Russia

During a Dec. 5 visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to New Delhi, Russia agreed to provide India with four new nuclear power plants as part of a nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries. The agreement marks the third such accord India has signed with nuclear suppliers since a Sept. 6 decision by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to lift a long-standing prohibition against providing nuclear technology to India. (See ACT, October 2008.) India signed similar agreements with France and the United States in September and October, respectively (Continue)

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Russia's new ambassador to the United States, has assumed his post at a critical time in U.S.-Russian relations and at a point when presidential transitions are underway in both Moscow and Washington. Kislyak has served in a number of senior foreign policy positions in Moscow. Most recently, he served as Russia's deputy foreign minister where he played the lead role on arms control and nonproliferation issues. On November 14, Arms Control Today spoke with Ambassador Kislyak about his views on a number of issues in U.S.-Russian strategic relations, including missile defense, future strategic arms reductions, the status of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and Russian views on how to deal with Iran's nuclear program. (Continue)

During his 2000 presidential campaign, Gov. George W. Bush pledged to "leave the Cold War behind [and] rethink the requirements for nuclear deterrence." Today, the United States and Russia each still deploy about 3,000-4,000 strategic nuclear warheads, many of which are primed for launch within minutes in order to deter a surprise attack by the other. The Cold War may technically be over, but the practical reality is that the weapons and outdated nuclear deterrence thinking of that era persist.

Although the United States is on track to deploy no more than 1,700-2,200 strategic warheads by 2012 as mandated by the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), the agreement's limit expires the day it takes effect. It also allows each side to store thousands of reserve warheads and missiles as a hedge against unforeseen threats. The treaty fails to establish new verification mechanisms, relying instead on those contained in the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). (Continue)

Congress approved legislation Sept. 27 intended to pressure Russia to continue and expand a program that down-blends Russian weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel for U.S. nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Sept. 8 that President George W. Bush was withdrawing from congressional consideration a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia. (Continue)

At a July 8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, the heads of government of the Group of Eight (G-8), a forum of the largest economies worldwide, continued discussions on expanding their current nonproliferation partnership from a focus on the former Soviet Union to a more global approach. They also took note of the program's achievements to date in the former Soviet Union as well as remaining projects there. (Continue)

Reports about security problems at U.S. nuclear weapons bases in Europe have led to renewed calls from parliamentarians of European allies for an end to NATO's nuclear weapons-sharing arrangements. But a senior NATO official interviewed by Arms Control Today rejected the reports about security problems, predicted a continuation of NATO's nuclear weapons policies, and called for a modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.