US-Russian Nuclear Arms Control: Forward and Retro after 2008?

Abstract: The arrival of a new US administration in 2009 is a swinging door with respect to opportunities for Russian-American cooperation in strategic nuclear arms reductions and nonproliferation. Both US presidential candidates in 2008 supported nuclear abolition as a theoretically desirable goal, and the Obama administration will certainly pursue nuclear arms reductions consistent with already agreed, or lower, levels. Missile defenses complicate US-Russian relations on this issue, but they pose negotiable, not insurmountable, barriers to further arms reductions and strategic stability.