Russia and the Current State of Arms Control (Enlarged Edition)

Arms control remains the central issue in U.S.-Russian relations. This is so for many reasons, not least of which are the respective capabilities of these two states and their consequent responsibility for preventing both nuclear proliferation and the outbreak of war between them. Thus the state of the bilateral relationship is usually directly proportional to the likelihood of their finding common ground on arms control. To the extent that they can find such ground, chances for an agreement on what have been the more intractable issues of regional security in Eurasia and the Third World grow, and the converse is equally true.