The majority of Russia's current strategic nuclear force will become obsolete shortly after the turn of the century. Hence, Russian strategic force modernization is essential if Russia is to remain a nuclear power on a par with the United States. Numerous uncertainties, especially financial uncertainties, prevent accurate estimates of Russia's future strategic force structure. Nevertheless, under the START I Treaty, Russia can probably maintain a force with slightly more than 4,000 strategic nuclear warheads over the next two decades-about half the number of the United States. Under START II, Russia is likely to maintain a strategic force of between 1,800 and 2,500 warheads, compared to 3,500 warheads for the United States. Therefore, Russia's main interest in ratifying the START II Treaty would be to pursue a START III Treaty that limits both sides to between 2,000 and 2,500 strategic nuclear warheads. This is the least expensive way to retain rough parity with the United States. Several reasons have been educed for why Russia should not ratify the START II Treaty, namely, because the Treaty allows a U.S. advantage in reconstitution capability and prompt hard-target-kill capability. However, these advantages are neither so great nor so consequential that Russia should reject the START II Treaty for these reasons alone. If Russia ratifies the START II Treaty, and presumably a follow-on START III Treaty, Russia's future strategic nuclear force will appear a lot different than its Soviet predecessor due to the reduced emphasis on land-based ICBMs. Nevertheless, the Russian force should remain a highly survivable, stable force-assuming Russian leaders allocate sufficient resources to ensure that their ballistic missile submarines, mobile ICBMs, and bombers can survive all plausible counterforce threats.

Future regional conflicts will almost certainly involve politically less stable nations or other regional actors using theater ballistic missiles armed with either nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads. The United States Air Force is attempting to deal with this threat by developing the Airborne Laser (ABL) with the goal of shooting down missiles while they are still under power and before they can release submunitions possibly containing highly toxic biological agents. This paper presents the results of an analysis of this system. It is based solely on information found in the open literature and using the basic physics and engineering involved in transmitting intense laser beams through the atmosphere. The ABL's potential capabilities and possible theaters of operation are discussed at a non-technical level.

The renewed American debate over ballistic missile defenses (BMD) echoes loudly in NATO, in Europe, and in France. This issue will be decisive for the future of European political organization and its security and defense. The issue will also be important for the future of relations between Europe, the United States, and Russia.

Faced with the potential threat of ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads (or biological and chemical payloads) that could strike French and European territories, deterrence is sufficient and offers the greatest cost-effectiveness. In this analysis, the question of the broadening of the French and British deterrent and the political organization of a possible European anti-missile defense system will be discussed. Then, a new transatlantic strategic partnership, the robustness of which lies in counterbalancing the vulnerabilities of its members, will be described.

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at the Center for International Security and Arms Control in May 1996. The meeting was the latest in a series that CISAC had held over the years with Russian specialists from the Center for Scientific Research of the Committee of Scientists for Global Security, the Ministry of Defense, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The general rubric under which these meetings were organized is "Strategic Stability to the Year 2000."

The May meeting had a special significance because 1996 was a year of presidential elections in both Russia and the United States, and the prospect of these elections was inevitably reflected in the discussions. But another general point emerged in the meeting, and that was the need to pay more attention to the strategic relationship between Russia and the U.S. Much had been done since the end of the Cold War to wind down the nuclear competition between the two countries, and agreements have been signed to reduce the enormous nuclear arsenals built up during the Cold War. There is much to be done, however, to ensure that this course is continued. The uncertainty
about ratification of START II by the State Duma, and the proposals in the U.S. Congress for deployment of a national ABM system both cast doubt on the possibility of further reductions in strategic offensive arms. The prospects for pushing nuclear weapons into the background of international politics are clouded by the renewed Russian interest in the role of tactical weapons in regional conflicts, and by U.S. interest
in the use of nuclear weapons to deter chemical and biological weapons attacks.

The issues discussed in the conference are embedded in broader political relationships, and this meeting suggested the need for a more intensive and broader strategic dialogue. In both countries there had been a lessening of interest in issues of arms control, but the process of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons, to which both states are formally committed, is a complex and contentious one, which requires
political trust and careful management. Hence, the importance of a strategic dialogue which examines the conceptual basis of Russian-U.S. relations. Several participants in the conference spoke of the need to transform, or move away from, nuclear deterrence.
Many proposals were advanced for further cooperation in arms control and disarmament. But it is clear that much remains to be done to move Russian-U.S. relations onto a more stable footing.

With the ending of the Cold War, regional conflicts have come increasingly to the fore.  U.S. foreign policy goals in such areas continue to involve a mix of U.S. self-interest (as perceived by governing elites, Congress, and sometimes the electorate directly) and a desire to see conflicts in the world resolved more peacefully.  Both of these factors have led and will probably continue to lead to U.S. military interventions in some of these conflicts.

This paper addresses the issue of what role--if any--U.S. nuclear weapons should play in these interventions.  We focus on the following questions: given a military regional confrontation between the United States and a regional power, under what circumstances if any should nuclear weapons be used?  What arguments militate for and against their use? Can one come to an overall policy recommendation in this regard?

We are well aware that the best way to deal with military confrontations is to prevent them. To some degree, military confrontations represent a failure of policy.  Nevertheless, these confrontations do occur, and on occasion, the use of nuclear weapons has been and may again be contemplated.  The paper reviews some such possible occasions.

Continued sales of ballistic missiles to countries in the Middle East and South Asia have intensified international interest in China's advanced weapons. Proposals for halting these sales can succeed when the dynamics and motivations of China's defense system are taken fully into account. We have noted in an earlier article in this journal that the technologies, strategies and goals relating to Beijing's missile programs must be better understood by the concerned international community in order to overcome its confrontational stance with China and to build a cooperative regime.

A conference was held at Stanford in May 1992 on possible cooperation between the United States and Russia on early warning of ballistic missile attack. Included in this volume is a briefing paper that was prepared immediately after that meeting.

The U.S. Navy's New Maritime Strategy addresses the navy's role in a nonnuclear U.S.-Soviet conflict in Europe. Rather than protecting the North Atlantic sea-lanes by bottling up the Soviet Navy, it proposes that U.S. naval forces move aggressively into the waters near the Soviet Union and seek out and destroy Soviet warships. In particular, the strategy explicitly calls for destroying Soviet nuclear-powered attack and ballistic-missile submarines (SSNs and SSBNs). It posits that the threat to the SSBNs would accomplish two goals. The first is that the Soviets would not surge their SSNs out into the Atlantic to contest U.S. control of the seas but because of the threat would stay back and protect their highly valued SSBNs. The second is that attrition of their SSBNs by U.S. attack would decrease the incentive for the Soviets to go nuclear in the European war, since the balance of forces would shift to the U.S. side. Much debate has been provoked by the prospects of this strategy's leading instead to nuclear escalation.

Congress is being told that the proposed 600-ship navy is the minimum needed to carry out this mission. The strategy is the justification for both the number and the types of ships that are in the shipbuilding program. This program includes a new class of attack submarines, called the Seawolf, which will cost about $1 billion each and are described as the counter to the increasingly quiet Soviet submarines.

This study examines whether the force structure that is being proposed has a reasonable chance of success. lt explores whether modest changes in the building program can make a significant change in the outcome and considers possible alternative approaches.

This paper discusses several possible offensive applications of an SDI system or parts thereof--whether implemented by the US or the USSR. An effective ballistic missile defense may not make nuclear weapons impotent; rather, a BMD may have the opposite effect if used to suppress the ICBM deterrent of an adversary. The lower demands of an offensive system compared to a defensive system suggest that the offensive uses may in fact be favored in the implementation of SDI.

On October 30, 1984, a workshop met at the Stanford Center for International Security and Arms Control to examine near-term prospects for and alternative approaches to strategic defense. This report provides the results of that examination and thus represents the consensus of the signatories on a limited set of high-priority objectives and activities in strategic defense.

An earlier study by the Center gave a critical assessment of the President's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). One of its recommendations was an unspecified, treaty-consistent research and development (R&D) program in antiballistic missile (ABM) defense at "a level not very different from recent amounts." Because such an effort is also proposed herein, the present report may in that one sense be seen as a logical complement to the earlier study. However, not all of the members of this workshop endorse all of the conclusions of that study. Also, the present report is limited to the ABM research and development the United States should be pursuing in the near term (5-10 years).