ABSTRACT
This chapter examines options for post-New START strategic nuclear arms reductions by the United States and Russia, including lower than New START force levels and possible alternatives to the US and Russian strategic nuclear triad of launch systems. Russia's March 2014 annexation of Crimea and subsequent destabilization of eastern Ukraine discouraged any follow-on negotiations about strategic nuclear arms reductions below levels agreed under the New START treaty of 2010. The New START agreement of 2010 requires that Russia and the United States reduce their numbers of operationally deployed warheads on intercontinental launchers to no more than 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 deployed launchers by 2018. The numbers of surviving and retaliating weapons for the US and for Russia are smaller than they were in the previous case of 1,550 deployed weapons. To live within the constraints of "minimum deterrence" deployment of 500 or fewer weapons, Russia would have to realign fundamentally its current nuclear force structure and future modernization plans.
