U.S.-Russian Strategic Arms Reductions: Nonlinear Challenges,Practical Opportunities

The Obama Administration's desire to push forward with strategic nuclear arms reductions during the President's second term requires the navigation of numerous shoals and reefs. U.S. and Russian negotiators will have to overcome both political and military obstacles to accomplish post-New START reductions in long-range nuclear weapons. For example, efforts to reduce offensive nuclear weapons are complicated by U.S. and NATO plans for missile defenses deployed in Europe and by exigencies in U.S. and Russian domestic politics. In addition, the military-technical aspects of cyber war and nuclear deterrence can no longer be treated, analytically or practically, as isolated compartments. This article considers several aspects of the relationships among possible post-START offensive force reductions, advanced conventional weapons including missile defenses, and emerging cyber capabilities.     

Forever young: START and aftermath

Abstract

The New Strategic arms reduction treaty nuclear arms control agreement signed by US President, Barack Obama, and Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010 is likely to achieve ratification in both Washington and Moscow, but it is too early to break out the champagne or vodka. Even successful ratification of this agreement is, at best, an important but incremental part of the US–Russian policy ‘reset’ and the larger agenda for both states with respect to arms reduction and nonproliferation. Further reductions in both states’ inventories of strategic nuclear weapons are a necessary preface toward credible leadership in stopping the spread of nuclear arms – especially in the looming test cases of Iran and North Korea. In addition, both states have to decipher a policy-strategy nexus for emerging missile defense technologies: in particular, whether missile defenses should be seen as possible means of cooperative security, as between NATO and Russia, or whether they are firewalls in the way of further progress in offensive nuclear arms reductions.     

US–Russian Nuclear Arms Control: Forward and Retro after 2008?

Abstract

The arrival of a new US administration in 2009 is a swinging door with respect to opportunities for Russian–American cooperation in strategic nuclear arms reductions and nonproliferation. Both US presidential candidates in 2008 supported nuclear abolition as a theoretically desirable goal, and the Obama administration will certainly pursue nuclear arms reductions consistent with already agreed, or lower, levels. Missile defenses complicate US–Russian relations on this issue, but they pose negotiable, not insurmountable, barriers to further arms reductions and strategic stability.     

The prince of darkness and the evil empire: Richard Perle,the Soviet Union,and U.S. arms control policy

This paper consists of three parts. First, it investigates the rationality assumption behind much deterrence theorizing and arrives at the conclusion that the rationality assumption is not fully compatible with credible retaliation. Moreover, the requirements of central deterrence and of extended deterrence tend to be incompatible with each other. Since theoretical deliberations call the persisting reliability of deterrence into question, alternatives to deterrence have to be considered. The second part of the paper therefore investigates strategic defense as an improvement over deterrence and a possibly stabilizing element in deterrence. The final part refers to conceivable conflicts of interests between the USA and Western Europe concerning SDI. It is argued that such conflicts of interest either arise from parochial concerns or from overlooking the comparative advantages of free and totalitarian systems in the production of military power.     

Divided Priorities: Why and When Allies Differ Over Military Intervention

Abstract

Scholars have vigorously debated whether adversaries carefully scrutinize if states have, in the past, demonstrated toughness and whether adversaries base present and future crisis-bargaining behavior on this record. If they do—as a central strain of deterrence theory, and its contemporary defenders, maintain—hard-line policies, including limited military interventions, can bolster deterrence. We know much less about a second audience that is presumably attentive to demonstrations of resolve: allies. A common view, derived from the same logic, and which we call Hawkish Reassurance Theory, suggests that states should support and find reassuring their allies’ faraway military interventions. In contrast, we argue that such interventions call into doubt the intervener’s will and capacity to fulfill its core alliance commitments, undermine the credibility of the alliance, and threaten allies’ security in both the short and long run. Allies thus ultimately oppose powerful partners’ hawkish postures in distant conflicts, and they may even consequently explore routes to security beyond the alliance. To assess this argument, we examine the varied stances leading US allies took from the start of the US intervention in Vietnam through its end. Allied behavior was largely consistent with our expectations. We conclude that, if one reason to deploy force is to signal to allies that you will come to their aid when they call, states should not bother.     

The properties of the distance metric in social field theory

The concept of balancing—joining the weaker party in a conflict—is an important part of the realist literature. The concept has a modern counterpart in the literature on extended deterrence that grew up in the nuclear era. But despite the importance of this concept, it has not been subjected to extensive empirical study. In this paper, we show how the realist and extended deterrence literature are linked, and go on to test for the existence of balancing behavior in serious disputes for the 1816–1976 time period. The results indicate that, while there are many disputes in which no joining occurs, when it does happen, the capability balance is likely to shift to favor the initially smaller side, as the balancing literature would predict.     

NATO,ballistic missile defense and the future of US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe

Abstract

Within the next few years, NATO will need to make a collective decision about the future of US tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe. While opinion about the value of these weapons is not as split as conventional wisdom might suggest, and while NATO will remain a nuclear alliance irrespective of this decision, balancing politics and strategy looks likely to be a difficult task. This decision is made far more complex by the determination of NATO officials to link the withdrawal of these weapons to reciprocal reductions in Russian TNW in Europe, and by the possibility of substituting the key strategic and political link they provide with a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. This article shows how we have arrived at this position, highlights the potential benefits to NATO Europe of BMD, and considers the key questions that the Alliance will face in achieving this. Ultimately, this article shows how the future of TNW in Europe is likely to be linked to whether NATO values arms cuts with Russia, or the deployment of missile defenses, as its central priority.     

Deterrence,uncertainty and cooperative behavior

The paper analyzes deterrence relationships in situations when the relevant forms of behavior are subject to lags such as in the case of foreign interventions and technological arms races. Mutual deterrence is a way of inducing cooperative behavior. Successful deterrence, in the cases considered, can be considered as ways of inducing cooperative behaviors in Prisoners’ Dilemma Supergames, the model used in this paper. It is argued that, in general, deterrence is more likely to be successful and hence cooperative behavior more prevalent in systems where the actors can move between strategies quickly (i.e., are flexible) and which are characterized by low uncertainty. The paper also analyzes the concept of discounting and time preference in the discussion of political phenomena where the concept has no market interpretation. It is analyzed as a rational response to uncertainty.     

The long‐term stability of deterrence

In this article, we construct a model of deterrence that specifically integrates both systemic and decision‐making variables. After contrasting its underlying structure with more standard views of the deterrence relationship, we demonstrate the logical consistency of the power transition model with the expected utility framework. The model we develop combines and extends the insights of each of these two approaches, thereby permitting us to develop a theory of the necessary and sufficient conditions of major power war and conflict initiation. In other words, for the first time, we are able to specify, precisely, the theoretical consequences of variations in power dynamics, evaluations of the status quo, salience, and attitudes toward risk. As theories of the necessary conditions for international conflict, neither the power transition theory nor the expected utility model provide this information. Thus, by combining and then extending these two frameworks, we merely refine propositions implicit in each of them, making them more exact. The resulting structure provides several additional insights into the dynamics of nuclear conflict.     

Russian national security concepts 1997 and 2000: A comparative analysis

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the newly independent Russia had to redefine its relations with the outside world. In order to establish new relationships with both new and traditional cooperation partners, the country's leadership had to define the main strategic objectives, identify the main interests and threats to Russia's security and propose new ways of coping with the challenges the vast country confronted. The first years of independence were marked by a power struggle between various parts of the political elite, which delayed the process of defining the country's strategic goals in the field of national security. In December 1997, the Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation was published, and in January 2000 a new version was made public. This brief article is a comparative study of the concepts of national security embodied in the two documents, focusing on Russia's relations with the outside world and use of nuclear deterrence as a means to solve security and status dilemmas.     

Deterrence games and social choice: Asymmetry,aggregation of preferences,and a conjecture about uncertainty

Rational choice principles of mutual deterrence in 2 × 2 games elaborated for Prisoner's Dilemma and for Chicken are generalized to a variety of other, asymmetric games in which players’ preferences satisfy a Condition for Mutual Deterrence. Players’ preferences are taken to be aggregations from the preferences of subsidiary participants. It is shown that, unless all subsidiary actors hold deterrable preferences, the ordering of the player cannot be guaranteed to be deterrable. Uncertainty regarding the preferences of subsidiary actors is conjectured to make it more likely a player will adopt a deterrence strategy, no matter the opponent's preferences in fact.     

Theorizing India–US–China strategic triangle

ABSTRACT

In this paper we build on Robert Jervis’ concept of strategic triangles, relations between three states where from the point of view of each state the others are pivotal for its security or foreign policy behavior in a given region. We argue that triangles are important in influencing state behavior in the areas of balance of power, deterrence, arms races and status competition, and consider how these dimensions might interact. In this context, this article examines the US–India–China triangle, while also addressing to a lesser extent how other related triangles interlink with it, taking into account how China’s rise and increasing economic interdependence impact these relations.     

The Dilemma of Nuclear Disarmament: The Case of North Korea

ABSTRACT

The Hanoi summit between the US and North Korea failed not because of North Korea’s brinkmanship strategy or its miscalculation of the US position on the denuclearisation talks, but because of a fundamental issue: a dilemma of how much to yield in giving up its military capabilities to expedite the lifting of sanctions. The leadership in Pyongyang has concerns about the ‘deliverability’ of its promises to its domestic audience to ensure deterrence capabilities and economic recovery. The two-level game model explains why both sides keep minimising the range of options for the negotiations, increasing the risk that the talks will break down.     

Nuclear proliferation and ‘realistic deterrence’ in a new century

Deterrence became an all‐purpose theory and policy solution during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War has caused theorists and policy‐makers to ask whether deterrence is still either practicable or theoretically compelling. The prospect of additional and angry state and non‐state actors armed with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), together with long‐range delivery systems, threatens to shake the foundations of deterrence stability. In this article we consider whether this is so. First, we examine some of the theoretical arguments for a benign world with nuclear proliferation and some reasons to be skeptical about those arguments. Second, we consider the current status of nuclear weapons spread and some of the particular challenges presented to deterrence and arms race stability by nuclear proliferation.     

Russia’s Escalation Management and a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone

This article examines the idea of a Baltic Nuclear-Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) in the context of the Russian Federation’s deterrence and escalation management theories, largely as enunciated by Russian military theorists. It first introduces the history of the Baltic NWFZ idea from the early 1960s to the present proposals, and then explores Russian escalation management. The author concludes by considering how Baltic NWFZ proposals may interact with—and be understood through—the Russian military’s perspective.     

Missile Defenses and Mother Russia: Scarecrow or Showstopper?

Abstract

Missile defenses will neither derail the post-Cold War political relationship between the US and Russia nor repeal the existence of mutual deterrence as between their respective nuclear arsenals. Because politics rules strategy and strategy must pay homage to the realities of physics, missile defenses will emerge into arsenals gradually, if at all. Whether missile defenses exacerbate political tensions, or can be deployed cooperatively by the United States and/or NATO and Russia, is not a technological given, but a political decision point that will require care taking by the current and prospective administrations in Washington and Moscow.     

Russia’s Policy towards the Middle East: The Case of Yemen

ABSTRACT

Yemen occupies a peripheral place in Russian foreign policy for three reasons: lack of serious economic interest, the illusory potential of strengthening the military presence there and recognition of Saudi Arabia’s role in the Yemeni conflict. However, a deepening of the split within the Arab coalition in Yemen, primarily between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has not only forced the Russian authorities to seek a balance between Yemeni actors, but also made Russia part of the so-called ‘Yemeni triangle’ alongside the two GCC countries. Russian involvement in the Yemeni crisis is constrained by its economic weakness and prioritisation of Russia-Gulf relations more broadly.     

The intermediate nuclear force missiles: An analysis of coupling and reassurance

The main official purposes for installing American intermediate nuclear force (INF) missiles in Europe were to deter a Warsaw Pact invasion by linking a European war to a global one, and to show NATO's cohesion and resolve. These two rationales are investigated using two game‐theoretical models. The analysis of coupling, which involves partially credible threats, indicates that the optimal level of INF is positive, but is impossible to calculate in practice, and that a deployment of the wrong size may lessen deterrence. The second notion, showing resolve, has a coherent justification that fits various details of the episode, but implies the politcally unacceptable conclusion that INF is nothing more than a public destruction of NATO's resources.     

Russian Intervention in Ukraine: History,Identity Politics,and National Consolidation

Abstract

This paper examines the factors influencing the support for Russia’s Ukraine policy. Western sanctions imposed on Russia have crippled its economy and the general well-being of its people. However, support for Moscow’s Ukraine policy remains firm among the Russian population, who believe that the West has malevolent intentions toward Russia. The Russian elite has skillfully utilized identity politics for national consolidation and to mobilize support for its Ukraine policy by manipulating Russian history, beliefs, and worldviews. Russians see themselves as righteous people who are highly capable of dealing with difficulties and certainly as winners in the conflict with the West.