lowering the alert status of certain systems are valuable in and of themselves, but none of these steps will fundamentally alter the basic nuclear relationship, which remains based on mutual deterrence. The future of nuclear strategy in U.S.-Russian relations will be the same as the past. In order for there to be a change, there will have to be a first-order change in the Russian political system that is sustained for one or two decades or a technological breakthrough that makes missile defenses feasible on a broad scale. And, while there is much that is unsettling about the maintenance of such a condition, it can also be argued that the nuclear standoff has been the key element of stability that has introduced extreme caution into the decision-making processes in both capitals.

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