Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

CONCLUSION
New START and other manifestations of U.S.-
Russian nuclear arms control are embedded in (at
least) three overlapping levels of conceptual analysis.
The first level is the need for reconceptualization of
geostrategic space, especially Euro-strategic space, in
order to extend the concept of a “European” security
community from the Atlantic to the Urals, and from
Svalbard to Sinope. This truly transcontinental security
space must be approached by the United States,
Russia, and NATO as a positive-sum policy and strategy
game, instead of zero-sum competition. Cooperative
security is an empty vessel without active collaborative
security procedures and institutions to support it—as
recent arms control experience has shown. Movement
from cooperative into collaborative security will require
persistent policymakers who are determined to
overcome bureaucratic inertia in Washington, Moscow,
and Brussels.
The second level of analysis involves the necessary
transformation in foreign policy orientations on
the part of the United States, NATO, and Russia. The
United States needs to discard its recent excursions
into unilateralism, preemptive military doctrines, and
omnivorous statements of foreign policy objectives,
based on an oxymoronic cocktail of liberal internationalism
and neoconservatism. Instead, the United
States should pursue its traditional policy of being
an “offshore balancer,” supplemented by preemptive
leadership for (multilateral) conflict prevention
and management, supported by America’s unique
capabilities for systems integration and global military
reach. Russia needs to adjust its military DNA to
a world in which NATO is part of the solution, not
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