Why Do States Rely on Nuclear Weapons? The Case of Russia and Beyond

Arsenals of nuclear weapons have continued to shrink: in December 2001, the United States and Russia completed reductions under START I; the United States has completed reductions under the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs),1 and Russia is reportedly close to completing them.2 The May 2002 Treaty of Moscow will also shrink the operationally deployed strategic nuclear forces of both Russia and the United States. But it is only the size of the arsenal that was made irrelevant by the end of the Cold War, not nuclear weapons themselves. Discussions of increased Russian reliance on nuclear weapons dominated the 1990s. The 21st century began with parallel concerns about the increased role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy, illustrated by the debate over the use of nuclear weapons during the post-September 11 campaign in Afghanistan and the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).