Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present:

Foreword by Graham AllisonThe global nuclear order is reaching a tipping point. Several trends are advancing along crookedpaths, each undermining this order. These trends include North Korea’s expanding nuclear weaponsprogram, Iran’s continuing nuclear ambitions, Pakistan’s increasing instability, growing doubtsabout the sustainability of the nonproliferation regime in general, and terrorist groups’ enduringaspirations to acquire nuclear weapons. Andrei Kokoshin, deputy of the State Duma and formersecretary of Russia’s Security Council, analyzes these challenges that threaten to cause the nuclearorder to collapse in the following paper.Kokoshin’s skills as one of the most thoughtful shapers of Russian security and defense policiesare fully applied to the issue. He notes that there is a real possibility that non-state actors canacquire nuclear weapons. He warns that consequences of a successful nuclear terrorist attackwould be catastrophic for both the targeted country and for the international political system asa whole. I cannot agree more. If Pakistan were to lose control of even one nuclear weapon thatwas ultimately used by terrorists, that would, as U.S. President Barack Obama has said, “changeour world.” It would transform life in cities, shrink what are now regarded as essential civil liberties,and alter conceptions of a viable nuclear order. That Osama bin Laden has been killed and alQaeda has been significantly weakened by the U.S. government’s relentless and focused attacks isgood news. The bad news is that al Qaeda remains active and its new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri—who has supervised this terrorist organization’s WMD programs—is vengeful.Kokoshin also warns that acquisition of nuclear weapons by new states will not only sap the existingnon-proliferation regimes, but will also dramatically complicate the global system of strategicstability based on traditional nuclear deterrence. Rather than pair up in deterrence “dyads” as theUnited States and Soviet Union did during the Cold War, each new member of the nuclear clubwould be trying to deter several countries—presenting an unprecedented challenge of what Kokoshincalls “polygonal” deterrence. I concur with the author’s assessment. Acquisition of nuclearweapons by Tehran is most likely to trigger off a cascade of proliferation in the Middle East, withSaudi Arabia and Egypt leading the pack. And a nuclear Egypt will surely spur the Syrian regime’snuclear aspirations. While Saudi Arabia and Egypt would be deterring Iran, the latter would bedeterring the United States and Israel in what will make this new system of polygonal deterrenceextremely unstable. A multiparty nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be like playing Russianroulette with five bullets in a six-chamber revolver—dramatically increasing the likelihood ofa regional nuclear war.While grappling with the challenges that Tehran poses to the existing nuclear order, Kokoshinhits the bull’s eye when he notes that testing of medium-range missiles by Iran makes militarystrategicsense only if these missiles carry nuclear warheads. While Iran’s President, MahmoudAhmadinejad, vows to “wipe Israel off the map,” strategists must consider the fact that any nucleartipped missiles in Iran will initially be highly vulnerable to an Israeli or U.S. preemptive strike.The same will eventually become true for Israel, whose military’s ex-chief of staff, Dan Halutz, hasreferred to Iran as “Israel’s sole existential threat.” The same kind of crisis instability may developin the nuclear relationship between Iran with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.2Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and Applied Questions