scholarly journals Russia's Nuclear Weapons in a Multipolar World: Guarantors of Sovereignty, Great Power Status & More

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-55
Author(s):  
Anya Loukianova Fink ◽  
Olga Oliker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
International Security ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Strategic Stability

At a time of technological and political change in the international security environment, Russia continues to view nuclear weapons as guarantors of peace and security among great powers. Nuclear weapons also assure Russia's own great-power status and mitigate uncertainty in an emerging multipolar order. In a world where the United States pursues improved missile defense capabilities and appears to reject mutual vulnerability as a stabilizing factor, Moscow views its modernized nuclear arsenal as essential to deter Washington from a possible attack on Russia or coercive threats against it. Some elites in Russia would like to preserve existing arms control arrangements or negotiate new ones to mitigate a weakening infrastructure of strategic stability. At the same time, however, they seem skeptical that the United States is willing to compromise or deal with Russia as an equal. Meanwhile, multilateral arms control appears to be too complex a proposition for the time being.

The United States of America

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-210
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
International Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Leadership ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
To Come ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the future of American global leadership through the lens of its domestic political institutions. It finds that the United States faces growing troubles at home. At the same time, its vibrant economy, strong alliances relationships, and its unmatched military, all reflections of the U.S. domestic political system, will continue to provide a significant source of strategic advantage for the United States over its autocratic competitors in the years to come. The international security environment is becoming more competitive, and the United States does not exercise the unchallenged primacy it enjoyed in the 1990s. We have returned to an era of great power rivalry. But, there is no doubt that the United States remains the world’s leading power.

Options and Choices in the Disposition of Excess Weapon Plutonium

1995 ◽  
Vol 412 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Garwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
International Security ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Similar Amount ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Hard Evidence

AbstractMore than 50 tons of weapon-related plutonium (WPu) is expected to become excess andavailable for disposition by the year 2003 in Russia and a similar amount in the United States.Per two reports from the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the NationalAcademy of Sciences (1994 1 and 1995 2), the hazard of theft and incorporation into nuclearweapons impels us to guard this Pu carefully and as soon as possible to transform it into a formless accessible for use in nuclear weapons. To this end, CISAC adopted the “Spent FuelStandard” for the disposed WPu, which, if met, renders the WPu no greater hazard per kg thanthe much larger amount of reactor Pu in the form of spent fuel, since CISAC finds that separatedRPu can be used for nuclear weapons with little additional difficulty beyond that posed byseparated WPu. Many disposition routes can be eliminated on the basis of cost or other metric.The two principal survivors (of about equal cost and difficulty for the United States) are thepartial burning of WPu as MOX and the direct vitrification of WPu (as oxide) with high-level‘defense wastes’. Both these approaches should be pursued urgently, with experiments toqualify the processes, until one is selected on the basis of hard evidence. Either approach wouldcost about $1 B, within a factor two, to dispose of 50 tons of excess WPu. The CISAC analysiswill be presented, with comments on utility of RPu in weapons, on the DOE PlutoniumDisposition Study, and on ‘explosive criticality’ in the repository.

scholarly journals Outlines of Strategic Stability in Global Multipolar Competition

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-168
Author(s):  
V. Mizin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Strategic Stability ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Parameters ◽  
Comprehensive Study

The article is devoted to the problems of ensuring strategic stability and the task of a comprehensive study of the current situation with strategic stability, developing new approaches to it, taking into account modern realities in the context of a crisis in the international situation, especially in relations between Russia and NATO, Russia and the United States. According to President Vladimir Putin, as a result, the system of strategic stability in the world continues to degrade. The main factors of this aggravation are analyzed. The task is to develop new foundations for strategic stability and assess its global parameters. The new concept of strategic stability can no longer be focused solely on the priority of preventing nuclear conflict between major nuclear powers, but must also take into account the totality of factors that determine the security situation in the realities of the modern world order. An analysis of the long-overdue systemic shift in world processes is arguably impossible without a fundamental re-evaluation of the entire perception of international security, and, above all, the concept of strategic stability, which is the theoretical basis of military policy and theoretical approaches to arms control. Academic community needs to develop a fundamentally innovative strategy for arms control in the new environment. Whether this will be a bilateral Russian-American format or a multilateral arrangement is a question that needs to be clarified in the course of diplomatic consultations. The required concept should obviously be both interdisciplinary (covering with various methodological tools a number of sciences such issues as strategic nuclear weapons, non-strategic nuclear systems, missile defense, "prompt global conventional strike", hypersonic, cyberwarfare, space, beam, drones and other "exotic" types of weapons), and multilateral (that is, it should take into account the nuclear forces and nuclear potential of "third" countries, and not just the two traditional rivals – Russia and the United States).Such a concept of strategic stability should thus be much more "holistic" and comprehensive, covering not only the military potential of the leading powers, but also taking into account their political relations and divergences, the imperative of providing restraint and preventing major conflicts in the modern world. As such, it involves a comprehensive study of the crisis realities in the international system, primarily in the Russia–NATO and Russia–US “dyads” interrelationship against the background of the emergence of new nuclear weapons stakeholders. Among other things, these factors in the global balance of power make it impossible to proceed to a nuclear-free world in the foreseeable future. In this regard, the author sets the task for the expert community to formulate certain concrete ways to implement new conceptual frameworks for assessing the global parameters of the world system's evolution, and to develop pragmatic initiatives that can be taken to improve overall stability and interaction between the United States, NATO, Russia, and other emerging global actors.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Lundestad
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Modernization

There are no laws in history. Realists, liberals, and others are both right and wrong. Although no one can be certain that military incidents may not happen, for the foreseeable future China and the United States are unlikely to favor major war. They have cooperated well for almost four decades now. China is likely to continue to focus on its economic modernization. It has far to go to measure up to the West. The American-Chinese economies are still complementary. A conflict with the United States or even with China’s neighbors would have damaging repercussions for China’s economic goals. The United States is so strong that it would make little sense for China to take it on militarily. There are also other deterrents against war, from nuclear weapons to emerging norms about international relations. It is anybody’s guess what will happen after the next few decades. History indicates anything is possible.

scholarly journals CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES REGARDING THE EXTENSION OF THE “NEW START” TREATY: CAN THE USA AND RUSSIA PRESERVE EXISTING STRATEGIC ARMS CONTROL?

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (4/2020) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
Marina Kostic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Strategic Stability ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Security Challenge ◽  
The Cold War

Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on measures for further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms (“New START”) is the last pillar of the arms control regime on which the end of the Cold War and the new world order rested. Its expiration on 5 February 2021 is a top security challenge and indicates a possible new strategic arms race. However, can the United States and Russia still preserve the existing strategic arms control by extending the Treaty for another five years? What are the prospects, the opportunities and obstacles for this extension? What are the most pressing issues USA and Russia face with in order to preserve strategic arms control and are they willing to do so? In order to answer to these research questions author analyses several key issues that are of paramount importance for extension of the New START: nuclear modernization processes, invention of new weapons and emergence of new warfare domains; transparency and verification and broader confidence building measures; missile defence and prompt global strike; tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and Asia; general US-Russia relations which include question of democratic capacity; and broader influence of this Treaty on nuclear non-proliferation regime. By using content and discourse analysis author concludes that, although it is obvious that the extension of the New START would be primarily in favour of Russia and that the USA has not much to gain, the character of strategic stability in the Third Nuclear Age gives reasons to believe that the New START will be extended for another five years.

Watching the Soviet Union Decline

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
State Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Union Decline

Chapters 2 and 3 helped confirm that rising states support declining great powers when decliners can help rising states against other great power threats. In contrast, Chapters 4 and 5 assess the logic of rising state predation by examining the United States’ response to the Soviet Union’s decline in the 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 4 first provides an overview of the Soviet Union’s waning relative position and discusses U.S. efforts to monitor the trend. Next, it reviews existing research on the course of U.S. strategy and relates this work to alternative accounts of rising state policy. The bulk of the chapter then uses extensive archival research to evaluate the factors central to predation theory and predict U.S. strategy given the argument. These predictions are analyzed in Chapter 5.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
World Power ◽  
The Us ◽  
Eastern Question

This introductory chapter outlines why the American response to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians offers such critical insights into the US rise to world power, its evolving relationship with Britain, and the development of ideas on humanitarian intervention and global order at the turn of the twentieth century. It introduces the Armenian question, setting it within the larger Eastern question, and explains why the Ottoman Empire became a target for outside intervention by the European great powers in the nineteenth century. It explains why the United States, which had traditionally avoided political entanglement in the Near East even while its missionaries established an exceptional role there, began to take a greater interest in the region as its emergence as a great power coincided with the first large-scale Armenian massacres.

scholarly journals Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 88-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliza Gheorghe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Market Share ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Global Distribution ◽  
Nuclear Technology ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Distribution Of Power

The evolution of the nuclear market explains why there are only nine members of the nuclear club, not twenty-five or more, as some analysts predicted. In the absence of a supplier cartel that can regulate nuclear transfers, the more suppliers there are, the more intense their competition will be, as they vie for market share. This commercial rivalry makes it easier for nuclear technology to spread, because buyers can play suppliers off against each other. The ensuing transfers help countries either acquire nuclear weapons or become hedgers. The great powers (China, Russia, and the United States) seek to thwart proliferation by limiting transfers and putting safeguards on potentially dangerous nuclear technologies. Their success depends on two structural factors: the global distribution of power and the intensity of the security rivalry among them. Thwarters are most likely to stem proliferation when the system is unipolar and least likely when it is multipolar. In bipolarity, their prospects fall somewhere in between. In addition, the more intense the rivalry among the great powers in bipolarity and multipolarity, the less effective they will be at curbing proliferation. Given the potential for intense security rivalry among today's great powers, the shift from unipolarity to multipolarity does not portend well for checking proliferation.

China, America, and Missile Defense: Conflicting National Interests

2000 ◽  
Vol 99 (638) ◽  
pp. 285-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul H. B. Godwin ◽  
Evan S. Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Strategic Stability ◽  
Rogue State

“The United States and China must engage in some deep soul searching. What type of strategic stability does the United States seek with China? Is China a large rogue state whose strategic forces must be neutered by defensive systems, or is it a small Russia where strategic stability is achieved through mutual deterrence?”

Theater Missile Defenses: Possible Chinese Reactions; U.S. Implications and Options. By Robert G. Sutter, [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress No. 94-154 S, 23 February 1994. 4pp.] - Chinese Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Policies: Implications and Options for the United State By Robert G. Sutter, [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress No. 94-422 S, 25 March 1994. 22pp.] - China in World Affairs – U.S. Policy Choice By Robert G. Sutter, [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress No. 95-265 S, 31 January 1995. 19pp.] - China After Deng Xiaoping – Implications for the United States. By Robert G. Sutter, with the assistance of James Casey Sullivan. [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress No. 95-465 S, 7 April 1995. 27pp.] - China Policy: Managing U.S.–PRC–Taiwan Relations after President Lee′s visit to the U.S. By Robert G. Sutter, with the assistance of James Casey Sullivan. [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress No. 95-727 S, 19 June 1995. 5pp.]

1996 ◽  
Vol 146 ◽  
pp. 643-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roxane D. V. Slsmanidis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
China Policy ◽  
United State ◽  
Congressional Research ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Research Service
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