Arms control treaties have served admirably to control and limit nuclear weapons for several decades. The provisions and limits, however, have proven to be inflexible, often limited in scope to specific systems and countries, and difficult and time-consuming to negotiate. It is time for the nuclear weapons states to consider a new paradigm to incentivize reductions while building security and stability in a more enduring and expandable format. Previous nuclear weapons security cooperative efforts between the US and Russia under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program demonstrated that countries can share data and access on nuclear warheads. Under a new cooperative forum to be established by the US and Russia and then expanded to include all five declared nuclear weapons states, a new paradigm can be envisioned that would allow for modernization as a trade-off for reductions and increases in security and stability measures. The nuclear weapons states should create an enduring forum to negotiate trade-off formulas and implement them through specific contracts to be managed as issues and technologies arise. As security and stability measures strengthen, the nuclear weapons states can increase incentives to roll back inventories on a continuous basis.
ARTICLE HISTORY
United States–Russian cooperation on nuclear warhead security from 1995 to 2013 is historically unique and demonstrates how such partnerships can contribute to enhancing nuclear security—even between former adversaries. This cooperation, however, required a deliberate step-by-step approach to build trust before the states were able to provide comprehensive security enhancements for Russia’s nuclear warhead stockpile. The chapter traces the incremental process by which this trust was built, both between officials in cultural exchanges and through progressively more ambitious nuclear security equipment deliveries. Each step demonstrated that the partners were operating in good faith and allowed for results to be achieved, such as US access to Russian warhead storage sites, which, at the outset of the programme, seemed highly unlikely. Although US–Russian joint warhead security work ended in 2013, this programme served as an important foundational effort in global risk reduction initiatives, particularly for nuclear security and as a model for future efforts for cooperation when addressing the most sensitive instruments of state power.
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