The modernization of the Russian strategic forces and the future of the US-Russian arms control

The bilateral U.S.-Russian strategic arms control di alog was at its peak at the end of the Cold War, when the very successful Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) and Strategic Arms Reduction (START) Treaties were succeeded. Unfortunately, it is almost non-existent these days. With the end of START in 2009, an important verification mechanism, that currently provides transparency of U.S. and Russian strategic forces and their activities, might be lost, if the sides fail to work out a replacement for it. At the same time the role of transparent nuclear arms reductions by nuclear states is growing for the future of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, and this factor should stimulate U.S. and Russia to renew the strategic arms control dialog. The talk focuses on modern trends in the evolution of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and doctrines of their implementation as well as on the impact of these tendencies on attitudes toward arms control. A framework of a new bilateral strategic arms reduction agreement that might replace START and enforce Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) is proposed