Nuclear Reset - Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation (POSSE)

46<strong>Nuclear</strong> <strong>Reset</strong>: Arms Reduction and Nonproliferationgic stability, causing both the vertical and horizontal proliferationof nuclear weapons.Deterrence remains effective against the least likely and most farfetchedthreats, such as nuclear exchanges and all-out conventionalconflicts between the two great powers and their allies. However, itwould be completely useless against such new, real security threatsas the proliferation of nuclear weapons, international terrorism, ethnicand religious conflicts and their consequences, drug trafficking,trans-border crime, illegal immigration, and so on. Its transformation,meanwhile, would involve further strategic nuclear arms reductionby the two nuclear superpowers and a reduced reliance on nucleardeterrence in the national doctrines and security policies of bothsides. It would also mean that the United States and Russia wouldrenounce strike planning based on data from early warning systems,would reduce their operational and technical readiness to launchland- and sea-based missiles, and would create a joint U.S.-Russiamissile warning system and engage in the joint development andoperation of future BMD systems. At the same time, as Russia reducesits number of strategic nuclear weapons, it should increaseits reliance on mobile systems in its land component and upgradethe performance characteristics of its submarines in order to enhancetheir survivability.These and other measures would unconditionally increase strategicstability and, by strengthening the nonproliferation regime,would significantly lessen the impact on the world of both the traditionaland the new destabilizing factors.Notes1 The President of Russia, The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,Feb. 5, 2010, http://news.kremlin.ru/ref_notes/461.2 I. Sergeyev, “The No-First-Strike Option,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Nov. 13,2001.3 One important exclusion concerned Soviet efforts to calculate the nuclearcapabilities of Britain and France as it tried to gain a numericaladvantage in Soviet SSBNs listed under START I.4 Their warheads are British-made and have no counterforce capability,making them similar to the U.S. Navy’s Trident II W-88 warheads.5 The President of Russia, The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,Feb. 5, 2010, http://news.kremlin.ru/ref_notes/461.